Throwim Way Leg: An Adventure
by Tim Flannery
Atlantic Monthly Press, $25
An island where kangaroos live in trees, local fishermen catch tiny fish in nets made
of spider webs, rats have testicles as large as a dog's, mammals lay eggs, and men wear
gourds on their penises seems like a fanciful bit of medieval geography. But Papua New
Guinea/Irian Jaya is on the map, a real place where scientist and nature writer Tim
Flannery takes us on a grand quest for fauna never encountered except by the island's
indigenous people.
In New Guinea, "throwim way leg" refers to the act of kicking one's leg out
to take the first step on a journey. Flannery goes hundreds of miles and many days beyond
that with the help of local hunters whose worldview has been shaken by contact with
outsiders. Indeed, the clash of cultures is tragic for this small, isolated island,
especially because of the effect of mining and the Indonesian military: "To a . . .
private on duty at a guard post, the wizened old black man in a penis gourd driving a pig
before him is a demonic and deeply abhorrent being . . . a caricature of humanity, from
whom the soldier withholds all contact except violence," writes Flannery. "Yet I
know that old man. He has an indomitable sense of valor, a sense of humor, and a deep
sense of humanity. He is a great man. The soldier is his inferior in every way. And yet
the government places a high-powered semiautomatic weapon in the hands of the
nobody."
Fortunately, there is the other story-the author's determined attempt to encounter the
many unusual species on the island. In 1994, Flannery launched an expedition to Irian Jaya
in search of the elusive Goodfellow's tree kangaroo, Dendrolagus mbaiso. Mbaiso means
"the forbidden animal" in the local dialect, reflecting this extraordinary
creature's sacred status among the indigenous Moni people. Many clans revere it as an
ancestor and refuse to hunt it, a fact that has aided its survival. Finding this tree
kangaroo, also called Dingiso, is the high point of his expeditions. Though Flannery
discovered 30 species and subspecies unknown to science, "none was as unusual as
Dingiso and none had such an interesting evolutionary and cultural story to tell." So
adapted to the forest is the creature that its remarkably strong, thick haunches allow it
to jump down more than 20 yards from the tree canopy to the forest floor.
Whether literally going out on a limb to capture an "extinct" bat, nearly
getting killed when a hostile group identifies him as a member of the hated
"wildlife" clan, or solving the mystery of a tree kangaroo with a white man's
face, Flannery combines diligent science, heart-pounding adventure, and a respect for
ancient cultures to create a compelling tale. Initially titillated by the exotic, the
reader is soon swept up on a tour that might rattle Indiana Jones himself. —Rebecca
Shotwell
