Kapauri

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Kapauri (Kapaori, Kapori) is spoken by approximately 200 people (2009) living in one village, Pagai, and two hamlets, Kamikaru and Makri (Magri) mostly north of the Taritatu (Idenburg) river, a major tributary of the Mamberamo, in the Airu district of Jayapura regency in Indonesia's Papuan province. Pagai, situated on a high bank immediately north of the Taritatu, is somewhat isolated, surrounded by streams, mountains and hills. Kamikaru and Makri are populated by Pagai residents who relocate to look for food. There is no dialect variation between these settlements. The native term for their language and people is Neka “wild sago sp.” Kaure call them Kapa /kapa/ or Kapaoli /kapa oɺi/ with the same meaning (q.v. Dommel, Dommel, Auri and Pokoko 1991: 12, 84.) Both terms are used by the people of Pagai intechangeably (Barr and Walker 1978: 3, 10, Wambaliau 2006: 4, Menanti and Rumaropen 2009: 1-5.)

The Kapauri were originally nomadic, living in hamlets scattered throughout the forest before the construction of Pagai by missionaries in a collaboration with a Kapuri elder, who gathered both Kosare and Kapauri in the new village. The Kapauri obtain their subsistance through fishing, hunting wild pigs, cassowaries and crocodiles, sago processing and gardening, bananas, sweet potato and cassava being their main crops (Barr and Walker 1978: 3 , Menanti and Rumaropen 2009: 1-5.)

Voorhoeve (1975: 115) 38 comparative terms for Kapori after Bromley (n.d.)

Barr and Walker (1978: 11-14) 110 comparative terms for Kapauri of Pagai village

Menanti and Rumaropen (2009) 239 comparative terms and 21 sentences for Kapauri of Pagai village

[under construction]

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Menanti and Rumaropen (2009: 24) give Kapauri free pronouns as follows:

No information about Kapauri verbal morphology is currently available to us.