Then Where Will We Live

Sumean Gebe lives deep in the forests of Halmahera Island in a house he shares with Bede Yuli and their two children. The house is four hours by road from Sofifi, the capital of North Maluku Province. The family are nomadic, moving often around the forest. “We have been like this since we were little,” he told me. “Usually we will make a bivouac with a roof of palm leaves and tarpaulin. We are comfortable living here.”

As the head of the family, Sumean spends his days hunting. The food he catches is then processed in a temporary kitchen made of bamboo. To supplement their income, the family searches the forest for damar resin, which Sumean sells.

Sumean and his family are not alone. On the banks of the nearby Kali Meja River, Etus Hurata and Tatoyo Penes are sago gatherers. Despite their old age, they step agilely through the plantations armed with bamboo sticks and machetes. They are joined by Daniel Totabo, a fisherman looking for eels in the fast-flowing river. When the dry season comes the volume of water in the river drops, a sign that he can look for fish in the deeper currents; the further he searches, the more fish he gets.

All are part of the O’Hongana Manyawa people, the “people of the forest” in their native language. Also called Tobelo Dalam, they are one of the only remaining nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes left in Indonesia. They have long depended on the dense forests of Halmahera, which offers them both sustenance and protection. According to Survival International, there are around 3,500 people left in the forested interior of Halmahera; of those, some 300 to 500 O’Hongana Manyawa people have managed to avoid direct contact with outsiders. 

That is soon to change. Huge tracts of land on Halmahera have been allocated to mining companies. In some areas the excavators are already at work.