The Fever Trail: Goodwill Hunting in Sumatra

Patagonia's Keith Malloy. Scott Bass

After a half-hour’s hike we came upon a large thatched uma nestled next to a small stream. A small stockade of caged pigs grunted their greetings. Small kids giggled and nudged each other from the doorway.

The Sikerei took us down to the stream and showed us how they make loincloths by beating the inner bark of a certain small tree. Keith jumped in and was soon pounding away alongside the medicine men. Where we saw an impenetrable hostile jungle the shamans saw a garden, shelter, hardware, clothing and pharmacy.

There is no distinguishing the Mentawai from their forest. They are as much a part of it as if they were to sprout roots from their feet. The Mentawai creation legend tells of a sky that rained pigs and the child who turned himself into a sago palm so that that the Original People, The Mentawai, would never go hungry.

“It was like time had stopped for these people,” observed Conan, who relished the opportunity to indulge his passion for portrait photography. “You may see these kind of medicine men on National Geographic but you’re never up close and personal with them like that. They’re characters. They have a lot of personality. Even though we can’t speak each other’s language you do communicate. They were really interested in my tattoos and what they meant.”

The Mentawai forest people are an anthropologist's dream thesis: a remnant tribe of neolithic forest dwellers who somehow survived into the 21st century free of the cultural ravages inflicted by successive regimes of colonialism. Far from primitive, they enjoy a highly evolved clan structure tightly geared to auspicious earth cycles.

“Mentawaians try to live in a way that is pleasing to the soul and keeps it near at hand,” writes Benedict Allen in his “Last of the Medicine Men.” "Out of consideration for their souls they avoid all rushing around. ‘Moile, moile,’ ‘slowly, slowly.’ In very general terms, a peaceful, harmonious, not-too-stressful existence corresponds to the desire of the soul.”

To a Mentawai Sikerei it's all about keeping cool in the sweltering jungle. The fever means the things are out of balance, the spirits are displeased. A malevolent spirit will heat up a body, making it sick and feverish. Sweet flowers, shade and healing herbs cool off the body, makes it pleasing to the soul. Through song and rituals the Sikerei brings balance back into the real and metaphysical worlds.

The elders observe to Dr. Dave that there’s much fever in the logging camps. Dave says that this is not surprising. Disease usually rises in disturbed natural environments. In the case of the logging camps, deforestation creates swamps that creates prime mosquito-breeding habitat. Without the natural predators provided by the forest, they breed unchecked. The malaria parasite spreads rapidly.

Scott Bass

In 1980, a coalition of wildlife and environmental groups was able to convince the Suharto regime that it would be in the best interest of Indonesia and the world not to clearcut Siberut for hardwoods. Despite massive lobbying from the timber companies, almost half the island, which measures approximately 60 miles by 40, was declared a world heritage "biosphere"; its unique plants, animals and people to be guarded in perpetuity by, presumably, the world. Since then, however, the logging companies have been slowly but inexorably chewing into the reserve's porous borders. Of the 160 million hectares of Siberut rainforest originally set aside, only 92 million remain. Under Indonesia's fledgling democracy, the Mentawais must develop their own economy or face being ruled by fiat from Jakarta. Hardwoods are vastly more profitable than any other resource, and when cleared they can be replanted with coco palms for copra plantations.

If logging is left unchecked, however, this gentle culture, with its irreplaceable lessons and secret plant cures, could be mowed down within a generation to provide a luxury yacht such as ours with decorative trim.