My love affair with the Silk Road began long before I ever stepped foot upon it; the romanticism of West China took hold when I looked at a missionary text as a boy that described the joys of martyrdom as the Maryknolls had their heads cut off by godless Turkistan warlords.

I was not convinced. But the call of the thousand-year-old Buddhist caves secreted on oases in one of the world’s driest deserts attracted me back to China in 2000 after not having been there since the “Fall of the Gang of Four” in 1978. There I met Miss Wenhua Liu who was to become one of the greatest friends of my life and someone I shared many a great adventure with (see China 2010 in this travel photo series of another trip together). 

This time we decided to go back to see some of the highlights of from 12 years before and move East to some places we had never visited together.

We started off with exploring her home city of Urmqi, the capital of the province of Xinjiang. It gets austere very quickly once one leaves town as we made our way to the Tang dynasty ruins in the area of Turfan (Turpan) including the ancient Uygur capital of Gaochang  (856-1389 AD) and a marvelous mud architecture mosque from the Ming period. From there we made our way by night train to Dunhuang to visit the Mogao Caves with some 1000 years of Buddhist frescos beginning in 366 of the present era

Indonesia is the country that has compelled me more than any other; I became who I am today thanks to a happy chance of encountering my first ikat textiles from Borneo and Sumba hanging on a friend’s wall in Marin County on the last day of 1976.

I was told to go there and find out about them, perhaps the best advice I ever received, and go I did and have been exploring ever since.

Sulawesi has always held a special place in my heart above almost all other places, near and far, and it was a return to the valleys of the megaliths that brought my friends Joanne Leach and Imron Chan with me. The first of my 60th birthday year megalith expeditions is described earlier, if you scroll down a bit to the images titled Central Sulawesi 2011. There you will find an introduction to this remote destination. 

This time, we made our way from Makassar, home of the famed wood sailboats that ply the seas up to the Toraja highlands and across to Mamasa, a relatively isolated sub culture of the Toraja. From there we foolishly took a short cut across a dirt track, called the forbidden road for a reason. With a cliff road collapsing behind and a flash flood blocking the way before us, we had to make peace with the fact we were not going anywhere until that monsoon rainstorm had passed…it was a blessing when we finally made our way to the coast, where we followed Jalan Trans Sulawesi from Mamuju to Palu. From there the challenge got even tougher as described by this report I prepared at the time:

This was the peak of our North Sulawesi megalith expedition…literally and figuratively. The hardest point in the whole trip, the greatest suffering, the greatest reward! 

The Toraja reside in the isolated mountainous interior of Sulawesi, formerly called the Celebes, plural for the many “petals” of this orchid shaped island.

Their name means “highlander” in the language of their coastal neighbors, the Buginese, and this has been my favorite place in Indonesia since I first visited it in 1980. This land is beautiful and the people fascinating but please let the photos tell the tale. In the meantime I have prepared this little introduction to help contextualize what it is you will see.

Much has been written about the Sa’dan Toraja People since their “discovery” by Western Colonial administrators, missionaries and ethnologists in the beginning of the 20^th Century and for that reason I will offer only a brief introduction. Theirs is an ancient way of life that follows Aluk to Dolo “the way to the ancestors.” Rituals dating from Neolithic times and re-enforced by myth, assured fertility, status and distribution of wealth. Their houses are noted for a saddle-shaped roof, thought to recall the boats that first brought them to this island from mainland SE Asia thousands of years ago.

Headhunting was formerly a prominent feature of traditional Toraja society, but this is seldom encountered today.  However their other primary social marker, i.e. funerals of great chiefs, remains unabated.

Here we may see a sacred building housing the coffins of the deceased royalty raised on high, as well as a giant temporary village for all the guests who come from great distances. I was always welcomed as a distant cousin of the deceased, who in coming from America was showing proper respect; as such I would be given a place to sit, a cup of strong Toraja coffee with a bowl of rice and barbecue. I in turn would offer a carton of cigarettes for the relatives and bags of candies for the small children as my way of saying thank you!

Conspicuous displays of textiles, golden dagger krises and fine beadwork abound, although a sharp eye will recognize these are nearly all recent reproductions. Owing to the tremendous financial pressure to host such funerary occasions, it may be said that most noble families were obliged to sell their authentic treasured heirlooms at least two decades ago, just to pay their share in the competition to “donate” the most buffalo to a funeral ceremony of a high-ranking relative. This may be understood to be very akin to the potlach system of wealth re-distribution by the Indians of the Pacific Northwest Coast, with its regrettable implications for a downward economic spiral. But to contextualize within their culture, by this self-imposed impoverishment, they honor the dead and avoid having an angry ghosts be visited upon them, plus a major gain of status within the community, not to mention increasing the possibility they might inherit a portion of the late king’s land and thereby renew their wealth.

The integration into the deep Toraja rituals of recently woven cloths and beadwork, some even originally intended for the tourist market as seen in photos of a sarita banner hanging from a long bamboo pole in the accompanying slide show makes one question the whole idea of what is fake and what is real when it comes to tribal art because for centuries women have been weaving new clothes for ceremonies, or to replace damaged pieces and to have something to barter.

I have over the last thirty plus years learned to speak passable Bahasa Pasar “market Indonesian” and it has served me well most of the time. But the trip to visit the Asmat in West Papua made me very much aware of the limits of my language skills.

Conversing with people who were known to be cannibals until very recently and who still have a rather ”hungry” look about them (see 2009 Spice Islands Journey for images) makes you want to get every nuance right in your communication. I longed for the subtlety of language in making contact with the Asmat, really wanting to understand the symbolism in their woodcarvings and costumes meant, in their own words. So when six months later the opportunity presented itself for me to take up an intensive Bahasa Indonesia course of study for ten days in Yogyakarta, Central Java, I jumped at the chance. My good friend Sandra Sardjono had received a grant to study classical Javanese and already having been there awhile knew about schools in the area. She introduced me to Alam Bahasa, a school used by diplomats, business people and travelers intending to stay for a longer duration to develop their language abilities. I took a class in the morning and one or two in the afternoon depending on the day. I can highly recommend this school and you should speak with my new friend Swanny, the marketing manager and tell her I sent you! 

Alam Bahasa

Following classes, the rest of the day I would go out to catch the sights and sounds of old Jogja, including the kraton (court), The Sonobudoyo Museum, the markets, the Water Palace, Jalan Mailioboro, the Museum Affandi, the Cemeti Art House, home of Joga’s most avant-garde contemporary art scene and had fun trying food stalls and restaurants serving local flavors. On weekends, Sandra had arranged a jeep and driver to take us out on expeditions and for this I am most grateful. We managed to make it to all the important archeological sites of the region, some of which I knew from visits to Central Java in the old days, while others were new to me. I had not been there for 15 years and it was great to see the ruins with a more mature art-historical perspective, not to mention having a native Indonesian who is getting her PhD on the subject as one’s traveling companion to help explain things to me. It could not have been better! 

The images you will see in this sequence begin with 9^th Century Borobudur, the world’s largest Buddhist monument. Its architecture is in the form of a mandala, with the vertical stepped rise equating with moving into progressively higher spiritual realms. The best time to get there is very early just after dawn as the light is better for photography and there are fewer crowds. It is of interest to note how much the students on holiday, all in Muslim garb, seem to enjoy the monument and take pride in their Buddhist heritage, while the thousand year old Buddhas look on with Mona Lisa smiles of bemusement. On the monument one  is quick to notice the repeated bell-shaped architectural elements called stupas, which are a primary motif of Borobudur.  This shape has long been the symbol for the non-representational form of the deity recalling the place where the Buddha’s ashes were placed following his cremation; at Borobudur original sculptures of the Buddha may often be found inside the stupas, which is special to experience.

The bas-relief carvings on the sides of the monument describe the nature of the Buddhist cosmos and tell tales of the delights of heaven and the pains of hell. Included among the many narratives are large sailing ships that offer insights into both early boat architecture and the implied scale of maritime trade. (These are of course of particularly great interest to those of us who are so fascinated by ship cloth textiles from Lampung, south Sumatra) Seen as well are stories from the Jataka Tales which tell of Buddha’s earlier incarnations, and heroic tales like Sudhana’s search for the Ultimate Truth.  I did feel more enlightened after circumambulating the holy place, so long lost under the ash of a volcanic eruption from nearby Mt Merapi, still a threat today!

One of the implications of arriving at the age of 60 is that one senses there is no time left to waste and if there is somewhere one has always wanted to go, better to hit the road now… time is awastin’! For me, Ethiopia was just such a place!

In the early 1970’s after my mother passed away, our family house in Tiburon near San Francisco  became something of a commune with many of us six kids coming and going and at various points taking refuge under the roof, plus we rented out rooms to students, the most memorable being Sarah Bekele from Ethiopia. She became a real member of our family as hers became part of ours. She was of  Amharic ethnicity and from her we learned not only to enjoy their delicious national dishes but to cook them as well! And I have been advised ever since that I am one of the few white guys who can cook doro wat chicken stew just like a native.

We were all students at college together and there were several things I noticed about Ethiopians  as a group. The women were exceptionally beautiful, the men strikingly handsome, and all were highly intelligent! They spoke of their homeland with homesickness and sadness, for its natural wonders and rich history but also with the grief that came from the disastrous losses their families had to deal with following political upheavals upon the collapse of the long reign of the emperor Haile Selassie.  This brought on a very bad patch of frightening totalitarian rule by Mengistu Haile Mariam and they could not go home.

The urgency of my visit felt less pressing and could wait until peace finally came to that country which came about in 1991 but by that time I was more deeply than ever involved with Indonesia.  I had to wait for yet another twenty years for the light to go on that if there was to be a time to visit the land of my sister Sarah Bekele, this was it and with the aid and encouragement of my friends Cindy Bendat who was already heading out to the Christian North and Bobbi Wagner of Lost Frontiers Travel who was setting up a trip to the malarial Omo River area to visit the Animistic tribes as well as hit Harar in the Islamic Southeast and on to the most dangerous of all, the Afar of the Danikil Depression, a land of dry salt lakes, giant camel caravans, “other-worldly” sulfur pond formations, volcanoes, and sorry to say, vicious kidnappers and murderers, as tragically  was proven only two weeks ago when another adventure group was set upon by marauders. We traveled with at least one machine gun guard in every Land Cruiser but if you hit bad luck this would hardly help!

Suffice it to say that I took lots of pictures! Thousands in fact! And although others have done it, and done it better I hasten to add, I would like to share these images of people I met along the way and thus offer a Portrait of Ethiopia!

Islands: Flores, Lembata, Timor, Kisar, Sermeta, Babar, Kei, Aru and Asmat 

If a picture is worth a thousand words then these images add up to much more than I can possibly write. This was a dream trip that I had procrastinated for decades to begin but could not put off any longer after receiving the encouragement of two old friends, the Asmat travel expert Phyllis Hischier and Bruce Carpenter, Indonesian culture authority in residence. When I heard that Dirk Smidt, former chief curator of the Leiden Museum, Netherlands and an old PNG “hand” was coming, I was doubly intrigued. I signed up for what would be a life-changing and life-affirming journey by sea through the Spice Islands.

The vessel was out of Australia with a mixed crew and a great chef. We often ate the fish we caught on poles that day. I won’t soon forget the fresh sushi we shared and when I say fresh I mean it as seldom known before. By night we traveled from point to point, waking up to a whole new place of adventure. This was my first cruise and it was very appealing, thanks to the fact that we had some exceptionally intelligent and good-hearted shipmates on board. And travelers they were indeed, with me having gone to the fewest number of countries of all present, and I am up to more than sixty. I can assure you it does not happen often that I am out traveled… 

Most of the islands we hit between our jumping off place on Flores (east of Bali, several islands) and West Papua, some thousand kilometers away, were approachable only by sea. Thus, they could hardly be described as ruined by tourism, so seldom did they see a boat come by. The local people always greeted us with a dance on the beach or in the village. Such performances were demanded by adat, the customary law that regulates their lives and which is very related throughout the Moluccas and yet every island was different in interesting and unique ways. Some were very traditional, pagan and magical, while on others the missionaries had done their work well but all that is required is to be sensitive to the subtly of the all-pervading, ancient Austronesian Culture that is right below the surface, even among the most fervent of Protestants and Catholics.

The strongest and most satisfying tribal encounter for me was on Timor. I much admire Timor adat and the photos will tell it all. Babar was another favorite followed by Kisar in terms of strength of traditional culture. On Aru we visited a village on the edge of the sea to buy mud crabs for dinner that had never seen a white person, whereas Kai Island was very Christianized despite being so remote, and very welcoming. Exceptionally nice people all!

To be honest, I went on the trip so that I might better know Indonesia, the land of my dreams, to fill in gaps in my travels. I did not have high hopes for the Asmat part of the trip but was I in for a surprise!

The island of Sumba may be found on a map between Bali and New Guinea but it exists in its own world, far apart from those antipodal lands. Divided east and west by language and environmental conditions, the west tends to be more wet and green and the east, dryer. Both sides of the island feature pristine beaches and some scenic mountainous zones, but do not forget to take your malaria medicine!

Sumbanese religion, Marapu, recognizes that a dualistic symmetry exists in the universe, that of male and female, hot and cold, sun and moon, cloth and metal. Here there are good and bad spirits hovering nearby, needing ritual offerings on a regular basis. The ancestors must most especially be cared for.

Sumba is thus home to one of the strongest animistic tribal societies found in Indonesia, perhaps most famous for its notorious custom of cutting off the heads of enemies and placing them on the branches of a designated tree, the pohon andung, at the entrance of the village. Such trees represented the Tree of Life as well as serving to remind viewers of the power of the raja.

Sumba has a rich megalithic heritage, featuring giant stone tomb memorials. Sumbanese houses, particularly the customary houses found in royal villages, known as rumah adat, are understood to be cosmic diagrams, with the underworld of the animals below, the mid-level for human habitation and the high roof being the realm of the ancestors. This is also the place where the pusaka heirloom treasures are stored, to be closer to the departed souls; precious gold jewelry and fabulously rare and beautiful textiles were kept just under the peak of the roof on both sides of the island. But the art of weaving and dyeing achieved greatest heights in the east, with ikat textiles adding bright colors to the dusty brown background of this, the dry side of the island.

The process of ikat is rather well known and I will offer only a cursory review of the principles. All aspects of weaving and dyeing are the sacred labor of women, except for the constructing of the backstrap loom, which is done by men. Cotton is planted, harvested, spun into thread, and wrapped in a very orderly manner around a pair of warp beams. The warp yarns are then tied with resists made from fibers that do not permit dye to pass, a few at a time, creating a pattern over the field. These now knotted bundles of threads are dipped in vats of natural plant dye progressively over time to achieve increasingly intense color. Indigo requires fermentation and turns blue only upon oxidation when the cotton yarns are exposed to air. The root dye, morinda citrifolia, creates a deep red but the cotton needs first to be tanned with a mordant to allow the red dye to bond with the cotton cellulose. After multiple dippings, some of the knotted resists may be opened, others covered up, exposing or protecting zones from the next dye bath. This permits a total of four colors: natural white, blue, red, and a blue-red combination that appears black. Mud dye is also known as an alternative means to create a blackish color.

After further drying, the yarns are stretched again, this time on a backstrap loom, where a weft is passed back and forth between alternating warps that go up and down, technically speaking, a shuttle passing between sheds. Slowly but surely, between a woman’s other duties of planting and harvesting, tending animals and children, a cloth of great beauty emerges. Depending on the intended purpose or the status of the intended wearer, some textiles will be enhanced with additional supplementary warp patterning. Others may have a fifth gold color stained on, yellow dye not lending itself to the ikat technique. Some have shells or trade beads added. There are men’s wraps called hinggi in east Sumba and hanggi in west Sumba. Queen’s sarongs are called lau. Head wraps are known as tiara. Counter-intuitively, some of the very finest textiles were created to be buried in. Thankfully, some of these survived above ground as heirlooms, retained by families to recall the deceased. From them we may know a quality of cloth intended for eternity.

Suffice it to say, we are talking about a very complex and challenging operation where something can go wrong at every juncture and sometimes does. That it does not happen more often is a testament to the artistry of indigenous women, the origins of which are lost in the mists of time. Scholar Christopher Buckley offers convincing evidence that the backstrap loom and the ikat dyeing process date back to the arrival of the Austronesian culture to Indonesia, some several thousands of years before our current era.

On Sumba, the death of a noble requires a big funeral, often taking years to prepare for. Textiles play a prominent role, beginning with the body being wrapped in dozens of cloths, many crafted especially for the occasion. Others are donated, brought by visitors coming to pay their respects from neighboring villages, near and far. Clan treasuries may be opened to permit the display of treasured Indian trade cloths, including double ikat silk patolas or printed and painted kain batik India.

In 2003, my friend and colleague Joanne Leach and I were privileged to be invited to the funeral of Tamu Rambu Yuliana, Queen of Rindi, east Sumba. This profound, historic ritual took place in the royal village of Prai Yawang, where she lived her whole life as a guardian of the customary law, unable to marry because there was no one of sufficient high rank in the “husband giving” neighboring village to match her high status.

I first met Queen Yuliana in 1994 at a time when I was going around from royal village to royal village, on a mission to interview as many elderly queens as possible. I wanted to know if they still remembered the meaning of different motifs they incorporated into the weavings they made in their youth. Unlike the others, I found it very difficult to get Queen Yuliana to open up; it took more than one visit to make progress with her. She tested how serious I was, eventually showing me part but not all of her textile collection, and telling me the age and history of the pieces, but only as long as I gave her a carton of cigarettes and fifty US dollars! She made money without having to part with her treasures!

I came back many times and got to know other members of Yuliana’s extended family, including Umbu Kanabu Ndaung, who became king with Yuliana’s passing, and his beautiful wife, Ramu Rambu Hamu Eti, a legendary weaver and the daughter of the late, great, Raja Pau. From them I learned of Yuliana’s passing and the approximate time the funeral would take place…subject to change depending on the alignment of the stars and the reading of oracular pigs’ livers. Joanne and I were barely able to make all the necessary connecting flights from California once the final auspicious date was selected, departing San Francisco to Sydney, on to Denpasar, Bali, connecting to Waingapu, the capital of east Sumba, in less than 3 days!

Presented here is a photo essay of what we saw. These photos were taken either by Joanne or me; we share the photo credits equally. The sequence starts with several images that give a sense of Sumba as a place, including the shoreline, rice fields, villages perched on hills, megalithic tombs and traditional high roof houses.

Then the funeral documentation begins, showing men and women in separate lines coming into the village of Rindi to pay their last respects. Please note the classicism of their costumes.

It is with gratitude and respect that we are able to present this astonishing collection of early photos from the archive of late Terrance “Zak” Saklofsky and Toni Kennedy, his beloved wife. They are mainly prints from Borneo but also include famous images from the Batak and Nias cultures of Sumatra, and photos of ancestor figures in situ from the Lio area of Flores.

Also seen is a group of early Korwar figures from Teluk Cenderawasih (Bird of Paradise Bay), formerly called during the Dutch era, Geelvink Bay, West Papua New Guinea.

Zak assembled this collection from various sources. He acquired many of the circa 1950s Dayak images (tribal images 1-40) from the Chinese studios located in Kuching and Sibu, Sarawak, and others from Netherlands sources. The Batak pictures (the next 41-47) are believed to be from the Tropen Museum of Amsterdam, as are some of the Nias images (48-60), while other are 19th Century photos from Modigliani, the cousin of the artist. The two photos showing ancestor figures in situ in the rafters of a traditional Flores house and the final image of Korwar ancestor sculptures from Biwak are famous but their sources are at this time unknown. Please note, we will make corrective updates as to attribution as information comes in.

I was first introduced to Toni in 1979 through mutual friends who loved Bali. We both lived in Marin County, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. She was flying around the planet as a flight attendant for World Airlines, which was one of the coolest jobs anyone could have because you could fly almost anywhere in the world for free in your off time. In those days there were not that many people around here who had spent time in Bali and we tended to meet one another through a network of like-minded friends who were passionate about Indonesia.

I confess to having had eyes for Toni, everybody did. She was so charming and beautiful but alas, that was a non-starter, for Toni was already married. All the guys were mighty envious of some fellow named Zak who was Toni’s husband, a man I had heard of but never met because he was always off making discoveries in Borneo or sailing to some remote outer islands in the Moluccas. I had become a serious collector and by the time Zak and I finally did meet, I discovered he had been the “secret source” of many of the fine masks, sculptures and textiles from Indonesia I had been buying from other dealers!

Zak Saklofsky was one of the great “field men” of his era. A degree-qualified anthropologist from Canada, he was an explorer, a cinematographer and a documentary film producer. He was “in the boat” as the primary guide and contributing filmmaker in the making of the award winning five film series, Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Odyssey, created with Lorne and Lawrence Blair.