Cicadas, kasava, cock-fights, pig-sacrifice, and rice wrapped in banana leaves

I built my house of barley rice, green pepper walls, and water ice – Cat Stevens

Yesterday my house was built of cicadas, kasava, cock-fights and rice wrapped in banana leaves. Today, it was built of pig sacrifices, river navigations, and healing ceremonies. Constructed upon these things, my last two days have been vastly different from my ordinary frames of reference. Immersed here in the throngs of bird, insect and animal sounds; the songs and recitatives of children and Muslim melodies by loudspeaker; the rich traditions and the hot sun and the roaring thundershowers, I am acutely aware of the profound difference between my own experiences and those of the people here. There is little that is familiar to me here, save for the river, so much reminiscent of the one by which my parents raised my siblings and I for three years.

But all things exist or happen on a different scale in Nehas Liah Bing. The size of the cicada surprised me, a fly about the size of a hummingbird, if not larger, like the bees here too; the centipedes are like small snakes; the heat and intensity of the sun are multiples of what we know in Victoria, the thundershowers are harder, but duration of the rains are shorter, and the milky way is rich and thick, and half the night sky contains configurations of stars alien to me; the village is small and traversable in minutes, but the geography is flat, and the river winds almost back upon itself and nearly encircles it, like an island.

But there are bridges to the other side, and today I walked over the swing bridge, frequented by people on motorcycles, but no cars and few pedestrians, and when I stood at the best vantage point, I could see the long cargo boats that betrayed the area’s connection to the outside world. The contrast was poignant, since although everywhere in the village people are ready to exchange a smile, it is apparent to me that the experiences of these rice and fruit farmers, largely illiterate, remote, relaxed and welcoming and largely driven by ancient traditions, have over the course of their lives, developed fundamentally different world views from mine.

For example, the people’s connection here to the lives of other species is presently mysterious to me. While cock-fighting is illegal, it occurs here. Pig sacrifices are frequent, I learned today after seeing one; mangy looking cats and dogs roam the clay rocky streets untouched, albeit very cute and tame, but not friendly, and seemingly generally abandoned, while healthy cows look into your eyes like only people can, with a very real sense of acknowledgement and connection, and even - I am not afraid to say - like they know you.

While it might be safe to argue for the stereotypical notion that traditions of sacrifice reflect a reverence for life, and that sacrifices are done as part of a special honor and tradition, when I saw men laugh and play with pig blood as it spurted from the hole they had gored into its chest, I was not convinced that “reverence” was the appropriate term. And, prior to the sacrifice, the Roman Catholic nun who uttered a prayer before a village elder scattered a handful of flowers and bones (I gather) onto the moistened neck of the pig, was a religious cocktail of David Lynch proportions. Yet the tradition is obviously entrenched, and it is only because it is entrenched, it seems to me, that men can play with warm pig blood like boys fighting with water balloons. But the question I have is whether this is simply a tradition and something that is done, or whether it reflects any genuine deep reverence for the lives of the pigs or the lives of the people for whom the sacrifices are performed (they were performed as birthday celebrations today), or something else altogether.

Yesterday, while standing atop a mound of dirt with an excellent vantage point, I was beckoned to ringside while men demonstrated, it seemed, how their cock fighter was best, beckoning me to place money on their participant. I declined, and indicated I was there only to watch by making my thumbs and forefingers into rings, placing them around my eyes and pointing to the ring where the cocks would be released to fight. Across the ditch and road, my student colleagues and instructors drank Tuok (palm wine) and danced with the locals. Then I saw men tie three-inch shanks to the legs of their prized cocks, allow their respective fighters to peck at their opponents to warm them up for the fight, encircle the fighters and let them go, the circle shifting with the movements of the cocks, to leave a moving centre for them in which to fight. The fight was over when one bird was bloodied and incapacitated, though still alive. Then there were flared tempers, and bills changing hands among serious looking men, many likely not from Nehas, but from one or other of the surrounding trans-migrant villages, the “SPs”.

As a final note on this for now, for my part, I have more to learn about the nature of the villagers’ relationship with other animals, as there seem to be conflicting indications. And that may simply be the way it is: inconsistency among motivations for action is, I would bet, is not confined to the West.
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On another note, I’ve decided to change my resilience study project. Previously I was to work with Andrew to research the effects of government policies on land tenure and harvesting yields among the Nehas Liah Bing farming community. My part specifically was to look at rice yields. However, two days ago, when working on a sketch map of the village (there are no such maps in existence), I realized I had the makings of a more productive project in which I could map the village and roughly sketch surrounding areas, and see if there are correlations in the physical changes to the geographical/physical layout of the village and deforestation, trans-migration and palm plantations. So I ran it by Sheryl Gruber, a course instructor, who approved a change in project direction.

Now, after a meeting with Chris Djoka of the Nature Conservancy, I’ve obtained some very helpful background information that does suggest major changes in village layout occurred as a result of the deforestation in particular. For example, government policies assisted logging companies in forcing villagers to live only in the village with rice plots near or in the village, meaning villagers could not live outside on their rice plots seasonally. Also, landslides, possibly triggered by deforestation changed the locations of river tributaries through the village, and buried the apparent village centre, which is causing disputes today. Others possible connections will, I’m sure, become more evident as I continue my research. To counter this, however, today I learned that landslides in the 1940s or 50s, predating deforestation, triggered a substantial change to the village configuration.

Also, I may not have mentioned earlier that my ethno-ecological study is now about documenting food-gathering songs from villagers. So, between the two projects, I have a ton of work ahead, as do we all. Many interviews and information organization to be done.