Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [19]
“You have one kitchen for the whole village?”
“No, for one family,” he says. “Every family has its own kitchen.”
“Oh, okay. And who does the cooking?”
For a moment Tom looks totally affronted by the question. Isn't it obvious?
“Women!” he retorts brusquely. “The women do it.” And to underscore the point, in case I'm in any doubt at all, he adds, “Not the men.”
“Well, of course, not the men,” I respond, adding a curt, “Perish the thought.” Though it's possible my sarcasm is lost on him, because he just shrugs and walks out.
“Hey—dude, over here!”
Director Mark shouting to Camera Mark. He's found a large pig for us to film. The poor creature is cooped up in a tiny circular cell made of shaved wooden posts that allows it to perform the occasional three-point turn, but not much else.
Tanna society is rooted in subsistence farming. The people survive by traditional means: hunting, fishing, rearing animals, growing their own fruit and vegetables. There's a strong social hierarchy, or hunggwe, here, and a man's standing in that hierarchy is determined in the main by how many pigs he owns. The greater the number of pigs in his yard, and the fancier their tusks, the richer he is considered to be.
“How long does the pig have left to live?” I ask, watching the poor creature slam into the pen with its head, then its ass, then its head again.
“If you want to make the pig big and fat,” Tom says, “three or four yizz.”
My God! Three or four years wedged in a space that size—it's barbaric.
“And how long has it been now?”
“Three yizz.”
Ah. So the nightmare's almost over.
“In our village,” Tom continues, misreading my anxious hand-wringing as an invitation to please tell me more, “we buy the wife with the pigs.”
“So,” I say, already pursuing a new train of thought, “what happens if you become sick and …” Half a pace later I stop dead. What did he just say? “You buy your wife and she comes with a pig?”
“No—you buy with the pigs,” he corrects.
“Ohhhhhhhhh, you buy your wife using pigs!”
Seems the women in this culture are not only made to do all the back-breaking heavy-duty work that men won't touch, but they're also traded on the open market like chattels. The average wife costs between six and ten pigs, I'm told. Worst of all, and the biggest irony yet: among the many chores the women in Yakel have to complete each day is … guess what! Yes, they have to tend to the pigs. The very pigs they're going to be traded for later on.
No wonder the life expectancy of females in one of these kastom villages is relatively short. Whereas a man may live to 107, many women die prematurely. And when they do, I have no doubt they consider it a blessed relief.
It's devilishly hot out here. The midmorning sun licks my back, leaving a trail of sweat down my spine and causing my spiffy Banana Republic cocktail slacks to stiffen like cardboard before gluing themselves to my legs. At every turn, kids and their mothers stop and stare, amazed to see a white guy stroll through their remote village followed by a TV crew. And look, he's wearing trousers! In this heat. How crazy is that?
Believe me, indigenous people, I hear you.
The path down to the garden is a deep groove worn through the forest by countless feet over countless centuries. It slopes gently in some places but is almost perpendicular in many others, and pitted with holes, roots, and a million other opportunities to injure yourself.
“Tom and Cash—stay there. Don't move.”
Camera Mark, doubtless relishing the challenge of possibly tripping and breaking his neck, races ahead, chunky legs covering the terrain in small leaps, dragging the rest of the crew behind him, slithering wildly over loose stones, skidding into foliage, and becoming entangled in vines. Twenty feet away, he braces himself against a sapling.
“Okay, and … action. Go, Cash. Walk toward me.”
Tom is barefoot. Yet he springs across the rock-strewn terrain many times faster