Abu blong Yumi

May 27, 2009

[incidentally, 2 days before the earthquake that rocked our world...]

This is what I want to say.

Somewhere in the rainforest, an 83-year-old man is perched on a wooden bench as the sun begins to set. He is wearing a floppy fisherman’s hat that is undoubtedly several decades old. His brow is permanently furrowed by time and life. Several teeth are missing, and there is the slightest tremor underlying every movement.

He opens his mouth and begins to sing.

He is barely audible at first, his voice hoarse, his breath weak. His body is still, but his eyes dart furtively from point to point as if lost in an inner world. His gaze falls on his equally ancient wife just a few feet away, mostly hidden by the thatch roof of their bush kitchen. She is quietly grating a coconut and cooking their dinner. She begins to sing along with the first few lines, just to get him started. She sings quietly but confidently, and he is calmed.

In a moment he is joined on the bench by his thirty-something-year-old son, himself a father of three. A man unusually tall for his race, he is known for his short temper and fits of violence. He is the man you go to when you want someone warned.

But now he is a child again. He slouches and shrinks down on the bench so he is able to meet his father’s eyes. He joins the singing, his voice both strong and soft, and together they sing the songs of their ancestors. It’s hard to tell whether the son is helping his father remember or the father is teaching the son. At times it seems both are happening at once.

The old man is the Guardian of the Music, a role passed on to the firstborn son of each generation. He is one of the last surviving elders who can remember the songs from Before.

I am ten feet in front of them, behind the camera. This is why we are here. Just nine days before my final departure from this island, they are seizing the unique opportunity to record their traditions as a kind of training tool for the next generation. The times they are a-changin’, and the youth don’t want to learn from the Elders in the way that they used to. The once sacred oral tradition is now threatened by the forces of the 21st century. They would blame secular education, democracy and urban drift if they had the words for them, but instead they click their tongues and mutter, “there is no respect nowadays”. It is through this footage that future generations will learn their history and their kastom.

A wave of peace and contentedness washes over me. Every fibre of my being knows that I was brought to this place at this time for this moment and this moment only. I feel blessed to be a witness. I feel destined to be a scribe.

Within a few minutes a crowd gathers, women and children pointing, laughing, swaying. Another Elder, almost ninety, appears and joins the two men on the bench. His voice is louder, stronger, and he remembers all the words. Young men appear from all directions and drift slowly towards the centre. Someone drags a hollow log of bamboo into the frame, and two boys obediently sit down cross-legged on either side. The drumming begins.

And suddenly reality folds in on itself. What started as a film about these people and their stories has become part of the story itself, the recording an occasion for revival. The Elders explain the chants and the young men are asking questions. Some children drift in and begin to dance.

And in an instant I surrender the past two years to this moment. I give the last two years to this moment, in that I decide it has all been worth it. Every challenge, every hardship, every tear shed over this crazy little place in the middle of the ocean, I offer it as a sacrifice to right now.

And I know there could be no fairer price.
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