Naked and unashamed: Papuan resistance through cultural affirmation

Naked and unashamed: Papuan resistance through cultural affirmation

In the highlands and valleys of West Papua, nudity is not a scandal. It is tradition. For generations, Papuans have lived in harmony with their environment, wearing only what is necessary — a koteka (penis gourd) or a simple loincloth — in accordance with their customs and climate. But for the Indonesian regime, which has ruled over Papua since the 1960s, this cultural practice has never been fully accepted.

In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, nudity is often perceived as immoral, uncivilized, or even pornographic. Anti-pornography laws, especially those strengthened in the past fifteen years, have been used not only to police media and urban behaviors but also to stigmatize indigenous ways of life. The result is a legal framework that criminalizes Papuan traditions and brands them as signs of backwardness.

And yet, Papuans are pushing back.

Tradition as resistance

While most Papuans today wear Western clothing — often out of practicality, social pressure, or government imposition — there is a growing movement among youth and elders alike to reclaim ancestral dress. This return is not just aesthetic; it is political. A new generation of Papuans is asserting identity through the very symbols the state has tried to erase.

In early 2024, a striking example came from Dogiyai, in the central highlands of Papua. At St. John the Baptist Catholic School in the North Kamu District, teachers and students collectively decided to wear traditional Papuan clothing every Monday. Loincloths, grass skirts, body paint, and natural ornaments filled the school grounds, transforming a simple gesture into a statement of cultural pride and collective resistance.

Is this a provocation? “Far from it,” said a local Papuan, who asked to remain anonymous. “It is a way of affirming who we are — Papuans, Melanesians. We reject the idea that our culture is primitive or shameful. From our way of living close to nature, one can see how deeply we honor our bodies as God's masterpiece. Even the early Christian missionaries did not shame us for our customs,” he added.

The body as sacred, not shameful

This question — is nudity inherently immodest? — is not merely cultural or political; it is also theological. What is shameful in one culture may be sacred in another. Jesus’s words in the Gospel of Matthew (6:22-23) invite us to reconsider where true obscenity lies:

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

Perhaps the real obscenity is not the uncovered body, but the gaze that sees only shame and not dignity — or the policies that use such a gaze to dominate and erase.

In Dogiyai, every Monday is now more than a school day. It is a reminder that culture is not conquered so easily — that the Papuan body, in all its visibility and beauty, remains a site of resistance, resilience, and reverence.

Back to school at Saint John the Baptist of Dogiyai, January 2024.