Fataluku Living Landscapes

Abstract

In his magico-realist depictions of life and times in East Timor during the 1960s, Luís Cardoso writes about sharks as transmuted forms of ancestors: ‘No one from the island was ever lost. Sometimes they lived in the sea, sometimes on the land. These cycles demanded their due if they were to continue’ (2000:21). In a variety of evocative encounters, Cardoso draws attention to certain Timorese cultural notions of attachment and agency in relation to land and its living forms that are constituted in terms of spiritual and moral authority. Reminiscing about his own father’s connection to revered freedom fighter Xanana Gusmão, for example, Cardoso writes: My father never mentioned his name. He was afraid that saying it might break the charm. This was what he had always done. When he traversed rivers, he did not call out the name of the creature that lived there, the crocodile. When he crossed the sea, he never invoked the name of the master of the coral-rich waters, the shark. He thought he was still in the middle of a long crossing, that men needed a rai-nain or lord of the earth to watch over their paths. (2000:148; my emphasis) Across Timor, engagement with the emplaced ‘spirit’ realm is an enduring cultural value. It forms an important component of customary landownership and connections to land among the dispersed rural populations who rely on the blessings and providence of the natural environment to secure their livelihoods. Cardoso’s reference to the rai nain—the ‘lord of the earth’—speaks to this cultural orientation and provides a starting point for understanding the nature of Timorese customary land relationships.