Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 125Our travelers saw pioneer farming settlers who fearedbeing trampled by herds of wild elephants, who could beattacked by crocodiles and who had to battle with largeflocks of wild birds in order to grow their crops. Suchbattles continued throughout the nineteenth and intothe twentieth century, and gradually they were all “won.”The rhinoceros, the crocodile, the tiger, monkeys, birdsand elephants all had to give way (pp. 256-257).10 Thais have been breeding Bettas (domesticated fightingfish) for “cockfight-like contests” for hundreds of years.Verbeek, Iwamoto and Murakami (2007) provide acareful study of the aggressiveness of these fishes. Theycite (p. 75) the claim of Thai breeders that Betta splendensspecies are selectively bred for fighting by discarding losersand allowing winners to breed, resulting in “significantlymore aggressive” strains of fighting fishes than either thewild-type or the domesticated veiltail variety. The authors’careful testing of such folk observation give the followingrelevant result (p. 80), among others: “We were able toconfirm our prediction that domesticated B. splendensmales of the short-finned plakat variety are significantlymore aggressive than wild-type B. splendens.”11See Western (2001) for a broader presentation of theconcept of “human dominated ecosystems” and adescription of the ecological patterns of such ecosystems.12 The hypothesis for a temporally ‘fluid territory’ of theSangeh macaques could be formally stated as follows:There is a daily temporal/hourly cycling of troops in theoccupation of the central space and the choice time/s ofthe area; the front area is better, where the tourists usuallystay longer and where the feeding areas are located. Thereis an interesting relation between time (sequential patternof events; for example, number of tourists per given timein a constant area, plus the rhythm of tourist flows in aday), space and group hierarchy. Both time and space aredeterminants or important conditions for the formationof group hierarchy, but time (t1>t2>t3,…) has a moreordering role, in a finer scale, in group hierarchy thanspace. Spatial hierarchy seems to be simple, just s1>si,where i=~1; monkey groups occupying s1 is orderedbased on variable t, where each group [g1,g2,g3,...] getsthe following time slots at s1 [g1=t1,g2=t2,g3=t3,…] andare thus arranged, g1>g2>g3,…13See Fuentes, et al. (unpublished) for the report on the landusepattern of Bali and its exploitation by macaques.14 Marzluff and Angell (2005, 73) cite the “locale-specificuse of automobile traffic to open nuts by carrion crows(Corvus corone)” and frame the discussion of this behaviorin a wider context of long-enduring human-raven/crowecological interactions.15Ickes (2001, 688) presents a “supranormal pig density” inthe Pasoh Forest Reserve (Negeri Sembilan, PeninsularMalaysia) due to “the combination of an absence offeline predators and an abundant food supply from thesurrounding agricultural plantations.” While the authoronly mentions (a) the extinction of natural predators(tigers and leopards) and (b) the abundant year-roundfood supply of African oil palm fruits from plantationsbordering the reserve as the causes of this ecologicalcondition, the non-pork-eating context of IslamizedMalaysia might also be added as a dimension.16 See the study of Wheatley and Putra (1994, 323)showing monkey aggression as “positively reinforced byfood rewards” by both the local folks and non-Balinesetourists. A classic case is when monkeys steal objects fromvisitors and tourists (I experienced this myself when myeyeglasses were grabbed by a monkey at Ulu Watu) andsome people offer the target monkeys some food hopingto divert them from the stolen objects. In the long-run,monkeys are ‘taught’ to associate tourist objects with easyaccess to food. In the study of Wheatley and Putra (1994,324), “the vigor of monkey aggression corresponds withthe quality and quantity of tourist food.”17 See Jones-Engel et al. (forthcoming) for the full Balinesereport of macaque to human transmission of the SFV, thefirst such report in a global context.18Based on frequency counts of animal images in Hooykaas(1980) and animal characters in folk narratives in Eiseman(2002) and Sutjaja (2005).19See the study of Wessing (2006) for an interesting folklorestudy of animal symbols and their structure in SoutheastAsia.20 Here is an assessment (Whitten, Soeriaatmadja and Afiff1996), perhaps too strong, of this divergence of symbolicand material treatments of animals. I will quote it atlength:It has been argued that the inclusion of animals asessential elements of dance, literature, and ceremoniesdemonstrates that people and nature are all part of thesame whole, and that animals are often more appreciatedby the gods than are people. This is attractive and in linewith the alluring doctrines of New Age philosophy andreligion, but normal animals are scarcely to be seen in anyof the important positions in Javanese or Balinese arts.Ganesha (the goblin-like, elephant-headed god), Barong(the ‘well-meaning’ but fearsome-looking lion), GarudaAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows