Kijana (26 page)

‘We are travelling alone, just us three, and one other who is sick in Toraja. We're staying up the hill,' I told him.

‘Will you be staying for the funeral?' Paulus asked.

‘We'd like to,' came our reply. ‘Who should we ask for permission?' He smiled and translated our question to his eagerly awaiting family.

‘This is my funeral,' he finally answered.

I knew he didn't mean it was
his
funeral, but he was clearly overseeing the event.

The deceased person we were honouring was actually an important local chief. Anyone who knew of him would attend the funeral, with thousands of people expected to pass through the funeral grounds over the next four days. Paulus and his family had flown over from Borneo, where he worked as an engineer for a timber company. His relationship with the deceased was not clear. He never explained it and we thought it too rude to ask.

‘You can stay with us if you like,' Paulus said.

Gibson wasn't fussed by this, so we accepted Paulus's offer. I paid Gibson for his help, then we said our farewells and he headed back down the mountain. It was the last we saw of him.

Paulus's house was located near one end of the clearing. There seemed to be several families staying in the house. Paulus said they were his family but I wasn't so sure. I wouldn't have been surprised if he now considered us part of his family. Needless to say, we were welcomed by all the occupants. We found a patch of floor in the corner of the house and put our bags down not far from where a man and woman were already sleeping. We decided to do the same, for it had been a long day.

The next morning we found Ronny, who asked us to breakfast. Paulus appeared and joined us on the floor for rice, coffee and buffalo pieces dipped in a tomato and red chilli sauce.

The four-day funeral, we discovered, was to begin that day. We couldn't believe our luck. Like any major event, there was a scurry of activity on the funeral site. Dozens of men hauled long bamboo poles as they raced to finish building the rice huts, while live animals were being carted left, right and centre.

The noise outside the house reminded me of a livestock show. The pigs were the loudest, protesting at being strung upside down on thick bamboo. When each animal was lifted from the ground, the vines that were lashed around its body tightened, sending the pig berserk. Its high-pitched squeals conjured up frightening images of someone being slowly tortured with a hot iron.

After breakfast, Paulus took us beneath the house to proudly show us his family's buffalo, which was to be sacrificed during the funeral.

The Torajans believe that the deceaseds' spirits are carried by a ship pulled by the spirits of animals slaughtered at the funeral. The buffalo, as the ultimate working beast, is best equipped to drag the ship through rivers and over mountains, finally arriving in paradise. The more buffalos sacrificed at the funeral ceremony, the more pulling power for the ship, which means a greater chance of arriving safely at the heavenly destination.

However, not everyone can afford to offer a buffalo. One buffalo is equivalent to a year's wages for many locals. Those who can't afford a buffalo often bring a pig. We even saw a deer and a pony roaming the funeral grounds. The poorest families can sometimes only afford to offer a couple of chickens. It'd be a fair effort getting to paradise on the back of a chicken's spirit, I thought.

Paulus explained how his family's buffalo would be one of many sacrificed.

‘Every buffalo here?' I asked in disbelief, for everywhere you looked there were buffalos. I estimated I saw at least 40 buffalos during my time there.

‘Yes, every buffalo.'

But before they were killed, they had another use, Paulus added. ‘Bullfights!' he announced with a smile.

These were held each afternoon of the funeral on an old rice field further down the hill. After lunch we followed hordes of people down a road to where the field opened up. People scrambled for any vantage point they could find. The owners of half a dozen buffalos proudly walked their beasts to the edge of the field, waiting their turn to fight. Bets were placed and two animals were brought together. Initially they didn't seem interested in fighting, possibly due to the sheer number of people standing around shrieking with excitement. The owners then led the buffalos directly into each other. Once their heads collided, it was on. They charged at each other, their horns locked together as they battled it out. This went on for about a minute, each buffalo giving no quarter until eventually one could take no more.

Pandemonium broke out when the bloodied loser of the bout suddenly turned tail and charged towards the crowd, hotly pursued by the victor. Men, women and children leapt for their lives as the frantic loser tried to find an exit from the field. It eventually leapt down an embankment on the far side of the field and charged through some fairly substantial growth to get away.

After the scores of bets were settled, two more combatants were led onto the field for another violent contest.

Josh, despite his vegetarian views, was in his element, for suddenly he had so many interesting things to film. Luck had finally turned our way and we couldn't afford to waste it.

That first day of the funeral was mostly spent deciding which parts to revisit to film. It was exhausting and when night fell, immediately after we ate our evening meal with Paulus and Ronny, we rolled out our beds, in the same spot we'd been eating, and fell asleep.

I woke some time later to the sound of chanting. I must have been asleep for only a couple of hours, for the room was still lit by its solitary electric light bulb. I'd heard music in my dreams, only to wake and realise it was actually happening. I listened for a while, then noticed Josh, too, was awake.

‘I thought I was dreaming,' I said, loud enough for only him to hear.

‘Yeah it sounds amazing doesn't it! Should we get up and film it?'

My body had adjusted to sleep mode and all I felt like doing was letting the chanting carry me back to dream land.

‘I just want to enjoy it,' I said. ‘Hopefully they'll do it every night.'

‘I'm a bit concerned about the tapes,' Josh said, well awake by now. ‘I could easily use the last 80 minutes tomorrow.'

It was something that had also been on my mind. We agreed that now that we knew the quality of the footage we could get, there were some tapes on the boat of footage from earlier in the trip that we could afford to tape over.

‘Maybe we should wait and see how much we use,' I urged. ‘If necessary, I can catch the bus back, get the old tapes and check on the boat at the same time.'

‘Good idea,' he said, satisfied. On that note I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what the next few days would bring.

The following day it was obvious we were going to run out of tape. Josh was becoming very selective with what he shot, but there was still so much to cover. We needed tapes urgently and the only option was for me to make a quick dash back to the boat. If I missed the sacrifice that was just bad luck. Beau and Josh would be there to film as much as possible.

I hitched a lift back to Toraja at lunchtime on a truck that had just dropped off a load of people at the funeral. Maria was surprised to see me suddenly appear on my own.

‘Where's Beau and Josh?' she asked. I explained everything, finishing with the need for my dash to the boat. I asked if she wanted to meet the guys at the funeral or come back to the boat with me. She was feeling slightly better but was still rushing to the toilet and had a constant headache. All she felt like doing was lying on a bed, so she opted to return with me to Makasar and check into a hotel that had air conditioning.

I felt sorry for Maria. There is nothing worse than feeling sick in a Third World country. Except seasickness, perhaps. Maria had experienced both and I admired how little she complained.

We found a bus heading to Makasar that afternoon and piled our bags in. It was another long road trip. Maria sat next to the window, her head glued to the glass, trying to sleep through the ten-hour ordeal.

It was well into the night by the time the bus finally arrived at a hotel for her to check into. I told her I would see her in a few days' time. Hopefully, by then, the tapes would have arrived from Customs and we could get her out of that place.

I headed straight for the boat, happy that the long drive was over and looking forward to a good night's rest. I was relieved Toraja had uncovered some interesting footage and I looked forward to calling Maya with this small amount of good news. Every piece of good footage was one step closer to her joining Kijana.

I got to the jetty in the dead of night and found a boat-owner willing to drop me on
Kijana.
After a solid sleep I was up early and packed two 40-minute tapes into my bag. In the mad dash to make the bus, I forgot to check the seed and water levels in the birdcage. I think my mind was also a bit muddled by the thought of another ten hours bumping along a winding road ahead of me.

I arrived in Toraja late in the afternoon and caught a lift back to the funeral site. I found the guys among the growing crowd and Josh lunged at the spare tapes in my hand, ramming one into the camera. I was not a moment too soon.

They'd been working hard while I was away. Beau had taken eight rolls of film and Josh had run out of tape. I was relieved to discover I hadn't missed the buffalo sacrifice, which was to be staged the following day.

The following day we witnessed the biggest bloodbath imaginable. It had been one thing to see a pig sliced open on a bush track, but an animal the size of a buffalo was a different matter. The crowd cheering gave the experience a chilling dimension. As distressing as the scene was before us, it was exactly the sort of thing we'd set out to experience on the journey of Kijana.

The sacrifice began at about noon. Thousands of people gathered around the clearing that was lined by rice huts. In the middle of the clearing was a large and intricately decorated rice hut. It was here that the chief's coffin lay. Near this hut was a pole. A buffalo was led into the centre of the funeral area and tied to the pole while a man commentated over a loudspeaker, rambling on and on. His enthusiasm appeared to rub off onto the crowd, for the atmosphere was electric.

The crowd then hushed as the slaughterman approached a beast with a sharp machete in hand. With a whip of the blade he slashed the neck of the unsuspecting animal, sending the crowd into raptures. The buffalo reared up on its hind legs, gushing blood from its neck like a burst water pipe. It sprayed everywhere, some of it onto the crowd, who watched in awe. A few seconds later and the beast lost balance, toppling sideways with a thud. The next buffalo was then led to the pole, cruelly forced to stand lashed beside the body of its dying friend.

More than a dozen times over, this was repeated, with the beasts often landing on the other dead buffalos. Pretty soon the dusty ground was converted into a dark brown mud from the many litres of blood that had been spilt.

Then, as another buffalo entered the arena, something triggered a commotion. The man leading the beast appeared to have a sudden change of heart and gestured that he wanted to take the buffalo away. Other men attempted to take the reins of the buffalo from the man, who I presumed was the owner, but he pushed them away. Another man dressed in a uniform stepped in. They discussed the problem for a moment between themselves. The owner was shaking his head and was visibly upset. While this was going on the fellow on the loudspeaker decided to put in his two bob's worth.

A man, who appeared to be a friend, walked over and took the distressed owner's arm, leading him away. The crowd seemed to approve of this and his buffalo was tied to the pole.

Moments before the deed was to be done, the owner reappeared from the crowd and approached the slaughterman. With what looked like tears in his eyes, he took the knife from the slaughterman's hand and proceeded to cut the buffalo's throat himself. It reared up in anger, for the cut wasn't deep enough, with only a small dribble of blood spurting out. The buffalo thrashed around, and the crowd roared while the man tried to make a deeper cut. He made a real mess of it. It took three other men to lasso the buffalo around the horns to hold it still so a decent cut could be made. As it fell to the ground, the owner returned the knife and walked off. This was enough for me. Beau and Josh were also happy to get away from that repugnant scene.

Back at Paulus's house, Josh logged onto the computer to update the web with our most recent photos. Two emails greeted us. Both contained good news. The first, from the office, had the news we'd been waiting for – the tapes were waiting for us in Plan's Makasar office. We were free to leave.

‘Borneo here we come!' I declared.

The second email was from Mum. It said that Maya had left a message asking me to call. She had some ‘good news to tell me about'. My mind went into overdrive. Suddenly, the buffalo massacre was pushed to the background as I wondered what the ‘good news' could be. Maybe the office had called her and agreed that she could join
Kijana
.

We hurriedly packed, then thanked Paulus and his family for their wonderful hospitality. His final act of kindness was to direct us to a van heading back to Toraja.

It took an hour to get into town where, luckily, we were able to find the bus returning to Makasar. It was leaving in an hour's time, giving us just long enough to find something to eat and buy a couple of celebratory Bintang long-necks for the overnight trip.

It may have been my fourth trip on that winding road, but that made it no easier. For ten hours we jolted and swerved our way down from the hills until, in the early hours of the morning, a loud screeching sound woke us from our awkward half-sleep. The noise came from the rear axle dragging along the road. We piled off the bus to discover a wheel had fallen off. We were thankful it hadn't happened on a hair-pin bend near Toraja.