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.)


	CULTURE CLASH: A group of tribesmen surround Woolford's expedition. (Stephen Dupont)

EARLY THE NEXT DAY, on September 14, Woolford, Dupont, Ferdiny, Yakobus, and I set out from camp with three other porters. Everyone else stays behind. I'm wishing I could do the same. Something just doesn't feel right. The jungle is claustrophobic and, at times, maddening—the incessant rain, heat, and mud, the screeching of cicadas, the eerie sensation we're being watched.

We've walked for hardly 15 minutes when I smell smoke. It's the campfire of the native party. Yakobus calls out, "Whooo-ahhh, whooo-ahhh," warning of our approach. Another porter beats the trunk of a matoa with a walking stick, sounding a booming thud so intense I can feel the thump on my chest. We're all bunched together about 20 yards from what appears to be the entrance to a three-sided bush shelter or bivouac. Nobody speaks.

Then all hell breaks loose. There's hysterical screaming and shouting. It's the natives, who leap through the back of their bivouac. Twigs are snapping in every direction. I hear bare feet slapping the mud, more yelling, and bursts of frantic, hyperventilated babble. Within seconds the natives have surrounded us, almost entirely camouflaged by the jungle. They're about 40 feet away. To my right I see one lean out from behind a tree, then pull his bowstring taut and release it. I wince, then exhale. The bow is empty: no arrow. Another man does the same to my left. Then two others move to within 20 feet and twice more pull and release their bowstrings. It's a show of force—they could have shot us dead already if that was their goal.

Yakobus tries to lure the natives back to their bivouac, repeating, "Tsabat! Tsabat!" and holding his hands above his head to show that he's unarmed. Twice he coaxes the men closer, but they panic when they see us and disappear into the jungle, whooping and yelping. After several minutes, Yakobus succeeds in calling all the natives to their bivouac. I grab the video camera we've brought and start shooting. There are eight of them: seven younger ones, possibly in their teens or early twenties, and one older man, likely the person who came near our camp the night before.

The men are wearing black headdresses that resemble chin-length dreadlocks. Made from cassowary feathers, the headdresses cover most of their faces. Some have tied the feathers into a kind of ponytail, and one has painted a pair of parallel white stripes down the center of his forehead. Strips of bright-yellow leaves are wrapped around their biceps. Each is wearing a skirt constructed of the same leaves, with a long strip of brown bark holding it in place. They stand motionless and silent in the bivouac just long enough for Dupont to click off a few photos.

That's when I notice that their hands are trembling. They look absolutely terrified. A wave of guilt washes over me. One of the men barks a command, and once again they dash into the jungle.

"This is very wrong," I snap at Woolford. "We need to leave right now. We shouldn't be doing this. They're really freaked out."

Yakobus makes a few halfhearted attempts to bring the men back but then suggests we return to camp and try again in the morning.

"Try again?" I mutter, still amped and jittery. As we retreat, I hear one of the tribesmen chant, "Wu-hu-hu, wu-hu-hu," in the distance. The others join in, repeating the phrase in haunting tones and in syncopated rhythm. It's hypnotic and beautiful—a show of solidarity, perhaps, to celebrate their having chased us off.

In the morning we set off toward the natives' bivouac once again. But this time their shelter is empty, their fire cold. On the walk back to our bush camp, the porters smoke kreteks and mumble quietly to one another. When we rejoin the others at camp, the kepala desa, Hiri Didat, hears our story and starts pacing back and forth. "I'm afraid that they might still be around here, circling the place," he warns Woolford.

Woolford mentions that the older man might have been the chief he encountered last year. But he's not certain about the others and has no idea what they'll do next.

"There are three possibilities," Woolford surmises. "They've gone farther away, they're circling around, or they've gone for reinforcements and might come back to attack us."

"Attack us?" I whimper.

"That means we are not safe," says Ferdiny.

"No shit," I say, noticing that the porters have already started to pack our gear, scurrying around camp at twice the speed I've seen them move before.

"The natives can follow our footprints and come attack us at base camp later," says Rumbarar, the local guide, who has barely uttered a word the entire trip. "But if they come back, it'll be more than eight people." Rumbarar then tells Woolford that the tribesmen were responsible for triggering the rainstorm last night, so they could abscond in the dark without being followed.

"The rain covers their footprints in the mud," says Rumbarar.

"Yeah, they made the rain," says Woolford. "They can do that. I've seen it happen in other parts of Papua."

"They can't make it rain," I interject. "So stop saying that."

"You don't believe me?" says Woolford. "It's true—I've seen it with my own eyes."

"I think this is a good note to leave on," says Ferdiny.

During the hike back to base camp, Dupont, Ferdiny, and I stick close together. Woolford is ahead of us and out of earshot. For the first time, we discuss the possibility that he might have sent word ahead that he was bringing Westerners into the jungle expecting to see wild, uncontacted tribes, and made arrangements for a staged encounter with our group.

"I think it might be a trick," Ferdiny whispers to me.

"I'm having a hard time believing that only a four-hour walk from the river, these tribesmen are so close by," I say.

"I'm really suspicious, too," says Dupont. "But I'm just not sure if it's a hoax, either."

We walk quietly but quickly. Every pop, screech, chirp, and whir—the sounds of the jungle—causes me to corkscrew my head in all directions, certain we're being followed.

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