Toraja: Misadventures of an Anthropologist in Sulawesi, Indonesia by Barley Nigel

Author:Barley, Nigel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789814423472
Publisher: Monsoon Books

Mountain Barnstormers

An early morning mist still hung about the valleys, lurking among the trees and undergrowth. Although it was barely light, one of the great tidal waves of schoolchildren was in full spate. They emerged from the thick bush on either side of the road, hugging their textbooks in anticipation of the duties of matrimony, and picked their way among the rocks that soon replaced any attempt at tarmac.

The bus bucked and heaved up a spiral path until suddenly we broke through the cloud and beneath us lay the boiling cauldron of Rantepao, wreathed in steam with range after range of hillpeaks stretching away as far as the eye and imagination could see. The tops glinted with the first dewy rays of the sun. ‘Wah!’ cried a voice as if from Heaven, ‘Beautiful.’ I extended my neck with difficulty out of the window and saw for the first time that the roof had been colonized. Two radiantly happy small children perched atop with the deep joy that deadly peril brings to the truly young.

After about an hour of buttock-wrenching progress, we paused. The driver turned round in his seat and grinned wickedly at me. ‘Nyonya Bambang,’ he said. It was hard to know what to make of that. The implication from the tone of voice was that this was going to be good. Nyonya is the term for a respectable married woman, while Bambang is a man’s name. The answer soon became clear.

There emerged from a nearby house a man of offensive cleanliness. He positively gleamed. Once again, I was transported back to school. This was teacher’s pet. Before mounting the seat beside the driver – which he assumed as his right – he dusted it off with a spotless handkerchief. He addressed me as being the only person worthy of his attention. ‘My name is Bambang. I am an architect from Jakarta.’ He extended a hand like a dead fish. Bambang refused my offer of a cigarette. Indeed he insisted the windows be opened to allow the smoke to dissipate. He passed me his visiting card and seemed put out that I had none of my own to offer in exchange. We went through the usual round of questions establishing professional and marital bona fides. He was here to visit relatives, he explained, and to study the traditional architecture of Torajaland. His tragedy was that he loved babies but hated children. The logical result of these principles, twelve children, drove him from the house until he was tempted to sire another one, which gave him a year or two of consolation but ultimately increased his discomfiture. This trip to visit relatives was one of many to escape his prodigious offspring.

The road became abruptly worse, or rather the driver seemed to be aiming for the potholes rather than avoiding them. Bambang began to look green and retch, dabbing at his mouth in a matronly fashion. The driver appeared immensely pleased and puffed smoke aggressively. Most of it went in Bambang’s face.

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