I was a Fulbright teacher and researcher in Indonesia from mid – 1990 through early 1991. I spent some of that time at the anthropology museum at Cendrawasih University in Abepura, Irian Jaya. Then fieldwork took me first to the village of Makbon in western Irian Jaya, then to two islands in North Molucca.

My research involved archeological surveys and excavation in areas little such study had been done before. I myself had done survey and excavation in Irian Jaya in 1975-76 on a Ford Foundation grant and my work with the Cenderawasih museum involved laboratory examination of the materials we had collected then. Our excavations near Makbon, in collaboration with the chairman of the Cenderawasih anthropology department, were at sites first discovered in 1975. The surveys and excavation in Molucca were done in cooperation with the museum at the Sultan’s Palace in Ternate. Its curator worked with us in the field and was most helpful. So was an archaeologist from the Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional in Jakarta.

We were helping to open up a region of Eastern Indonesia that was pretty much unknown, archaeologically speaking before this. The University Of Hawaii has now started an exchange program with a university in Ambon and this effort during 1990-91 has helped us to plan future joint research projects.

I’ve found that Fulbright grants really facilitate working in remote areas and making contacts with local academics who are interested in the kind of research I’m doing.

I’ll never forget my sixty-sixth birthday which I celebrated on the island of Kumu. My Wife, Ludy arranged a surprise party for the team and the local people, who were all Christians. It featured a pig roasted Philippines-style and no one had ever seen one cooked that way before. Virtually everyone on the island showed up and dinner totally disappeared in about fifteen minutes. It was quite a day!