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Amharic - አማርኛ | Arabic - عربي
Bengali - বাংলা | Chinese (Simplified) - 中文（简体）
Chinese (Traditional) - 中文（繁體) | French - Français
German - Deutsch | Gujarati - ગુજરાતી
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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Tabar of Papua New Guinea

The Tabar of Papua New Guinea, numbering approximately 8,600 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are an indigenous ethnic group of Papua New Guinea. They are an Indigenous people, in the New Guinea people cluster of the Pacific Islander Peoples affinity bloc. Their primary religion is Christianity - Roman Catholicism. They primarily speak Mandara.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Tabar

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Asian Pacific Rim Peoples
Country: Papua New Guinea
People Cluster: New Guinea
Primary Language(s): Mandara (tbf)
Primary Religion(s): Christianity - Roman Catholicism
Population: 8,600
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 2% or Greater but Less than 5% Evangelical
People Group ID: PG010496
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Pray for the Tabar of Papua New Guinea

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Christianity - Roman Catholicism
Religious Affiliation: Christianity

%
Christianity - Roman Cath… Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Mandara
Language Family: Austronesian

%
Mandara Speakers

Media Resources in Mandara:

Films:

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Mandara:

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Mandara bible resources at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

Next steps for the Tabar

The Tabar are Unengaged and Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

Next steps for the Tabar

The Tabar are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

Next steps for the Tabar

The Tabar are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Tabar of Papua New Guinea

Claiming to be wise, they became fools.
readRomans 1:22

Ask God to pour out His mercy and bring those who are walking in their own wisdom to faith in Jesus.

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.
readPsalm 127:3

Pray that God will bless this generation of children, that they will come to know Jesus early in life and follow Him always.

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
readColossians 4:6

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, their speech will always be gracious and ready to answer for the hope which is within them.

And the King will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."
readMatthew 25:40

Ask God to raise up and send believers who will serve "the least of these" with compassion and energy because they know that in serving those in need, they are serving Christ.

Tabar (ROP3 - 109669) reported in the following countries:

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Definitions page.

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