The Last Day of Pahtuaf

If the miracle Godspoke of
is a descendant of the male sex,
then let me sleep with our daughter, O my wife.
For tomorrow I will die, and my powers will fade.

***

Naked, he climbed up into the roof of the thatched hut, clamberingup a piece of white teak that was even older than he was. The piece of wood had notches at intervals of inches, forming a ladder placed at a 30 degree angle and reaching into the upper section of the hut. The old man was shriveled with age. He held a bottle of spirits in his left hand, while he used his right hand to hold a pole to steady himself as he climbed. In a few moments, his naked body had disappeared into the attic. His footsteps could be heard on the boards of the mahogany planks that formed the floor of the attic.

The smoke from the stove in the middle of the hutfilled the room. If the people who lived there weren’t travelling, the coals of the fire smoldered all day and all night. The hut was deliberately designed to trap the smoke, to keep the occupants warm and to dry the corn that hung in an orderly fashion over the oven. The hut was round with a roof thatched with hun leaves that reached down to the ground. There was a small loft where the family’s sacred objects were stored.

The hut was not divided into rooms. Rather, a single space served as a kitchen, sleeping area, chicken house, storage area and granary. The hut had a single small window and door that measured 120 x 100cm. The door was too small to allow anyone to enter without bending down to avoid bumping their head.

In the middle of the room, a ni enaf pole was planted, a pole that symbolized female energy. At the base of the pole, the ni baki was arranged, a sacred stone where ritual prayers were performed. Half way down the female pole, a round, wooden carving hung, the size of a warrior’s

shield, depicting the clan name of the family. Directly above the carving, there was a terrible mask

made of bark, a nightmare vision for anyone who knew of the story of the people who had lived in

the Mollo mountains before the prince from the east had come to conquer the forests and rivers of

the region.

From the attic, the sound of a voice could be heard, humming and muttering. The man was

incanting the mantras in the refined old language. At times, the mantras sounded like an animal’s voice, incomprehensible to any human, even the man’s wife and children. Silently, he was

transformed, becoming a man of the trees, a man of the caves, a creature from tales told to

children. The tales recalled from childhood were the mantras that liberated his body from the

constraints of space and time.

“Apelike ancestors hanging in the woods looking for berries and honey. When night fell, they

returned to the mouth of the cave and started fishing with dried mushrooms from theampupu tree.”

Outside the hut, the man’s family refrained from speech. They did their usual chores, but

their thoughts remained fixed on what was taking place in the hut. Wisps of smoke emerged through

the cracks in the thatched roof. A pair of doves roosted on the roof. The drizzle had cleared, leaving

behind a thousand questions in the air after the birds in the yard had scared off the rain with their

moody cooing. Traditional rituals were nothing unusual in the hut. But there were always surprises

afterwards.

After an hour, no sounds could be heard emerging from the upper section of the hut. What

had happened to the old man? Had he fallen into a drunken stupor? Or had his soul fled? No-one

could tell. Suddenly, a voice emerged from the house. The old mancalled his wife by name, loudly, several times. The smell of anger came gushing out as his wife opened the door. The man was dressed in his everyday wear and was sitting on a chair carved in the shape of a snake and on which it was forbidden to sit. There were a multitude of taboos in the house. Climbing the attic, holding the pole or sitting on the chair were all equally forbidden. Those who transgressed were liable to lose their mind and their senses. A woven cloth, striped and of many colors, with yellow predominating, half covered his body. Three dark orange mutisalak necklaces hung in strands around his neck, reaching down to his bare chest. His breath moved against the silver pendant, twice the size of a thousand rupiah coin and with the name of his great-grandfather inscribed upon it. He gave his wife a sharp, penetrating stare, at which she fell to the ground and kissed the earth.

Perhaps the old woman believed that the man before her was no longer her husband, but both god

and the devil, appearing as one. She offered her obeisance to Uis Nitu.

“Somebody is trying to play with me … You know? Somebody is!” The man spoke in a rage of

anger. Suddenly, his mouth hung loose and his breath turned ragged. He seemed to be afflicted by a sudden attack of panic.

“You …. Damn you!” His voice shook, his body trembled. He glared, his eyes blazing as though he could no longer close them. The atmosphere in the room was suffocating. Everything appeared as though turned to stone.

Tick-tick-tick-tick. Suddenly, the woman stood up and acted as though nothing unusual had happened. She smiled in the direction of her husband, who continued to sit as though frozen, then

made her way to the hearth, bringing dry timber and blowing on the coals to bring them back to life.

Ashes from the hearth floated silently in the air. The old woman put water and bose – pulverized

corn that had been peeled from the husk – and placed it over the fire.

The old woman called out to her daughter and her daughter’s husband, telling them to come into the house. She signaled them to lift the old man onto the sleeping platform. The old man tried to wriggle free, but he didn’t have the strength. Only through the restless rolling of his eyes could he express his rage. Then, his other daughter came in with her husband and three grandchildren (whom the old man regarded as doves). The three children fought with each other to sit on their grandfather’s forbidden chair. No-one tried to prevent them. It wasn’t possible for doves to lose their mind or their senses. From then on, everyone behaved as though everything was completely normal. In the preceding moments, all the prohibitions seemed to have been lifted from the house. Could anything that happened in that house be described as completely normal? Or had illusions been successfully maintained for centuries?

The eldest daughter in law suddenly grabbed the old man’s staff and casually left the house. No rain or lightning struck her. The old man wept, but he could not move from where he sat frozen. In his heart, he wanted to slice his entire family into pieces with a sword. He wept until he finally fell

asleep. When he awoke, he found himself completely deaf.

A week later, a horde of strange people came and took all of the sacred objects out of the house. The wooden carving, the saber, the gongs, the drums, themutisalak necklaces, the pottery and figurines, they threw them all into a fiery pit. Their faces showed no regret or pity. They burned the old hut to the ground as an elderly man dressed in a black and white robe prayed and delivered a sermon, in which he said that all forms of idolatry should be abandoned. There were no tears. There was no thunder and lightning. The crops did not fail. The old man was crazy. He remained limp, regarding his own death as being in the hands of Sautaf.\

***

A crow cawed as though in hunger. The sound woke up the weak, naked old man. The stink of alcohol wafted in the wind. Two bottles of spirits lay empty and scattered with some chicken bones next to the alter. He remembered that nine hours earlier, he had come to the sacred place to drink with the spirits of his ancestors. It was a sign of respect for death and for god. But the story slipped away as a sense of restlessness overcame him.

He hurried home and found his wife and his two daughters behaving as normal. They were still dutifully performing their tasks and serving him. They continued to respect the taboos in his name. But his feeling of nervousness had turned into suspicion. He became suspicious of everyone in

the house, of his wife and the husbands of his daughters. He was overcome by a fear that he had lost

his powers. He stared into the distance and waited for the wind to whisper in his ears. Uis Aninoften

brought him news of the future.

Always, if a guest was due to arrive, Uis Anin whispered news of it before the guest came. But this time, the whisperings were different. They reminded him that he was almost 85 years old and in his final days. Something would be coming to take him away, that was what the wind said. He was scared and he cried. There was something that he had forgotten to do. The only way he could

retain his powers was by acquiring the flesh and blood of a living man. If he did that, he thought, he

would be able to live as long as his father, who had died at the age of 125 or more. He regretted that

he had no second wife to give him a son. Although there were other issues, his relatives had forbidden him from marrying again. As a Christian, even if only a nominal one, he was not permitted

to have a multitude of wives. Maybe that was the reason he had lost his powers? When night fell, there were new whisperings for him.

“Go and have sex with your daughter, so that she bears a son and the sacred powers return to this house forever. I have tricked your daughter’s husband into going hunting in the mountains.” The old man arose from the sleeping platform, whispered something to his wife and then went out of the house, towards a similar house next door. It was the house of his beloved eldest daughter. The moon was high in the sky. The air was cold, but his breath was warm as he spent his lust. With his ejaculation, he created an image on the wall of the universe. He did not breach honor. The woman offered him reverence. Groans reached the peak of Mutis, creating a warm blaze of red fire. The red symbolized the approval of his ancestors for what he had done. The old woman pushed open the door of the hut. She found her beloved Pak Tuaf dead on the ground, after he had sucked on the nipples of their daughter. Natiabonen4, she whispered.

Liliba, 2014

Notes
1. mutisalak: a necklace made from several kinds of semi-precious stones
2. The lord of death according to Dawanbelief
3. The lord of the wind
4. It’s over (Dawan language)

Translated by Irfan Korstchak (for Bienal Sastra Salihara 2015)