by Tim Flannery
The first wildlife I noticed in Tabubil were its spiders. The great orb weavers are everywhere, their strong yellow webs covering metres of bushes and trees. One could hardly miss them, for the webs were festooned with ejecta which whimsical Melanesians have tossed into them. Those near the hotel supported a tasteful array of beer cans. A monstrous web near the mess held plastic plates, cutlery and yet more cans, while one near the town centre had election posters and even a few thongs. One poster promoted ‘Pius Fred’, candidate for the seat of North Fly Open. His mug shot did little to inspire confidence, and we hoped that, if he won, the Speaker of the House never requested the ‘Member for North Fly Open to be upstanding’.
In the middle of each web lies a great silvery spider with an abdomen the size of a grape—its legs a handspan in width. Although first horrified by them, I soon became fascinated. Watching them trim their webs as the wind increased, add guy ropes when it changed direction, and put on extra strands when conditions were favourable, I began to view them as tiny, diligent sailors on the breeze.
But these sailors are all females. If you look closely, you can see another, much smaller spider (often more than one) near the female. This is the male, and his life is perilous. Amorous intent forces him to keep company with his potential mate, who is at least a hundred times his size. She, however, is much more interested in him as an entrée than a paramour, so he must be circumspect.
Whenever I disturbed one of the webs, the female would freeze momentarily in fear. The males invariably chose this moment to have their way with her. They looked like naughty boys as they nimbly approached the female, manoeuvring their large black copulatory organs over her genital pore, then thrusting briefly before cautiously retreating.
When I looked very closely I discovered yet other, even smaller spiders in the webs. These belonged to a different species entirely. They lived as thieves, taking insects trapped in the webs, which were presumably too small to interest the builder. The eyesight of the orb weavers must be too weak to detect these little opportunists.
The Mountain Ok people have a special use for the webs. They fashion fish traps out of them. They search for a four-pronged stick, which they whisk into web after web with a circular motion. Soon it becomes a container of sticky web and trapped spiders. They place this in a river or stream, cup upward. There, miniature fish adhere to the sticky fibres.
Our access to the Star Mountains lay through Tabubil, for the Ok Tedi Mining helicopter base was there, near Bultem—home of the traditional Wopkaimin owners of the mountains. Indeed, they had built Bultem on its present site in order to be closer to Tabubil. As a result, it has an untidy appearance when compared with most traditional villages, for the architecture is a mixture of traditional and modern styles, and a number of motor vehicles in various stages of disrepair are parked around the central square.
I had been given the name of a man called Griem by David Hyndman, the anthropologist who had worked with the Wopkaimin in the 1970s. So, arriving at Bultem that first time, I sought him out and was surprised to be led to an elfin man of about my own age, dressed in the ubiquitous dirty western cast-offs. Griem informed me that his name was now Freddy, and that he worked for the mine driving the titanic trucks which hauled ore from the pit to the crusher. When I mentioned a possible trip to the Stars, his eyes lit up and he said that, with my help, perhaps he could get a week or two off work to accompany us.
Freddy has led one of most extraordinary lives of anyone I have ever met. He was a youth when Ok Tedi Mining began exploring for minerals in the Wopkaimin area. He still remembers the day a helicopter tried to land at the bottom of his father's taro garden. Freddy and his mother were terrified, but his father, in a remarkable act of bravery, rushed into the garden and began loosing arrows at the monster which was threatening his family.
Less than two decades had passed since this signal event, yet by the time I met Freddy he was a contented man with a family of his own, and was more familiar with trucks, helicopters and aircraft than I. Freddy taught me that Alvin Toffler's ideas about future shock are not always right.
Freddy and I talked at length about the impact of the Ok Tedi mine on Wopkaimin life. On the whole, he said, things had been improved remarkably by the presence of the mine. This view is widely held among the Wopkaimin, who have received many direct benefits from developments brought by mining. This is not to say that they have entirely escaped the traumas associated with rapid change. But they have been more in control of its pace and impact than many indigenous people in a similar situation.
Over time, this was evidenced, for example, in the continuance of men's initiation at the Bultem cult house. In 1987 I met two initiates in the Tabubil supermarket. The young men, dressed in penis gourds and elaborate ochre head-dresses, pushed a trolley loaded with rice and tinned fish along the aisles. There, they mingled with the wives of company employees and other customers, without causing the slightest commotion. Then, in 1993, I met more young initiates in Bultem village itself. One—an earnest young man by the name of Tarapi—had accompanied us to Luplupwintem to help perform a census of Bulmer's Fruit-bat. Tarapi displayed a sense of social responsibility rare in someone his age. One day, perhaps, Tarapi will be a great traditional leader.
Not all New Guineans, though, are happy with the developments at Ok Tedi. The tribal groups living further downriver from Tabubil, for example, are angered at the damage done to the ecosystem of the upper Ok Tedi River. The river provides them with important food sources, and this is being affected through the disposal of tailings. Until recently, these people received relatively little by way of compensation.
Freddy told me that in his eyes the most substantial benefit provided by the mine is the health service, which is now readily available to all. Many Wopkaimin (himself included, Freddy said) would have died long ago were it not for the medical assistance available there.
Freddy perceived that his quality of life had also improved as he gained access to western food and goods. Things have gone so well for him that he now owns a Toyota Landcruiser, and has been able to plan several trips overseas. By 1992 he was planning to go to the Vatican to see the Pope (Bultem is now a Catholic village), but when I returned a little later that year he informed me that he had changed his mind. He had met a Filipino mechanic in Tabubil who spoke of the delights of the flesh awaiting the traveller in the nightclubs of Manila. As a result, Freddy had decided on a more secular holiday.
At the end of one long conversation, I asked Freddy if there was anything else the mine could do for him. He sat deep in thought for a while, then said that he would like a kerosene heater.
My knowledge of Wopkaimin culture, and the changes that contact with the west have wrought, was rudimentary on the day in 1987 when I first met Freddy and asked him to accompany me to the Stars. He suggested that we bring along his uncle Serapnok, who owned a good hunting dog. I was rather wary of Serapnok at first. He had a hawkish nose and narrow, hatchet face which gave him a rather sinister appearance—rather like the vampire in Nosferatu—and because of this, and our lack of a common language, it took me some time to overcome an instinctive distrust of him.
Freddy told me that he knew a good place for a helicopter drop and base camp. It was a patch of subalpine grassland known as Dokfuma, located at 3,200 metres elevation, and deep in the Star Mountains. There was a problem, however, for discussions with the helicopter pilot revealed that his machine could carry only 160 kilograms at this elevation. This meant that we would have to run several trips in. Furthermore, because of the extreme changeability of the weather in the mountains, we had to think carefully about what would be taken up on the first journey, as whoever and whatever went could be trapped there for an extended period.
After some consideration, it was decided that the first load should consist of myself, a tent and sleeping bag, some clothes and food sufficient for a week. That way, if bad weather trapped me alone at Dokfuma, I could sit it out in comfort.
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p; By 6 a.m. on the morning of our departure, the weather at Tabubil looked fine, allowing us a trouble-free take-off. This was a relief, for the weather around town is frequently foul. On approaching the Star Mountains, however, it was clear that a dense fog over the peaks would prevent us from landing.
We returned to base, and I sat at Tabubil airport for several hours while the helicopter ran errands in the lowlands. All the while, I watched the clouds thicken above me.
At about 9 a.m. the opportunity came to try again. This time we found that conditions had improved slightly in the mountains, but they were rapidly deteriorating around Tabubil. The pilot asked me whether I wanted to land, explaining that the poor weather at Tabubil might well prohibit a second trip. I was anxious to begin work, and asked him to try to drop me in the alpine herbfield we could vaguely make out below. It looked like the place Freddy had described a few days earlier as Dokfuma. The pilot made a note of his position and began to descend.
Below was a bowl-shaped patch of grassland, surrounded by lightly wooded ridges. Frosty air accumulates in a place like this, preventing the growth of trees. On this morning, dense cloud hung over the hills that formed the bowl margin, but the cloud was thinner in the middle, so that the centre of the herbfield could occasionally be glimpsed from above.
The helicopter began to lower itself gingerly into a gap in the cloud hanging close to the ground. A sudden bump told me we had landed. It was time to get out and unload the chopper.
In a minute I had my pack and a drum beside me, and the helicopter was receding into the break in the mist above.
After hours amid the crowd and bustle of Tabubil airport, then a trip aboard a noisy helicopter, Dokfuma seemed to be preternaturally quiet. It was also extraordinarily cold. The chill air caught my breath and nipped at my fingers.
It took me a few minutes to tear myself away from the sound of the departing chopper and to stop wondering whether I would hear it again that day, or even that week. I roused myself to activity. Dragging my equipment to higher ground to keep it from getting too wet, I was dismayed to find myself breathless. It seemed that my old foe, altitude sickness, was going to be a feature of this trip too.
Work completed, I sat on a mossy tussock, my breath rasping noisily. I tried to take in Dokfuma.
All around, every tussock of moss and bunched herb was covered in a gossamer of spiders’ webs. The webs were brilliantly apparent because the sun had not yet burned off the beads of water which adorned them like pearls on a string. Nearby, a pincushion-sized rhododendron flowered, its long, trumpet-like red blooms the only brightness in a sea of mossy gold and silver green. Somewhere close, a toadlet emitted its short, creaky call from under a miniature tussock.
The mist-shrouded Dacrycarpus trees surrounding Dokfuma formed an open woodland. These relatives of Tasmania's Huon Pine are stately, rather sparse, pyramidal trees five to seven metres high, with tiny, dark green leaves and lichen-covered bark. They lent a sombre beauty to the scene. The almost impenetrable tangle of upper montane rainforest which surrounded the Neon Basin was largely absent here—it was only in limited areas that one found such thick scrub.
From beyond the veil of mist came a strange, rustling, tinkling sound: the wings of a large bird in a grove of trees. Birds of paradise and pigeons are the only species which make such a sound.
Now the distant thud-thud-thud of the returning helicopter could be heard. The weather was kind to us and on trip after trip it brought in Lester, Freddy, Serapnok and his dog (tightly trussed up and tied into a bilum), and Hal Cogger, herpetologist and final member of our expedition.
I soon found that even though Dokfuma lay at a similar elevation to the Neon Basin, it was a very different kind of subalpine habitat. The Neon had been relatively dry underfoot and tussock grasses tended to predominate. Here at Dokfuma a dense and prickly mass of moss, lichens and herbs grew atop a swamp. The ground, even on the slopes, was sodden, and we found our campsite actually moving gradually downslope as our tracks cut the raft of moss free from its surrounds.
When the mist lifted from Dokfuma and the sun warmed my skin, I began to see more of the beauty and less of the discomfort of the place. To the north lay the white limestone pinnacles of Mt Capella, while to the north-west lay the peaks of Scorpion and Antares—the very highest of the Star Mountains. Far away to the west, in Irian Jaya, a single reflective point sparkled like a diamond in the sunshine. It was Juliana Toppen, dusted by a fresh fall of snow.
A small creek running to the west drained Dokfuma, and at the end of the valley formed a picturesque waterfall. Beyond this small drop and across the lightly wooded valley edge stood a vast and imposing mountain. The great pyramid-like monolith was called Deng by the Wopkaimin people. There was no other name to be found for it on our maps. This mountain dominated the nearer scenery of the valley in a rather sinister way.
I sometimes watched Deng for hours on end, for it was high atop Deng that the weather of Dokfuma was made. Some afternoons, warm currents would rise up its abrupt southern face. Within seconds, great swirling clouds, forming the most fantastical shapes, would materialise out of clear air. Often they would disappear just as suddenly, as the warm air crossed the summit, but at other times they would grow and engulf Dokfuma—sometimes for days—making work and helicopter landings impossible. Deng ruled our lives. At times, especially when it spawned fierce storms, it seemed as if Deng might even decide whether we lived or died.
One of the special delights of Dokfuma was its birds, for they were more abundant, fearless and glorious than I had ever seen before. The mountain Schefflera (relatives of the umbrella tree) were in flower and their fruit and nectar-filled flowers attracted birds in their hundreds.
Each morning, a male Splendid Astrapia in full plumage would display in an isolated Dacrycarpus tree behind our tent. While it sat still with the sun behind it, it looked like nothing more than a large, black, crow-like bird with a long tail and bill. But when it moved about, the brilliant iridescence of its feathers flashed red, blue and yellow in the sunshine.
One morning, in the upper montane forest, a male King of Saxony Bird of Paradise (Pteridophora alberti) flitted onto a thin branch hardly a metre above my head. Although only about the size of a mynah, the King of Saxony is one of the most bedazzling birds I have ever seen. Its yellow breast was the first thing to attract my eye, but its most striking feature is doubtless a pair of bright blue, enamel-like feathers, each at least forty centimetres long. These extraordinary structures sprout from each side of its brow. They are highly modified feathers and appear to consist of a series of small, enamel-blue flags strung on a pole.
I had only ever seen these striking feathers adorning a highlander's head-dress. There, they often form the centrepiece of a stunning feathered array, but on the living bird they are used to create an even more sublime effect. When at rest, the feathers lie along the bird's back, rather like a pair of long, curved pencils stuck behind the ears of a bank clerk. As the feathers are far longer than the body of the bird, they trail out behind when it flies.
This magnificent creature now let out a curiously insect-like call, rather like a malfunctioning piece of electrical equipment. I had heard this call countless times before, without catching sight of the creature which made it. Now I watched in astonishment as the bird began to bounce on its perch, spluttering and rattling as it went. Next it moved its long, antennae-like brow feathers forward over its head. Hesitatingly at first, it moved as if it were performing an acrobatic feat of extraordinary difficulty. The feathers waved gracefully forward, shimmering in the sunlight. Quickly they were retracted and the motion began again. This time the arc through which the feathers moved was wider, until the bird finally pointed them straight out in front of its body. In this posture the creature resembled nothing more than an impossibly large longicorn beetle with bright blue antennae.
I was, I am sure, as attentive to this wonderful display as any lovelorn female bird of paradise. Then, suddenly and al
l too soon, the most magical twenty seconds of my life were over. The bird flitted off through the moss-covered branches and was lost from view.
Obeying the call of nature often brings unexpected rewards in New Guinea. I have, for example, directed a golden arc onto a mossy mound, only to have an undescribed species of toadlet leap from the greenery. One morning during this trip I carried my shovel a considerable distance from the camp to the back of a small rise, around which grew a grove of gnarled Dacrycarpus trees. There I could contemplate nature in privacy.
I was fully absorbed in the beauty of my surroundings when I heard, near at hand, the same distinctive tinkling wingbeat I'd heard on the morning of arrival. Now, two large, velvet-black birds glided into the lower branches of a tree quite close to me. Slowly, they began to pick their way upward through the branches, eating small fruit as they went. When they reached the top they took off in a short, downward flight and landed in the tree adjacent to me. With the exception of the distinctive sound of their wings, they were largely silent.
Large orange patches were visible under their wings as they flew. Then they were so close that I could see clearly the fleshy, bright orange wattles the size of dollar coins wobbling comically behind their eyes. Here before me, unbelievably, was a pair of Macgregor's Bird of Paradise (Macgregoria pulchra), the rarest of all.
Macgregor's Bird of Paradise lives only on the summits of three of New Guinea's highest mountain ranges. There is a small population on the summit of Mt Albert Edward (although I failed to see them during my visit there). There is another in the Snow Mountains of Irian Jaya, while the third is found here in the Star Mountains. Each is clearly a relic population whose distribution has dwindled as habitat has shrunk since the last ice age.
As I watched these magnificent birds I was amazed they had survived at all, for they were so large and fearless that surely all of them should have ended up in a cooking pot long ago. Doubtless the remoteness of their remaining habitat has protected them from this fate.