Salon Wanderlust | Teaching the cannibals to dance

[Salon Wanderlust: Travel with a passion]

T A B L E_T A L K
Spending one night in Bangkok? Get tips on visiting Thailand in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y
This week in travel Wanderlust's selective guide to travel-related news from across the globe
(01/15/99)
Beijing's Backingham Palace
By Mary Elizabeth Williams
From back rubs to bowling to B-movies, this Chinese spa has it all
(01/14/99)
New York serenade
By Pico Iyer
An ex-Gothamite returns for five days -- and finds that attitude has its charms
(01/13/99)
Cold front
By Mona R. Washington
An ugly encounter on a Viennese metro colors a winter's day
(01/12/99)
Behind the red curtain
By Jeffrey Tayler
A night at the official Communist Party hotel in China leads to everything but a good night's sleep
(01/10/99)

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TEACHING THE CANNIBALS TO DANCE | PAGE 1, 2
- - - - - - - - - -
I was met at the Wamena town airport by my translator, Yos, a short, stocky and remarkably dour man who was a baptized Missouri Synod Lutheran, a peculiar sect spiritually aligned, not with the usual coffee and doughnuts, but with Jerry Falwell. You meet a lot of strange people going on trips like these, but I was still surprised that a tour guide would be so publicly and relentlessly depressed.
I tried joking around with Yos to get him to perk up a little, but he refused to see the humor in anything. On the trail to town, when we had to cross over a handmade suspension (and filled with suspense) bridge of twine, I said that this was designed for thin Dani and not fat Americans, and surely I would destroy it with my massive girth. Yos said, "No! It is plenty strong!"
He calmed down a little bit when we got to the Pasan Nyak open-air market, where bare-breasted Dani women, in thatch-cord skirts that hung at their hips, were selling orange ginger root, red chili peppers and yellow tomatoes. Every woman's back was draped in a series of net bags dyed in purple and green stripes -- nokens -- made from bark-fiber string and tied to their foreheads. The women always wear a few at a time, whether empty or filled with yams, infants or pigs. One woman sat with a pig sleeping in her lap, like a kitten. Men just this side of naked walked by, carrying baby pigs on their shoulders, and Yos explained in grave detail how the tree kangaroo pelts for sale (looking like gray, weasely minks) could be made into stylish hats. He got a nice chuckle at what a fool I was for passing on the remarkable opportunity to get a magnificent necklace of cockatoo claws, but erupted again when we saw two naked men, wearing giant penis-gourds, walking hand-in-hand, and I mentioned how this was not something commonly seen in the U.S. "Every tourist who comes here thinks this means a very bad thing," he said. "Our people are so pure! We do not practice homosexuality!"
I checked into the Baliem Palace Hotel, Wamena's finest, and reminiscent of a Motel 6 that's lost its license. Everyone you meet in the Baliem Valley first asks where you're staying, and when you mutter "Baliem Palace," they ooh and ahh like it's the Ritz. The room came with detailed instructions on how to use a toilet, and the lobby featured a mynah bird chattering away in Bahasa. After unpacking, I went to the hotel's restaurant for lunch, only to meet Hubon, the waiter/maitre d', a man with the personality of Carmen Miranda on speed. I'd have to make sure to keep him and Yos separate, or who knows what might happen.
"You are a new one with us! Welcome welcome welcome!" he shrieked from across the room. "Now, what can I get for you on this your first day and a beautiful one it is in our Baliem Valley?" He danced around the table while tapping out a rhythm on his order pad with a pencil. There was no menu. I asked Hubon what he'd suggest, which brought him to an even higher state of rapture:
"Oh oh oh! For you, I will arrange for something very very special. Wait! ... I am thinking ... do you ... do you like ... PRAWNS?" Now his eyes were dancing around in counterpoint to his feet.
I admitted that I did like prawns, and within minutes Hubon appeared with a platter of giant Baliem River crayfish, cooked in butter and garlic, and incredibly delicious. Now it was my turn to ooh and aah, and from then on at every meal, even breakfast, Hubon would bring over some form of crayfish. I was off in the middle of nowhere, and here, in the restaurant of a ratty hotel, there was food as good as any you could ever hope to have, food so good that, in such a place, it shocks you right out of your shoes. The restaurant was always mobbed with diners (no surprise), but it never ceased to amaze me that no one seemed to notice it was run by a man in makeup and cha-cha heels.
Besides dour guide Yos' dark pronouncements, everywhere we went in the town of Wamena were signs of the 400 missionaries running through the valley. Men went by in skin-tight jeans and big necklaces with crucifixes, and on one thatch-grass hut was a giant, eight-foot-high poster of the blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus.
At first, the missionaries here were successful beyond their wildest dreams, especially since they were armed with penicillin to cure a childhood epidemic of yaws, also known as frambesia, a bacterial skin infection that appears as raspberry-shaped bumps. The early converts were so taken with the holy men and their penicillin that they believed if you didn't close your eyes when praying, God would strike you blind, and that going to church on Sundays would make you immune to all diseases.
After an initial rush of success, however, the armies of God suffered defeat after defeat, which is just as visible the minute you leave Wamena town and hit the country road. Out there, the Dani aren't wearing crucifixes; in fact, they aren't wearing pants. The men, who look something like Australian Aborigines but with lean, muscular bodies and faces aged beyond their years, are completely naked, except for a feather in their hair, and perhaps a string necklace, and the one thing they never appear in public without: their penis sheaths -- yellow vegetable horns called horim. The men grow a small gourd and, while it develops, they train it to curl and circle with a system of string and stones; the finished product is then tied around the testicles and the waist, with the penis tucked inside. Some horims are curved, some are corkscrewed, some are topped with feathers or fur, while most stick straight up into the air, the tops striking somewhere between the navel and the nipples. When a group of Dani get nervous or excited, they subconsciously tap their fingernails against these horims, which, in a group, click like maracas. When they come to town, they carry their money in extra-wide penis-gourds, which makes you think twice about asking for change.
The Dani weren't impressed with the missionaries' penicillin, and they weren't impressed with Jesus, and they weren't impressed with cars or clothes or anything else that arrived from the 20th century. Their lives, for as long as anyone knows, have always revolved around yams, women and pigs, the pigs being to them like jewelry, a measure of a man's wealth and achievement. Today, a full-grown, healthy Dani pig costs $350. The yams originally came from the Americas, but how they got to this middle of nowhere is anyone's guess, while the pigs are so prized that the Dani believe the etai-eken -- the seed of singing, the soul, which is found just below the rib cage -- exists only in humans and swine. Herds of pigs are running around everywhere in the Baliem, and after a good rain (which occurs daily and nightly), their distinctive porcine odor hits you like a sack of skunks. Even so, the Dani think white people stink, and when the missionaries would show up, they were forced to stand apart, and downwind. These people live with epidemics of respiratory infections, but they believe it's unmanly and unsanitary to blow your nose, cough or spit. They'd rather just drip. When they watched missionaries blowing their noses into a piece of cotton and then keeping it, like a treasure, they thought this was completely disgusting.
The Jakarta government is very interested in having the Dani become members-in-good-standing of their modern nation, but the Dani are very uninterested in this. At first, Jakarta thought it was time for the Dani to wear pants, so they airdropped clothes into the Baliem villages, and the Dani sold them all back to the island's immigrants from other parts of Indonesia. Then the government decided that it was time for the Dani to stop living in grass huts, so they built them villages made out of concrete. The Dani tried living in the concrete cottages for a few days, but found their own huts far more comfortable. Their pigs, however, loved the concrete cottages, so the Dani turned them all into sties. Finally, the government thought their diet of yams, berries, grubs, bee larvae, caterpillar, bats, mice and tiny bits of pork was unhealthy, so they taught them to grow rice, taro, corn, cabbage and spinach and to build fish farms. The Dani are terrific farmers, and they now raise all these things, but they won't eat any of it. Instead, like the pants, they sell it all to the immigrants. The Baliem tribal people may not live well -- many die in their mid-50s -- but there are 250,000 of them, and they like things just the way they are.
SALON | Jan. 17, 1999
This story is excerpted from "Let's Get Lost: Adventures in the Great Wide Open," by Craig Nelson, © 1999 by Craig Nelson, to be published in August by Warner Books Inc. All rights reserved. Craig Nelson has also written "Bad TV" and "Finding True Love in a Man-Eat-Man World."

Read Part Two


	T A B L E_T A L K Spending one night in Bangkok? Get tips on visiting Thailand in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk ___________________ Check out barnesannoble.com's fabulous selection of travel book bargains! ___________________ R E C E N T L Y This week in travel Wanderlust's selective guide to travel-related news from across the globe (01/15/99) Beijing's Backingham Palace By Mary Elizabeth Williams From back rubs to bowling to B-movies, this Chinese spa has it all (01/14/99) New York serenade By Pico Iyer An ex-Gothamite returns for five days -- and finds that attitude has its charms (01/13/99) Cold front By Mona R. Washington An ugly encounter on a Viennese metro colors a winter's day (01/12/99) Behind the red curtain By Jeffrey Tayler A night at the official Communist Party hotel in China leads to everything but a good night's sleep (01/10/99) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner		TEACHING THE CANNIBALS TO DANCE \| PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - I was met at the Wamena town airport by my translator, Yos, a short, stocky and remarkably dour man who was a baptized Missouri Synod Lutheran, a peculiar sect spiritually aligned, not with the usual coffee and doughnuts, but with Jerry Falwell. You meet a lot of strange people going on trips like these, but I was still surprised that a tour guide would be so publicly and relentlessly depressed. I tried joking around with Yos to get him to perk up a little, but he refused to see the humor in anything. On the trail to town, when we had to cross over a handmade suspension (and filled with suspense) bridge of twine, I said that this was designed for thin Dani and not fat Americans, and surely I would destroy it with my massive girth. Yos said, "No! It is plenty strong!" He calmed down a little bit when we got to the Pasan Nyak open-air market, where bare-breasted Dani women, in thatch-cord skirts that hung at their hips, were selling orange ginger root, red chili peppers and yellow tomatoes. Every woman's back was draped in a series of net bags dyed in purple and green stripes -- nokens -- made from bark-fiber string and tied to their foreheads. The women always wear a few at a time, whether empty or filled with yams, infants or pigs. One woman sat with a pig sleeping in her lap, like a kitten. Men just this side of naked walked by, carrying baby pigs on their shoulders, and Yos explained in grave detail how the tree kangaroo pelts for sale (looking like gray, weasely minks) could be made into stylish hats. He got a nice chuckle at what a fool I was for passing on the remarkable opportunity to get a magnificent necklace of cockatoo claws, but erupted again when we saw two naked men, wearing giant penis-gourds, walking hand-in-hand, and I mentioned how this was not something commonly seen in the U.S. "Every tourist who comes here thinks this means a very bad thing," he said. "Our people are so pure! We do not practice homosexuality!" I checked into the Baliem Palace Hotel, Wamena's finest, and reminiscent of a Motel 6 that's lost its license. Everyone you meet in the Baliem Valley first asks where you're staying, and when you mutter "Baliem Palace," they ooh and ahh like it's the Ritz. The room came with detailed instructions on how to use a toilet, and the lobby featured a mynah bird chattering away in Bahasa. After unpacking, I went to the hotel's restaurant for lunch, only to meet Hubon, the waiter/maitre d', a man with the personality of Carmen Miranda on speed. I'd have to make sure to keep him and Yos separate, or who knows what might happen. "You are a new one with us! Welcome welcome welcome!" he shrieked from across the room. "Now, what can I get for you on this your first day and a beautiful one it is in our Baliem Valley?" He danced around the table while tapping out a rhythm on his order pad with a pencil. There was no menu. I asked Hubon what he'd suggest, which brought him to an even higher state of rapture: "Oh oh oh! For you, I will arrange for something very very special. Wait! ... I am thinking ... do you ... do you like ... PRAWNS?" Now his eyes were dancing around in counterpoint to his feet. I admitted that I did like prawns, and within minutes Hubon appeared with a platter of giant Baliem River crayfish, cooked in butter and garlic, and incredibly delicious. Now it was my turn to ooh and aah, and from then on at every meal, even breakfast, Hubon would bring over some form of crayfish. I was off in the middle of nowhere, and here, in the restaurant of a ratty hotel, there was food as good as any you could ever hope to have, food so good that, in such a place, it shocks you right out of your shoes. The restaurant was always mobbed with diners (no surprise), but it never ceased to amaze me that no one seemed to notice it was run by a man in makeup and cha-cha heels. Besides dour guide Yos' dark pronouncements, everywhere we went in the town of Wamena were signs of the 400 missionaries running through the valley. Men went by in skin-tight jeans and big necklaces with crucifixes, and on one thatch-grass hut was a giant, eight-foot-high poster of the blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus. At first, the missionaries here were successful beyond their wildest dreams, especially since they were armed with penicillin to cure a childhood epidemic of yaws, also known as frambesia, a bacterial skin infection that appears as raspberry-shaped bumps. The early converts were so taken with the holy men and their penicillin that they believed if you didn't close your eyes when praying, God would strike you blind, and that going to church on Sundays would make you immune to all diseases. After an initial rush of success, however, the armies of God suffered defeat after defeat, which is just as visible the minute you leave Wamena town and hit the country road. Out there, the Dani aren't wearing crucifixes; in fact, they aren't wearing pants. The men, who look something like Australian Aborigines but with lean, muscular bodies and faces aged beyond their years, are completely naked, except for a feather in their hair, and perhaps a string necklace, and the one thing they never appear in public without: their penis sheaths -- yellow vegetable horns called horim. The men grow a small gourd and, while it develops, they train it to curl and circle with a system of string and stones; the finished product is then tied around the testicles and the waist, with the penis tucked inside. Some horims are curved, some are corkscrewed, some are topped with feathers or fur, while most stick straight up into the air, the tops striking somewhere between the navel and the nipples. When a group of Dani get nervous or excited, they subconsciously tap their fingernails against these horims, which, in a group, click like maracas. When they come to town, they carry their money in extra-wide penis-gourds, which makes you think twice about asking for change. The Dani weren't impressed with the missionaries' penicillin, and they weren't impressed with Jesus, and they weren't impressed with cars or clothes or anything else that arrived from the 20th century. Their lives, for as long as anyone knows, have always revolved around yams, women and pigs, the pigs being to them like jewelry, a measure of a man's wealth and achievement. Today, a full-grown, healthy Dani pig costs $350. The yams originally came from the Americas, but how they got to this middle of nowhere is anyone's guess, while the pigs are so prized that the Dani believe the etai-eken -- the seed of singing, the soul, which is found just below the rib cage -- exists only in humans and swine. Herds of pigs are running around everywhere in the Baliem, and after a good rain (which occurs daily and nightly), their distinctive porcine odor hits you like a sack of skunks. Even so, the Dani think white people stink, and when the missionaries would show up, they were forced to stand apart, and downwind. These people live with epidemics of respiratory infections, but they believe it's unmanly and unsanitary to blow your nose, cough or spit. They'd rather just drip. When they watched missionaries blowing their noses into a piece of cotton and then keeping it, like a treasure, they thought this was completely disgusting. The Jakarta government is very interested in having the Dani become members-in-good-standing of their modern nation, but the Dani are very uninterested in this. At first, Jakarta thought it was time for the Dani to wear pants, so they airdropped clothes into the Baliem villages, and the Dani sold them all back to the island's immigrants from other parts of Indonesia. Then the government decided that it was time for the Dani to stop living in grass huts, so they built them villages made out of concrete. The Dani tried living in the concrete cottages for a few days, but found their own huts far more comfortable. Their pigs, however, loved the concrete cottages, so the Dani turned them all into sties. Finally, the government thought their diet of yams, berries, grubs, bee larvae, caterpillar, bats, mice and tiny bits of pork was unhealthy, so they taught them to grow rice, taro, corn, cabbage and spinach and to build fish farms. The Dani are terrific farmers, and they now raise all these things, but they won't eat any of it. Instead, like the pants, they sell it all to the immigrants. The Baliem tribal people may not live well -- many die in their mid-50s -- but there are 250,000 of them, and they like things just the way they are. SALON \| Jan. 17, 1999 This story is excerpted from "Let's Get Lost: Adventures in the Great Wide Open," by Craig Nelson, © 1999 by Craig Nelson, to be published in August by Warner Books Inc. All rights reserved. Craig Nelson has also written "Bad TV" and "Finding True Love in a Man-Eat-Man World." Read Part Two