Tokok Sago - Trying to lend a hand!?

Tokok Sago is the processing of the sago tree into sago flour, the traditional staple in Papua.  I've written about it a bit here and here and here before... 

I have seen it done a few times in Raja Ampat, and participated in both Biak and Sarmi.

In the village of Beneraf, in the Sarmi Regency, we were invited to join the village as they went to the river to cut and process a sago palm (whose leaves they also use for rooves).

First the trek out into the forest to find and chop down the sago palm tree...

They then peel the bark from the tree and start hacking away at the pith... 

To hack out the pith of the tree a primitive bamboo tool is used, rendering the pith to a soft mulch...

The mulch is then saturated in water and squeezed through a multi-filter system to extract the starch... 

All the materials they use to cut and process the sago are completely natural, including the fine mesh they use to filter the sago through... it's actually the gauze wrap from the whorl of the banana tree.

Apparently the processing of the sago pith/pulp rids the sago of a protein potentially poisonous for mammals...  So, rid of the poisons, it's on to the cooking phase!  Actually, to make the simplest sago dish, papeda, all you need is the sago and boiling water...

Boilding water is added to the sago starch while mixing...

... and almost instantly it turns into a glue-like paste - ta-da!

The other way they showed us to cook papeda in Beneraf was part of the 'Bakar Batu' process... they remove red-hot stones from the fire and put them into the sago/water mixture.  When the mixture reaches the right texture/consistency, it literally spits the stones back out!

The following excerpt is taken from my Biak blog:  The next day we enjoyed an early morning walk through Sagu plantations (hoping for hike, and a chance to inaugurate my shiny new white shoes, but our guide didn't show).  We expected this area to be relatively pristine forest, since we were in a 'reserve', and all - I should know better, after this long in Indonesia...

Anyway, it was a nice walk, and our hosts, a group of Sagu farmers that invited us to join as they cut and worked a Sagu Palm (Tokok Sagu).  It was great to learn more about this traditional staple of Papua from these kind and fun men!

We also each took a turn trying our hand at pounding the sago pith into mulch...

A giant stick bug showed up for the work bee as well...

... careful not to get pricked by the sagu spikes, we picked our way through the forest...

Yikes!