Tuesday, April 27, 2010

FOR THE BIRDS









FOR THE BIRDS


Before I embark on a journey, I worry about whatever is appropriate to the itinerary. For the Pacific island country of Papua New Guinea, I worry about poisonous snakes, airplane crashes, malaria carrying mosquitos, man eating sharks, parasites, lack of medical facilities, pickpockets, muggers, and something new. This is my first opportunity to worry about cannibals. That practice supposedly ended in 1984. Now it is 2000. Sixteen years is long enough for even the most stubborn holdouts to make the change in their diet. Right?
Guidebooks, or even chapters, on Papua New Guinea aren’t numerous. Those my husband, Gene, and I read take pains to reassure travelers on safety issues, but in the capital of Port Moresby, our first stop, we discover the residents of the city don’t share that view. They lock themselves in behind razor wire at night. Only the occasional thief of victim walks the deserted streets then. Why is it so dangerous? High unemployment. Poverty. An inept police force. A breakdown in traditional culture. Has all that happened since the guidebook was written? Besides, wouldn’t a breakdown in a culture that traditionally featured head hunting and cannibalism be a good thing? Not that anyone ever mentions those aspects of the past.
Next on our schedule is Tari, in a remote area of the highlands, the mountains that run down the middle of the island. The highlands are accessible primarily by air. An hour before our flight from Port Moresby is due to leave for Tari, we’re in line at the airport. The three people ahead of us are barefoot. Instead of luggage, they check in cardboard boxes, plastic bags, and a large cook pot. Then it is our turn. We present our tickets. The airline employee says he can’t issue us boarding passes. The little prop plane is already overweight. This isn’t something I fretted about in advance since we’re traveling light. It’s the people who checked in ahead of us who aren’t. I feel like I’ve been bumped by a cook pot.
Our disappointment is even more severe because we don’t want to spend another night in Port Moresby. The airline agrees to fly us to Mt. Hagen. That gets us closer to Tari.
In Mt. Hagen, the airline puts us up in the nicest hotel in town and feeds us well, at their expense, but the desk clerk warns us not to go out after dark because of the “rascals,” the quaint Papua New Guinea name for bad guys. In terms of safety, we may as well be in Port Moresby. We’re getting used to being behind movable barriers that are always locked and manned, unlike at home where “gated community” means they are in possession of a gate that’s a decorative element of the entry. I only hope our guards and gates are adequate to any possible invasion.
The next morning at the air strip, we go through the same weighing-in procedure, but this time we get on the flight. The airline, Mission Aviation, is run by Christian missionaries. A woman passes out the latest issue of the mission magazine. There’s an article about one of their flights recently being hijacked by paying passengers, three men wielding guns and knives. It says the hijackers are still at large. I look around at my ten fellow passengers, and wonder if any of them are hijackers. Certainly not the pilot’s wife or their three young children who keep up a running dialog with their Dad in the cockpit. When we first got on board, I was concerned to see two drums of aviation fuel in the passenger cabin with us, but now I look on them as possibly displacing hijackers. The fuel drums occupy four seats of space, right under the “Jesus Saves” sign.
After a thirty minute light over green, green mountains and valleys, the plane lands in Tari. We disembark to an enclosure that appears under siege. Hundreds of people press up to the surrounding hurricane fence, some of them in native dress, most of them barefoot and armed with machetes or axes. I don’t want to go out among the armed crowd. Luckily, that isn’t necessary. A van, from the lodge where we have reservations, waits for us inside the compound. Howard, our driver, explains that the people are still in awe of airplanes. A large group assembles to witness the arrival and departure of all the big birds that carry people in their bellies. I ask, what about the weapons? Howard says the machetes are used both as weapons and in work. He says the axes are killing tools. That certainly sets my mind at ease.
There’s only one place to stay, the Ambua Lodge, an hour and a half from the tiny village. It’s an excellent area for seeing Birds of Paradise and is the home of the Huli Wigmen, who dress in their traditional human hair wigs and not much more.
Once we’re on the road – the really, really bad road – Howard says, “I am a Huli man.” He tells us of their ways of having multiple wives and clan “paybacks” which are revenge killings. The men and women live separately. To have sex, they go out into the bush. They believe they are descended from birds.
The night watchman at the lodge carries a bow and arrows. He’s tall and looks fierce. He’s a Marawaka, a distant tribe, reputed to be the best guards. The owners want someone from outside who won’t get involved with clan warfare.
Prior to arriving, a fellow birder told us Benson and Joseph are excellent guides. Benson isn’t a possibility. He’s gone. He had to leave the area because of revenge killings. A week previous, his mother was hacked down with a machete on the road. The killer was seen, and a few days later, the killer’s sister was murdered. No one says Benson did it, only that he’s gone. Evidently, self exile is a means of bringing a particular series of paybacks to an end. After a few months, the exile can safely return. He’s done his time.
The sun is barely up when we leave with Joseph and a driver in search of Birds of Paradise, a species unique to Papua New Guinea. We look at pictures of the improbably designed creatures in the Princeton University Birds of New Guinea. Joseph practically promises us a sighting. A good guide can do that, but we’re still ecstatic when we step out of the van and a male King of Saxony flies across the road. Two sixteen inch, pearly-blue head plumes flat behind him like a lovely apparition. He is a small black and buff bird, nothing special except for those head plumes.
We hear a burst of machine gun fire, but before I fling myself to the ground in panic, Joseph says quietly, “Black Sicklebill.” Following the loud, rapid, tat-at-at-tat sound the bird makes instead of a a song, we head into the bush. Despite the excitement of the hunt, I do not neglect to check over hanging branches for snakes. Finally, we see the noisy black bird, high up in a tree. He’s large with fabulous long tail feathers, red eyes, and a thin, curved beak. He stays in that tree all morning – it is his display tree – while we watch for additional species. Like a child trying to get attention, the little Glossy Winged Swiftlet flies by repeatedly, but we’re more interested in sighting the Ribbon-tailed Bird of Paradise. The male has two thin, white tail feathers, at least twenty inches long. We don’t have to go far to find him. He’s so high in the tree tops that we can’t get a good look at his black pompom, but we can’t miss the tail feather.
On the way back to the lodge, we pass a couple, walking in the rain. Howard says they work at the lodge. Gene says why don’t we give them a ride. The driver says he’s not supposed to do that. We won’t tell, says Gene. Howard and Joseph exchange looks, but they stop for the barefoot walkers. The faces of the couple don’t reveal surprise, pleasure, or any emotion, but they do get in the van. The woman goes to the back and sits down on the floor, even though there are eight empty seats. The man, carrying an unsheathed machete, sits in the seat right behind me. I’m not happy. Gene and his big mouth. I don’t say anything aloud, but I tell myself: I’m not a Huli woman. Why would they kill me? Why would they kill Gene or our friend and traveling companion, Mike? We aren’t involved in their clan fights, but people get hurt just by being in the way.
Before reaching the lodge, the driver stops. The couple gets out. I’m happy again.

Goroka, our other scheduled Highland destination, is timed to coincide with the famous “sing-sing” that occurs there every other year. This is a three day gathering of clans from far and wide in traditional dress, doing their ritual dances and music. Some tribes walk three days to get to town.
A local told us the first sing-sing was conceived as a way to do a census in a land so wild and unexplored that the government didn’t know how many different tribes and languages existed in the country. My only fear about the sing-sing was that it wouldn’t take place. The last time the gathering was scheduled, the organizer had to leave town a month before – one of those clan warfare things – and the show was canceled. This isn’t the Rose Parade or Madi Gras.
Goroka is a small town rather than a tiny village like Tari. There are three hotels, a Chinese restaurant, and a beautiful theater. I suppose the populace has seen lots of planes by now because the landing strip isn’t surrounded by awestruck locals. Within moments of our early morning arrival, we see the spectacular bird wind butterfly outside our room at the Pacific Lodge. With a name and wing span like that, it almost counts as bird watching.
At breakfast, the lodge manager, David, sits down with us. He wants to be sure I haven’t discarded my paranoia like excess baggage. Although the distance between the show grounds and the lodge isn’t great, he doesn’t want us to walk. A driver will take us, let us off at a safe place, and pick us up in that same place at 2:00. That seems rather early. Yes, David agrees, but if there’s trouble, it happens later in the day. In that case, the police will tear gas the whole crowd. He doesn’t want that to happen to us. Neither do we.
Our driver looks as if he works out with weights for hours every day. I feel safe with him. To get to the entry gate, he inches the van through a throng of people. “Rascals,” he mutters. I realize that neither our strong driver nor my strong husband would be a match for so many. A guard unlocks the gate for us while another one, with a German Shepherd, holds back the crowd. The dog also looks like he’s been working out.
At the spectator’s entrance, we present our tickets and step into the most amazing, intense experience of our lives. We are among thousands of warriors and warrior women – not in a grandstand looking at them, but among them. The ground we stand on shakes as they jump, stomp, and thump spears. We’re face to face with faces painted yellow, red, and white, nose to nose with noses pierced with bones and feathers. At a time when body piercing, including nose rings, is common among young people throughout the Westernized world, I wonder if these civilized youth will soon be sporting bones and feathers?
Women with bare breasts shining with pig grease undulate past us, their grass skirts and beads rustling. One tribe of men jump straight up and bang their long spears on the ground in such perfect unison that their full length skirts also bounce up and down together. Walking past them, we see that they have a different covering in back. It’s short and made of leaves that have been oiled. The leaves glisten in the hot midday sun. Some of the men and women even have colorful teeth, stained red from chewing beetle nut.
All of the clans wear elaborate feather head dresses. Plumes of birds of paradise; tail feathers or whole skins of lorikeets; parrot, cockatoo, and eagle wing and tail feathers; cassowary body plumes, and hornbill beaks are all used. The beauty of the head dresses enthralls me, until I realize an incredible numer of birds die to furnish this finery. This is an ornithological nightmare. Not at all, we’re assured. This is an expression of a deep cultural reverence for Papuan bird life. These feathers are treasured and traded and the head dresses passed on from one generation to the next. Birds are also an important source of protein in their diet, pethaps even more so since they gave up, well, you know.
Am I reassured? Not entirely. I’m a little worried about the birds of Papua New Guinea, but evidently worry is an integral part of travel for me.

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This essay was first published in The Dickens: The Copperfield’s Books Literary Review of 2001. I left Mike out to keep my word count down for that juried contest. Sorry, Miguel.

Photos: Mary at the Tari air strip, the Mossmen, the Mudmen, the Huli Wigmen.