Nueve

Using the five senses, describe life through the eyes of a Sawi Child. How would they perceive the arrival of the Tuans?

I woke up to see the sun peeping in through the sago frond walls of the hut. The sound of the frogs was thick in the air while the musky smell of firewood and sago wafted into my nose. A dark stain on the dirt ground caught my attention. A few hours ago I had exploded in rage at my step-mother Kio, the second wife of my father. She had brought my sago loaves half-cooked and so I had flung them to the ground and stomped them into the dirt. I stepped outside the hut and found my little brothers playing nearby. They were stomping on some crickets, imitating my action toward Kio earlier. I grabbed my bow and arrows leaning on the wall of the hut and smiled: the boys were Kio’s sons.

My playmates and I had promised to go fish-hunting in the afternoon and it was now time. With the damp dirt against the soles of my feet, I headed toward the shallow part of the river. As I neared the trickling sound of water, I crouched down to level myself with the earth. Slowly advancing in the direction of our meeting place I slithered like a snake, keeping my eyes open for the enemy: my friends. Suddenly a movement caught the corner of my eye and I jumped up and released an arrow. It screamed past Izo’s face and sank into the bark of a tree just a finger’s width away from his right ear. “You’re dead!” I shouted as I ran to greet my playmate, Izo. One by one, more boys jumped out of the bushes, shooting arrows with deft accuracy just below or above one another and shouting “You’re dead!”

We had a splendid catch that day. After our routinely greeting of arrows, my fellow hunters and I had focused all our senses to catching the finest fish in the river. One by one the fish had leapt out of the water, blinded by the sago sap we had let loose in the river and one by one we had shot the fish down.

On our way back home with the trophies of our luck, we caught sight of the Tuans’ house. The house had a sun of its own and the sago frond walls seemed to leak with its light, a distinct contrast with the now-darkening day. “Come, let’s peek in the Tuans’ window and see what they are up to!” said Izo excitedly. We set aside our fish and crept slowly toward the light-filled window. Izo was the first to look. He let out a gasp as his face grew paler and paler. “What is it?” we asked. The others, out of curiosity, shoved each other to get a better view. Their eyes, like Izo’s, grew big and they also grew pale. Slowly, I raised my body to peer in at the seemingly horrendous sight my friends were seeing. And then I saw it too. The Tuans, in their light-filled sanctuary were eating brains! “We need to tell the villagers!” We were running before we knew it, cold sweat streaming down our necks, and completely forgetting the fish lying near the Tuan’s window.