Updates and notes

I have been unfairly absent from writing of late. This is due to my currently having to rise at ungodly hours to go to work, leaving me, on my days off, rather exhausted. If only we could all say with Bertie Wooster when asked about his employment status: ‘I know a few chaps who work- absolutely swear by it, some of them.’

In any case, my next article, concerning West Java and its great city, Jakarta, will be posted hopefully within a few days

In the news recently has been the discovery of very ancient cave art on the island of Sulawesi, where I have spent a lot of time over the last few years. This and other evidence seems to push back the date of human arrival in SE Asia to nearly 70,000 years ago, and possibly earlier, contradicting recent genetic studies that suggest a sudden movement of people out of Africa at a more recent date. In any case, the history of Indonesia is very old, especially compared with that of modern America.

The rolling hills of Sulawesi have been inhabited by humanity for possibly as long as 70,000 years. Think of how many times you could fit the entire history of ‘Western Civilization’, from Hammurabi to AI, into that stretch of time. Rurukan, North Sulawesi Province. Photo by the author.

Indeed, when Europe and north America were largely under ice, life went on in the jungles of southeast Asia as it ever had- with the exception that much of what is today western Indonesia was connected with the Asian mainland. Many of the islands have over millions of years developed unique species of animals and plants. As an example, a small, shiny weevil is common at high elevations on Sulawesi (but, interesting, not in the much hotter lowlands). On Bali I found a different though related species occupying a similar niche in similar habitats:

Weevils (tribe Celeuthini) from Sulawesi (above) and Bali (below). These islands belong to different biogeographic regions. Photos by the author.

Mountains and islands in general tend to promote speciation, and are particularly fragile habitats due to the high number of endemic species inhabiting a small area. All the world’s great mountain ranges- the Alps, the Andes, the Himalaya harbor their own unique species, particularly of plants and insects. Even here in the Pacific Northwest, where much of the land was buried under glaciers during the last ice age, the high peaks of the Cascades are home to insects found nowhere else on earth; several species of beetle have been found only on the slopes of Mount Rainier and the surrounding hills. It is possible that these insects are ‘glacial relicts’, formerly widespread during the ice age, and now restricted to a few locations around high peaks.

The quietness of rural America and its neighborhoods is hard to get used to after being in the tropics. It is indeed something of a shock. The northern woods fall silent in winter, but nothing is ever quiet in the jungle- it is an endless cacophony of birdsong and cicadas. Even if something briefly startles the screeching insects, there isn’t silence; there is the eerie whisper of wind in the bamboo thickets, nameless sounds of movement in the undergrowth. And unless you are really isolated, there is the sound of people. A rooster crowing, music from a tinny radio, the ubiquitous whine of scooters and dirt bikes valiantly struggling up ungraded mountain roads. There is no quiet in the village, either. Someone is always stopping by to borrow something, or to collect money for something, or just to sit on the porch and sip coffee and talk, invited or not. Our neighbor, a retired tailor, would sit and tell me about his life- his soldier father, his German great-grandfather- or ask me questions about world affairs- Israel, Russia, and whether or not Obama was in fact Indonesian (he looks so much like Joko Widodo, after all…). It can be a bit tiring at times, to never be left alone, but it also reminds one that there really is such a thing as humanity, of which one can be glad to be a small part.

In this dark and dreary season, between winter and the wet Washington spring, before the growth of green leaves and flowers, it is good to remember a place where it is ever warm and green. O for a beaker full of the warm south, says Keats, and here I have to agree with him. As they say in Minahasa, ‘long life and good health’:

pakatuan wo pakalawiren

A fruit stand selling various kinds of bananas by the roadside between Manado and Tomohon, North Sulawesi. Bananas originated in this part of the world and are eaten daily in as many different ways as you could imagine. Photo by the author.