PRESERVING HISTORY THROUGH LOCAL INGENUITY -
Story and Images by Ferry R. Tan
It's Sunday, September 6th, my second day in Wae Rebo when I woke up in a new misty morning accompanied by a light rain and cold temperatures. Since the dawn, before I had time to take a bath and have breakfast, I saw some people busy passing through preparing spindles of cogon grass and stacks of palm fibers.
Here time seems to stand still; a wall of peace and quiet surrounds the village with in the distance only the sound of a barking village dog as the cock tried to crow in the new day.
Although I was not yet greeted by a beautiful sunrise as I had imagined the beginning of my second day, I still felt excited when I stepped out of the Niang Gendang, which would become my temporary home for the next few days.
The atmosphere felt like I had landed in another dimension without relevance to my own reality, with my daily routines, worries and stress. Here life flows by in an uncomplicated rhythm, with nothing else to do but just to LIVE it. Back to basic, no worries, no internet and no deadlines. How is this not ideal? With this I have just described my passion for traveling because it enriches my life and teaches me new facts of life. Facts unknown by Google that you only can experience yourself.
First, an important fact worth mentioning is that the Mbaru Niang, the house in which I spent my first night, is the main house called Niang Gendang, which means "drum house" in Manggarai language. The conically shaped house stands on stilts and is built from a skeleton made of bamboo and a thatched roof made from fibers of a sugar palm.
Niang Gendang is the house that is used for village ceremonies and rituals. It contains sacred objects such as gongs and drums for such events, hence it's name. In this house you will find, among other things, hunting trophies and artifacts, also buffalo horns, because these animals are worshiped as sacred.
In the past, the villagers hunted for wild boar and rats in the surrounding forests and cooked it for their meals, but this came to an end when Wae Rebo became a popular ecotourism destination and tourists started to travel through the woods.
Niang Gendang is also the premises where visitors are welcomed upon arrival and invited to gather for a welcome ceremony, led by the respected village elder Alexander Ngadus. Ancestral worship plays an important role in the lives of the villagers. During a 15-minute ceremony, Pak Alex, village chief for over ten years, asks the ancestral spirits to protect us during our stay and on our return trip and concluded the ceremony with the blessings of the ancestors. Herewith we were officially inaugurated as members of the Wae Rebo family.
The Village Life
When I went outside after breakfast, I saw the human traffic in the village get busier with people who were pacing about. Some bring spindles of cogon grass while others were carrying long boards or piles of fibers, to be processed into rope or roof layer.
Meanwhile, from every corner inside and outside the village, I saw people carrying rolls of grass. At the construction site, men were busy covering the house frame with the grass, starting from the bottom to the top. Each alang-alang layer was followed by a layer of fiber and so on.
In one corner I saw someone split up a group of black "hairs", which turned out to be fibers that had been prepared to make rope. After the fibers had been unraveled and united in a single strand, another person fixed the strand to the tool in the shape of a cross and began to rotate it. That's how they make ropes of fibers.
I followed the cycle all day and relentlessly shot pictures without a moment of boredom or tiredness. Perhaps I was being influenced by the positive synergy of the people at the building site who seem so compact and competent in their respective roles. No foreman shouting orders, there was only a hard working team to see. In order to keep the work ethic in check, one of the workers threw a joke on the work floor, which was answered with a loud laugh.
A senior regularly checks whether the connecting joints were OK. With the exception of boards for floors, they do not use nails at all, and intersections were connected with ropes or rattan strips.
Today’s activities ended with the roof covered by a quarter with layers of alang - alang and fibers. It’s late afternoon and time for relaxation. Meanwhile, some residents started preparing the village square to be used as a volleyball court. Anyone who is interested may come into play, including tourists who happened to be on a visit. Volleyball or soccer became the regular entertainment of Wae Rebo residents every afternoon.
It was an interesting crowd on the village grounds. Little children played their games while some elderly people just sit daydreaming. By the time the day was changing at dusk, the house was half covered and in such a situation the activities of the third day was closed with a cup of coffee while enjoying cooked tubers. After bathing we all gathered in the Drum House to finish the day with a dinner.
Ferry R. Tan - 2020
To be continued!
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