Lani people

The Lani are an indigenous people in Puncak, Central Papua and Lanny Jaya, Highland Papua, usually labelled 'Western Dani' by foreign missionaries, or grouped—inaccurately—with the Dani people who inhabit the Baliem Valley to the east.

First contact with the populous Lani was made in October 1920 during the Central New Guinea Expedition, in which a group of explorers stayed for six months with them at their farms in the upper Swart River Valley (now Toli Valley, Tolikara Regency).

[5] The total population of Lani tribes in the 1980s, as reported by Douglas Hayward in his book The Dani of Irian Jaya, Before and After Conversion was around 200,000 people.

Lani men wear kobewak or kobeba, which are thicker and larger (can have a diameter of 10 cm or more) and are flat at the top.

Meanwhile Lani women wear two types of skirt made of barks, the colourful green, yellow, red, and purple sali koe or the brown and purple tipped skirt called sali keragi.

2023 Lani Culture Festival in Tiom, Lanny Jaya