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INDONESIA | Monday, 8 July 2013 | Views [2140] | Comments [1] | View Smaller Image

The Mentawai are highly knowledgeable of the virtues pertaining to all plants that exist in their jungle environment. Here, Kuki coats his arrowheads with a poison extracted from the leaves of a particular shrub. However, a hunt is not planned for today; the Mentawai rarely kill, particularly when there is foodstuffs are available. Nonetheless the survival as a hunter-gather community requires foresight and preparation, and it is best practice to keep bow and arrows at the ready just in case they are needed.

Kuki, a Mentawaian medicine-man, prepares to strip the bark from a tree to make a loincloth garment. The tattoos embellishing Kuki’s body represent another tree; the Sago palm. Known to the Mentawai as the “tree of life” the palm provides the Mentawai with their primary source of carbohydrates. The horizontal stripes on Kuki’s legs represent the trunk of the palm whereas the patterns on his arms represent the palms spiky branches.

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This woman and her husband (left) were only able to bear only one child; a girl. As is customary with the Mentawaians, their daughter lives with her husband, many hours’ walk from her family home. As the couple have grown older and having no children present to assist them with their day-to-day tasks, the temptation to resettle into a government village with fewer physical demands became difficult to resist. But in modern village people will encounter modern problems; food must be purchased using money within the village. As soon as government funding draws to a close, generating a sustainable income becomes a near-impossible task. Thus, they move back. In the jungle money is not required. There is always shelter and food is plentiful. For this couple despite having a “modern” house in a village it is their jungle home that still remains integral to their survival.

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Great depth of Field

darryl_putter Jul 26, 2013 8:41 PM

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