by Tim Flannery
The village favourite was Oblankep, the head-man's son. He was one of the few active young men in Yominbip and a great hunter. Although there were perhaps thirty other adults in the community, my life soon began to revolve around Oblankep's family.
Oblankep's father was highly respected—a natural leader with a commanding presence—and without his friendship our stay may well have been untenable. It was he who organised for vegetables to be cooked for us daily, for our washing to be done, and a multitude of other small hospitalities that made life enjoyable. He would often sit by us as we worked, always curious, and occasionally solicitous of the eventual fate of our goods, wishing to know if any would be left behind when we departed.
His eyes lit up whenever my steel file appeared. It was a simple five-dollar file that we used to maintain our bush-knives and traps, but he regarded it as the most desirable of objects. Finally, one afternoon, he brought forth his own ageing bush-knife. I felt its edge. It was almost as blunt as the rear of the blade. He explained that it no longer cut properly—just chewim daun diwai (tree). It seemed the smallest of courtesies to sharpen his blade for him. Within minutes, every knife in the village was before me, awaiting resharpening.
It was only an hour's work. But I did not realise the full burden of my labour until a young man came hobbling towards me later that afternoon.
He had tied his leg above the knee with bush vine. When he released his hold on it, blood spurted out from an artery which had been severed just above the knee. The size of the cut was horrifying, and there seemed no way to staunch the blood. I used up a considerable proportion of my bandage supply simply covering the wound.
I had only just finished dealing with this emergency and was wondering how people normally coped with such ghastly accidents, when a group of women came rushing forward, wailing terribly. A young mother had been cutting firewood, her child playing by her side, when the bush-knife unexpectedly glanced off the timber. It had almost severed a toe from her child's foot.
I had never had to deal with anything more serious than a minor cut. Rapidly slipping into shock, I dressed the wound as best I could.
The list of walking wounded increased. Oblankep neatly sliced off the top of his left thumb; others bore sundry cuts and wounds. Clearly, sharpened bush-knives behave in unpredictable ways in the hands of those who are used to blunt ones.
The large and horrible gashes I treated over the coming days became symbolic to me. They were as palpable as the gulf in understanding between myself and my new-found friends.
Oblankep knew the habits of all of the larger marsupial species intimately, and just where and when to find them. Working with him was one of the greatest privileges I have ever had. In his company, Lester and I ranged from the mossy forests perched on the very summit of the Thurnwald Range down to the steamy jungle in the river valleys below. For days Lester camped with Oblankep in the forest of the upper reaches of the Thurnwald Range, which are uninhabited and rarely visited. It is one of the most glorious places on earth. From there, the surrounding lowlands seem eternally covered in cloud, the high peaks jutting from them like islands. Unfortunately Lester was overcome with malaria while there and returned to Yominbip more dead than alive.
While Lester was recovering I hunted the middle slopes, between about 1,000 and 1,700 metres elevation. I did much work by night.
Conditions were dreadful, as the slopes were steep and slippery, and nettles formed most of the understorey. One night, after scrambling for several hours through the forest, I spotted the dull red-eye shine of a possum in a tree far above. As we had not yet obtained any possums at this locality, I decided to take it as a specimen.
I was standing on an extremely steep slope, and it had begun to rain. Rain filled my eyes as I slipped the safety catch off the gun and raised it to take aim. Almost immediately, and without warning, the ground gave way under me. I went tumbling down the slope into a dense patch of nettles some ten metres below. The gun landed beside me, but by some miracle it did not go off. What I would have done had I shot myself at this remote place I know not.
There are at least two kinds of nettles at Yominbip. One has a painful but not dangerous sting. This the Miyanmin use when they are tiring during a long walk. They pull it up by the handful and flagellate their bodies with it, claiming it refreshes them. I tried it once, but came out in a rather painful red rash which re-activated itself every time I washed. It felt like being rubbed all over with highly potent liniment.
The second nettle species, while superficially similar, is much more potent and is said by the Miyanmin to be dangerous. It was into this that I had fallen. My long-sleeved shirt and long pants saved me from serious injury, but my hands, ankles and face swelled with an angry red rash for days afterwards.
I came to appreciate Oblankep's friendship and trust all the more when I heard some of his life story. He had endured terrible experiences, the worst of which occurred while he was working as a labourer on a plantation near Madang.
He had ‘signed up’ while visiting the nearest big government station at Telefomin. The recruiter told him of the adventures to be had in the big city and conscripted him for two years. Conditions were appalling, with long days of exhausting labour, and bashings for those who complained. Much of his pay went on the necessities of life, with only a few small luxuries.
Things came to a head when Oblankep received news of his elder brother's death. To complete the traditional funeral rites he needed to return home, but his request to do so was flatly refused by the plantation manager. That evening Oblankep and a few of the other men, finding the manager alone, assaulted him and fled the plantation, leaving behind most of their goods and pay.
For almost a year Oblankep lived the life of an itinerant in Madang. It was there that he met Maria, his wife. He arranged for the traditional marriage payments and requested a one-way airfare from his relatives and friends for he and his new wife to fly from Madang to remote Telefomin. From there they walked for the best part of a week to reach Yominbip. It was she who had helped us with our cargo on that first day.
The head-man and his wife were very fond of Oblankep. We often sat together and talked. One day the head-man announced, to my great surprise, that he would tell me the story of how he had found his son.
It was, he thought, in the late 1950s or early 1960s, the year of the last great raid in the Yominbip area. The Yominbip people had planned this raid for years. They secretly built a cane suspension bridge across the Sepik. A large party of warriors crossed the bridge by night and surrounded an Atbalmin village.
On a signal, they descended and slaughtered every one of the fifty-odd inhabitants of the place, sparing only a few young girls and children. The party was kept busy dismembering the bodies and making the pieces into convenient packages until the following morning. The head-man, who was then young, set off with the gutted torso of a male victim tied to his back, a severed arm and a leg slung over each shoulder and a head wrapped in a palm-leaf package hanging by his side.
On the outskirts of the village he was stopped by a faint, persistent sound. It was a crying baby, less than a year old, hanging in a bilum, or net bag, on a tree by the path. Its mother must have rushed from her hut when she heard the raiders and, in a desperate attempt to save her child, had hidden it there before being cut down. He took the string bag and slung it over his shoulders. After a few steps the child, comforted by the warmth and rhythmic step of its new stepfather, quieted and fell asleep. It did not know that it was being carried between the severed limbs of its real parents.
While relating this extraordinary story, the old man took Oblankep's hand in his own with great tenderness. When he finished he added, in Pidgin, in a quiet voice, T knew then that my son would be a good man. He did not cry, but was good and quiet when I carried him.’
Oblankep was looking into his father's face, smiling. I was still shocked and confused by this account of familial love, when the head-man's wife joined in.
&
nbsp; ‘We ate his Atbalmin parents. They were fat. They gave me all the milk I needed to nourish two children. Oblankep grew strong on them.’
Histories such as Oblankep's were perfectly acceptable in Yominbip. Indeed, they were the norm, and telling the story of a person's origins in this way seemed to reinforce their sense of belonging in Yominbip society.
Since the early seventies, the inhabitants of Yominbip had fallen on hard times. The Australian administration effectively stopped raids by protecting surrounding communities. Because of the appalling infant mortality, there were relatively few children in Yominbip, and the village was slowly becoming depopulated.
With the passing of the old ways, an odd amalgam of western religious and Melanesian beliefs was taking root. A Christian rebaibal (revival movement) had swept through Yominbip some years before we arrived, despite the fact that, at that time, the community had not yet been converted to Christianity. These ‘revivals’ are a unique Melanesian response to evangelical Christianity. They are fanatical affirmations of faith, aimed at obliterating the pagan ways which still persist in most societies.
Rebaibah have apocalyptic overtones. When a rebaibal reaches fever pitch, people often cease making gardens and undertaking other useful work because they believe that the second coming is imminent. In the 1970s and 1980s, rebaibah spread like wildfire throughout the remote areas of Papua New Guinea, passing from one inspired village to the next. At Yominbip the spirit house was burned to the ground when the movement gained hold, and the ancestral skulls were thrown into the river.
In a place like Yominbip one loses track of time. Suddenly there were only a few days left before the helicopter would return to collect us. I began to think about dividing up the goods that would be left behind, and we worked on improving the helicopter pad to facilitate our evacuation.
Oblankep and his family were dismayed that we were leaving them. Oblankep wore a long face, and redoubled his efforts to find the few rare species that we had not yet obtained, spending most of each night out hunting.
On our last evening in Yominbip we were working restlessly in our hut, packing and repacking the equipment, when Maria, Oblankep's wife, paid an unexpected visit. As she spoke her voice was low and desperate, and hatred and fear mingled as she told her story in Pidgin.
She had grown up in a small village just outside of Madang; although her family was poor, she was used to the city life and loved it. She met Oblankep in the market at Madang while he was living there. She thought him handsome and took him home to meet her family. He told stories about Yominbip—describing it as a large village not far from a great town and the coast.
Maria's parents accepted the marriage offer. Knowing that she was unlikely to see her parents again, she bade them a tearful farewell.
Oblankep's manner changed when they arrived at Telefomin. He assaulted her and forced her to walk, pregnant, to Yominbip. The journey almost killed her. Since then, alone among strangers, she had borne him a child. She worked daily in the remote gardens. She had grown to hate Yominbip. Those stories about this place—he had told her lies.
She whispered hoarsely, ‘Please take me with you. When the helicopter comes, please take me with you.’
‘But what about your child?’
‘Leave it,’ she said savagely.
When she slipped away I felt a great sense of unease. Should we steal Maria from Yominbip (for that is how Oblankep would doubtless see it), or should we refuse her request? I dared not mention her visit, for she might be severely beaten for what she had done thus far. A failed escape attempt might even result in death.
Most murders in Papua New Guinea result from the theft of women, pigs or land. We would be compromising our own safety were we to attempt to help her escape. And there were other more complex issues to consider. Virtually the entire community of Yominbip had come together as a result of kidnappings. Oblankep had kidnapped his wife, but he himself had been taken by force from his original family. In such a situation it would be useless to try to explain the rights and wrongs of Maria's case. Morality as I knew it would simply not be understood.
I worried at the problem all morning until a faint mechanical sound announced the imminent arrival of the helicopter. I ran to Oblankep's hut, and found Maria seated firmly in a corner, her father-in-law standing near her. I could not see her face. With forced jocularity I asked if there were any messages I could take out for anyone. No response. I filled the awkward silence by asking Oblankep to come to my hut so that I could give him some gifts. Everything I was leaving behind I then put in his and his father's care, to be used by the entire community.
The chopper drew nearer. When it had almost touched down on the new pad I saw Maria crying at the door of Oblankep's hut. In the din of the rotor blades Lester began loading our specimens and equipment into the cargo hold, unaware of what was going on. I turned back to Maria, her face contorted with tears.
Behind her Oblankep watched, his eyes hard and angry.
TWELVE
The refugees
In the mid-1980s a group of refugees from Irian Jaya moved into Yapsiei.
Irianese refugees had already been arriving in increasing numbers at the border villages of Papua New Guinea. They had fled from a brutal Indonesian army intent on ‘pacifying’ the province. The refugees received assistance in the form of food, clothing and equipment from an international aid agency.
When all of this ‘cargo’ was flown into Yapsiei, the Miyanmin were aghast. Relationships between them and the refugees were none too cordial. The Miyanmin felt that their Government had betrayed them—yet again. They, citizens of Papua New Guinea, had virtually nothing, yet the Government had provided all of this cargo to these newcomers! Miyanmin big men strode up and down the airstrip, shouting their abuse at one and all in Port Moresby. It was, as far as they were concerned, just one more indication that they were the ‘last’ people. It made no difference whatever when Don explained that the aid had come not from Port Moresby, but from international agencies, for such niceties concerning the higher levels of government were impenetrable to them.
The refugees must have arrived sometime between February 1984 and April 1986. It seemed that they had not been in Papua New Guinea for long when I met them, for they spoke hardly a word of Pidgin. Fortunately, there was a Bahasa-Pidgin turnim tok living in Yapsiei at the time, and through him they told their story.
I have no way of knowing whether this story is true or not. What I do know, however, is that the people I interviewed were, as they had stated, Amungme from south-central Irian Jaya. I took down many animal names in their language, the accuracy of which I later verified.
The Amungme live near the Freeport gold and copper, mine in central Irian Jaya, some 500 kilometres west of Yapsiei. To get to Papua New Guinea by foot, these people would have had to traverse some of the most rugged terrain found anywhere on earth. It is a miracle that any of them survived their journey.
The Amungme refugees said that their plight began when an Indonesian official was sent to their village to oversee the reorganisation of their lives. The official (probably a Muslim army officer) said that, according to the Indonesian Government, it was unacceptable for them to live in their traditional manner. Amungme men and boys live together in a men's house, while the women live in smaller houses with the younger children and pigs. The official insisted that—in good Muslim fashion—the men move into houses with their wives and children. The pigs were to live separately.
Such a suggestion was bound to be looked on unfavourably by the Amungme. Many Melanesian men believe that too much contact with women is debilitating. Were the Amungme to do as commanded, they believed that they would become ensorcelled and rapidly sicken, or fall in the next battle. Furthermore, the new arrangement would leave the family wealth (in the form of pigs) vulnerable to theft. Pig theft is endemic in many areas, and the loss of a family's pigs could have catastrophic repercussions. Marriages would have to be postponed, and traditional comp
ensation would go unpaid, leading to more tribal wars.
At least partly as a result of such beliefs, the Amungme were unwilling to do as the official suggested. When the matter was pushed by the official, he was assaulted and forcibly ejected from the village.
A few days later, helicopters were heard flying above the village. They landed, disgorging a large number of Indonesian troops. These soldiers separated the men from the women and children, and led them into two hastily constructed barbed-wire compounds. Then they began asking the men whether any of them would like to see Irian Jaya become independent of Indonesia. Many of these simple bush people replied that they most certainly would. A man was then taken aside and decapitated in full view of the others.
A fire was lit in a forty-four gallon drum, and lengths of wire were heated to a white heat over it. Other men were then taken aside, and one by one had heated wires thrust right through their abdomens.
That night the remaining men decided to break out of the compound and flee into the jungle, leaving their families to the mercy of the soldiers. The refugees said that 300 men fled into the jungle that night, but it seems unlikely that such large numbers were involved, as even the largest highland villages have fewer people than this.
Whatever the case, the group fled eastward through the jungle. Many died of starvation while others fell victim to hostile tribes.
As they were crossing the southern foothills of the Carstensz Range (which lies to the east of the Freeport mine) they encountered a tribe which lived in houses built in the tree-tops. These people lowered rope ladders when they saw the Amungme, then climbed down and attacked them.
My informants thought that the bodies of about thirty Amungme were carried up into the tree-houses by their attackers.
After several months’ hard travel, the survivors reached the village of Ok Sibil, adjacent to the Papua New Guinea border. There they made contact with Ok Sibil tribesmen and were at first welcomed and fed by them.