Wearing nothing but feathers and a long, tapering gourd jutting from his groin, Papuan tribesman Suroba says the Indonesian government cannot force him to wear pants.
Suroba, who estimates his age in his 60s, remembers the last time the government launched a campaign to eradicate the penis gourd, known here as a koteka, in the 1970s. It was a dismal failure.
“Back then we were wearing our traditional clothes, like the koteka, and we’re still wearing them now,” he said.
The latest threat to the koteka, and traditions like it, is a new anti-pornography law passed in October by mostly Muslim lawmakers in the capital Jakarta, 3,500km away.
The law, which criminalizes all works and “bodily movements” deemed obscene and capable of violating public morality, was pushed through by Islamic parties despite stiff opposition and years of rancorous debate.
Opponents of the law say its definition of pornography is too broad and could threaten local traditions, from nude temple carvings on Hindu-majority Bali island to tribal dances and phallic totems on Papua, a vast territory of untouched forests and mountains on the western end of New Guinea island.
The law, which is expected to be signed soon by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, contains provisions protecting local cultures, but opponents say they would do nothing to prevent a crackdown.
Thousands of people on Bali have protested, and activists and politicians from Indonesia’s far-flung non-Muslim regions, such as mainly Christian and animist Papua, have begun murmuring of civil disobedience.
In Kurulu, the koteka is an old tradition. The village sits in the remote Baliem valley, a fertile bowl carved out of the mountains running down Papua’s spine that had no contact with the outside world until after World War II.
The 370-year-old smoke-blackened mummy of one ancestor, Wimintok Mabel, which squats in the grass-roofed hut where the village men sleep, wears nothing but the remnants of a headdress, a necklace and a shattered koteka.
But traditions here are slowly giving ground to modernity. Children and younger adults already wear Western clothes, and Suroba conceded he sometimes wears pants on cold nights.
But it’s the suggestion that outsiders can force locals to abandon their culture that raises hackles.
Papua’s highlands are a hotbed of anti-Indonesia sentiment. Many Papuans see Jakarta’s sovereignty over the region — gained in a widely discredited 1969 UN-backed vote of select tribal heads — as an occupation.
Thousands of Indonesian troops guard against a low-level insurgency that still simmers in Papua’s forests, and this interviewer was only granted rare access to the region with an escort from the state intelligence agency.
“The anti-pornography law is definitely a threat, because it runs against our cultural values,” said Lemok Mabel, a member of the local Customary Council.
“There will definitely be opposition because it’s not what the people want. It’s something that violates locals’ rights as indigenous people.”
Another member of the council, Dominikus Sorabut, said news of the law had not yet reached the highland villages, where modern communications are a rarity and education is basic.
However, a long history of tension, slights and rights abuses means any crackdown on local traditions will prompt an angry reaction.
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