The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
Columnist Sherryanne De La Boise
"Adventurous-Entertaining"
email: sherryanneQuill@yahoo.com
(her mother resides in Stronghurst)
Travelers: Research First -Part 2 of 4
Packed into boats, motoring upriver, fierce warriors come alongside. The Chief in a red fox fur hat with a feather, eyes encircled by blood red paint, a white "X" painted across his chest. He sports arm bands. He'd be menacing, but he's fat, wearing a Seiko watch, an opal ring and smoking a cigarette.
Their dugouts escort us through mangroves. The Asmat used to be self-sufficient, eating sago palm, fish, forest game. Their dwellings built on stilts above the tidal rainforest swamp floor. Rickety raised walkways connect their buildings. There are many planks missing.
When they poop, they squat off the edge of the walkway (traditional costume doesn't include underwear). The floodwaters would wash it away, but there is a drought. And, it stinks. And, the people stink. They are so dirty. Never have I been so glad for the smoke of open fires to invade my lungs and obliterate the smell.
They keep fires 24/7 INSIDE thatched huts. How often does an entire family perishe to hut fire? I comprehend the terror of an invader carrying torches. How easy it would be to burn a village.
They wear woven skirts of the mango tree bark, held by a hemp belt decorated with shells. I'd like one of those belts to wear with my kilt, but my tourist-trap radar is going off. In fact, I'm not certain how to collect the data needed for the paper I've been hired to write: Everything is so strange.
Even the public square is elevated, but lower than the walkway, with a two-story longhouse opposite. This Spirit House, place of ancestor burial and worship allows only men inside. It's constructed of lashed tree poles with walls of mats of palm leaves.
How does it survive heavy weather? There's an upper level to store the deceased (banned by the Indonesian gov't. So, where are the dead?). Seating inside the flammable building is assigned, with the chief right next to the fire.
No grassy lawn on the public square, the "ground" is made up of woven hemp mats. Remember, this "ground" is 12' above the mud of the floodplain and the elevated walkway rises 6' above that.
The walkway is crammed with tourists. The square crammed with shirtless women with rotten, stained teeth in an exhausted trance. They have been swaying and chanting to drums since dawn in an exhausted trance. A few bare breasts alongside the rattiest collection of dingy foundational wear. A crusty tourist lowers his camera. "National Geographic breasts of my childhood," he grumbles. Were the young women kept away to keep them from being eye candy for old white men? Or, are they working? Or, have they emigrated to the city?
The sprawling capital is adjacent to this village (safe on a protected reserve). I wonder if the Spirit Hall has become their VFW Hall, full of old men remembering times past, rather than an active hub of village business.
Michael Rockefeller was killed and eaten by Asmats in 1961 in retribution for a tribesman killed by a white man. Today, they are reenacting a cannibal feast. They have raised bis poles, carved with images of relatives whose deaths need to be avenged. Rockefeller would have been raised naked between two such carved poles prior to being killed. The tribesmen would have crowded to raise him high above the Spirit house. It would have been terrifying.
Young boys run across the square, the women beat them back. They fight with each other. The chief starts yelling. It's chaotic, yet completely anticipated, not quite choreographed, but planned, known.
And then, all possibility of this being real is ruined by one of the Asmat on the platform: He whips out his I-Pad and circles around 360 making a video of the entire spectacle. Not discrete at all. Right in the middle of the ceremony. Right in the middle of every tourists' picture.
We will be invited to tour the Sprit house, purchase native art and enjoy the feast (no human flesh to be served). But, I've had enough and slip away, down the elevated boardwalk, level with the floors of the two room houses with urban corrugated roofing. Have not been invited in to any house, but can see dirty bedrolls and lots of toddlers with snotty noses. Not a single welcoming smile.
My desire is to reach the tipping point, the point where the village becomes suburb. About two miles to an Episcopalian church, where the storefronts start. Run by Asians, not Asmats, they sell cans of Carnation milk, Nestle, fish , meat, cigarettes, betel beans, piles of yellow fried something, plastic things from China, toilet paper. A storefront is a glass display counter and a back wall of goods (visible from the street, no entry into the store) with a merchant sitting in-between. The family lives behind the store. The tribal village is being absorbed, culture decimated, becoming a suburb of the capital. Done by the method of capitalist goods and gentrification by Asians and Indonesians. And, by education.
The school is run by the gov't, not the church. The children are dressed in dirty slum clothes. They scowl. But, the classrooms are tidy. Our schedule is very similar, except for the toothbrush break. Each classroom has 20 cups, each with a toothbrush. They are fighting Betel juice addiction through peer pressure for western white teeth. They teach gardening in beds raised above the floodplain, complete with a fish garden and vegetables, to improve their diet.
Yet, the native diet was very healthy before candy, chips, and cigarettes. School is mandatory through grade 4. For grades 5-8, students must pay and travel. High school is rarely achieved. In the classroom, I'm answering questions about my life in the USA and have I met certain stars?
I list all the things I have enjoyed in their country and promise to send a box of books. The teachers have computers. They're Javanese and chat freely about when they will get to go home. None of them plans to stay with the Asmat.
Horrors! The sun's setting. I shall miss the last boat back. And, I do not want to spend the night! Haven't seen any fellow travelers in a while. Point at an electric motorcycle and ask for a ride to the pier. The owner looks at traditionally built me, looks at the bike, again sizes-up me. He strips everything off the motorcycle (a bit insulting), and we are off.
The cycle has a smooth, quiet ride over the elevated sidewalk ties. But many ties are missing and we must drive on the remaining rail. I sit very still and try not to scream.
Please, may we not tumble into the poop-ridden mudflats below!
Back, just in time. Confidently disembarking from the motorcycle, thank my driver and climb into the inflatable boat, as if this was part of the day's agenda. No one is the wiser, except
that evening's recap revealed me on yet another motorbike: Balanced on an elevated rail, with even less planks than I remember. For, if you look closely at the picture, my eyes are tightly screwed closed in abject terror. Score one for the terrifying Asmat.