by Tim Flannery
At that he swung the axe wildly at some pawpaw trees owned by his brother, which were just coming into fruit. Next, the brother's chickens were slaughtered. These were a highly valuable commodity which had only recently reached the village. Had his brother showed himself then, he may well have suffered the same fate.
The propensity for such events to arise from apparently trivial causes made me perhaps overly nervous. One day the village pastor came to me asking for help to count his money. He needed 140 kina (then about two hundred Australian dollars) to attend the Bible school at Duranmin (two weeks’ walk away), and he was excited because he believed that he had 137 kina, almost enough to enrol. I opened his tin and was appalled to see one kina 37 toea (two Australian dollars) lying there. What was I to say? Fearing an outbreak, I could only advise him to keep on saving.
On another occasion, two young boys who were working for me had ‘borrowed’ Anaru's canoe (a valuable asset) and wrecked it. It was only when a glowering Anaru began to play his kundu drum that I saw how the crisis might be dealt with. I went up to his hut and, with a flourish, offered to buy the drum for far more than it was really worth. This brought a smile to Anaru's face, which moments before had been twisted with anger.
In 1986 I almost became a victim myself of the wide-eyed, utterly unpredictable Miyanmin violence. I was sleeping in my hut in the mid-afternoon, after having been up most of the night spotlighting. Suddenly I was aroused by screams and shouts from an adjacent hut. I scrambled to my feet and stood in the doorway. There, in the harsh tropical sunlight, I saw a young man with his bowstring drawn tight. He was attempting to take aim at something through the poles of a hut wall. I knew instantly that he was trying to kill someone. I shouted to catch his attention, saying that if he hurt anyone I would be forced to report him to the police.
When he turned to face me I saw that I had made a terrible mistake. His eyes burned with a madness which showed that he had not heard my words. He wanted to kill, and his bow was already drawn. It was pointing directly at my chest from less than ten metres away.
My shotgun was propped against the door jamb inside the hut, but it would have been utterly useless to reach for it. In the split second I considered this, I saw someone rush from the shelter of an adjacent hut and grasp the young man around the chest from behind, pinning his arms.
He could not loose the arrow.
This man who saved my life was the young man's uncle. He explained to me that the boy had only recently married, and that he suspected his wife of infidelity. It was she he had been trying to kill.
The strangest thing was that later that evening the same young man who had almost killed me came up to my door smiling, proffering a possum he had just shot. He was friendly and relaxed, as if nothing had happened.
He was Ambep's son.
Kaifak's symbiotic relationship with the spirit realm led to an extraordinary bit of politicking on the eve of our departure from Betavip. As we stood in the village square ready to leave, Kaifak began striding up and down in front of the assembled crowd, ranting and raving in Miyanmin. The crowd seemed solemn, indeed disappointed, by what he had to say. Finally we were made privy to the nature of the harangue. What Kaifak had said was this:
‘The ghosts are very well treated by the Government in Port Moresby, you know. Everyone in the spirit world has been given wristwatches and transistor radios. And they already have their own village council'—a sore point with the Miyanmin, who knew that they were almost alone in Papua New Guinea in lacking this form of governance—'And what has the Government done for us? Look at us. We have nothing! Why should they favour the ghosts so, when it is we who vote for them? I'm going to ask these white men to tell Michael Somare'—by then long since out of power—'that this favouritism must stop. The Government must start giving the living people some of the same cargo they are giving to the ghosts.’
I looked at my boots, bit the inside of my cheek to prevent myself from smiling, and solemnly swore that next time I met Michael Somare I would pass on Kaifak's request.
As we left Betavip, I asked everyone to save the jaw-bones of animals they hunted. I promised that when (and if) I returned, I would purchase them so that I could estimate the protein intake which hunting gave each family.
And I did return to Betavip—two years later in 1986, with my friend and colleague, Lester Seri, a biologist with the PNG Department of Environment. Amazingly, only the detestable thug Ambep had carefully saved all his bones. Whatever else he might be, I found him to be a man of his word.
I informed Ambep that I wished to obtain some more samples of the rare giant rat Xenuromys barbatus which I had first encountered two years before on Mt Boobiari. He alone, apparently, owned the dog which could reliably track down the beasts he knew as Boboyomin. Out of my patrol box I pulled a bush-knife, a small tarpaulin, and a tomahawk. I laid them on the floor of the hut in front of him. Pointing to each in turn, I said, ‘Wanpela Boboyomin, wanpela Boboyomin, wanpela Boboyomin’—Ambep could have his choice of one of these things whenever he produced a Boboyomin for me.
That same afternoon Ambep returned triumphant, Boboyomin in hand. His dog had detected the lair of the animal amid a great rock pile, the typical roost site for the species. Ambep handed the body over, and with great ceremony requested the tomahawk. He assured me that he would return the next day to obtain the remaining goods.
But then catastrophe struck. That evening, when I visited Ambep's hut, his dog was lying by the fire, twitching and frothing at the mouth. Its eyes rolled in its sockets as it threw fits on the ground. Ambep thought it had eaten or been bitten by a poisonous centipede. Perhaps a jealous rival had sent it to prevent Ambep obtaining the remaining trade goods.
Given Ambep's setback, it was a surprise indeed when he returned the following day, as promised, with yet another Boboyomin in hand. After he took the tarpaulin, he explained that he had asked his wife to accompany him in his search. She had thrust her naked hand into innumerable rocky crevices, feeling for the lair of the great rat. Finally she detected one, and by inserting her arm into the lair had managed to throttle it single-handed without being bitten.
No more giant rats, alas, came Ambep's way before we were due to leave Betavip. So the bush-knife remained with us.
Towards the end of our stay we built a series of rafts, as we had done before, to travel down the river, but on the morning of our scheduled departure the Skgonga was in flood and we could not leave. By lunchtime the Miyanmin who were to accompany us had decided that the flood had subsided sufficiently to venture downstream, so our cargo was loaded. At the last minute, our bush-knife was apparently lost in the swollen river. Lester and I set off glumly, suspecting that it had in fact been stolen.
The day after we reached Yapsiei Station, Ambep arrived at our house, unexpected and exhausted. In his hand he held the lost bush-knife. He explained that it had been stolen from us by a young man. Ambep had forced him to reveal its hiding place, and had afterwards beaten him up for his brazen theft. This act of honesty was deeply touching. Ambep could easily have kept the treasured knife, for I had no plans to return to Betavip.
The more I learned of Miyanmin society, the more it seemed that Ambep's violence was simply a more extreme version of the societal norm. Yes, Ambep could be a monster, but he was also a complex human being whose intelligence and honesty outshone that of most of his fellows. How do we judge a person whose culture and attitudes we barely understand? I still think of this strange, contradictory man, and must admit that I came to regard him with affection.
A memory: On the afternoon of Ambep's son's madness, Anaru had come to visit me. We sat on the porch of my hut enjoying a cup of sweet, black coffee, gazing at the lofty summit of Mt Boobiari, lying wreathed in cloud in the distance.
Anaru looked wistfully at the mountain. ‘Let me tell you how Timboyok’—as the Miyanmin know Goodfellow's Tree-kangaroo—'lives up on that mountain. Every morning, when the sun shines, Timboyok climbs into the branche
s of the highest trees on Boobiari. From his lofty lookout Timboyok can see our small village and the goings on of all of the people who live here. From up there, we look like ants to him. Timboyok sees us fight, get sick and work very hard clearing forest to make gardens. While we work and suffer, he is watching his children play around him and enjoying the sun on his skin.’
ELEVEN
No greater love
Yominbip: a pinprick of a settlement in the vastness of the Thurnwald Range.
Building a helipad in the Thurnwald Range in 1986 was a difficult task. Don Gardner, wanting to conduct a medical survey there, had sent Kebuge ahead on foot to arrange for construction of the helicopter landing pad. In order to show him the size of the open space required, he had paced out a square fifteen steps long on each side. After Kebuge set off, we waited a month before taking to the air, assuming this would be sufficient time for the job to be completed.
Flying to Yominbip was an extraordinary experience. The helicopter arrived early in the morning from its exploration base in the Green River area. It was a tiny machine with a large glass bubble in front, through which one could see the ground receding as it lifted off. It was my first flight in a helicopter, and the sense of wonder and vertigo as we rose above the canopy and set off towards the distant Thurnwald Range made me almost believe we were about to enter another world. After about forty minutes’ travel we came to the rugged ranges themselves and began to search for our landing spot.
The narrow ridge stretched before us, unbroken from high on the mountain summit all the way to the foothills, before dropping abruptly into the valley below. It looked like a great verdant knife blade, encrusted with the verdigris of timeless forest giants. But there was one small brown patch on it—a rust spot—just before the blade tip. Looking closely, I realised that the rust spot was the newly made helipad. In a minute or two we would be ejected onto it. Then the helicopter would swoop noisily away.
It would not return for some time. We had no radio, no way of contacting the outside world.
As the helicopter approached the clearing, a cloud of leaves and twigs rose from the rotor blades. They whirled furiously around us—the pad was obviously too small. The pilot had either to risk his blades in the overhanging canopy or abort the mission.
After a moment's hesitation, he decided to press on and finally made a wonky touch-down. Stepping out of the chopper was tricky, for it was precariously balanced, its skids overhanging the precipice on either side of the knife-edged ridge.
Long after the helicopter departed, the air remained thick with the fragments of falling leaves. Miyanmin, assembled on the promontory, shielded their eyes. Leaf fragments peppered their hair.
Most of the men who had surrounded the equipment and newly ejected human cargo wore only a penis gourd; the women wore a very short grass skirt, although a few of both sexes were embellished with a motley array of decrepit European cast-offs. One older woman, who wandered aimlessly through the small crowd with a dazed look on her face, was dressed in the remains of what had once been a very stylish white and gold silk gown. The effect was made all the more startling by the fact that her nipples, doubtless due to the effects of friction, were poking prominently through the fabric.
Close by, an older man hobbled forward, his penis gourd clearly causing great discomfort under his tight, second-hand football shorts. The people of Yominbip, we discovered, had donned the few European clothes they possessed to honour our arrival. Some, however, were clearly unwilling to undergo the indignity of appearing without their traditional clothing too.
As we moved our equipment from the improvised helipad to the village, a young woman stepped forward to help. She wore a spotless dress, her wavy black hair tied back with a red ribbon in a neat ponytail. After a minute or two, a man in his forties or early fifties also lent a hand.
For a long while after the helicopter left that day, the villagers wandered aimlessly about as if in shock, staring wide-eyed at us and each other as if seeking an explanation. Finally, one came forward in the evening to find out more about us and the purpose of our visit.
When we told them, they found it difficult to comprehend. For they could not believe that outsiders—perhaps the first ever to arrive at their remote village—would come so far to see so little.
True, for a few of the inhabitants of Yominbip our visit was not such a novelty. Some young men had left the village to visit adjacent communities which had airstrips, and had returned with a few trade goods and wonderful tales of the world outside the valley. One had even seen the sea when he worked on a plantation at Madang. And now, on this fine morning in April 1986 (as I, but not they, knew) the outside world had arrived for everyone to see.
It is often quite a task to impart the significance of such seemingly useless work as my own to other people (including many westerners), but here the challenge seemed insurmountable. Yet on this morning Lester Seri, my dear New Guinean bras (brother), was undaunted as he began with a speech to the whole community.
‘I am a Papua New Guinean, and I work for our nation. Because this work is so important, the Australian Government has sent a man, a doctor, to help us. He has come all the way from Australia.
‘We are here to find out about your animals. The Government is worried that in many places all of the food animals have been killed out. They want to find out what animals survive here, and how you look after them. We're interested not only in your food animals, but your pests too. Your snakes, worms, rats and even frogs. Yes, everything. We want to see at least one of every kind of animal that lives here, and we will preserve some in this medicine [formalin], and take them back to the Government to show them. We need your help with this work. When you come across an animal in your everyday activities, such as gardening and collecting wood, we would like you to tell us about it, and bring it back to the village. We will pay you for your help, and if you have no use for money then we have food and some other things that you might want.’
Everyone appeared rather stunned by this news, and it seemed that Lester, even though he was a fellow countryman, was just as strange a being to the inhabitants of Yominbip as I was. He was subject to the same number of stares and surreptitious touches—including a rather spectacular below-the-belt lunge by one female senior citizen, who I suppose was uncertain about his sex. But it was only with the passing of the weeks that I began to understand just how foreign we were to this small community, and what our arrival had meant to its members.
The village head-man was already greying. He did not know his age, and when I first asked he replied that he might be seven. On being asked to reconsider, he ventured an age of four. This man was a great font of traditional knowledge, as was his aged uncle, although the uncle was past relating much of it.
The head-man's uncle was quite the oldest Miyanmin I had ever seen. Probably in his seventies, he was already an elder when the great raids of the 1950s took place. Although deaf as a post and with rapidly fading eyesight, the old man was not quite helpless, for he remained active and each day he crawled through his small garden to weed it.
One afternoon, as Lester and I worked away measuring, skinning and recording data from our specimens, we saw the old man squatting in the shade of a hut, seemingly lost and indifferent to the world. A woman had located the burrow of a Water Rat (Hydromys chrysogaster) in her garden and had dug the animal out and brought it to us. Water Rats have the most deliciously soft and sleek fur. Inspired by its touch, I carried it over to the old man and put it into his hands. He got up, at first not understanding what I meant. He felt the animal I handed him with the gentleness one might reserve for a child. Ayam, he whispered (the Miyanmin name for the creature), as the hardened look of indifference which characterised his face melted away. It was replaced by the most beatific smile.
We all felt sorry for the uncle. Each evening he would chop his own firewood. It seemed too strenuous a task for his decrepit frame. One afternoon Don Gardner cajoled a young boy into chopping t
he wood for him. A few minutes later the old fellow began jabbering away. There was the sound of wood thumping against a wall. Then the boy came racing past, followed a short time later by a well-aimed faggot. It seemed that the old man valued his independence above firewood.
I must admit that the old uncle got in the way a bit. Whenever we cooked rice he seemed to be on hand, staring into the pot, mumbling to himself in amazement. He was wondering aloud where we had found so many ant-eggs. Often, while I was out on my daily rounds checking traps and nets, I would almost trip over him. There he would be, on all fours, weeding and mumbling to himself. Sometimes he would be in his garden, sometimes not.
One night he nearly caused our expedition to end in disaster. Lester had gone off spotlighting on the ridge above the village. The old man had decided to camp out that night and was sitting in a humpy on the edge of his garden a few minutes’ walk away.
Late in the evening, on his way home, Lester unexpectedly encountered the old fellow. He was awake, sitting beside his fire, by then reduced to glowing coals. He saw Lester's torch, and quickly reached for his bow and arrows. Lester called out cheerfully to reassure the old man—and then remembered that he was stone deaf.
Cursing himself for his stupidity, Lester also realised that the old man might not know what a torch was. He turned it off just in time. The old fellow was already gliding through the undergrowth, bow-string taut under the burden of a man-killing arrow. Lester retreated quickly into the forest, and came back to the village.
When we returned a little while later to check on the old man, we found that he had lit the mother of all bonfires. It was so vast that it was scorching the tree-tops above the shelter. Sitting uncomfortably close to the conflagration, he was chanting loudly, in a frantic effort no doubt to drive off the malefic spirit who had disturbed his solitude.