by Carl Hoffman
I could picture him out there in the end. Alone, walking with clarity and resolve, maybe even a kind of happiness, throwing himself into rivers, climbing too high into trees, reveling in the freedom of his own ultimate escape, the purity and finality of death. Maybe he sat down to die in a beautiful, hidden place. Maybe he encountered some loggers and confronted them, forced his own fate. Maybe he grabbed another pit viper and was bitten again. For the uncompromising ascetic it was the ultimate trip.
Georges’s words about growing old and not losing faith came to me while gazing at the statues in Tom Murray’s gallery, imagining Bruno alone up there in those mountains and how he’d reached so deeply for the greatest of Western fantasies, how he’d gotten it, achieved it, held it in his hand, far more than any of us in that gallery or in any of the gallieries at Parcours des Mondes. I thought of all those people with their yoga mats and asana in Bali and I thought of Michael Palmieri and how the best pieces of tribal art exuded the most power to their buyers and observers, even here in Paris, so far removed from the place and the time and people who had created it.
Standing there looking at Michael’s former carving glowing under a halogen beam, Murray said, “This was carved when there was no question about whether God exists. We have the benefit of Descartes and scientific reasoning and we can fly through the air and we have the Hubble Telescope, but the power of the sun, the moon, the tree of life, storms, lightning, the bamboo that sprouts eighteen inches in one night, well, we still have a yearning for that time of seamless belief. Missionaries went to all these places trying to save souls, but the irony is that it is the art of these tribal people that saves our souls now.”
A few weeks later I traveled to the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. Even as Thomas Jaffe, the nephew of publishing magnate Walter Annenberg, engaged in a vicious family feud and battle in court over a tribal art collection worth more than $25 million, he gave to his alma mater what many considered the finest collection in the world of Indonesian and Southeast Asian carvings, gold, and textiles. The donation in 2009 endowed the Thomas Jaffe Curator of Indo-Pacific Art and a whole new gallery. This was the end of the line, the final resting place, where the last treasures of the Dayaks and others ended up on their epic journey from longhouse and rain forest to the pinnacle of Western culture, absent any trace of Michael or Perry, the former hippies, and all they represented, who’d brought it out.
The space and presentation were lovely: deep blue walls, light wood floors, glass cases atop white squares, and cubes under rays of soft lighting. There, against one wall, stood a striking wooden figure, six feet tall, expressive, enigmatic, brooding. Powerful. “Ancestor Figure,” its tag read. “Borneo, 18th Century or earlier.” I recognized it immediately from photos—a young, mustachioed Michael Palmieri standing next to it among a crowd of Dayaks—and its story stretched back decades, centuries. The sacred rituals surrounding its carving, the years it stood guarding a village on the upper reaches of the Mahakam River, its purchase by one of the great treasure hunters of our time, now standing here, sanctified by the imprimatur of the Ivy League and all it represented. So many collectors and dealers and museum curators wrung their hands over the ethics of field collecting, but they had no problem with buying objects once that initial transaction was completed. Michael’s statue was now in the hands of scholars, lending glory to the hallowed halls of Yale. “The heydays are over,” said Ruth Barnes, an Oxford PhD who’d been brought in from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to be the Thomas Jaffe Indo-Pacific Curator. “The good stuff isn’t around anymore. But I come up with a justification for what I do, what I love, which is that we make the material accessible to scholars who want to study it, and for the public to enjoy it.”
It was beautiful and it moved me, but more so because I knew its story, its journey, its connection to that surfer kid who’d struck out for Mexico so long ago when he and the world were so different. It gave me a sense of wonder and a lump in my throat. Then, as if the gods themselves were looking down from Bali, a message popped up on my phone. It was Michael Palmieri. He’d flown home to Los Angeles to spend two months with his ninetysomething-year-old mother, but had blasted back to Bali after just six weeks. He couldn’t live in America, couldn’t really stand it anymore. He’d grown older, had successfully navigated a lifetime, but he hadn’t lost his faith, his dream. “Good to be home in my little grass shack in Bali!” he wrote. I could picture him there—the geckos barking and the statues and shield and gongs surrounding him, his front door wide open to the humid evening.
Acknowledgments
Key to this book are Bruno Manser’s journals, and I’m forever indebted to Ruth Boggs, who translated almost three hundred thousand words of them, and charged me a fraction of her usual rate.
Lukas Straumann and Erwin Zbinden at the Bruno Manser Fund in Basel gave me unfettered access to its archives containing hundreds of pages of Bruno’s correspondence, important contact information for friends and relatives of Bruno, an early version of the English translation of Bruno’s biography, and photos, not to mention crucial insight. I’m especially appreciative of the BMF’s Simon Kaelin for setting me up with Peng Megut in Sarawak.
Thanks to Sophie Biglar for coming to Bali and translating the bulk of Bruno’s letters, and for her hospitality in Switzerland, and to Nicole Ganzert for finishing the last translations in Bali.
I’m heavily indebted to Ruedi Suter and his biography, especially for the segments on Bruno’s early life. Suter’s intimate knowledge of and years spent covering Bruno make him the go-to source, and I’m grateful not only for his book, but also for his generosity in sharing so many thoughts and stories.
In Switzerland, a small army of people generously shared their memories of Bruno. I’m particularly thankful to Erich and Aga Manser and Monika Niederberger, who spent hours with me, took me into the Alps where Bruno herded sheep, fed and sheltered me, and shared their family stories, not to mention Georges and Fabiola Rüegg, Roger Graf, Martin Vosseler, and Jacques Christinet for sharing their memories. And a big thank-you to Mutang Urud, who generously met me in Montreal to tell me his story.
Needless to say, this book could never have been written without Michael Palmieri, who unfurled his tales over many days and nights, agreed to take me with him to Borneo, and helped me in countless small ways to navigate the twists and turns of Bali. I will be forever grateful to him.
A special thanks to Jane Cornelius Platford for friendship in Bali and introductions to so many people who had important roles in this story; had we not met this book wouldn’t exist.
Thank you to Janet Deneefe, whose invitation to the wonderful Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in 2014 led me to this story in the first place.
In the tribal art world, so many people were generous with their time and insight, including Perry Kesner, Thomas Murray, Bruce Carpenter, Alexander Goetz, Mark Johnson, Rodger Dashow, Katherine Gunsche, Victoria Reed, and Ruth Barnes.
Many thanks to Chuah Guat Eng, who helped guide me in researching Malaysian newspapers, not to mention always giving sage advice about Malaysian politics.
Thank you to Tess Davis for taking the time to explain to me the nuances of cultural patrimony laws.
My time in Bali was made richer by Lixie Michaelis, Lawrence Blair, Mary Lou Pavlovic, and Deborah Vanderhoek. A big thanks to Julie Barber, who rented me her house. And thank you to Cheria Sailendra for her friendship and patient teaching of Bahasa Indonesia.
I am deeply indebted to my agent, Joe Regal, who doesn’t just ably look after business things, but whose careful and patient editing made this book, and all of my books, so much better. I owe my book-writing career to him. And thank you to everyone at Regal Hoffmann Literary who help in big ways and small, including Markus Hoffmann, Claire Anderson-Wheeler, Barbara Marshall, and Tiffany Regal.
I’m so thankful for the unrelenting support and enthusiasm from Lynn Grady and Peter Hubbard at my publisher, William Morrow, who have no
w sent me out into the farthest corners of the world twice; it is the greatest privilege a writer can have. And Peter’s insights and edits made the book much stronger. Sharyn Rosenblum is the best publicist anywhere and I’ve never felt in such good hands; she is an alchemist. Many thanks to Emily Homonoff.
I’m particularly thankful to Jean Hoffman, Clif Wiens, Iwonka Swenson, Edwina Johnson, Scott Wallace, and Kim Smolik for reading and commenting on early drafts of the manuscript, not to mention friendship and support.
Last, but in no way least, I’m deeply grateful to my children, Lily, Max, and Charlotte, for their love, patience, and support, not to mention enriching my days in Bali.
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Notes
Prologue
Michael Palmieri heard a crash: I lived a few blocks away from Michael Palmieri in Bali, Indonesia, between October 24, 2015, and May 12, 2016, and spent many hours with him talking and taking notes. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes or information attributed to Palmieri came from our discussions. Where possible, I tried to verify the information, often through photographs.
He’d even appeared in Playboy magazine: Ibid. Palmieri showed me a photograph of the tear sheet.
The bells tinkled sweetly: I first met Alexander Goetz and Perry Kesner at a dinner on October 7, 2014, during a visit to Bali for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.
In 2016, for instance: Tom Mashberg, “Prominent Antiquities Dealer Accused of Selling Stolen Artifacts,” New York Times, December 21, 2016.
“Defendant used a laundering process”: Ibid.
Outside magazine named him its Outsider of the Year: William W. Bevis, Borneo Log: The Struggle for Sarawak’s Forests (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 154.
“What had happened?”: “Vanished!,” Time (Asia), vol. 158, no. 10 (September 3, 2001).
recent carbon-14 tests: Thomas Murray, C-14 Dating of Dayak Art (private catalog, 2015).
One
He carried a backpack stu
ffed: Bruno Manser, Tagebücher aus dem Regenwald 1984–1990 (Basel: Christoph Merian Verlag, 2004), 73. Bruno’s journals are in German and were translated for me by Ruth Boggs, a professional translator from Fairfax, Virginia.
Southeast Asia’s forests are the oldest on earth: Wade Davis, Ian Mackenzie, and Shane Kennedy, Nomads of the Dawn: The Penan of the Borneo Rain Forest (San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1995), 30.
“The tropical rain forests”: Biruté M. F. Galdikas, Reflections of Eden: My Years with the Orangutans of Borneo (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995), 91.
“The term ‘cathedral forest’”: Ibid, 81.
He had left Switzerland six months earlier: Manser, Tagebücher aus dem Regenwald, 23.
On the train: Ibid, 26.
He wandered off the road: Ibid., 26.
He explored Thai caves: Ibid., 28.
In one he spotted a strange-looking: Ibid., 27.
had been haunted by dreams of them: “Robin Hood Is Still Fighting,” L’Illustré, April 18, 1990.
“It was nice meeting you”: Manser, Tagebücher aus dem Regenwald, 28.
Hearing there were wild elephants: Ibid., 56.
Arriving with just six pounds: Ibid., 30.
“I threw the root far”: Ibid., 35.
Another plant made him so sick: Ibid., 37.
He was bitten in the hand: Ibid., 36–37.
“Indeed,” writes the anthropologist Bernard Sellato: Bernard Sellato, Nomads of the Borneo Rainforest: The Economics, Politics, and Ideology of Settling Down, trans. Stephanie Morgan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press), 15.
which Bruno saw in a library in Basel: Wade Davis, “The Apostle of Borneo,” Outside, January 1991.
about seven thousand lived in two distinct populations: J. Peter Brosius, “Endangered Forest, Endangered People: Environmentalist Representations of Indigenous Knowledge,” Human Ecology 25, no. 1 (1997): 49.
