Indonesian Gold (11 page)

‘You have been blessed, my child,'
she heard Jonathan Dau say,
‘from this day on you will carry with you,
the shaman's secrets.'

She peered outside and, to her amazement, was greeted by
the morning sun's first rays spilling over distant crests, lighting the new day. Angela gazed up
at her father and smiled, understanding now what it was that he saw, that others could not. And,
in reverent gesture, she lifted his right hand to her lips, to thank him.

****

Angela had reminded her father of his promise to reveal
what lay further into the cave. Now, part of her wished she had not, the reason for her taciturn
behavior as they retraced their steps through the forest.

‘Even if your mother were alive, you could not reveal
what lies here before you,'
Jonathan had warned her. Angela had
been led through the naturally disguised passage, their way lit by hand-held candles as they
advanced through the rocky corridor, twisting and turning for more than twenty meters, before
entering yet another large, naturally formed cavern. Her father had turned and blocked her view
as she entered the inner sanctum, reminding Angela that she was the first of her gender ever to
set foot in this most sacred place.
‘Until the time arrives for you to initiate your own son
or daughter, you may not reveal this location to any other.'
He had then stepped away and,
holding burning candles high above his head, proudly revealed the gallery lined with skulls.
Angela eyes absorbed the scene, struck by the enormity of what lay before her.

‘Are they…?'
Angela's
mouth became suddenly dry as her eyes darted along the rows of skulls, carefully arranged in some
sort of order.
‘Are they… very old?'
she managed to ask.

‘Most,'
her father
replied, approaching one fine fellow, whose skull enjoyed a place of pride, resting atop a pole.
‘This one was a white man,'
Angela detected a touch of mirth in her father's voice,
‘but, you wouldn't know it now!'

‘Who…?'
She struggled
to ask, the Dayak chief coming to her aid.

‘Your great-great grandfather started this collection, and
our family has maintained the practice, ever since.'

‘Headhunting?'
Angela's
voice was close to breaking.

‘Yes, almost as far back as time reaches,'
he answered solemnly.
‘Many of these were moved to this location when the
Dutch missionaries commenced sweeping through our communities, seizing such
trophies.'

‘Papa, please tell me. Have…have you…?'
the words spilled from her mouth. She dreaded his response.

‘When it's been necessary, 'Gela,'
he said, unemotionally, using the diminutive form of her name.

‘Recently?'
she
pressed, apprehensively.

‘When the situation demanded.'

‘But, why?'
she asked,
unable to take her eyes off the staggering number of skulls, some of which were stacked in one
corner, the pile more than a meter high.

‘Retribution, retaliation, revenge, honor, prestige…all of
those things.'

‘But we're almost in the Twenty-first Century!'

‘That won't change the way men feel towards each other.
People will continue to kill each other.The manner in which they extract satisfaction is of no
consequence.'

‘Papa, do you intend to continue with this
practice?'
she desperately wished to know, her shaky voice
signally Jonathan that it was time to leave.

‘If I do, Angela, it will be ordained by the
spirits.'
The mild reproof

was sufficient caution, Angela immediately recognizing
that she had gone too far.

Confounded by his revelations, Angela knew then that she
would never be able to look at her father again without wondering how many of the hollowed
skeletal trophies had arrived there by his hand. Then, as they made their way back through the
forest Angela gradually convinced herself that it was not her role to lament the perversity of
her father and their ancestors' acts – that, although her father's display of the darker side of
her heritage had been unsettling, he had shown that there would be no secrets between them and,
for that, she should be grateful. The further they moved away from the mountain, the more relaxed
Angela became with the discovery that her own father had hunted heads, troubled only by the
question,
would he do it again?

****

Jonathan Dau was in no way concerned with his daughter's
self-imposed silence as they retraced their steps through the dense forest. Angela was still
young and had much to learn. He recalled his own reaction to the secret repository when he had
been indoctrinated by his father and shown the inner cave. As this memory came to mind the
shaman's hand dropped to his waist, reassured when his fingers touched the
golok's
carved
handle, the machete handed down from his father. Jonathan knew that this weapon had accounted for
a number of heads; his father had proudly imparted this knowledge on numerous occasions, during
community gatherings in their village longhouse when ageing warriors boasted of their
kills.

The
Penehing
villagers had kept their twenty-five
year secret, the withered, white man's skull never displayed openly. His father had removed the
helicopter pilot's head after the Bell clipped the forest's treetops and crashed. Incredibly, the
pilot had staggered away from the wreckage only to be slain by the Dayak chief who, along with
the others in their isolated community, had never seen such an aircraft, let alone had one drop
from the sky. Terrified, the village chief had bravely slain the white spirit, the decapitation
evidence of the
dukun's
power over evil. The story had not been embellished in any way,
nor revealed to any outsiders for fear of reprisals.

As Jonathan's generation had emerged and assumed
leadership over the village community, with the exception of the occasional, isolated incident
that inevitably arose because of territorial or intertribal disputes, headhunting had become a
thing of the past; the stories cherished and passed down from father to son. The
Penehing,
Modang
and other Dayak groups had been absorbed into the greater Republic of Indonesia, with
many of their number accepting Christianity or the
Kaharingan
beliefs. And, without
exception, Jonathan Dau's community, all professed.

The shaman recalled a time when the presence of a European
attracted great curiosity along the Mahakam's upper reaches. The first to come were the fair
haired Dutch explorers followed by missionaries, but their mark had not been felt until the delta
communities commenced trading further upstream, bringing Western religions and cultures to the
untamed hinterland. For centuries, accounts of cannibalism carried back to civilization
discouraged visitors, leaving the greater part of plateau-dwelling communities without any real
change until the quest for gold drove the more adventurous deeper into the mountains. When the
Japanese occupied Borneo, even they had hesitated in venturing too far into the wild jungle and,
of those who did, some remained for decades after the war had come to a close, without realizing
that hostilities had ceased.

But now, Jonathan's people, their land and culture were
under threat with an increase of mining activity over recent years, the impact upon the
downstream-Dayaks, devastating. His concerns had grown with reports of wild game, fish and,
occasionally, humans dying from pollution associated with the foreign controlled, mining
operations throughout East, Central and Southern Kalimantan. Recently, he had traveled downstream
and witnessed the devastation brought to one community, where the streams were severely polluted
with mercury, the water fouled forever as a result of unsupervised gold extraction.

Jonathan firmly believed that if the Dayak communities
failed to form a common front to combat the spread of migrant settlements, then it would soon be
too late, and they would be overrun by Madurese and Javanese settlers.

****

Angela Dau fought back the tears as she pulled away from
her father, his powerful hands holding her firmly by the shoulders.
‘Thank you again,
Papa,'
was all that was left to muster. The
orang-utan
at her feet knew,
instinctively, that she was about to be abandoned, and wrapped her disproportionate arms around
Angela's thighs.

Jonathan shook her gently.
‘If your mother could only
see you now…'

‘But, she can, Papa, she can.'
Stoically, Angela suppressed the threatening tide of tears.

‘Goodbye, ‘Gela.'
Everyone from the Longhouse had gathered to farewell the chief's daughter. A chorus of
children now spilled from the raised, wooden verandah overlooking the village jetty and called
her name. Angela had left many times before, but that was only for schooling downriver in
Samarinda. Now, she would be gone for an extended spell – and, to live amongst the
Javanese.

For the women of this village, Angela's success
represented a major breakthrough, providing hope for others who wished to further their
educations. Angela's scholarship had been awarded based on political considerations, yet none
harbored animosity in any form towards the intelligent, attractive young woman whose achievements
were proudly perceived as a reflection on the entire female community. They expected that Angela
Dau would be the first of their number to achieve a degree.

‘Send us photos,‘Gela!'
one teenager pleaded, then shrieked, turning to pinch her friend alongside for
pushing.

‘Write, and tell us about the boys,'
another called, deliberately teasing the adolescent lads who idolized
Angela.

‘Don't fall in love over there!'
This, from one of her many admirers amongst the young village men, the hint
of sarcasm lost in the moment. Angela looked up into her father's misty eyes.

‘When we have re-installed the radio, you will be able
to send messages via the provincial affairs office, in Samarinda,'
Jonathan reminded her and, for the umpteenth time,
‘so don't forget to telephone us
regularly.'

‘I won't, Papa,'
she
responded, looking around anxiously at the longboat as engines coughed into life, signaling the
boatmen's impatience. Water levels had dropped over recent weeks and they wished to cross the
rapids while light permitted. Jonathan scowled at the men then released his grip and stepped back
with the broadest smile he could stage.

‘Go,'
the chief
ordered,
‘and make us even prouder than we are today.'
Angela kissed her father's hand
respectfully and turned before tears could flow. She stepped down from the raised boardwalk and
with one final wave stepped into the longboat and settled down for the long, monotonous voyage to
the provincial capital.

Jonathan Dau looked on in silence as the boat gained
speed, the villagers still waving and shouting in festive mood until Angela disappeared from
view. Then, he returned to his office where he slumped into his grandfather's rattan chair,
sighed heavily at the paperwork he'd neglected and attacked the pile of correspondence with
forced enthusiasm. The Central Government was to implement yet another of Jakarta's grandiose
development schemes, designed to drag so-called primitive, tribal groups into their world.
Questionnaires, directives, communications relating to the general plans had inundated his office
over past weeks, Jonathan unwilling to address the outstanding correspondence, distracted by his
daughter's departure. He let the pen slide from between his fingers, clasped his head between his
hands, leaned forward and stared vacantly into space.

Ageing black and white photographs of a younger Jonathan
standing proudly amongst a group of graduating MiG pilots lined one wall of the leader's inner
sanctum, amidst these, a much-cherished portrait of Angela. His eyes locked with hers and he
smiled, lovingly, the moment again filled his chest with pride. She had completed the
dukun
initiation ceremony – and he could now derive some comfort from the fact that she
was now better prepared to go out into the world alone. Excluding any visits Jonathan might now
make to Bandung, he accepted that it would be unlikely that he would see too much more of his
daughter whilst she was away, studying. It had been difficult enough, he admitted, even when she
had been placed downriver in Samarinda for her secondary schooling, and lodged with the same
Chinese family that had cared for her father a generation before. Now she was to attend the
Institute of Technology in Bandung, more than two thousand kilometers across the Java
Sea.

Jonathan reflected on his own life at twenty-one, his
forehead slowly creasing into a weathered-frown, the images of those times still seared into his
consciousness. He closed his eyes and, inhaling deeply, shifted the imagery of those times,
blanketing the past, permitting his mind to drift. With practised skill the
dukun
willed
his body to relax, the tension dissipating effortlessly as taut muscles succumbed, transporting
Jonathan to a floating, near comatose state.