Spirit Money

In Chinese ancestor worship, spirit money, or joss paper, is burned as an offering to ensure that the deceased is well taken care of in the afterworld. The image above is from a wall installation by Beili Liu currently on display at the Castle Gallery of The College of New Rochelle.  The work is made from hundreds of rolls of spirit money, half of them silver and gold, the other half blackened by burning.  A beautiful and compelling piece of art. [NOTE: Origin: Chinese spirit money, 7.5 ft x 7.5 ft x 3 in, © Beili Liu 2008; from Mapping Memories, installation art by Takafumi Ide and Beili Liu, Castle Gallery, CNR, December 8, 2009 - February 21, 2010].

On the Loose

This from the Kebun Binatang (zoo) in Pontianak.  On one of our Sunday visits in the early 1990's, we noticed that a baby oranghutan (Pongo pygmaeus) had gotten out of the cage and was gleefully running around the grounds - and getting a lot of handouts from the visitors. [NOTE: The zoo in Pontianak never had enough money to operate, and several zoo animals (e.g. a sun bear, Helarctus malayanus) actually starved to death during my time in West Kalimantan.  Maybe letting the animals out of the cages to interface with the public was a strategy for getting them fed (sigh).]  

Fearless

"Any way that you could climb up there and get a couple of branches with flowers?"

Villagers that have grown up in the forest can be creative and fearless tree climbers. And this is free-climbing, i.e. with no ropes, belts, or back-ups. A quick scan of the Dipterocarpus tree revealed that it was covered with flowers.  And this species is a mast fruiter that only flowers and fruits every couple of years.  So I posed the question to my local assistant.  The image below shows him sizing up the tree and making a quick decision about the costs (to him) and the benefits (to me) of climbing it.

He decided to try it.  The image below shows him about 15 m up the tree, carefully climbing the lianas and dangling a long collecting pole that he has tied around his waist. Goes without saying, but these guys are fearless. [NOTE: The climb was a complete success and we got some beautiful specimens of Dipterocarpus oblongifolius Blume. The climber is a Dayak; the tree is one of several conspecifics growing in lowland forest in the Sanggau district of West Kalimantan].

Full disclosure: The actual question, posed in my halting Bahasa, was undoubtedly simply "bisa?" (Can you do it?).

On the Road to Sungai Kakap

You drive by this wonderful little house on the way to Sungai Kakap, a coastal Banjarese village south of Pontianak in West Kalimantan. I was usually driving by this house on my way to: 1) help with fieldwork on peat swamp agroforestry systems (see String of Pearls and Peat Farmer), or 2) eat delicious seafood on Sunday at the restaurant in Sungai Kakap. [NOTE: Elysa was doing the research in the peat swamps; I usually paid for the meal].  

Ledesmo Does Lunch

When I was working in the flooded forests of the Rio Ucayali in the mid-1980's (see Umberto Pacaya and Grias Predated), lunch in the field would usually involve fariña (the coarse, toasted meal of cassava), several (large) spoonfuls of sugar, and enough water from the river to get the mixture to the right consistency. Known in Brazil and Peru as "xibe", this simple, midday carbohydrate fix is eaten throughout lowland Amazonia. You mix the whole thing up in the plastic bowl that you brought to the field specifically for this purpose - or you just use your hardhat - and carve a little spoon out of a piece of wood. Ledesmo, one of the field assistants, demonstrates the proper technique for slurping down xibe in the image above. [NOTE: Bunch of things to notice in this photo: the bags of fariña and sugar in the bottom of the boat, the collecting pole (see Herbarium Specimens), the beautiful paddle carved from remo caspi (Aspidosperma excelsum Benth.). Christine and Miguel helped with the spelling of "xibe" - or maybe "xibê" (thx, guys)].

Overnight Boat to Jenaro

The overnight boat from Iquitos to Jenaro Herrera (see Jenaro Herrera) would frequently be extremely crowded. And once all of the places to tie your hammock were taken, people would start laying out their blankets and towels on the floor under the hammocks.  I remember on one particularly crowded trip I had a mother and small baby sleeping directly under me.  I was so worried that my hammock would come untied that I never got to sleep. And crawling through this chaos to get to the bathroom (the little louvered door shown in the background)...

[NOTE: The boat that I usually took, Ferry's, was owned and operated by - you are not going to believe this - Noé, or Noah, Ferry. And Elysa (see Aurelio y Luz and Chota Family) and I were such regular, faithful customers that they gave us a beautiful bouquet of plastic flowers as a wedding present.]

Climbing Trees

There are several different ways to harvest fruits from tropical trees. You can pick them up after they fall from the tree, you can knock them out of the tree with a long stick, you can climb the tree and collect them - or, as happens with disturbing frequency these days, you can cut the whole tree down.  The last practice is particular common with palms that have large infructescences, or are extremely tall, or have spiny stems that you don't want to climb. Collectors in Brazil have developed a wonderful piece of equipment (shown above) - consisting of a wooden triangle made from poles and a rope belt - for climbing spiny peach palm trees (Bactris gasipaes H.B.K.).  Truly a win-win solution for sustainable resource use. The collector gets the fruits, and the tree gets the opportunity to fruit again next year. [NOTE: Those are peach palm fruits in the foreground].

Kitchen Wall

This is the wall of the kitchen where we had breakfast every morning in Chimalacatlán, Morelos. I was in Chimalacatlán with Silvia Purata (see Alebrijes) looking at the extraction and processing of resin from several species of Bursera trees. Rode burros up and down the mountains behind the village through tropical dry forest, explored some caves, climbed up pyramids - and had delicious breakfasts. Great trip. [thx, Silvia].

Amitābha Buddha

This fine statue of Amitābha Buddha is from Japan during the Kamakura period (1185-1333). Although a time of great violence and political discord, Buddhism flourished in Japan during the Kamakura. Amitābha, or "infinite light", is the principal Buddha of the Pure Land, or Jōdo Shū sect, one of several schools of Buddhism that came to prominence during this period. Sōtō Zen, founded by Eihei Dogen, was also a product of the Kamakura period. [NOTE: Statue is from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; wood with gold leaf, ca. 1250].  

Shortwing Camp

Rather than walking back to Shinlonga every night, we decided to make a basecamp (see Room With a View) on the bank of the Mawning River near the village management area (see The Last Stake).  We called it "Shortwing Camp" in honor of the Rusty-bellied Shortwing (Brachypteryx hyperythra), a somewhat rare little bird that Rob Tizzard had been hearing constantly for several days but had been unable to photograph. [NOTE: Rob finally got a picture of it].