The Kamoro strive to regain lost culture

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): At least there is one American who is not trying to preach the merits of liberal democracy to people here. For Kal Muller realizes that a lot of traditional societies are not all backward and barbaric. In their level of organization, or political hierarchy, many follow an informal, egalitarian government where decision-making is communal.

Muller was speaking about his experiences with some 18,000 souls divided among nearly 40 villages along the south coast of Irian Jaya where the ancestral homeland of the Kamoro stretches some 300 kilometers by the Arufura Sea, from Etna Bay to Asmat- land. He said the current leadership structure, such as village chiefs and leaders, are impositions for the convenience of the outside world and not sure-fire mechanisms for dealing with the Kamoro.

Muller concluded the last of the eight evening lectures organized by the Indonesian Heritage Society with understanding and appreciating the country's culture at the Erasmus Huis by quoting author Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel. "Not only is status not inherited; no member of a traditional tribe can become disproportionately wealthy by his or her own efforts, because each has individual debts and obligations to many others."

Even today the Kamoro remember a great leader for his personal goodness and capability and not because he was a descendant from a certain family.

However, when the church and the state were faced with little- known societies like the Kamoro they found it difficult to deal with the free spirit of the ancient matriarchal way of life.

The Kamoro were strongly discouraged from following their seminomadic existence as free spirits cannot be easily counted, educated, taxed or controlled. Wandering folks do as they please and that is considered a dangerous precedent. When the Dutch government and the Roman Catholic Church established themselves in the area in the 1920s, it proved to be traumatic for the art and culture of the Kamoro.

A missionary describes the Kamoro homeland in the 1960s as a dead area filled with zombies. "There is no work and no interest in work. Religion of the past is no longer celebrated and the Christian religion means nothing to the people. The past is gone forever. The present lacks vitality. The future holds no hope."

Not condemning the interference of the outside world totally, Muller said their life span was about 30 years, with infant mortality from malaria reaching 50 percent of live births. The population of the whole island of New Guinea, now well over six million, never exceeded one million until the colonial powers brought in western medicines and forced an end to tribal warfare.

Muller is a writer and photographer whose firsthand knowledge of traditional societies around the world is sought by publications like the National Geographic magazine. He has lived in Indonesia for years and is an author of several books, including the Periplus guide to Irian Jaya.

Just two days after landing in Indonesia, Muller decided that this was where home was going to be for him. Having lived in Irian Jaya continuously for four years has tanned the Hungarian- born ethnologist almost to his teeth, making him nearly resemble one of his handsome Kamoro brothers.

Already hidden by the world's richest and most profuse mangrove zone, the Kamoro are lesser known than their more famous neighbors, the Asmat, mainly because it is the latter tribe that is suspected of having gobbled up Michael Rockefeller, the American patron of the arts.

Muller feels that the young Rockefeller probably drowned and it was the well-financed and high-powered search after his disappearance that gave the Asmat free publicity, bringing their wood carvings to the attention of the art world, especially the permanent exhibit of his collection in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Decades ago Rockefeller was collecting Asmat art when he vanished and was last seen trying to swim to shore from an overturned boat.

Explaining the purpose of cannibalism, Muller said it is not as if people are hungry and eat up the first human being they see. It is more of a ritual to avenge enemies and Muller believes that maybe just 10 percent of the population actually ever ate human flesh in the province of Irian Jaya. The Kamoro killed, but probably did not eat their fair share of explorers, says Muller.

Even as the modern world intrudes upon them, the ladies still use the mangrove as their main supermarket, bringing home crabs, other shell seafood and numerous leaves and roots from the swamp. The best efforts of missionaries and governments to turn the Kamoro into farmers has met with little success. Logging companies deprive the people of trees used for carving canoes and areas of land are taken over for transmigration programs without the knowledge and approval of many of the Kamoro.

However, the worst thing to happen to the Kamoro over the years is the loss of pride and knowledge of their traditional lifestyle and culture.

To reverse this trend an annual cultural festival is now held every October. Woodcarving auctions and mask making competitions take place, while forgotten rites and rituals are revived.

This festival is slowly gaining fame and has attracted in the past some art collectors from abroad. Muller hopes that together with education and encouragement of its traditional culture, the Kamoro will be able to face the modern world with a pride and confidence that was once a part of their heritage anyway.