Читать книгу Indonesian Gold - Kerry B Collison - Страница 14

Jonathan Dau watched silently, observing the young child’s fascination with the spider’s clever weaving, the web drifting occasionally with the wind, as an insect struggled to escape the gossamer trap. The child raised a long, thin stalk, intent on teasing the captured prey and prodded the tiny grasshopper several times; annoyed when it failed to move. She then turned her attention to a column of ants, creating chaos within their ranks as she twirled the stalk amongst fallen leaves. She quickly lost interest with this game when a giant butterfly winged its way past in majestic fashion and settled, just out of reach. She rose slowly, enraptured by the kupu-kupu’s magnificence, the soft-beating wings casting their mesmerizing spell over the child and she cried out in delight, calling for anyone who might hear, to come and see.

Away from the forest’s edge, villagers toiled in dry fields, tilling the ladang in preparation for the rice seedlings. While younger children played, their older siblings, bent to the knee, assisted parents with the arduous task of turning soil and removing weed as the elderly looked on, reminiscing of more youthful times.

The child called again, startled when Jonathan Dau swept her off her feet and playfully tossed her into the air. She shrieked with surprise then, as the chief caught her midair, giggled with glee. Jonathan smothered her playfully, pretending to crush her to his powerful chest, gradually releasing his hold permitting the child to slip gently to the ground. Not wishing an end to the game, she refused to let go, winding her arms and legs around his ankles as a monkey would a pole. With strong, but loving hands, Jonathan tugged her loose, lifting her once again into the air, placing her astride his shoulders. The girl wrapped her arms around his head, her world from upon this perch reaching out and across the fields from where she had strayed. Jonathan’s graceful strides returned the child to her grateful mother, the unspoken words of gratitude delivered with a fleeting smile. No sooner had the girl been reunited with the group, she was off and running again with the other children, in pursuit of an overly inquisitive chicken that had strayed into their midst. Jonathan stepped back allowing the children room to run past, encouraging the lagging child as she ran breathless in her attempt to keep up with the others. Satisfied that the girl might now remain within safer confines the shaman returned to the Longhouse to attend to matters that required his attention as village-head.

****

Nestled amongst towering coconut palms, overlooking one of the many tributaries that flowed into the Mahakam, Jonathan’s Aoheng-Penehing community setting had not changed greatly since he was a child. Apart from the three-meter, parabolic dish mounted like some great saucer atop the water tower, and the cables running from the recently constructed generator block, the village remained much the same as it was when his great-grandfather had hunted clouded leopard along Bukit Batubrok’s slopes.

Jonathan’s forefathers had migrated in nomadic fashion, down from the mountainous northwest, Kayan River headwaters more than two hundred years before. These Kayan tribes, which included the Bahau, the Modang, the Long Gelat and Busang, had left the Apokayan, invading the upper Mahakam, displacing and, in some cases enslaving the original inhabitants, the Ot Danum and Tunjung people. A century of headhunting raids throughout Borneo’s east left a legacy of lingering hostility, the surviving ethnic groups never hesitant in declaring their loathing for each other, at any given opportunity.

Jonathan had been more fortunate than most. Born in the year the Japanese invaded Balikpapan, three hundred kilometers to the east, he was to be seven years of age before sighting another being that was not of Dayak blood.

****

Although it may have been considered unusual for a hereditary chief to simultaneously hold the highly respected position of chief and that of the spiritual dukun, commencing with Jonathan’s great-grandfather, the powers for both had been passed unbroken, from father to son. Even as a young child, Jonathan’s unique talents had become apparent, the special gift he had inherited being first manifested whilst he was still a child, and for all who witnessed the event, confirmation that Jonathan Dau was, indeed, a blessed phenomenon.

The incident had occurred when the villagers were fare-welling a young woman who had died during childbirth. In his role as dukun, or shaman, Jonathan’s father was not only the village healer and its priest, but also the psycho pomp responsible for the long and skillful prayers offered to accompany the deceased’s soul on its journey to the ‘other’ world. The village girl’s body had been prepared for burial, and final, protracted prayers were being offered when Jonathan approached the corpse, reached up and touched her lifeless body. Then he fell into a trancelike state, reciting the entire prayer sequence all over again, verbatim.

At that time, Jonathan was just five years of age and had never been instructed in such verse, nor had he previously attended a funeral. Elders, the village council and even his family were filled with awe when, suddenly, Jonathan extended his small hands sky-wards and became still, a loving smile settling across his lips as a black hornbill swooped down under the thatched shelter and landed, ominously, at the dead girl’s feet. Moments passed, the stunned villagers gripped in awe as Jonathan’s hand moved slowly towards the bird and stroked it ever so gently, before it took flight, carrying, they all believed, the deceased’s soul away. From that moment, Jonathan’s father commenced instructing his son in the ways of the ‘good’ or ‘white’ dukun, revealing the secrets that were passed down to him.

As the most important function of the ‘white’ shaman is healing, Jonathan remained at his father’s side when he ministered to the sick; accompanying his father into the jungle in search of ingredients required for potions and cures, becoming the chief’s small, but dedicated shadow. He observed, as nature surrendered her secrets during those excursions and listened, intently, whenever his father explained the magic of each wild herb he’d gathered, or the medicinal value of specific plants, roots and even wild, river lilies. He watched his father prepare salves, cast spells and exorcise the possessed; memorizing the appropriate chants, whilst remaining obediently solemn, or sitting in awe as his father described the techniques used by the ‘black’ or ‘evil’ dukuns.

Jonathan Dau learned that it would not be wise to underestimate the power of the much-sought-after ‘black’ dukuns, who for a fee, would cast spells and provide potions mixed with dried, menstrual blood or ear wax for the scorned and lovelorn, poisons for the covetous and ambitious and curses for any occasion.

****

Jonathan’s father had wisely determined that his gifted and only child would receive an outside education. In 1949 when news that the great Dayak nation had been absorbed into what was to be known as the Republic of Indonesia, Jonathan was transported, first by canoe, then diesel-driven riverboat to the river-port township of Samarinda where he was placed in the care of a Chinese family. Before the age of ten, Jonathan Dau was fluent in not only his own dialect, but could converse fluently in Malay-Indonesian and comprehend most of what transpired within the Chinese household. An avid reader by twelve, Jonathan excelled at the Catholic missionary-run school, his religious teachers delighted when he could quote chapter and verse from both Testaments in the Kitab Suci.

As a teenager, Jonathan was moved to the larger port city of Balikpapan, where he completed high school, curtailing the frequency of his home visits. It was there that the young Dayak’s first glimpse of an aircraft so captivated his imagination he became determined that, one day, he too would fly. As fate would have it, Indonesia’s founding president, Soekarno, in delivering his country to the communists, signed pacts with Ho Chi Minh, Mao Tse Tung and the Soviets, resulting in the Indonesian Armed Forces receiving massive military aid from Moscow. Soviet and Chinese aircraft were added to existing squadrons of American B-25s and 26s, P-51 Mustangs and Canadian Catalinas and, whilst the world’s attention was focused on what was happening across the short distance to Vietnam, Indonesia suddenly emerged as a most threatening power.

Jonathan was selected for pilot training. Upon graduation, he was sent to Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia along with scores of others to learn yet another language, and undertake conversion training on MiG aircraft.

When he returned to Indonesia, his country already boasted the third largest communist party in the world and was engaged in war with Malaysia, Singapore and, secretly, Australia. These were proud times for the Republic’s young pilots, the more fortunate assigned to fly the recently acquired, TU-16 long-range Soviet bombers. Jonathan was impressed with this huge aircraft, the USSR’s equivalent of the American B-52, which his comrades regularly flew from their airfields in Java, to points provocatively close to British Vulcan bomber bases in Singapore. Jonathan watched, proudly, as his country’s defense forces grew to threatening proportions, amassing half a million servicemen by the close of 1964, supported by an array of soviet tanks, missiles, warships and, by the close of that year, several squadrons of MiG fighters.

At twenty-three, Captain Jonathan Dau was posted to Number 14 Squadron, located at the Kemayoran Air Force Base in Jakarta where he flew MiG21s. Increasingly disillusioned with President Soekarno’s all-embracing, political philosophies, and his failure to make payments for the arsenal Moscow provided, the Soviets ceased supplying spare parts. Within six months, even with cannibalizing most of their aircraft inventory, all but four of AURI’s fighter fleet had been grounded, and Jonathan’s dream to remain airborne came crashing down. Across the nation, morale fell to an all-time low. In Borneo, Australian and British SAS successful deep-penetration operations across the Sarawak-Kalimantan borders, had brought the Indonesian Army to a standstill. British Vulcan bombers now flew regular missions over AURI bases threatening to drop atomic warheads on Indonesian cities in the event the Soviet supplied TU-16 bombers reappeared on RAF, Singapore or Darwin-based radar screens.

Bitter with the country’s rapidly deteriorating military position, one of Jonathan’s fellow MiG squadron pilots decided that Soekarno should be removed from the nation’s helm. The officer waited for his chance and, when a Palace informant phoned advising that the President would attend a formal reception that evening, the pilot climbed into his MiG and went charging into the capital. He flew south and around Kebayoran, along Jalan Jenderal Sudirman, the jet’s engine screaming above the Selamat Datang statue outside the Hotel Indonesia as he tore along Jalan Thamrin, before lining up on Merdeka Barat. With the Palace directly in his sights, he commenced firing his canons into the well-lit structure, and continued to do so until exhausting his ammunition. Inside, guests screamed and fell to highly-polished, marble floors, the MiG’s cannons piercing the former Dutch Governor’s colonial offices’ solid walls, showering diplomats and other dignitaries with debris and shattered chandeliers.

Unbeknown to the young officer, the President was not present when the attack was executed, Soekarno finding humor in the fist-sized holes throughout the Palace when he finally strutted into the reception, half an hour late, surviving what was to be the first of six assassination attempts on his charmed life.

The pilot returned to base where word of his transgression had yet to reach his fellow pilots’ ears but, when it did, each in turn was equally devastated by the news that their comrade had failed. Stigmatized by the assassination attempt, the squadron’s other pilots accepted that their careers would, undoubtedly, take an abrupt turn, and most resigned their commissions.

The following year, General Suharto successfully effected his own coup d’etat and turned Indonesia upside down. During the bloody aftermath, Suharto’s brutal co-conspirators, Sarwo Eddhie, Ali Murtopo and Amir Machmud specifically targeted the air force – the cleansing process implemented reducing the officer corps by more than eighty percent. The Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Omar Dhani, was arrested and tried, his replacement, the thirty-seven year old Rusmin Nuryadin who, the year before, had leaped from colonel to become the country’s youngest four star general, and Minister for Air. With a pro-West Suharto undertaking to not only rid the country of communism, but to also break off political ties with the Moscow and Beijing, Jonathan knew that his Soviet training would always be held against him and so, he too resigned, returning home to his Mahakam village, consumed with loathing for everything Javanese. The following year he married a girl selected by the elders and settled down within his own community to reinvent himself, delving once again into the mysteries of the Dayak Kaharingan, spiritualist world. When his father died, the mantel of chief passed, unopposed, to Jonathan.

Then, the first wave of Javanese trans-migrants arrived, backed by the might of the Indonesian Army. At first, Dayak communities had welcomed the increase in trade along the Mahakam River, and the employment opportunities created with the explosion of logging activity and the introduction of plywood factories. But, the Dayaks soon realized that they were not to be the final beneficiaries of the enormous wealth generated by Jakarta-sponsored logging operations, plantations and industrial timber estates. Dismayed, they watched as their rattan industry was monopolized, and angered to the point of rebellion when their land was arbitrarily assigned to foreign investors, without compensation. Bulldozers appeared in the most unlikely areas, stripping virgin forests, the giant meranti and ironwood trees hauled away to meet Java’s insatiable demand for construction materials, the cultural, social and environmental damage devastating in their effect. Where once there were cemeteries and sacred places, palm oil trees now flourished. Land was stripped and cleared, colonies of Javanese migrants taking root, their customs, language and religion abhorred by the many Dayak indigenous groups as a new era of colonialism, through capitalism, started to take shape.

Bloody confrontations, hidden from the International and domestic Press through severe censorship and well-rehearsed, intimidation tactics, resulted in the Javanese-dominated military rethinking its strategies in support of transmigration in the Kalimantan provinces. Department of Defense signaled that Suharto Family interests, and those of their close associates, were to be protected at all costs. Additional troops were sent to areas where vested interest groups were in open conflict with the traditional landowners, their orders to deal swiftly and firmly with the local inhabitants.

Jonathan had witnessed evidence of the brutal RPKAD’s Special Forces in action. Word had spread through the upper Mahakam reaches that an isolated village had been razed to the ground by army elements. When he arrived at the scene, Jonathan no longer harbored any doubts that the Dayak peoples were not only in grave danger of losing their land and culture to the Javanese, but their lives as well. Amongst the still-smoldering Longhouse embers he counted more than two hundred bodies, the majority belonging to children who had obeyed their parents pleas to remain hidden inside, when the soldiers came. The RPKAD Special Forces had surrounded the raised village in crescent formation and opened fire with their automatic weapons, their bullets easily ripping through the timber-clad dwellings, killing or wounding all within. Then they torched the dry, wooden structure, the cries of their victims ignored as thatched roofs ignited spontaneously under intense heat then imploded, destroying the entire complex within minutes.

****

Throughout the following two decades Jonathan Dau conducted his own, secret war against the Javanese. He never involved others in his deadly game; neither did he reveal the real purpose of the frequent excursions that took him away from the village, often for days at a time. Jonathan was cautiously selective in his targets, killing soldiers who had strayed or become lost in the jungle. His actions were entirely covert in nature and, although he enjoyed limited success, the weight of numbers and the constant threat of discovery, finally convinced him to cease what had become a futile action. Although the government’s repressive actions continued to fuel anti-Javanese sentiment and calls for a cessation to the transmigration process, the flood continued. Jonathan sadly accepted that the Dayak people would remain subjects of their new colonial masters, the Javanese, but he still prayed that the time would come when Borneo would be returned to its original inhabitants, and the Moslems all sent home.

This was to be Jonathan Dau’s impossible dream.

The chief understood that the main impediment towards building a Dayak nation was that the Kalimantan indigenes had never been unified. Borneo’s indigenous peoples were comprised of scores of tribes, whose varied cultures and dialects had placed them poles apart, some developing from a highly stratified society with classes of aristocrats, freemen and slaves, whilst others, such as the northern Ibans, enjoyed a more egalitarian society.

Political lines now divided the great island, with Malaysia and Brunei to the north, and Indonesian-held Kalimantan to the south. Jonathan accepted that in order for the Penehing-Dayak to survive they would have to be guaranteed their own land, the question of how to achieve this aim, forever foremost in his mind. His people were but few in number and, alone, armed but with the most primitive of weapons, the possibility of a successful military confrontation never entered his mind. A pragmatist, Jonathan believed that only with great wealth could the Penehing-Dayaks’ future be secured, his conundrum, the improbability of such a dream coming to fruition. He had thought of seeking outside help to have their lands declared part of some world heritage trust, abandoning the idea when he discovered that this might very well deliver his people even sooner into Jakarta’s brutal hands. Then he embarked on a mission to have the entire area given special status, similar to that of Jogyakarta and Greater, Metropolitan Jakarta, but without central government support, this too failed. When the entire island was divided into concession areas covering minerals, oil and gas, Jonathan accepted that even the great wealth that lay below the surface would never be theirs. Now, approaching his fiftieth year, Jonathan had not mellowed, the strength of his convictions still evident in his dealings with government officials – most of whom being Javanese, or their local lackeys.

When Jonathan was elected village head, out of respect, none of his fellow villagers had challenged Jonathan’s right to lead. Out of bloody-mindedness, the East Kalimantan Governor had issued instructions for the military to identify pro-Jakarta candidates from within the local, river communities to run against the powerful spiritualist, but these efforts failed, causing an embarrassing retreat by the Javanese-appointed official.

Jonathan Dau continued to dedicate much of his time to the welfare of the Penehing people, counseling, administering cures and complying with the many, bureaucratic requests that flowed unceasingly from the Governor’s office in Samarinda. He still ventured out into the relatively unknown forests, sometimes spending days alone on the slopes of Bukit Batubrok meditating, occasionally climbing the two-thousand-meter plateau in search of the evasive plants needed for his medicinal potions. On occasion, Jonathan would take one of the village children with him, teaching the child some of the rudiments of jungle lore. The Longhouse children competed for this privilege, their parents delighted to surrender their sons to his care, for their chief had no male heir of his own. And, the possibility that their child might be the one chosen to succeed Jonathan Dau was not lost on their number. Jonathan’s wife had never fully recovered from her debilitating liver disease, surrendering to her condition, finally, when their daughter, Angela, was barely three. Jonathan did not seek another mate – such was his sense of loss. Now, he was to be alone, again. Jonathan’s daughter, Angela, was to leave to attend the Institute of Technology in Bandung.

As the day for departure neared Jonathan became heavy of heart, the impending void her absence would undoubtedly create sent him aimlessly into the fields where village women bent tirelessly, preparing the ladang for planting, their pre-school age children playing in close proximity. There, he had observed a small girl wander off unnoticed, and had retrieved the child, returning her to a grateful mother before strolling back through the naturally protected river island, and the Longhouse. It was time to take his daughter, Angela, up into the mountains.

As Jonathan Dau approached his village, he passed between guardian figures strategically placed along all paths leading to the Longhouse, to deflect evil spirits that might bring sickness to the isolated community. These sentinels took the form of both human and animal shapes, many carved deliberately displaying grotesque eyes and teeth, to intimidate intruders, and repel malevolent spirits. In this land overlooked by modern civilizations, Gods and spirits continued to play important roles in Dayak societies – the rivers and forests revered as hosts to these.

Gargoyle-like images stared down from the thatched roof as Jonathan climbed the steps leading up to the timber structure, a communal village raised three meters above the ground and more than a hundred and fifty meters in length, held together by massive, ornately carved, wooden beams. The elongated building housed more than a hundred families, each living in their own, separate apartment, joined to their neighbors’ by a central, wooden corridor, which served as the village ‘street’. Jonathan’s family quarters, and unofficial office, lay centered amongst this maze adjacent to the community meeting room. The traditional ‘gallery’ that once housed the most sacred of artifacts and enemy skulls, relics of another time, lay discreetly hidden from any visitor’s view.

Jonathan made his way through the Longhouse, stopping briefly to converse with other men, most preoccupied with their own chores, whilst the women tended the fields. He entered his quarters and changed into more appropriate attire, then summoned his daughter, Angela, who had been waiting eagerly for the moment to arrive.

****

Angela’s constant companion, a two-year old orang-utan by the name of Yuh-Yuh, held her long, reddish-brown arms open wide demanding she be lifted.

‘No,Yuh-Yuh, not now!’

Rejected, Yuh-Yuh rolled on the wooden planked floor and clucked.

‘Best you leave her behind, this time,’ Jonathan recommended. ‘We must leave now.The first full moon will soon cross the horizon, chasing the sun’s tail through the sky.’

Angela understood. That month would both commence and close with full moons, auspicious signs, that could not be ignored. She called for a friend to restrain Yuh-Yuh until they were well out of sight then followed her father outside.

Angela had little difficulty in maintaining her father’s grueling pace as they followed familiar trails through the emerald rain forest. Since her mother died, Angela had been a frequent visitor to this magic realm and, under Jonathan Dau’s doting eyes and patient guidance she had learned to embrace this magnificent environment. As a child, she learned to share her father’s attention with other village children on outings, collecting wild honey, or in search of medicinal herbs, and never felt the need to compete – for Angela knew how deeply Jonathan Dau loved her and she understood that her father’s responsibilities demanded that he be fair.

Angela had excelled in her primary studies, the Longhouse schoolteacher incapable of accommodating the girl’s thirst for knowledge. Before the age of twelve, Angela had revisited every book in their meager library at least twice, and when she was not studying the written word, she dedicated hours listening to short-wave radio broadcasts, even when it was obvious that she did not understand the many languages that filled the air. Within time, she mastered the rudiments of English; her stilted attempts to communicate in that medium encouraged by her father, whose own knowledge of the language had remained reasonably intact. At fourteen, Angela was given even greater advantage over her peers when she was sent to further her studies in the provincial capital, Samarinda.

Angela’s attendance at high school provided her with access not only to the capital’s limited libraries, but an abundance of magazines and newspapers, which fed both the domestic and foreign readership base, resident in Samarinda. She learned to appreciate the extent of natural wealth that was being exploited across Dayak lands. She saw, first hand, the harvest from Dayak, traditional forests when these were seized and surrendered to powerful timber groups, the tens of thousands of huge rafts of precious timber creating unbelievable log jams along the Mahakam River. Her understanding of how the real world revolved became painfully apparent as she became increasingly aware of the Indonesia’s thuggish, ruling elite, and Jakarta-based tycoons who enriched themselves, at the Dayak population’s expense.

And, as Angela became older and more venturesome, so, too, did her horizons grow. She visited government offices under guise of seeking information for school projects, devouring material across a wide spectrum covering commerce, politics and the environment, her knowledge of social and ethnic issues profound, in her mind. She ventured into the city’s growing slums where young, Dayak women, many still in their early teens, wandered the squalid streets soliciting, and she was shocked that this could be so, concerned, even at her tender age, that she was looking through a window in her people’s future. By the time graduation arrived, Angela Dau had blossomed into a mature, intelligent, and very determined young woman, convinced that unless the Dayak people could achieve some semblance of autonomy within the near future, they were doomed. She returned to her village and appealed to her father for the opportunity to study at the Institute of Technology, in Bandung, arguing that it was imperative she advance her studies there – Jonathan, at first, uncertain that sending her to Java would be the correct choice. When the villagers learned of her wish they gathered to support Angela, pledging as a community to provide the funding to enable her to attend. Reluctantly, the chief finally agreed, insisting that his daughter remain under the care of an old friend in Bandung, his approval also conditional on the understanding that she undertake the shaman initiation ceremony before departing. Few amongst the Longhouse community had even considered that Jonathan Dau might be contemplating passing his mantle to Angela. Although there were some whose hopes were dashed when it became apparent that he would do so, none begrudged her right to succeed their chief, particularly as she had so clearly demonstrated that she had inherited at least some of her father’s powers.

With only two days remaining, Jonathan and Angela embarked on their demanding trek to the secluded, ancestral cave. Now, as she followed her father’s footsteps up the difficult terrain, Angela’s excitement grew, for this day she would realize her dream – the right of succession, a claim, which until that time, had only been granted to the male line in her family.

****

Angela followed her father’s footsteps as they ventured deeper and deeper into the virgin forest, stopping upon silent command to view long-tailed parakeets, or the occasional macaque gobbling leaves high in a canopy draped with creeping lianas and fern. They made their way through the jungle environment, as the land continued to rise. Five hours into their journey Jonathan finally stopped and pointed towards a rocky outcrop a few meters further up the slope. ‘We’ll enter through there.’

Angela squinted, unable to identify anything against the late afternoon sun’s rapidly fading light, and was virtually upon the natural, limestone caverns before the entrance became apparent.

‘Come, Angela, follow me.’ Responding to her father’s encouragement, she stepped inside, her eyes adjusting to the cavern’s dark and cold interior and her pulse rose, reminded that it was here, in this setting, where generations of shamans had conducted similar initiation rites, bestowing powers on an heir apparent.

Angela remained standing while Jonathan unpacked his haversack, the cave coming alive when he lit a circle of candles placed at the base of a heavily carved, altar-shaped rock. Stalactite-formed, candle flows attached to the rock evidenced past visits, Angela’s thoughts on those who had gone before her wondering if they, too, had been as apprehensive at what lay ahead. Her eyes wandered the cave’s irregular walls, curious as to which of her ancestors had been responsible for the art forms depicting forest creatures and game. Angela accepted that her ancestors originally came to earth from the Seventh Heaven, in the form of hornbills, and also believed that life was continuously controlled by the spirits of her ancestors, and that these spirits were often reincarnated in all living forms, such as deer, the beloved hornbill and even snakes and frogs – all of which were depicted here.

Deeper into the cave where the shadows fell darkest Angela detected a narrow passage. ‘Papa.Where does that lead to?’

Jonathan lifted one of the candles, level with his head, his features severe in the half-light. ‘You will learn what lies there, later. Come, kneel with me – we shall offer a prayer then go outside to wait for the moon to rise.’

She moved to his side where Jonathan sprinkled drops of fragrant water into her hands then his own, each touching their faces gently, in a gesture of cleansing. Then, together, they crouched before the stone altar to join in the familiar chant asking for divine protection, whilst expressing their gratitude to the spirits.

****

Father and daughter stood in harmonious awe as the moon reached the fullness of its white gold, nocturnal bloom, casting a spell across the verdant landscape, giving life to the soft layers of mist, blanketing rivers and valleys, far below.

‘It’s time.’ Jonathan’s voice brought Angela back from the hypnotic panorama.

Filled with a reassuring calm, she smiled peacefully. ‘I’m ready, Papa.’

The shaman took Angela and held her lovingly, by the shoulders. ‘You must always remember, my daughter, that your soul is your inner guide, and that you are a manifestation of your soul in the physical and material sense. During the indoctrination process, you will become aware of a powerful light, at which time your soul will disconnect from its physical form and take you to the Supreme Being. Do not fight against this light, but relax and merge with it. Do not be frightened – you will think that you are alone, but this will not be so.Your guardian will be at your side.’

‘Is that you, Papa?’

‘No,my child,your guardian,or spiritual guide was selected back in time,and takes the form of the hornbill. Once you are fully committed to the latihan trance, the scenes of your life will unfold and you will be transported through these images to places of extreme horror, as a test.The hornbill will carry you through safely. Do not be afraid.You are about to commence the most enlightening experience of your life.’

‘Thank you, Papa.’

Jonathan Dau’s arms dropped to his side. ‘Then we should proceed.’

Angela closed her eyes, drawing the crisp mountain air into her lungs, then followed her father slowly into the candle-lit cave where the ritual would be held. She knelt on her knees, head bowed and hands clasped together, senses heightened as flickering shadows danced against stone-carved walls and incense drifted through their sacred surrounds.

‘Are you ready, my daughter?’ And with Angela’s response, the shaman sprinkled sacred dust he had gathered, over her head.

‘Say as I say,’ he directed, shifting his role to that of dukun and the young woman obeyed, repeating the words her father articulated, the rhythmic hum of their mantra resonating throughout the chamber as the initiation process began, carrying both into trancelike state, through the door of the spirit world.

Angela floated, her mind filled with promise as she parted with her physical presence. Unburdened by weightlessness and enveloped by a climate of well being, Angela soared into the heavens through space and time until her spirit was touched by the Supreme Being and endowed with the powers of a Kaharingan dukun. Then, escorted by guardian spirits, she was taken to the holiest of shrines where her head was taken from her body and her eyes washed, so that she could see her own death – the process of being dismembered and born again. Angela witnessed her skeleton being dismantled with her flesh cut up into pieces and thrown to the four corners of the world, to be eaten by the demons of sickness, so she would know these diseases and have the power to combat them, her dismemberment strengthening the right to cure. When the spirits rebuilt her body one small bone was deliberately discarded, to reflect her human imperfection.

Finally, she fell, descending into the depths of hell where she came face to face with the master of the Deep Worlds, so she would recognize this challenger when confronted in future battles for the souls of the dead, in determining their final dwelling place. She summoned her inner strength and called upon her guardian, the divine bird spirit to carry her away from the evil abode, the giant hornbill answering her call, transporting Angela back to rejoin her earthly presence, as the initiation was done.

Angela returned from the induced state, accompanied by her father’s reassuring chants, filled with wonderment at the passage she had made – and the gift that had been bestowed upon her.

‘You have been blessed, my child,’ she heard Jonathan Dau say, ‘from this day on you will carry with you, the shaman’s secrets.’

She peered outside and, to her amazement, was greeted by the morning sun’s first rays spilling over distant crests, lighting the new day. Angela gazed up at her father and smiled, understanding now what it was that he saw, that others could not. And, in reverent gesture, she lifted his right hand to her lips, to thank him.

****

Angela had reminded her father of his promise to reveal what lay further into the cave. Now, part of her wished she had not, the reason for her taciturn behavior as they retraced their steps through the forest.

‘Even if your mother were alive, you could not reveal what lies here before you,’ Jonathan had warned her. Angela had been led through the naturally disguised passage, their way lit by hand-held candles as they advanced through the rocky corridor, twisting and turning for more than twenty meters, before entering yet another large, naturally formed cavern. Her father had turned and blocked her view as she entered the inner sanctum, reminding Angela that she was the first of her gender ever to set foot in this most sacred place. ‘Until the time arrives for you to initiate your own son or daughter, you may not reveal this location to any other.’ He had then stepped away and, holding burning candles high above his head, proudly revealed the gallery lined with skulls. Angela eyes absorbed the scene, struck by the enormity of what lay before her.

‘Are they…?’ Angela’s mouth became suddenly dry as her eyes darted along the rows of skulls, carefully arranged in some sort of order. ‘Are they… very old?’ she managed to ask.

‘Most,’ her father replied, approaching one fine fellow, whose skull enjoyed a place of pride, resting atop a pole. ‘This one was a white man,’ Angela detected a touch of mirth in her father’s voice, ‘but, you wouldn’t know it now!’

‘Who…?’ She struggled to ask, the Dayak chief coming to her aid.

‘Your great-great grandfather started this collection, and our family has maintained the practice, ever since.’

‘Headhunting?’ Angela’s voice was close to breaking.

‘Yes, almost as far back as time reaches,’ he answered solemnly. ‘Many of these were moved to this location when the Dutch missionaries commenced sweeping through our communities, seizing such trophies.’

‘Papa, please tell me. Have…have you…?’ the words spilled from her mouth. She dreaded his response.

‘When it’s been necessary, ’Gela,’ he said, unemotionally, using the diminutive form of her name.

‘Recently?’ she pressed, apprehensively.

‘When the situation demanded.’

‘But, why?’ she asked, unable to take her eyes off the staggering number of skulls, some of which were stacked in one corner, the pile more than a meter high.

‘Retribution, retaliation, revenge, honor, prestige…all of those things.’

‘But we’re almost in the Twenty-first Century!’

‘That won’t change the way men feel towards each other. People will continue to kill each other.The manner in which they extract satisfaction is of no consequence.’

‘Papa, do you intend to continue with this practice?’ she desperately wished to know, her shaky voice signally Jonathan that it was time to leave.

‘If I do, Angela, it will be ordained by the spirits.’ The mild reproof

was sufficient caution, Angela immediately recognizing that she had gone too far.

Confounded by his revelations, Angela knew then that she would never be able to look at her father again without wondering how many of the hollowed skeletal trophies had arrived there by his hand. Then, as they made their way back through the forest Angela gradually convinced herself that it was not her role to lament the perversity of her father and their ancestors’ acts – that, although her father’s display of the darker side of her heritage had been unsettling, he had shown that there would be no secrets between them and, for that, she should be grateful. The further they moved away from the mountain, the more relaxed Angela became with the discovery that her own father had hunted heads, troubled only by the question, would he do it again?

****

Jonathan Dau was in no way concerned with his daughter’s self-imposed silence as they retraced their steps through the dense forest. Angela was still young and had much to learn. He recalled his own reaction to the secret repository when he had been indoctrinated by his father and shown the inner cave. As this memory came to mind the shaman’s hand dropped to his waist, reassured when his fingers touched the golok’s carved handle, the machete handed down from his father. Jonathan knew that this weapon had accounted for a number of heads; his father had proudly imparted this knowledge on numerous occasions, during community gatherings in their village longhouse when ageing warriors boasted of their kills.

The Penehing villagers had kept their twenty-five year secret, the withered, white man’s skull never displayed openly. His father had removed the helicopter pilot’s head after the Bell clipped the forest’s treetops and crashed. Incredibly, the pilot had staggered away from the wreckage only to be slain by the Dayak chief who, along with the others in their isolated community, had never seen such an aircraft, let alone had one drop from the sky. Terrified, the village chief had bravely slain the white spirit, the decapitation evidence of the dukun’s power over evil. The story had not been embellished in any way, nor revealed to any outsiders for fear of reprisals.

As Jonathan’s generation had emerged and assumed leadership over the village community, with the exception of the occasional, isolated incident that inevitably arose because of territorial or intertribal disputes, headhunting had become a thing of the past; the stories cherished and passed down from father to son. The Penehing, Modang and other Dayak groups had been absorbed into the greater Republic of Indonesia, with many of their number accepting Christianity or the Kaharingan beliefs. And, without exception, Jonathan Dau’s community, all professed.

The shaman recalled a time when the presence of a European attracted great curiosity along the Mahakam’s upper reaches. The first to come were the fair haired Dutch explorers followed by missionaries, but their mark had not been felt until the delta communities commenced trading further upstream, bringing Western religions and cultures to the untamed hinterland. For centuries, accounts of cannibalism carried back to civilization discouraged visitors, leaving the greater part of plateau-dwelling communities without any real change until the quest for gold drove the more adventurous deeper into the mountains. When the Japanese occupied Borneo, even they had hesitated in venturing too far into the wild jungle and, of those who did, some remained for decades after the war had come to a close, without realizing that hostilities had ceased.

But now, Jonathan’s people, their land and culture were under threat with an increase of mining activity over recent years, the impact upon the downstream-Dayaks, devastating. His concerns had grown with reports of wild game, fish and, occasionally, humans dying from pollution associated with the foreign controlled, mining operations throughout East, Central and Southern Kalimantan. Recently, he had traveled downstream and witnessed the devastation brought to one community, where the streams were severely polluted with mercury, the water fouled forever as a result of unsupervised gold extraction.

Jonathan firmly believed that if the Dayak communities failed to form a common front to combat the spread of migrant settlements, then it would soon be too late, and they would be overrun by Madurese and Javanese settlers.

****

Angela Dau fought back the tears as she pulled away from her father, his powerful hands holding her firmly by the shoulders. ‘Thank you again, Papa,’ was all that was left to muster. The orang-utan at her feet knew, instinctively, that she was about to be abandoned, and wrapped her disproportionate arms around Angela’s thighs.

Jonathan shook her gently. ‘If your mother could only see you now…’

‘But, she can, Papa, she can.’ Stoically, Angela suppressed the threatening tide of tears.

‘Goodbye, ‘Gela.’ Everyone from the Longhouse had gathered to farewell the chief’s daughter. A chorus of children now spilled from the raised, wooden verandah overlooking the village jetty and called her name. Angela had left many times before, but that was only for schooling downriver in Samarinda. Now, she would be gone for an extended spell – and, to live amongst the Javanese.

For the women of this village, Angela’s success represented a major breakthrough, providing hope for others who wished to further their educations. Angela’s scholarship had been awarded based on political considerations, yet none harbored animosity in any form towards the intelligent, attractive young woman whose achievements were proudly perceived as a reflection on the entire female community. They expected that Angela Dau would be the first of their number to achieve a degree.

‘Send us photos,‘Gela!’ one teenager pleaded, then shrieked, turning to pinch her friend alongside for pushing.

‘Write, and tell us about the boys,’ another called, deliberately teasing the adolescent lads who idolized Angela.

‘Don’t fall in love over there!’ This, from one of her many admirers amongst the young village men, the hint of sarcasm lost in the moment. Angela looked up into her father’s misty eyes.

‘When we have re-installed the radio, you will be able to send messages via the provincial affairs office, in Samarinda,’ Jonathan reminded her and, for the umpteenth time, ‘so don’t forget to telephone us regularly.’

‘I won’t, Papa,’ she responded, looking around anxiously at the longboat as engines coughed into life, signaling the boatmen’s impatience. Water levels had dropped over recent weeks and they wished to cross the rapids while light permitted. Jonathan scowled at the men then released his grip and stepped back with the broadest smile he could stage.

‘Go,’ the chief ordered, ‘and make us even prouder than we are today.’ Angela kissed her father’s hand respectfully and turned before tears could flow. She stepped down from the raised boardwalk and with one final wave stepped into the longboat and settled down for the long, monotonous voyage to the provincial capital.

Jonathan Dau looked on in silence as the boat gained speed, the villagers still waving and shouting in festive mood until Angela disappeared from view. Then, he returned to his office where he slumped into his grandfather’s rattan chair, sighed heavily at the paperwork he’d neglected and attacked the pile of correspondence with forced enthusiasm. The Central Government was to implement yet another of Jakarta’s grandiose development schemes, designed to drag so-called primitive, tribal groups into their world. Questionnaires, directives, communications relating to the general plans had inundated his office over past weeks, Jonathan unwilling to address the outstanding correspondence, distracted by his daughter’s departure. He let the pen slide from between his fingers, clasped his head between his hands, leaned forward and stared vacantly into space.

Ageing black and white photographs of a younger Jonathan standing proudly amongst a group of graduating MiG pilots lined one wall of the leader’s inner sanctum, amidst these, a much-cherished portrait of Angela. His eyes locked with hers and he smiled, lovingly, the moment again filled his chest with pride. She had completed the dukun initiation ceremony – and he could now derive some comfort from the fact that she was now better prepared to go out into the world alone. Excluding any visits Jonathan might now make to Bandung, he accepted that it would be unlikely that he would see too much more of his daughter whilst she was away, studying. It had been difficult enough, he admitted, even when she had been placed downriver in Samarinda for her secondary schooling, and lodged with the same Chinese family that had cared for her father a generation before. Now she was to attend the Institute of Technology in Bandung, more than two thousand kilometers across the Java Sea.

Jonathan reflected on his own life at twenty-one, his forehead slowly creasing into a weathered-frown, the images of those times still seared into his consciousness. He closed his eyes and, inhaling deeply, shifted the imagery of those times, blanketing the past, permitting his mind to drift. With practised skill the dukun willed his body to relax, the tension dissipating effortlessly as taut muscles succumbed, transporting Jonathan to a floating, near comatose state.

Later that day, when Jonathan Dau informed senior members of his council that he would be absent for some days, the villagers understood – and went about their ways as the shaman trudged off into the jungle.

****

Angela arrived in Samarinda at the end of her third day, rested overnight, then proceeded to Balikpapan by minibus where she boarded a Garuda flight to Jakarta. Once in the nation’s bustling capital, Angela continued her long journey by train to Bandung, where she would commence her first year studying at the Institute of Technology, founding President Soekarno’s alma mater.

****