The tribal leader showing off his charred body is his bedmate

Would you like to spend the night with the mummified remains of a long dead relative? What sounds like a scene from a horror movie is part of the real life of a tribal leader in Wogi, a remote village in the Indonesian province of Papua. .

Eli Mabel of the Dani tribe (see more notable photos below) spends many nights in the hut where she keeps the mummy to make sure nothing happens to it, she told Agence France-Presse.

By protecting the blackened mummy, said to be the remains of an ancestor of hers who ruled some 250 years ago, Mabel aims to preserve the ancient Dani tradition of mummification, in which the bodies of revered tribesmen are preserved with smoke after death.

"We must protect our culture, including the ceremonies for the mummy, the way we treat it, maintain it and send it away," Mabel told AFP.

The mummy is decorated with feathers, pig fangs and a traditional gourd that covers the mummy's penis. A fire is kept burning in the hut, which is known as a "honai".

To mummify the bodies, the Dani people dried them in the sun and then hid them in a cave, Dr. Semiarto Aji Purwanto, a professor of anthropology at the University of Indonesia and an expert on Dani culture, told The Huffington Post in an email. electronic. . Next, he said, the remains were exposed to hot smoke, drained of liquefied fat through perforations and smeared with lard. The whole process took months.

Why go to all that trouble?

“By keeping their bodies, [the Dani] believed they had [the] blessing of the ancestor so they could be more prosperous,” Purwanto said, adding that all Dani mummies are curled up “like a fetus when in the womb. ”

Mummification was once common among the Dani but died out after Christian missionaries who arrived in the area 30 to 50 years ago encouraged them to bury their dead rather than mummify them, Purwanto said, adding that only six or seven mummies.

But mummies never die.

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This photo, taken on August 7, 2016, shows Chief Eli Mabel with the mummified remains of his ancestor Agat Mamete Mabel outside a traditional house in the Wogi village of Wamena, the long-isolated home of the Dani tribe in the top of Papua. central sierra.

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The Dani people no longer practice mummification, but members of the tribe keep several mummies, some a few hundred years old, as a symbol of respect for their ancestors.

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The mummy is curled up like a fetus, like all mummies in the Dani tradition.

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A Dani man in Wamena on August 8, 2016. The man was taking part in the 27th Baliem Valley Festival, which featured the highland tribes of Dani, Yali and Lani in their mock battles as a symbol of high spirit and power that have been practiced for generations. The festival was held from August 8 to 10.

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This August 9, 2016 photo shows a Dani man participating in the festival.

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Another participant in the festival. The photo was taken on August 9, 2016.

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This photo, taken on August 9, 2016, shows children from Dani participating in the festival.