Apokalipsis Abroad

Dinner in Deepest Borneo

The longhouse chief wouldn't tell me where the gristly piece of meat he handed me came from. But I already knew.

I was there when the boar’s head had been purchased, snout, ears and all from a market downriver. Hundreds of vendors there specialized in everything from dragon fruit to live chickens. Among the goods spread on woven blankets and tables made from plastic crates, the decapitated head was one of the few things I was able to identify. I pointed to prices scrawled on scraps of cardboard and left with arms full of fruit impossible to find in a supermarket -- sour langsats, sweet, purple mangosteens, huge, pungent durians… plus one plastic bag full of the head of a boar, the most important gift my small expedition was bringing to the longhouse.

Delivering this bounty took a full day’s travel up the river. Initially we were able to take a public express boat, which was built like a rickety V2 ballistic missile. It was so cramped and noisy inside that we took turns keeping the boar’s head company while everyone else sat on the roof, watching the banks of the wide, brown river slowly becoming overwhelmed by jungle. A few hours and two warm rainstorms later we abandoned the metal express for a small wooden longboat, the only way to get to most of the Iban longhouses hidden deep in the jungles of Sarawak.

Shaded by trees, we glided swiftly upstream under the care of our pilot at the outboard and navigator at the bow, who alerted us to low-hanging branches when we needed to duck. The rain came again, colder now, splattering my face no matter how tight I pulled my plastic poncho around me. The navigator’s tee shirt was plastered to his little body but miraculously he still managed to smoke a miserable-looking cigarette.

Hours later, it was still raining when we arrived. Lanky men clad only in board-shorts and tattoos waded out to usher us to their longhouse. Made from timber lashed together with reeds, it was situated on stilts about ten feet off the ground and I could see ferns were growing from the underside of the floorboards. It was blessedly dry inside.

About twelve families lived together here, each with their own room that opened up into the common room, a long hallway. The rain had brought almost everyone inside from their daily business of shucking hill rice, corralling their vast colony of chickens or tapping the rubber trees that paid for the diesel that powered their generator.

This unlikely electricity allowed for dusky fluorescent lights that buzzed to life just before nightfall. A century ago the Ibans had been headhunters, but tonight they let us sit in the chief’s room before dinner with all of the children to watch American Idol on a small flickering television. Wild boar head was on the menu that night. It tasted delicious. It should have; it had come a long way.