Once the seven white people were all on the dock, well actually one of them wasn’t white but looked sort of yellow-brown, Bononbun approached to greet them. He had spent all morning having the women of the village work on his kinky hair, so that now it stuck out in all directions like a crown of feathers. He had put a fresh, newly bleached bone through his pierced septum, and the piece of coarse cloth tied around his waist with a leather string was also brand new. He wore a necklace of human teeth that an ancestor of his eight generations removed had taken from the mouths of his enemies. Modern Keo didn’t have enemies to kill and eat like their ancestors did, and that necklace, a relic from the old days of cannibalism, was among his most treasured possessions.
Chief Bononbun had an enormous grin on his face as he approached the visitors. This was the moment when he would see if all that time spent learning English would result in the kind of speech he hoped for. He said, “Welcome, most illustrious travelers, to my grand village. I am Chief Bononbun, leader of the Keo people who live here. We are honored to have you grace us with your presences.”
Lewis Dare stepped forward with his hand outstretched and said, “And I am Lewis Dare, from New York. And this is my daughter Clare who lives in Los Angeles, this is Dr. Stern from London, this is Jack, and these are my three interns.”
Chief Bononbun took Lewis’s large, strong hand and shook it vigorously. He said, “Ah yes, Lewis Dare, the great, how do you say that word, cryptozookeeper!”
“Cryptozoologist,” Lewis corrected him.
Chief Bononbun was embarrassed. He repeated the word silently to himself the way Lewis had pronounced it and then he said, “Ah yes. My apologies. Cryptoventriloquist! Please, as a token of our gratitude, allow us to present, for your entertainment, a sacred ritual dance based on the ancient principle of Kastom.”
Chief Bononbun clapped his large chocolate-colored hands together and stepped aside. Men standing in two lines facing each other began to bang on all sorts of drums with their hands as well as drumsticks of different shapes and designs, and about fifteen women who were standing in three rows between the two lines of drummers began to jump up and down and whoop and holler in an atonal cacophony.
Like the men, the women wore nothing but pieces of coarse cloth tied around their waists. Many of them were very young, young enough to make Lewis, Dr. Stern, and the two male interns a little uncomfortable watching them and their small breasts which held firm as they jumped up and down, jumping being the only piece of choreography in this primitive dance.
Once he was satisfied that his guests had been sufficiently entertained, Chief Bononbun clapped his hands and the dance abruptly stopped. He said to Lewis, “So, how did you like it? Are not the Keo people the greatest dancers in the Kepulauan Nusa Tenggara? I am sorry, how do you say it in English? The greater Sundanese archipelago.”
“We are in the lesser Sundanese archipelago,” Dr. Stern corrected him.
Chief Bononbun frowned and said bitterly, “Ah yes. Lesser.”
Lewis said, “I do not know enough about tribal dancing styles in this part of the world to be able to judge if your dancers are the greatest in the two Sundanese archipelagos, but since you are such a fan of dance, if you ever visit New York I will have to bring you to the New York City Ballet. The New York City Ballet has the greatest dancers in the world.”
Chief Bononbun’s pride was stung. So, the visitors were not impressed by the dance. Well, Chief Bononbun would not allow himself to be knocked down that easily. He would show the visitors how his village fished. That would impress them!
“Please,” Chief Bononbun said, “before I show you where you will spend the night, allow me to give you a tour of my village.”
“Absolutely,” Lewis said, “We would be delighted.”
Chief Bononbun clapped his hands and walked off. Lewis and the rest followed him, and the tribesmen who had been playing percussive instruments all put their drums and sticks down and followed behind them. They all walked along the beach for some time until they came to a little lagoon. The men put down their drums, picked up wooden spears that were gathered in a pile there, and waded out into the shallow water.
Once they were in position, the men all thrust their spears into the water repeatedly, making the sea froth and causing the sediment at their feet to rise and cloud the water around them. Chief Bononbun, beaming proudly, waved his arms out to sea, and said, “Will you just look at my fishermen! They fish based on the ancient principle of Kastom. Observe their strength. No other fishermen in the entire world have the strength of my Keo fishermen!”
Lewis and the rest watched the spear fishers. None of them seemed to be having much luck. The thrusts of their spears almost always resulted in misses, and only a few of the spear fishers had caught anything at all.
A little bored, Lewis glanced off to the side and saw, separate from the spear fishers, a man who held a giant leaf by its stem. The leaf was about six feet in length, and four feet in width and the man kept it semi-submerged in the water. The man was completely still, and was staring at the leaf intently. Lewis asked, “What is that man doing?”
Chief Bononbun said, “Oh that is only Kanoonoo. He is our desa konyol. What you would call the village idiot.”
Lewis said, “But what is he doing?”
Chief Bononbun said, “It does not matter what he is doing. What matters is the strength of my fishermen.”
Lewis said, “It looks like he is holding some kind of leaf.”
Chief Bononbun sighed. Clearly this man’s interest in Kanoonoo would not be satisfied without an explanation. He said, “Kanoonoo is extremely lazy, so while the other men are fishing, he stands off to the side like that holding his leaf.”
Lewis said, “Ah. I see.”
Chief Bononbun then called for the men in the water to return to shore. As the spear fishers turned and began to walk back, Kanoonoo took his leaf’s two wide ends, folded them together along with the long ends into a sack, slung the sack over his shoulder, and walked towards shore with it.
The few fishermen who had caught anything at all dropped their one or two fish into a small pile on the sand. Chief Bononbun looked the fish over, nodding his head and smiling with pride. He said to Lewis, “Now, are my men the greatest fishermen in the world, or are they not?”
Lewis said, “I’m impressed that they were able to catch anything at all the way they were going about it.”
Chief Bononbun beamed with pride at what he took as a compliment from the white man.
When Kanoonoo came to shore he walked a bit of a ways off from the others, dropped his giant leaf onto the sand, and let it fall open. Lewis looked over and saw that on the leaf there were dozens of flopping fish.
Chief Bononbun pointed at Kanoonoo and said, “Let’s all laugh at lazy Kanoonoo. While you were all working hard fishing based on the ancient principle of Kastom, he was standing in the water with the stem of a leaf in his hand like an idiot!”
The tribesmen all pointed at Kanoonoo and laughed at him. Kanoonoo just stood there with a big grin on his face.
Dr. Stern said, “But Kanoonoo has caught more fish than all your spear fishers put together.”
The chief said, “But Kanoonoo is lazy. While my fishermen were spear fishing, he was just standing there doing nothing.”
Dr. Stern said, “But he got better results with less work.”
“Exactly. Kanoonoo did less work. That means he is lazy.”
Dr. Stern said, “No, it doesn’t. It’s called efficiency.”
The chief exclaimed, “A fish agency? Maybe that’s how you do things where you are from, but we Keo people do not need to go to a fish agency to get fish. We catch our fish with our own hands!”