The
Tropical
Sun
Book One: Belief, Love & Hate
‘there is no fire like passion,
there is no shark like hatred’
by
J. S. Philippe
Text copyright © 2016 J.S. Philippe All Rights Reserved
Dedicated to my loving wife, Jhell,
& my amazing young son.
The Sun, the hearth of affection and life,
Pours burning love on the delighted earth,
And when you lie down in the valley, you can smell
How the earth is nubile and very full-blooded;
How its huge breast, heaved up by a soul,
Is, like God, made of love, and, like woman, of flesh,
And that it contains, big with sap and with sunlight,
The vast pullulation of all embryos,
And everything grows, and everything rises.
“Sun and Flesh” by Rimbaud (1854-1891)
This is a story of the sun and the flesh. In the tropical Pacific, the sun-drenched island of Sulawesi possessed rainforests and seas of exotic abundance and beauty. During the Bronze Age 2,500 years ago, the Malay and Javanese civilizations had both settled on the island. These were tribal peoples driven by emotion, sensuality, spiritual beliefs and the need to survive.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Book One: Belief, Love and Hate
1 Likupang
2 The Meeting
3 Hope and Yearning
4 Pantai
5 Bitung
6 The Visit
7 Worlds Apart
8 Trust and Distrust
Book Two: Commitment, Passion and Mayhem
9 Monsoon
10 Hot and Humid
11 Living life
12 Suspicion
13 Threat and Retaliation
14 Attack and Retribution
15 Bangka
16 Earth
Epilogue
Author’s Notes
Prologue
Throughout human history, our sun has been venerated as an eternal life force.
Depictions of the geography, climate and
natural environment are all true to life.
A map of the island of Sulawesi, sometimes called Celebes.
The Pacific island of Sulawesi straddles the equator.
Places in northern Sulawesi, and the two principal mountains.
Human settlements were mainly around the coast.
Stone heads
On the island of Sulawesi there are over 400 granite megaliths,
dating from 5,000 years ago.
Bronze weapons and implements
A ceremonial bronze axe head, found in Sulawesi,
dated at about 2,500 years ago.
Outrigger boats
A fishing boat, and fisherman, of Sulawesi.
The boat’s bercadik design has remained unchanged for thousands of years.
Houses under the tropical sun
For thousands of years houses have been built using
bamboo, coconut and nipa-leaves.
1 Likupang
Melati peered out through the narrow opening of the bamboo shutter.
“Listen,” she whispered.
The Likupang tribesmen had gathered late at night. The men sat hunched on logs beside the blazing fire, drinking, muttering and arguing amongst themselves. One of the men got up to chuck a few more dry coconut stalks on the fire which flared up, crackling and puffing out smoke that wafted across on the sea breeze.
“What do you think they’re talking about Mel?” asked Sukma.
The gathering was not close enough for the two young girls to overhear, and the ceaseless whistling rasp of crickets smothered the voices of the men. Melati studied the arm waving and gesticulations of the silhouettes in front of the flames.
“The boat I expect,” she replied, guessing.
“Always the boat,” moaned Sukma. “Don’t they talk about anything else?”
Beyond the fire, Melati could see the the pearly reflection of the full moon on the bay waters. At the bottom of the beach, the waves curled and crashed into surf, foaming white in the moonlight. She drew in a sigh, wishing they could be allowed outside.
“Sit down Mel.”
Melati looked down at the impish grin and bright eyes gazing up through silky black hair lifting in the breeze. Sukma twisted around and leapt off the bed to retrieve a sandalwood comb from the table, returning to crouch back down on the bed again, bouncing with energy.
“Suk - we should be asleep.”
“Go on - it’s my turn.”
“My mother won’t like it if she catches us with the shutter open,” fretted Melati, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
“It’s alright – don’t worry,” tutted Sukma, and she began to comb the thick black hair that flowed over Melati’s shoulders. “It’s cooler with the shutter open.”
Melati glanced around the room at the four amber-coloured walls of bamboo, the closed and bolted door, the two bamboo beds and the simple table at one end, all lit by the single beeswax candle in the clam shell. Her eyes lingered for a moment on the jasmine flower decoration until Sukma’s comb caught a knot.
“Careful!” she objected, squinting her eyes closed.
When her eyes opened again, they alighted on her best sarong, folded neatly in the net storage hammock hanging from the roof joists. She started to inspect how the joists were held up by coconut trunks, and how the nipa-leaf roof slats had been bound with rattan onto the bamboo rafters. She looked down at the floor and stirred her toes in the loose sand over the pebbles, deciding that it had been boring having the room all to herself.
“I like sharing with you,” she said.
“Me too,” said Sukma from behind, smiling as she parted Melati’s hair into three handfuls.
Melati flickered a smile under the shadow of her hair, and then she thought about all the coconut husks that had been beaten into fibres, ready for Suk and her to twist into twine and rope for the boat.
“The boat’s too big,” she grumbled. “We’ll have to make more twine tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, I’m going fishing,” Sukma announced with such certainty that it sounded like she could decide anything she wanted.
“Who’s going to take you?”
“I’ll find someone,” Sukma answered as she started to plait Melati’s hair
“Who will you try first?”
“Your brother.”
“Which one?”
“You know which one!” chided Sukma.
The voices outside changed their tone.
“Sshh Suk - The men are coming back!”
Melati hastily closed the shutter as quietly as she could. They pushed down the wooden bolts to secure it, and then jumped back on their own beds. Not long after, they heard the opening of the front door of the house, and then the steps outside the door to their room stopped for a few moments, before moving on to enter the next room. Across the space between the beds Melati saw Suk grinning, and she grinned back.
They listened to the muffled low voices from the next room, too subdued to make out the words. After it seemed that everything had gone quiet again, Sukma climbed off her bed and started furtively pulling up the wooden bolts of the shutter.
“Sshh - Don’t let them hear you.”
Melati climbed off her bed, and peeked out of the gaps in the side of the shutter as it was opened. She checked through the gap underneath, before helping Sukma to clip it again on the latches at the base. Two silhouettes remained beside the fire, but the others had left for their ho
uses.
Peering out of the other side of the shutter, they could see the flicker of candlelight through the gap under the nipa eaves of the nearby house; a shadow moved as someone inside walked in front of the candle. The house was close enough to hear the indistinct tones of conversation. Soon there was a soft muted giggle that carried across the space between the houses. Melati glanced at Sukma, who gave a tiny giggle of covert anticipation.
“What do you think they’re doing now Mel?”
This had happened nearly every night since her older brother Bandri and Sukma’s older sister Ayu had got married. Melati knew they hugged and kissed a lot, but these noises were more than kissing.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.
From the nearby house, faint sounds of creaking from the bamboo bed, chuckling and giggling filtered up over the eaves and down into the ears of the two girls. Whatever was happening in there could only be guessed at, and guessing was fun. The night was too enticing for sleeping.
“I think they’re splashing water.”
“They’re drinking.”
“That’s not drinking!”
“Sshh – Listen.”
They strained their hearing, separating the intriguing noises in the next house from the ardent neep-neep rasp of the crickets. The obscure sounds of rippling, giggling and creaking changed into more occasional, vaguely disturbing sounds of mumbling, deep breathing and moaning.
“Sounds like he’s hurting her?!” suggested Sukma.
“He would never do that!” rebuffed Melati, shocked at the notion. She knew how thoughtful her brother was. Indeed, her oldest brother always told him he was too soft!
“Ayu likes to tickle – she’s always tickling me,” said Sukma looking up, her pretty face flushed with agitated warmth. “If she’s tickling - he’ll try and stop her.”
Melati stifled her laughter, leaving a soft lilting snort. Sukma sniggered into a giggle.
“Sshh!” Melati grinned gleefully and tried to put a hand over Sukma’s mouth.
Now something different seemed to be happening, and the girls renewed their focus. The strange noises produced a puzzling excitement in Melati.
“What are they doing now?!” Sukma asked in a bemused tone.
The door to their room received three distinct taps. For a heartbeat, both of them froze with surprise, before reacting. Fumbling with the latches on the shutter they closed it and attempted to push down the bolts, rushing then to settle on their beds. Melati held her breath.
Another three taps and her mother’s voice, quiet but menacing, came from the door:
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes mother,” answered Melati, feigning sleepiness. “Sorry, I’m opening the door.”
She reached over from her prone position on the bed and slid back the single bolt, retreating back onto the bed, uncertain and terrified, as the door opened. For a moment the gust dimmed the candle, before it lit the figure of her mother standing in the doorway, her large bronze ear-rings catching the yellow light. The sarong she wore at night was knee-length, simple and practical. Melati could tell from her hair that she had just got out of bed.
Her mother stepped into the room, and continued straight to the shutter. She pushed it ajar and then pulled it back, muttering something under her breath as she pushed down the two thick wooden bolts; not content, she then hit down on the bolts with her fist. Turning around, she glowered at Melati.
“You know the shutter must be locked at night!” she scolded. “You’re the oldest!”
Melati instinctively curled into a foetal position on the bed. With one hand her mother lifted the hem of Melati’s sarong, exposing bare legs, before using the flat of her other hand to deliver a stinging slap to the back of a naked thigh. The sharpness of the pain made Melati bite her lip. She uttered no response.
Her mother did the same to Sukma, although with less force. Melati heard Sukma wince and stay quiet. Turning towards Melati again, her mother spoke with barely restrained anger:
“You don’t know what’s out there!”
With that, her mother snuffed out the candle with her fingers and departed back to her own bedroom, leaving the door open. Through the doorway Melati saw Harta sitting up on his couch, smirking, lit by another candle in the front room. Smarting from the humiliation, Melati poked her tongue out at her brother and quickly pulled the door shut again, bolting it. With tears running down her hot cheeks, she fell back on the bed, rubbing her thigh.
The room had dropped into darkness, but still she could make out shapes. Slivers of yellow light showed above a wall and under the door. Here and there, spots of moonlight seeped through the bamboo walling. The night and its sounds permeated the walls.
“It was my fault,” whimpered Sukma from her bed on the other side of the room. “I’m sorry.”
Melati looked towards her best friend’s shape, too chastised to move from her own bed.
“I love you Suk.”
“I love you Mel.”
Wiping away the tears, Melati lay on her back, looking up at the barely discernible underside of the roof. Closing her eyes, she made an effort of breathing through her nose - smelling the faint wisp of dying candle above the scent of jasmine. The house was quiet and now she picked up the slow pulse of the surf on the beach, beating amongst the crickets and nocturnal sounds of the forest; faint animal howling and screeching mingling into the dim cacophony of living noise.
“What were they doing Mel?” came a hushed whisper from the other side of the room.
“Sshh Suk – we must go to sleep.”
Her mind again pondered on what they had heard. Melati thought about her older sister Joyah, who grew a baby soon after getting married to Andhika. Sleepy now, she wondered if the sounds had something to do with making a baby.
Perched near the eaves, a male sunbird broke into his high-pitched song. Melati blinked her eyes open. She looked up at the gap above the wall where purple light gleamed into the room. Her eyes sought out Sukma, still asleep and stretched out, with long hair covering her face.
Languishing on her bed, Melati listened as brush turkeys, terns, parrots, bee-eaters and other birds transmuted the night sounds into the dawn chorus, drowning out the shimmering crickets. Then she heard the sound of the front door opening; her father usually got up first, even though he was often the last to bed.
Slipping back the bolt she opened the door a little, but closed it again as she heard her father come back into the house. He went into the other room where there was some conversation. Melati put her ear close to the slit beside her door. As her father opened the other door she caught the few earnest words from her mother:
“Wayan, we must stop them.”
“Yes, I know,” her father replied in a grave tone.
She wondered what her father would do. Maybe he would fix it so the shutter never opened. Melati couldn’t remember her father ever hitting her but she was afraid of his temper; it didn’t happen often, but he could get angry.
Returning from the tandas - ‘privacy’ room, she changed into her day-sarong, taking extra care this morning with the under-fabric. The rangkaian hantu - ‘red ghost’ had arrived. Melati was still learning that her body was obtaining a rhythm, like that of the moon. The red ghost made her anxious. It made her aware of how her body had changed, and this morning she wrapped her sarong trying to disguise the points of her new breasts.
Sukma stirred and her long eyelashes moved but remained closed; she rolled onto her side facing the wall, still unfettered by such concerns. Melati crouched down and touched Sukma’s hair, murmuring:
“It wasn’t your fault Suk.”
Tapping out the sand and any uninvited creatures, Melati pulled on her mocassin-like kasuts made from pig-skin, although often she went bare foot. Standing up she pushed the fallen hair off her face, and with dexterous fingers knotted some twine around it at the nape of her neck so that the long black tresses lay down her back.
She open
ed the door, walked through the front room past the still sleeping sprawl of her brother, and out to the porch. The morning air was cool and gentle on the skin. Melati could see that her father had already got the fire going in the covered kitchen beside their house, ready for her to prepare the early morning sarapan. From the hearth, smoke rose in a column to meet the slanting nipa-roofing and then travelled sideways until it found freedom. Melati’s gaze followed the smoke as it crawled lazily upwards. In the dark blue sky of the west there were two remaining stars but the moon had disappeared.
Standing in the porch, she listened to the frenetic excitement of the birdsong, building to a crescendo as if heralding the arrival of the Sun Spirit. Her eyes scanned the dark outlines of the islands at the entrance of the bay. Between them she could see the distant ocean horizon. At that moment it seemed to her as if Bangka Island was suspended; as if it was tethered by the thin line of the horizon between the darkness of the bay-waters and the brightening blue of the cloudless sky. She noticed that the peak of the island had already turned a warm green, touched first by the Sun Spirit.
In front of their village, the coral sand beach, dull white this early in the morning, stretched away to the left and right. Her oldest brother, Praba, was already up and about, doing something with a fishing boat at the edge of the surf. Taking in a breath of ocean air, she sighed, wondering at this moment whether Suk would be able to persuade someone to take her out fishing today.
She walked along the porch and into the kitchen where her father was sitting on a high bench, facing out towards the leafy thickness of the forest behind the village. His bare feet rested on a pile of coconut husks. He wore the usual knee-length kathok trousers and she could see the intricate whorling tattoo that covered his bare back. Her father seemed engrossed in thought as he meticulously wound the twine to bind a feathered flight onto an arrow shaft held between his knees.
Shifting his body, her father turned to look at her and smiled. Most usually he had a boyish grin in the mornings, despite his wrinkles. This youthful vigour usually shone through even though he had thick grey hair and a grey-flecked goatee beard that accentuated his longish face. He always told her the wrinkles were from work and laughter, but right now the wrinkles showed another reason. Something was wrong. He seemed worried, or more likely he was angry.
“Welcome to the morning, my beauty.”
He always said this. Melati always smiled and touched her forehead to the back of his lifted hand. Unexpectedly he kissed her, surprising her with the brush of his rough hairs on her cheek.
“Father,” she faltered, confused now since he didn’t seem angry with her. “I’m sorry father - it was my fault, not Suk’s.”
He looked at her intently for a moment or two before saying:
“The shutter?”
She nodded.
“Do you know why it has to be locked?”
“To stop snakes getting in.”
“Snakes – yes snakes,” said her father in a tone of sufferance. “I wish that was all.”
Melati wondered what he meant.
“Maybe scorpions?”
Her father didn’t reply immediately. She watched as he picked up the long bronze knife from the bench beside him and used it to trim the binding on the arrow. With a finger he checked the sharpness of the stone arrowhead before slipping the finished arrow into a quiver, which he then tied on his right side. The knife he pushed into a sheath which he then secured at his waist on the left side. She kept her eyes on him as he stood up; his lean body had a wiry strength, tall and darkly-tanned.
“You’re growing up now,” he said, looking down at her with raised eyebrows. “There are other animals you have to watch out for.”
“Crocodiles can’t climb in a shutter!” she declared. They were always told to watch out for marauding crocodiles that frequented the river and mangrove swamps; sometimes they walked up the beach and into the village.
Her father gave out a short laugh and for a moment or two his brown eyes twinkled.
“My beauty, I mean animals with two legs!” he said, hugging her.
Pressed up against her father’s tall body, she became self-conscious. Rarely did her father hug her like this - the hug felt strange. She put her hands on his waist to hold him away, but then just rested them there; he was muscular beneath his weathered skin and he smelt of smoked fish. Confused, she looked up into his face, studying his expression. What did he mean? What animals?
“We want - ,” he hesitated. “ – we want you to be safe.”
His eyes glazed over, becoming inscrutable as he released the hug.
“What animals, father?”
He averted his eyes from hers.
“This is a lovely fish,” he said, picking up a large seabass. Slitting the stomach with a sharp shell, he started to gut the fish in silence.
She was not a daughter to demand answers and recognised that for now the subject was closed. Melati prepared a fresh wild banana leaf, laying seaweed in the middle of the large glossy-green oval. Her father gave her the cleaned fish which she laid on the bed of seaweed. She wrapped the fish in the leaf, using coconut twine to bind it together.
“You know about the new village at Bahoi?” he said, standing beside her at the hearth. “You know the tribe is Javanese?”
She looked up at him, realising now that his animals were people.
“Yes, father.”
“They’re not Malay – they’re Java.”
She nodded.
“Their customs are different to ours.”
She looked at her father, trying to grasp his meaning. His eyes dropped as he picked up an old charred stick.
“You have to understand – we don’t know what they’re going to do.”
The manner in which he said this made her uneasy. He pushed the burning coconut husks around with the stick and then picked up the wrapped fish, laying it on top of the glowing hot embers. The green package started to smoke, sizzling slowly. Her father sighed as if he had made a decision.
“We don’t know what the Java tribesmen will do – we have to be careful!” he said emphatically, looking at her now with eyes that penetrated. “They could try to take you and Suk - they could steal you away through the shutter.”
Melati stared back at him, not wanting to imagine such a thing happening, or the reason why. Their eye contact held until he blinked and said in a softer tone:
“My beauty, it means that you and Suk must keep the shutter locked – do you understand?”
She kept staring at him, shocked at this revelation.
“Sehat?” – “Alright?” he prompted, his serious eyes holding her stare.
She was a daughter that obeyed her father.
“Yes father,” she mumbled, still shocked and now blinking as if sand had blown into her eyes. “I’m sorry father.”
“That’s alright then,” he said, and gently tugged the hair trailing down her back as if he was trying to reassure her. He turned away and picked up his bow that had been resting against the pile of coconut husks. “I’ll speak to your mother.”
Without looking back he went inside the house where she heard him say in a strident tone:
“Get up Harta! – Go and look after your sister in the kitchen.”
Melati brushed away a tell-tale tear with the back of her hand just before her brother swaggered into the kitchen in his usual dirty kathok. She turned her head away and focused on the smouldering package that her father had put on top of the embers.
“So you got it for having the shutter open,” her brother gloated. “I told you so!”
She ignored him and picked up the twisted old stick that lay by the hearth. He wasn’t going to make her cry, and she forced herself to concentrate on the task in hand. Holding the folded banana leaf she pushed and turned the charred end of the stick through the layers until it popped out of the other side. Putting the stick down, she picked up a discarded bamboo arrow shaft and poked it through the hole she had mad
e.
“Why do you always do that?!” asked her brother.
“It’s easier,” she answered without looking at him, happier that he had changed to another topic.
She thought proudly about how Dri had got the idea for making holes in the wood from her stick, but she wasn’t going to tell Harta that. She went through the same process again, and then lifted the smoking package just off the embers with the two bamboo shafts resting on stones either side of the fire. She stood up straight, turning to face her brother at last.
“Now it won’t burn!”
Standing opposite her, Harta shrugged his shoulders and grinned. One hand he put on top of her head and moved it across to his forehead.
“I’m taller than you now.”
“I don’t care,” she retorted, pushing his bare chest. “Move – I’m making the sarapan.”
He stepped back out of her way and she busied herself with scraping the soft flesh from the inside of a young coconut which her father had already split open.
“It’s easy to see you’re twins,” observed Sukma who had arrived in the kitchen a few moments ago. “But Hatty has got a bent nose.”
It was true. Ever since he had dived into that rock pool years ago Harta’s nose had a slight kink, but at least this feature did rescue his face from prettiness. Melati’s nose curved smoothly up and out. Otherwise, he had the same brown eyes and smooth oval-shaped face - as yet his face was free from stubble. Harta was more tanned than his sister, otherwise his skin was the same light brown. He had the same thick wavy black hair, although he wore it shorter - somewhere around his ears which protruded a little. His mouth had soft brown lips and regular white teeth, like his sister’s.
“I don’t want to look like a girl!”
Harta’s gentle mouth changed into a scowl as he jumped up with both hands to grab hold of the joist above his head. Lifting his feet clear of the bench he landed on the other side. The letting go of the bamboo joist made the wooden frame of the kitchen vibrate, shaking loose a few dry nipa leaves which fluttered down.
The girls looked on as Harta picked up an earthenware pot, prised the lid off and stuck a finger into the honey. Sucking his finger clean of the golden syrup he flashed a smug grin at them.
“Use this!” Melati interjected, throwing a bamboo utensil at him.
Catching it with his free hand, Harta countered:
“Thank you twin!”
Holding the pot against his chest, he turned his back on her and looked out towards the forest trees and the dense simmering jungle beyond.
The Sun Spirit burst over the low hills to the east and all the colours exploded. In the dazzling sunlight, the bay spread out into a glittering expanse of turquoise and azure tints. Beside the brightness of the white beach, coconut palms stood tall with emerald sprays of long feathered leaves and russet-orange clusters of nuts at their centre. The crowded shadows of the jungle became a multitude of vibrant hues, greens, browns, reds and yellows. And all around sounded the clamour of life. The ordinary violence of the tropical dawn had brought with it a sharp clarity and the early prospect of heat.
Melati turned to see her mother coming into the kitchen. She had pushed her greying hair up into a bunch; her day-sarong was similar to the one she wore at night, except batik decorated in dark blue and red patterns of the Life Spirits.
Feeling the urge to repent for last night, without speaking Melati threw her arms around her mother’s waist, leaning her head against her mother’s shoulder. She felt the heavy bronze ear-rings clunk against her temple and wondered afresh how her mother managed to wear them all the time. Raising her head Melati could see up close how her mother’s earlobes had been stretched over the years, and found herself feeling grateful that bronze was now too precious to be made into ornaments.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling her head back to kiss her mother on the cheek. “We will keep the shutter closed at night – I promise.”
Her mother’s dark eyes with their black eyebrows looked into her own. Her eyes seemed to be sorrowful now although Melati was often unsure of her mother’s feelings; her mother kept many things to herself. Returning the hug, her mother nodded and smiled back. Then she looked at the other two and smiled absently, as if lost in her own thoughts.
Harta put the honey pot down on the bench, and then came to his mother. Bending his shoulders down, he picked up her hand and touched it to his forehead while she placed her lips fleetingly on the top of his head.
Her father joined them, now appearing to be in his usual convivial mood.
“Children, remember to be thankful,” he prompted.
He knelt on one knee facing the rising sun, the others doing likewise. Melati waited for her father to speak before closing her eyes.
“Mengalu-alukan Semangat lahir dari Ibu Bumi.” - “Welcome our Spirit born from Mother Earth,” he murmured.
This was a familiar routine, but this morning Melati reflected on the idea of the Sun Spirit being born. She thought about babies when they were born and how small they were.
As the family ate their sarapan at the table in the porch she asked:
“Father, I want to know about the Sun Spirit?”
Her father stopped eating.
“Ya, sudah tentu.” - “Yes, of course.”
Everyone waited for the question and Melati hesitated.
“Why, I mean how - How does the Sun Spirit get born?”
He raised his eyebrows and paused, pulling out a fish bone from between his lips as he prepared the answer.
“We are in the dry season now,” he began. “Today the sun will be very hot. She will rule the sky today, but soon will come the wet season when the heavy rains will water the earth and all the plants to give everything life.”
He waited until Melati and the others showed acknowledgement, with a customary small nod of the head.
“With the water Mother Earth will be bountiful, but always above the clouds there is our Spirit who looks down on us all. So there is always the Sun Spirit who is the Mother Spirit, and then there is the Moon who is the Father Spirit. Mother Earth and Father Water are the Life Spirits and they breathe life into all the other spirits who are born into the world.. And in the mornings the Sun Spirit is born from Mother Earth,” he explained. “The Malay have handed down this knowledge from mouth to ear, from one generation to the next.”
“The Sun Spirit is not being born like you or your brother,” said her mother, who then looked at her husband. “It has a different meaning, doesn’t it Wayan?”
“Yes, Endah,” he said.
Melati saw the exchange of glances between her parents.
“Your mother is correct - it’s different... The spirits of the plants and animals live for a reason, but we do not always know why. But in some way they all depend on each other and we depend on them. All the different birds and all the other creatures need the forest’s plants in some way, and so all of these spirits need Mother Earth from where every spirit gets born - and so we say that our Sun Spirit is being born every morning.”
Melati imagined again the sun being born like a little baby, and realised her error. She looked at Sukma who was blinking her eyelids. Harta scratched his nose.
“It takes time to understand,” her father said. “Bandri understands well.”
The girls both smiled at Bandri’s name. Harta rolled his eyes up under their lids.
“Harta – be careful,” warned her mother.
“Father, Bandy is still in bed,” said her brother.
Her father slapped his hand down on the table, making it clatter.
“You have not earned the right to talk that way!”
Melati froze and the others didn’t move either, mindful of how quickly his anger could be sparked. He glared at her brother who dropped his eyes respectfully.
“When you join the men and receive the mark of the Spirits on your back it will be different,” her father said in a steadier tone. “But then you face the judgement of
the others!”
The two girls looked after a pet civet, a furry cat-like animal. Musang was a male civet cat with black and grey markings; they had kept him since he was a kitten. In the mornings one of their first occupations was to feed Musang. The civet cat jumped up into the girl’s arms whenever they offered him wild bananas, which were his favourite treat. Musang’s cage was built on the shady side of Wayan’s house, in the centre of the small village of six houses and assorted other wooden structures. The cage was where the girls liked to chat together while they played with their pet and cleaned out his bedding.
Melati sang quietly to Musang as she crouched on the floor with the civet cat on her lap. She was thinking about whether she should say to Suk what her father had told her, but she didn’t want to scare her young friend. Maybe she should talk to Ayu and Joyah first?
“There’s your brother,” Sukma announced, peeking through the small square holes in the walls of the bamboo cage.
Bandri had finally emerged from the neighbouring house and was striding towards the river. The brilliant orb of the sun had just cleared the horizon, but this was considered a late start to the day; it was coolest early in the morning.
“I’ll ask him now,” Sukma added with happy determination implanted on her sweet features. She opened the cage door and ducked out, leaving Melati to follow and tie the door shut behind them.
“You two like hiding in there!” the young man remarked, turning to smile down at the girls who walked beside him.
“Dri,” Sukma said, using his soft name. “It’s going to be lovely day – if we can go fishing?”
“I expect it will be,” he answered with a knowing rise of the eyebrows.
He glanced at Melati who smiled her understanding. In the bright morning sunlight she could see the tiny flecks of green in the brown of her brother’s eyes – it made them captivating. She always wondered why no-one else in her family had green in their eyes. Suk often reminded her of how handsome he was, but Melati saw him as just her brother, with special eyes.
“You should ask your father first,” she suggested, knowing that the tribe would consider it unseemly for her brother to go fishing with the younger sister of his wife unless Suk’s father or brother also went. There were expectations and customs.
“Alright,” said Sukma, skipping to keep up. “I’ll ask if we can go fishing - all four of us should go fishing!”
He burst into an affable chuckle and jested:
“You’re too clever for me!”
Bandri and the girls stopped outside Agung’s work shed, where Sukma’s older brother was hard at work. His unkempt long hair half-obscured his brooding features as he concentrated on the task in hand, apparently oblivious to his visitors.
“Just watch,” Bandri whispered to the girls.
The three of them stepped up onto the compacted stone and sand floor of the work shed. All the other houses in the village also had floors and porches which were raised above the surrounding ground by piling up pebbles and sand - in this way they kept dry in the rainy season.
Agung had already carved out the knife blade from fine-grained hardwood and rubbed it smooth. They watched as his large strong hands painstakingly pressed this model into a bed of fine, compressed, damp sand, which had been sprinkled with finely-ground, sun-bleached coral. He then looked up briefly, acknowledging their presence with a simple welcome:
“Pagi.” – “Morning.”
Tossing his hair aside with a shake of his head, Agung gave them an awkward grin and then continued his work. Bandri and the two girls stepped further into the work shed which was open on one side. The other three walls had lengths of wood and bronze-making equipment stacked up against them, save for the single door into Agung’s house which was built almost as an afterthought beside the work shed.
“Have we got enough ore?” Bandri asked, picking up a green-tinted rock from the small pile on the floor.
“Biasanya tidak.” - “Not usually,” Agung grunted.
Bandri chuckled a little, and then asked:
“Can they watch?”
Melati felt her face become hot and she gazed down at the ground, knowing that Agung would look in her direction. He spoke so little and she could never look at him directly. He wasn’t ugly but he was enormous and unwashed. Agung frightened her.
The consent appeared to have been given, and Bandri started to give them an explanation of the process as he helped Agung prepare the mould. Although the girls had not expected a lesson in bronze-making, they perched on a pile of wood in the shade of the work shed.
“It’s a change from making twine,” Melati whispered in Sukma’s ear.
“And we’ll go fishing later Mel – you’ll see.”
Smiling, Melati turned back to watch their brothers who were busy adding more charcoal to the fire that had been burning in a big stone hearth. On both their backs, over the left shoulder blades, they bore their manhood markings of their Mother and Life spirits. Melati tilted her head as she thought about the ornate design showing a part circle emerging from waves representing the seas, rivers, the rains and the blood within us. As their brothers worked her mind wandered; she thought about why her father and Suk’s father had much bigger tattoos; Melati had been told by her father that he had come from a tribe called Kima - although she had never seen the Kima tribe herself. Then she started thinking again about the sun being born, and babies.
“Feel this,” said her brother, interrupting her day dream. He put some white powder in their hands which felt dry and slippery between the fingers. “It stops the sand sticking to the metal.”
“What is it?” asked Sukma, beaming at Bandri.
“Coral that’s been ground into dust.”
Agung was sprinkling the dust onto the model knife, and then he added some thin bamboo strips for sprue channels. Melati watched as the big man focused on fastidiously manipulating the tiny strips of bamboo. As he bent over she could see the powerful muscles flex in his back and legs. Even though he was Suk’s brother, Melati was astonished that he could be this gentle when he was also so intimidating.
The two young men picked up a rectangular wooden frame which they placed over the container with the model knife. Fascinated, she watched as they sprinkled on more coral dust, and then added more damp sand on top to fill the wooden frame. Agung tamped the sand down hard with a mallet, until flat and level with the top edge of the frame, and then they fitted a wooden cover on top.
“This is the tricky bit,” explained Bandri as Melati now paid full attention. “We have to get the mould open and take out the wood knife and bamboo strips to leave empty spaces - the gaps will let the air escape when the hot metal is poured into the mould. Then we have to put the mould back together again without breaking it.”
The girls looked on as their brothers worked as a team, clamping the two halves together again with extreme care, and then standing the entire mould on end. Now the hole at the top was ready to receive the molten metal, which, as her brother explained, would end up being the shaft for the knife handle.
Bandri added more charcoal to the fire while Agung pumped vigorously using a bellows arrangement. It made the fire burn so fiercely hot that the green-tinted ore started to smelt into a molten copper alloy in the granite crucible. The temperature in the work shed had risen considerably and both girls drank water from a large container that Agung had filled earlier from the stream behind the village. Melati loosened the top of her sarong and brushed away the perspiration from her face.
“That’s the melted bronze,” her brother said eventually with a triumphant flourish, as he scraped off the slag on the top of the crucible. “Have a look.”
Melati felt the incredible heat hit her face as she looked over at the bright yellow contents. The girls stepped back as Agung picked up the heavy crucible with a pair of tongs, and poured the lava-like liquid into the mould while Bandri guided the melt as it disappeared into the hole. The whole thing seemed to spark into flames, throw
ing a radiant golden glow over the working men.
“Let’s hope that will be a good one!” gasped Bandri. Both men had perspiration dripping from their torsos. Bandri wiped the running beads of sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm, exclaiming “It makes you very thirsty!”
The two men drank copiously and poured shell-fulls of fresh cold water over their heads and sweating bodies. They both wore loose fitting kathoks which left their chests and lower legs bare. As they raised their arms to throw water over themselves, the toned young muscles in their arms were exercised. Melati eyes flitted over the large shining smooth muscles moving on Agung’s chest and rippling abdomen, before quickly averting her gaze. As she turned away, she saw her friend’s eyes glinting.
“Your brother’s got hard muscles,” whispered Sukma in her ear.
Melati blushed in embarrassment - she hadn’t been looking at her own brother. Turning away from Sukma she faced Bandri, trying to ignore Sukma pinching her from behind. Suk’s pinches didn’t hurt but she always chose the worse times to do it.
“When will it be ready?” she asked, as Sukma sniggered behind her.
“When it goes hard,” he said with sparkling eyes.
Sensing some joke but not understanding it, Melati felt her face burn hotter as Sukma went into a fit of giggles.
“Is that when it becomes bronze?” she asked seeking clarification, pushing Suk’s hand away behind her back. Sukma pinched her again, giggling behind her. Melati’s face and body burned hotter still and she looked at the floor.
“When it cools down,” she heard him answer with a chuckle.
“And then you get a knife?” she asked, looking up at her brother again and trying to understand.
He nodded and smiled, looking at her with sympathetic eyes. She smiled back.
“We take the mould apart when it’s cold,” he added for her benefit, even as Sukma carried on giggling. “Sometimes it doesn’t work and we have to melt it again.”
Just then, Melati realised that Agung was watching her and she stopped smiling in the panic of discovery. A chill ran through her. In that moment, she saw the faint scar that marred his left eyebrow and the light brown eyes that had fixed on her. She thought he was going to smile, but instead he turned away and picked up two pieces of wood.
“A handle,” he said factually and handed them to her brother.
Bandri gave them to her - they were heavy and hard. She looked down at them, turning the carved mangrove wood halves over in her hands, before passing them on to Suk. When she looked up she saw that Agung had just left the work shed, disappearing into his house through the door. She breathed again, feeling her temperature begin to cool down.
“The cast bronze will need some scraping clean, and then the handle is bound onto the shaft,” said her brother, showing them how the halves fitted together. “The blade needs polishing and sharpening.”
The engaging care with which her brother had explained all this was in such contrast to the almost cold-hearted detachment of Suk’s brother. Bandri was so articulate whereas Agung hardly said a word. Although everybody knew each other in their small tribe, sometimes Melati couldn’t understand why these two got on with each other so well.
Leaving the shaded heat of the work shed, the two girls walked the short distance to Rukma’s house to ask about fishing. Deep in chatter, the two girls ambled past the children playing and their mothers doing household chores.
“It was wonderful, wasn’t it?” enthused Melati. “I mean it was really clever what they did.”
“I could do that – if I had muscles!” said Sukma, giving a humorous imitation of manly strength, prompting Melati to poke out her tongue in a flippant gesture.
“Suk, why does your brother not say much?”
Disregarding the question, Sukma stuck out her own mocking tongue and re-focused on her mission for the day.
“There’s father,” she bubbled. “I’ll ask him now.”
Rukma was on one knee in the shade of his porch, pulling down hard on a shaft of wood, flexing it. On his back Melati could see the large tattoo similiar to the one on her father’s back. When she drew closer she could see that Rukma was making a big bow – it was longer than she was tall. She could see the carvings in the marbled-red wood of the shaft and the notches at the top and bottom readily to receive the bowstring. Sukma’s father was always carving something; he had given Melati another bamboo whistle yesterday, to add to the other three - each one gave a different note.
“Father,” started Sukma. “We want to help with fishing today.”
Melati smiled as she watched his expression change from concentration into amusement. His craggy face with its sparse beard and curly hair, undecided on its colour, seemed shambolic and on his chest sprouted masses of grey hair. He stood up straight, a gentle giant of a man. He was as big as Sukma’s brother, but much older and reassuring, and funny.
“What are you fishing for?” His deep voice had a tantalising timbre.
Rukma looked over the top of his young daughter and grinned at Melati. His teeth were crooked and his expression conspiratorial, as if he was sharing a joke with Melati without letting Sukma in on it. He blinked his eyes a few times and Melati chuckled.
“Fish! – lots of fish!” answered Sukma earnestly.
“Aaahh!” he exclaimed between his teeth, and looked out from the shade of the porch across the bay. Melati followed his gaze out across the crisp white beach and the deep-turquoise bay towards the islands. So transparent was the air that it might have vanished altogether and she could see individual trees on the distant islands. On such an astounding day the bay was breathtakingly beautiful. Beyond the breaking waves, a flock of squawking sea birds swirled and plunged like falling arrows into a shoal of fish.
“Aaahh - Too hot now,” he tutted, shaking his head. Melati thought that he must have taught his daughter how to ‘tut’. “Too hot - Too hot to sit out there in a boat.”
Most of the morning had passed and the sun glared down from high in the sky. There seemed to be light everywhere as Melati looked around. The brightly-lit sandy ground was punctuated by sharp shadows cast below every coconut palm. With almost no wind, the ground and everything the sun fell on to seared with heat. By now the height of the tropical sun had given this heaving heat a momentum, becoming a blow that needed to be ducked.
“Kemudian maka – sila.” - “Later then – please.” Sukma’s hug and emphasis on the last word did the trick.
“Later - later Suky daughter,” Rukma conceded, smiling down and stroking her hair as she beamed up at her father.
“This is narra wood,” he told them, changing the subject as he hefted the bow shaft in one hand while resting the other large hand lightly on his daughter’s slim shoulder. He put the bow shaft down and then picked up a twine-like length which he draped over Melati’s palm. “And do you know what this is?”
It was brown and bendy, but it wasn’t coconut twine. She shook her head with a grin, wondering what he was going to say.
“From a crocodile tail,” he said. “Where the meat joins the bone.”
Melati cringed and chucked the salt-cured sinew at Sukma, who pulled it off her free shoulder and lifted it to her nose to smell.
“Jahat!” - “Nasty!” Melati screamed with exaggerated disgust.
Rukma broke into a raucous laugh.
“But good for a bow,” he said, wiping his eyes with mirth.
Rukma’s wife, Kasuma had appeared in the doorway onto the porch. Witnessing the exchange, she chuckled to herself before announcing:
“We have prepared a spread of fruits and honey - just for the women.”
The last phrase made it sound special, and Melati wondered why Rukma was excluded.
“You can come too,” she said, smiling her welcome up at Suk’s father.
“Oh no, not for me!” he laughed, brandishing his partly made bow. “I’m busy here!”
The girls were surprised to see the low circu
lar table that was set in the middle of the room. Melati knew the table had been made by Rukma using coils of rattan, but the table itself had now been decorated with sprays of flowers and a collection of fruits: bananas, rambutans and lychee in a sandalwood bowl. There were bamboo mugs with vessels of water or maybe fruit-juice. And in the middle of the table was a pot of honey – Melati recognised the earthenware pot from their kitchen. But the most unusual thing, Melati noticed, was that the sandy floor had been swept into a pattern with concentric circles around the table.
After taking in all this, Melati looked at her mother. Endah was quietly sitting on the floor behind the table, looking austere and thoughtful.
“This is our time,” Kasuma told them as she closed the door. “It’s for us to talk together.”
The girls glanced uncertainly at each other.
“What’s it for?” mumbled Sukma.
The two shutters were already closed, but instead of being dark the room was lit by sunlight spilling through the gaps above the walls and also by the two beeswax candles on the table.
“This is where you sit, Mel,” said Kasuma. “And this is where you sit, my daughter.”
The girls sat obediently on the floor, looking at each other across the top of the table with its bountiful display. Kasuma crouched on the floor opposite Endah.
“Don’t look so sad,” declared Kasuma. “This is a happy time.”
Melati smiled at her mother who smiled back with reassurance. Melati wondered what all the mystery was about and looked at Suk who now had a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
“Our Sun Spirit and Mother Earth give us all these things,” Kasuma said reverently. “We should be quiet now and be thankful.”
Avoiding Suk’s expression, Melati looked at their mothers in the candlelight. Only now did she see that they both wore their best sarongs, and had combed and decorated their hair with care. She thought that the soft light made them look younger.
Kasuma had a stocky frame and strong face, but gentle eyes. Melati thought of her as a quiet woman, calm and thoughtful, always there making meals for people. If she wasn’t making meals she seemed to be making clothes or decorations. Melati decided that this spread of honey and fruit must be her work.
“You are both growing to be women one day,” began Kasuma. “So today we must talk about these things - between mothers and daughters.”
There was a long pause and then Endah spoke.
“We can tell you how babies come into the world,” she said with an unusually steady voice. As if reading Melati’s mind she added “Not about the Sun Spirit.”
Melati gazed at her mother and realized that this meeting was something both their mothers had arranged. Her mother looked back, blinking as if to acknowledge it.
“This is about how you both came into the world,” Kasuma continued. “How everybody comes into the world.”
“Because you have a baby from here!” Sukma announced confidently, pointing at her stomach. “We saw them grow in Joyah and Puteri.”
“That’s right,” said Kasuma brightly. “And you know they are born between the legs.”
Melati was doubtful about how this could happen. Babies were small but looked too big to be born between the legs.
“There’s a little place between every woman’s legs, but it can get big enough for a baby to come out,” elaborated Kasuma. “You both have a little place between your legs.”
Melati knew the place she was talking about. That was where the red ghost came from, and suddenly it made sense. So that’s what it was for!
“Where I go to the..?!” asked Sukma, gesturing her amazement.
Melati tried not to laugh, but Sukma saw her and protested.
“So you don’t know either!”
“That’s alright,” Kasuma reassured her. “I didn’t know when I was a girl.”
“So where is it?” asked Sukma indignantly.
“It’s the place in the middle,” responded her mother simply.
Sukma went thoughtfully quiet for a moment and looked down at the floor. Then she looked up at Melati and smiled defiantly.
Kasuma looked at Sukma, and then at Melati.
“So that’s alright then – you know where I mean.”
Melati nodded.
“Good – but you need to know how the baby gets inside your belly.”
The notion of the baby getting inside her belly sent a shiver down Melati’s spine, even though she guessed the baby would be very small when it went inside. But she had thought about this problem before, and she wanted to know the answer.
“How?” she asked. “I mean how does the baby get there?”
They picked up the fruit as they talked. They peeled and ate the fruit, and dribbled the fruit with the runny honey of wild bees. During their long time together, the four of them discussed many things until the girls had become fully aware of the role of women in the tribe.
Later, Kasuma brought in a bowl of boiled shellfish. They stayed together inside the shaded room, eating, talking and sewing, until the mid-day heat had dissipated.
By mid-afternoon, the girls felt brave enough to venture outside. Rukma was sitting on the porch, almost asleep with his legs propped over a log. He turned his head as Sukma opened the door. Standing behind Sukma, Melati felt awkward knowing what she knew now, and lowered her eyes to the floor.
“Shall we go fishing then?” he asked blithely.
Sukma hesitated, as if she had forgotten all about it.
“Yes father,” she answered, unable just now to look him in the face.
“I told you we would go fishing!” said Sukma with a satisfied grin.
Melati grinned back at her as she donned the fishing hat; the conical broad-brimmed hats were made from nipa leaves to shield their faces from the glare. The sun was lower in the sky now, bright but not so hot. Over their shoulders and arms they had pulled on loose fitting fisherman’s garb to ward off sunburn.
Rukma and Wayan prepared two boats on the sloping beach. Fishing gear and bait had been loaded, and also containers of drinking water. The men pushed their quivers into pouches and lay their bows along inside the small hulls. The hull of each boat was supported upright on the sand by the bamboo outriggers on each side held in place by two arching cross beams at the bow and stern.
Sukma was already sitting down in the bow of her boat, eagerly holding on to a paddle rather too big for her, ready to go. Melati stepped in and sat down in the bow of the second boat, holding onto the sides with her paddle resting at her feet.
“Ready!?” called Wayan as he and Rukma pushed the boats into the breaking surf, before jumping into the sterns and paddling hard.
The sea was quite placid today, yet the thrill of ploughing through the white spray made Melati scream with the pleasure of it. She saw that Sukma was doing her best to paddle through the breakers. Once through the surf, Melati picked up her own paddle.
The afternoon sun glinted off the rolling glass-green surface, but she could see right down through it to the rippled sandy bottom and the submarine movements of life. A tight mass of tiny fish hovered near the boat then darted away in a swarm as she put the paddle in the water. The yellow sand soon gave way to green sea grass.
Her father pointed out a group of large oval shapes hovering beneath them, each about the size of Rukma’s table. Melati could make out the pattern on the marbled shells and the outlines of their four moving feet; it looked like their heads were nibbling the sea grass. Earlier her father had shown her the tracks where the all the sea turtles had pulled themselves up onto the beach last night to lay their eggs in the sand.
A big shoal of small fish passed under the boat, followed quickly by a line of much larger torpedo-shaped creatures. From above she couldn’t tell what they were, sharks maybe.
Puffing, trilling sounds made her look up and she grinned in delight at the sight of a pod of dolphins prancing through the waves. One of the smiling shining spirits, leaping free of the water, seemed to
look right back with a knowing glint in his eye. He splashed beneath the surface and swam to their boat, submerging beneath them while turned on his side, waggling a fin and his grinning beak as if to greet them before flipping his tail effortlessly and streaking to rejoin his family, leaving her with a feeling of serene warmth.
“Good spirits,” her father confirmed with a chuckle as she oozed admiration.
Joyfully she surveyed the horizons and looked back at their village nestled above the white beach between the feathered coconut palms. Behind, the lush-green blanket of forest and jungle rolled up towards the mountains in the distance.
On the sea-bed were lots of shellfish, crabs, sea cucumbers, sponges and urchins. Looking carefully she could make out the sea-fans poking up. Further out she saw bright blue starfish and a giant clam with its two shells open like a mouth with gums of blue-green flesh, and then another, and then the outcrops of coral started.
“Let’s see what we have today,” her father said as he stopped paddling beside a log bobbing on the surface.
He reached over and starting pulling. After several heaves on the wet rope a weighted bamboo fishing trap broke the surface. About half the length of the boat, each trap had a funnel entrance into which fish were enticed by the bait inside. Through the gaps in the bamboo mesh Melati could see a long silver barracuda thrashing about with gaping fang-like teeth, a lion fish and a stonefish.
“That fish has eaten the others, but not those two,” grumped Wayan. “What do think – shall we let them go?”
Melati didn’t think the big fish cooked well anyway; it had lots of bones and she knew her father wasn’t that keen on it. The red and white striped fish with extravagantly long spines had no meat on it. And everyone hated the ugly brown fish that was disguised to look like a stone; stepping on one was known to be cripplingly painful.
“Alright father,” she agreed, happy that he had asked her.
Opening the door in the top of the trap, he turned it upside down, and shook. With the trap clear, he turned it back over and fixed some bait in the bottom, then closed the door and let it slip back down to the sea bed.
In the other boat Rukma had pulled up a couple of large yellowfin tuna. As he yanked the trap to the surface, the thrashing was so vigorous that it foamed the water, soaking Sukma with the splashes coming through the gaps in the mesh.
“We’ve got two really big ones!” Sukma yelled. “Look at these!”
Wayan paddled across beside the other boat and locked the outriggers together. Now the two boats were more stable, they could pull the trap completely out of the water.
“Aren’t they beautiful?!” Melati crooned.
She watched the magnificently streamline fish with streaks of blue, yellow and shining silver, their long yellow fins flashing before her eyes as the muscular creatures kicked and fought, shaking the trap violently in their hands and emitting a halo of salty spray from their drying bodies. They were so sleek and full of life that she felt a great sadness as they started suffocating in the waterless air. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, imagining that she was speaking to their spirits.
“They’ll feed all of Likupang tonight,” Rukma remarked cheerily as he gazed at the fish flapping away inside the trap.
But Wayan was gazing at his daughter who had placed her open palms on the vibrating trap, trying to ease their death struggle.
“We built the first house in Likupang,” her father said. “Do you remember?” he added, glancing across at Rukma who looked up at him.
“Kasuma chose the spot,” replied Rukma a moment later.
“I think Endah chose the spot,” countered Wayan.
Sukma was grinning already.
“And you picked up an old branch and pushed it in the ground.”
“An old branch with a kink in it, wasn’t it Rukma?”
“Yang liku pang la adalah, bukankah Wayan?” - “A bent branch it was, wasn’t it Wayan?”
“Ia adalah satu liku pang. Bahawa la adalah,” - “It was a bent branch. That it was,” confirmed Wayan.
Melati looked up at her father’s twinkling brown eyes, and started to smile.
“So we built the house on that spot, didn’t we?” said a grinning Rukma.
“Oh yes we did, and all the rest we did,” answered Wayan.
“Jadi Likupang adalah di mana liku pang la adalah!” - “So Likupang is where the liku pang was!” they all chanted together.
For some reason this familiar refrain never failed to amuse.
It was low tide when they paddled the fishing boats in through the mouth of the river. On the right they passed the dark-green mangrove swamps. On the left they passed the broad sandy beach that fronted the Likupang village.
Further up the river, Praba and Agung were working in the boat-building shed high on the left bank. The two fishing boats were paddled on up the river until the bows were run up on the bank where Praba and Agung had come down to meet them.
Melati watched Agung greet his father respectfully, before smiling at Sukma who was grinning up at her big brother. So at least he can smile, thought Melati. Then Agung turned to pull the boat with its two occupants up out of the water.
Praba grinned when he saw the fish.
“Well done little sister - it looks like you two got a bit wet.”
She felt the front of her boat lift in the air, with her in it, and then her big brother hauled them up the bank without any apparent effort. As Melati took off her hat, the dried salt made it stick to her long hair. Sukma’s hair was stiff with salt.
“That water is fresh - I’ve just brought it from the stream,” Praba told the girls, pointing to a large container next to the partly completed hull of the big boat. “You two can use it to wash your hair.”
“I’ll take the fish,” said her father. “The women will cook them.”
Agung helped Wayan carry the heavy fish up the bank and into the village. Rukma and Praba stayed and started chipping away at a plank with a bronze axe.
Melati watched the two men as they then sized up the wood plank against the large ribs of the hull. She estimated that the hull was as long as two houses! She looked at the partly completed hull with all its cut and shaped wood, propped up on a wooden cradle laid on top of the sloping river bed. She knew that the holes for all the wooden pegs had been made with a twisted bronze stick; Dri had explained to her that the pegs will swell tight in the water. And she could see where they were using all the twine and rope that she and Suk had been making.
“It’s going to be a very big boat!” she said to Sukma.
“Too big!” grumbled Sukma as Melati helped to pull off her fisherman’s top.
Wearing their sarongs, the girls bent over and poured shell-fulls of water over their heads to rinse the salt out. The water wet the top of their sarongs, making the fabric cling to the skin.
“You’re getting breasts,” Melati reminded her friend. “Don’t let them see.”
“I’m not letting anyone near my middle place,” Sukma replied, prompting Melati to hush her.
They started untangling their long wet hair with little wooden combs, which they always kept in small pockets inside their sarongs. Relaxing, the two girls lounged on a large tree trunk facing the river, preoccupied with combing dry their long hair in the warm late-afternoon sun.
Melati looked over her shoulder at the two men who were now working with a tree trunk. Praba lifted up one end and hauled it around, then let it drop on the ground with a great thump, raising a cloud of dust. He was more heavily built than her other two brothers, and very strong - and very proud of it too, she thought. Some of his unmanageable hair fell over his face and he pushed it back with a hand, before picking up the other end of the trunk. Nearby, there were several more tree trunks that had been cut and dragged from the forest; Melati reckoned that her brother spent more time working on the boat than anybody else.
“I don’t know why they want such a big boat?” complained Sukma, trying to remove the l
ast knots from her hair.
“My big brother’s obsessed with it,” Melati sighed, turning her head back to look somewhere else.
She looked across the river at the far bank. Her eyes scanned from right to left, starting at the mangrove swamp where the river flowed out into the bay, and then left to where nipa palms grew, and then her eyes took in a clump of small trees at the base of the hill opposite. Her eyes kept scanning along in a leftwards direction, but something made her glance back at the clump of trees.
In Melati’s mind was the image of a pair of eyes, and a face, but this face appeared upside down, with the black hair below the eyes. The small trees were rambutan bushes, and behind them were a few taller trees with grey-dappled trunks. She looked again at the shadowy foliage and could see the clusters of red hairy fruit – maybe this is what she had seen? She gazed at the bushes, trying to let the shapes reform into a face. Deep in shadow, what looked like a small pale smudge widened into a slit or a grin, and then the eyes blinked.
With a sharp intake of breath, Melati reached out and gripped Sukma’s arm.
“What?”
“A face!” Melati uttered.
“Where?”
“Look – a face!” she exclaimed, louder now and pointing at the bush.
“What face?” Praba asked, turning around to look. Seeing his sister still pointing across the river, he demanded again “What face?!”
“Over there - in that rambutan bush – it was a face,” she answered, feeling now that something was wrong about the face. “I did see it! - but it’s gone.”
Praba stared across the river for a moment or two, before telling Rukma:
“Someone’s over there!”
For the first time, Melati felt the sudden chill of fear.
“Hide!” Rukma hissed at the girls. “Get inside the boat – in there – quick hide!”
Sukma was half-dragged by Melati through a gap in the hull. Praba scrambled over a trunk to grab his bow and quiver, while Rukma rushed to get his from the fishing boat. Inside the protective thick wooden walls of the hull, the girls shrank from sight. They heard curses and muttering, and then a shrill whistle from just outside the hull. Sukma started to say something but Melati glared at her and she kept quiet.
“Keluar dari pokok itu!!” - “Get out of the bush!!” Praba shouted from the other side of the planking.
There was silence for a few moments, and then through the gap at the back of the hull Melati saw Agung and Harta running from the village, with their bows. She watched through a long chink in the planking as they joined Praba and Rukma. Shifting her position to get a better look, she could see them all crouched down behind tree trunks and beside the hull – their bows loaded with arrows!
“Mel saw somebody in the bushes over there,” she heard Rukma explain.
“Tell everyone to stay inside the houses,” Praba instructed Harta. “And get ready!”
Her twin brother took off back to the village.
The men stayed quiet for a long moment, watching intently.
“Something moved - They’re still there!” Praba whispered. “Java dogs!” he added viciously.
“Shoot arrows,” said Agung. “Scare them.”
“Son - just one arrow!” Rukma told him. “Hit the big tree trunk behind the bush.”
Agung pulled back the bowstring until it touched his lips, sighting and judging the distance. He held the big bow flexed for a moment, muscles taut. A short, sharp sound marked the release, followed by the split moment it took for the arrow to flash over the river, followed by a solid thud as it lodged in the tree trunk, above and behind the bush.
“Metua saka wit!!” - “Get out of the bush!!” Rukma shouted, this time in the Javanese dialect. Melati knew little Javanese but guessed that this was what it meant.
“Another - a bit lower,” said Praba after a few moments, lining up his arrow on the target. This time the thud was from an arrow embedded in the trunk just above the bush.
“The next arrows will be in the bush!” shouted Rukma in Javanese, motioning the two younger men to stop. “Come out and there will be no arrows!”
Through the chink Melati could just see the bushes. There was some movement now, and a man stepped out into the light. He looked about the same age as Praba: not young, but not yet middle-aged, with a swarthy build, and a thin beard. He was bare footed. The tribesman carried a large bow over one shoulder with a quiver of arrows at his back, and she could see a large scabbard for a knife, presumably with a blade of bronze. But the most striking thing to Melati was the cloth wrapped around his waist and upper legs - it was the Java kain. She had been told about the kain but this was the first time she had seen it.
“It’s a Java man!” she whispered to Sukma, whose eyes widened.
“Pengin nganggo karo sampeyan!!” the man shouted across the river.
“Tuhan!” Praba cursed under his breath.
Rukma, who spoke Javanese the best, translated for Agung:
“He says he wants to speak with us.”
“Why do Java behave like this?” asked his son.
“It’s their way,” Rukma explained. “I think there are others with him, but he has been sent as a messenger.”
“Are we going to have to shout at him!?” Praba scorned. “Let the dog come and speak with us – if he can cross the river!?”
The river level was unusually low, since it was the dry season and the tide had only recently turned. The water was cloudy with silt, only becoming clear further out past the mangroves. But the best fording point was further upstream, and they all knew what might be in the water.
“One less Java,” Agung grunted.
“He wants to talk,” Praba sneered. “So it’s up to him - has he got the guts?”
Rukma nodded his head faintly, as if reluctantly accepting the terms.
“We will wait on this side of the river!” Rukma shouted in Javanese, or at least that was Melati’s interpretation. “You can come here and speak with us!”
The man stepped to the river bank, looked up and down the waters thoughtfully, and then waded in. At first the level was up to his knees, and then towards the centre he sank up to his waist, then up to his chest using his arms now to help him move across. Praba pointed at something further downstream and grinned. The man kept wading steadily, with a resolute expression on his heavily-set face. Finally the level returned to his knees as he pulled his legs through the sucking silt of the river bed, until he stood on the bank not far away, muddy but dignified.
Agung stayed beside the hull and kept watching the other bank, ready with a loaded bow, while Rukma and Praba walked down the bank to meet him, with their bows pushed over their shoulders and quivers at their side. Melati watched the three men talking; the only words she caught were in Javanese, and these she didn’t know. Only now did she let Sukma look through the chink in the planks.
“He’s going now,” Sukma whispered after a while, allowing Melati to peer again through the chink.
The man started wading back as Rukma and Praba looked on. When the man got to knee-deep Rukma took his bow from his shoulders and nocked an arrow onto the bowstring, drawing it and aiming it towards the man’s back. Melati held her breath, not believing what she was seeing!
Glancing back, the man hastened his wading, looking around himself as he pulled out a long knife, holding it aloft. Rukma’s arrow hit something in the water, which twisted instantly into a fountain of water, and a serrated tail disappeared below the surface. Rukma launched another three arrows which erupted into fountains of water before the man made the far bank. Praba stood watching, with his bow still on his shoulder.
Standing now on the far bank, the Javanese tribesman pushed the knife into his scabbard and looked back. Melati thought he gave the slightest of nods, before turning to hide in the bushes again. A short time later the shadowy backs of three men left the bushes and promptly disappeared in amongst the nipa palms.
Rukma and Praba turned around
and started walking back up the river bank towards the boat, both with serious faces. Melati took her eyes from the chink, breathing hard with the impact of what she had just seen. She stared at Sukma, who had just found the comb she had dropped.
“What were they talking about?” asked Sukma, as she started to comb her hair.
“I don’t know,” gasped Melati, not even daring to guess.
2 The Meeting
Wayan strode urgently towards the group coming from the boat. Rukma and Praba stopped to talk with him, while Agung shepherded the girls back to the village.
“Bahoi want a meeting,” Rukma told him.
“The Java dogs were spying on the boat,” Praba added. “But they saw the girls!”
Wayan looked into Rukma’s face, searching for more.
“Our daughters were combing their hair by the boat,” explained Rukma, putting a hand on his shoulder in the empathy of life-long friends. “Their men were watching, and then they sent a messenger.”
Wayan felt a terrible sense of foreboding growing upon him. The worried faces of the others seemed to confirm his worst fears.
“We’ll have a gathering of men tonight,” he said. “We have to make decisions.”
“We must talk with our wives before the gathering,” intoned Rukma.
Wayan nodded solemnly in agreement.
“How many days until the messenger returns?”
“Five,” said Rukma, holding up the extended fingers and thumb of a hand. “Their messenger will agree the time and place of the meeting.”
Five days? That’s not long, thought Wayan, and he began to pray for divine intervention.
“Our Sun Spirit must witness the meeting,” he said after a pause. “We have to stop the snakes hiding in the shadows!”
Later in the evening, the six men of the village met around the big night fire at their favoured spot by the open beach shelter, where the sand rose up onto the firmer pebbled soil between the beach itself and the village. It had become Likupang’s frequent venue for meetings and social gatherings. A place not far from the mouth of the river and yet close to the village so that the men could keep watch over their families, helped at night by the light of the fire. Some of the men sat with their backs to the fire, looking towards the village and keeping their night vision sharp. All of them kept their weapons nearby.
High above them, the splendid face of Father Moon gazed down. The balmy night air thrummed and the phosphorescent surf beat a slow steady pulse. But all of this went un-noticed.
Wayan threw a couple more coconut stalks on the fire, and then sat down again with his back to the flames. His stomach churned with a forlorn anxiety. They had to try and discuss the problem without arguing and shouting at each other. He decided to state it as simply as he could.
“Bahoi have called a meeting,” he said. “But we all know what the Java will want - they want the girls.”
“No!” Agung snarled. “Never!”
“They’re our sisters – they’re too young!” Bandri started, even though this would have been obvious to everyone around the fire. “We - ”
“We all know that!” Praba snapped as he paced up and down, glaring down at his younger brother sitting on the log. “And those Java dogs treat girls like animals – we all know that!”
“They’re the animals!” exclaimed Andhika. “They take every girl for putri.”
“Java want to - ”, Praba started.
“That’s enough!” Wayan cut in.
“They’re dogs!” muttered Praba under his breath, kicking another stalk onto the fire.
“Stop it now!” Wayan said more forcibly, thinking that at least the hatred of the Java united the tribe. “We can all curse the Java, and waste our breath – but we have to make decisions tonight.”
“You know what our wives and your mothers have told you,” Rukma said. “You know why the Javanese and Malay have kept apart.”
Wayan had tried to forget the bitter experience of his youth, when he and Rukma had to flee from the Java. They and their young wives had walked to Likupang, wanting to start new lives. They had tried to show their children a better way to live, but they had also made sure their sons knew the Java ways and spoke the Javanese dialect. And now, Wayan believed, they must try to behave in the better way.
“We don’t want our daughters to go to the Java - even if they were older,” stated Wayan. “We know how we feel about our daughters,” he added, his voice straining as those feelings of love threatened to overwhelm him.
All the men muttered their agreement, and for a while nobody spoke. The fire snapped and crackled in the background. Wayan turned to watch the flames licking around the stalks, eating the wood, while the smoke coiled upwards in freedom. He breathed in and out, deep and slow, trying to quell his aching heart.
“There are more Java villages in this area now,” Andhika said. “We should have moved before they cut us off from our tribes in Manado.”
The fire filled the silence for several moments.
Wayan regarded Andhika’s opinions highly. He was a good husband to his daughter, and a good forest man too, lean and fast-footed. Wayan also thought of him as clever and witty – when he wasn’t angry. And Wayan knew Andhika was right - he and Rukma should have moved the tribe before. But there was always a reason to stay, he thought. How could pregnant women walk that distance? And Likupang was a good place – they had been happy here – before the Java came.
“Andhy, you say wise words,” said Wayan, turning to look at Andhika. “But life was good here.”
“We have to move,” muttered Agung. “Manado is - ”
“That’s why we’re building the boat!” interrupted Praba. “To take everyone to Manado!”
Wayan took in a long deep breath, wishing Praba would show more patience. At least his elder son was committed to the big boat. Wayan let out his breath slowly, trying to remain calm.
“But the boat will take a long time,” Bandri pointed out. “We have to know it floats well.”
“Young brother - All of us have to work on it!” retorted Praba. “And we can’t take the tribe around the coast in the small boats!”
“Bahoi can’t touch us once we’ve built the big boat,” Wayan reminded them. “They only have small boats – we can hold them off from a big boat.”
“We could try a route near Klabat?” suggested Bandri.
His son’s intelligent eyes looked right into his own - in an unspoken bond between them. In the firelight, Wayan couldn’t make out the flecks of green but he knew they were there, just as he knew every other detail of his son’s face. Apart from some soft stubble, it was a youthfully smooth but open face, which Wayan thought betrayed the dreamer in him. His face held a meditative determination that Wayan could never quite define, elusive but strong. Looking now at his middle son he saw more than the best of Endah and himself. Secretly, he could not help but feel that his middle son was his most precious; Endah knew he felt this way, but he kept it from everyone else.
“The forest there is very thick,” explained Wayan. “And there are swamps and steep cliffs, river crocodiles and many snakes. There are bad spirits in the jungles around Klabat - tribes who eat outsiders.. Rukma and I have seen their stone heads.”
Bandri nodded his acknowledgement, but Wayan knew that his middle son didn’t believe in the bad spirits. With a heavy heart Wayan persisted.
“And you know how bad the jungle is for children,” he added.
His eldest son breathed in, sucking his lip, making that sound of his.
“Father is right,” Praba affirmed. “In the big boat we can shoot arrows at the Java before they get close.”
“And we don’t know how far we have to travel to find the other Malay tribes,” Rukma told them. “In the boat we could go a long way.”
“The Java can track you in the jungle,” muttered Agung, chucking more wood on the fire.
“I understand,” conceded Bandri. “The boat is going to be good, but
until then we need to find out more about the people in Bahoi.”
“They have five or six men, and older boys too,” stated Praba. “We know what they look like.”
“But we need to find out their names and more about what each of them is like,” argued Bandri. “We can tell them our names so it could help to build more trust. If we want to live in peace with them we have to understand them.”
Praba pushed his hair off his face and scoffed:
“You can’t live in peace with the Java!”
The fire had taken a good grip of the wood by now, pushing up a great beard of flame. A tongue of heat reached out on one side of the fire, and some of the men shifted their seats. Wayan watched the flames, and thought about the wise insight offered by his middle son.
“We’ll try and find out more about them at the meeting,” he told them.
“The Java have their customs,” said Rukma “We can try to ask their names, but they probably won’t tell us.”
“But we have to try,” urged Bandri, to which both Wayan and Rukma nodded their acceptance.
“We’ve cut down the undergrowth around the village - past the stream - so they can’t get too close,” said Andhika. “We can do the same on the hill – there were footprints today.”
“Andhy’s right,” Agung grunted.
Bandri sighed, and waved his arm in the direction of the hill across the river.
“We go up on that hill so often it’s difficult to tell who left the footprints. We should brush out everything to see if there are any new ones, and then -”
“We do that already!” Praba cut in, glowering disdainfully at his younger brother.
Bandri went on nevertheless:
“We could rig some thin twine to see if it gets broken. If they see the twine, they’ll know that we’re aware of them, and they might -”
“Then they’ll think we’re afraid of them!” Praba snarled, shaking his head. And then with hacking motions he added “The dogs will keep away if we all have long knives!”
“Cut down the hiding places on the hill!” Agung repeated.
Wayan had heard all these things before. That hill on the other side of the river was both a blessing and a curse, he thought. It was a good look-out place, but the Java could also use it for watching the village.
“We must get enough bronze so everyone has a good knife,” insisted Praba. “Long knives - bigger than theirs!”
“We have to decide – tonight – if we send for help from our Kima tribe!” declared Wayan, almost shouting to get the point across. “To ask our Malay brothers for good men to help us.”
In the quiet that followed, Rukma explained:
“Two could go - but they only have five days to get there and back.”
“I’ll go,” offered Bandri.
Bandri was fast. Ever since they were kids Wayan had seen this. Praba was older by several years, but by the time they were old enough to argue, Bandri could outwit, dodge and outrun his bigger brother.
“And me,” said Andhika.
There was a murmuring of approval amongst the others; they were the best men to cover the distance in time. Wayan knew that too, yet he was greatly afraid of the risks they would be taking - indeed the risks Likupang would be taking. He looked at Rukma who nodded solemnly, disguising the feelings that Wayan knew he shared.
“That’s good,” Wayan said, with his heart in his mouth.
The fire crackled, gave out a few loud snaps, and collapsed inwards in a rustle of sparks. He breathed in the muskiness of the wood smoke billowing around them, before it was carried away on the sea-breeze.
Wayan stood by the low wall at the edge of the village, still staring into the forest where the path westward towards Manado began, his eyes lingering on the leaves that had stopped moving. The Sun Spirit had yet to be born this morning but his precious middle son and the husband of his daughter had already departed on their quest to find the Kima tribe.
Trekking through the forests and jungle had many dangers. He knew they would need to travel fast - running where the terrain allowed it. They must avoid the Java villages, and the Java tribesmen; they would need all their forest skills and they had only each other to depend on.
He felt the heartache this decision had caused, for everyone. He breathed in and out again, long and slow, delaying the moment he turned around to see the faces of the others standing behind him.
Being busy seemed the best way to cope with the strain of the day. The women and girls grouped together in the two strongest houses, weaving and twine-making, while the children helped or played. The men and Harta stayed in the village, strengthening the houses and preparing their weapons.
Harta, Melati and Sukma were told that Bandri and Andhika were travelling to meet their Kima relatives and would be back soon. Otherwise the adults agreed to provide no more details on the reasons for this.
That night, after much deliberation, Wayan and Rukma came to a decision as they kept watch by the night fire.
“Only you and I will meet them,” said Wayan, sitting on a log, feeling his back gently roast in the heat.
“Yes, using a boat is the best way,” agreed Rukma, sitting beside him. “They cannot hide on the water.. There’s too much distrust to do it on foot - it’s too easy for an ambush.”
“Alright - then everyone can see who’s coming.. And our men must stay in the village to look after the families,” Wayan said as he gazed at the two long shadows thrown out in front of them, feeling thankful that at least they now had a plan. “And our Sun Spirit will witness the meeting.”
Later in the night, Wayan paused outside his house and tapped on the wall several times. He heard a sleepy acknowledgement:
“Alright, I’m coming.”
After sliding back the bolts from inside, Harta opened the door.
“Sssh, quiet,” urged Wayan, and patted his son on the shoulder as he entered, before turning to pull shut the heavy door and bolting it again.
Harta groaned a little and collapsed back on his couch in the front room, falling asleep again almost instantly. Wayan listened outside the door of the first room until satisfied the occupants were asleep; he then crept to the second room, entered, and closed the door behind him. In the flickering candlelight he turned to look at his wife.
“When is the messenger coming back?” whispered Endah.
Wayan crouched down onto the edge of their low bamboo bed.
“In four days,” he whispered in reply.
“Did they ask Sukma?”
Endah moved over, as Wayan lay beside her. The bed creaked beneath his weight.
“No.. Just like we didn’t ask Mel. They’re too young to understand - we don’t want to frighten them.”
“Maybe they’re not going to ask for the girls?” his wife whispered hopefully.
Wayan wished that too, but his gut feeling was telling him something else.
“The messenger wouldn’t say what they wanted to talk about – but we understand their Java customs well enough – What else would they want?”
They lay silently for some moments.
“Wayan, please be careful not to anger them.. Maybe, if they have a good young man he can visit us and introduce himself properly, so the family get to know him. And if he will wait until they are older – and Melati or Sukma like him – then maybe they could marry here, in our village. Maybe that would be alright?”
Wayan couldn’t imagine that this would work, but he said nothing. In his mind the Java didn’t understand spiritual marriage; they just wanted putri – brides. His wife knew that too, but she was just meandering. And in any case, he well knew that she already had other plans.
“But what about Agung and Harta?” she said.
He turned on his side. The beeswax candle had almost burnt down, and in its fluttering light Wayan could see his wife’s face; her features over their years together had mellowed from the wild girl he knew in his youth. He smiled and kissed her lightly.
“We cannot decide all these things – we should see what the young people want when they’re ready.. I know you think Agung is a good match for Mel, but he’s..” Wayan paused, seeing his wife’s expression - they had rehearsed this discussion too many times. “Sssh - It’s true, Agung is a good man,” he whispered in a consolatory manner.
“You know why Agung’s like that!” she whispered urgently. “When Melati is older, he can be a good man for her.”
Wayan bit his lip and resisted the urge to disagree. This was not the time to decide.
“Sukma and Harta argue all the time – but they’re young,” he told her instead. “She calls him Hatty,” he added with an attempt at a chuckle.
Endah closed her eyes and turned away from him.
Wayan breathed in and out again, his heart heavy with responsibility for the family’s future.
“I will try to find a way when we meet the Bahoi seniors,” he assured her.
The candle-light spluttered out. The room fell into darkness, and now the night and its sounds permeated the bamboo walls. Wayan put his arm around his wife and he knew she was crying. After a while she seemed calm.
“Tomorrow, I can do some batik decorating with the girls on the cloth they’ve been weaving - that will keep them busy, so you can talk with the others.”
Wayan closed his eyes, still smelling the muskiness of the night fire.
“We’ll do that,” he answered. “Now let’s try and get some sleep – our sun is rising soon.”
Wayan roused himself as the first rooster crowed, and slipped out of the house even before the sun had risen. He had hardly slept.
He pushed shut the door and took the few steps across their nipa-leaf covered porch, and looked up at the dark blue sky, lighter now in the east. Standing there, still dozy, he listened for a while to the dawn chorus of birdsong.
There were no clouds and hardly any wind; the monsoon rains had yet to arrive. A clear hot day he thought. As the sky gradually brightened, he scanned the dark outlines of the two large islands which lay at the entrance of the broad bay; sometimes Wayan thought Bangka Island looked like it was floating out there on the sea, yet he knew it to be solid land. He took in a deep breath of ocean air, smelt its fresh saltiness, and stretched.
He looked around at the many coconut palms, their long thin trunks topped by splendid sprays of dark green leaves; his father had taught him that the Malay called the coconut ‘pohon kehidupan’ - ‘the tree of life’. Under the coconuts grew sea almonds and further back there were tamarind and lychee trees. Smaller fruiting shrubs and clumps of creamy-yellow flowers dotted the sandy soil towards the abundant forest.
Wayan loved this beautiful place they called home. A smile broke through. He knew how the plants gave his family food and building materials. Even the dark and muddy mangroves, haunted with evil spirits, were the nurseries for young fish that will grow to populate the bay waters and the coral reefs, blessing them with plentiful big fish to catch. Some plants had uses for dyes, for medicines and even for poisons. But because of the Java, everything had changed, and again he became more thoughtful.
With slow measured strides, he walked past the low vines with pink-veined trumpet flowers that sprawled over the high sand, and then down onto the beach. Here he paused and gazed at the gentle waves, rolling towards him until they felt the gentle slope of the beach where they curled with a liquid luster to fall into surf licking the sand at his feet.
Wayan sighed. Why can’t the Java leave them alone?! As the first bright sun rays peered over the eastern hills, he knelt on one knee and closed his eyes, murmuring the few words “Welcome our Spirit born from Mother Earth.” Before he stood up, he prayed again for the safe return of his son from the journey to Manado.
He reached the spot where he and Rukma had talked last night. The fire had died down, leaving a large black stain on the white sand, darker than a bruise on the fairest skin of a newborn child. Squatting down again on the coconut trunk, he thought of the many happy years the family had shared in this place. There had been difficult times too, and he tried not to think about the babies and children that had got ill and died.
Everyone in Likupang helped each other - that’s how it had to be, he thought. They were all part of the same family and had to depend on each other. Anyway, it was more important to remember the good times.
He thought of the Malay saying ‘Kayu buluh adalah sebagai cahaya sebagai bulu burung lagi kuat seperti kerang.’ - ‘The bamboo wood is as light as a bird feather yet as strong as a clam shell.’ He remembered how the growing family had made all of the nine griya-style native buildings and thanked the forest spirits for bamboo. Wayan surveyed the bamboo houses with their nipa palm roofs - yellow and umber coloured in the warm light of the morning sun. And he remembered again when he had picked up that bent old tree branch, and pushed it into the sandy soil.
Wayan was thankful for all these blessings, but the Java tribe had threatened his family ever since they settled on the other side of the mangrove swamps at Bahoi. Under his breath, he cursed them “That nest of vipers can shrivel in the sun!”
“Puteri is making your favourite stew,” Praba announced.
The sweet smell of smouldering coconut husks and bubbling stew wafted across from the covered kitchen as Praba’s wife prepared their early morning sarapan.
“Father, how did you sleep?”
Wayan looked up, aware now of his son’s presence.
“Father, come and lie down for a while,” Praba implored.
Wayan consented, got up and walked back with his son towards the house.
“They know the forest – Bandy will be alright,” Praba said as they walked, and Wayan put an arm around his son’s shoulders, something he had not done for years.
The old bamboo couch creaked and rocked beneath Wayan’s weight. Most of the couch was brightly lit by the early morning sun, but the angled long shadow from the porch roof shaded his upper body and eyes. Praba rolled a large log over close to the couch. Wayan smiled, watching the ease with which his son moved the heavy object. His son pushed back his hair and sat on the log, remarking:
“Everyone asks why I don’t fix it - but if I did it wouldn’t be as comfortable.”
Untung, a willowy boy of just six years, who was Praba and Puteri’s oldest child and his oldest grandson, appeared smiling beside him holding a pillow stuffed with feathers. This offering Wayan accepted, hugging and tickling the giver. Untung laughed joyously at his grandfather’s antics and tugged the goatee beard. Wayan pushed the pillow under his head, and the couch rocked some more as if it was about to collapse.
“Bandy stopped it moving with some twine - but I cut it off!” Praba jested with scornful humour.
Wayan laughed. That, he thought, summed up his two oldest sons – Bandri was smart and Praba was obstinate.
“You’re right,” Wayan admitted. “It’s very comfortable.”
In play, Untung grabbed hold of his father’s leg. Praba picked him up and flipped him onto his own back, pretending to be a wild pig. Father and son made silly grunting noises and gallivanted around the kitchen pretending to crash into things, knocking over a few pots. Puteri berated him“Anda gergasi!” - “You ‘oaf’!”, told him to get out of her way, and then looked across at Wayan with a big grin.
Wayan chuckled his response. He liked that his son was such a family man - teasing the kids and revelling in the childish games they wanted to play again and again. It was such a striking contrast to his muscular frame and strong set features - and the fierce attitude he had with the other men. Praba’s wild hair fell over his face as Untung grappled his father. All of Wayan’s three sons had inherited his thick black wavy hair, but Praba’s unruly thatch was brushed back frequently by his wife, who preferred it that way.
Puteri kept her own straight black hair immaculately groomed, usually clipping it back around her lustrous cheeks. Bright eyes quickly showed her feelings and the strong-willed personality within. She was not afra
id to disagree with her husband, although for the most part they had a harmonious relationship. Wayan enjoyed Puteri’s no-nonsense candour and often ate his sarapan in her kitchen, since Endah had the tendency to lie-in until the sun was well risen. And today Endah and the girls were going with Ayu to Kasuma’s kitchen for the sarapan.
Wayan’s thoughts returned to Melati, his shy and thoughtful youngest daughter. He felt sure the Java tribe wanted the girls for putri to their tribesmen. If Likupang resisted such a proposal then the other tribe might try to take them by force. But he and Rukma were determined - if they tried to abduct the girls then they will fight!
Interrupting Wayan’s thoughts, Praba plonked Untung back onto the ground, and then came and perched himself back on the log, saying:
“I expect they’ll reach our Kima tribe tomorrow.”
“It’s a long way my son. They know if they can’t find them at Kima, they should come back as soon as they can.”
Again Wayan thought about walking the whole family towards Manado and abandoning their home here at Likupang, but that would be fraught with great danger. If they tried walking everyone through the forests, he knew the tribe could be tracked and ambushed. At least here in Likupang, they could defend themselves until they had made the boat.
The stew arrived, and very good it was too. But Wayan felt exhausted, and after eating the stew he slipped into a well-needed slumber.
The two girls and their mothers spread out flax and banana-fibre fabric on the wooden table in Kasuma’s front room.
“After we’ve practised on this, we can decorate the big sarong as a present for Ayu,” she explained.
The girls’ eyes glistened with expectation, especially since they both adored Sukma’s older sister.
“What we need are ideas for a pattern?” added Endah.
“Birds – yes birds!” Sukma chirped, jumping up and down in her excitement.
“What about flowers? – Ayu loves flowers,” Melati said with quiet enthusiasm.
“We could try both if you like,” said Endah. “And see what happens.”
The women showed them how to melt a pot of beeswax, and then dribble it over the fabric to make a pattern. They stepped back as the girls tried different ways of dabbing and rubbing in the wax as they made up designs. Endah indicated to Kasuma to join her out on the porch, leaving the girls absorbed in their craft.
“My heart is hurting,” she confided in Kasuma. “What makes the Java like that!?”
“The Javanese think in a different way,” Kasuma answered, keeping her voice down so that the girls couldn’t overhear.
“Java can’t think,” Endah seethed under her breath. “They just want!”
Kasuma gently pushed the porch door fully shut, after checking anxiously that their daughters were still occupied. “It’s their men,” she said gently. “I don’t expect the Javanese women want it that way.”
“You know they’ll be raped!” Endah mumbled bitterly, collapsing on the bench in the porch. “We must stop them – we must!”
“We will stop them – it won’t happen,” said Kasuma, sitting with an arm around Endah. “We must be strong for their sake.”
Endah continued mournfully about their daughters being forced to have the children of snakes and how it would be the end of their lives.
“You stay here for a while,” soothed Kasuma, struggling now to control her own emotions. “I’ll look after the girls.”
She knew this meltdown had happened before, and that given time Endah seemed to talk herself out of it. For now it was more important to Kasuma that both their young daughters were protected from such talk, and so she steadied herself, put on a calm face and slipped back into the front room.
“Now the wax has gone hard, we can dye the material,” Kasuma explained to Melati and Sukma. “But the waxed bits won’t get any colour.. Like this..”
They soaked the fabric in a shallow wooden barrel with blue plant dye, leaving it to take up the colour. In fun, the girls splashed some of the dye at each other. Harmless blue splodges landed on their pretty, laughing faces and down their simple sarongs.
Kasuma sighed inwardly, she loved them both so dearly, feeling thankful that they appeared to have forgotten about the fright they had when the messenger appeared. She smiled as they leant over the barrel, trying to see the fabric soak up the dye and removing falling trusses of hair with absent-minded flicks of their wrists. The girls were both so young and vibrant, moving in the entrancing way that only healthy young girls do.
Nobody in Likupang thought such young people were ready for marriage. Malay traditions expected that the couple who wanted to get married asked both parents first, and then the seniors and the tribe were consulted before the community marriage blessing. At least she thought that was how it should be.
Kasuma felt a deep revulsion that anybody could think girls were eligible for ‘marriage’ at such a childish and immature age and she knew that undeveloped girls can die in childbirth. When she was young her family had protected her from the Javanese, but Kasuma had friends who had been taken by the Javanese, very young friends. She loathed their practise of using women and girls as property to be bartered with or stolen, where second or a third ‘brides’ were seen as a mark of status, and where brides can be taken in combat. She had every reason to think that Javanese brides are forced to accept whatever fate befell them, and the idea of it tore and wrenched at her heartstrings.
Kasuma suffered her thoughts as she worked with the two innocent girls. She and Endah had done their best to guide the girls in the ways of sex, and in the ways of men without dismaying them. The girls had been brought up to respect their parents and the others in the tribe, and to respect the spirits. What right did the Java have to ruin all that was good?!
After some time the three of them put the material in fresh water. They heated it up to melt the wax, and then rinsed it clean in more hot water to reveal the batik decoration.
“Sila, sila” - “Please, please,” bubbled Sukma. “Now can we do Ayu’s sarong?”
“Not today – we need a bit more practise,” answered Kasuma, needing a rest. “But later.”
“Do we get rings?” Sukma asked, toying with her mother’s large ear-rings.
Kasuma hugged and kissed her daughter.
“These are too heavy - you wouldn’t want these.”
“But how did you get them?”
“When I was your age, my mother made holes,” said Kasuma, gently pinching each of their earlobes.
“Did it hurt?” asked Melati, as Sukma made a show of saying “Owwch!”
Kasuma nodded, and put her arms around both girls.
“You two were born here,” she told them, reminding herself how they had decided to do things differently in Likupang and thinking that the girls looked better with hair decorations. “And we don’t want you to get long ears like me and Endah.”
Melati smiled and felt the weight of the solid bronze rings.
“Do you like them?” Kasuma asked.
“They look good on you,” answered Melati tactfully.
When Wayan woke the sun glared down from directly overhead. His deep sleep had rejuvenated him, although waking at this time of day disorientated him for a short while. From the shade of the porch, he looked out across the crisp white beach and the deep-turquoise bay towards the distant islands. Wayan never tired of this stunning view. He blinked his eyes again.
“Did you sleep well father?”
Joyah smiled down at him as she cradled her baby. His eldest daughter had been sitting in the porch waiting for when he awoke.
“Yes.. Feel much better,” he mumbled sitting up on the couch. Wayan smiled appreciatively at her and then enquired: “How is she now?”
The little girl, Murni, had been sickly.
“A bit better today, but she still has a fever.”
Wayan put his little finger under the baby’s chin.
“Very hot,” he muttered, and then added positive
ly: “Kusama knows best what to do. I think she uses fruit and honey - but ask her which fruit to use.”
Joyah smiled again. Wayan knew so well how she smiled readily and often, seeing most usually the better side of a situation. His daughter’s face glowed when she was happy. But he knew that on the occasion she was upset, which could be easily triggered, she had a temper and then a storm of anger passed over her expressive features - although her foul mood would usually pass as quickly as it had arrived. Wayan couldn’t help but still think of her as the most frivolous of his children – even though she was a diligent mother of two children.
With her free hand, Joyah poured out calamansi flavoured water into a bamboo mug for Wayan and the others. In the shade of the porch, Puteri, Praba, Rukma and Ayu made themselves comfortable on the various seats arranged around the bamboo table.
The two large muscular men seemed even bulkier compared to the graceful young woman who sat between them. The men had taken it upon themselves to ensure her safety since her husband Bandri was away from the village. Today, Ayu had put her long hair up into a simple bunch, revealing her neat untanned ears above her slender smooth neck. However, despite her radiant loveliness, she showed no sign of assumption or pretention, but rather an air of youthful confidence. Wayan could not help but smile at her, not only because she had married his dearest son, but also through his natural appreciation of feminine beauty.
As the father of her husband, Wayan contented himself with admiring her nose. It may seem strange he sometimes thought to himself, but he did so like Ayu’s lovely nose! He always thought it was the most perfect nose he had ever seen. Placed so well between those wondrous eyes, just slightly curved upwards, Ayu’s nose never wrinkled but just changed its shape a little to compliment her expression. Wayan pondered whether it was more likely she had been blessed with her nose from Kasuma’s side of the family, since Rukma had a big nose.
“Agung and Harta are watching out,” Rukma said, grinning.
Wayan knew that his good friend’s craggy face wrinkled in amusement as he thought about the contrast between their two sons: Rukma’s imposingly muscular but introverted son and his own skinny, adolescent and opinionated youngest son. But at least Harta would never argue with Agung - he would listen and do as he was told.
The children are all together with Mel and Suk,” Ayu informed him, with an amused tone. “They’re all trying to do some batik now.”
Wayan glanced across at the house next door from where excited laughter emanated. His wife was sitting on the porch, and she smiled back. Fresh from a sound sleep, Wayan felt buoyed up with new energy.
“That’s good.”
“We have a plan now for the meeting,” Rukma began.
“Yes, we two are going to meet them in one boat,” Wayan confirmed to everyone, pointing out across the bay. “Out there - far enough out, so that we can see that they’re also coming in one boat.”
“A clear day would be best,” said Rukma. “But we’ll wait until the men are back.”
“Maybe today they’ll find the Kima?” Ayu said. She laid her hand on Joyah’s arm who nodded in hopeful confirmation.
“I hope so,” answered Wayan, trying to offer them some reassurance. “But they have far to go - then they have to try and find good men before they return.”
“If they’re not back in time what do we tell the messenger?” Praba asked, pushing his hair back in uneasy contemplation.
“We tell him that you two will meet them – in the boats – but we need an excuse,” said Puteri in a firm tone. “It may not be true what we tell them, but as long as it delays the meeting.. We could tell them that one of you stood on a stone fish or something – not badly - just that you need a few days to recover?”
Wayan did not like dishonesty and deception like this, but on this occasion he realised that this sort of thinking was necessary.
“Something like that,” he said. “Yes, I think we could say something like that.”
And so the days passed as Likupang waited for the mens return. Everyone stayed close together in the village. Water was collected from the stream behind the village, but no-one ventured out for hunting or fishing.
Agung had several enclosures for brush turkeys and pigs. These pigs were pig-like deer with large curled tusks or ‘babirusa’, sometimes called ‘pig-deers’ or ‘wild pigs’. Brush turkeys were killed and there were plenty of fruit and coconuts available. And they planned to kill a pig when the men returned.
On the fifth day, in the last of the twilight, Bandri and Andhika did indeed arrive back. Harta had heard the whistles from the men as they approached, and ran to get Ayu and Joyah. The two young men were evidently fatigued but happy to be back. As they stepped over the low smooth walls into the village, the women greeted them with cries and hugs of delight. The other men slapped their backs in greeting and children danced.
Wayan’s heart filled with thanks as he saw the two men, apparently uninjured.
“The Kima tribe has moved,” Andhika panted as Wayan joined them.
Andhika wiped the dripping beads of sweat from his forehead with his hand as he spoke, his curls of black hair now dangling wet and long. He had been scratched by vegetation, bitten by insects and sucked by leeches during the journey; his lean body showed smears of his own blood. The stubble on Andhika’s familiar face had grown into a small beard on his chin which gave him an interestingly wise countenance.
Wayan grasped Andhika’s proffered wet hand in welcome.
“Did you meet any of our tribe?”
Andhika shook his head.
“Somewhere beyond Manado – not sure,” he said, still panting after the exertion of the long arduous run and then the final sprint in the fading light.
And now Wayan could turn to his dearest son, smeared with dirt and blood but gloriously alive.
“Father,” his son announced, before explaining between breaths:
“We found the Kima village - but it was deserted. - There’s a Java village nearby - and another at the headland.. Some men went by us.. We were lucky to see them, without them seeing us - we followed them and saw the villages.”
Pleased and relieved to have his dear son back, Wayan did not dwell on this disappointing news. Instead he hugged his son.
“You’re in good time. You need a rest and a good meal.”
They walked into the village together.
“Did you find any Malay?” asked Wayan now, when they were away from the women and children - fearing that he already knew the answer.
“Father, we found two Malay,” answered Bandri. “An old couple living on their own – but it’s not good news.. They told us that the Malay were moving south along the coast.”
“What about them?”
“They had stayed with a few others - but the others had gone.”
“Where did they go?”
“They didn’t know,” replied Bandri, with a sad movement of his eyebrows. “One day they didn’t come back from hunting.”
Over the feast of roasted pig, the two men described their journey in more detail. They had been travelling by day and night, sleeping for only the few hours when there was no moonlight. Wayan knew that their journey through the forests would have taken many times longer if they had been travelling at a normal pace. Again he pondered the problem. Even if they tried to walk the whole tribe, they would have to find an even longer route inland, away from the Java tribes. Walking the whole family through the jungles would be too risky, he decided. The big boat will still be the safest way to move everyone south along the coast until they could find the other Malay.
After the women and children had retired to the houses, the men held another gathering around the night fire.
“It was a wasted journey,” grumbled Praba. “We have no help.”
“Your brother and Andhy found out something we needed to know,” Wayan responded, trying to check any arguments before they started. “We owe them our thanks.”
Agung
slapped Bandri heartily on the back, and the others, including Praba, slapped their legs to raise a clatter of thanks to the two runners.
“Knowing things helps,” confirmed Rukma philosophically. “We needed to know it - even if it was a bad thing to know.”
“I will meet the messenger tomorrow,” stated Praba, almost as if it was necessary to recover from the correction by the two senior tribesmen. “With Rukma.”
This was something Wayan and Rukma had been discussing at length. Bandri spoke Javanese as well as Rukma, and they wanted his opinion of the Java messenger. And if anyone could charm the Java, it was Bandri.
“Yes, son,” said Wayan. “But we wish Bandri to accompany you.”
Before Praba could object, Rukma intervened:
“We need to meet the Bahoi seniors on their own – so the messenger should not be able to speak to the seniors in our tribe.”
There was a pause before there came a muttering of agreement.
“If the weather is good tomorrow, then in the afternoon Rukma and I will go out and meet them,” explained Wayan, pleased at the arrangements so far. “Everyone else stays in the village.”
“I can take a boat out,” declared Praba. “They need to know that we will protect you.”
“We need good men to stay in the village,” Rukma said. “They may try to draw us away during the meeting. We need the families all in the two strong houses close together.”
“We’ll soak the roofs with water so they can’t be set alight,” said Andhika, and everyone muttered in agreement.
“You must take this,” Wayan said, removing the sheath with its long knife from around his waist and handing it to Praba. “You can use it better than me.”
Praba hesitated to accept the knife.
“Fathers.. You must take weapons in case they attack.”
Wayan first looked at Rukma, and then replied honestly to the younger men.
“If they see we have weapons, they’ll not trust us.”
“But we don’t trust them, and you need to protect yourselves,” insisted Praba. “You can hide small bows in the boat, and take poison for the arrows.”
“We’ll keep our boat away from theirs,” Rukma assured the men.
Bandri came and sat down on the log between the two fathers.
“There’s a chance that they’ll threaten you, or they have a plan that we haven’t thought about,” explained Bandri. “You may need something to defend yourselves.”
Agung had been hunched without speaking, with his face almost hidden behind long straggly hair, but now he and Bandri together offered their fathers each a nipa fisherman’s hat. This common headwear is used to ward off the glare of the sun, but inside each of the broad conical hats had been concealed a bronze knife. The two identical knives, made from the same model, had short strong blades which were about the length of a woman’s hand. As the hats and knives were inspected with appreciation, Bandri continued:
“Sitting in the boats you can’t threaten them with these small knives, and they can’t see them.. But if they get too close - then they could be useful.”
Wayan felt a surge of warmth that the young men had thought about all of this, and that Agung had made such knives. He looked at Rukma who was also visibly moved, and then he looked around at the expressions of the men, appreciating their concerns with a full heart.
“I understand – thank you,” Wayan said, passing the sheath with his long knife to Praba. “We accept the hats.”
“Yes - and we will hide small bows,” added Rukma, as the other men all produced a clatter of approval.
As arranged, the messenger from Bahoi reappeared the next morning. The Javanese tribesman walked out of the forest to stand outside the low stone wall around the village; he treated the wall as a boundary although it had been built as a deterrent to snakes and crocodiles. Bandri noticed that on his shoulders he bore the Javanese healed skin-scars of manhood: three scars on each shoulder. He had black tightly curled hair with a thin dark beard, and his heavy-set face held a stern expression.
Praba and Bandri walked out and stood opposite him, on the other side of the wall. All three men carried bows over their shoulders, while Praba and the messenger also carried knives at their waists. The three men were about the same height, the messenger wearing the Javanese kain, while the Malay brothers wore kathoks.
“Seng luweh tuwo kita takon yen sampeyan bisa ketemu dina iki?” - “Our seniors ask if you can meet today?” said the messenger with a heavy Javanese dialect, just about understandable to the Malay men.
“Please sit with us, and drink a little?” offered Bandri immediately in the Javanese dialect.
This break from tribal protocol produced an awkward silence for some moments as the men stood either side of the low wall about two paces apart. Praba sucked his lip uneasily.
“It is for our seniors to talk first,” the man replied flatly.
“Our seniors will talk with yours,” stated Praba, maintaining a more usually accepted manner between tribes.
“My name is Bandri. What is your name?”
The Bahoi tribesman looked coldly at the young man who had asked him the question in Javanese. Bandri calmly looked back at him, deciding to give him time to make up his mind. There was an unpleasant pause, until the man uttered his name as if it were an irrelevance for the Malay men to know.
“Yuwa.”
Bandri nodded his head in appreciation, but before he could respond Praba said formally “The meeting can be in boats.”
The man called Yuwa stared at Praba for a few moments.
“In boats?!” he said.
The brothers both nodded.
“Two senior men from each tribe will meet in boats out there,” said Bandri, pointing towards the bay. “The sea is calm today.”
The man’s eyes followed Bandri’s finger, and he breathed in thoughtfully.
“How many boats?” he asked, turning to stare back at them again.
“One boat for your two seniors and one boat for our two seniors.. Half-way where both villages can see - with no other men,” said Praba, taking care with the specific requirements.
The man repeated the arrangement to make sure that he understood, and paused a while, studying both men until he appeared to reach a conclusion.
“That is agreed,” the man said. Then he briefly touched his chest with his right hand as he added “When the sun mother has passed the zenith,” turning to raise the right arm indicating the angle at mid afternoon. “Our seniors will meet this afternoon on the bay.”
The brothers nodded, sealing the agreement.
“Saya ingin puak anda segala berkat.” - “I wish your tribe every blessing,” the man said, giving the formal farewell expression in Malay.
Bandri replied in the Javanese dialect:
“Kita pengin taler panjenengan saben berkah.” - “We wish your tribe every blessing.”
The Bahoi tribesman and the two Likupang tribesmen nodded again formally at each other. The man stepped back a pace. Just as he turned to leave, Bandri said quietly but clearly in the Javanese dialect:
“Matur nuwun, Yuwa.” - “Thank you, Yuwa.”
The man stopped for a moment, and looked back. He gave a slight nod of his head towards Bandri, and then walked into the forest. The brothers watched him go.
“You were too friendly,” grumbled Praba in annoyance. “Now they’ll think we’re weak!”
“It doesn’t make us weaker by knowing his name,” replied his younger brother.
After a mid-day meal, Wayan and Rukma prepared their chosen boat. They carried a supply of fresh water and wild honeycomb to maintain their stamina.
Two small bows and their bamboo arrows had been hidden in the hull of the small fishing boat, screened carefully from view by thin peelings of the niaouli paper bark tree. The arrow heads had been coated in a sticky mixture of Antiaris seed juice and viper venom; if an arrow embeds itself to dose the victim with its poison, the outcome will be seizur
e of the nerves and muscles, including the heart. These preparations had been done out of sight of the women and children.
With practised ease, both men pushed the small boat with its bamboo outriggers through the rolling surf. Wayan leapt into the bow, and Rukma jumped into the stern a moment later. Once they had paddled out beyond the surf line, they pulled on loose fitting fabric fisherman’s tops, since the scalding sun can be malicious on the open water. Finally they checked and donned their fisherman’s hats.
The whole village watched them from the beach, wishing for their safe journey, many murmuring prays to the spirits of the sea. The families gathered into the houses, and the two seniors set off across the bay to meet those from the Bahoi tribe.
“Take your time and save your strength,” Rukma advised his friend.
Many years of paddling had made it an almost sub-conscious activity for Wayan, and so he made the effort to relax. Even so, the men made easy progress out beyond the line of mangrove swamps towards the middle of the expansive bay. They pulled the blades almost lazily through the pristine green water, clear to the bottom of sea grass and coral - waters bright with the efflorescence of life and tints of azure.
Looking back, they could see Praba standing by his boat and the other men on the porches of the two houses near the beach. And now, across the tremulous blue of the bay they could see another boat coming from the direction of Bahoi, still too far away to make out its occupants. Gradually the two boats drew closer together. The buildings of both villages could now be seen in the far distance, perched on the edge of the blue bay, in front of the emerald-green forest which flowed up into the mountains behind.
As the other boat drew closer, Wayan and Rukma could see that both of their seniors had distinctly large beards. They were not wearing hats or fisherman’s tops. Both had tight curly hair, and were possibly father and son. They had seen both these men at a distance before. The eldest one with greying hair had a barrel-like chest and looked immensely strong. The taller one was also muscular and perhaps a little older than Yuwa, the messenger. Both had the Javanese tribal shoulder marks.
“That’s the big one and that tall one,” said Rukma quietly. “My Javanese is a bit better - I’ll start the talking if you like?”
Wayan was glad of the offer. Rukma always seems so calm and controlled. Wayan briefly wondered whether he trusted his friend better than himself.
“Thank you,” he replied. “Out here our Sun Spirit will see everything.. She will see if they try any deceit.”
As they waited for the other boat to come within talking distance, the two men from Likupang shuffled around a little in their seats. Pre-occupied with the desire for the Sun Spirit to see everything, Wayan removed his hat and pulled off his fisherman’s top to lay them down in the bottom of the boat. Rukma watched his friend without comment. The two small boats closed to within a dolphin’s leap, becoming stationary, yet rising and falling on the swell in the middle of the vast blue waters of the bay.
Rukma and Wayan had decided to follow Bandri’s example and try to exchange names early in the conversation.
“Jenengku Rukma lan iki Wayan.” – “My name is Rukma and this is Wayan.”
“Iku apik kanggo duwe rapat.” - “It is good to have a meeting,” announced the big man in a deep gravelly voice. This was the usual greeting when tribes met.
“It is good to meet you,” said Rukma, returning the customary greeting.
“We share the fishing in the bay and the hunting in the forests,” the big man said immediately, his voice betraying little emotion.
Wayan realised that the big man was trying to avoid telling them their names. However he said nothing and instead focused on studying the Bahoi seniors as their boat stayed parallel to their own, about five paces distant, rocking in the mild swell. The taller, younger man was directly opposite him. The Java men both wore kains made from wrappings of cloth. Wayan couldn’t see any weapons, but he knew that such things could easily be concealed.
The big-chested man had a thick black beard which was greying, as was his chest hair. His solid face had many wrinkles where it was free of hair. Even though he was of advancing years he looked very sturdy and determined. When he greeted them he had appeared to smile, but it was difficult to gauge his demeanour. The smile seemed half-hearted, possibly because he was attempting to hide his rotten teeth.
The other man showed little emotion either and had said nothing, but looked steadily at the two men from Likupang with eyes that were so dark-brown that they appeared obsidian black. He was also strong jawed, having a roundish face with a broad nose. His facial hair was jet black as was his thick chest hair. Wayan found his manner unsettling.
No-one made an overt movement, apart from holding their paddles to gently maintain their position in the water. Apart from the banal words of greeting, it seemed as if there was no noise apart from the placid slapping of the water against the boat hulls and outriggers.
Rukma replied to the last statement:
“We are both blessed with many fish and good forests.”
It appeared the big man had decided now to progress the conversation.
“This is my son.. One day he will be the leader of our people.”
There was a pause but neither Rukma nor Wayan made a comment.
“I have another good young son, who is fit and strong.. He also wishes to find a bride,” the big man said in a concise manner.
They had expected something like this, but still Wayan’s heart sank with the cold realisation that their fears had come true. Wayan heard an intake of breath from Rukma before he said without commitment:
“Every man hopes to find a good wife.”
“Kita bisa kurban ningkahan antarane lanang apik lan Badhak wadon apik.” - “We can offer marriage between our good males and your good females,” the big man pronounced.
To the Malay men, using the words ‘lanang’ and ‘wadon’ as ‘male’ and ‘female’ made the conversation sound as if they were describing a transaction of property, filling Wayan with a renewed disgust at the traditional Java approach to this most loving and spiritual of unions. He couldn’t help but grimace.
Seeing the reaction of the Malay men, the big man added:
“They will have much good fortune.”
A short silence followed.
“We have no unmarried women of a good age,” Rukma stated calmly.
“Ana telung badhak wadon enom lare.” - “There are three childless females,” the big man stated blandly.
The stark frankness of the statement chilled both Malay men. Wayan remembered his wife’s advice and managed to hold his temper, but he now felt compelled to speak.
“All the women are married,” he said firmly. “The girls who are not married are too young.”
His words hung in the air between the boats for a short while, until the big man stated in an insistent manner:
“We have strong males, and you have unmarried females.. It can be a good match.”
Wayan could contain himself no longer, especially at the dreadful idea of their sweet, young daughters being considered a possible match for such men. The mature man in the boat opposite had become uglier with every passing moment. Looking directly at that man who had not yet spoken, Wayan said clearly and firmly:
“The unmarried females are not going to marry anybody for many years.” He paused, and then went on to say “They are much too young for you.”
At that point, the man opposite raised himself up to his full height, and stood in the boat. His body hardly moved, even though the small boat was shifting on the unpredictable waves of the bay. It appeared to be a display of his physical presence and athletic ability. He glared down haughtily upon the seated Wayan.
Such arrogant impudence fired Wayan’s temper. Watched with intense concern by his friend, within a couple of heartbeats Wayan too stood up in the boat - with surprising ease for a man of his years. He felt his whole being crammed with emotion: love for the girls a
nd hatred for anyone who threatened them.
Standing, both balancing skillfully in the small boats, they glared at each other and their eyes met. They were about the same height, although Wayan was many years older. Armed with conviction Wayan glared straight back. Unable to withstand the penetrating gaze, the bearded man broke off the exchange and sat down again in his boat, apparently subdued, defeated by a pair of unflinching eyes.
Neither had uttered a word.
Wayan sat down silently, his mind burning with indignation. How dare these heartless thugs impose themselves on the lives of their darling daughters?! For long moments there was an unpleasant gulf of silence between the boats, until Rukma finally stated the Javanese expression between friendly tribes:
“Kita pengin taler panjenengan saben berkah.” - “We wish your tribe every blessing.”
The big man had been glaring alternately at his son and at Wayan. Now he fixed his eyes on Rukma. No verbal response came from either of the Bahoi men.
“We respect tribes have different customs,” said Rukma steadily. “And we ask you to respect the customs of our tribe.”
The angered look on the big man’s face slowly resolved itself until finally he nodded his head in Rukma’s direction, saying:
“I respect that you saved our tribesman.”
Rukma nodded in acknowledgment, but chose to say nothing.
“Kita pengin taler panjenengan saben berkah.” - “We wish your tribe every blessing,” said the Bahoi father, still looking at Rukma.
Almost immediately after this exchange, the senior tribesmen from Bahoi turned their boat about and started the return journey towards their village.
As they paddled back to Likupang neither man spoke for a while, even though the other boat was out of earshot. Wayan relived the short meeting in his mind.
“It ended too soon – we needed to know more about them,” he said in exasperation and regret. “That was my fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault – it was their attitude.”
Wayan valued Rukma’s steadfast and wise friendship more than he could ever express.
“But I angered them – and you saved us,” he said. “I’ve never had a better friend.”
They continued to paddle. Wayan cursed under his breath as he recalled the senior talking about ‘three childless females’.
“They must have been watching the village to know about Ayu,” he said.
Behind him, he heard Rukma sniff as he paddled, and Wayan bit his tongue mumbling “I’m sorry.” He thought about his sweet young daughter and that disgusting hairy man. His stomach retched. Expecting to vomit, he coughed over the side – some stuff came up but he swallowed it down and reached for the water container, saying:
“He called them ‘childless females’.. How disgusting to speak like that!”
“My friend, I’m sorry too,” Rukma replied. “It’s the way so many men think.. For them women and girls are for sex and getting strong sons, and those sons can get more ‘females’.. For them it’s simple – that’s your success in life. Sons get everything – men own women – women have no say.”
Wayan found it hard to comprehend Rukma’s calm, philosophical assessment. Or maybe he thought it was just hard to accept. Yes, he knew what lust for a girl felt like – if they’re not your own daughter or sister. But he still couldn’t understand why the Java men didn’t want to understand women and girls better. Why didn’t they want to find out more about them and look after them better. What was wrong with loving them, and being loved?
“Have they ever loved a daughter?” he said out loud. “Surely they would understand why we said ‘No’ to them?”
“I don’t know,” said Rukma. “Last dry season I saw that tall one fishing in a boat with a girl - I thought it could be his daughter.”
Wayan turned to look at his friend who stopped paddling too.
“We just don’t know enough about them.” Rukma said almost apologetically. “Maybe it was his sister?” After a pause, while Wayan continued to stare at him, he added “Unless it was a bride?”
Wayan cursed under his breath and turned back, feeling numb. The two men started paddling again. As they drew closer to the shore, Wayan asked for his trusted friend’s advice:
“What do we tell them in Likupang?”
“We tell them exactly what happened,” Rukma replied as he continued to paddle. “But I think it’s best that we forget about you and he standing up in the boats.”
“I think you’re right, we shouldn’t mention it - our wives will both worry about it,” confirmed Wayan, and then he added sardonically: “It was my fault - I should have asked him what his name was.”
Rukma laughed, and slapped his friend on the back. Wayan laughed a little too, yet inwardly he regretted not handling it better. Somehow he should have focused on finding out more about them. He prayed that their sons will know better how to deal with the Java tribesmen in the future.
Praba, Bandri and Agung came down to meet them on the beach.
“It’s good you didn’t need the weapons,” Bandri declared, as the three men waded in to meet the boat in the surf.
“It was better to be prepared,” Wayan said. “They weren’t friendly - but there were no threats.”
“What did they want?” asked Praba, holding the boat steady.
“They were looking for brides. We told them the girls were too young for marriage, and they went away,” said Rukma, getting out of the boat.
“And keep away!” grunted Agung, while Praba cursed: “Filthy dogs!”
Bandri offered his arm to his father as he stepped out of the boat.
“What were they like?”
Wayan could now see the women and children coming down the beach to join them.
“We’ll tell you more later.”
In the late afternoon warmth, Rukma and Kusama joined Wayan and Endah for a meal on their porch. Every word that had been exchanged in the meeting had been examined and dissected. For the parents it was so very important to understand what the intentions were of the Bahoi tribesmen, and whether their daughters might be in continuing danger. Indeed, they needed to know whether any of the family could be in danger as they looked after the girls.
“So when they left, you’re sure the oldest senior gave his blessings to our village?” asked Kusama.
“Yes.. His son never said a word,” said Rukma. “It seemed that his father made all the decisions.”
The conversation seemed to be repeating itself. Wayan’s attention wandered as he looked up at the large flock of fruit bats passing overhead; sedately flapping, furry-brown shapes against the pale orange of an approaching sunset.
“Do you think we can trust the word of the father?” Endah asked yet again, insisting on reassurance.
“Dear wife, I believe so,” replied Wayan again, praying to all the spirits for this to be true. “But I don’t like the look of his son.”
The men gathered around the beach fire in the evening, this time drinking the alcoholic toddy. No physical conflict had ensued from the refusal of the offer by the Bahoi tribe, but anger had been stoked.
“You see – the Java dogs must have been looking over our village!” fumed Praba.
“I want to know how he said ‘three childless females’.. Maybe it was a problem with dialect or something?” Bandri inquired more calmly, but with concern etched in his voice.
“Ana telung badhak wadon enom lare,” said Rukma, and then added: “We both heard it clearly. They could only mean Ayu, Suk and Mel.”
“But we didn’t use any names for the girls,” explained Wayan, looking his son in the eyes and understanding how difficult it must be for him to know that the Java wanted Ayu too. “We told them the unmarried women were very young girls.”
“It’s difficult to understand why they think such young girls would be good mothers – even if they survive childbirth,” Bandri said. The others listened, and even Praba didn’t interrupt. “Women need to be ready to
have children - having children straight after marriage can be too soon. They’re only thinking about girls for sex and status.” Aware now of the others attention, Bandri surmised after a hesitant pause “They’re not respecting them as people.”
The others said nothing for a few moments. Wayan breathed in and held his breath, full of fatherly love, yet full of hate for those that threatened his son’s future. Praba broke the silence, speaking again with barely suppressed anger:
“You already told them that the girls were very young, didn’t you?”
“We made that clear,” said Wayan.
Praba took another swig of toddy, and then coiled his hands into fists which he held squeezed between his knees, swaying a little as he spoke through gritted teeth:
“Then the dog said their ‘strong males’ can be a good match for our ‘females’?!”
Rukma nodded, if a little reluctantly. Wayan bit his tongue and said nothing; he disapproved of the toddy and usually would have chewed his son’s ears off for drinking so much, but right now he felt tempted to break his own abstinence.
“Disgusting!” Agung growled with venom, spitting into the fire. He got up and paced down the beach muttering, then picked up a large stone and flung it forcefully out to sea.
“He’s the reason they keep away,” Andhika muttered.
“They keep away because we all work together,” insisted Bandri.
“The dogs in Bahoi will keep away from the big boat!” Praba proclaimed vehemently.
“We must keep building that boat,” Wayan stated as calmly as he could. “Rukma asked them to respect our customs – and their senior leader wished our tribe every blessing.”
“If we can trust his Java word?!” seethed Praba.
Wayan felt jaded now. He had been absorbing these visceral emotions for days on end. What more could he do? During the past few exchanges his mind had settled as he inhaled the comforting muskiness of the wood smoke. At that moment he saw Praba taking off the sheath with the long knife so that he could return it.
“Keep the knife my son,” he said, holding up a hand. “I’m not ready for it yet.”
The Tropical Sun - Belief, Love and Hate Page 1
