Hatam

Hatam, also spelled Hattam or Atam, is a divergent Papuan language of the eastern Bird's Head Peninsula in West Papua, spoken in the Arfak Mountains and around Manokwari. Its only close relative is Mansim, or Borai; together they form the Hatam–Mansim family, which Malcolm Ross has tentatively assigned to the West Papuan languages on the strength of pronoun parallels. In Hatam the mountain overlooking Manokwari is called Indon or Indonga, the big mountain.

In the fifteenth or early sixteenth century the Biak war leader Gurabesi, in the service of the Tidore sultan Al-Mansur, drew the Bird's Head into Tidore's loose tribute network.

Luís Vaz de Torres's Spanish expedition sailed the New Guinea coast in 1606, while permanent European administration arrived much later, leaving the Arfak highlands under indirect Tidore overlordship through the early nineteenth century.