Free Indonesian Gold by Kerry B. Collison

the

chief caught her midair, giggled with glee. Jonathan smothered her playfully, pretending to crush

her to his powerful chest, gradually releasing his hold permitting the child to slip gently to

the ground. Not wishing an end to the game, she refused to let go, winding her arms and legs

around his ankles as a monkey would a pole. With strong, but loving hands, Jonathan tugged her

loose, lifting her once again into the air, placing her astride his shoulders. The girl wrapped

her arms around his head, her world from upon this perch reaching out and across the fields from

where she had strayed. Jonathan’s graceful strides returned the child to her grateful mother, the

unspoken words of gratitude delivered with a fleeting smile. No sooner had the girl been reunited

with the group, she was off and running again with the other children, in pursuit of an overly

inquisitive chicken that had strayed into their midst. Jonathan stepped back allowing the

children room to run past, encouraging the lagging child as she ran breathless in her attempt to

keep up with the others. Satisfied that the girl might now remain within safer confines the

shaman returned to the Longhouse to attend to matters that required his attention as

village-head.
    ****
    Nestled amongst towering coconut palms, overlooking one of

the many tributaries that flowed into the Mahakam, Jonathan’s Aoheng-Penehing community

setting had not changed greatly since he was a child. Apart from the three-meter, parabolic dish

mounted like some great saucer atop the water tower, and the cables running from the recently

constructed generator block, the village remained much the same as it was when his

great-grandfather had hunted clouded leopard along Bukit Batubrok’s slopes.
    Jonathan’s forefathers had migrated in nomadic fashion,

down from the mountainous northwest, Kayan River headwaters more than two hundred years before.

These Kayan tribes, which included the Bahau, the Modang , the Long

Gelat and Busang, had left the Apokayan, invading the upper Mahakam, displacing

and, in some cases enslaving the original inhabitants, the Ot Danum and Tunjung people. A century of headhunting raids throughout Borneo’s east left a legacy of lingering

hostility, the surviving ethnic groups never hesitant in declaring their loathing for each other,

at any given opportunity.
    Jonathan had been more fortunate than most. Born in the

year the Japanese invaded Balikpapan, three hundred kilometers to the east, he was to be seven

years of age before sighting another being that was not of Dayak blood.
    ****
    Although it may have been considered unusual for a

hereditary chief to simultaneously hold the highly respected position of chief and that of

the spiritual dukun, commencing with Jonathan’s great-grandfather, the powers for both had

been passed unbroken, from father to son. Even as a young child, Jonathan’s unique talents had

become apparent, the special gift he had inherited being first manifested whilst he was still a

child, and for all who witnessed the event, confirmation that Jonathan Dau was, indeed, a blessed

phenomenon.
    The incident had occurred when the villagers were

fare-welling a young woman who had died during childbirth. In his role as dukun, or

shaman, Jonathan’s father was not only the village healer and its priest, but also the psycho

pomp responsible for the long and skillful prayers offered to accompany the deceased’s soul on

its journey to the ‘other’ world. The village girl’s body had been prepared for burial, and

final, protracted prayers were being offered when Jonathan approached the corpse, reached up and

touched her lifeless body. Then he fell into a trancelike state, reciting the entire prayer

sequence all over again, verbatim.
    At that time, Jonathan was just five years of age and had

never been instructed in such verse, nor had he