Who Are the Amungme?
The Amungme (also Amung or Damal) are a Papuan highland people of the central mountains of Indonesia's Papua Province. Numbering approximately 13,000-15,000, they inhabit the high valleys and slopes of the Sudirman Range, including the area around Puncak Jaya (Carstensz Pyramid), the highest peak between the Himalayas and the Andes. They speak Amungme, a Trans-New Guinea language. The Amungme's homeland contains the Grasberg mine—the world's largest gold mine and second-largest copper mine—making them central figures in one of the most dramatic confrontations between indigenous rights and extractive industry anywhere on Earth.
Sacred Mountains
Amungme cosmology centers on the mountains—particularly the high peaks including what is now the Grasberg mine site. Mountains are conceived as the body of the mother; peaks represent the head, ridges the spine, rivers the blood. This sacred geography makes mining not merely land appropriation but desecration of the mother's body. Traditionally, the Amungme practiced horticulture in high valleys, growing sweet potato and raising pigs. Ritual life connected communities to ancestral places in the mountains. Men's houses and initiation practices organized social life. This mountain-centered worldview has made mining's transformation of the landscape particularly devastating—the sacred body is being literally dismembered and shipped away.
Mining Conflict
The Freeport mine's development on Amungme land has been catastrophic. Beginning in the 1960s under Indonesian government concessions, mining proceeded without meaningful consent. The Amungme were displaced from ancestral territories; sacred sites were destroyed; an entire mountain has been excavated. Compensation and benefits have been inadequate; promised development has often failed. Amungme protests have been met with military repression; human rights organizations have documented killings, torture, and disappearances attributed to security forces protecting the mine. Tom Beanal and other Amungme leaders have brought international attention to their situation, filing lawsuits in US courts and addressing international forums. Despite these efforts, mining continues and expands.
Contemporary Amungme
Modern Amungme face the consequences of having their homeland transformed into one of the world's largest mining operations. Many have been resettled into lowland areas where they suffer from unfamiliar diseases and disrupted livelihoods. Traditional culture has been severely impacted—sacred sites destroyed, ceremonial cycles disrupted, social organization stressed by displacement and conflict. Some Amungme have received education and employment through mine-related programs; others remain marginalized. Political advocacy continues; Amungme organizations demand recognition, compensation, and restoration. The Amungme case has become internationally emblematic of extractive industry's impacts on indigenous peoples—their mountains contain some of Earth's greatest mineral wealth, while they themselves remain among the world's most dispossessed.
References
- Ballard, C. & Banks, G. (2003). Resource Wars: The Anthropology of Mining
- Leith, D. (2003). The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto's Indonesia
- Rifai-Hasan, P. A. (2009). Development, Power, and the Mining Industry in Papua