Don't Label Me! by Arwen Jayne Page A

Those eyes were
peering at her curiously now, with a look something akin to a
savage beast that had just spotted its favorite prey. Sathi felt
equally hammered by the evil entwined thoughts that were issuing
forth from Mr Fishwyck’s mind. Gods she needed to learn how to
block this shit.
    Sheila looked with concern at her colleague.
“You alright Sathi, you’ve gone very pale?”
    “ Must have been something I ate,
please excuse me.” She rushed out of the room.

    10 Borneo
     
    Melissa gasped, both horrified and awed. At
the gateway to the portal she’d seen were two poles and up on top
of each of those poles were what looked for all the world to be
shrunken heads. At least they didn’t look like fresh heads. If the
odd assortment of clothing and paraphernalia that hung from the
poles was anything to go by the skulls dated back to the second
world war.
    Doc stepped forward and examined the
clothes. Fishing into one of the pockets he found some papers. He
recognised the script. “Poor bastards. They were Japanese soldiers.
Unfortunately the Japanese weren’t into surrendering and back then
if you tried to fight in these parts and lost you lost your head as
well. The local tribes wouldn’t take your scalp if you
surrendered.
    George arched an eyebrow worriedly. “But
they don’t head hunt anymore do they?”
    Doc just looked at him thoughtfully, as if
formulating an answer.
    “ Do they?” George
persisted.
    “ Officially they don’t but from time
to time there have been outbreaks, usually as part of ethnic
violence. The last was in the 1990s,” Doc explained.
    Rob looked puzzled. “I thought they were
Christians these days.”
    Doc shrugged his shoulders “And...? There’s
plenty of people around the world who label themselves as
Christians but don’t have qualms about killing other Christians let
alone people of other persuasions. The fact that someone might use
a knife rather than an AK47 or a missile doesn’t really make much
difference does it? Not all Dayak are christianized by the way.
Some are Muslim but others follow the old animist ways,
unofficially. They’ve had to rebrand their traditions as a religion
called Kaharingan and write a bible of sorts for it because it’s
illegal in Indonesia to follow a pagan faith.”
    Rob leaned over to whisper in Melissa’s ear.
“Animist?”
    “ They find the sacred in everything,”
she whispered back.
    “ And they have a strong sense of
honor, respect for courage and they despise wastefulness. Both the
men and women have equal value and rights to inheritance,” Doc
added, who’d heard their whispered conversation anyway.
    George wondered how they’d tell the
different factions apart if they met any. “What do the animist
tribes look like Doc?”
    “ Not much different than the others I
suppose. I’ve never been here remember. Bali’s as different from
Borneo as Ireland is from Norway. I’m only going on what I’ve heard
growing up or was taught at school. Before they were converted many
Dayaks had marvelous tattoos. I’ve seen pictures in books. Often
they had them on legs and arms but occasionally even the neck as a
kind of magical protection against being beheaded themselves. It’s
likely the more traditional tribes might still have
them.”
    It was getting boring listening to George
and Doc discuss their meagre knowledge of Dayak culture. Honestly
the best way to know the people here was to meet them. Melissa
decided to walk closer to the passageway that shimmered with a play
of light that was only visible to her. She held out her arms and
closed her eyes. Seeing instead with her third eye. “Erce, Erce,
Earthen Modor...” The ancient Saxon wiccan chant seemed alien here
but it was what she knew. Feeling no response from the energy field
in front of her she let the chant fall away and went with honest
intent instead, trusting it spoke a universal language. “Great
mother hear me, spirits of this place hear me. We come in peace
seeking a