Bongso at the Four Days Marches
Moluccans have been walking the Nijmegen Four Days Marches for many years. At this year's 105th edition around 80 walkers took part. Men and women, young and old, trained and untrained, for a first time or for the umpteenth time, with or without an RMS flag. Curator Huib Akihary reports.
Third week of July, walking the Nijmegen Four Days Marches! It has been circled in red in my diary with an exclamation mark since 2013. That third week in July is sacred. Whatever happens, I will and must take part. And I am not the only one. The Four Days Marches count 47,000 participants and they come from every corner of the world. From Tuesday to Friday, depending on your age, you walk 30km, 40km or 50km a day. Finish the Four Days Marches and you receive the coveted Four Days Cross.
30km
I walk with Isaac Pattikawa from Zutphen, Johnny Gaspersz from Nijmegen and Olivia Wardenaar from The Hague. We are seniors, all well past 60, and we happily walk the 30km. We gladly leave the 50 and 40 to the younger guard. Isaac and Olivia are walking it for the 15th time and Johnny for the 26th (!). I am a rookie with my 8th participation. The 30 km has its advantages. Because the distance is shorter you also start later. Not at 4 in the morning as with the 50km, but nice and relaxed between 7:45 and 8. So you can have a lie-in and start without stress.
Elst day
The Four Days Marches pass several neighbourhoods where Moluccans live. Elst, Bemmel, Hatert, Gennep and Cuijk. Every year they are welcome resting points and stops to stretch your legs. Your own bangsa is ready and waiting with tea, coffee, kue2, pisang goreng or even soto ajam. In Elst the walkers are hospitably received by the Peilouw family. While I am enjoying the soto, Noes Peilouw, who has walked the Four Days Marches 33 times himself, comes up to me and asks whether Museum Maluku might make an exhibition about Elst and the Four Days Marches. "We have a lot of material and a great many Moluccan walkers come from Elst," Noes says. I think an exhibition about Moluccans and the Four Days Marches is a rather lovely idea and promise Noes I will come back to him on it. I rejoin my walking companions, who have just paid a short visit to the cemetery in Elst where Isaac's sister is buried.
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The Pasanea collection
On the way to Bemmel, prompted by Noes's question, it occurs to me that Museum Maluku itself holds a number of photographs in the collection from 1972 of Moluccan participants in the Four Days Marches, taken by Paul or Mary Pasanea. One photograph shows Moluccan walkers at the Snodenhoek camp in Elst. An exhibition about Moluccans and the Four Days Marches would be a fine subject. But drawn more broadly, not only Elst but with input from the other neighbourhoods and reaching back in time. Who were the first to walk the Four Days Marches, and what are the stories?
Bung Dirk
You could hear many fine stories from the many Moluccan walkers who stop briefly in Bemmel. I see many members of the Moluccan walking group Kawan2 Djalan, former chairman of the museum Usman Santi, and my friend Tjikkus Salakory from Elst, to name just a few. Walkers who have been taking part for many years. But one really stands out: Bung Dirk Sinay from Doesburg. Seventy-six years old. The nestor among the walkers. Entirely at his ease he walks the 30km. "I'm taking part for the 21st time this year. But I haven't trained much and I've picked up an ankle injury playing football. So I'm only walking the 30km."
Bongso
On Friday my alarm goes off at quarter to six. I check the Four Days Marches app and see that several 50km walkers have already covered almost 10km on their way to Grave and Cuijk. They started at four. It makes me smile, knowing you have to be in Cuijk by 10 to stay ahead of the great crowd of 40 and 30 walkers on the Via Gladiola. I belong to that crowd, together with Isaac, Johnny and Olivia. In Overasselt, after a good lunch, we light a few candles in the Catholic church for a happy ending. On the dyke towards Heumen we discover that the men in our group are all from 1957. Isaac from February, Johnny from October and me from November. "You're our bongso, the youngest!" Johnny calls out. I take it as a title of honour: Bongso at the Four Days Marches. The final kilometres to the finish are one great celebration. After being captured on camera by Ating Manuputty from Vught, who photographs all the Moluccan walkers, we cross the finish line at half past three, satisfied and happy. A little later bung Dirk Sinay finishes too. His 21st cross is in the bag.
Again next year! Head Curator Huib Akihary
P.S. Almost all the Moluccan walkers earned their cross.
Curator Huib Akihary also wrote Tobelo North Moluccas in images, Cold turkey in the depot, Three remarkable donations, Inspection & relocation of the museum collection
Do you have photographs, negatives or slides that strengthen our collective memory and might be of interest for our photographic collections? Would you like to donate your photographs to both Moluccan Archive and Museum Maluku? Or do you have more information about a recently shared photograph? Get in touch with us at collectie@museum-maluku.nl.
