First Contact: The Selling of the Last Savage

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Outside Magazine February 2005

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The Selling of the Last Savage (cont.)


	REGROUPING: from left: Ferdiny, Woolford, and the author weighing options in base camp after the initial encounter. (Stephen Dupont)

BY LATE AFTERNOON on September 12, we've covered roughly 70 miles of virtually uninhabited coastline. That's not surprising, considering that West Papua has about 2.2 million people in an area slightly larger than California. When we finally reach our base camp, a large clearing in the jungle next to the river, the remaining porters are waiting for us. They've been fishing and croc hunting for the past couple of days from a tiny prahu anchored in the reeds. In the clearing there's a rain shelter, called a pondok, about 40 feet long and 15 feet wide, with bouncy bamboo floors, roofed with palm fronds, and open on all sides. Next to it is a small cooking hut where one of the porters is roasting an emerald dove he shot with the BB gun.

Rain pummels us all night. It's unbearably humid, and the air in my tent is thick and stifling. I wake up soggy and cursing, having to mop up water pooling under my sleeping bag. The next morning my mood is worsened by Woolford's ability to survive off little more than cigarettes and coffee. We eat just two meals a day. Breakfast is always the same: instant oatmeal, coffee, and stale biscuits. Dinner typically consists of freeze-dried noodles or fried rice smothered in ketchup and chili sauce, sometimes with cabbage thrown in.

Gnawing on hard biscuits and gulping down watery coffee, I listen to Woolford.

"If we make friends with these first guys from last year," he says, "they will be able to take us to the location

Something doesn't feel right. The jungle is claustrophobic and, at times, maddenin—and I have an eerie sensation we're being watched.

of the other guys. The way in Papua is that you gotta go slowly, slowly. You can't just barge right in and bust into their camp. They'll be angry and we'll lose everything."

We enter the jungle shortly before noon, walking south, away from the river. The forest's canopy is nearly solid; only the faintest spears of sunlight penetrate the crown. Some of the tallest trees, called matoas, soar over a hundred feet. As our group spreads out single-file, I lose sight of everyone except the porter directly in front of me. There is no discernible trail, and when he gets too far ahead, swallowed by the jungle, I become totally disoriented and have to call out for directions.

"How do they know where they're going?" I ask Woolford when we stop to wait for the porters to stuff betelnut—a mild stimulant extracted from the betel palm—into their cheeks.

"They're Papuans, man. This is their turf. They just have a sense about which way to go."

At one point I stumble and come within inches of stepping on a death adder—"one of the deadliest snakes in Papua," Woolford tells me later. A porter sees me staring at it, grabs a stick, and clubs it to death.

Aside from the stinging clouds of mosquitoes, the jungle is nearly motionless. Unseen parrots, cockatoos, and hornbills cry out from above. Invisible cicadas screech. After four hours of walking, we decide to set up camp next to a shallow creek. Our porters grab machetes and hack down brush and spindly trees. Within minutes they've cut a swath for our tents. Using the fresh-cut timber and vines, they assemble a large eating table, a long bench, a cooking hut, and a shelter roomy enough for all 14 of us to huddle under when the afternoon rains commence.

Dusk descends on the jungle, and depth, color, and texture slowly fade away. Then something strange happens: Seemingly out of nowhere, an unknown man starts calling from the darkness. His voice is shrill and quivering. It's not anybody from our group. According to my map, we're nearly a hundred miles from any significant settlement or village. One of our porters, a 25-year-old Papuan named Yakobus, grabs a pouch of rolling tobacco and wades through the creek toward a rustle in the trees.

"Tsabat! Tsabat! Tsabat!" he hollers, holding the tobacco in his outstretched hand. "Tsabat! Tsabat! Tsabat!"

"What's Yakobus saying?" I ask Woolford.

"I think it means tobacco," he says.

"In what language?"

"Burate, the language of the region. About 100 people speak it."

The figure passes between two trees, and I catch a glimpse of his grass skirt and an enormous longbow, which looks to be six feet tall. As Yakobus gets closer, the man's shouts get louder—now coming in short, angry snorts. Whoever this guy is, he's not too thrilled we're here. After Yakobus makes a few more attempts to give him tobacco, the stranger slips into the jungle, his shouts fading as he recedes.

Yakobus returns, wide-eyed and frightened. He thinks the man might be a chief of some sort. He tells Woolford that earlier, while the porters prepared our dinner, he went to scout our route for the next morning and stumbled across seven tribesmen crowded in a tiny bivouac about a mile from our camp. Initially Yakobus thought he recognized the men as members of the Keu tribe, who are known to hunt in the area, but he couldn't be sure. He'd tried giving them several packets of loose tobacco as an offering. "But they started reaching for their bows," Yakobus says to Woolford, who translates the news to us. "I tried to give them the tobacco again, but they hit it out of my hand and ran into the jungle."

At first Woolford seems bewildered, which makes me nervous. But then he says this kind of aggressive behavior is normal and that it sometimes takes several days of approaching and retreating before a new tribe will allow outsiders to sit with them. I try to relax.

"At least they know we're here," Woolford says, lighting up a kretek. "Tomorrow we'll try again."

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