Mantion

Mantion, better known to its own speakers as Sougb or Sogh, is a Papuan language of the eastern Bird's Head Peninsula in West Papua. The name Mantion, also written Manikion, originated as a derogatory exonym used by the seafaring Biak people. Sougb is spoken in the Arfak highlands and the country south and east of Manokwari.

Together with Meyah, Moskona and Irires it forms the East Bird's Head, or Mantion–Meyah, language family. The mountains and coasts where Mantion is spoken were reached from the fifteenth century by the tribute network of the Sultanate of Tidore, expanded through the Biak war leader Gurabesi's alliance with Sultan Al-Mansur.

No European post was planted in this interior in the period, so Mantion society remained under loose Tidore suzerainty and the influence of Biak traders and raiders.