Merpati, the nation's second largest carrier, is late in taking off as usual. We climb on board the twin otter aircraft and peer out the battered windows. Flying over miniature coral keys and deep blue ocean, we pass over pencil-shaped Yapen's pristine rainforest, wreathed in mist in parts, as the plane dips down to circle over blue and green coral outcrops before landing at the small airstrip. We walk to our hotel which is on the outskirts of Serui, Yapen's somnolent but attractive main town. Inside, one of the first things we spot are the pet birds chained to a square concrete basin in the hallway. One is a Western black-capped lory, the other a sulphur-crested cockatoo. The white cockatoo bobs up and down desperately, apparently crying "I'm so bored. I'm so bored."
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In town that morning, I try to find out the best place to go and see birds. Talking with some locals I run into in front of the bupati's zoo, I am advised to go to Dawai, the major town to the east. There, I am told, I will still find a lot of birds. "Otherwise, if you climb up to the top of that (distant) hill, you might see something."
Going down to the "harbor"--a stretch of garbage littered coast facing the sea--we find a large motor-propelled outrigger canoe which will be heading for Dawai at about 11. A small cabin is in the center, and goods can be stored there and in its base of the canoe. When we arrive back at the boat at that time, the boat master tells me that we are waiting for the delivery of some rice; then we can go. After the rice sacks are loaded, we are pushed off from shore.
We pull out of the bay surrounding the town and pass by Ambai and other small islands. Riding up on the cabin's roof, we can see a splendid panorama on all sides. Small canoes, some sporting sails, are out fishing and serving as the local equivalent of the private automobile. Fishermen angle their arm and lower the line into and out of the water repeatedly until they have a bite. Our own craft has two fishing lines--one for each side which is standard practice for these parts. There is a harsh clay gash along the cliffs where a coastal road has been completed; eventually it will stretch to Dawai.
Then, along the coast we spy rain ahead. And, pretty soon, it starts to pour down heavily. We are lucky enough to be in the cabin, which is sealed with plastic and a rough hewn wood door, but those outside are soaked but outwardly stoic. Stopping at a village at low tide, rice and other goods are unloaded on people's shoulders. As there is no road, this is the only way to bring goods in.
Some four hours later we arrive at Dawai, a large thatch-roofed village. We check in at the police post, and they query to find out if we can stay with the camat, the district head. We are ushered over to the reception room, part of a concrete structure, and sit down on the expensive looking sofas. After a wait we meet the official, and we are invited to stay. That evening--dodging the clutches of the pet lory who lords it over the kitchen and fighting off the chickens--we cook dinner on the fire with vegetables purchased in Serui; there are no restaurants here, and only a couple of small shops and a very small morning market which sells greens, some freshbaked bread, and gigantic tubes of sago, a pulverized tree starch which serves as a staple. The camat and his wife volunteer to help us look for birds. They bring over Soleman, one of the camat's employees. After much discussion, we decide to set off the next morning. There's a boat going to a village where there're birds of paradise on the beach nearby.
Around eight the next morning we get on the boat. However, it just goes to the village of Kerenui; there isn't sufficient gas for it to go to our original destination and return. And gas, as it must be carted in by boat, is in short supply here.
Soleman, inquiring, finds out that there are birds near here. As Lisa, my companion, is not feeling well, it seems better to stay there than go to the original village, still a two-hour walk through muddy jungle away. Waiting for Lisa to get better--which she fails to do, we wait until afternoon to depart. Our guide is Deki, a slightly built local who has his teeth stained with betel nut, an addiction which leaves red blots of expectorate behind him on the trail--as though someone ahead had a wound.
Appropriately, the first clearing we come to is a pinang (betel nut palm) plantation. From there, the trail continues down and then up, down, and then steeply up--treacherously slippery. Walking through rainforest is no picnic! Periodically, Deki lets loose the call he uses to locate birds. Finally, we hear the call of the burung cendrawasih, the Bird of Paradise. Deki is definitely a pro.
Belonging to the family Paradisaeidae, there are 43 species of birds of paradise which are distributed from eastern Australia to New Guinea and then west to Indonesia's Moluccan islands. Papuans have traded birds of paradise skins with the islands to the west for as long as 1,000 years, and they were worn at the Turkish, Nepalese, and other courts. Until trade was banned in the 1920s, thousands of birds were slaughtered after French fashion moguls discovered their feathers. Called manuk dewata (god's birds) by Malay traders, the Portugese--finding no wings or feet on the processed skins--called them passaros de sol (birds of the sun). A Dutchman coined the Latin name avis paradiseus (Bird of Paradise). Natives, skinning the birds, removed their skulls, feathers, and legs.
This all led to the fantastic and colorful myth that these birds did come from Paradise. The female laid the eggs on the male's back. After hatching, they were believed to fly towards the sun which would give them their colors which range from orange, red, iridescent green, and black, to muted brown. Believed to be without feet, they could not land and thus soil their feathers. This myth was debunked only in the 1800s.
Sadly, these wonders of nature are fast disappearing--at a rate some estimate to be 50,000 per year or more. As only the colorful males are taken, and each may father ten offspring per breeding season, the population plunges further. Despite the fact that birds, living or dead, are contraband, the military and police are said to be some of the worst offenders. Fines for offenders are small, and the birds fetch a fortune in Europe, where a live one may bring up to $30,000.
High up in above a tree, Deki has spotted one. Even with binoculars, I can only see the plumes--long, graceful, and yellow in color. We move on to another tree. We have to go up and down again, and the way is tiring. We see another specimen. This one has shorter plumes. Both are undoubtedly males because only males are plumed, and these "nuptial plumes" attract females. The hour is getting late, and Deki promises we will return early tomorrow to see the birds which he assures he will be flying lower. We return along a trail that gets increasingly dark as we proceed, until we are walking in the dark. When we break out onto the beach, the moon is out.
Back at our hosts we have been assigned a room with mats on the floor. Dinner is served: it's chiefly rice and papeda. Papeda is a grey pasty dish, resembling wallpaper paste, that is made from the boiled pulverized and strained pulp of the sago palm. Along with the "toast" that is made from this tree's pulp, it's a dietary staple here and elsewhere in eastern Indonesia. Our hosts point out that it's better with fish, but no fish is available. I would venture that it's one of these foods--like the roasted Capricorn beetle larvae consumed elsewhere in New Guinea--that you have to grow up with to love!
After dinner, I ask some questions. The locals tell me that their grandparentslived up in the mountains and were coaxed down by the missionaries. Today, no one lives in the interior: Only the ruins of settlements remain, and these are sadly deteriorated. There are two churches in this village of several hundred souls. At this point their indigenous culture has diminished. Kerenui residents speak one of Yapen's numerous dialects, but they are also fluent in Indonesian (taught in the village schoool) which is what we are communicating in. Before retiring, Lisa and I go down to the toilet which is the side of the river; bathing, also in the river, is done upstream. There is also a village well which you can wash in. Before retiring Lisa tells me amusing anecdotes from her afternoon alone. One woman brought her a rag, thinking she might be having her period, and came back later and looked to see if there was blood on it. "I can't imagine what else they would use here," Lisa remarks. The same woman had also brought her a book to read. Opening it, she found the word Allah occurring repeatedly; having learned that the Indonesian word for god was Tuhan, she asked the woman if she was a Muslim. Chagrined, the woman replied she was not. As Lisa told her she couldn't read it, the woman took it back. Later, Lisa realized that the book was a bible, undoubtedly the only book the woman owned.
Despite Deki's promise that we will leave again "pagi pagi" (early morning) for the jungle, it's after eight when we get up and Deki doesn't appear until much later. The previous afternoon we had discussed the possibility of visiting a tree near the shore and about an hour's walk away, but Deki maintains that these birds have already been trapped. Throughout the visit, I have heard from locals that the birds are fast disappearing. Up until the early 1980s, one could see the birds right in or near the village. Now, it's difficult to find them. Other bird species are also on the decline.
It is decided that we will leave around noon and go to a spot closer nearby. Deki is supposed to be guiding us, but Deki fails to materialize at the appointed hour. It's said that he's off trapping birds! We wait until one for him to return and then give up. We make the walk back to Dawai, hiking through muddy terrain which is slippery in parts. I hear a raucous "whish whissh" sound which resembles a helicopter; a burung tawan (Blyth's hormbill) is taking off.
Improbably assembled, it seems amazing that the gawky hornbill is able to fly at all. Some three feet long and with a foot and a half wingspan, it has an eight inch pale conical beak, , and a ten inch tail. Females have a black body and head and white tail; the head of males as well as the young of both sexes is white washed with honey-tan. Despite the fact that it most resembles the toucan, it belongs to the Coracciiformes, which include the kingfishers, motmots and toddies. Distributed all over the tropics, New Guinea's sole species (Rhythiceros plicatus) has forty three relatives in the New World and Africa. Savvier than many birds, it is difficult to spot because it flies away at the sound of approaching humans. Traditionally in some parts of its habitat range, the killing of a hornbill was considered equivalent to the taking of a human life and might be a prerequisite for attaining manhood. Much skill was required both to make the needed weapons and to kill one. Today, it is all too simple to blow one out of the air with a shotgun, a weapon anyone can easily save up for. Consequently, their numbers are on the wane. Their distribution is allegedly from Burma down the Malayan peninsula and east to the Solomon Islands. However, I have spent much time in the past in Malaysia without even hearing of the bird. New Guinea may be its last stronghold against extinction. Aside from its ungainly appearance, the most fascinating thing about this species is its breeding pattern. The female secretes herself in a hollow tree where she lays two or three white eggs. Sealing the hole with a combination of regurgitated food matter, droppings, and sometimes earth, the male smooths the newly-made wall with his bill. Its bill is put to good use daily, manipulating even small berries with ease, and the male now has the added task of grasping on to the tree trunk with his claws and regurgitating fruit and seeds to his mate through the slit he has left open. His mate feeds the youngins, who are born naked, until they are of suitable size. She then breaks down the partition and liberates herself and her brood.
Farther down the trail, we encounter two locals. Each has a dead pig slung over a shoulder, and they are carrying a lory they lured with fruit; they'll sell it for 15,000 rupiah (US$7.50). Along the trail, Soleman ducks away and returns with a cylindrical yellowish pod with a raw white pulp resembling styrofoam. It's cacao, the fruit from which chocolate is extracted. The white pulp has a sweetish taste, but it must be consumed without also biting into the purplish seeds it thinly covers, a daunting task to the uninitiated. I ask him if the person growing the cacao didn't mind him taking one; he tells that he owns the patch.
The next morning there are no boats, and that afternoon in Dawai, Edi, our other guide, offers us a lift to the beach facing the village. We pile into the boat--that is headed to cut timber--along with a chainsaw, ax, and a large number of small boys. Heading off to escape the whine of the chainsaw, we are called back for a lunch of baked dried fish and rice along with papaya. The logs are floated over to the boat and loaded. Perhaps because they wish to avoid helping unload the wood, most of the boys dive and swim off as we return to shore.
Our hosts, the camat and his wife, have gone to Dawai. Late that evening they return, and after a meal, I sit around with them and Edi and Soleman. The camat tells me that his duties are arduous. The kecamatan (subdistrict) of Eastern Yapen which he has responsibility for is difficult to get around in, accessible only by jungle trail and by boat. As he travels, he finds that the people are living poorly, but there is little he can do about it. Although transmigrasi (Javanese and Balinese resettled in previously unpopulated areas) are forbidden here, the steep slopes have meant that cultivation is difficult.
Traditionally, huge Dutch plates have been traded for wives. He has one brought out to show us. Now, many have been sold to foreigners, and the increase in population makes changes in the dowry system mandatory.
As we speak, the changes here are already evident. In the next room, a television set blares through from evening to the wee hours of the morning. Adapted to run on car batteries, its transmissions arrive via the giant satellite dish on the lawn. Children watch early in the evening; adults arrive later on. Video feasts range from government propoganda to the latest subtitled situation comedy featuring black Americans. Late that night, when I am unable to sleep, I go out into the room. One boy sleeps on a mattress frame. A man is crashed out on the pavement snoring. The television shows a subtitled movie set in the Bahamas concerning the late Harry Oakes. A praying mantis has arrived to pay homage to the tube; a local picks him off and flings him away violently. At the movie's end he shuts off the tube and jostles awake the snorer from his reverie.
I have expressed my interest in seeing the cassowary and tawan (hornbill) birds which I'm told nearby. The camat sends his unenthusiastic but resignedly dutiful daughter to guide us. First we visit the hornbill. Arriving in an open area nearby which has a number of trees, a young boy goes off to search for us. Bounding from tree to tree and leaping up to look like a dolphin at a marine mammal park, he returns to our amazement with a adolescent hornbill in hand. Evidently captured young, it has become something of a pet and hangs around waiting for a handout.
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Moving on, we head off to visit the cassowary. This again proves to be a pet, an immature dwarf or mountain cassowary (Casuarius bennetti). The smallest cassowary, reaching about 3.5 ft. when mature, it lacks the pendulous wattles found on other birds. Captured from the wild, it still lacks the mature multicolored (blue, red, orange, and sometimes yellow) facial pigmentation of the adults and is colored pale grey-brown rather than black.
Related to the ostrich and other flightless birds, the cassowary is the largest land creature found on New Guinea. Its owners tell us they will eat this one when they are ready. One can't wait too long because while it may now be lured from place to place with a piece of papaya and allowed to run about freely, full grown ones have been known to gash out a man's stomach with one kick. On the ground, their feet leave footprints resembling dinosaur tracks. Solitary and likely territorial, they forage on fallen fruit. Their enormous eggs are laid directly on the ground; locals in some areas engrave them with patterns and sell them. Asmats, an ethnic group in south Irian world-renowned for staturary, use them to decorate their statuary and as motifs.
Returning to our lodging, we find that a boat is leaving shortly. Negotiating a price, we wade out and clamber aboard. It's another four hour trip back, one which is graced with another brief rainstorm. In a box, two locals have a captured great-billed parrot (Tanygnathus megalorynchos) which they are taking to Biak for resale. Thoroughly upset with being captured in the first place, it is later distraught at being removed from its box and secreted in the soaked hold in the front.As the weather clears and we begin to look around again, we spot a flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos (Cacatua galerita). This majestic parrot has a raucous call; the reign of the gun has already eliminated it from the environs of many settlements in New Guinea. When viewed in its native habitat it has an enviable vitality and grace--one which humans might learn from rather than destroy. Back at the hotel in Serui, the sulphur-crested cockatoo and its companion the lory are still chained to their basin. Out on a tree, a new member has joined them. This, another Western black-capped lory, is pathetically trying to free itself from its perch. It bites at the chain, then pecks at the perch. Ruffling its feathers, it attempts to take off and fly but to no avail. It ends up swinging upside down like a pendulum. Laboriously climbing back up using its beak and one free claw, it tries once again. It has nothing else to do except try to escape, and, eventually, it will become resigned to its status.
Despite what humans think, birds are not happy to be living with them. Like us, they would rather be free. The trade in birds exists because there are buyers, and the monetary rewards for smuggling are tremendous. A pair of luries can fetch up to $2,000 in the US, a tremendous amount of money in Indonesia; they go for about $7.50 each in Yapen. Even the police and airline employees are alleged to be involved in smuggling activities. For every bird that makes it abroad, there are large numbers that perish in transit. If you want to buy a tropical bird, try to ensure that it is one that has been raised in captivity and not an import. Remember, the fate of these species is partially in your hands.
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