Lost In Shangri-La Part 5

"Hollandia, here I come," Margaret replied.

She wrote in her diary that she planned a do-over for having stood up her swimming date, Sergeant Walter Fleming. In her daydream, Wally would sit adoringly at her hospital bedside, holding her hand and telling her how brave she'd been. Knowing that she'd be teased, she didn't share that vision with McCollom or Decker.

Meanwhile, Decker displayed a dry wit. Affecting a glum tone, he told McCollom, "I suppose one of us will have to marry Maggie and give this adventure the proper romantic ending."

McCollom joined the act. He appraised the injured, worn, and tired WAC. After looking her up and down, he delivered the punch line: "She'll have to put on more meat before I'm interested."

Margaret puffed herself up and defended her injured pride: "I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man in the world. I'm going to marry Decker!"

Decker, who'd been turned down by Margaret for a date weeks before their flight, wouldn't give her the last word. But stumped for a snappy comeback, he blurted: "The h.e.l.l you are!"

Relieved, they sat together on the ground and wondered how long it would take until more planes returned with supplies. Above all, Margaret wanted real food, so they could throw away "the d.a.m.n hard candy."

AS THE SURVIVORS lounged and chatted in the clearing, the thought occurred to Margaret that the jungle hadn't spontaneously stopped growing there. Someone had painstakingly cut down the trees and dragged out the shrubs. They were sprawled in a mountainside garden of sweet potato, or lounged and chatted in the clearing, the thought occurred to Margaret that the jungle hadn't spontaneously stopped growing there. Someone had painstakingly cut down the trees and dragged out the shrubs. They were sprawled in a mountainside garden of sweet potato, or camote camote, mixed with a smattering of wild rhubarb.

Eventually, the garden's owner or owners would come to tend or harvest it, and that could mean trouble. But returning to the stream wasn't an option, and neither was leaving the place where they'd been spotted by the B-17. They'd hunker down and pray for the best. Maybe the gardeners lived far away and only rarely visited this particular field. They had no choice but to wait and hope.

Their wait didn't last long.

An hour after the B-17 flew off, the jungle came alive. They heard the sounds they'd thought were the yaps and barks of a faraway pack of dogs.

"Do you hear something funny?" Decker asked.

The sounds grew closer. The creatures making them were human.

The survivors had no idea how they'd fight off wild dogs. But they preferred that prospect to the seven-foot flesh-eating, headhunting, human-sacrificing natives they'd expected to see only from the air, through the windows of the Gremlin Special Gremlin Special.

Their a.s.sets and weaponry consisted of a lanky sergeant with painful burns and gaping head wound, an undersize WAC with gangrenous burns, and a hungry lieutenant with a broken rib and a Boy Scout knife. It wouldn't be much of a fight.

It seemed to Margaret that more voices joined the strange chorus. The survivors told each other optimistically that maybe the yapping was the noise that native children made when they played. Or maybe the people making the sounds would continue on their way in the jungle and pa.s.s them by altogether. But Margaret worried that the rising number of voices meant that "the signal had spread that a tasty dinner was waiting in the camote patch."

Still they saw no one, even as the sound was upon them. No longer did it seem to come from everywhere. It rose from the far edge of the garden clearing, across a gully some twenty-five yards away.

The jungle rustled and shook. As the survivors stared helplessly in that direction, their fears took human form: dozens of nearly naked black men, their eyes s.h.i.+ning, their bodies glistening with soot and pig grease, their hands filled with adzes made from wood and sharpened stone, emerged from behind the curtain of leaves.

Chapter 10

EARL WALTER, JUNIOR AND SENIOR

GOOD NEWS RACED through the ranks at Fee-Ask. through the ranks at Fee-Ask.

Word that Captain Baker had spotted survivors in the jungle near the Shangri-La Valley sent Colonel Elsmore and his Hollandia staff into high gear. Baker had only seen three khaki-clad people in the clearing, but his B-17 was only over the area for a few minutes, flying at high alt.i.tude. He couldn't communicate with the people he saw, and he didn't spot any wreckage. There was room for optimism. If three were alive, why not all twenty-four?

Maybe Colonel Prossen had somehow been able to set down the Gremlin Special Gremlin Special intact in an emergency landing. Maybe the three survivors that Baker saw were an advance party, and others who'd been aboard the C-47 were hurt but alive at the crash site. Or maybe they'd split up, as the intact in an emergency landing. Maybe the three survivors that Baker saw were an advance party, and others who'd been aboard the C-47 were hurt but alive at the crash site. Or maybe they'd split up, as the Flying Dutchman Flying Dutchman survivors had done, with some heading in another direction in search of help. survivors had done, with some heading in another direction in search of help.

Those hopes found expression in material form. Elsmore's team a.s.sembled what one observer called "enough equipment to stock a small country store." Supply crews attached cargo parachutes to crates filled with essentials such as ten-in-one food rations, blankets, tents, first-aid kits, two-way radios, batteries, and shoes. Having spotted what looked like a WAC on the ground, they included less conventional jungle survival necessities including lipstick and bobby pins. Not knowing how many among the crew and pa.s.sengers had survived, the would-be rescuers a.s.sembled enough provisions to feed, clothe, and temporarily house all twenty-four.

Excitement aside, Elsmore and his command staff knew they faced a serious problem: They had no idea how to reach the survivors, and worse, they had no idea how to get them back to Hollandia. If there'd been a way to land a plane in Shangri-La and take off again, Elsmore almost certainly would have done so already. He probably would have brought reporters along, to record him subduing or befriending the natives, possibly both, perhaps while planting a flag with his family crest to claim the valley as his sovereign territory.

Dutch and Australian authorities, who'd been in contact with Elsmore throughout the search, offered help and expertise outfitting an overland trek. But that idea was nixed when it became apparent that such an expedition would require scores of native bearers and an undetermined number of troops to defend against hostile tribes and thousands of j.a.panese soldiers hiding in the jungles between Hollandia and the survivors. Even more problematic than the cost in manpower and equipment, it might take weeks for marchers to reach the valley, and by then any survivors might be dead from their injuries or at the hands of natives or enemy troops. Even if the crash victims survived the wait, they might lack the strength for a month-long march over mountains and through jungles and swamps back to Hollandia.

Helicopters were raised as a possibility, but were almost as quickly shot down. As far as the Fee-Ask planners knew, helicopters wouldn't be able to fly at the necessary alt.i.tudes-the air was too thin for their blades to generate the necessary lift to carry them over the Oranje Mountains.

Still under consideration were rescue pilots from the U.S. Navy who could land a seaplane on the Baliem River. Also on the drawing board were plans worthy of Jules Verne involving lightweight planes, blimps, gliders, and U.S. Navy PT boats that could operate in shallow water and might reach the interior by river. If a submarine had been available or remotely feasible, someone on Elsmore's team no doubt would have suggested that, too.

But every idea had logistical flaws, some worse than others, so a rescue plan would have to wait. Elsmore's immediate concern was getting the survivors help on the ground. Presumably some were wounded, so they needed medical care. Equally urgent, considering the stories about the natives, the survivors needed protection. One solution would be to drop in a team of heavily armed paratroopers, soldiers as well as medics, who wouldn't mind-or at least wouldn't fear-being horribly outnumbered by presumably cannibalistic native "savages."

One challenge would be finding volunteers for such a mission. A bigger problem would be availability. Infantry-trained paratroopers were in the thick of the fight. As far as Elsmore and his staff knew, none were anywhere near Hollandia.

The Southwest Pacific region hosted two storied airborne units, the 503rd and the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiments. Both had played major roles in the Pacific war, most notably and heroically in the Philippines. Three months earlier, in February 1945, the 503rd had recaptured the island of Corregidor and helped General MacArthur make good on his promise to return to the Philippines. That same month, on the island of Luzon, the 511th had carried out a lightning raid twenty-four miles behind enemy lines that freed more than two thousand American and Allied civilians, including men, women, and children, from the Los Banos Internment Camp.

Both airborne regiments were still committed to combat in the Philippines, and winning the war took precedence over fetching a handful of survivors from a sightseeing crash in the New Guinea jungle.

When it looked as though they'd run out of paratrooper options, an idea struck one of Elsmore's planners, a bright young officer named John Babc.o.c.k.

Before the war, Babc.o.c.k taught biology and chaired the science department at a private military high school in Los Angeles. When the United States entered the war in December 1941, he traded his chalk for the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. His science background led to his a.s.signment as Fee-Ask's chemical warfare officer.

A few weeks before the crash, Babc.o.c.k learned that one of his former students was based in Hollandia. Babc.o.c.k knew two things about this particular young man: C. Earl Walter Jr. First, he'd been expelled from school as a troublemaker, and second, he was now an infantry-trained paratrooper, frustrated about being stuck in Hollandia.

C. EARL WALTER Jr.'s boyhood revolved around his father, C. Earl Walter Sr. Jr.'s boyhood revolved around his father, C. Earl Walter Sr.

Most of that boyhood was spent in the Philippines, where the elder Walter had moved his wife and toddler son from Oregon to take a job as a lumber company executive. Before the boy was nine, his mother fell ill with malaria. She returned to the United States for treatment, but she so missed her husband and son that she took the next boat back to the Philippines. She died several months later.

Captain C. Earl Walter Jr. (Photo courtesy of C. Earl Walter Jr.) That left just C. Earl Walter, senior and junior. Neither cared for the name Cecil, so both went by Earl. In the midst of the Depression, father and son lived on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao, in a big house with a full-time cook and a couple of native houseboys who saw to their every need. The younger Earl Walter had a small horse and his own little boat, and lots of friends who lived in the barrio near his home. He was smart, but with so many distractions and a busy father, school was a low priority. So low, in fact, that for two years Earl Junior didn't attend. He preferred to go with his father into the wild reaches of the island on lumber surveying trips. His favorite boyhood memory came from one of those trips.

"We had been hiking all day, and we found this little glade in the forest, and there was a little creek that had formed a pool," Walter recalled. "So he and I took our clothes off and we got in the water and splashed around just to get rid of the sweat. We were both naked, and when we got out of the water, it was so funny because the natives were standing two or three deep around the pool. Dad asked our guide what that was all about, and he said, 'They're just curious to see if you're white all over.' "

By the time he was fourteen, the tall, handsome white boy with wavy brown hair, blue-gray eyes, and a well-off father was even more of a curiosity, especially among the local girls. And vice versa. "At that age you're old enough to wonder about women," Walter explained. "You wonder what it's like."

Walter's father saw where things were headed, and he didn't like the direction. Above all, he worried that his only child wasn't getting much of an education. He had remarried after his wife's death. His new wife's mother, who lived in Portland, Oregon, was willing to take charge of Earl Junior. Among other benefits, the move would give the boy a chance to catch up to his American peers in school. It's possible that Earl Senior had other concerns, too. Even before Pearl Harbor, the elder Walter feared a j.a.panese invasion. "When I was growing up with Dad, he used to say, 'I'm going to put a machine gun over there, and a machine gun over there, and when the j.a.ps come, we'll be ready for them.' "

Earl Junior returned to the States, first to his stepgrandmother's house and then to the care of his paternal grandmother, who did her best to spoil him. His father decided that a firmer hand was needed: "I think Dad felt that I needed a military school to go to, and that might straighten me out."

Earl Junior s.h.i.+pped out to the Black-Foxe Military Inst.i.tute in Los Angeles, a high-toned private academy complete with a polo team. Located between the Wils.h.i.+re Country Club and the Los Angeles Tennis Club, Black-Foxe provided a useful place for movie stars to stash their wayward sons. At various times, the Black-Foxe student body boasted the sons of Buster Keaton, Bing Crosby, Bette Davis, and Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin's son Sydney once described Black-Foxe as "a sleep-away school for the sons of Hollywood rich people."

There, Earl Junior grew into his full height of six-foot-four and became an All-American swimmer, backstroking his way onto a record-setting relay team. One cla.s.s he especially liked was biology, which meant that he skipped it less often than the others. His biology teacher was a future U.S. Army lieutenant colonel named John Babc.o.c.k.

For the most part, Earl Senior's get-tough plan backfired. Earl Junior wasn't a malicious teen, but he found endless ways to avoid studying: "It didn't straighten me out. In fact, I learned more bad habits there than I did anywhere."

His stepmother had made the mistake of setting up a generous allowance to ease the transition into a new school. Black-Foxe administrators controlled the money, but Earl found a clever way around that barrier. Drawing on his school account, he spent lavishly at the school store on notebooks and other supplies. Then he'd sell them for half price to other students, for the cash. Even with the discounts, "I had more money than I knew what to do with."

"What kind of trouble did I get into? Well, I was always looking for female companions.h.i.+p," the younger Earl Walter recalled. "I had a bosom buddy named Miller, and we'd go to downtown Los Angeles, just hitchhike down to the bars. If you had money in those days and you were tall enough, they served you liquor. So I'd always have a couple of gin drinks. There was one area of L.A. where the burlesque shows were. Miller and I liked to look at naked women, so that's where we'd go."

Black-Foxe decreed that young Earl was a "bad influence" on the other boys and kicked him out. He returned to his grandmother's house and finished high school in Portland. By then he was nearly twenty. "I heard that quite a few parents told their girls to stay away from Earl Walter because, what the h.e.l.l, I was old enough to chase women and liked it."

One girl he dated introduced him to her friend Sally Holden. Her mother wasn't keen on Earl, but Sally was. "She was a beautiful gal," he said, "and we mutually fell in love. Once we started going steady, I had no interest in anybody else."

EARL SPENT TWO semesters at the University of Oregon before being drafted in August 1942, when he was twenty-one. He went to officer candidate school and underwent parachute training at Fort Benning, Georgia. Just before he was about to s.h.i.+p out for the European front, as a junior officer in the infantry, Army Lieutenant C. Earl Walter Jr. received unexpected news about his father. The last he'd heard from Earl Senior was a letter in 1941, just before Pearl Harbor, in which his father wrote that he'd "most likely stay on in the islands in the event that war came." semesters at the University of Oregon before being drafted in August 1942, when he was twenty-one. He went to officer candidate school and underwent parachute training at Fort Benning, Georgia. Just before he was about to s.h.i.+p out for the European front, as a junior officer in the infantry, Army Lieutenant C. Earl Walter Jr. received unexpected news about his father. The last he'd heard from Earl Senior was a letter in 1941, just before Pearl Harbor, in which his father wrote that he'd "most likely stay on in the islands in the event that war came."

As a U.S. territory, the Philippines sent a resident commissioner to Was.h.i.+ngton to represent its interests, without a vote, in Congress. At the time, the resident commissioner was Joaquin Miguel "Mike" Elizalde, a member of one of the Philippines' richest families. The Elizaldes held an interest in the lumber company where the elder Earl Walter was an executive. Mike Elizalde learned that Earl Senior had followed through on his plan to remain in the Philippines when war came. Rather than surrender and face internment or death, or try to flee to Australia or the United States, Earl Senior took to the jungles of Mindanao. There he led a resistance force of Filipino guerrilla fighters. Earl Senior's bravery earned him praise, medals, and the rank of major in the U.S. Army, on his way to being commissioned a lieutenant colonel.

A book about a fellow guerrilla leader in the Philippines described the elder Walter as a "tough, no-nonsense warrior" and "a leathery man in his fifties ... ready with his fists." It said he'd been honored for bravery under fire in World War I and picked up where he left off during World War II. Walter and his guerrilla troops "mounted as vicious a close-in infantry action as men have fought"-ambus.h.i.+ng j.a.panese soldiers along a coastal road and patrolling the streets of j.a.panese garrison towns at night.

Mike Elizalde, the Philippines' resident commissioner in Was.h.i.+ngton, sent word to the younger Walter to let him know that his father was alive, well, and fighting the j.a.panese. Walter told one of his commanding officers at the time that Elizalde "gave me enough information of my father to at least stop my fears for his safety and make me proud of his work."

C. Earl Walter, Senior and Junior. (Photo courtesy of C. Earl Walter Jr.) The news about his father had another effect: C. Earl Walter Jr. lost interest in battling Germans and Italians in Europe. In a report filed at the time, a lieutenant colonel quoted Walter as saying that he didn't know many specifics of his father's guerrilla fighting, but it was "enough to make me envy the type of work he was doing."

With help from Elizalde, Lieutenant Walter volunteered for a special commando and intelligence unit, the 5217th Reconnaissance Battalion, made up almost entirely of Filipino-American volunteers. The idea was to insert Filipino-American soldiers onto one of the j.a.panese-held islands by submarine or parachute, under the theory that they could immediately blend in among the native civilians. Once there, members of the unit would organize guerrilla operations and direct supply drops for resistance fighters. That sounded ideal to C. Earl Walter Jr.

Having grown up in the Philippines, Walter knew the culture and the Visayan dialect, which made him an ideal officer for the 5217th. As a qualified paratrooper, he was a natural to establish a jump school for the battalion outside Brisbane, Australia, known as Camp X. Best of all, when he got to the Philippines, he could fight alongside his father. That was the plan, at least.

After marrying Sally, Walter s.h.i.+pped out in early 1944 and got to work turning members of the 5217th Recon into qualified paratroopers-occasionally with amusing results. The U.S. Army used large parachutes, and many of the Filipino-American soldiers weighed less than a hundred and twenty pounds. After jumping, they'd float around in the air currents. "This one little guy kept yelling, 'Lieutenant, I'm not coming down!' " Eventually he did, and afterward one of Walter's sergeants fitted smaller men with weighted ammunition belts to speed their descent.

In July 1944, upon his arrival in the South Pacific, Walter filled out a duty questionnaire for officers. He immediately sought a "special mission" in the Philippines prior to the antic.i.p.ated Allied invasion. He explained his reasoning more fully in a long, bold memo to his new commanding officer. In it, he detailed his upbringing in the Philippines and his knowledge of the islands and its languages, and described his father's work and his own ambitions. "In short," he wrote, "I have an intense hatred for the j.a.p and came to this theater hoping to join a combat parachute unit and do my bit in their extermination."

Later in the memo, Walter wrote that he would perform to the best of his ability in a noncombat intelligence or propaganda mission, but only if he were denied a posting in the heart of the action. Though he had yet to fire a shot in anger, Walter believed he knew how he would react if and when the opportunity arose. Despite his discipline and training, Walter wrote, he might not be able to restrain his trigger finger in a noncombat a.s.signment. "My only desire is that I be given a job which would involve possible contact with the enemy, as I am afraid my liking for combat with the j.a.p might run away with itself when it should be curbed."

His thirst for battle notwithstanding, Walter's unit was left out of the invasion of the Philippines and MacArthur's return to the islands in October 1944, which came some three months after Walter had appealed for a role in the fight. Even as the battle for control of the Philippines continued, Walter and his men remained at ease. Ill at ease would be more accurate.

While suppressing his frustration and biding his time for a meaningful a.s.signment, Walter worked with members of the battalion who were secretly brought to the islands by submarine for intelligence missions. One submarine trip was to the island of Mindanao, and Walter went along. When he arrived at the landing place, he climbed out of the sub to find a surprise: his father was waiting there to greet him. Walter was thrilled-he hadn't seen Earl Senior for seven years, since he'd been sent to the United States to finish high school far from the Filipinas.

But his happiness was short-lived. The elder Walter told his son that he didn't want him taking part in more secret missions, by submarine or any other conveyance. Earl Senior also said that he intended to let higher-ups in the U.S. Army know his wishes. As far as C. Earl Walter Sr. was concerned, the Allies would have to win the war without the help of C. Earl Walter Jr.

Chapter 11

UWAMBO

WHEN CAPTAIN BAKER and his B-17 crew reported seeing three survivors in a jungle clearing, they didn't mention any natives nearby. Even if they'd spotted the tribesmen approaching Margaret, McCollom, and Decker from the surrounding jungle, they couldn't have done anything about it. They weren't about to start shooting, they couldn't land, and they had neither paratroopers nor weapons to drop to the trio. and his B-17 crew reported seeing three survivors in a jungle clearing, they didn't mention any natives nearby. Even if they'd spotted the tribesmen approaching Margaret, McCollom, and Decker from the surrounding jungle, they couldn't have done anything about it. They weren't about to start shooting, they couldn't land, and they had neither paratroopers nor weapons to drop to the trio.

The Gremlin Special Gremlin Special survivors were on their own, and they were about to experience a first encounter with the people of Shangri-La. survivors were on their own, and they were about to experience a first encounter with the people of Shangri-La.

MARGARET, MCCOLLOM, AND DECKER had crash-landed in a world that time didn't forget. Time never knew it existed. had crash-landed in a world that time didn't forget. Time never knew it existed.

In their isolation, the people of this so-called Shangri-La followed an idiosyncratic path. They had tamed fire but hadn't discovered the wheel. They caked their bodies with clay when mourning but had never developed pottery. They spoke complex languages-the verb that meant "hit" or "kill" could be inflected more than two thousand ways-but had a single word to describe both time and place: O O. Their only numbers were one, two, and three; everything beyond three was "many." In a world awash in color, they had terms for only two: mili mili, for black, maroon, dark browns, greens, and blues; and mola mola, for white, reds, oranges, yellows, light browns, and reddish purples.

They ornamented themselves with necklaces and feathers but created no lasting works of art. They believed the moon was a man and the sun was his wife, but they ignored the stars that hung low in the night sky. Four hundred years after Copernicus declared that the earth revolved around the sun, people in and around the Baliem Valley thought the sun revolved around them. They believed it crossed the sky by day, spent the night in a sacred house, then traveled underground to its starting place at dawn. The moon had a house of its own.

They feared the ghosts of their ancestors but wors.h.i.+pped no G.o.ds. They were gentle with children but hacked off girls' fingers to honor dead relatives. They treated pigs as family-women nursed piglets when needed-but slaughtered them without remorse. They built thirty-foot-tall watchtowers, but their only furniture was a funeral chair for the dead. They grew strong tobacco but never distilled their crops into liquor. They practiced polygamy, but men and women usually slept apart. They valued cleverness but not curiosity. Loyalty had special significance. To greet close friends and relations, they said Hal-loak-nak Hal-loak-nak, "Let me eat your feces." Its true meaning: "I will do the unthinkable for you."

The sixty thousand or so natives in the main valley, and tens of thousands more in the surrounding areas, organized themselves into communities consisting of small fenced villages or hamlets. Most had thirty to fifty people living communally in huts arranged around a central courtyard, though larger villages might have several times that number. Men of the hamlet usually slept together in a round hut that was generally off-limits to women. Women lived with children in other round huts and worked together in a long, oval cooking house. Pigs lived in the huts, too, so they would not wander at night or be stolen by enemies.

When they referred to themselves, the natives of the valley might say they were ahkuni ahkuni, or people. Their enemies were dili dili. Sometimes they'd identify themselves by the name of their neighborhood or clan, or by the name of the big man, or kain kain, who held sway over the military confederation to which their neighborhood belonged. They might describe themselves in relation to the river that wound through the valley: Nit ahkuni Balim-mege Nit ahkuni Balim-mege, or "We people of the Baliem." Although they were members of the Yali or the Dani tribe, tribal affiliation was less important than neighborhood, clan, and alliance loyalties. Different clans and neighborhoods within the same tribe were often enemies, and Yali and Dani people routinely crossed tribal lines to fight shared enemies.

Dani tribesmen, photographed by Earl Walter in 1945. (Photo courtesy of B. B. McCollom.) A walk of a few minutes to an hour might take a resident of any one hamlet to ten or fifteen similar hamlets that comprised a neighborhood. Several neighborhoods that joined together for war made a confederation, and several confederations const.i.tuted an alliance of four to five thousand people. Native wars, called wim wim, were fought between alliances. Despite shared language, ethnicity, and culture, alliances nurtured deep, long-standing hostilities toward one another, the original source of which was often unknown. They had always been enemies, and so they remained enemies.

Indeed, hostility between alliances defined the natives' lives. If covered by a gla.s.s roof, the valley would've been a terrarium of human conflict, an ecosystem fueled by suns.h.i.+ne, river water, pigs, sweet potatoes, and war among neighbors.

Their ancestors told them that waging war was a moral obligation and a necessity of life. Men said, "If there is no war, we will die." War's permanence was even part of the language. If a man said "our war," he structured the phrase the same way he'd describe an irrevocable fact. If he spoke of a possession such as "our wood," he used different parts of speech. The meaning was clear: owners.h.i.+p of wood might change, but wars were forever.

When compared with the causes of World War II, the motives underlying native wars were difficult for outsiders to grasp. They didn't fight for land, wealth, or power. Neither side sought to repel or conquer a foreign people, to protect a way of life, or to change their enemies' beliefs, which both sides already shared. Neither side considered war a necessary evil, a failure of diplomacy, or an interruption of a desired peace. Peace wasn't waiting on the far side of war. There was was no far side. War moved through different phases in the valley. It ebbed and flowed. But it never ended. A lifetime of war was an inheritance every child could count on. no far side. War moved through different phases in the valley. It ebbed and flowed. But it never ended. A lifetime of war was an inheritance every child could count on.

In the Baliem Valley, the inexhaustible fuel for war was a need to satisfy spirits or ghosts, called mogat. mogat. The living built huts for them, so the spirits would have a place to rest and a hearth to light their tobacco. The living also designed rituals to please them, believing that the The living built huts for them, so the spirits would have a place to rest and a hearth to light their tobacco. The living also designed rituals to please them, believing that the mogat mogat could choose to either help or hurt them, so they had best be kept happy. When a person died in war, his or her friends and family sought to mollify his or her spirit. That required killing a member of the hated enemy-a male warrior, a woman, an elder, even a child. It could happen on the battlefield or in a raid on a sweet potato patch. Until the spirit was satisfied, the survivors believed that their souls were out of balance, and the could choose to either help or hurt them, so they had best be kept happy. When a person died in war, his or her friends and family sought to mollify his or her spirit. That required killing a member of the hated enemy-a male warrior, a woman, an elder, even a child. It could happen on the battlefield or in a raid on a sweet potato patch. Until the spirit was satisfied, the survivors believed that their souls were out of balance, and the mogat mogat of the fallen would torment them with misfortune. Once they settled the score, they'd celebrate with dancing and feasting. Sometimes those rituals included cooking and eating the flesh of their enemies. While the successful warriors and their families celebrated, their enemies cremated their dead, held elaborate mourning rituals, and began plotting a turn of events. Because combatants on both sides shared the same spiritual beliefs, one side or the other always had a death to avenge, a retaliatory killing to plan, a ghost to placate. An eye for every eye, ad infinitum. of the fallen would torment them with misfortune. Once they settled the score, they'd celebrate with dancing and feasting. Sometimes those rituals included cooking and eating the flesh of their enemies. While the successful warriors and their families celebrated, their enemies cremated their dead, held elaborate mourning rituals, and began plotting a turn of events. Because combatants on both sides shared the same spiritual beliefs, one side or the other always had a death to avenge, a retaliatory killing to plan, a ghost to placate. An eye for every eye, ad infinitum.

Pacifying ghosts was the main rationale for war, but it wasn't the only one. In an isolated valley where people enjoyed generally good health and abundant food and water, a place with temperate climate and no seasons, where nothing seemed to change, war animated communities and bound people to one another. It satisfied a basic human need for festival. War deaths and their resulting funerals created obligations and debts, shared enmities and common memories. Occasionally war led to changes among allies, which freshened everyone's outlook, for good or ill. War also had a practical benefit for some: warrior deaths meant fewer men, which allowed male survivors to take multiple wives without creating villages filled with unhappy bachelors.

Dani tribesmen, photographed by Earl Walter in 1945. (Photo courtesy of B. B. McCollom.) The practice of war in the valley was as unusual as its principles. Battles were arranged by calling out an invitation to the enemy across a no-man's-land. If the enemy declined, everyone went home. They fought only by day, to prevent mischievous night spirits from getting involved. They canceled battles in bad weather, lest the rain smear their war paint. Their war whoop wasn't a predator's cry but the hoot of a cuckoo dove. They put feathers in their hair but not on their arrows; when fired, the arrows traced jagged patterns, like birds in flight. During breaks in battle, warriors lounged, sang, and gossiped. They knew details about their enemies' lives, and hurled insults across the front lines. A nasty remark about an enemy's wife might reduce both sides to belly laughs. Then they'd pick up their spears and try again to kill one another.

Because success in war was seen as necessary for the well-being of the community, men who succeeded in battle gained social standing. Skilled warriors had access to more potential wives. This was especially valuable in a culture in which married couples routinely abstained from s.e.x for up to five years after the birth of a child. But it would be wrong to overstate the link between war, polygamy, and abstinence. For many men, war was its own reward, a source of pleasure and recreation, a platform on which to find excitement and camaraderie. A sporting good time, with a reasonable chance of injury or death. Paradoxically, when villagers were not waging war, life tended to be serene, punctuated by occasional conflicts over pig theft and marital discord. Among friends and family, the most common way of coping with conflict wasn't violence but avoidance-one party would simply move away.

War had few apparent benefits for women. It hung over every journey a woman's male kin made from their village and each trip she and her daughters made to the gardens or to the brine pools to collect salt, where an enemy raiding party might set upon them.

War shaped children from their earliest memories. Boys' education and play involved mimicking male elders waging war and staging raids. Toys were small bows with arrows made from bamboo or long stalks of gra.s.s. Gra.s.s arrows routinely found their way into boys' eyes, leaving them half blind but no less eager to grow into warriors. For girls, war meant having the upper halves of one or more fingers chopped off each time a close relative was killed, to satisfy the dead person's ghost. By the time a girl reached marrying age, her hands might be all thumbs. An anthropologist who followed the Gremlin Special Gremlin Special survivors into the valley years later described the process: "Several girls are brought to the funeral compound early on the second day. One man, the specialist in this practice, is waiting for them. First he ties off a girl's arm with a tight string above the elbow. Then he smashes her elbow down on a rock or board, hitting the olecranon process, the 'funny bone,' in order to numb the nerves in the fingers. Someone holds the girl's hand on a board, and the man takes a stone adze and with one blow he cuts off one or two fingers at the first joint." survivors into the valley years later described the process: "Several girls are brought to the funeral compound early on the second day. One man, the specialist in this practice, is waiting for them. First he ties off a girl's arm with a tight string above the elbow. Then he smashes her elbow down on a rock or board, hitting the olecranon process, the 'funny bone,' in order to numb the nerves in the fingers. Someone holds the girl's hand on a board, and the man takes a stone adze and with one blow he cuts off one or two fingers at the first joint."

Making war and appeasing spirits wasn't all the native people did. They built huts and watchtowers, grew sweet potatoes and other vegetables, tended pigs, raised families, and cooked meals. Most of the hard work fell to the women. Men built homes and watchtowers and tilled gardens, which left plenty of time to spare. They devoted that time and energy to war-planning it, fighting it, celebrating its victories, mourning its losses, and planning it anew. In between, they talked about it, sharpened their weapons, pierced their noses so pig tusks would fit into the holes and make them look fierce, and wrapped greasy orchid fibers around their arrows to cause infections if the wounds weren't immediately fatal. They also spent endless hours scanning for enemy movements from the watchtowers on the edge of the vast no-man's-land that separated their homes and gardens from their enemies' identical homes and gardens.

When the anthropologist Margaret Mead learned about the people of the Baliem Valley, she saw a connection between "the distant past and the future towards which men are moving." She wrote: "These are clearly human beings, like ourselves, entrapped in a terrible way of life in which the enemy cannot be annihilated, conquered, or absorbed, because an enemy is needed to provide the exchange of victims, whose only possible end is another victim. Men have involved themselves in many vicious circles, and kingdoms and empires have collapsed because they could find no way out but to fall before invaders who were not so trapped. Here in the highlands of New Guinea there has been no way out for thousands of years, only the careful tending of the gardens and rearing of children to be slain."

By evoking the name of the peaceful paradise in Lost Horizon Lost Horizon, war correspondents George Lait and Harry E. Patterson had indulged in a calculated fantasy. Their readers longed for a Shangri-La after a daily diet of war news. Yet the reporters couldn't have dreamed up a more ironic name if they'd tried. The Baliem Valley was a beautiful and extraordinary place, but it was no heaven on earth.