Between The Tides by David Pickell, photographs by Kal Muller
Photographer Kal Muller was exploring one of the most remote places on earth: Papua (formerly Irian Jaya), the Indonesian half of the island of New Guinea and home to the Kamoro people, whose culture, it was widely believed, was extinct. By happenstance Muller stumbled upon an initiation ceremony and uncovered a thriving, traditional way of life.
The animist Kamoro (also known as the Mimika) believe in supernatural, nonpersonal spirts who live deep in the forest. Living in semi-permanent villages along the swampy southwest coast of Papua between the Miratha and Setakwa Rivers, their age old culture is characterized by an almost uninterrupted series of feasts and ceremonies, many of which are still practiced today.
Woodcarvings, sculpted in a highly original style, show astounding versatility and play an essential part in these festivals. A felled tree is stuck in the ground upside down with its roots sticking up like a banner, then a great thick totem pole up to 12 meters high is carved with arabesques and demonic human figures. The tribe also crafts large two-meter-wide decorative fan-shaped symbols (gari) made from sago palm fronds. These rare objects, a few acquired as early as 1828, make up a part of the prize collections in the ethnographic museums of Europe.
With longtime collaborator David Pickell and two Kamoro friends - Aloysius Akiniyau, a guide, and Apollo Takati, a schoolteacher - Muller set out to rediscover a people who live in villages during the rains but at the beginning of the dry season move inland to harvest sago swamps while the old people remain to grow vegetables and tend the children.
Traveling by dugout canoe to survey the far-flung settlements of the Kamoro coast, their journey took them from the dusty frontier town of Timika to tiny Lakahia Island. Along 200 miles of twisting mangrove creeks and across the relentless Arafura Sea, they found a culture undergoing a delicate, sometimes humorous, and often wrenching process of change.
The Kamoro have adapted to major political and economic changes over a long history of interactions with outsiders dating back to the seventeenth century. Among ethnographers, the Kamoro have been studied for their fascinating amoko-kwere narratives which chronicle the adventures of ancestral culture heroes.
More recently, the Kamoro have been in the news because of the massive PT Freeport Indonesia Mining Company’s use of a significant amount of their land for the disposal of mining waste (tailings) which has caused major social disruption and serious environmental degradation.
Rejecting the bravado and exoticism of recent accounts, Between the Tides is an engrossing work that combines storytelling, humor, natural history, along with astute political and cultural observations. David Pickell’s relationship to the Kamoro is sensitive and deeply personal, while Kal Muller’s accompanying photographs are dramatic and evocative. Together they present a vivid portrait of how an isolated, nomadic past meets a worldly, urban future, how history confronts superstition, and how a false and imposed sense of shame can yield to a new, yet fragile, pride.
Author David Pickell is up to the task. He has edited eight books on Indonesian art, natural history, and travel; three of which concern themselves with Papua. Kal Muller specializes in photographing traditional peoples of the world. His work has appeared in dozens of books and as many magazines, including National Geographic. For the past two decades he has focused on Indonesia, particularly Papua. Together, they have produced a work that exemplifies cultural anthropology at its best.
Between The Tides, text by David Pickell, photographs by Kal Muller, published by Tuttle Publishing Company (www.tuttlepublishing), ISBN 079-4600-727, paperback, 256 pages, dimensions 9 X 12 inches, 143 full color photos plus drawings and maps.
Available for Rp270,000 at Periplus Bookshops in the Bali Galleria and in the Matahari in Kuta, Warung Made in Seminyak, Ngurah Rai Airport (both the international and domestic terminals), Keris Gallery in Nusa Dua and in Gramedia Bookstores.
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