On visiting one village area up in the mountains in Sulawesi where we spent 6 weeks doing a language survey, we were ready to leave and begin the two day tramp down to the coast. I went out outside to find my shoes but they were nowhere to be seen. They had disappeared. I looked for them everywhere and others of course asked me what I was looking for and joined in the search. The villagers, especially the ones who had hosted us in their house, were mortified that the shoes of this international guest had gone missing from their house. Next there was a procession of shoes being brought to me to try. It would have been shameful to them for me to have to make the journey to the coast in bare feet. They were desperate to find something that fitted me. They brought out every type of footwear imaginable but it was obvious to me and then to them that nothing was large enough. I was convinced I would have to make the journey barefoot. Finally they brought out a pair of gumboots and when I put my foot into them and my feet disappeared from view they chorused out, “Ya cocok!” (“Yes that fits” “That’s suitable”. It didn’t matter that I was walking on the heels of the folded over gumboot and flopping around on them. I knew to agree they were “cocok” knowing that they would never find shoes the right size for me and if they couldn’t find something I fitted we would have to stay there.
While the search for suitable shoes was going on, something else was happening. The older people of the tribe were gathering and then a woman walked in, rather gnarled and bent over, and carrying a collection of plastic bags filled with ingredients and other paraphernalia. A large enamel basin was brought to her and it was filled with water. She then proceeded to get a raw egg still in the shell and put it into the centre of the basin. Then she tipped contents from her various bags into the water. They consisted of dried leaves, dried other indeterminant ingredients and powdered material of various sort as well as small fresh leaves of some kind. Then she took her machete and began to stir the water in a clockwise direction while she mumbled incantations using words we had never heard before. Those gathered were staring intently at both the woman and the contents of the basin.
Our eldest daughter, Marissa, asked what was happening. I told her that the woman was a shaman and she was calling up the spirits, likely as not to seek answers as to who it was who took my shoes.
Marissa said, “They shouldn’t do that should they dad.”
I replied, “No they shouldn’t. But that is the way they do things here. I will cover us in prayer so we will be protected. You don’t have to worry.”
The woman suddenly after 10 to 15 minutes started to speak in a very shrill, high pitched voice in rapid staccato sentences for about 3 or 4 minutes and then everything fell silent. Whereupon the man of the house came up to me and told me in Indonesian what she had said. Indeed I was right in thinking that they had called the shaman to find out where the shoes were and who had taken them. He announced she had told them that the shoes had been taken by two teenagers about 6.00 am that morning. They were not from this village. He then described what the teens were wearing and then explained that they had taken the trail over the mountain that disappeared over the ridge leading to the villages on the other side. They were in the third house on the right in the second village down from the ridge. Immediately two larger young men from the village grabbed their machetes and setting off running in the direction the man of the house had indicated.
In the meantime we continued packing and when we were ready we loaded our stuff on the horses and we set off on the trail to get down to the coast road. Me bringing up the rear and waving to the villagers while I flopped along in my newly acquired ill-fitting gumboots. As soon as we cleared the village I gave the gumboots to one of the guys leading the horses because they were going to be of no use to me. They would give me blisters in next to no time. He was delighted to have a ‘new’ pair of gumboots. We walked for a few hours until we stopped for a drink and some trail mix. While resting there for a few minutes who should come along but the two guys who had set off after the teens who had stolen the shoes. Yes you guessed it they were carrying my shoes and what’s more they had found them in the third house on the right in the second village down from the ridge together with the two youths who were dressed in the very same clothes the woman had described.
Chew on that one for a while.