Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

124 REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION3While listing interesting and varied bits of human-animalrelations in different areas of Southeast Asia, the paperwants to constantly pose or insinuate this point: whatif these practices are not merely casual effects but, moreimportantly, are part of the many intrinsic causes in howwe spontaneously identify ourselves? What if, instead ofanimals being simply utilities and spectacles, we are moredependent on them, materially and imaginatively, thanwe would credit, in our everyday construction of ‘us’ asa stable ‘we’?4 The linguistic aspects of the paper benefited much fromconsulting with a senior linguist in Udayana University(Dr. I.G.M. Sutjaja). Direct and indirect help from acolleague in the Computer Science and MathematicsDepartment (the late Dr. N. Navarrete) of UP-Mindanaosupplemented my knowledge in the shaping and analysisof some quantitative approaches. We gained background,central, and supplemental information for the study in themany libraries of Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok)and Walailak University (Tasala City) and in the personallibraries of kind individuals. We also acquired relevantmaterials from various bookstores of the two countries.5See also the ethnographic observations of Wheatley (1999)on the treatment of Balinese monkeys by differentpeople.6Bird-David (1990) gives a capsule idea of the ways “gathererhunters”relate to the forest and its “giving environment,”one dominated by concepts like “forest as parents,”“nature as ancestors,” and the human beings in thevillage as “siblings.” (See also, along this line, the study ofSeitz (2007) on the attitudes to animals among Borneanhunter-gatherers, and also the full-length ethnography ofBrightman on hunter-prey relations among the Crees.)Also, the earliest and widely-distributed category for“world,” “territory,” or a demarcated space in archipelagicSoutheast Asian and Oceanic contexts, the concept ofbanua/vanua, could encompass both the cultivated andnon-cultivated/forested areas and also both humans andnonhumans (i.e., plants and animals). Berkes, Kislalioglu,Folke and Gadgil (1998) consider banua/vanua asreferring to a wider notion of “land” as both the physicaland the “living environment” or the “ecosystem.” In theAustronesian context, the historical reconstruction ofSalazar (2006) places the category banua as a concept thatpredates the emergence of “chiefdom” societies. Whilethe Austronesians, with their banua and related concepts,are already neolithic, the fact that these concepts were inplace during the earliest period of settlement formationmight suggest their close link to a pre-neolithic, “givingenvironment” worldview. This is quite a contrast with thesucceeding neolithic stance of increasingly emphasizingthe demarcation between the realms of the cultivated(e.g., village and its domesticates) and the non-cultivated(e.g., forest and its animals). Settled villagers who practicecultivation and, at the same time, still rely to some extenton gathering and hunting, lie midway between classichunter-gatherers and full-time farmers. This midwaymode is most probably the condition of the earliestAustronesians living in their banua-world. Conceptionsof the world that are dominant in the hunting-gatheringmode of living, like the banua view, would still survive inthe neolithic and post-neolithic modes if only in a moretoned down version.7 The importance given by neolithic, Southeast Asian peoplesto their domesticates might be seen in the study of Blust(2002) on the faunal terms in Austronesian languages.He makes the interesting observation (p. 91) that whilethere is no generic term for ‘animal’ in both the Proto-Austronesian and Proto-Malayo-Polynesian languages,the Proto-Western-Malayo-Polynesian (e.g., Indonesianand the Philippine languages) has a generic term for‘domesticated animal’ (ayam). One could, for example,see the domesticated/forest distinction in the Malay(h)ayam, ‘domestic fowl’ with the ayam hutan or ayamalas (forest fowl), or the Bisaya ihalas/binuhi (wild/domesticated) distinction which is also true in manyPhilippine languages.8 Higham (1996) presents what I think is the earliestarchaeological depiction, in an East Asian, Bronze Agecontext (southern China, south of Lake Dian), of animalsrepresented as “fierce” and “predatory.” A decoration ona piece of forearm armor (p. 169) depicts various animalsbiting, fighting or chasing each other. Another artifact(p. 168) is in the form of a sacrificial table in the shapeof a domesticated cow attacked, on its hindquarters, bya leaping tiger. Wood remains from the principal site(Lijiashan cemetery) have been carbon-dated to 830-400 BC. The villages that created these artifacts are atthe chiefdom level of political complexity. Historically,chiefdoms are also sociopolitical forms that marked thebeginning, or at least predominance, of systematic intervillageattacks and warfare. Chiefly warriors, in variouscontexts, have appropriated animal figures (as tigersor birds of prey, for example) in construing themselvesduring warfare.9 See the diverse people-wildlife conflicts in case studiesedited by Knight (2000). See also Paluga (2006) for thecase of human-monkey conflict in the Philippine setting.Terweil (1989) also gives an apt observation in the Thaicontext, in his definitive study of travelers’ accounts of19 th century Thailand. His point is worth quoting atlength here:Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows