Pests, Pestilence, and People: The Long-Tailed Macaque and Its Role in the Cultural Complexities of Bali

Abstract

Bali’s unique religious tradition established the foundations of a system of island-wide rice agriculture that is organized around interconnected water temples, known as subaks (Lansing 2007). This temple-oriented rice agricultural system was well established at the time of the Dutch Colonization of Indonesia, approximately 500 years ago, and has remained relatively stable since that time with subaks and traditional rice agriculture practices enjoying renewed success within the last 30 years since Indonesia’s Green Revolution (Wheatley 1999; Lansing 2007). Historically, the island’s temples have effectively governed and coordinated the timing of planting, irrigating, and harvesting rice, preventing water shortages and disease outbreaks in doing so. As the site for religious, agricultural, and cultural events, the temple system acts as the cohesive and organizing power for whole villages. It is this interwoven framework of temples, rice fields, villages, and associated forest patches that forms the complex cultural and physical landscape in which Balinese long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) exist (Fuentes et al. 2005).

Bali macaques and their close association with humans have intrigued biologists, anthropologists, ecologists, and artists since the beginning of the twentieth century (Wheatley 1999). Early anthropological work focused largely on macaque behavior and the interconnectedness of macaques in the traditional workings of the Balinese culture. The multifaceted and intimate nature of the human-macaque relationship on Bali has led researchers now to take a more interdisciplinary approach and consider religion, culture, and biology simultaneously to provide additional insights into important issues that arise uniquely at the intersection between these two species. Current research on macaques in Bali includes work on behavior, human-macaque interactions, population genetics, reproductive and dietary endocrinology, obesity, the role of macaques in the human social context of the Balinese, and most recently pathogens and infectious diseases (Fuentes 2006; Fuentes et al. 2005; Jones-Engel et al. 2005; Lane et al. in review a, b; Wandia 2007).