Ex Celebes
by Chaumont Devin

To all those who love the forests and the original inhabitants of the
land.

Disclaimer: The political opinions expressed in this work have nothing to
do with Rev.  Mapa Maleta, who simply related his story to me.  They
spring exclusively from my own attempt to understand the social and
physical environment through which his story moves.

Orthographical note: I have spelled Padoe words using standard Malay
orthography except for the letter 'x', which here represents the glottal
stop.  Instead of trying to write Macassar, Ujung Pandang, etc., I have
simply written this name the way it sounds, the way God has always
intended it to be--Makasar for ever!

 Introduction.

I first met Mapa Maleta in Honolulu during the spring of 2001, and soon
became intrigued by his story.  Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it
covers the whole spectrum of life in the Malay Archipelago, from the
primitive to the modern, and touches upon all of the most critical issues
of our time, such as population explosion, habitat depletion,
deforestation, the endangerment of species, religious fanaticism,
atrocities perpetrated using modern weapons against peoples deliberately
deprived of rights and kept unarmed, human misery, hopeless poverty, the
choice between engagement and withdrawel from the society of man, personal
honor and faithfulness to friends, and the astonishing amount of good that
can come from even the most minimal respect for the rights of other human
beings.

The thing that amazed me about Mapa was that he had actually lived the
life of a hunter-gatherer, and yet here he was before me with all of the
essential characteristics of a modern man of the world.  I have lived in
the mountains of Buru with people who, like Mapa, could have survived in
the forest indefinitely with only a steel blade, and I knew exactly what
he was talking about at every point in his tale, and yet I have never met
any other person who has managed to come out of that hunter-gatherer
existence to become a truly modern man.  And so he made me eager to
understand the process he had undergone, because I think I do believe that
healthy people are created equal in some way, and I long to find a means
of allowing men to reach back and forth across this inscrutable chasm that
continues to separate "primitive" from "modern" men right up into our
present time.

As we know now,  we are not necessarily inferior or superior to other
races--although genetic influence is still but poorly understood--but only
different.  As an example, Mapa has four children, and every one of them
has graduated from university.  But could it be that Mapa is simply the
result of some fortunate genetic mutation which he has passed on to his
children? Hardly.  He is the most ordinary of men.  His secret lies not in
any fortunate sequence of genes, but in the fortunate sequence of events
which I will try to capture here.

It is my hope that this narrative will provide important insights into the
process, or at least one of the processes, by which an adult
hunter-gatherer might shift into the role of modern man.  It is a process
involving hard work, longing, and religious fervor, but in some mysterious
combination that succeeds where others mainly fail.  I will leave it to
the reader to see if he or she can find those essential and elusive
patterns which remain invisible to me.  I cannot guarantee that I have
even hit upon the clues.  All I can do is to tell this story as I heard it
from Mapa.

The ancient splendor of the Malay Archipelago--and notice that I avoid the
name, "Indonesia"--is being trashed at an appalling rate, and this mainly
courtesy US foreign policy.  Having reaped the incalculable benefits that
are to be obtained by doing things not because they are expedient but
because they are right, the United States has consistently persued a
foreign policy based upon the exact opposite philosophy.  Many educated
people will understand what I have just said immediately and completely,
but for those who do not, there are many clues to be had, such as the way
our media often speaks of AMERICANS who suffer this or that, or AMERICANS
who died in some plane crash, and not just PEOPLE who are suffering and
dying in the world.  Our national genius, like the genius of many nations
before us, continues to perceive peoples other than ourselves as
expendable and something less than human beings.

My friend, Mapa Maleta, this precious and incomparable man, was/is
precisely one of these untold millions seen as expendable and somewhat
less than human by the misguided leaders of our land.

During 1945, in some of our finest hours, our young men fought and died to
drive a terrible enemy from the Southeast Asian wilderness.  But as soon
as we had gained the victory, our unthinking politicians quickly turned
this prize over into the hands of men every bit as brutal as the Japanese
before them.  The Dutch were driven out of the Malay Archipelago, and the
government of this vast region was placed into the hands of a gang of
mainly Javanese thugs and Japanese collaborators under the name of the
"Republic of Indonesia," which has never been any kind of a republic at
all.  And it has been the consistent policy of the United States to
provide full military and economic support to these thugs and their
proteges and decendants ever since.  It would literally take volumes and
perhaps even libraries to document all the evil of these men.  One of
them, Abdul Kahar Muzakkar, the reader will meet with at a distance in
this work.  He can probably be thought of as having been right up there
among the very worst.  A milder example is the policeman at Poso who seeks
merely to terrify Mapa Maleta by hurling his AK47 down before him on the
desk.  And then there is the kind Brawijaya commander, whose best idea of
freedom is to order the people to chose whether to be Christians or
Moslems.

Some people think that colonialism and colonization are now past.  Nothing
could be further from the truth.  All that has happened is that
colonization has moved from being something open and ridiculed to
something subtle, sinister, and unseen.  Europeans no longer colonize
Indians or Africans, but Africans colonize Africans, Asians colonize
Asians, and Europeans colonize Europeans.  And in each case, the word,
"colonize," or any derivitive thereof, will be scrupulously avoided in
describing what is going on.  Serbians do not "colonize" Albanian
homelands.  Instead, Albanians are "citizens" of Serbia and "Macedonia."
And those very world powers--Australia, America--which once spoke out the
loudest against man's inhumanity to man, are now quietly endorsing and
supporting what is going on.  We have chosen to be blind.

Perhaps the most fundamental and consistently promoted fabrication of US
foreign policy is a principle proclaiming that the deadliest weapons ever
known to humankind are to be manufactured and sold freely to certain
social groups and strictly denied to others.  This idea is not only
diametrically opposed to US law (we have the inalienable right to bear
arms), but an insult to the most fundamental common sense.  After all,
where is genocide ever practised except where one social group is given
arms while another social group is denied them? Yet day-by-day we continue
to be brainwashed by an international press Hell-bent upon disarming
Irishmen, Albanians, and others, whereas history clearly shows us that
disarmed peoples are the inveterate victims of annihilation.

Mapa Maleta was one of these disarmed and dispossessed persons--unable to
defend himself or his people, and hunted like an animal from hill to hill
in his own land.  But his attackers held in their hands M1 rifles that had
"made in USA" written along their high-tech steel barrels.  Not once were
his people ever offered help by the US or Australia.  To the inhabitants
of these bastions of freedom, the lives of Mapa Maleta and his people were
somewhat less than nothing.  They were expendables upon the mythical block
of progress.  As a matter of fact, Most Americans still don't even know
that they exist, while the international press is far more interested in
telling them about such wonders as Monica Lewinsky.

So I would like to close by leaving you with some facts:

1.  The people of the entire Malay Archipelago are still being deprived of
arms.  Being caught with a weapon in one's possession means imprisonment
or death.

2.  Meantime, while making a show of discontinuing the practise of arming
the "Republic of Indonesia" to the teeth, providing the Jakarta Mafia with
training in such niceties as psychological warfare, counterinsurgency,
crowd control, etc., the United States now makes it possible for the said
"Republic of Indonesia" to carry on by means of massive loans, now made
through various international banking organizations instead of directly as
before.  The ultimate result is precisely the same.  The people of the
Malay Archipelago remain dispossessed and disarmed while their Javanese
thug overlords stash billions in Swiss banks.

3.  While the "Republic of Indonesia" crows about good forest management,
the ancient forests of the Malay Archipelago are being wantonly and
deliberately destroyed by those in power in Jakarta, while the people have
no say over the destiny of their own land, and this destruction is being
financed by US dollars and by the system that the US has set up in
Southeast Asia.

4.  The people in power in Jakarta have embraced fanatical Islam, and have
been encouraging and financing the slaughter of thousands of persons in
the name of Allah and the burning of hundreds of churches throughout
Indonesia, not to mention the public gang rape of over a hundred Chinese
Christian women on the streets of Jakarta.

5.  While making international boasts about promoting birth control, the
Republic of Indonesia has quietly allowed its population to soar to an
unprecedented 215 million.

6.  Under the guise of an effort to relieve population pressures in Java,
the "Republic of Indonesia" has been quietly engaged in the most massive
colonization project in the history of our planet--and once again, none of
this could happen without massive monitary assistance from the US.

7.  This colonization project, called "Projek Transmigrasi," has resulted
in an exponential rate of forest devastation, and placed unsupportable
burdens upon the environment resulting in large-scale destruction of
marine habitat and a consequent scarcity of fish in some of the finest and
most biologically diverse waters in the world.

8.  In places like Sulawesi, land is taken away from its rightful owners
and divided among hired colonists from Java.

9.  Although professing equality and freedom of religion, the "Republic of
Indonesia" has shown a consistent pattern of Javanization and
Islamization.  Javanese and Moslems are given the best jobs, and the
entire archipelago is in the process of being colonized by Moslem
Javanese, while non-Javanese and non-Moslem populations are being
slaughtered.  Although the "Republic of Indonesia" has managed to get by
openly with its "Projek Transmigrasi," it is now in no way limited to
forthright means.  In both the massacres of East Timor and of Maluku, the
"Republic of Indonesia" has employed surrogates--in Timor going under the
name of the "Militia," and in Maluku under the name of the "Islamic
Jihad."

Having lived under this "Republic of Indonesia" for 23 years, I have many
other things to say, but I have digressed far enough.  My hope is that the
facts and opinions given above will serve to provide some kind of
understandable framework for this story.

But if the reader will permit me just one last remark, then I will say
this:

The Malay Archipelago IS the original Paradise of God.  In spite of what
men have allowed themselves to think today, it is NOT the exclusive
property of some gang of US-sponsored killers in Jakarta.  It is the
rightful heritage of all mankind.  But once in our avarice and blindness
we allow this treasure to be destroyed, we will henceforth be permanently
cut off from Paradise forever.  BEWARE!

Chaumont Devin, Honolulu, August 17, 2001.

My name is Mapa Maleta.  My hair and eyes are black: my skin dark tan.  I
stand 165cm (five feet five), and my body weight is about 68kg (150
pounds).  I was born February 10, 1937, in my father's field house at
Tambununu, near Wawondula Village, in the Nuha district of Sulawesi.  This
means that I am now over 64 years old.  I belong to the Mori clan, whose
people are known as the Tomori.  This clan has three major divisions: the
Mori Atas, the Mori Bawah, and the Mori Selatan.  I am a member of the
Mori Selatan.

My native tongue is Padoe, but this is not the only language spoken among
the Mori Selatan, where also may be found such dialects as Karongsixe,
Tambe, and others.  As a matter of fact, when traversing the Nuha district
it is not uncommon to find a different dialect spoken every 15-20
kilometers.  But although people may be unable to converse with their
neighbors at an intellectual level, they will usually find it possible to
communicate in terms of basic needs.  This is because all of these
languages are dialects of the Mori tongue, which in turn is only one of
the many hundreds of Austronesian languages spoken across half the world.

To get some idea of just how long the Mori people may have been living in
Sulawesi, let us consider the dialects and languages spoken by the Maori
of the Pacific Islands.  We are apt to think of Maori people as just the
Polynesians living in New Zeeland, but in reality, the name, "maori," is
found in various forms everywhere in Polynesia, and its ancient meaning is
synonymous with "Polynesian."  Whether or not "maori" might come from the
same ancient word as does "Mori" we do not know, but it is true that
Proto-Polynesian is also an Austronesian language, just like Mori, and so
it may be valuable for our comparison.  In fact, "Tomori" may just be a
contraction of "Tau Maori," which means "Maori Person" in the ancient
tongue.  In the Minahasa region, the "to" part is still pronounced "tou,"
which pronunciation must lie somewhere between "to" and "tau."

It is known that languages evolve but slowly over time, and that in order
to diverge, there must be some degree of isolation.  Thus the longer two
groups of people speaking the same language are separated, the more the
dialects or languages they speak are expected to differ from each other.
Even when villages lie very close to one another, they can become isolated
by means of tribal conflict, head hunting, etc.  And yet it would seem
safe to assume that there should be greater opportunity for linguistic
isolation to occur between peoples separated by vast expanses of ocean
than by distances of from 15-20 kilometers.

Now it is known that the original breakup that led to the current
distribution of Polynesian languages must have occurred about 3,000 years
ago, and that more recent splits may have occurred as late as 1,500 years
ago.  And yet, although persons speaking different Polynesian languages
may find it impossible to carry on an intelligent conversation, they are
apt to find it possible to communicate more basic needs--just like people
speaking different dialects of Mori.  So from this evidence it would seem
clear that our people have been living side-by-side in Sulawesi for many
thousands of years.

And from this, in turn, it should be possible to get some idea of the
attachment of the Mori people to their land.  Even in America, where
Europeans have only been living for about 400 years, White farmers have
sometimes been known to stand and fight in order to defend their land.
And yet it would seem very difficult for most Americans, coming from a
highly mobile society where people move from city to city and live in
apartment buildings that are not their own, to have any real understanding
of the attachment of our people to their land.  It is a very hard thing
for our people to be parted from their land, and yet this is what has been
done--by greedy persons, criminals with better weapons, religious and
political fanatics, etc--most of them armed, trained, and financed, either
directly or indirectly, by Americans who can have but scant idea of the
real meaning of this bond.

Yet for us the land itself can have no monitary value.  We do not own
land, but only the valuable trees that have been planted on the land.

My home is an island in the Malay Archipelago.  Europeans call it Celebes,
but we know it by the ancient name of Sulawesi.  It has been made famous
by the study of its Toraja people, whose villages lie some hundreds of
kilometers from my homeland.

According to our elders, the first human lived upon a mountain near
Tomata.  From there our forefathers have disbursed to Mori Bawah, Mori
Selatan, Pendolo (Poso),  and other places.

Tambununu, my birthplace,  was part of an agricultural complex carved out
of the primeval forest on the slopes of Mt.  Palumba, in the Verbeg
mountain range, in the district of Nuha.  At the center of this
agricultural complex lay the village of Wawondula, which was one of the 24
villages of Nuha.  Some of these villages were Christian, and some of them
were Moslem.

My father's father was a man named Bou.  During his time there were not
many people about Wawondula.  There Bou hunted deer and pig.  His wife was
Wempino, if I remember correctly.  My father was Damah, and my mother was
Pehi.

The people who brought Christianity to Wawondula were Menadonese and
Dutch.  At that time the standard of living was very low among the Padoe
because it was not easy to reach the Bugis traders at Waraxu.  This Waraxu
was a trading outpost where Bugis businessmen from Malili came to meet
with Padoe people bearing damar resin, coffee, and various forest products
from the mountains.

About 1910 or 1920, a Menadonese public works officer named Tuaranto came
up from Palopo and saw that it might be possible to link Balambano and
Waraxu with a path across some steep outcroppings of rock.  The distance
between them was about 15 kilometers.  Such a path could dramatically
raise the living standard of our people.  He accomplished this
bysuspending himself about 20 meters from a length of rope and breaking up
the rocks with a crowbar and pickaxe.  After working for some months,
people were able to pass on foot.  Then, after broadening the path, it was
possible for horses to pass with loads of damar.

There were special days for market at Waraxu.  Traveling on foot, it took
about two days from our village to get there.  Each man would carry 35-40
kilograms of damar resin.  At Waraxu, they would sell their damar to
various Bugis merchants, for example: Haji Junait, al Haji Hamid, and Haji
Mapa, all of whom had come on horseback or on foot from Malili and Palopo.

Now it so happened that when my father sold his damar, it was Haji Mapa
who bought it, and so he thought to himself: "Aha!  When my son is born, I
will name him Mapa.  In this way perhaps he will become rich like this
Haji Mapa!"

When a woman is about to give birth, her husband will prepare a small
temporary cubicle for her and her baby in the house.  He lashes a bamboo
frame together using strips of rattan bark, and upon this he hangs
pandanus mats for walls.  The expectant mother is provided with special
nutrition.  A midwife is sent for when the mother enters labor.  Someone
has to run out across the hills and the valleys and the streams to call
the midwife.  When the midwife arrives, the mother kneels down and hangs
onto a kind of support.  She does not lie down.  When I was born, my
mother was assisted only by a midwife.

My mother gave birth eleven times, but only us six have survived.  Every
time my mother gave birth to a boy, that boy would die--sometimes in two
years, and sometimes in two or three months.  I had four brothers, but all
of them died.  Only my five younger sisters remain.  When I remember this,
I always think, "Why is it that I have survived? Perhaps it is to serve
the work of the Lord."

The baby is breast-fed, but only for a few months, because by that time
the mother will be pregnant again.  The baby is then given rice porridge
to eat, and so many babies suffer poor health and get sick.

Many babies died--mostly from malaria.  There was no medicine.  After the
Republic of Indonesia gained independance from the Dutch, an anti-malarial
tablet we called the "pel Bandung" was often available.  This was a bitter
pill, and many children would run away when their parents tried to make
them take it.

But in Nuha there is a tree called LINGARU.  The bark of this tree is
taken and pounded into a powder, and this powder is then mixed with water
and drunk as a medication.  It makes our bodies bitter so that the
mosquitos will not bite us, and this keeps us from getting malaria.  I had
to drink this many times when I was small.

When I didn't want to be given medicine, I would run away.  Then my father
would catch me, and say, "You have to take this!"

I would be crying, but I would have to drink it anyhow!

When a child is four or five years old, has a big stomach, doesn't like to
eat, cries a lot, and has a pale face, that child usually has pinworm
and/or roundworm infestation.  These worms we usually treat with papaya
sap mixed with palm sugar.  When this medication is taken, a lot of worms
will come out within a few hours.

When I was a boy, our people were not entirely Christian.  They were still
somewhat mixed with traditional beliefs, shamanism, etc.  They lived in
their field houses.  They would go to the village on Saturdays to attend
the evening church service.  like other families, we also had a village
house in Wawondula.  The next morning there would be a Sunday-school
class.  They would return to their fields in the late afternoon.

The field houses were situated about half a kilometer apart.  Each house
stood among its own fields, where other structures might be built as
required.  Such a field house would be used for two or three years.  Then
the farmer would allow the old land to lie fallow, move to a new location,
build a new field house, and plant a new farm.

The typical houses of my people are built high on twelve stilt posts, and
have a rectangular floor-plan measuring about 4 x 6 meters or larger.  The
roof ridge is parallel to the longer walls of the house, and runs all of
the way from one end to the other.  One of the longer walls is the front
of the house, and the other is the rear, whereas the two shorter walls are
the sides, or ends.  The entrance is at the middle of the front of the
house.  The roof and walls of the house are thatched with sago palm
leaves, with additional thatch to keep out the rain at the gables.  The
thatch of the walls differs from that of the roof in that it is woven.
Windows are provided, with shutters constructed of bamboo frames covered
with sago palm leaves.  The entire frame of the house is lashed together
using the tough outer rind of LA-URO rattan.

The best posts are made of KULAHI wood, but for field houses, which are to
be abandoned in two or three years, inferior woods are often employed.
The floor is about two meters high off the ground.  This is made from
narrow strips of BALO BINASI bamboo, about 2.2 meters long, lashed upon
strips of MINAMA areca palm bark.  The areca palm trunks are split into
six strips, cleaned of their pulp, and lashed side-by-side pulp-downwards
upon the joists.

A ladder ascends from the ground to the entrance.  Sometimes this is
constructed from two large poles with small poles running crosswise
between them for rungs, but usually it is merely a big transverse pole
with notches hacked into it for steps.

There are no interior walls, but there is an important division within.
The narrow bamboo strips comprising the top layer of the floor are laid
parallel to a line running from the front to the rear of the house, and
because the length of this line is just a little more than twice the
length of one bamboo strip, there is a line directly under the ridge pole
where these strips meet end-to-end or else but into a specially-cut joist
which rises to the level of the floor and separates them.  According to
Mori tradition, everything to the rear of the plane intersecting the ridge
pole and the place where the bamboo floor strips meet end-to-end is called
the KOMBIA, and everything forward of the kombia is called the ULU KOMBIA.
 No guest or outsider is supposed to tresspass upon the kombia, and no
guest, when asked to be seated, would think of sitting him/herself in the
kombia, which is reserved for family members alone.  Thus although a house
may have no interior walls, there is always this strictly observed
partition between kombia and ulu kombia.

Pandanus sleeping mats are spread on the floor of the ulu kombia.  The
green leaves of the OMPEO pandanus are gathered, dried, and woven into
mats without dying.  Each morning these sleeping mats are rolled up and
stored over the rafters in the TONETE.  The hearth is a platform of packed
earth having a top surface about one foot off the floor.  It is
constructed at the middle of the back wall behind yet another demarkation
line called the TENGA.  To the left and right of the hearth are holes in
the floor which can be used for elimination.  This is allowed because
beneath this portion of the house is a pen containing pigs that will eat
solid waste.

There was no yard around our field houses, but if brush began to grow
there, we would cut it down and burn it in the fire.  More often the
immediate environs of the house were planted full of rice, maize, cassava,
bananas, and all manner of food crops.

Needless to say, village houses such as those inWawondula had a somewhat
more social than utilitarian function, with a corresponding emphasis upon
quality and sanitation.

We had no electricity, nor even kerosene for lamps.  Only rich people
could afford oil lamps.  We lighted our houses with a kind of candle which
we made by rolling hot damar resin into strips about a foot long.  Around
these we wrapped pieces of soft areca palm fiber (pelepah pinang) which we
tied at the bottom.  These we stood up in specially constructed wooden
boxes called DALIKA, which did not turn over easily, and could be moved
about to any place they were needed in the house.

Our water we drew from the stream in lengths of bamboo two sections long.

We smoked-dried our rice, then pounded off the hulls with a mortar and
pestle.

Tambununu lies at quite an elevation, and the nights could get quite cold.
 At such times we would roll ourselves up in our sleeping mats to keep
warm.  Although we all slept together in the same house, we never once saw
our parents in the act of copulation.  Nor did we know how such a thing
could be done.

In the matter of clothes, we were left pretty much to our own devices.
None of us wore anything when we were small, nor were we told to wear
anything by our parents.  But as we began to mature, we were guided by our
own instincts to find clothes.  Following the example of our elders, we
learned to make cloth from the bark of the WASA tree.  We would enter the
forest, cut down a wasa tree, strip off its bark, beat it, dry it in the
sunshine, soak it in water, etc.  Wasa bark fibres knit nicely together
and do not easily fragment.  We would select pieces from trees that were
not too old and not too young because the fibers of older trees cannot
stretch whereas those of trees that are too young are easily broken.  The
length of these strips of bark had to match the length of the loincloths
we wanted to make, usually 1.5 - 1.75 meters.  We would bring these home
and beat them on a hardwood anvil with a hardwood club.  The kinds of
hardwoods we used were SOLOPIRI, LANGARA, and KOMIA.  Each club was round,
about a foot long, and had a handle.  But the part of the club used for
pounding had to be carved in such a way that there were gaps between the
surfaces that came in contact with the bark.  The anvil could be either
round or flat, and was of no particular size or shape in general.  While
being beaten, the bark had to be kept wet so that it could expand and
become thin and fine.  The longer the bark is beaten, the softer and finer
it becomes.  The resulting bark cloth itself is also called WASA--just
like the tree.

Before entering school, I spent most of my time following my father,
helping him, and playing in the fields.  There was nothing else to do.

Many times my father would send me off to ask the neighbors for
cigarettes, and this would tax me very much.  When I walked past large
trees, I would imagine they had devils in them, and run very fast.  When I
passed streams, I would imagine that they had devils which caused them to
flow, and run again.  I was terrified of their sound.  And I was
especially afraid of rainbows.  I had been told that devils descended on
the rainbows to take baths, and I certainly did not wish to be present
when there were devils bathing in the springs! And I was terrified of
thunder.  Our houses stood very far apart, and I am talking about the
things that happened in broad daylight.  At night it was impossible to
traverse these paths without using torches made of bark.

It was from that time that I began to think that when I grew up I would
not smoke.  Such a thing could only cause hardship to my children.

My father was much addicted to tobacco, and he could not give it up.  But
later, when he got into his 60s, he did manage to stop.  He passed away
when he was 74.

Another thing that concerned me was my father's water buffalo.  I would
have to lead this animal out and tie him up to graze in the mornings, and
when the sun got hot, I would have to lead him down to bathe in the stream
or in a pool, and in the late afternoons I would have to lead him back
into his enclosure for the night.  And sometimes this water buffalo would
get loose, and oh, how difficult it was to find him! When I had to search
in lonely places, I would be overcome with fear because I thought the
devil might be there!

We had water buffalo, but no ordinary cows.  We lived in isolation, so
that when other areas already had cows, we did not, and we only had water
buffalo.

Now if a man could have as many as three or four of these water buffalo,
he was perceived to be a rich man.  But if he had no water buffalo, he was
a poor man.  And wealth was also based upon the possession of sago trees.
Or if a man had a grain silo containing so much food that it could not be
eaten in one year, that man was seen as a rich man.  And if a man were
educated to the second or fourth grade, he was perceived as having enough
education.

There are three kinds of carrying devices used by the Padoe people.

The KALOMPO is made of pandanus leaves.  It is small, and can be carried
by children.  In it are usually found children's toys, such as spinning
tops, kemiri nuts, books, pencils, knives, etc.

The BAKI is finely woven of rattan, and is used by women to carry home
produce from the fields.

The BASO is a large container made from three sheets of the flexible bark
of the sago tree lashed together with rattan.  It is used to carry all
manner of heavy burdens, such as loads of grain, sago meal, damar,
vegetables, food, clothing, etc.  And when men carry heavy burdens in
basos, they often set their infant children atop their loads.

But Women carry their infant children slung upon their breasts in sarongs
or wasa bark cloth while at the same time carrying burdens in baki baskets
on their backs.

It is true that there is yet another carrying device called the MOLEMBARA,
but this is not common, and is used mostly in emergencies, and not to
carry things far.  It consists of a carrying pole, notched at both ends,
from which balanced burdens are suspended.

We also manufacture the BORU, a kind of rain cover, from pandanus leaves.
These are first heated, and then sewn together with thread into a sheet
that can be folded in half and then rolled up.

When I was six or seven years of age and my mother was carrying her fourth
child, my father threw a rock at a man and hit him on his left cheek.
This man, named Gionto, was older than my father.  The reason my father
had thrown a rock at him was because he had failed to fence in his pig,
and it had come into our fields and eaten up my father's corn.  My father
would not have retaliated, but he had a friend who told him, "Unless you
strike him, you are not a man!"  So my father, perhaps because he was full
of the fires of youth, ran and picked up a rock and hurled it at Gionto.
This rock was big, and it caused Gionto's cheek to bleed.

In the end there was a legal case between my father and this man.  The
headman of Wawondula tried to decide the matter using traditional methods,
but he failed.  So the headman sent my father and Gionto to Tabarano, the
capital of Nuha District, in the hands of his constable, a man named
Mangaliki.  But even the district chief was unable to settle the matter.
That night, all three of them slept on the same bed with Mangaliki in the
middle.  And this same Mangaliki was later ordered to bring them to
Malili, a journey of perhaps 60 kilometers.  These two men (my father and
Gionto) appeared as if they wanted to fight, but didn't ever really fight
after all.  On the trail my father would walk ahead, Mangaliki would hold
his position in the middle, and Gionto would follow in the rear.  Of
course there were no eating establishments along this jungle path.  They
were forced to halt, cook their provisions, and eat together.  And when
they stopped to spend the night at Karembe, they were forced once more to
share the same bed--my father on this side, Gionto on that side, and
Mangaliki in the middle.  At Malili the offending rock was hung up as
evidence that my father, Dama, had really thrown it at Gianto.  Mangaliki
had brought it.  And besides this rock, there was also the wound upon
Gionto's cheek.  So what was the verdict?  The judge said that my father
was guilty, and that his punishment would be to serve one month.  My
father then said to Gionto, "Return in peace, and when you arrive, please
look in upon my children, because our houses are not far apart."  And so
Gionto returned home.

Now because my father was used to working hard and being active, the
jailer trusted him enough to allow him to go out and gather sago leaves to
make thatch.  Every day he would ask the jailer for permission to collect
sago leaves, and if he asked for two hours, then he would really be back
at the jail in two hours.  This was his work every day, and because he
sold the thatch that he made, he began to accumulate money.  But besides
sewing sago thatch, he was also careful to clean the whole jail, so that
the people there began to say, "Well, this man from the mountains is
really quite exceptional, and he also has quite enough money!"

And when he was about to return home, he bought us a few things, such as
t-shirts and other drygoods.  And he bought a whole baso of salt.

So when he arrived back home, and I saw all the things he had bought, I
was very proud because my father had been in jail.  It was my impression
that people who went to jail had lots of money, and came home with salt!

The rivers of our land are very clear, and their waters can be drunk
untreated without fear.  Some of these are the Koro Apundi, the Koro Sora,
and the Koro Musilu.

We draw water from smaller streams or from wells for use in our field
houses.

When it came time to find a new location for a house, my father would
already have some spot in mind.  He prefered to build his field houses on
level ground at places where he found the nests of wild boars because he
believed these animals knew to choose good ground.  But when he chose a
spot for a temporary shelter, he prefered to build on sloping ground.  He
built such shelters near his fields to protect them from the depredations
of the monkeys, to protect his rice fields from the rice birds (burung
pipit), to protect his maize at night from wild boars, etc.

The pastor of the church and the schoolmaster of Wawondula were one and
the same man.  His name was Rev.  Tanonggi, and he was also a native of
Sulawesi.  He had a curious way of determining who might be ready for
school--and yet not so curious after all because it was practised in many
parts of the Malay Archipelago during the Dutch time.  I was told to reach
across the top of my head and grasp my opposite ear.  When I could do
this, I would be ready for school.  This was apparently done because many
children did not know their own ages.  The children had to approach in a
line, and each would be subjected to this test.  Those who could not pass
were told to go home and try again next year.

When I started school, the Japanese were still in Sulawesi for a few
months, so it must have been in 1945, when I would have been seven years
old.

The distance from our field house to the school in Wawondula was about
four or five kilometers, and I had to walk both ways.  I had to leave
early in the morning, while the grass and brush were wet with dew, and
when I drew near, I had to run to get to class on time.  And once there, I
would not be permitted to speak in Padoe (my native tongue).  I was forced
to speak Malay.  Malay was just as hard for me back then as English is
right now!

But once I was in school, my father started to assign chores.  He would
plant staves in the field to mark some patch for me to clear of weeds, and
he would tell me not to go home until this work was done.  If I did, I
would not be given my food, etc.  But if it started getting dark, and the
mosquitos came out in force, and I started to cry because I was still
afraid to go home without finishing my work, my father would come and say,
"Why hasn't this work been done?  Come here, come here, come here!"  And
he would finish the work in a trice.  This was the way he prepared me for
life.

When I was a boy, I never saw a white man.  What I did see, after starting
school, were some Japanese.  They wore hats, evidently made of cloth, but
with flaps that covered their ears, and they wore uniforms.  They had a
fierce look about them, and we were terrified to see them.  They arrested
many people.  They dragged them away, and took them with them.  When we
saw them, we fled to the hills because we were afraid of being captured.
We children were terrified.

They had begun to train young people, apparently for what they called the
"Heiho." I did not know what this "Heiho" thing might be.  We received
Japanese language lessons, but only for a few months.  Then the Allies
won, and they were gone.

 When I first started school, I had a pair of pants.  Later on, I had to
wear a loincloth.  Then, when I was almost finished with third grade, I
got some pants again.  But all this time I never had a shirt.

After the Japanese departed, the Dutchman, Westerling, came to Sulawesi,
and slaughtered about 40,000 people in the south.  At that time I was
still in the first grade.  Westerling and his army were about to enter
Nuha, and from our 24 villages there were certain young men who went to
head him off.  My father and a friend also left to face him with whatever
weapons came to hand.  In my father's case, this was the machete that he
used in his fields, which he sharpened before he left.  But at Wawondula,
he found a heritage PONAI sword, and so he gave me his machete to take
back to our field house.  He also left a little rice on the SAMBI shelf of
our house in Wawondula, and he said, "If this rice spoils, we will not
return; but if this rice does not spoil, we will return." My mother stayed
in our field house, but every morning I would stop to check the rice my
father had left on the shelf of our house in Wawondula before going on to
school, and I would find this rice unspoiled.  Then I would change into my
clean clothes and go on to school.  And after school, I would stop at our
village house again to get my pandanus rain cover before going on back
home.  Our menfolk were gone for about a week.  They did not actually come
into contact with the enemy.  They cut down coconut and other kinds of
trees to make roadblocks in order to keep the enemy from entering Malili
and Nuha.  But when Westerling's forces appeared, they all fled, and their
roadblocks were quickly swept aside.  Westerlings forces were motorized,
whereas our people traveled on foot.

At that time, Andi (a princely title) Mape, of Palopo, sent a letter to
the provincial officer at Tabarano, in Nuha, instructing him to simply
surrender, and not to fight against Westerling, and all was well.

When I was nine or ten years old, my father was tending about 30 damar
trees belonging to a man named Gae.  When my father went into the forest
to collect damar, I would go with him to pick up the leftovers.  I could
carry about eight kilograms, but this would become so heavy that I would
start crying on the trail.  Then my father would take the eight kilograms
from me and carry it and I would walk on and still cry because we had to
walk so fast.  Each collection required about ten kilometers of walking.
But I loved to go with my father because he would bring a lunch of rice
and sambal wrapped in a soft piece of areca bark, and when we would stop
for lunch on the banks of the La Motaha River in the middle of the day,
this rice and sambal would taste exceptionally delicious.  This sambal was
made of SOLIKE (a kind of tart fruit), a small amount of a certain kind of
terasi, and roasted kemiri nuts.  The solike was pounded and ground or
mashed in a stone mortar.  This was truly delicious!

I would sell my damar and buy spinning tops.  Then I might buy books and
other things.  We wore loincloths of bark.  There was no cloth to be
bought anywhere.

At school we had a classmate named Garege who contracted some kind of
disease, probably yaws.  His skin was all pussy.  He was sent to Malili
for treatment at the hospital.  At that time we were still unable to speak
good Malay.  The only language we really knew was Padoe.  But it appears
that this Garege had been learning Malay in Malili, for after about one
month of treatment, he came home thumping his chest and crying, "Lihat ini
tuang2 dari Malili! Lihat ini tuang2 dari Malili!" ("Behold this Lord from
Malili!")

So we thought that people who went to receive treatment at the hospital in
Malili became lords!

I began to accompany my father on honey gathering expeditions when I was
about ten years old.  There are several kinds of bees that live in
Sulawesi.  The one that stings most painfully is what we call the TOWUE.
It is yellow in the middle, and its hive cannot be used for food.  The
sting of this bee is very painful, and causes fever.

There is also a smaller variety of bee called the MEOA that builds its
nests in the holes of the rocks.  This is the kind that city folk now keep
in pieces of hollow coconut tree trunk.

But the kind of bee I am concerned with here is the forest bee that we
call TAWON or HOANI itu.  These bees build their hives in tall trees far
back in the forest, as if they don't want people to know they are there,
and in one such great tree sometimes one may find up to five or six hives.
 Unfortunately for them, at this time people have advanced deep into the
forest to make their homes there, so that their habitat is dramatically
shrinking.

But in the old days, when my father saw that there were tawon bees about,
he would quickly pour some honey on the ground to bait them.  What he
wanted to find out was where they kept their hive.  In about half a day
these bees would show up in large numbers, and he would set out looking
for their hive.  Sometimes this hive would be as far as 5-8 kilometers
away, so that even though he set out by ten or eleven in the morning, he
would not be back before evening.  He would begin by observing the
direction towards which the bees were flying--north, south, east, or west.
 Then he might say, "Aha, these bees are flying south!  South!  Aha, there
is a big forest over there!" And he would look as far as he could see bees
flying in that direction, go there, climb up a tree, and look again.  And
perched high up in the tree, he would hear the buzzing of the bees as they
flew past him: "Zing, zing, zing!"  And he would say, "Where? Oh, to that
hill.  They are flying past that hill over there." And he would climb down
from the tree, descend into a valley, and climb up the hill on the far
side.  Then he would see that the bees were flying onward to some other
point, and he would continue, and proceeding in this way, he would
ultimately come to the hive.

There his first concern would be to search for a mark left by some other
hunter, and if he failed to find any, he would say, "Aha!  No mark, so
this one is mine!" But if he found a hunter's mark, he would not dare take
honey at that hive.

Then he would take a tree root and fashion it into a collar of the sort of
shape usually seen on the necks of water buffalo, and he would drive a
stake into the ground, and hang this collar upon it for a sign.  In this
way he would mark the bee hive for his own.  The significance of this mark
was that if anyone dared take honey from the hive, he would be fined one
water buffalo.  Such was the custom of the land.

Then he would make a careful analysis of the approaches to the hive, and
he might say, "I will climbe from this tree trunk to that one over there,"
and he might lash a pole in place forming a bridge from the trunk of one
tree to the branch of another, and from that tree on to the branch of
another, and so on until he had a way of getting to the hive.  This would
typically require three or four such poles forming bridges.

The next day he would bring me with him to collect honey at the hive.  He
would bring a rope, and a few large empty cans equipped with hooks.  He
would also get a length of bamboo and a bundle of bark that could produce
a lot of smoke.  This bark would be lit at the lower end of the bamboo
tube, and the smoke would come out the top.

Upon arriving at the tree where he had found the hive, he would first
prepare a hideout where I could crouch behind some other tree.  Then he
would smear our foreheads with the kind of lime people chew with their
betel.  It was said that this lime made one invisible to bees.  Whether he
pronounced some incantation while he applied this lime I do not know.

Then he would climb up with his bamboo tube and rope and apply smoke to
the bees by shoving the tip of his tube toward the hive.  As soon as the
bees had fled from the smoke, he would tear off pieces of the hive and
throw then here and there upon the ground.  This would distract the bees
so that instead of stinging us they would fly down and fall to sucking
honey from these chunks of hive.  Then he would shout for me to attach a
can to the end of his rope, pull it up, fill it with pieces of the hive,
lower it to the ground, and call to me to transfer his rope to the next
can.

During all these operations he would be very careful never to cut the bark
of the tree with the sharp blade of his machete because to do so might
cause the bees to seek another tree in which to build their hive.  We
wanted the bees to keep using the same tree so that next time it would be
easier to find them.  So he would remove the hive by cutting away its
pieces bit-by-bit.

A large hive might yield four cans (20 gallons), and this would be a very
heavy burden to bring home.  There the honeycombs might be eaten raw,
might be cooked, and might be melted into beeswax.  Honeycombs are quite
delicious.  The condition of the honeycombs depends upon the time of month
that they are taken.  At dark moon they will be empty, whereas at full
moon they will be teeming with larvae.  The honeycombs are most delicious
when they are full of larvae.  These can be cooked like a vegetable in a
length of bamboo.  The beeswax will separate when the honeycombs are
boilde.  Then the honey can be kept in bottles.  One hive can yield up to
15-25 bottles (3-5 gallons), and these are then a marketable commodity.

Once I and my father made a trip to Malili.  I was about nine.  On our
backs we carried honey, coffee, etc, and it took us two days to reach
Malili.  We spent only a short time there--just long enough to sell our
coffee and honey.  But after we had finished our business, we bought some
fried bananas.  "Wow!  Fried bananas are good, aren't they?  How does one
make fried bananas anyhow?" Back home in our village no one knew how to
make them.  "Malili!" I thought.  "Fried bananas!" So I came to associate
going to Malili with eating fried bananas in my mind.  But back in our
mountains we could only boil and bake our bananas, for we had no cooking
oil, and without cooking oil there was no knowledge of such things as
fried bananas at all! There were some coconut trees, but no one knew how
to make cooking oil.

It was only later, after progress had been made, that we learned how to
make cooking oil.  I learned how to make cooking oil, tried mixing it with
rice, and found the combination quite delicious.  People in the mountains
did not generally know how to cook things with oil, but at Wawondula there
was a rather progressive individual named Teitei.  He had a little shop,
and there we heard him cooking things with oil.  "How does one make oil?"
we asked him.

"Like this," he replied, and showed us how.  So we tried to make coconut
oil.  But unknown to us, people were already selling oil in a village
nearby.  About 120 kilometers away, at Mangkotana, there were lots of
coconut trees, and lots of people making oil.  But because of our
isolation, we did not know this.

At first the Padoe people did not grow their rice in paddies.  They had
plenty of land, and they kept shifting the areas they kept under
cultivation.  They only began using rice paddies under pressure of
governmental regulation.

There were two times that my father built ditches to bring water to our
fields and to our homes.  This he did by himself with his own hands.  Once
the ditch he built led across a slope blocked by an outcropping of rock.
He piled large quantities of wood upon this rock, and burned it, and while
the rock was still red from the heat, he drenched it with water.  This
caused an outer layer of the rock to flake away.  Then he used a pickaxe
and crowbar to dig through the weakened rock until he reached hard rock,
and repeated the whole procedure all over again.  He did not use
explosives for this work.  I saw him doing this when I brought his lunch
to him.  At that time I was about 13-14 years old.

My father was a man of strong determination, yet in all these things my
mother was quite with him.  She did not argue with him about digging these
ditches, but actually went out and gave him a hand from time to time.

Now when he was finished digging one of his ditches, my father felt that
he must make a sacrifice.  So he brought a big JAWA rooster to the ditch,
and prayed, "Lord, thank you.  You have brought this water here so that I
will not get into debt.  I wish to sacrifice this rooster as a sign of
thanksgiving in this place." And when he had prayed in this way, he slit
the rooster's throat.  Then he brought it home, and we cooked it at the
house.

My father did not drink his palm wine to get drunk.  He only drank a
little bit to warm his body for hard work.  For example, sometimes after
removing all of the trees and rocks from a field in the daytime, he would
keep on hoeing in the moonlight until dawn.

And whenever new books arrived to be sold at the church, he would
immediately buy them for his children.  "Here, you children!  Read these!
You must go to school!"

But although he allowed my sisters to continue their studies, he would not
permit me to go beyond third grade.  He felt that because I was a boy, I
should be helping him.  So they were allowed to continue to the sixth
grade, but I was not.

Then Abdul Kahar Muzakkar began conscripting young men.  I never saw him
in person, but I did see his troops.  It wasn't until then that my father
ordered me back to school.  "Go to school," he said.  "Don't become a
rebel soldier.  Just go to school." And so it was that I entered the
fourth grade.  By this time, it was already possible to get cloth in
Wawondula, so I attended school wearing pants.

But now Kahar Muzakkar decided that we should become Moslems, and the way
he would achieve this result was by terror.  He would use the Moslem
villages of Nuha as bases from which to launch his operations.  To get
things started, he murdered a few Christian district chiefs, village
chiefs, and school teachers by way of example.

During the first wave of terror in Nuha, a rather large company of persons
was taken for interrogation.  They were brought far from their homes, and
asked all manner of questions over a long period of time.  Then they were
all sent home leaving just three persons: Malotu (the Mokole or district
chief of Lasemba), Mantade, and one other man.  Mantade was also offered
his freedom, but he refused it, saying that he would rather die with his
Mokole.  So these three men were executed.

Then one day, along toward evening, Palusu, of Kawata, paid a visit at the
house of Akele Dara, asistant headman of Wawondula.  He had a nice house.
That night, at about 10:00 PM, a group of Kahar's rebel troops arrived,
forced these two friends out of the house, and tied them up.  Then they
marched them to a spot about five or six kilometers away, where, in the
wee hours of the morning, they interrogated them, tortured them, and
speared them.  They were asked all manner of questions: their connection
to the church, to the village headman, to the district chief, questions
about religion, and probably questions about politics.  But in fact these
men knew nothing about politics at all.

Then certain men from Wawondula--my father, Podusu (younger brother of
Dara), Peru, and others, went looking for Padusu and Dara, and found their
bodies.  These were later returned to the village and given burial.

At Matompi, about six kilometers from Wawondula, Pongkede (the teacher)
and Mangaliki were invited to dinner at Tamampu, a Moslem village by the
lake.  This turned out to be a trap.  They were brought to the lake shore
and tortured.  Pongkede managed to kick free a kris dagger that was being
used on him, and with this he brought down several people.  Mangaliki also
managed to kill a few of their antagonists.  But in the end these two were
captured using a long rope, and drowned in the lake.

Then Nampa, son of Lasemba, was raised to the rank of mokole to replace
his father, but he and Landangi Meoko, headman of Tabarano, were taken
across the lake and killed at  Lengkobale.

Before the Indonesian independance-day celebrations of 17 August 1952, all
the church elders, Sunday-school teachers, etc., were brought to Timampu,
on the banks of Lake Tuwuti.  I was a musician in the school bamboo band.
Such bamboo flute bands require about twenty or thirty persons.  There are
two kinds of siloli flute: the SILOLI LANGKAI (big siloli) and the SILOLI
DEDEIKI (little siloli).  These are usually played by girls.  I amd a
friend played the TAMBOLO MERAKA, or double bass tubes.  These consist of
a bamboo tube of large diameter with a smaller one inside.  On the 17th of
August, we went to play at Timampu, where we found our village elders
already assembled.  There were also bamboo youth bands from Matompi,
Pabarano, Paepae, Landangi, Kawata, and Lasulawai, so that the place was
very festive indeed!

It was then that we were forced to enter Islam.  There was no alternative
but death.  Our elders had already been forced to join before us, so they
said, "We have all become Mohammedans, so please just be good."

Of course it was Kahar Muzakkar who had summoned us, but he himself was
missing.

When we were sent home, we were given from one week to ten days to rid
ourselves of all our pigs, which are anathema to Moslems.  This was not
very easy for us, because we had so many.  But being children, we were
somewhat more obedient than our elders.  They pretended to be Moslems in
the village, but ate pig meat in the fields.  Others did not kill their
pigs, but made them pens far back in the forests, where it was hard for
people to find them.  The only problem with this was if it became known to
the rebels.  They had no jails.  People were judged on the spot, and shot.

After all the pigs were supposed to have been slaughtered, we were brought
down to the river for a bath.  There the Moslem prayer leader called us
together, and told us to scrub our teeth with dirt, because we had no
toothbrushes.

Then we were all brought to the BARUGA, a structure used by travelers for
sleeping, to receive Moslem indoctrination.  Every evening Moslem prayers
and instructions were said for us at the baruga.  We were not told to be
circumcised, probably because circumcision was already practised by our
people.

Thus Kahar Muzakkar Moslemized all of our 24 villages in 1952.

But in 1954, the Indonesian Brawijaya troops arrived, and the Padoe people
were split in two.  The rebels took some of our people across Lake Towuti,
whereas the Brawijaya took the rest of us to Malili, where we gained a
measure of freedom.  "Those who wish to return to Christianity, please do
so," they told us."Those who wish to be Moslems may remain so." We were
told to choose, given refugee status, and provided places where we could
live under the protection of the Republic of Indonesia.  We were actually
protected by the Brawijaya.  Malili lies at the mouth of a river of the
same name.

At first we received some help at Malili in terms of clothing and food,
but this did not last very long, and we were eventually left to fend for
ourselves in a land not our own.  During this time I was able to continue
my education to the fifth and sixth grades, but it eventually became
impossible to do well in school because we had to enter the forest on an
almost daily basis for food.  There was no time left to study, and I
failed my graduation examination at the end of sixth grade.

Some time later my father and mother moved on to Bayondo, near Mangkutana,
in the Wotu district.  By then I was already starting to feel like a man,
so I stayed on in Malili without them.  Once a couple of young girls asked
me to accompany them to Wotu.  Their names were Wisuna and Kuede.
Needless to say, this thing aroused some manly feelings in my breast! I
felt young, handsome, and strong.  I said, "Yes, then maybe I should go
with you, so that I can see my father there." So I prepared to leave
Malili with these girls.

Now the way to get to Wotu from Malili is by sea.  At that time there was
a military landing craft that used to tow some three or four canoes.
These were large affairs with double outriggers and bamboo decks.  So I
and these two girls took passage aboard one of these canoes.  That night,
I slept between them.  On board our canoe there were also several other
men.  It got very dark, and after I was asleep, some Bugis men began to
touch my two companions and say things, so they woke me up.  "Hey Mapa,"
they said, "wake up!"

"What for?" I asked.  "Aren't people supposed to sleep at night?"

"But we are being molested," they whispered.

At that time, I was about 17, and really feeling like a man! I had become
a youth.

When it was morning, we walked on to the refugee camps at Pakatan and
Bayondo.

I stayed there for two or three months, and during that time I gathered
rattan in the forest.  We would leave on Monday morning with a load of
rice, salted fish, salt, etc., and return on Saturday.  We had no need of
vegetable provisions, because vegetables grew profusely in the wilds.
During those six days we would gather rattan in the forest, lash it
together, and then raft it down the river, where the Bugis men would take
it off our hands.  Thus we spent many weeks working steadily in the
jungle, only returning home on Saturdays to see our parents, attend
church, etc.  We would cut the rattan into lengths of from 2.75 to 3
meters, so that one mature stem of rattan would yield four pieces, whereas
an immature vine might yield only one.  We searched all over the forests
for rattan, and found one place where it grew in great abundance.  After
spending a week there, we would carry our bundles of rattan to the
headwaters of the Koron Tomoni, and then ferry them downstream aboard
bamboo rafts.  Every day we would raft a single bundle down the river.  We
would start out early in the morning, lash our rafts together carefully,
and start drifting them downstream.  The Koron Tomoni was very swift, and
encumbered by the trunks of fallen areng palms.  If by some miscalculation
our rafts chanced to get stuck among these, sometimes the current would be
stronger than our rattan lashings, and they would burst.  And sometimes
our rafts would get stuck among the areng trunks, and we could not get
them free.  Then we would be forced to pull our lengths of rattan onto the
bank one strand at a time, and lash them all together again before we were
able to go on.

But once downstream, it was not only our big bundles of rattan that
brought us money.  Our bamboo rafts could also then be sold.  People
pulled them apart and used their components for building houses, as wall
material, to construct beds, and for various other purposes.

When we lived as refugees at Malili, we endured many difficult hardships,
and often remembered our happy homeland, which now lay depopulated in the
hands of Moslem rebels.  The 24 villages of Nuha were now empty.  As time
progressed, we found ourselves living as miserable refugees in Malili
while Paradise was blooming two days' march away.  Feral water buffalo and
cattle multiplied.  The wild deer were tame and unafraid of man.  wild
pigs abounded.  Our sago trees had not been felled in such a long time
that they were bearing fruit.  Here and there stood coffee trees, also
well-laden with fruit.  Our coconuts matured on their trees, fell away by
themselves, and lay drying on the ground.  And all of this lay only 60
kilometers away!

It was only natural that those most bold among us began to return, spy out
our homeland, and take what they could find.  When the Brawijaya troops
had come to take us, we had hidden our China plates and other valuables in
caves.  But now, when we returned in stealth to search for these things,
we discovered that the rebels had already found them.

Thus the fearful among us remained miserable, while the brave found ways
to infiltrate our homeland.  There we filled our empty stomachs, and from
there we carried back enough of the products of the land to build a better
life.  To most, this meant a two days' march in both directions, but some,
who were very strong, could make this journey in one day.  Of course none
of us got rich, but at least we were able to be less miserable.  We would
collect vegetables and cook along the way.  When we came upon the rebels,
we would flee and they would also run away.  But when they had firearms,
they would chase us.  We had never been permitted to own guns.  Some
people brought in horses, because a horse could carry out a quintal (100
kilograms), whereas a man could only carry 30-40 kilograms.  But the
rebels often robbed men of their horses.  So we went in and came back out
carrying loads of sago meal, dried meat, damar, and other products on our
backs.

Kahar Muzakkar's Moslems carried out search operations in our homeland.
They tried to track us down and kill us in the forests, and those who were
unwary among us lost their lives.

Of course we had to build shelters in places unknown to the rebels.  We
were able to do this because they were also human, and feared attack from
us, and were reluctant to penetrate the forests more than just so far.  So
our shelters lay deep in the forests, beyond the distant rivers and the
hills.

I once used to gather damar with an older man named Tandiala.  He was
possessed of considerable intelligence and cunning.  He said, "By eight in
the morning we should already be within the cover of the forest, and we
must not leave the forest before four." He always stuck closely to this
plan, and when the time approached for us to leave the forest, if we saw
many water buffalo about, and there were deer, he would say, "Aha!  No
rebels!" This was his wisdom.  But if the open country were devoid of
grazing animals, he would say, "I think we had better not go out yet at
this time.  Let us just wait here by the forest for awhile." So when we
had to pass through open country, we hurried to enter the cover of the
forest again, and we dared not show ourselves in the open after 8:00 AM,
when rebel troops might be expected in the countryside.  In these ways
Tandiala, who is now dead, gave me a lot of practical knowledge about
living.

So we would gather damar slowly in the forest until we had about 20
kilograms on our backs, come out at the edge of the grasslands, and look
about for game.  And if we saw a lot of water buffalo over here, and a lot
of deer over there, then we would step boldly out across the open land.
"Nobody's here," we would say.  "The rebels have not come."

But there was one of our people named Bato, who was deaf.  He did not hear
the rebels coming in the forest, and they killed him.  We could not carry
him home for proper burial, so we were forced to leave him there just as
he was.  We cut staves with which to dig a shallow grave, used our tin
plates to scoop out the dirt, and cut the roots with our machetes.  Then
we put him in and covered him with earth.  But when we came back later
looking for his grave it was no more.  Poor Batu had been eaten by the
pigs.

Once when I was traveling alone with Woleangi, we saw the rebels cutting
coconuts from the trees at Wawondula.  There were many coconuts in
Wawondula at the time.  Woleangi and I were carrying a kind of fish
narcotic which we had prepared by pounding up some roots back in the
forest.  These rebels left the place at about three in the afternoon.  We
saw them carrying off the coconuts they had gathered, and from a tree on
the hill we were able to see that all lay quiet in the village, and that
all of them were gone.  So we went down to the stream and tried our luck
close to the cemetary, but there was nothing there.  Not one single fish
ever appeared.  We did not know why.  In fact the strength of our narcotic
had probably diminished over time,  but we imagined that the devils of the
place would not allow it.  We imagined that the people of the cemetary
would not give us fish, so we went home.

As time wore on, it gradually developed that Woleangi, Siaga, and I became
fast friends.  We kept close company in the forests and at home.

Sometime in 1955, Woleangi, Siaga, and I were in the mountains when we
happened to meet Laloasa, roxboli, and some other friends.  "Two of our
companions have been captured," they told us.

"How?" we asked them.

They said that when Tera, Butahi, and Lombi had arrived at the Koro Apundi
bridge, they had drummed upon its timbers, and shouted,"There are no
rebels here!"  etc.  For some foolish reason, they had supposed that this
great noise would have the effect of driving any rebels in the area away.
After this they had gone to the edge of the deserted village, roasted some
meat under a grain silo, and set themselves down beside the stream to eat
their food.  As they were happily engaged in this manner, they heard a
voice shout, "Hands up!  Surrender!" And when they looked about them, they
saw that they had been surrounded.  Casting caution to the winds, Tera
sprang into the river, and made good his escape, but Butahi and Lombi were
captured.  Tera eventually found Laloasa and others, and gave them his
report, and they went back to see if they could find out what had
happened.  They could see the rebels from a distance, but dared not
approach, so they waited till the rebels had all gone.  Then Laloasa and
Roboli found the bodies of Butahi and Lombi, and the evidences of great
suffering.  Their arms had been cut in various places, and into these
wounds had been rubbed salt, lemon juice, and the flesh of chili peppers.
It is true that before we had become refugees, these two men had once been
rebel soldiers, so we believed that it must have been because of this that
they had been so cruelly tortured.  The rebels had recognized them, and
had treated them as traitors.  We were afraid to give them burial.

While we were gathered at a shelter we had built at Tompahulu, Latipu and
Landawe arrived on their way down to Palumba.  They were carrying the
dried meat of a water buffalo that they had killed upon Mt.  Leduledu.
They had seen rebels in the area, and they were moving fast to get away.
When they told us this, some of our men climbed trees to see if it were
true, and they saw the rebels approaching by the same way that Latipu and
Landawe had just come.  They were evidently following their footprints.
Twelve of our men stayed back to bait the rebels, and the rest of us all
fled.  They ran up the mountain, and the rest of us ran down.  They had no
guns, so they blew their whistles to confuse the enemy, and ran.

Now when we had reached a hill, I saw that my companions were all carying
their provisions in their basos whereas I had left my own behind.  We now
seemed to be out of immediate danger, and when I remembered that my own
baso contained meat, sago, damar, and some other things, I reflected how
much I needed these and decided to go back for them.  I reached our
hideout without mishap, but before picking up my baso and returning to my
friends, I decided to take some time to relieve my bowels.  As I squatted,
I heard footsteps, and believing that the danger was now past, I assumed
that these must be the footsteps of a friend.  "Roboli!" I cried.
"Roboli!"

But looking up, I saw the helmet of a soldier there, and not my friend.
Alas, death stood before my face! I fled as if I were the wind.  My way
led down through an area that had once been under cultivation, and so I
hung from burnt saplings as I fled, bending one far down before releasing
it to grasp another.  So by the time I reached my companions where I had
left them on the hill, I was a very sad sight to behold.  Not only was I
black from head to foot, but my pants were also besmeared with my own
feces because of the act in which I had been engaged at the moment of my
great surprise!

As soon as they saw me they all fled, because they realized that the
rebels must be near.  It was quite some time before we reached a stream
where I could bathe.  They later said that it had been very lucky for them
that I had returned to get my baso, else surely some of them would have
been taken, because we would have been quietly surrounded by the rebels
unawares.  It was also lucky for us because this was the time of the full
moon, so that we could continue all night long and reach Malili with our
lives.

After this experience, it was many months before I could ever really trust
myself again.  I lived in terror.  I was afraid to go back to our homeland
because the rebels might be there.

Luckily I had a friend who said, "While it may be true that wild pigs can
survive indefinitely in almost any kind of brush, these rebels get hungry,
get cold, and suffer from the bites of insects just like we do; so stop
expecting to find rebels behind every bush."  These words finally brought
me to my senses, and I realized that he was right.  What was wrong with
me? I had been stupid.  Nevertheless we always carried chilli peppers in
the pockets of our shirts whenever we went anywhere, and we would chew on
these to make us bold when we got scared.

Although we were strong, and knew well how to live in the forest, yet in
general there was not one of us who ever thought of giving up the outside
world.  We were careful to make sure that we would be in church on
Sundays, and we placed great value upon the bonds of our human relations.
We had no thought of staying on forever in the forest.

But at one time Lombi and Siaga made an agreement between themselves,
evidently to carry out some kind of adventure.  They were about 19 or 20
years of age, and they wanted to live alone and unknown in the forest.
First they built a secret shelter in a faraway place where no one would be
apt to find it.  Then they hacked up their basos with their machetes, and
left them in an open place.  They wanted us to find these and assume that
they had been taken by the rebels.  They did not desire the company of
others, and did not wish to come down from the mountains anymore.

After about three months, they ran out of salt, and began stealing salt
from our camp while we were gone.  This made us curious, so Laloasa went
out searching, and found their shelter deep in the forest at the
headwaters of a stream.  He had been a soldier in the Dutch military as
well as in the rebel army, and now was our clan chieftain.  When he found
them, their hair had grown long, and they behaved with a certain
sheepishness towards him, but he persuaded them to accompany him back
down, and they gradually got tame again.  In fact they had already been
about to come down on their own, but they had been ashamed.  We can only
live alone so long before our hearts are filled with longing for our
fellow human beings.

There was also an old man named Tehodu who once spent a few months living
in the forest by himself.  He lived on a diet of fish and sago.  He would
cut down a sago tree, extract about two basos full of sago meal, and leave
the rest.

The production of sago meal is no mean task.  First a tree must be
selected.  These massive palms stand tall in smelly swamps.  Their
branches are long, and they have long, broad leaves.  Almost every part of
this tree has some important value.  The branches make an excellent,
shining wall material, and can also be used as floats, or to build rafts.
They are covered by a hard rind which can be pulled away in strips.  This
material can be woven, or even used to string a child's toy guitar.  The
pith inside the branches can be carved or used for packing.  It has the
lightness of balsa wood, and about the same consistency as styrofoam.  The
leaves make some of the best thatch in the tropics.  Besides keeping out
the rain, it lets air through, and acts as insulation.  It is
comparatively quiet in a tropic downpour, and lasts up to five years, even
under the most unfavorable conditions.  And because it is so light, it can
be laid on flimsy bamboo frames.  The outer bark of the sago tree is a
very hard material, and is often used to make rain troughs.  And at the
bases of the branches there is a soft sheet material that can be used for
various things.  Sago meal is manufactured from the pith found in the
trunk.

But as if all this were not enough, there is a particular kind of beetle
that lays its eggs in sago stumps, and these hatch into grubs which then
get fat by feeding on the pith.  These grubs are very delicious and
nutritious, and can be served in various ways.

But not all sago palms have a sufficient quantity of the raw material of
sago meal in them to do much good.  For one thing, the tree in question
must be mature and must have fruit.

Great care must be taken in entering the swamp because of the abundance of
sharp sago spines.  The sago tree is felled, its crown is removed, and its
trunk is split lengthwise by driving in a hardwood wedge.  The sheet
material is removed from about the bases of its branches to make water
troughs.  Much water will be required.

Once the sago trunk has been split in half, each half is positioned so
that its pith, the SOBA, can be fragmented and dug out with a kind of adze
we call the SAMBE.  This fragmented pith material, the BURE, is then
packed into basos, and transported to a kind of strainer tub called the
LANDAKA, which is built up off the ground.  The landaka is constructed in
such a way that only liquid can escape it.  Black fibers of the areng tree
are woven so tightly that only fluid can pass through it, and this is
covered by a layer of sago leaves.  Upon this each baso of bure is
trampled or pressed under water by foot until its starch has been removed.
 This process of soaking and pressing is called MOLANDA.  The fluid
flowing from beneath the landaka, which is now a mixture of water and
starch, is then allowed to settle in successive troughs.  These dregs are
then the sago meal.  What is left of the bure--a starchless pulp--is then
removed to be used as pig feed.  The sago meal distilled in the first
trough is the best.  We usually take this for ourselves to eat.  The meal
from the second trough is not of such good quality, and that from the
third trough is not much good at all.  The arrangement is slightly
different when the sago tree and the landaka belong to persons other than
the worker.  In such cases, the sago meal from the first trough goes to
the owner of the landaka, and the second level consists of two troughs,
one for the worker or workers, and the other for the owner of the sago
tree.  After ten or fifteen basos of bure have been processed in this
manner, the sago meal is ready to be divided.  This whole process is
called MOLAXA.

There is another process for extracting sago meal which I have not
described.  This is known as MOSAMBE.  And sometimes instead of being
split in the usual way, the sago trunk is peeled.  But now machines are
commonly used to extract sago meal everywhere.

The process of extracting sago is a noisy one.  When we felled sago trees
for processing, we would have to set up watches to keep from being
surprised.  One time after extracting enough sago meal to cook, we got
some wood and built a fire, but out of one of the pieces of wood came many
ants.  We were not sure exactly what to do, but among us was a very clever
lad named Markus.  He found the hole from which the ants were coming, and
simply plugged it shut.

Another excellent tree is the areng palm (Arenga saccharifera), which grew
in great abundance in our land.  We call this palm the SINARI, which is
also the name for its wine.  The black fibers found in its crown provide
the raw material from which several valuable products are made.  They are
used in the sago extraction process of which I have written before.  In
the past they were used to spin ropes which were not quite as strong as
hemp but did not rot in the water.  Curiously enough, the midribs of the
leaves of this palm are used for making yet another kind of broom--the
finest brooms for sweeping mats and beds.  And on the trunk of this palm
grows a kind of brown fur that is scraped off  for caulking boats and
starting fires.  It can be difficult to start fires in the high humidity
of the tropics, but this material is an excellent tinder that will catch
fire under almost all conditions, even from the spark of a flint.  But
probably the most important product of this palm is its abundant and sweet
sap, or AIR NIRA, from which palm wine and sugar can be made.  There are
sustainable methods of harvesting this commodity, but we were unable to
employ them.  With Moslem rebels searching for us in the forests, the only
thing that we could do was hit and run.  We would simply fell the tree,
cut off its crown, collect its sap in bamboo tubes, and leave it to rot on
the forest floor.

This sap is fermented by means of a kind of tree root we call MIRE.  The
root of the mire tree is first dried by smoking or by sunning.  Then it is
cut up into pieces which are placed in the vessels that will be used to
catch the areng sap.  Each piece of mire root can be used in this way up
to two or three times before losing its effect.  Then it is thrown away.

Once fermented, this palm wine, or SINARI, could be sold in Malili for
drink.  We sold it by the number of bamboo segments that it filled--so
much per segment, subject to haggling, of course.  And each areng tree
yielded a surprising volume of this wine.

When an areng palm is about eight years old, It produces a kind of stalk
we call the KONTA.  Some trees have up to five or six kontas, others only
two.  And after these kontas mature somewhat, another kind of stalk
appears below them called the VUNGE, or inflorescence.  At first vunge are
white, then light green, and then green.  These vunge, if allowed to
mature normally, will later produce fruit.  But if sap is to be drawn from
the tree for sugar or palm wine, then in one or two months after the vunge
appears, the areng palm may be scaled using a pole, and the growth at the
base of the vunge peeled away.  Then some of the fruit may be cut away so
as to relieve the vunge of excessive weight.  After this the vunge must be
pulled from side to side and up and down and beaten at its base about once
in every two days for two whole months until the flowers open and bees and
other insects come for their honey.  The beating is done using a kind of
small hardwood club.  Then the vunge is cut free, and a poultice of
SAMBEVU weed and CILI PADI peppers is applied to its stump.  This potion
is made by pounding the cili padi peppers together with the sambevu in a
mortar, and tied onto the stump of the vunge with a bandage of leaves.
The poultice must be changed every morning and late afternoon, the stump
being cut a little while the bandage is off to keep a scab from forming
over the wound.  After two or three days of this, a trickle of sap will
start flowing and continue to flow without further ado.  This sap is then
caught in a bamboo of two or three segments length, or else in a longer
bamboo or some other vessel.  This vessel is hung upon the areng tree, and
collected every morning and late afternoon.

Palm wine fermentation can then be accomplished as described before.

If strong spirits are to be distilled, then a large vessel and a large
fire must be prepared, and this vessel must be capped and connected to a
sloping bamboo tube running through a wooden water box.  Cool water is run
through the water box causing condensation to take place on the inner
surfaces of the bamboo tube, and the distilled spirits are collected in
bottles as they drip from its lower end.  Twenty liters of palm wine will
yield approximately one bottle (1/5 gallon) of the liquor called SOMPI.
If the palm wine is allowed to continue to boil after this, the still will
produce only water.  But if all the calculations are correct, the
resulting liquor has a strong bite, and will produce a sensation of
physical warmth after just a few sips.  The droll Menadonese call this
liquor "CAP TIKUS" ("Rat Brand"), but in Padoe it is called TUAXARA.  It
cools when applied to the skin.  People drink a lot of this when they want
to get drunk.

But if the palm sap is to be used to make sugar, instead of mire root, a
piece of KOSENGGA vine is placed in the palm sap receptacle.  Why this
vine is used I do not know.  All I know is that it is part of the process.
 A length of kosengga vine is cut up and its pieces are placed in the
bamboo tube hung to catch areng sap from the tree.

Palm sugar production requires various special tools and conditions, and a
firm commitment on the part of the worker cum technician.  For this, one
or two areng trees will not do: a minimum of some tens is required, with
at least five or six in production at any one time.  And near or among
these palm trees must be constructed a small factory called the BALOMBO,
in which are contained a gigantic steel cauldron set upon a massive clay
stove that has been specially molded to receive it, and all of the other
appurtenances of palm sugar production.  All of the trees that are in
active production must be climbed every morning and late afternoon without
fail in order to take down their full sap receptacles and replace them
with empty ones.  An almost antiseptic cleanliness is required, since even
a very small amount of contamination can keep the palm sap from becoming
palm sugar.  All bamboo sap receptacles must be sterilized in boiling hot
sap and hung upside-down to dry when not in use.  This is usually done
after the late-afternoon sap collection.  yang ditadahkan.  The fresh sap
is brought to a boil, the receptacles are all sterilized in boiling sap
and hung up to dry, and the fire is allowed to die.  People are reluctant
to continue work at night because they are tired, and because they need
daylight to see what they are doing.  Full sap receptacles are collected
early in the morning, and their contents are added to those of the
cauldron.  Then the contents of the cauldron are brought to a boil, and
the empty receptacles are sterilized in boiling sap and hung up to dry.
The contents of the steel cauldron are kept boiling and bubbling until
about 12:00 or 1:00 PM.  A careful watch must be kept over the cauldron
during this time.  Fresh wood must be shoved into the stove as required,
the sap must be stirred, and various signs must be observed to make sure
that the fire will be extinguished at exactly the right moment.  During
this process, the boiling sap changes gradually from a thin, clear liquid
to a beautiful bubbling tan sugar.  The scantily clad technician, unable
to stand clothing in the intolerable heat, must be constantly on the
lookout to avoid getting scalded.  Needless to say, a gigantic steel
cauldron of bubbling hot sugar represents no mean danger.  Several
curiously shaped tools are used in this process.  One of these is a length
of bamboo, perhaps 1.5 inches in diameter and 1.5 - 2 feet long, which has
been split into several parts at one end.  These split parts have been
pulled apart, and some kind of supple material, perhaps rattan, has been
woven between them.  When grasped from the opposite end, this tool is used
as a kind of combination sieve-stirrer which is continually thrust into
the sugar and raised through the boiling fluid.  Another tool is an
artfully constructed ladle made from a hardwood dowel to which a piece of
coconut shell has been attached by means of fine rattan lashings.  Several
stages are recognized during the boiling of the sugar.  The first are
known from the consistency of the fluid, and how it behaves.  But during
the final stages, tiny amounts of the hot fluid are dropped into a half
coconut shell containing clear water.  The hot sugar immediately cools and
coagulates, and the technician tests this just as an American or European
housewife might test for the "hard ball" stage in chocolate fudge or cake
frosting.  There is a precise point at which the cooled sugar has about
the same appearance and viscosity as heavy lubricating oil.  At this
point, small amounts of the sugar are sometimes poured into little tubes
of bamboo for the enjoyment of children.  This semi-liquid sugar produces
various colors in bright sunlight, and has a unique and exquisit flavor.
Then a bamboo lath framework is placed on the ground, and its squares are
filled with half coconut shells, placed concave upwards to receive the
palm sugar.  These shells are always taken from the half of the coconut
containing the natural round hole through which, if nature were to take
its course, the root of a new coconut would grow.  Thus each one has a
quarter-inche hole at its bottom.  Each of these holes in all of the
coconut shells held in the bamboo rack on the ground are now quickly
covered with a single green cassava leaf, and the shells are ready to
receive the palm sugar.  The reason these receptacles have been placed on
the ground is to avoid the increased danger of burns from spilling liquid
were they to be placed higher.  When the "hard ball" stage has been
reached by the boiling sugar, the fire is quickly removed from the stove,
and the sugar is ladled out into the coconut shells on the floor before it
has time to cool.  A special scraper, also made from a piece of coconut
shell, is now used to remove every last trace of sugar from the cauldron.
If the process has been stopped at the right moment, the sugar in the
coconut shells will quickly harden into perfect pieces of hard sugar.  A
sharp rap on each shell will now release these because of the holes that
let air into the shells behind the sugar.  Then the cassava leaves are
removed, the pieces of sugar are wrapped two-by-two in dried banana leaves
with their flat faces together, and the process is complete.  This palm
sugar has a most excellent flavor--decidedly better than ordinary brown
sugar--and can be used in a host of wonderful applications.

Because of the intensive labor, physical danger, and psychological stress
associated with this process, most technicians do not keep at it for more
than three or four months before taking a vacation.

The word for circumcision in our language is TINDIH or TENINDIH, and it is
practised upon male children only.  Our form of circumcision differs from
that practised among Western people in that the foreskin is not cut all
around.  Instead, a thin piece of wood or a spoon is inserted under the
foreskin at the top part of the penis, an incision is made against this
surface slicing the foreskin parallel to the lengthwise axis of the penis,
and the two resulting flaps are pulled aside.

Among our people, circumcision is actually a thing of personal choice.  No
one is forced to be circumcised, but uncircumcised males do tend to feel
peer pressure.  For example, if we are seen bathing naked in the stream,
and people see that we have not been circumcised, we feel ashamed, and
this is especially true when we are men.

We have no specialists in the art of circumcision.  Anyone can circumcise
himself--in the mountains, in the forest, or anywhere.  Our elders do not
tell us to be circumcised, and it is not necessary for our parents to know
when we do it or have it done.

When I was circumcised, I was alone with Siaga and Woleangi on a damar
expedition in the forest.  I was 19 years of age, and Siaga was about the
same.  Woleangi was already middle aged.  We had all been Moslems, and at
that time we were Christians, so it can be seen that this had nothing to
do with religion.  In those days, Woleangi was teaching Siaga and me
various things about the art of living, and was something of a driving
force in our two lives.  One day he said, "What's wrong with you two
fellows anyhow?  Come along now and be circumcised." So Woleangi got his
spoon, we placed it under our foreskins, and he cut them with a knife.
This happened at our shelter in the forest.  The pain lasted only a
moment.  Then we applied a kind of traditional medication to keep our
penises from swelling, and wrapped them up for protection.  After this we
went straight out to gather more damar.  There was no period of
convalescence.  Nor was there any swelling, or other sort of problem.

Once I went hunting with Landawe.  At that time I did not know that
someday he would be my father-in-law.  My wife had already been born, but
she was still a little girl.  We went to check on a pig trap.  Pigs love
to feed on the remains of sago making operations, so at such a place we
built a trap.  It was that kind of trap that consists of a suspended pole
which is released when a pig knocks down a stick placed in its path.  The
pig is frightened by the sound, and springs forward into an array of
sharpened bamboo staves called BINGKOBINGKO in our tongue.  These are
planted in the ground at an angle of perhaps 30 degrees.

We could see from afar that the suspended pole of our trap had fallen, and
so we thought a pig may have been caught.  An examination of the ground
told us the pig had struck the staves and bolted for the stream.  We
followed the stream.  The name of the place was Samambalu.  We saw that
the pig had forded the stream, gone up the bank a little way, then come
back down.  We returned to the opposite bank, and saw that the pig was now
hiding in a thicket of PUTRI MALU brush.  He was still alive, very big,
and very strong.

And now instead of the pig, it was I and Landawe who were the persued.
This pig had tusks.  We fled in terror.

But this Landawe was very deft and very strong.  He let fly with a javelin
from some distance, and hit the pig with a sharp sound.  Then we went down
and gave persuit.  Landawe took my spear, and hit his mark again.  We
butchered the pig, and prepared burdens for two men, but there was so much
meat that we were unable to take it all.  We carried what we had to a
cave, cut it up some more, and smoked it for two nights to get it dry.
Then we packed our basos with sago meal, lashed our meat on top, and
carried it all home.

When we wanted to sell pig meat in Malili, we would string ten pieces
together and hang them up inside our homes.  Then people would ask us,
"Have you just returned?"

"Yes," we would respond.

"Then where is your meat?" they would ask.

"Here," we would say, and show it to them.

After this it would only be a matter of setting the price.

So we became known as people who sold bush meat in Malili.

Once when I hunted with Maruka we came upon a grassy field where we saw a
deer.  When we chased it, it just circled round instead of running
straight and hard like other deer.  It would just circle round, move a
little way off, and stop.  After chasing it awhile, we were worn out.
"What's going on?" we asked each other.  Then somehow Maruka managed to
cut one of its hind hooves clean away.  After this it was unable to run
anymore, and we quickly ran forward and finished it off.

Our packs were already heavy, but we had to have this meat.  By this time
it was already late afternoon, and we were worried about the rebels, so we
had to work fast.  We gutted the carcass, skinned it, cut the meat up into
pieces we could carry, and quickly returned to camp.  Once among our
comrades we found many hands to help cook, and we felt very glad.

Not far from Lake Towuti is a place called Korobite.  There were many
damar trees growing there, but they belonged to Bugis people, so we simply
stole their resin.  We would gather damar far and wide among these hills,
descending into valleys, and climbing up the other sides.  We were not
afraid in Korobite because the rebels never bothered us there.

During such wanderings, we had wrist watches for keeping time, so we would
start looking for a camp site at about 4:00 PM.  Sometimes we would be
close to some shelter built before.  At other times, we would just build
shelters ourselves.  We would cut down saplings, trim their trunks, and
lay them side-by-side upon the ground to make a bed.  These we would cover
with a thick layer of leaves to provide softness, and upon these leaves we
would unfurl our mats.  Then we would cut down more saplings to make the
posts and roof of a kind of little house, which we would thatch with
rattan leaves, and we would lay more poles across this roof to keep the
leaves from falling down.  We would build fires on both sides of our bed
using big logs.  Such shelters did not leak much, but if it rained hard,
and the roof did leak, we would just sit up under our borus with a fire on
each side.  We also brought sarongs to keep us warm.  Tired men can sleep
anywhere.

Of course we were very careful with fire in areas frequented by the
rebels.  And if we built a fire of any kind during the day time, we had to
be very careful that it did not smoke.

With us we brought metal cooking pots.  Sometimes we had store-bought
ones, but many times we made our own from 2-kilogram margarine cans which
we provided with lashings and lids.

The first thing we would do when we made camp was to set a pot of water on
the fire.  We usually built our shelters near a stream, but if we knew
there would not be water where we camped, then we would bring some with us
in a length of bamboo.  We would stand this bamboo bottle up right in our
basos so the water would not spill.  The next thing on the agenda would be
to put some OYE in another container to soak.  Because we were so
miserably poor at the time, we could not afford rice, so we used OYE.  Oye
is a granular rice substitute manufactured from cassava by boiling and
straining.  We brought it with us from Malili.  As soon as the water was
hot, we would have our coffee.  By this time, each one of us would have
his own drinking cup ready with some coffee, white sugar, and palm sugar
inside.  Into these we would then pour the boiling water.  This was how we
made our coffee.  Needless to say, after drinking there were a lot of
dregs left in our cups.  Next we would throw out any remaining hot water,
and use the empty cooking pot to warm our oye.  We would pour off the
water that had been used to soak it, and dump the swollen oye into the
empty cooking pot to warm.  The goal was now to warm and dry the oye, so
we would place the cooking pot near the fire, and give it a little turn
from time to time until the oye felt dry.  Then we would cover the cooking
pot briefly, and our oye would be ready to eat.

Next we would prepare our meat and vegetables.  If there were two or more
in our party, then one would cook the vegetables in his cooking pot while
the other prepared the rice or oye, so that both would be ready at the
same time.  But when camping alone, everything would have to be done
consecutively because it would be impractical to carry more than one
cooking pot.

We had  plenty of fresh vegetables because we would gather them as we
passed through the forest during the day.  The vegetables we prepared were
wild fern, rattan tips, and other things.

We would also have some dried meat or fish from somewhere, some salt, some
terasi (a condiment manufactured by fermenting fish), and some hot chilli
peppers.  We had no real spices, but we often used betel leaves.

And if we were not too tired, and if we were camped by a stream, then we
might spend some time crabbing with an electric or damar-resin torch,
because the streams of our homeland abounded with crabs.  These we call
BUNGKA, the generic word for "crab" in our language.  Those we know in our
streams are small, but quite delicious.  We prepare them simply by boiling
them, and then by applying some souring agent to them before eating.
There are poisonous crabs on the sea coast, but none in these mountain
streams.

Besides rice and oye, we also used sago as our main food starch from time
to time, and this we prepared in various ways.  One style we call BEKELAU.
 This is prepared by mixing sago meal with grated coconut and frying the
result in a wok--stirring it vigorously all the while.  Another is SINOLE.
 We learned this style from the Bugis.  It is prepared by cooking sago
meal in a covered pot.  DINUI is the starch-like result that is obtained
by pouring boiling hot water into a large bowl of raw sago meal and
stirring it with a stick.  This can be eaten warm by using two sticks to
flop it into a plate of broth, and then either sucking it up with the
lips, or else pinching off balls of it and plopping these into the mouth
with one's two fingers and thumb.  In either case, the surface of the
starchy mass must be kept wet with the broth to keep it from sticking to
the fingers or lips, and it must be eaten while still warm.  But if the
starch is allowed to cool down to room temperature, its properties change,
and we call it DINUI MOWATU.  This has a much stiffer consistency, and can
be wrapped in leaves and taken along on a journey to be eaten without
further preparation.  MODUI is yet another starch-like preparation to be
eaten with vegetables and either meat or fish.

Ah, during those wanderings in the forest, it was as if I really didn't
know where my future might lead.  I just lived from day to day.  I would
go down to Malili with loads of sago and damar resin, and return to the
mountains as before.  We would spend many nights in the mountains, and
wander from place to place.  Once I went into the forest with Hanusu, and
we met no other human being for eight days, but all I got for my pains was
one baso of damar.  Hanusu is now living at Wawondula.

There are still marks on my hips and shoulders from carrying damar resin.
I spent many days in the forest, often alone.  Sometimes I would be afraid
in the darkness.  Then I would fall asleep from sheer exhaustion.

With the money we received from one beso of damar, we could buy a little
food and two "Smart" brand shirts to wear in church.  With two or three
besos of damar, we could buy two pairs of pants and shirts.  But we did
not buy our pants ready made.  We would buy something over a meter of
cloth and have it sewn.  People did not wear t-shirts much then.

Before entering the forest we would often buy some things on credit at
Malili.  Among others, the clerks at the Haji Junait's store were
authorized to extend credit to us.  We had no money, and before we even
made any, a part of it would already be spent.  We bought such things as
rice, oye, salt, dried fish, salt fish, etc.  We never bought soap, and we
knew nothing about brushing teeth.  Which one of us ever brushed his teeth
in the mountains? It was only after becoming refugees in Malili that we
ever even heard of brushing teeth, toothbrushes, or toothpaste.  When I
was young I never brushed my teeth, yet even now I still have all my
lowers, and I have only lost a few of my uppers.

Our people used to grind their front teeth on stones.  They did this for
esthetic reasons.  Their purpose was to make the cutting edges of these
teeth form a straight line.

And in Malili, people used to fit their teeth with sheaths of gold.  These
teeth were not extracted, but only ground a little and then sheathed with
gold.  I did not do this because I believed that in life we should be
frugal, and that such things were not necessary.  Even today, my wife and
I never wear rings or other ornaments of gold.

During those times alone in the forest, my thought was always how I might
cut it all down, plant coffee trees where it had stood, etc., etc., etc.,
but of course these dreams were all impossible so long as we were being
hunted hither and thither by Moslems.  Then I began to wonder how I might
escape this hopeless situation in order to find some better life.  It was
not that I hated living in the forest, but that I was always being hunted,
and I simply had to leave to find some better situation.  What I needed
were diplomas, passes, drivers' licenses, and such like which would enable
me to live in cities.

From the beginning of May to June 1957, I gathered eight basos (roughly
250kg) of damar.  This I sold at the establishment of the Haji Junait,
whom I have mentioned before.

Each day the Haji would only come in for a little while, and then return
home.  He had several clerks who tended his store.  One day they informed
us that the Haji was looking for a young man to enter his service in
Makasar, and asked if any of us might be willing to go.

I responded enthusiastically, asking when I might meet with the Haji for
an interview.  In fact I urged them to take me to meet him.  So they took
me to the home of the Haji, and I got the job.

Thus in July, 1957, I left Malili in the company of the Haji Junait to
serve him in Makasar, and this turned out to be my great escape from Kahar
Muzakkar, the jungle, and the miserable poverty of Malili itself.

At that time Malili was still intact, but things were getting hot, and
people were leaving the town.  Soon people began escaping one-by-one
through the forest seeking refuge in Central Sulawesi.  Then Kahar
Muzakkar attacked Malili, and burned everything to the ground.  The people
fled to Wotu, but they were soon attacked there as well, the survivors
fleeing onward to Palopo and Central Sulawesi.  Siaga joined the Brawijaya
at Palompo.  He is now retired, and living on his military pension at
Bondowoso, in Java.

The Haji was born in Malili.  He was not well educated, but his business
skills and experience were outstanding.  From Malili he advanced to Palopo
and Makasar, and in Makasar he got possession of a large, two-story house
not far from the harbor.  He was married twice.  When his first wife died,
he married her younger sister.  Altogether he had five children.  The
older sister gave birth to Hafit, whereas the younger sister bore Moksen,
Sia, Muglis, and a little girl I used to bring to kindergarten every day
in Makasar.  He was not a politically minded person, and he had no
sympathy whatsoever for people like Kahar Muzakkar.  He may have gained
some of his business knowledge from friendships among the Chinese.  He was
a master of the Chinese abacus, which was probably the best calculating
machine in the entire world before the computer.  One time I saw him
weighing damar resin with five or six men standing in line.  His Chinese
abacus was lying on the ground, and he was operating it "clickety clack"
with his toes while he adjusted the balance with his hands!  His house in
Makasar had a bathroom on the second floor, but no water pump.  When I was
there, 24 people were living in this house.  Many of these were
widows--probably his nieces or in-laws--whose husbands had been killed by
Westerling.  They lived downstairs with their children and paid no rent
because this Haji was a good man.  He also educated a good many children
whose fathers had been killed by this same Westerling.

I began with the work of sweeping and mopping and carrying water up to the
Haji Junait's apartments on the second floor.  By this time I was already
20 years old, and quite strong.  Then I learned to sell gasoline at the
Haji Junait's pump.  I also enrolled in evening classes at the "SMP Kilat"
intermediate school, which provided a test for completion at the end of
one year.

The children the Haji was supporting had it good.  They could go to school
during the day and then study comfortably at night, whereas I was pumping
gasoline with one hand and holding my school books in the other.  I
couldn't really study till people stopped buying gasoline, and if I got
too tired, I would simply lay my books down.

There were two of us selling gasoline--my supervisor and I.  He would
close the pump at six o-clock, and I would go to school.

At first I did not want to take the completion test at the "SMP Kilat,"
but I managed to pass it anyhow, and so I moved on to the "Sawirigading"
school.  Sawirigading was the South Sulawesi nobleman who built this same
school.  Then I moved again to the "SMP Prindo" intermediate school.  I
saw the "SMP Kilat" as just a place to get a diploma, with little
educational merit, so I kept on attending these other intermediate schools
in order to acquire more depth.

In 1959, I graduated from intermediate school with both a local diploma
and an "SMP Negeri" diploma.  Then I began attending day classes at the
Catholic High School.  By this time I could also drive.  I slept at the
Haji Junait's office, and the first thing I did after getting up every
morning was to sweep it clean and mop the floor.  Then I would go to the
Haji's house, mop more floors, wash the various automobiles (a Holden
pickup, a Chevrolet sedan, a Jeep, and a truck), and drive the Haji's
youngest child to a kindergarten class.  The Haji's drivers liked me very
much because by the time they arrived their various vehicles would all be
clean.  The Haji's oldest child was crippled.  His name was Hafit, or
Pidek.  I drove him to school in the Haji's Chevrolet every day.  I would
get him into the car at two in the afternoon, drop him off at the "SMEA"
high school, then drive on to attend my own class at the Catholic High
School.  When I got out of class, people often asked me for rides in the
Haji's car.  These I would have to fend off with replies such as, "I
can't.  The Haji would be angry.  I would lose my job." and such like.
Needless to say, I got some pressure.  I would pick Hafit up on my way
home, and as soon as I reached home the Haji would have some agenda.  I
would have to drive him to this place or that.  Sometimes we were out
until ten PM.  I would bring my books along and study while waiting for
him, and sometimes I would fall asleep in the car.  When we got home, I
would put the car away, the Haji would go to bed, and I would retire to
the office.  Then, all too soon, it would be morning, and I would arise to
the exact same routine all over again.

There were 24 people living in that house, and I was the only Christian
among them, but the Haji would be angry if I did not attend church.
"What's wrong with you?" he would ask.  "Why aren't you attending church?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes," I would say, addressing him as "Puang," which is the
correct form of address for a Bugis gentleman of his station, and I would
drop my work and be gone.  But as soon as church was finished, I would
return home.

Now the Haji ran a thriving business called "Intersulair." From places
like Kendari, Salabangka, Malili, and Palopo, he imported such raw
materials as rough-cut timber, bebesu (a kind of aerial root), rattan,
damar resin, copra, ebony, etc.  And from Java he brought in plaid and
batik sarongs.  He would send a shipload of copra to Samarang, Java,
unload and sell the cargo, and put the money in the bank.  Then he would
use this money to purchase sarongs in small amounts, and ship then to
Makasar.  Some of these would sell in Makasar, but the rest would go on to
Kendari and the other places from which he bought his raw materials.  So
these were the transactions that occupied the energies of the agents who
spent their daytime hours in the office where I slept at night.  By the
time they arrived for work in the morning, I would already have cleaned
the place and gone.

Sometimes a ship would unload a cargo of copra, and the Haji would send me
down to look over the gunny sacks and sew up those that had been torn, and
I would have to hurry home to pick up Hafit on my way to school.

While I was at Makasar, the pastor of my church once told me to go attend
Bible school at Ketamburan, in Jakarta, but I told him that I was not
ready.  He responded by reminding me that Sabarak, who had been attending
church with me before, was already serving an internship at Lampung.

By this time I felt that because I had a driver's license, had graduated
from intermediate school, had a harbor pass, etc., I could make my way in
the world.

But when I was in my second year of high school (high school takes three
years in Indonesia), the Haji bought a Holden pickup truck at Pekalongan,
Java, and wanted me to go take charge of it for him.  I was happy for this
opportunity, and so I left Makasar for Pekalongan in 1961.

There were four of us at Pekalongan.  Our boss was Hamsa, a nephew of the
Haji's.  He was married, and had some children in kindergarten there.  Our
treasurer was Alwi, another nephew of the Haji's.  Then there was a
Javanese named Pajeng and myself.

At Pekalongan I received an unpleasant surprise.  When I wanted to enter
high school to complete my senior year, Hamsa said, "Java is different
from Makasar.  In Java if one goes to school, then he just goes to school,
but if he works, then he just works.  You must choose.  If you want to go
to school, then go ahead; but if you want to work, then work."

"But if I go to school," I said, "then who will pay my way?"

"Just so," he replied.

This is why I never finished high school.  Nevertheless I was able to take
classes in typing and book keeping skills.

So I stayed there, helped with the purchase of batik and plaid sarongs,
and drove Hamsa back and forth to Samarang.  And when the Haji came, I
would drive him to places like Jakarta, Tasik Melaya, and Bandung.  And
sometimes I would drive the Haji and/or his family to East Java, where we
would visit such places as Tretes, Malang, and Selekta.  At that time the
roads were still quite bad in Java--nothing like today.

By this time I had not seen my parents for five years, so in February of
1962, I took a vacation, and made my way back to my homeland.  My parents
had moved to Tomata.  After crossing from Java to Makasar, I traveled by
truck to Toraja, Palopo, and Mangkotana.  There I took two or three days
to walk around in my bare feet because I knew that they were in no
condition to cross Mt.  Takolekaju.  Although my feet hurt me and became
blistered, I forced my self to walk barefoot in hopes of hardening them
for the coming ordeal.

One afternoon, I walked from Mangkotana to Laimbo.  There I met a girl
named Rogelina, who was younger sister to Siaga.  Her mother, Wemaxa, had
passed away, and her father, Podusu, was living at Pakatan.  She was
living at the house of Woleangi, my old friend from Nuha.  Her face was
round, and her skin of dark complexion.  Like me, she wished to journey to
Tomata.  There she wanted to visit an aunt named Ntiro.  So the Woleangi
family entrusted her to my protection.  "Just go together," said Woleangi.
 "There is no problem.  Just go."

By this time Kahar Muzakkar had been defeated, and there was no longer any
danger from the Moslems.  At any rate, we left without even a machete.
All we had was a cooking pot, some rice, salt fish, sambal, chilli
peppers, etc., and one little knife belonging to Rogelina.  Rogelina had
calculated that we would spend the first night at Kayulangi, where there
would be a shelter and some firewood.  It was critical that we should
reach this spot because without a machete we might face hunger in the
forest.  Both of us wore pants which we had impregnated with soap to
protect us from the leeches.  She took the lead, and I followed slowly
behind her.  At first we passed through some fields, but after this there
was only forest.  All along the way Rogelina used her knife to collect
vegetables, which we put in our basos to be cooked at the end of the day.
At last we reached Kayulangi, where we found several shelters thatched
with rattan leaves, but never a single soul.  We chose one of these
shelters, spread our borus down upon the bed of poles, and built a fire on
either side.  Needless to say, we cooked and ate our evening meal in the
usual way.  We were now already quite high up on the slopes of Mt.
Takolekaju, and the night was very cold, so we slept back-to-back, sharing
what little warmth we could; but we were constrained by our sense of
loyalty and responsibility from doing anything more.  Of course each of us
had our own sarong for a covering.

Then, very early in the morning, at about 3:30 AM, we got up again and
cooked our food.  In fact we actually cooked twice: once for our breakfast
and once for our lunch.  And having eaten our fill, we continued from
Kayulangi at dawn.

Our way led through a great forest, with massive trees growing on either
side, and once again Rogelina busied herself collecting vegetables on the
way--mainly wild fern and tawaxaro greens--until we had an ample supply.

The sap of the tawaxaro is white, and sour to the taste.  Its fruit appear
without flowers, and grow the way figs do.  These are tart when green, but
very sweet when ripe.  They are prized by our people, and are said to
strengthen the teeth and prevent stomach ulcer.  The green leaves of the
tawaxaro are cooked for food.  When cooked together with papaya leaves,
they take the bitterness out of them.

At about eleven o'clock, we stopped to have lunch beside Karuru stream.
Here the canopy opened, and a landscape bestrewn with pebbles lay shining
in the sun.  Our lunch was exceptionally delicious because of the sambal
Rogelina had prepared.

Not long after we recommensed walking, we came upon a most unusual
situation.  A rock face dropped away to our right, while two ridges of
rock formed a tiny terrace on our left.  And there, standing behind a
screen of brush was an ANUANG.  Because we had appeared so suddenly, we
had it trapped in this hole in the rocks.  The anuang looks something like
a cow, but is smaller.  It is about the size of a deer, but it has only
two horns.  It is found only on Sulawesi.

Having long been a hunter, my first instinct was to kill.  What did I know
of conservation or extinction? This was food! But because we had no
Machete, our only alternative was to walk quickly by, and this we did at a
distance of about four or five meters from where it stood quietly behind a
screen of brush.

The land was now still heavily forested, but the trees were interspersed
with much rock.  The brush was alive with leeches.  It was late afternoon
when we reached the shelters near the Sampuraga River.  We found many
people camping there, but there was still an unclaimed shelter left for me
and Rogelina.  We took some wood, cooked, and then quickly went to bed in
order to wake up early.  The camp was lighted at first, because someone
had brought a torch consisting of a rag wick soaked in kerosene in a
bamboo, but sometime late in the night this torch was extinguished, and
all was pitch black around us.  All that was left was our campfire, a big
log that kept burning till dawn.  Once more I lay by Rogelina--this time
even closer than before, because there were many people, and they might
molest her!

The next day was our third on the trail.  At about 2:00 PM we reached
Maioa--the first village in the district of Poso.  From here on, the path
was level, and there were no more brush or leeches.  The villagers had
improved the trail.  By this time my feet were quite swollen, and I had to
walk very slow.  But Rogelina's feet did not hurt, because she was used to
rough trails.

Next we passed through Pendolo Village, and continuing onward, we reached
Korobono Village after dark.  This was actually a cluster of villages and
a river of the same name.  There we were received into a house and spent
the night.

The next day I was unable to walk.  At about ten o'clock, Rogelina came
and massaged my feet.  The children had all gone to school, and the only
people in the house were Rogelina and I.  As she massaged my feet,
suddenly I was filled with male passion.  "Enough!" I cried excitedly.
"Go away!  Get out of here!  Be gone!  Move!" Of course she knew what had
happened, and she was anxious to maintain a right relationship to me just
as I was anxious of the same to her, so she went away to cook without a
word.

Then we ate our midday meal, rested, and strengthened ourselves for a long
day's trek tomorrow.  This was now our fourth day since we had started
from Mangkotana and Laimbo, and it would take us one more day to reach
Tomata.  All during this long journey of days together in the forest and
nights spent sleeping back-to-back we had not so much as kissed.  We could
talk and keep good company, of course, but we dared not do ought else,
because we knew that kisses were the beginning of a journey to sex.  And I
had a double responsibility because although I was not a minister of the
Gospel at the time, still I had been involved in Christian efforts.

So The following day we left Korobono and walked through the fields and
the little patches that remained of what was once the ancient forest.
Here again the trail was in good condition.  The brush had been cleared
away, and there were no leeches.  And so we came at last to Tomata, where
my parents were now living, and which name, as the reader may recall, is
associated with the very origin of our tribe and clan.

Not many months after I returned to my duties in Java, we received word
that the Haji Junait had died, and this left us in a state of
consternation.  The burning question in my heart was, "Why?"

And during these years, whenever my sisters wrote that my father was sick,
I would be filled with an overwhelming longing, and I would have to leave
my work and make my way to Sulawesi, even though I knew that getting to
his side might cost me days of trekking barefoot through the wilds.  I
loved this man, but I no longer wished to live in my homeland.
Nevertheless the mere sight of those mountains and those places I once
walked would move my heart to tears, and I kept going back to Sulawesi
almost every year.  And there was a certain song, "Desaku Yang Ku Cinta"
("My Beloved Village"), which I would hear from time to time in crowded
cities, and hearing this song would also sometimes fill my eyes with
tears.

In 1963 we were still hanging on at Pekalongan.  We kept buying sarongs
and sending them to Makasar, and business kept booming there.  We would by
plaid sarongs by the kodi, each kodi containing twenty individual sarongs.
 Then we would bundle thirty kodis up to make a bale.  Or if it were batik
sarongs we were packing, we would bind 42 kodis in one bale.  Then we
would usually send ten or fifteen bales off to Surabaya, and our agents
there would forward them to Makasar.  Next our people in Makasar would
send a shipload of copra to Samarang.  There we would weigh it, sell it,
put the money in the bank, withdraw this money in small amounts to buy
sarongs, and the cycle would start all over again.  My job was to drive
Hamsa back and forth over the 100 kilometers between Pekalongan and
Samarang.

In 1964 I was attending the "Bethel Injil Sepenuh" church on Jalan
Rambutan in Pekalongan.  Our pastor was Rev.  Kho Sien.  During this time
we were visited by a Rev.  Sapteno, from Bandung.  His message was very
strong, and he asked us who would attend Bible School, and if any of us
would, then would he/she please step forward.

"And here I am," I thought, "and when will my life improve? The Haji is
dead, and this Al Hamsa doesn't have much work.  It would be better to go
to school than to keep working here.  I will go."

So I stepped forward, and so did one of my friends.  Rev.  Sapteno then
gave us application forms from the Walker Bible School in Bali.  "If you
want to go to Bible School," he said, "then here are the application
forms.  Please fill them out and hand them in."

Thus on the 28th of February 1964, I left for Bali with the Rev.  Kho
Sien.  We boarded the train at Pekalongan, and reached Surabaya in the
afternoon.  There we spent the night at the "Bethel Injil Sepenuh" church,
on Jalan Panglima Sudirman.  Our host was Pastor Cong Giok Seng.

In the morning we took another train to Banyuwangi.  Then we took the 3:00
PM ferry from Ketapang across the Bali Strait to Gilimanuk.

As we were getting under way, Rev.  Kho Sien said something I have never
forgotten.  "Just as these ropes are being released from the shore," he
told me, "so you must be released from all sin, because if you are not
released from sin it will be difficult for you to serve The Lord." These
words of his have always raged within my heart.

We took the bus at Gilimanuk, and reached the terminal at Denpasar about
9:00 PM.  From there we took a dokar (the standard two-wheeled Indonesian
horsecart) to the dormitory at Abean Kapas, where we were received by Rev.
 and Mrs.  Dal Walker.  To me these two would later be just Uncle and Aunt
Walker.  They were the founders of this Bible school, and they were
missionaries from New Zeeland.

Here I was surprised to find myself amply provided against all the basic
needs of my existence.  Having been required to pay no tuition, I was
amazed to be givensoap and other items, and to be fed good meals free of
charge.  When I started school, I had seven suits of clothes from
Pekalongan.  There had been a lot of white drill for sale in the markets,
and I had bought some of this and had it sewn up into slacks.  Because of
this I never had to think of clothes while I was studying in Bali.  All of
these things filled me with gratitude towards God.

and here, for the first time, I felt that I had really learned to live.
"So this is the way life should be," I thought.  "Why is it that I have
never lived like this before?" For I was really living, and not just
struggling to survive.

Our course of study lasted seven months--from February to September--and
my ability to learn was quite astounding, though I did have trouble with
some parts.  For example, in music, I would sing re for mi.  One of my
classmates was Benny Kawoco.  He could sing very well.  "Why are you
singing like that?" he would ask me.  "Sing like this: Do, re, mi, fa,
so!" Yet I would keep on singing so for do! And when we had to look up
verses in the Bible, other people would be finished reading before I could
even find the spot!

But just as I was nothing loathe to make a fool of myself learning, so I
was nothing loathe to do my chores.  Yea, I even scrubbed the very rocks
around our dormitory in my enthusiasm.  A noisy Ambonese army veteran
named Usmani was our foreman, and when he got angry, we got scared! I
mopped the floors--I did anything.  When the well got dry, I went down and
dug the bottom.

Now this Benny Kawoco had our lower bunk, so we would compete to memorize
our Bible verses.  I got so I could say about 160 in the end.  Many of
these were from the Psalms.

And after I got so I could sing, I learned to chord the key of D on the
guitar.  No matter what I played, I played in D.  "Not so!" Benny would
say.

The church that we attended stood about four kilometers from our
dormitory.  My classmates would ride bicycles to the meetings, but I would
walk.  "That's not very far," I would think, remembering how I once
carried damar in the mountains.

Now this Aunt Walker was always holding contests for everything.  Every
activity and test became a competition to become #1.  "Come on, compete!"
she would say.  "Who is going to be the star of this class anyhow?"

Now Benny Kawoco was actually very smart.  His English was good, his music
was good, and just about everything he did was A-okay.  But whenever there
was a test, my grade would always be just a little bit better.  He was
really very smart, but for some strange reason he scored quite low when
tested.  There was also a Batak fellow named Tarigan who had trouble.  So
when I started, I was the stupidest among them, but when we were finished,
and the name of the champion was read, it was mine! So I cried very hard
for Benny and Tarigan.  "You should have been number one," I wailed.  "Not
me.  Aren't you smarter than I am? Why has this Aunt Walker chosen me,
when I am stupid?"

We also had a classmate named Julianus Souisa who was smart, but even he
was not selected.

When we had finished with our studies, my classmates were all sent away
for practical training, but I was detained by the Walkers.  I was the only
person left at the dormitory.  At that time there was a Sunday School at
Tabanan, about 25 kilometers away, where I used to go to gather the
children to sing.  During Christmas celebrations, the tree caught fire, so
I dragged it outside quickly and extinguished the flames, breaking all its
ornaments in the process.

Uncle Walker drove us home, and I went straight to bed.  I prayed, tried
to sleep, failed, and prayed again.  In fact I could not sleep all night.

So very early in the morning I went over to see Aunt Walker.  How could I
ever pay for all these Christmas ornaments that I had broken? I thought of
selling cows in Sulawesi.  But to my great surprise, she took my hand and
held it, saying, "Mapa, you are so good!"

"Why is she doing this to me?" I wondered.  "I have broken everything, and
now she punishes me by calling me 'so good'!  Whatever does she have in
mind?"

"If you had not acted so quickly to drag that tree outside last night,"
she said, "the entire building would have burned, and we would have burned
with it!"

So she thought that I was very good.  I had shown my intelligence.  I had
dragged the tree outside where it had burned harmlessly.  I had been used
of God!

So now, after not being able to sleep a whole night from worry, I was
being praised for what I had done! How long and hard I had thought about
selling my poor old father's cow to pay for these shattered Christmas
decorations! Instead, Aunt Walker was now thanking me because the building
had not burned down! "O Lord," I can remember praying, "how good my life
is now." This was truly the first time I had ever experienced living life
as it ought to be.

And during this same year of 1964, my father proved his strength by
planting mountain rice across nine valleys and nine hills in Sulawesi.  At
harvest time he announced the following invitation at church: "If anyone
wants rice, let him come, and cut, and take home, and no share need be
given to me."

I returned to Java and continued in Christian service until I was nearly
31.  Then I realized that if my children were to get through their
education while I was still able to provide for them I would have to get
married soon! They would need a good education, and if I didn't hurry, I
would get old, and it would be too bad for them!

I thought of marrying a girl from Mojokerto, where I was living at the
time,but there was no one there with whom I could feel right.  The same
was true for Krian, Surabaya, Bondowoso, Jember, Balung, Kertosono, and
Lestari.  Then Benny Kawoco took me to meet a girl in Solo.  We talked and
talked, and it seemed like things were getting serious, but we were still
praying.  Then I went looking in Magelang, and found nothing.  The same
was true for Pekalongan, but while I was there I sent a letter to the girl
in Solo.  "When I visited you that time with Rev.  Benny Kawoco," I wrote,
"I had in mind ...  If you agree, please quickly write to me at the
following address in Mojokerto ...  I will be back in Mojokerto by the
..., and will be looking forward to reading your letter there.  How do you
feel about the visit that we had with you?"

But there was no letter for me at Mojokerto, and this gave me the idea
that my troubles might be because I did not have the blessing of my
father.  This must surely be the reason why I could not find a wife.  I
did not have the blessing of my father.  So I applied for permission to
visit my parents from my superior, the Rev.  Oh Tjie Sien (Yokanan
Setiawan Adiwijaya).  "Uncle," I said, "I need to go home to my village
for awhile." He said I could, so I went to the government for a pass,
because at that time we were still living in the aftermath of the G30S
(attempted Communist takeover of September 30, 1965).

From Mojokerto I went to Surabaya, and from there took a ship to Makasar.
There I met two of my sisters, and one of them, Lis, decided to go with
me.  We went by truck to Mangkotana, then continued with a Landangi man on
foot across Mt.  Takolekaju.  The path was narrow, muddy, overgrown with
wet underbrush, and teeming with leeches.  We rubbed soap into our pants
to keep them off as best we could.  When the path got too muddy, we walked
barefoot, and hung our rubber flip-flop sandals from our waists.  When the