Exploration of the Remote Kopayap and Urajin Areas in West Papua, Indonesia

In memoriam, my brotherhood : Ney Wenda , Sentani August 20, 2009

Exploration of the Remote Kopayap and Urajin Areas in West Papua, Indonesia
A First Contact in Kopayap and Urajin
April 2006
Flag # 151
Phyllis Hischier
MN 034810 Coyote Canyon Road.
San Luis Obispo, Ca. 93401.USA

The goal of the expedition was to further our understanding of the physical and culturalcharacteristics of the area. To observe the ethno-cultural environment and to gain anunderstanding of the people, community, beliefs, practices, festivals, rituals, death, birth and marriage as well as the environment and their interaction with it.
The expedition was awarded Explorers Club flag # 151.

Members of the expedition included: Phyllis Hischier, U.S.A., Andre Liem, Jayapura, West Papua, Ney Wenda, interpreter, West Papua, Luky Kanyuga, Sorong, West Papua, Roni Kogoya, Cook, Dani area, West Papua, Boas Awop, interpreter and guide, Yali, Korowai, Donatus, interpreter. Porters: Aser Lomaha, Filale Bafiga, Hotoge Sineggatun, Manda Molonggatun, Daniel Awop, Tayop Bisom, Uganto.

28 March: Flew from Jakarta to Timika where I was supposed to catch a flight to the small village of Ewer on the 29th. The flight was cancelled until the following day.
Spent the 28th and 29th preparing for the trip. Met Ney Wenda and Andre Liem in Timika.
Timika very quiet due to the rioting and problems with Freeport.

30 March: Flew Timika to Ewer in just under 1 hour. Luky, my boat driver and long time friend was there to pick us up and take us to Agats by boat to prepare for our journey the next day. We did not buy much in Timika due to weight restrictions on the flight. Here we bought boxes of tobacco and salt for trading and gifts. Rice, spices, sugar, tea, coffee, barrels of fuel and oil, cigarettes etc. Along the way we will buy sago, fish, vegetables, birds, snake or whatever we can find to eat. I understand there is a cyclone off Australia and we will feel the consequences here. Visited my friends who are priests here in Agats.
2
31 March: A good sleep at Lukys house, woke up to pouring rain and heavy winds.
Thankfully we are heading upriver and not on the ocean so it should be safe to go.
Waiting for the rain to cease a bit before we leave. Left by longboat 9:00 a.m., rained almost the entire day, stayed under the umbrella or tarp to try to stay dry. Stopped in Yaosakor and used someones house to cook lunch then on again with more rain from the cyclone off Australia. Spent all day powering upriver in the longboat and arrived in Waganu after dark which is 6:00. Waganu seems to be mostly a Gaharu traders village, many Javanese and sulawesi people here, a mixture as is common in Gaharu camps.
Staying overnight in the school which is filthy and unused. Set my tent up in one of the rooms for some privacy. Thankfully there is water to bathe in and a kitchen area. Bathed from a bucket in one of the rooms, heavenly to get clean but a quick wash as men are walking through The frogs would be deafening if not for the generator, I wouldrather hear the frogs symphony. Took a shortcut today as the river was high Agats-Warse-Yaosakor. Brought crab from Agats for dinner. Luky, Roni, Ney, Andre and I had a dinner of crab, vegetable, rice, krupuk and bananna.

1 April: Up early. Packed up all our belongings, cooking tools etc as we can not leave them on the boat due to possible theft. Stopped in Binam to report my Surat Jalan or travelling papers with the local police. Bought lunch to go or “nasi bungkus” rice with fish, vegetable and hot sauce wrapped in paper so we would not have to stop and cook.
Bought another drum of gas and on our way. Ate lunch with our fingers on the way to Siepanep. So peaceful up here, clean, many birds. The entire feel changes up here, virtually untouched. Water has started to move rapidly, more so than the times I had been here before. School for the Mabul people is in Binamzain which is over two hours away, few go to school and if ever they do only sporadically. After Siepanep no villages until Mabul which we reached about dark. Mabul S 05 17.206 E 139 44.768 27 feet elevation. Lovely to reach Mabul again, some familiar faces, happy to see each other, the new ones looking me over and touching me all over especially breasts and hair. Filale and a few of the men we used as porters last time are here and hoping to join us again on this trek.
I came to the Korowai and Mabul for the first time in 2000. Trekked all over the Korowai and met Yali, a war chief who is married to a Kopayap woman. I had never heard of the Kopayap and asked him about them. Through an interpreter he said they were still fighting and stealing each others women as there were not enough. He was the only Korowai person allowed to go into the Kopayap area. He said he could take me there if I liked. I returned to the U.S. and did some research on the Kopayap and could find no written information. The only information I could find was from two people, one who had made a documentary in Papua and another who often travels to Papua looking for untouched areas. They both said they were known to be fierce and it was impossible to get into the area. A year later I returned in 2001, to Mabul and sent someone into the jungle to find Yali for me. We gathered porters and left a few days later for the Kopayap area. After trekking almost a week through a swampy jungle we stayed the night in an
area with a biefak owned by the Kopayap but empty and a leaf blocking the door signifying a lock or “do not enter”. I was bathing alone by the river early in the morning when I heard yelling and screaming. The porters were out looking for food and had been shot at with arrows. They were scared to death and we had to literally run. We had not had time to cook food or boil water for drinking. We threw our supplies together and ran an entire day through swamps up to my waist with leeches crawling up my legs and falling out of the trees. Thirsty, wanting to lay down in the swamp and drink, not a word to describe the feeling of thirst. Ended up coming down with malaria as my body was so weak after this. The porters were shot at because of their fighting with the Kopayap, they were Korowai, not because of me being foreign. I had always wanted to come back and try again. This was my chance.
Bathed in the river with the women and kids, all wanting to see my body. Fireflies and a sliver of a moon. Stayed in an open unfinished house except for a roof. About 50 people watching our every move. Dinner of crab, krupuk, rice, veggie. Everyone watching every movement used to eat. I am so happy to be back, nothing has changed here. Now sitting and waiting for the proper time to choose the porters for tomorrow.
Ney Wenda grew up in Yanirumah not far from here. His father and mother Dani and the father a radio operator for the small airstrip. He knows the area well and the people. He is very serious about choosing the right porters to join us. I am grateful.

2 April : Not a great sleep, too hot and too many people sitting around talking, coughing until late. Bathed in the river without 50 people watching, more like 12. We packed up and since the river is high enough were dropped off by longboat up the river and on the other side which helped a lot as to to cross by dugout with all our supplies and porters would have taken most of the day. Our start point on the beach was S 05 16. 057 E 139 44.494 115 feet elevation. Began walking by 8:30 with only short stops. The jungle so familiar and many of the same porters as before. Not too difficult walking, just muddy and or swampy as it rained a lot last night. Deep in some parts and slippery roots and rattan to trip on. In the first 10 minutes I had four leeches on my hand alone. Stopped at a few treehouses but no one there as they move around a lot looking for food. Stopped in two clearings with treehouses, seems to be a mix of Korowai and Kopayap through adoption or marriage. Started to rain, at first we could hear it and then all of a sudden it
was pouring. The porters grabbing huge leaves for umbrellas. Reached a treehouse at 1:30, it was Yali’s, the war chief I had trekked with twice before. So wonderful to see him. He ran down from the treehouse when he realized I was there, grabbed my hand, fed me sago, put his head, cheek to cheek with mine.He would make his jungle calls and I would mimmick as before, I only spoke a few words of his language and he none of mine, body language is universal.Yalis house was a treehouse but not a high as in the Korowai, one other house was close by. Up into the treehouse to get out of the rain. Three wives and a load of kids. Typical house with one side for men the other for women. The women gave me sago and bananas cooked, checked my hair, looked down my pants and shirt. Many of them had never seen a westerner before, only one of his wives who I had met before but the way was smooth as Yali and one wife knew me and many of the porters. The kids cried when they saw me and would not get close. The porters made a cooking/sleeping area with the tarp we brought. I erected my tent with everyone watching to see this strange sleeping place. Two snakes were caught, one in a rattan cage, the other with it’s head wrapped in a leaf so as not to bite. Flies, horrendous, so many you can not count, if you stop you are covered from head to toe. Huge flies, lalat babi or pig flies which bite terribly and make a hole in your skin and bees. Impossible to get in and out of the tent with out many coming in. Bathed in the small river, muddy but just minerals. Used to dipper to rinse as it is not deep enough to immerse in. Raining again, everyone standing over me as I write, as reading and writing is a mystery here.
The treehouse area where Yali lives is called Matahawih S 05 13.33 E 139 42.493 103 feet elevation. Everyone here is coughing mostly from tobacco and the cookfires in the home. Some
skin problems but extremely healthy. We were able to get sugarcane ,sago, pumpkin, bananas and vegetables(leaves from the jungle). To my knowledge,no other westerner has ever been here. Gaharu or sandalwood trader have, they are mostly other indigenous people working for Javanese or Sulawesi traders. Now the gaharu is just about gone and what is left is of a low quality so they come no more. Played with a kids bow and arrow to learn how to shoot. The little kids, small, about 5 and up smoke a bamboo pipe here just like the adults. The hunting dogs are carried up into the treehouse at night. Planning to go to the border of Kopayap and Urajin tomorrow. Two candles going under the tarp, dark, can see into the treehouse with the fires going, so many people and not enough room to stretch out.

3 April : Rained all night. Hot and damp in the tent. Went to bed with an orchestra of frogs serenading us. Up early traded for more food such as sago, cucumber, squash, bananas for the porters. Left 8:30 with Yali along. I did not ask him to come with us, he just followed. Very swampy today, sloshing through water with leeches everywhere. Sinkingin the mud and at time hard to pull your feet out. A lot of sago trees with huge thorns.
Crossed the Kali Wamor. Ran into a few people walking, surprised to see a party with a white woman. Men completely naked except rattan around the waist and a leaf around the penis and carrying a bow and arrows. Women wearing sago fibre skirts and necklaces of teeth with shells in the hair occasionally. One man had hugely swollen testicles which I understand is common in this area. Uganto another war chief who is with us. He has a huge scar on his abdomen. I asked him about it. An arrow went through him, about three inches above his navel and out his back when he was younger, maybe 10 years ago. He is fortunate he was not killed or paralyzed. His insides hurt when he walks a lot, after a rest of a few days he is alright. I wish I could do something to help him but the wound is too old. He was with me the entire time and lives three days from here upriver. A complete gentleman, a war chief with his bow and arrows always at the ready, never had seen a westerner before. We became fast friends through body language and an interpreter. He would like me to visit him someday and we made a map to his house.
About noon we came upon a clearing of houses in the jungle which were in the Urajin area, on the border of Kopayap. The women and children were in the huts and when they saw me hid. Awhile later a few came out to take a look at me with their hand in a fist biting the index finger knuckle and yelling “oooh, ooh, oooh, oooh.” They were scared and did not know what to think , kids were crying. As I was with some people they knew some got within six or so feet of me and a few brave souls close enough to touch my skin and hair, look into my clothing. The eyelashes here are the thickest and most luxuriant I have ever seen. I wonder if it is an evolutionary phenomenan to keep the flies or leeches out. If a leech gets in you eye you go blind, if in the nose dead. We had a bite to eat and as we were leaving they followed.
This area was called Gariman, a Urajin village S05 11.723 E 139 42.493 129 feet elevation. There were about 12 huts here, clean, no trash whatsoever, but a difference from the Kopayap in that each area has only one or two treehouses at the most.
The evening we spent in Diemanup, S 05 11.36 E 139 43.948

To Be Continued...