GEORGE BRILL

OF FIRE AND GINGER

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I lay in a small, stilted hut of split bamboo gazing upward at a low thatched roof, thick rows of neatly tied jungle palm barely perceptible in the gathering dark. A rough mat of woven fibre pressed into the skin of my back, and from the forest outside the dying light of sunset illuminated a dusty interior, golden flecks drifting in shimmering rays between the faces that stared down at me. I could make out little more than silhouettes: an assembly of dark brown eyes and flowing flower headdresses; wrinkled faces, children’s faces, stern adult faces; men and women. They filled the doorway, blocking out what little of the dusk glow still remained.

 

By my head sat Amem, a young woman of the tribe, surrounded by children who crowd around on top of one another across the small bamboo floor. Her tightly curled hair shone iridescent in the last golden rays, like polished ebony or black marble. Across to my right, shrouded in the shadows of the dwelling’s darkest corner, sat the shaman and his wife. He was easily the oldest man of the village—ancient; sunken eyes in a kindly face; sagging skin over thin bands of muscle: a wizened, wrinkled skeleton of a figure. I’d seen him only briefly before, walking spider-like, bent over a stick, wearing only a faded blue-and-white chequered sarong folded and wrapped as a loincloth.

 

Now he squatted deep, crouching low over the dying fire, sinewed limbs and wrinkled skin cast with the flickering light of glowing embers. Cutting pieces from a small ball of sacred resin, the old man fed them to the fire, filling the air with a fragrant sweetness to mix with the scent of woodsmoke and the musty oldness of the hut. I looked around. It was a simple scene: the customary fire and ashes on a sheet of corrugated metal, a typical pile of bedding and sarongs, and an old bamboo blowpipe placed reverently in the corner—it didn’t look like it had been touched for years. In the gloom above the fire hung an off-white pair of ancient Y-fronts over a rattan vine. Simple effects of a modest lifestyle.

 

Right now, though, the hut was transformed. Shadows danced across the bamboo walls, lit only by the dying fire and the pallid yellow glow of a few cheap electric torches. Outside, the light of a rising full moon searched for gaps in the walls. A hum of voices and whispered conversation, an atmosphere of excitement and expectation. Most of the village was there for the spectacle, laughing and joking in characteristic Batek fashion. Yet despite the cackles of the old women and the children’s excited giggles, there was an uncharacteristic quietness to their gaiety, a reverence to the promise of that to come.

 

The old man’s wife scraped some embers from the fire onto a trowel blade, and placed them by my side. The shaman muttered in Batek under his breath and thumped a clenched fist to his chest three times. He took a handful of the cooling embers and cradled them in both hands, raising them to his face. Across from him the children smiled down at me; I was glad they were there—their familiarity strangely reassuring. Turning, the old man opened his hands towards me and, “Uff”—he blew across the contents of his cupped fists, flooding my face with scented smoke and ash.

 

___________

 

 

The ceremony is to free me from the Jin, an evil spirit that, according to the old shaman, is roasting me over a fire, slicing off flesh and eating me piece by piece. In other terms, four months ago I contracted leptospirosis, a waterborne bacterial infection, most likely from the village spring, or perhaps via the ever-present leech bites while wading barefoot along the jungle rivers. In either case, it got serious and within days I was barely conscious, unable to stand and, thankfully staying in the local Malay village at the time, rushed to hospital. There I was diagnosed, ambulanced to Kuala Lipis, and my failing kidneys rescued only just in time. Penicillin had saved yet another life. Since then, I’d been working at a freediving school in Indonesia, slowly recovering and trying to resume training. But it wasn’t working. Freediving was proving impossible and three months later I was still exhausted. My immune system was down and I had contracted infection after infection, the wet season of the tropics proving too much for my compromised body. I made the decision to go back to the Batek, the community I knew and loved—a final farewell before I returned to England.

 

A couple of days after my arrival in the village I learned that the shaman had dreamt of my condition—an impressive feat considering he knew nothing of its persistence—and insisted, through a communication chain of various other individuals, that I would not recover without a healing ritual. I thought little of his words, not really knowing how to respond, and spent the days enjoying time with old friends, swimming in the rivers and fishing in the jungle.

 

But it hadn’t been forgotten, and on my final evening it confronted me unawares. I’d been in the palm plantations with the children that day, revisiting an old cave overhang they’d taken me to months earlier. Meanwhile, in the village the women had been busy and by the time we returned many were in full flower regalia, leaves and petals flowing in many shapes and colours from their tightly curled black hair. Two of the eldest, Calzon and Empeng, came separately to talk to me of my illness and their flowers, to explain to me that the women’s efforts were to call the gods for my healing. My understanding was limited—the Bidan, Batek tribal elders, rarely slowed their rapid mumbling speech—and I could catch little, but with the help of a young girl I grasped their gist.

 

Later that evening, just as we were finishing dinner—the invariable rice, fish, and jungle vegetables; that day at Jamton’s house courtesy of his wife—a crowd of the younger women and children gathered in the doorway. Summoning me to follow, Amem took me by the arm and led me up through the village. She wouldn’t tell me where we were walking, offering only an exasperated eyeroll and an elongated “Ba-oghhhn”—‘There’ each time I questioned. Unenlightening. As we went, a large gathering began to follow, peeling off from porches and sitting shelters until we must have had thirty or more chatting and laughing in our wake. Barefeet padded on the hard-packed earth, and flower-adorned heads bobbed through the evening light. And so it was, in the gathering dusk, that we arrived at the shaman’s hut in the centre of the village.

 

___________

 

 

The old man looked upwards, and the flickering light of the fire cast deep shadows across his deep furrowed features. He passed his machete to Amem, who began to pound wild ginger root into a paste over a log of firewood. Named ‘olong’ by the Batek, the root of ginger is believed to possess all manner of magical healing properties. It had been gathered in the jungle that day.

 

The shaman reached over and held my head in both hands, muttering and bowing his own in concentration. Long, sinewed fingers ran lightly across my face and arms: firm, deliberate strokes to drive the spirit out through my hands and face. After each pass he cupped his hands to his mouth and blew with a deliberate “uff” of vocalised breath. “Uff”, “uff”, many times, more wood ash and whispered chanting. Amem began to spread the pounded ginger across my face and chest, down my arms and over my torso. At my feet, Nani did the same, staining my legs and ankles a pale yellow as my skin prickled at its coolness in the evening air.

 

The old shaman collected a final grasp of smoke from the smouldering embers, lifting their essence over me, and, with a final “uff”, blew them across my face and chest. His wife muttered in low throaty tones behind him, and he handed Amem a corded pendant of thin fishing twine. She placed it gently around my neck as I sat up, reaching to my shoulder to pull the pendant back to centre. Two crudely shaped half-spheres of bonglae, another variety of ginger, lay at the dip of my chest. She had carved it earlier that day: as much a healing amulet as a token to remind me of the Batek. And then suddenly it was done, and the crowd dispersed back into the village below, melting away into the moonlight.

 

The old man then spoke to me, in surprisingly clear and understandable Batek. He told me to come back, and not to forget his people. There was tangible emotion and meaning in his words—the sentiment was genuine. ”Habis”—‘Finished’, and we left the old man and his wife to their night.

 

Choked with emotion, I walked back with those remaining to the raised shelter at the front of the village. Children gathered alongside, grasping my hands and arms. “Billeugh pam wayg-a?” Amem whispered to me—‘When will you come back?’. I tell her that it may be a long time, but that one day, I will. “Yem sinet” came the quiet reply. ‘I know’.

 

Many of the others had already returned to the shelter, and a crowd was waiting to see me off, the countless faces and characters that had become family. Old Empeng motioned to the necklace, as if to suggest that now everything will be just fine. Tepi tells me not to forget them.

 

There is no word for goodbye in Batek. I can only say “Sa seine”—‘see you soon’. I try to make eye contact with as many as possible, Ah, Besa, Amem and Bose; and the women who’ve patiently educated and fed me. The little twins Eahan and Ina cling to me as if to prevent my leaving, and I share a rough stilted handshake with Lee, the twelve-year-old boy who’s taught me so much. As I get in the car and we pull away, I glance across the faces in the darkness. Faces of familiarity—of trust, kindness and family. I’ve received more from these people than I could ever have imagined, more than they could ever know. There will always be a place for me here.

 

That night in the Malay village of Merapoh I go to bed but cannot sleep. Thought’s whir in my head, of the Batek and those last few moments in the moonlight. Later I will wake to them calling my name in my dreams. I struggle to comprehend just how these people have affected me so deeply.

 

___________

 

 

I’m sitting on the plane. The conversations of families babble loudly all around above the low drone of flight; some sleep slumped against neck pillows while others wander the aisles between the regiments of padded blue seats. Beside me a portly young man in t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops much like my own shows me pictures on his phone of the all-inclusive Thai resort he’d just enjoyed for a bargain price. I listen absently, my mind elsewhere. 

 

It’s about twenty-four hours since I left the village. Already it seems far off and unreal, much like a dream. Time and meaning pass differently in that village, and I rail at my mind in frantic concentration not to lose that state of consciousness and being: the moments, the memories, the magic and purity. I know that it is hopeless. Just as with a dream the details will slip away, leaving only a feeling that in time will dull to little but factual recollection. Every minute that passes is another step into wakefulness, the waning dream state but a handful of water or a net of smoke—tangible yet slipping away inexorably. I know that society back home will break it altogether, the final jolt that purges the net. In some ways I feel like I’m being torn apart, losing a piece of myself but recently found.

 

I turn the necklace over in my hands: two half spheres of crudely shaped ginger root, strung on thin, yellow-stained twine. It is memory made material, the tang of its scent and the scratching of its edges on my skin a link to another place and state of mind. Already it has begun to desiccate and change shape—a wry symbol of my growing dissociation. The present has shrivelled, but the connection is still there by a thread and memory: a deeply personal and immersive reminiscence that will always be a part of me.

 

And one day, I know I will return.

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