by Tim Flannery
The first scientific paper I ever published on a New Guinea mammal was based on the materials I collected from that specimen. To this day I have not solved the mystery of its gigantic testicles.
Each succeeding day on Mt Boobiari brought more surprises. One day Anaru brought in two Ground Cuscusses (Phalanger gymnotis). These big possums are relatives of Australia's brush-tail possums. Anaru's dogs had located them in their lairs, and when they fled he shot them. The Miyanmin hold this species in special respect. They know it as Kuyam and believe that it is a child of their ancestress, Afek.
The greatest surprise of all came near the end of our time on Mt Boobiari. Close to dark one evening, Deyfu arrived in camp carrying a possum which was brilliantly patterned in fiery red, black, sulphur-yellow and white. I had never seen anything like it. It was enormous, for with Deyfu holding its head level with his chest, the animal's tail still trailed on the ground. I felt sure that it must be some undescribed species.
When I returned to Sydney, though, I found that it had been described in the 1930s. The description, just a paragraph, is in German—from it I got little idea of the majestic appearance of the beast. So rare is this animal, which is now known as the Black-spotted Cuscus (Spilocuscus rufoniger), that it was thought by many researchers to be nothing but a variant of the Common Spotted Cuscus. Biochemical and other analysis of the specimen collected from Mt Boobiari showed, however, that it is indeed a distinct species.
Disappointingly, the long-desired Goodfellow's Tree-kangaroo remained elusive.
NINE
Rausim laplap bilong kok
The relief of leaving the camp on Mt Boobiari was palpable. My skin was red with bites and welts, my eyes swollen to slits, and I was dirty from being unable to wash for a week. I longed for the comforts of Betavip—a whole floor in a hut to stretch out on, maybe a sweet biscuit and tea, and the pool in the river which was so cool, deep and inviting to swim in.
It was to the river pool that we first headed on reaching the village. We had developed a bit of a routine as far as using the place went. First a Miyanmin friend would go before us, shouting that the women must leave the river and take their pigs and infants with them, for the white men were coming to wash. By the time we reached the place it would be deserted and we could strip off our clothes or penis gourds and bathe for an hour or two.
The village children had found a large piece of milky quartz which was the focus of a wonderful game. It was our favourite pastime (as it was that of the village boys) to throw it into the depths of the pool, then dive after it. The winner was the first to retrieve it from the green depths. The white quartz shone like a beacon, even in the deepest pot-holes. The pool was so deep that my ears popped and crackled as I approached the bottom, and large fish moved warily off into the green shadows.
On this day, lying stretched out among my Miyanmin companions on the cobble beach, I felt particularly satisfied. I had scaled Mt Boobiari and had come back with great treasure. I was clean and cool again. Encouraged, perhaps, by the camaraderie which had developed between us on Mt Boobiari, our talk soon turned to more intimate matters. My Miyanmin friends said they preferred women with long, pendulous breasts which ‘bounced as they walked’ (denoting a woman who has breastfed) rather than the pert, pre-lactational mammaries admired by most westerners.
Looks counted for little as far as wives were concerned. A hard worker was what was sought after in that department. By way of explanation one of my friends commented that a man could always try to seduce a girl from a nearby village if he wanted to enjoy a beautiful female.
As this conversation progressed, Deyfu leaned close to me and asked in a whisper why I was so different from them. Startled by the question, I began to grope for explanations about my relatively large size and white skin. Deyfu cut short this tangled speech by pointing between his legs and saying, ‘No, hia!‘ (Not that, here!)
At once the point of the question became apparent—I was circumcised while they were not. Mustering my finest Pidgin, I expounded, ‘Ol tumbuna bilong mi i save rausim laplap bilong kok bilong pikinini man,‘ which translates roughly as ‘My ancestors developed the habit of cutting off the little skirt of skin that grows at the end of their children's willies’.
Deyfu looked at me solemnly for a moment or two, then tried to translate this explanation for his eagerly waiting clansmen. After a few words, he fell to the ground, choking and writhing.
He was in paroxysms of laughter!
As he spurted the words out, all our companions fell about helplessly in a similar manner. For a long time, no-one could look at me without becoming hysterical again, and it was at least twenty minutes before the mirth finally subsided.
While all this was going on I began to reflect upon my attitude towards the Miyanmin and their body decoration. At first the Miyanmin's penis gourds, their pierced nasal septums bearing pig's tusks, and their noses perforated to hold the heads of rhinoceros beetles, had seemed the height of bizarre, outrageous and primitive fashion. Until this moment, I never considered that they could conceivably view me in the same way.
But later in Sydney, at the end of this long field trip, I realised just how bizarre European fashion can be. Stepping off the plane, I watched in amazement as two remarkable people glided by. Their eyes were open and bright, their skin impossibly white, and their lips likewise red. For a moment it seemed that they must be visitors from that strange African tribe who paint themselves pale and affect impossibly wide eyes and smiles. But no—they were just young women, acceptably if heavily made up in the current fashion. It took me a few days to view this ‘tribal makeup’ as normal again. During my long period of fieldwork I had come to accept the human ‘norm’ as being scantily clad, short and dark-skinned.
The return journey from the swimming hole was always one of apprehension. The path was used every afternoon by an old woman who owned what was surely the largest, most sour-tempered pig in Melanesia. This veritable monster would, almost certainly, have been mumued (cooked in a stone-lined pit) long ago had it not been for the extraordinary affection that the old woman who cared for it felt for her charge.
At the great rustling noise that signalled the approach of this enormous sow the Miyanmin would leap up trees or into the bush. Often I slipped behind a tree just as the sow ploughed past, clearly enraged at meeting someone who dared to use its path.
Sows are dangerous creatures, for unlike boars (which merely slash with their tusks) they bite fiercely and tenaciously. Many deaths have resulted from such bites.
Everyone in Betavip, with the exception of its ‘mother’ (as the old woman was known), lived in mortal fear of this pig. When they heard it coming into the village of an afternoon, they would all jump up onto the porches of their houses. Then the great, grunting hog would pass by, followed by a tiny, wizened woman, who weighed just thirty kilograms. (I know this because Don had to weigh her for medical treatment.) She was a quarter the size of the pig, yet kept it firmly under control with a stick. The pig listened to her every word, and obeyed her as a frightened puppy would. This woman had suckled the beast at her breast when it was a piglet. She had fed it the choicest morsels of sweet potato as it grew, and when it was old enough had led it out every day to forage in the forest. In short, it was like a child to her.
The villagers took the occasion of our visit as an opportunity to rid themselves of this monster. Despite the old woman's protests, they argued that it was far too dangerous having the beast around while the white mastas were visiting.
The argument went back and forth for days. Eventually, to the old woman's grief, the villagers won.
Doing the beast in turned out to be a complicated process. Before it could be dispatched, the pig's ‘real’ parents had to be informed. The old lady, apparently, was only the animal's stepmother! She had adopted it when it was a piglet from a couple who lived in a village two days’ walk north of Betavip. Making ropes, I thought.
When the pig's parents arrived at Bet
avip, preparations for the feast got under way. A deep hole was dug on the edge of the village, and a vast pyre of firewood, on which were stacked river stones, was set alight next to it. The pig, meanwhile, was firmly tethered in the middle of the village square, its stepmother sobbing quietly nearby in her hut.
Finally, my friend Kebuge stepped forward and strung his bow. The pig was hit in the chest, but the blow was not mortal and for a moment the squealing, furious creature threatened to break loose from its tether.
Anaru rushed forward in this moment of crisis, carrying a heavy pole. With one mighty blow to the top of its cranium he silenced the animal.
The great sow was converted into pork cutlets in minutes by a horde of Miyanmin wielding bamboo knives, who then wrapped the meat into packages of leaves. Stones which had been heated to glowing were used to line the pit, followed by layers of leaves and herbs. The parcels of meat were placed on top of these, above which was put a layer of banana leaves. On this was plastered a thick paste of taro ‘pudding’, topped with a layer of the blood-red sauce made from the marita (a long, red, spear-like pandanus fruit). The whole was then sealed with a layer of leaves, stones and earth.
The sobbing of the bereaved ‘mother’ seemed to intensify several hours later when the mumu was opened, releasing the delicious aromas of her ‘child’. We were moved to pity for her and gave her a few tins offish (a poor substitute for fresh pork, I'm afraid) for her dinner. But her sorrow was undiminished.
TEN
The world underground
Early during our stay in Betavip Don Gardner had treated a woman for septicaemia of the leg. The entire limb had been swollen, red and angry-looking as a result of an infected cut on her foot. She responded splendidly to a course of antibiotics, and after this incident her husband Kaifak, who previously had been rather aloof, became particularly friendly to us. He had heard that my wife was pregnant with our first child and one day he came to me and confidently predicted (correctly as it turned out) that it would be a boy. He insisted that I name the child Oki, which I duly did. He explained that Oki meant ‘kick of the cassowary’, and that if my child bore this name he would grow up to be strong.
Kaifak had an open, generous face with large, dark eyes and a typically prominent Melanesian nose. In some ways he bore a close resemblance to Harry H. Corbett, the actor who played Harold in ‘Steptoe and Son’. Usually smiling, he wore a safety pin through a rather large hole in one ear.
Kaifak had a special link with the spirit world—he was a shaman. His entrée to the spirit realm had occurred one day when he was hunting in the forest and met a ghost. The ghost led him into a part of the forest he did not know. There, it offered him ghostly taro to eat. Kaifak ate it. Normally, consumption of such ghostly taro would result in death. This case was unusual in that the ghost and the human had come to an agreement. Kaifak would tell the (invisible) ghost about events in the world of the living, while the ghost would keep Kaifak informed about how things stood in the land of the dead. The ghost fastened its arms around Kaifak's shoulders, and the two became inseparable.
The dead are a very immediate presence to the Miyanmin. They believe the deceased inhabit a world which in many ways resembles their own, and which is located only a metre or two below the surface of the earth. Most of the activities which occupy the time of the living are also believed to occupy the dead in their subterranean existence.
The Miyanmin sense of space and time is circumscribed. Their knowledge of the world outside their valley is skimpy. Although they have heard of, and possibly even visited places outside, their world is the valley of the Yapsiei River. Regions beyond its bounds take on ever more layers of uncertainty. Even Port Moresby is an almost mythical place.
History, as they see it, stretches back only about three generations. They ascribe the time before the birth of their grandfathers to a remote, shadowy era, perhaps close to the beginning of time itself. As well, Christianity has truncated their vision of the future, for they expect the apocalypse and second coming soon, certainly within their lifetime.
Despite this rather limited view of time and space they accept what seem to me to be extraordinary events with great equanimity.
One clear night some of us were sitting in the village watching the stars. Presently a satellite came into view, appearing as a bright speck travelling slowly across the blackness. I pointed it out, and asked people if they were familiar with such objects. After some discussion a young boy told me that, although they were now seen frequently, they were unknown when his father was a boy. I asked if he knew what they were. When he said no, I tried to give some explanation.
In 1984 Ronald Reagan was president of the USA and his Star Wars program was in full swing. Part of my explanation involved the use of satellites in warfare, and their ability to strike targets in space and on earth. After this revelation, my listeners fell into a long silence and seemed collectively stunned. Then a very young boy approached and asked solemnly, ‘Masta, my father is very old. His eyes are dim and he can't hunt any more. Next time you see Mr Reagan, could you ask him if he could get his satellite to shoot some possums for my father?’
One day a striking figure strode into Betavip. It was Ambep, Kaifak's brother. With his arrival, the atmosphere in Betavip suddenly electrified. Ambep had chosen to live in an isolated, traditional village called Kyemana with his extended family. Kyemana was nestled in the hills above Betavip, some half-day's walk away.
Ambep was a slight, older man who wore only a penis gourd, and an object which I at first took to be a strange sort of tea-cosy on his head. His nose was just as prominent as Kaifak's, but his face was narrower and more pinched. His eyes shone with a brightness which Kaifak's lacked.
Despite his whimsical appearance, Ambep was not a person to be trifled with. I asked to photograph him one day, but learned through Kegesep that he angrily refused. Too many people had died after being photographed, he said. In fact, the mortality rate among the Miyanmin was then so high that Ambep was not far wide of the truth in his observation.
Ambep was described, even by his near relatives, as ‘cranky’. Over the years he had fallen out with almost everyone except his immediate, controllable family. It was to seek refuge from his own brother that Kaifak had come to Betavip a few months before we arrived—with an arrow lodged in his arm. He had fled Ambep's village after an argument.
The circumstances of this family crisis were highly unusual. Four Miyanmin men, including close relatives of Ambep, had gone hunting. During a storm they had sheltered in a small garden hut, over which towered a giant forest tree. The tree had been left standing (being too laborious to fell) during the making of the garden. And there it had stood, slowly rotting away, for years. At the height of the storm a great gust of wind had broken it, bringing its vast bulk crashing down on the frail hut. All four men had been killed instantly.
There is hardly a rural Melanesian anywhere who would not believe that such an event was the result of sorcery. Such a terrible disaster could only be the work of malicious enemies.
The deaths drove Ambep to madness with anger and grief in a typically Miyanmin way. He had an adopted daughter whom he had captured years before during a raid on the Atbalmin. She was, at about seventeen, just coming to marriageable age, and was both loved and valued by Ambep and his family.
Ambep took his axe and struck her in the neck, then ordered his wife to dismember and cook the body. His little family group was then made to eat it. Kaifak protested—and had been driven off with an arrow in his arm.
I have seen Ambep hunt. He could have killed Kaifak had he wished.
So now we all felt that Ambep's arrival at Betavip foreshadowed further violence. The local pastor was nervous. He threatened to tell the kiap of Ambep's cannibalism. But this would have thrown the village into further panic.
In the midst of all this, I had to deal with Ambep for my own purposes, for he was a highly skilled hunter who brought interesting specimens to me each day.
One of the young women in the group was suffering severely from tuberculosis. The upper part of her body had been stunted by the disease, and she constantly coughed up frothy, pinkish sputum. Her eyes had that bulging, frightened look of someone who cannot draw sufficient breath. And her repeated coughing made it difficult for Ambep to understand my tangled Pidgin (a language he barely understood in any case).
Suddenly Ambep became enraged. His eyes flashed in anger as he rose to slash her across the head with the back of his fist. She cringed in terror. I stumbled through my explanation, caught between feelings of outrage, disgust and fear.
Ambep's apparent madness in times of grief was not unique. Most West Miyanmin do, on occasion, become crazed with sorrow. This state of temporary insanity caused by calamity is widely accepted in Miyanmin society as legitimate behaviour, despite the fact that mad grief can become an excuse for the most outrageous acts. Gradually, I came to flinch whenever I heard that someone had become ‘mad with grief. It often presaged the most terrible, meaningless and unpredictable violence.
One day Don Gardner had given one of his assistants a brand new mosquito net. The man had treasured the gift, carefully hanging it in his house. Then one of his brother's chickens had entered the hut and defecated on the lily-white net. The first Don knew of it was a furious Miyanmin storming back and forth across the village square, axe in hand. The gist of what he said was this:
‘The white man has come to us and has been generous. He has given me a precious gift—a mosquito net. And what has my brother's chicken done? My own brother's chicken has shitted on my new mosquito net. My own brother's chicken!’