Returning the Johnsons’ photos to their origin and ensuring they’d be accessible to the peoples they concern was the main goal of the IPAM project. Leaving Borneo in 1936, the Johnsons gave copies of all their photos to the government hoping they’d be preserved as a record of the untouched haven they saw vanishing before their eyes. WWII, however, destroyed all but a handful of these images.  In May, I arrived in Sabah with digital copies of our museum’s 2,217 Bornean photos, a DVD of the film Borneo, and a shiny new laptop on which to show them.

      My first few weeks were spent in bustling Kota Kinabalu (KK) at the Sabah Museum with exchange curator Stella Moo selecting photos for an exhibition dedicated to Martin and Osa in the Sandakan Heritage Museum.  Sandakan was the colonial capital and the Johnsons’ “city camp.” The exhibit will restore the pictorial history of the region and foster an interest in conserving the natural beauties that still remain.  Stella and I flew to the town on May 24^th to meet World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Partners for Wetlands (PW) staff who wanted to take us to a site proposed for a Martin and Osa Johnson Memorial Trail and Information Center. The trailhead was to start at “Johnsonville,” the spot cleared in 1935 as the “jungle camp” and we were to furnish photos for the center.  Accessible only by water, it took hours by speedboat to reach the village of Abai where we met seven young, newly certified “Johnson Trail Guides.”

       Chatting with the guides, two of whom were girls (which would have pleased Osa), I was shocked to discover none had ever seen any of the Johnsons’ photos.  I set up the laptop and after flicking a very scary looking scorpion off the monitor–and momentarily reevaluating my career choice–ran a slideshow for them and several villagers. A hundred images that featured unidentified river scenes composed the show. Two photos in, at a shot of the houseboat crew, many of the elders yelled out “Logan!” and the crowd went mad.  Story after story poured out and thanks to PW’s Julia Majail translating, I learned that the star of Borneo was as heroic offscreen as he was handsome on it.  All we’d known of Logan was that Martin and Osa hired him because he spoke fluent English and looked great in a loincloth. There has been speculation by anthropologists that he was an actor brought in to pose as a local.  Not only was Logan Kandayah from Abai, he was a decorated hero in WWII and he worked as a policeman for over 30 years in Sandakan. 

        As the show continued, more names were put to faces, their tales and histories recalled.  We only had a few hours in the village and needed to get to the Johnson campsite, though, so right after the show the guides ferried our group the few miles to Johnsonville.  The site lay abandoned for decades and the jungle had completely reclaimed it. To be the first westerner given a tour of the historic site by the fresh faced and energized guides was quite an honor. I’ve no doubt that when completed, future visitors will likewise be excited by the guides’ enthusiasm and the Johnsons’ story will continue to inspire a love of the natural beauty here as well as garner a respect for the local peoples who work so hard to preserve it today. 

         Just before our river excursion, The Daily Express (a leading newspaper in Sabah) ran a two-page feature on our project.  Enough cannot be said about the assistance the press gave in identifying the unknown people and regions in the photos. Full credit for our success should go to the Express’s Chief Editor James Sarda. After finding our website while researching the history of Sandakan, James introduced us to the Sabah Museum and Stella, then generously also donated a great deal of his time and his paper’s resources to ensure word of our work spread. His plea for anyone with connections to the Johnsons to contact us resulted in many people we would never have found on our own actually coming to us.

         Among these was Haji Montoi, whose granduncle, Abdul Rahman, provided a house and assorted invaluable services to Martin and Osa in both 1920 and 1935. Amazingly of the 12 photos James picked to publish, three featured members of Haji’s family!  Haji kept in touch with others linked to the Johnsons and they’d often gathered at his home in Sandakan for “Johnson Family Reunions.” As the elders passed on and the children moved away, however, the tradition lost steam.  After seeing the article, Haji swore if we would come, he’d assemble “the family” once more and many mysteries of our photos would be solved.  Amongst those to be summoned were Wahab Abdul Rahman and Masri Angau, his two uncles who’d both been children in the Johnsons’ camps.  While incredibly tempting, this was also a major challenge as I had a tight itinerary, was not to go to Sandakan again until the end of my trip, and had no extra travel budget for more flights. Stella solved all the problems by shuffling my KK duties and letting me stow aboard for a bumpy five-hour overland roadtrip to Sandakan where her family would take an impromptu vacation while I attended Haji’s reunion.  

Montoi Family

        We had no idea how many people Haji could produce, but due to the short notice and distances involved we hoped for four or five.  When we arrived at the Montoi home, 35 Johnson campmates or their sons, daughters, grandchildren, etc., waited with the promise that more were on the way.  To keep the crowd from getting restless as we set up for a slideshow, we passed around some photos. Fearing technical problems, I’d brought a handful of old copy photos as back-ups. There were only 18 prints, and not one really spectacular, but I thought they’d be better than nothing if the laptop went belly up.

        After doling out the photos, we returned to setting up.  Before the boot screen appeared, there was a keening wail from the back of the room.  It was such a gut-wrenching sound I thought someone had been hurt. When Stella and I rushed back we found Masri, crying with a photo clutched to his chest.  Unbelievably, one of the random photos was of his late father Salahudin, who worked with the Johnsons in both 1920 & 1935!  Masri had never seen a photo of him before and obviously was beyond words over it.  I had teased the rest of the Safari staff that I was going to defect to the larger Sabah Museum, but meeting this sweet little man and reuniting him with the image of his beloved  father was a far better reward than I could ever have hoped for as a curator anywhere.   

Masri Angau with the photo of his father, Salahudin.

        During the show, Haji acted as my translator.  An elegant speaker in multiple languages, Haji is also skilled at driving home a point.  At the part about the last trip and how worried the Johnsons were about what would become of Borneo, Haji picked up the DVD of the film and shaking it towards the youngsters assembled, he added, “Martin died for us, he died to leave us these photos of things you will NEVER see again.”  As in Abai, each image that flashed brought names and stories we had never known. Irini, one of Logan’s daughters, squealed with laughter and cried tears of joy each time her father was shown. The evening was one of the best in my life and though we were assembled for hours it seemed like just minutes had passed before the time for sad goodbyes came.  I wasn’t sure if I’d ever meet any of them again so bidding them farewell was exceptionally hard. Without letting loose of his father’s photo, Masri was still able to give me a bone-crushing parting hug and Irini actually made me cry as she kissed and thanked me for ensuring her father would live on in pictures.

         In June, Terry Todoroff joined me for my last two weeks in Sabah.  He’d visited Vanuatu last year and had come for the leg of my stay that was dedicated to retracing the Johnsons’ jungle footsteps and filming several of their famous haunts. At our welcome ceremony in Abai, Suluk ladies performed the same dance for us that Feeli Mendoza had for the Johnsons. Critics of Borneo say the dance scenes were staged for the film, but Ruckee Mohamad, Abai’s Homestay Coordinator confirmed that the dance was traditionally conducted before and after hunts and that Feeli performed it in 1935 pre and post the “thrilling climax” capture of the orangutan. Here we met more people with Johnson ties and by giving another slideshow, we even may have made some new Johnson fans along the way.  

"Johnsonville At Last!"

"On and on we flew over seemingly endless jungles, up and down the winding Kinabatangan River. My eyes were rapidly tiring from the tedious and fruitless search for a clearing that could be used as a campsite. The sun was just beginning to tumble down toward

the orange backdrop of the western horizon when Martin shouted, ‘Osa, down there to your right!  That’s the spot. It’s right on the water’s edge.’ I glanced down through the oval pane of glass at the sun-drenched clearing. It was beautiful! 

My eyes looked up and met Martin’s.  We both smiled.” 

      Osa Johnson, A Home in the Jungle,
                          Last Adventure, 1967

         We spent three days on the river, but the first was truly incredible as shortly after we arrived, I was shocked and overjoyed to see Julia sail in with Masri! Haji had arranged for him to come and accompany Terry and me to Johnsonville.  It was the best surprise of the trip. On the boat ride over, as soon as the tall Menggaris tree came into view, Masri explained that when Martin and Osa cleared the land to build the camp, they couldn’t bear to fell the lovely tree and built around it.  Their sentiment paid off as this towering fig acted as the perfect marker when landing their giraffe-spotted airplane. Today it is the sole camp remnant and will mark the memorial trailhead.

         At the site, Masri regaled us with stories of camp life that never made it into the Johnsons’ book or films—how Osa was bitten by a cobra and was deathly ill for a week; that the capture of the huge orangutan was much more dangerous than ever hinted at in the film; how all the children lined up outside Jim Laneri’s house and begged for airplane rides; and that Osa would often take the kids out with her for the day as they liked Martin so much they’d mob him and he couldn’t get any filming done.  Thanks to Terry, we now have Masri’s recollections at the campsite on film and his stories can be added to our account of the Johnsons’ travels.

         Back at Abai that day, as we ate lunch on a porch overlooking the Kinabatangan, I decided to get a picture of the group. Showing the digital view to Kasnah Binti Rukok, homestay ‘mother’ to Terry and me, I promised to send a copy as her new grandchild was in it. She smiled and whispered that in 60 years her children would see that photo and happily recall the day that Terry and I had brought Martin and Osa “home.”

         Everywhere I went in Sabah, I was introduced as a curator, but over and over I noticed Martin was referred to as my datuk and Osa as my nenek. Being Malay challenged, I didn’t recognize those as terms for grandparents.  Later, not wanting to misrepresent myself, I learned the word for “employee.”  Two days before I left Sabah, I gave a travelogue in Sandakan and afterwards a woman from a school came up and stated my grandparents would have been very proud.  I decided to dazzle her with my Malay vocabulary and explained that I was just Martin and Osa’s pekerja.  She laughed and replied that from her understanding, “to be an employee of the Johnsons was to be their family so what is the difference?”  I hope she is right as I can’t imagine anything I’d love more than to be invited to the next Johnson Family Reunion!