[custom_adv] A few decades ago, Dani actively practiced ritual cannibalism. It is now reported that this tradition has been discontinued. [custom_adv] In their recent macabre history, there is no less a frightening tradition of smoked dried carcasses of their dead relatives over a fire. And also cutting off the phalanges of women’s fingers. [custom_adv] The phalanges were cut with a stone axe. This procedure is performed for those women who have lost a male relative: husband, son, brother or nephew, to emphasise the pain of loss and to appease the dead’s spirit. [custom_adv] The surgery was primitive and rough, but the wounds on the hands of the women healed well and fairly quickly.The Dani people of Baliem Valley in West Papua, Indonesia also used to cut off the fingers of women who have lost a loved one with a stone axe. [custom_adv] This is the former cannibal mountain tribe who amputate the fingers of women to appease the dead and smoke ancestors daily to preserve their mummified bodies. [custom_adv] The indigenous Dani tribe live in the isolated Baliem Valley in West Papua, Indonesia, and were discovered by a Western scientist 80 years ago. [custom_adv] Huntsman are pictured wearing a Koteka, commonly referred to as a penis sheath, and the women's bodies are flecked with white paint. [custom_adv] Macabre traditions dating back 250 years include greasing mummified bodies with pork fat and using a stone axe to remove the fingertips of a tribeswoman every time she loses a close relative. [custom_adv] Macabre traditions dating back 250 years include greasing mummified bodies with pork fat and using a stone axe to remove the fingertips of a tribeswoman every time she loses a close relative. [custom_adv] Macabre traditions dating back 250 years include greasing mummified bodies with pork fat and using a stone axe to remove the fingertips of a tribeswoman every time she loses a close relative. [custom_adv] Macabre traditions dating back 250 years include greasing mummified bodies with pork fat and using a stone axe to remove the fingertips of a tribeswoman every time she loses a close relative. [custom_adv] Macabre traditions dating back 250 years include greasing mummified bodies with pork fat and using a stone axe to remove the fingertips of a tribeswoman every time she loses a close relative. [custom_adv] Macabre traditions dating back 250 years include greasing mummified bodies with pork fat and using a stone axe to remove the fingertips of a tribeswoman every time she loses a close relative. [custom_adv] Macabre traditions dating back 250 years include greasing mummified bodies with pork fat and using a stone axe to remove the fingertips of a tribeswoman every time she loses a close relative.