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The indigenous Malay-speaking folk of the Riau Islands, which include Batam, are known as orang asli or "original people"; they lie at the bottom of the economic heap. With their intimate knowledge of the forest, the orang asli have worked in the timber trade since precolonial times. More recently, they had provided cheap labor for Riau's illegal-logging operations until a police crackdown closed many sawmills. These were tough times for the orang asli, as I discovered at our next port.
Teluk Dalam is the only real town on Mendol Island, home to about 3,000 people. Our boat's arrival shook it from its morning torpor. As we docked, smaller boats materialized to load on fish, sugar and areca nuts, and offload ketchup and instant noodles, in a Lilliputian imitation of Singapore port. Teluk Dalam has a feeble cell-phone signal, a small army outpost and, pinned up by the shipping office, a poster of Malaysian militant Nurdin Mohammed Top, suspected of masterminding a string of terrorist attacks including the 2002 Bali bombings. But otherwise its connection to the rest of Indonesia seems tenuous.
Our boat's arrival was a major event, especially since it brought the first European most islanders had seen in the flesh. Almost immediately, a journalist turned up to interview me for the local newspaper. His name was Suarten, and afterwards we set off on his motorbike to visit some orang asli villages. The narrow concrete path snaked through swampy plantations of coconut and areca-nut palms, past tumbledown wooden houses with Islamic inscriptions over the doors. The orang asli are largely animist, but a battle for their souls was under way.
At a village called Telukkelapa I met Inri Kiroyam, a young Protestant pastor from Jakarta who had been assigned here two years ago. She referred to the orang asli, in English, as "the ancients." They made up most of her 100-strong congregation. Inri was only 29. "But for the ancients, that's old," she smiled. "Their girls get married when they're 15. They have no identity cards, no education. They believe in myths, not reality." Despite Inri's ministry, most orang asli still preferred to make offerings of rice, sugar and eggs at the coconut-leaf spirit house that hangs from the rafters inside each home.
Inri introduced me to Suro, 33, one of her converts. Now rechristened Ruben, he wore a Minnie Mouse T shirt and shin-length surfer shorts, and trembled with nerves when he spoke. I asked him how Christianity had changed his life, and Inri translated his mumbled reply as: "He's full of joy now." Full of joy and out of work. Until the recent crackdown Ruben worked at a nearby sawmill, now abandoned.
I wanted to explore the area further, but suddenly the journalist Suarten said, "It's too dangerous." At first he refused to elaborate. Then, reluctantly, he told me that two headless corpses had been discovered the previous week in Tanjung Batu, my last port of call. The heads would probably be used as sacrificial offerings to protect new buildings, he explained. The killer or killers had not been caught, but there was a growing hysteria that they had arrived on Mendol Island. "We should go," said Suarten.
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