The Lucretius Plan

A visit from Mary

For the Catholics of Flores, October is 'Mary Month', apparently (Why am I writing this instead of Beth?). In our neighbourhood that means an icon of Mary is carried around from house to house, each home hosting the icon for one night. Every evening a prayer meeting is held at the host house, and at the end of October it was our turn.

Apparently, we are so honoured because of Beth's Catholicism, which she had to disclose to the police when we first registered ourselves in Maumere (in Indonesia you are compelled to be one of the five religions), and so everyone knows about it. They have chosen to overlook my more dubious religious credentials (No one knew what 'Jedi' meant), and in any case most religious stuff here is carried out by the women, while the men do more important things, such as sit around smoking or pretend to mend their motorbikes.

About an hour after nightfall, a procession of locals (mainly children) appeared at our house, each dragging a ubiquitous Indonesian standard-issue plastic chair. They set up camp in our front yard, and I dispensed biscuits and peanuts, all of which were scoffed up with rather unseemly haste. I was then told by our neighbour that you are not allowed to eat until after the prayers to Maria, so I snatched all the plates of treats back from the kids, to their chagrin.

The service was about forty minutes long, and was mainly singing, which is something that everyone enjoys here. I still have no idea why we were all standing in our garden singing at a picture of Mary, but perhaps my quest for a rational explanation shows how I continue to miss the point of these things.

After the ceremony, I was allowed to get the biscuits back out, which lasted about ten seconds. Many of the people who came are very poor indeed, and biscuits are a rare luxury. One of the old men asked Beth where the cigarettes were, as apparently it is 'traditional' for the men to be given cigarettes after any religious ceremony, and indeed, it was the only reason he had come. It is amazing how many 'traditions' in Flores, apparently stretching back hundreds of years, seem to revolve around cigarettes or arrak. We explained that we did not have any cigarettes, and he implored us to run down the shop and buy some, until his wife slapped him for being so cheeky to the white folk.

I offered him peanuts by way of compensation, but he laughed, showing us the absence of any teeth in his mouth, and explained that he can no longer eat peanuts, but that cigarettes are his only pleasure now, and with this he picked up his plastic chair and shuffled back to his house, which is all of fifty metres away. Beth and I decided that the time has come to stock up on cigarettes, and dispense them liberally to the locals, even if that seems to rub against our mission to improve health and livelihoods. Afterall, you can't argue with tradition.

Welcome to the Shire

We are indebted to Pete Hiscocks for alerting us to this story about a new species of human (dubbed a 'hobbit') found on Flores, of all places. More info can be found at:

nature magazine

It is certainly interesting that a place that has such a strong tradition of 'adat' (traditional animist beliefs), and cultural stories that include the agency of little people, should now be proved to be more than just a myth.

The skeleton was found to the west of us, in Manggarai province (they are all a bit odd in Manggarai), so not exactly on our doorstep, but we will try to do some more research and report back any stories. The most fascinating thing is that the article in Nature magazine proposes that these 'hobbits' may have been alive in Flores until as recently as 100 years ago, and in fact may indeed still be with us.

We have seen plenty of orcs, but no hobbits yet.

Placating the volcano

So far, we have heard several stories about our friendly neighbourhood active volcano. Many locals believe that the only way to stop the eruptions is to sacrifice a young virgin, or even a baby, by throwing them into the turbulent crater. Recently, while we were staying at Ankermie, the kitchen girls did not want to return home after dark, as they were genuinely terrified that they would be kidnapped by one of the groups of men and thrown down the crater.

It is hard to tell if this is a genuine risk, but the important thing is that everyone (particularly young virgins) believes it, so it becomes fact. One of the ladies in my office, an educated woman, tells me quite sincerely that seven girls have already been sacrificed this year in order to quell the volcano.

My favourite theory is that a man in Waigete (the village closest to the volcano) was chosen to watch the volcano and alert the populus if an evacuation was required. Apparently this is a traditional and quasi-religious post, (these people may be Catholic according to the authorities, but in reality they are animist). This man (it is alleged) made his own daughter pregnant in January this year (incest and child abuse is, sadly, fairly common in the remote villages). At the moment of conception, Egon erupted to show its anger, and has continued to erupt ever since, despite having been quiet since 1907. The girl is now over nine months pregnant, which is why the eruptions are getting worse, as Egon is increasingly agitated by the violation.

So far, this sounds like a morality tale we could recognise in the UK: the natural order of things disrupted by an unnatural act. Think of the night Macbeth murdered Duncan, with horses going mad, storms ruining the land and birds of prey killed by sparrows, the whole ecosystem inverted by peversity. However, the proposed cure is perhaps less recognisable. When this poor girl gives birth, the plan is to cast the baby into the crater, and the belief is that this will silence the mountain.

To try and prevent this, we are running interference, and telling everyone that the reason for the eruption is quite simple to explain: the bomb fishing has disturbed the tectonic plates and thus pushed Egon into activity. Stop the bomb fishing and Egon will be silent. It may sound like junk science (it is), but it's the best white lie I have told in a long time.

Mus be some udder rabbit

Is it time for Brer Rabbit to save the world?

I am reading 'The Adventure of English' by Melvyn Bragg , which is very nourishing, and have come across a chapter which has re-introduced me to the wonder of Brer Rabbit.

When I was a child, my father introduced me to the Brer Rabbit stories, which are the best example of 19th Century southern black language, a mixture of Pidgin, Gullah and English, with an interesting grammar and word order. I recall my father trying to find a version of the stories in the vernacular, as all the books in UK bookshops seemed to have been translated into standard English, removing much of their charm. The stories tell of a rabbit who is cunning, witty and inventive, and descend directly from the stories of animal tricksters who featured in Animal folklore. As a child, I remember thinking these were a lot more exciting than Beatrix Potter.

The stories are told in the language of the slaves, which principally came from Gullah, a conglomorate of several African languages combined with English. Common words from Gullah include 'banana, voodoo, zebra, banjo, yam and gumbo.

The Brer Rabbit stories were narrated by a character called Uncle Remus, but in reality as told by Joel Chandler Harris and Charles C. Jones, Jr. Here is the exceprt that Melvyn Bragg uses in his book:

(To help you read this, imagine you are in the deep south, sitting out on the veranda, perhaps with a blues guitar in your lap.)

"Buh Wolf and Buh Rabbit, dem bin nabur. De dry drout come. Ebry ting stew up. Water scarce. Buh Wolf dig one spring fuh git water. Buh Rabbit, him too lazy an too schemy fuh wuk fuh isself. Eh pen pon lib off tarruh people. Ebry day, wen Buh Wolf yent du watch um, eh slip to Buh Wolf spring, an eh fill him calabash long water an cah um to eh house fuh cook long and fuh drink,. Buh Wolf see Buh Rabbit track, but eh couldn't ketch um duh tief de water.
One day eh meet Buh Rabbit in de big road, an ax um how eh mek out fuh water. Buh Rabbit say him no casion fuh hunt water: him lib off de jew on de grass. Buh Wolf quire: 'Enty you blan tek water outer my spring?' Buh Rabbit say: 'Me yent.' Buh Wolf say: 'You yis, enty me see you track?' Buh Rabbit mek answer: 'Yent me gwine to you spring. Mus be some udder rabbit. Me nebber been nigh you spring. Me dunno way you spring day.' Buh Wolf no question um no more; but eh know say eh bin Buh Rabbit fuh true, an eh fix plan fuh ketch um."

The stories have a controversial history, and the fact they were collected (some say appropriated) by a white man made some feel that the 'ling' of the plantations was being cleaned up and absorbed by mainstream white culture, at the expense of the black culture from where they came. This may be so, but the fact remains that this oral tradition may never have survived to this day if it had not been collated by somebody, and the colour of the collector should 'relly mek no dif'rence.'

That said, Disney did not cover themselves in glory when they made they made 'Song of the South', which was a rendering of the Brer Rabbit stories set in some kind of mythical age when black people toiled in the plantations for free (but not as slaves, apparently). Uncle Remus was played by James Baskett, a Black man, who was the very first live actor ever hired by Disney. Allegedly, though, Baskett was unable to attend the film's premiere in Atlanta because no hotel would give him a room. Read more on the Brer Rabbit controversy at:

http://www.mupress.org/webpages/books/brasch.html
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/sots.htm

It seems extraordinary that in all the horror and inhumanity of slavery, one of the worst atrocities committed in modern history, came these stories of wit and humour, telling the tale of a protagonist beating the odds and always coming out on top.

Incidentally, I read this week that a council in the UK has instructed officials that the word 'nitty gritty' should not be used as it may give offence to black people. 'nitty gritty', it has been claimed, originated as a term for the grit that accumulated in the bilges of slave ships. However, many dispute this, and the word may have been a long-standing naval term.

The Ku Klux Klan gave English the word 'Bulldozer', originally 'bull-dose', meaning a dose large enough for a bull. It was a dose of whipping administered to black people, often fatally.

On balance, I may stop using the word 'bulldozer', but I am going to keep reading Brer Rabbit.