13-04-2025
Bruce Parry compares tribal food to like 'eating a battery'
Tribe with Bruce Parry returned to BBC Two on Sunday, 13 April, with the documentarian paying the Indonesian island of Sumba a visit.
In this third and final episode of the series, Parry lodged in a Marapu-practising village where ancestors are buried under huge rocks in plain sight between the various huts, while his arrival demanded the blood of sacrificial chickens.
Never one to wimp out on the local customs, Parry gamely sampled some crushed betel nut one morning, which apparently tasted like the inside of a battery.
"Breakfast is coffee and a local stimulant called betel nut," he narrated, before the cameras caught him asking his host: "How does it feel? What do I expect?"
"In my head I feel awake," was the response. Parry proceeded to chew on this fruit of the areca palm as a bunch of entertained villagers watched on.
"Wow!" he said, spitting out remnants. "Ohhh lordy lord! It's a little bit like opening up a battery and just eating the innards. I'm trying hard to put on a smile, but I'm struggling," he admitted to the film crew.
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Betel nut chewing may date back thousands of years, but the sought-out stimulant inside (named 'arecoline') carries with it great danger to humans. We can succumb to oral and oesophageal cancers, plus cardiovascular disease, and chewing with tobacco only exacerbates the effects - sometimes causing stillbirths for pregnant mothers and even fatal strokes.
Later on in the programme, Parry got involved with the younger generation as they engaged in Pajura training on the beach. Pajura is a fighting ritual where the most wounded combatant is said to receive the best harvest.
When darkness fell, men from rival villages squared off against one another, showing no mercy with their leaf-wrapped bludgeoning fists.
"As the night goes on, they become increasingly aggressive," Parry informed viewers.
All three episodes of Tribe with Bruce Parry are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
