Marind

The Marind, or Marind-Anim, are a Papuan people of the swampy south coast of New Guinea, holding territory on both banks of the Bian River around Merauke. Their Marind languages form a small family of the Trans–New Guinea phylum.

Marind society was split into two moieties made up of patrilineal clans, and each extended family traced its descent from a dema, an ancestral spirit appearing in myth as a culture hero, often in plant or animal form. The Marind were feared headhunters: raids on neighbouring tribes were tied to the naming of newborn children, for the skull was thought to hold a vital force.

They lived in scattered extended-family settlements through the lowland sago swamps. Although the Dutch claimed sovereignty over western New Guinea in 1793, the Marind coast remained beyond effective European administration throughout this period.