The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure
Carl Hoffman
William Morrow: 2018
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The Last Wild Men of Borneo tells the tales of Michael Palmieri and Bruno Manser, who in their impetuous youth, uprooted themselves from their cultures and lived among the languages, folkways and belief systems of indigenous tribes half a world away. Palmieri left California in 1965 to avoid conscription into the Vietnam War. After a series of vagabond stints in Mexico, India, Afghanistan and Bali he began visiting the villages that dotted the tributaries of Borneo. Palmieri was initially in the market for rattan backpacks popular with travelling hippies, but soon found a more profitable trade in the indigenous woodcarvings and fetishes that were increasingly sought after on the Western art market. Their allure for collectors and curators was a connection to a world of spirits, ritual and mystery, before logic, science and commercialism became ascendant. And though many buyers were uncomfortable with the ethics of purchasing such items out of indigenous Borneans’ homes, they were quite ready to deal through a middleman. Palmieri then discovered a path to profit from art that for millennia Borneans had used to celebrate weddings and funerals, to guard against jungle demons, and to house their ancestors’ souls.

Paradoxically, while the mercantilist Palmieri became a widely whispered name in the back rooms of art galleries and museums, he himself became an adherent of the spiritual power in which he trafficked. The book describes some key events that made him a believer in animism, such as midnight visits from a spirit still trapped in a recently purchased statue, or a jungle shaman’s blessing that inexplicably overwhelmed his senses. Hoffman views Palmieri’s — and other Westerners’ — adoption of ancient beliefs through the twentieth-century turn towards the primal messages of premodern art. Works by artists such as Picasso highlighted aspects of the Western psyche that had been buried by modernity. Soon Westerners were seeking out places like Bali or Borneo, where, ultimately, a lack of cultural understanding and an unwillingness to part with the comforts of their modern lifestyles permitted only a shallow engagement with the complex creeds of those societies.

• Tags: Borneo, Carl Hoffman, Issue 17, James Weitz