In Other Worlds

The river thundered with a deafening roar as it hurtled pell-mell in its precipitous descent through the constraints of a rocky canyon. Its impetuous currents argued and tussled with each other, tossing one another around unyielding rocks, before continuing their quarrel.
On our side of the river, I stood among giant boulders together with my Dutch-Canadian colleague Bruno de Leeuw and with our companions—a band of Yali men armed with native bows and arrows, and three Indonesian policemen with their World War II vintage Lee-Enfield rifles at the ready.
Opposite us, I occasionally caught glimpses of dark-skinned, well-armed warriors who moved furtively among the trees and scrub which clung to the near vertical, limestone wall of the gorge. Each man was outfitted with war paraphernalia: a shell band on his chest; a boar tusk through his pierced nasal septum; a feather and fur headdress; and a fistful of assorted, deadly arrows.
Between us was this impassable maelstrom of surging water—but no bridge. The unwelcoming party on the other side had anticipated our coming, and had slashed the vines which bound their end of the bridge together, and pushed the loosened construction into the river. The roiling current soon made matchwood of everything. If we wanted to get across, there had to be a bridge—not an easy thing to do without cooperation from the other side. Nevertheless, undaunted, our enterprising Yali companions were soon shouting instructions to each other and putting in motion preparations for erecting a new bridge.
“Watch out!”
A Yali’s shrill cry drew my attention as huge boulders started to tumble down the cliff opposite us. Crashing through trees and brush they bounced off the rock face to land in the river near where our friends were working, and some even ricocheted off rocks in the river and made it all the way across or shattered into dangerous, flying fragments. They sent a clear signal from the men on the other side: “Don’t come here! Don’t even think about building a bridge!”
As if that message wasn’t plain enough, one of their men moved into the open. He wore the attire of a medicine man: Upturned pig-tusks through his nose; a band of cowry shells around his net-covered head; a large scoop-shaped bailer shell hanging on his chest; bow and arrows in his hand; and a feathered net bag slung on his back. This contained the amulets and artefacts of his profession. He advanced and stepped onto a large outcrop of rock which formed the opposite bridgehead, and squatting, he pulled some objects and leaves from his net bag and began to make incantations—impossible to hear above the river’s roar.
I wondered aloud, “What is he doing?”
One of my companions matter-of-factly explained, “He is making magic and perhaps putting a curse so that we will not be able to make a new bridge, or perhaps so that we will fall in the river in the attempt.”
At that moment, the nervous Indonesian patrol leader ordered his men, “Fire some shots over their heads.”
For an instant, the sharp rifle cracks echoed in the canyon but were soon overwhelmed by the unending thundering of the Heluk river.
Before we had set out for this encounter, one of my tribal friends had cautioned me with laconic wisdom, “Put on two or three thick sweaters, my father, so that when the arrows hit you they will not go in too deep!”
The advice seemed ridiculous at the time; but now it was no joke!
Amidst the noise, commotion and the threat of the moment, my thoughts focused on my family. A mere 20 kilometers north as the crow flies, my wife Gloria sat in our small timber house, perched on a hillside at a village called Ninia. From our home there was a spectacular view of the upper reaches of this same river valley, high up in Papua’s central mountain range, where the rugged backbone—thrust up by ancient seismic forces—ran from one end of New Guinea to the other. With her were our two young sons, the second only a few weeks old. I had good reason to imagine that our newborn and his brother might be left fatherless before the day was over. What was I doing here? What had brought us to this place? Were our hopes and ambitions to be dashed by the events unfolding in this hidden valley far from home?