Life on the Silaoinan River
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Siberut Island is a paradise for surfers. The waves of the Mentawai Strait east of the island are among the best in the world. But surf-boom or no, nothing much has changed the life of Siberut people since the time when foreign anthropologists visited in the 1950s. Shooting arrows, making sago, conducting punen (custom rituals) and consulting sikerei (witch doctors and herbalists) have remained their daily practice. Only a few things are different: children, women and men are no longer bare-chested. The popular tattoo tradition to adorn bodies is not the trend of today. Follow the journey of Tempo’s Febriyanti to the island west of Sumatra.
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THE night was at its height. The motorboat, Sumber Rejeki Baru, was beginning to rock wildly as it sailed along the Mentawai Strait. The creaks of the wooden boat carrying me and over a hundred passengers from Padang to Siberut Island were heard more frequently, a sign of imminent storms.
The atmosphere was even scarier as I remembered a forecast by the Meteorology, Climatology & Geophysics Agency that the first week of February is the peak of e
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