Of names chosen for unclean animals in a translation of the Old Testament in the Kambera language of eastern Sumba, most are Kambera names for animals corresponding closely to kinds specified in the original Hebrew. The main exception is the four unclean “beasts” of Lev 11.4-7 and Deut 14.7-8, of which only the pig is designated with a Kambera term. Naming the other three are adaptations of names used in the Indonesian Bible of 1974. Two designate the camel and the hare, while the rock hyrax is replaced by a quite different animal. But both translations exhibit a discrepancy between Leviticus and Deuteronomy, for replacing the hyrax in Leviticus is the mouse deer ( Tragulus spp.), and in Deuteronomy the marmot. This deployment of the mouse deer is further inconsistent with an earlier Malay translation (Klinkert 1879), where it is listed as clean and permitted. The paper explores the possible origins of these discrepancies.

Context Apart from Komodo and other small islands to the east, Varanus komodoensis is found near the western extremity of Flores Island and along the island's north coast. How far east along this coast the species extends remains a question.Aims Ethnographic research undertaken in 2008 resulted in reports of Komodo dragons in the region of Nggolo Nio in north-central Flores Island. In 2018 and 2024, I returned to this region to collect further information on local knowledge and survival of the lizards.Methods Open-ended and directed questioning of informants was conducted in the national language, Bahasa Indonesia.Key results Eleven men and three women had observed V. komodoensis locally and provided descriptions of the lizards. The most recent sightings occurred during the last 5-10 years. Repeated sightings of a specimen that, unusually, had entered a settlement in the western part of the Nggolo Nio region occurred in 2017. This was observed by eight interviewees, including the three women. The species was described with reference to size, colour, vocalisation, diet, behaviour, habitat and relations with humans. All reports focused partly on differences between V. komodoensis and the smaller species Varanus salvator.Conclusions All accounts indicated that the same species was being described and that V. komodoensis survives in Nggolo Nio territory, though in small numbers that villagers stated had declined over the past two to three decades. Though ambiguous, the findings of camera trapping by herpetological researchers in 2014-2019 lend some support to these local claims.Implications The study shows how local knowledge of and attitudes toward rare animals can complement zoological study and contribute to conservation efforts.

Numbering no more than 200,000 speakers, Kambera, the language of the eastern region of the island of Sumba, is one of the few minority languages of Indonesia that has been provided with a translation of the Old Testament. The special interest of this paper concerns the translation of animal names in Kambera and more particularly the names of the unclean birds named in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Through a detailed review of the Kambera names selected and with reference to the available ethno-ornithological literature, an interpretation is offered of the strategies apparently followed by the translators, largely with reference to the general approaches known as “dynamic” and “formal” equivalence. Consideration is further given to the apparent influence of translations in Indonesian, Dutch, and other European languages and to apparent lacunae in their knowledge of local avifauna and bird nomenclature.

The ancestors of the dingo were brought to mainland Australia around 4000 years ago by people who arrived by boat. The identity of these voyagers from the north, however, and the nature of their interactions with the Aboriginal population of Australia, are unknown. Here, we propose that Indigenous flood narratives from the Kimberley contain evidence for contact between Aboriginal people and early Asian seafarers in the form of the "thunder complex". The latter is a very specific repertoire of taboos, rituals and stories that occurs widely among ethnographically known societies of Indonesia, the Philippines and peninsular Malaysia, but has not previously been identified in Australia. Among Southeast Asian groups, this cultural complex revolves around the idea that certain prohibited acts perpetrated against animals - especially "mocking" them by treating them as though they were human - precipitate a punitive storm and/or flooding. We show that in some oral traditions of the Kimberley region animal mockery is similarly held to be the causative agent behind disastrous flooding events that took place in the past creationary epoch. We contend that this localised Aboriginal variant of the thunder complex reflects an episode of close interaction with early Austronesian-speaking voyagers who introduced ancestral dingoes to mainland Australia, apparently via the Kimberley coast. Les anc & ecirc;tres du dingo ont & eacute;t & eacute; amen & eacute;s en Australie continentale il y a environ 4000 ans par des personnes arriv & eacute;es par bateau. L'identit & eacute; de ces voyageurs venus du nord, ainsi que la nature de leurs interactions avec la population Aborig & egrave;ne d'Australie, sont cependant inconnues. Nous proposons ici que les r & eacute;cits autochtones sur les inondations du Kimberley contiennent des preuves de contacts entre les peuples autochtones et les premiers marins asiatiques sous la forme du << complexe du orage >>. Ce dernier est un r & eacute;pertoire tr & egrave;s sp & eacute;cifique de tabous, de rituels et d'histoires largement r & eacute;pandu dans les soci & eacute;t & eacute;s ethnographiquement connues d'Indon & eacute;sie, des Philippines et de la p & eacute;ninsule malaisienne, mais qui n'a pas encore & eacute;t & eacute; identifi & eacute; en Australie. Parmi les groupes d'Asie du Sud-Est, ce complexe culturel s'articule autour de l'id & eacute;e que certains actes interdits perp & eacute;tr & eacute;s contre les animaux - notamment << se moquer >> d'eux en les traitant comme s'ils & eacute;taient des humains - pr & eacute;cipitent une temp & ecirc;te punitive et/ou des inondations. Nous montrons que dans certaines traditions orales de la r & eacute;gion de Kimberley, la moquerie animale est & eacute;galement consid & eacute;r & eacute;e comme l'agent causal des inondations d & eacute;sastreuses qui ont eu lieu au cours de l'& eacute;poque de cr & eacute;ation pass & eacute;e. Nous soutenons que cette variante aborig & egrave;ne localis & eacute;e du complexe du orage refl & egrave;te un & eacute;pisode d'interaction & eacute;troite avec les premiers voyageurs de langue Austron & eacute;sienne qui ont introduit des dingos ancestraux en Australie continentale, apparemment via la c & ocirc;te du Kimberley.

Found in many parts of insular Southeast Asia and the adjacent mainland, a widespread complex of taboos concerns actions that are believed to result in a disastrous storm and, sometimes, petrification of offenders. The most typical offenses involve somehow mocking non-human animals, or in a few cases plants or trees. One aim of the paper is to isolate, as a distinct component of this complex, a series of myths that describe how acts of animal mockery resulted in the formation of lakes or other permanent features of local landscapes. There follows a detailed discussion of resemblances between these origin stories and several African origin of death myths that feature people mocking non-humans by giving them human funerals. The variety of societies that express disapproval of animal mockery then facilitates assessment of recent ontological pluralist theory, according to which cultures differ radically in how they conceive of human-animal relations.

This article explores the possibility that Homo sapiens may not be the only surviving species of the Homo genus. The study is sparked by the discovery of Homo floresiensis, a small-bodied hominin found in Indonesia, and its resemblance to 'ape-men' described by local people on Flores Island. Through extensive ethnographic research in the Lio region of Flores, the author finds that local accounts of these 'ape-men' pre-date scientific discovery and closely align with it. The article challenges the scientific community's scepticism towards local folklore as credible evidence, citing instances where local knowledge has historically preceded scientific discovery. The author argues that the most straightforward explanation for the convergence of local accounts and fossil evidence is the continued existence of a species closely related to Homo floresiensis. The study calls for re-evaluating what constitutes evidence and opens the possibility that we may not be the only surviving hominins.

Languages that divide the five conventional senses into two named categories, one including vision and the other all non-visual senses, occur sporadically around the world. Focusing on Ngadha-Lio, a group of Malayo-Polynesian languages spoken on Flores Island (eastern Indonesia), the present discussion reaches several conclusions. First, Ngadha-Lio speakers have special terms and other verbal means of distinguishing the several non-visual senses. This contradicts the idea that languages with two main sensory categories recognize just two senses, as does evidence for hearing being the prototype of the non-visual senses. Drawing on animal naming and metaphor in one Ngadha-Lio language, Nage, it is further shown how speakers place the greatest value on vision in distinguishing different kinds of animals and connecting these with humans. This applies even though in ritual and myth Nage make greater use of smell, touch, and taste than Westerners typically do. Vision also unites animals and humans while distinguishing both from invisible spiritual beings, detectible only through non-visual senses, thus revealing the role different senses play in delineating major ontological categories. Finally, attention is given to the way Ngadha-Lio, like other Malayo-Polynesian languages, verbally identify physical and emotional feeling with the non-visual senses, and particularly touch.

In several publications J. H. Brunvand has discussed an ‘urban legend’ labelled ‘the baby roast’. While treating this as an American tale current in the 1970s that spread to urban locations in Europe and elsewhere, Brunvand also mentions much older Malayo-Polynesian narratives from the South Pacific exhibiting the same theme—a child-minder mistaking an infant for food and cooking it. Yet he reaches no conclusion on whether this remarkable resemblance reveals ‘cross-cultural borrowing’ or ‘independent invention’. Analysing the Pacific stories and drawing on Malayo-Polynesian narratives from Indonesia recorded by the present author, this article demonstrates that the best explanation is independent development. The article further shows how stories concerning the accidental cooking and sometimes consumption of young children reflect pan-human concerns about the possibility of cannibalism and the attribution of consuming human flesh to people implicitly regarded as inhuman or, in the Indonesian stories, to characters who subsequently transform into non-human animals.

ESSAY / UNCANNY VALLEYOn Flores Island, Do “Ape-Men” Still Exist?Islanders have long claimed ape-like humans, remarkably similar to the fossil species Homo floresiensis, survive in secluded forests of Indonesia. An anthropologist investigates why.By GREGORY FORTH26 APR 2023Lio community member Noko looks at a distant spot where he claims he and a cousin once saw the Flores Island ape-man.Gregory ForthExcerpted from Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid by Gregory Forth. Pegasus Books, 2022. All rights reserved.✽DURING ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELDWORK on the Indonesian island of Flores between 1984 and 2003, I recorded local accounts of small-bodied, ape-like humans who reportedly lived on the island. When the discovery of the fossil hominin Homo floresiensis was announced in 2004, I was taken aback by the remarkable resemblance between the locally described “ape-men” and paleoanthropological reconstructions of the late Pleistocene fossils. Exploring how this correspondence might be explained, I continued my investigations during 10 subsequent field trips between 2005 and 2018. The result is my 2022 book. The following excerpted essay is from the book’s first chapter.In the far reaches of the Indonesian archipelago lies Flores Island, a long, narrow land of high mountains, precipitous cliffs, and deep ravines. The island is home to some remarkable creatures, including the Flores giant rat, a tree-dwelling beast that can grow 70 centimeters nose-to-tail. Also found on Flores is the world’s largest lizard, the Komodo dragon, a venomous carnivore that can attain a length of more than 3 meters.In ancient times, Flores Island once had the now-extinct pygmy Stegodon, elephant-like creatures no larger than a cow. But my concern is with an even more remarkable and even less expected animal—or perhaps two animals of very similar kinds.The meter-tall Homo floresiensis (front) lived at the same time as early Homo sapiens (left) and Homo neanderthalensis (right).Robert Deyrail/Gamma-Rapho/Getty ImagesOne is an extremely small-bodied fossil human named Homo floresiensis, known from remains found in 2003 at Liang Bua in western Flores. Standing little more than a meter tall—the height of a 2–3-year-old child—the tiny species quickly became nicknamed “the hobbit,” after the J.R.R. Tolkien characters.Paleoanthropologists described the hobbit’s skeletal features as “archaic,” comparable in some ways to australopiths who lived 2–4 million years ago. Yet H. floresiensis lived as recently as 50,000 years ago.The other humanlike creature, which for convenience I call “ape-man,” has yet to be scientifically identified. [1] But one group that populates Flores Island, a people called Lio, claims these creatures are alive—if not well—in isolated sections of their mountainous territory.✽IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE, the Lio name these ape-men lai ho’a. They describe them as small—in fact, about the same size as H. floresiensis—upright walking and hairy. Individual Lio offer credible accounts of lai ho’a they have seen, including eyewitness encounters dating from the 1960s to the 2010s.Archaeological dates suggest H. floresiensis had been living on the island since around 100,000 years ago. The species’ ancestors may have arrived much earlier. But because dates are available only from a single site, when H. floresiensis disappeared—or even if it disappeared—is not known.There’s reason to believe Flores Island ape-men could be present-day descendants of H. floresiensis. If so, it could mean that this species still shares Flores Island with modern humans. On the other hand, the humanlike creatures Lio speak of could be purely imaginary. Which solution is best supported by the evidence is what interests me.✽LIVING SOME 300–400 KILOMETERS east of the site where H. floresiensis was discovered, Lio occupy one of the island’s most mountainous regions—rugged country by any standard.Not long ago, Lio people mainly practiced slash-and-burn (or swidden) cultivation. In highland gardens carved out of mountain forests, they planted maize, rice, millet, and other cereals, and a variety of vegetables and tubers. In the 1930s and 1940s, part of the population began cultivating rice in permanent irrigated fields located in lower-lying places. About the same time, some Lio also abandoned highland villages to build settlements nearer to paddy fields.Today many Lio reside in villages near irrigated rice paddies that they farm.Hermes Images/AGF/Universal Images Group/Getty ImagesEven so, many farmers still plant highland gardens and reside at higher elevations, often a considerable distance from roads and other modern institutions. During the 20th-century, Lio forests shrank due to human activities. Yet the highest mountains remain covered in jungle. It is mainly in these regions that the Lio say people, very occasionally, encounter ape-men.✽THE FLORES ISLAND ape-man is a figure I’ve reconstructed from the statements of numerous Lio people.I’ve never seen an ape-man, and partly for this reason some readers may want to dismiss any resemblance between these creatures and apparently long-extinct hominins as mere coincidence. One purpose of my research is to question such dismissal.I can immediately discount the possibility that the ape-man simply reflects local familiarity with the scientific discovery and reconstruction of H. floresiensis. I was lucky. I first recorded physical descriptions of the Lio ape-man in July 2003. That was over two months before paleoanthropologists came across the remains of H. floresiensis in September of 2003 and well over a year before the discovery was announced to the public. Even after that time, very few Flores Islanders learned much about the discovery.This doesn’t mean ape-men exist as flesh-and-blood creatures—as opposed to imaginary beings existing only in people’s minds. But actually demonstrating that ape-men are imaginary is no easy task. One might attempt to show that the thing’s existence contradicts the laws of physics or principles of biological evolution.To be sure, some Lio reports do defy basic science. Fantastic claims assert ape-men can “disappear” or even “fly.” Yet many Lio accounts adhere to a thoroughly naturalistic depiction. If such realistically represented things do not exist, there remains the question of why people think they do—indeed, why some give seemingly credible accounts of ape-man sightings.✽MY STUDIES ON Flores Island have been broadly ethnographic, meaning that I investigate how people organize their social and spiritual lives, what they believe, and what they consider valid knowledge. Like all ethnographers, I’ve pursued this research by living with local people over long periods of time and conversing with them in languages in which they are fluent.My first stint of fieldwork on Flores Island was in 1984. Since then, I’ve returned to Flores 19 times, typically spending two to three months in the field.As an anthropologist, I’m fully aware that verbal evidence of any kind can be fabricated, exaggerated, or simply mistaken. I’m mainly talking, of course, about statements by people who claim to have seen Flores Island ape-men.Yet one can evaluate putative sightings by considering the physical setting and people’s descriptions (do they sound like another animal—a monkey, say—or a tree stump or rock, or indeed, something dreamt?). One can also assess the personality, character, and social status of witnesses, including what interest they may have in representing something in a particular way.Some Lio, like ritual specialist Goda, might have personal or professional reasons for claiming to see ape-man.Gregory ForthFor this reason, I place less reliance on accounts by people of a supernatural bent, most notably dealers in magically powerful ape-men body parts or substances and “people of power” (ata bhisa) or “people of skill (or knowledge)” (ata mbe’o). [2] These people serve as spiritual healers, magicians, and sorcerers. They might have a personal—one might also say a professional—interest in claiming experience of things unfamiliar to others.The most valuable ape-men reports are those where two or more people claimed to have seen the same thing simultaneously; I recorded several such accounts. But even in these instances, all witnesses could have been mistaken or misremembered what they saw.How can I be sure anything I heard reflects a natural creature corresponding to a scientifically unknown species? The short answer is I can’t. Even so, several considerations reduce my uncertainty—and may do the same for readers.✽I BEGIN WITH DELIBERATE deception. Researchers can find dishonest individuals in any field setting. There are ways of identifying people, with reference to personal traits, social position, and interests, who are inclined to deceive or exaggerate (such as the aforementioned sorcerers).But there are also reasons to believe that much of what people tell any anthropologist is accurate—at least in people’s honest understanding. Most of what people said about Flores Island ape-men agreed with what others said. And where accounts diverged, it was usually possible to find a reason why.Also, deception and fabrication require effort. It’s far easier for people to tell the truth (as they see it) or simply say they don’t know—surely, the best way to get rid of a troublesome anthropologist. Not only that, fabrication requires a motive.Sometimes, people may tell mistruths to convey what they think an inquirer wants to hear. But it’s unclear why Lio might have thought I was soliciting naturalistic depictions of ape-men. It’s more likely that some people were inclined to stress supernatural aspects. For people knew I was also interested in such things as local spirits, witches, and magical beliefs and practices.Mistruths might be told to pull someone’s leg. A person in the U.S. or Canada might tell someone they’d seen Bigfoot to fool them. But this wouldn’t work among the Lio. For Lio regard their ape-men as real although rare animals, whose existence no one disputes. A North American parallel might be telling a person you’d seen, say, a wolverine, an animal even experienced outdoorspeople rarely encounter in the wild; even if the claim was false, it would hardly constitute leg-pulling.Lio were familiar with ape-men long before the arrival of missionaries or other agents of colonialism. What’s more, secondary-school curricula have little if anything to say about paleoanthropology or human evolution. So far as I could discover, textbooks—or, for that matter, any of the few books that are locally available—do not include illustrations of non–Homo sapiens human ancestors.Educated Florenese Catholics, including Indonesian priests, are openly critical of Darwinian evolution, and ordinary Lio villagers are barely aware of it. Their Indigenous cosmology contains nothing comparable to a view of present-day humans or animals having gradually evolved from physically different ancestors.There’s no reason to suppose that their view of Flores Island ape-men has in any way been shaped by the discovery of H. floresiensis. Having no stake in and little knowledge of paleoanthropology, Lio would have no reason to doubt that a small bipedal animal combining features of humans and apes could exist in their territory.✽FOR LIO, FLORES ISLAND ape-men are part of the local environment as much as any other rare creature, such as Komodo dragons. Unlike Bigfoot believers, no Lio ever goes looking for ape-men. Lio have no motive—financial, social, or otherwise—for finding an ape-man specimen. And because they are barely aware of outside scientific views—or any view that claims such creatures do not exist—they have no ideological interest in proving any “scientific establishment” wrong.Jata stands where she reportedly saw an ape-man cross a stream on Flores Island.Gregory ForthAs this should suggest, Lio are also less biased than scientists who reject the possibility of non–H. sapiens bipedal apes surviving to the present. Some academics and nonacademics dismiss any knowledge of the natural world that has not received the seal of scientific approval.But these skeptics should wonder why Lio think Flores Island ape-men exist. They ought to give the Lio people a fair hearing. I have, in part because of the arrestingly naturalistic way people describe lai ho’a.If accepted as plausible accounts of real creatures, what Lio say presents a challenge to biology and paleoanthropology. If not, another challenge arises: to explain why people subscribe to the empirical existence of entities with little or no basis in observable reality.Gregory ForthOpen Bio

On the eastern Indonesian island of Flores, the Lio and neighboring ethno-linguistic groups report rare encounters with freshwater turtles and giant land crabs. Though neither species has yet to be scientifically documented for Flores, local descriptions of these animals closely correspond to Cuora amboinensis, a species of box turtle found elsewhere in eastern Indonesia, and the Coconut crab, Birgus latro, the world's largest terrestrial arthropod. At the same time, Lio and other Florenese attribute supernatural powers to the creatures and identify both as embodiments of forest spirits. This paper shows how this dual ontological status is explicable by reference to features of Florenese cosmology and folk ecology, particularly the value islanders place on the opposition of "land" and "sea." According to academic zoology, the turtles and crabs are both terrestrial creatures. But because of their extreme rarity, and because Florenese are normally familiar only with marine turtles and marine and small land or freshwater crabs, they identify all turtles and crabs as, essentially, creatures of the sea. So on those rare occasions when someone sees a freshwater turtle or Coconut crab, typically far inland and often in mountain forests, their phenomenal occurrence is experienced as a radical and frightening contravention of the fundamental cosmological opposition of sea and land. Also facilitated by the species' rarity - locally understood as a quality of being normally invisible or hidden - encounters with both creatures, considered anomalous within the framework of folk zoogeography, are further experienced as dangerous manifestations of supernatural powers identical to those possessed by normally invisible forest spirits. Even so, there is one context in which the rare turtles and crabs are beneficial to humans - just as are the forest spirits themselves, a nice illustration of how otherwise negative supernatural power can contextually be turned to human use. The case thus raises questions concerning the ubiquitous anthropological trichotomy of "animal," "human," and "spirit" while demonstrating how people can conceive of creatures of particular sorts as participating in both categories simultaneously - indeed, in ways comparable to aspects of Christian theology.

Besides their namesake island and several immediately neighboring small islands, Komodo monitors (Varanus komodoensis )—better known as Komodo dragons—also occur on the larger island of Flores to the east. Apart from the extreme western part of Flores, the giant lizards occur along the island's northern coast; but how far eastward they extend remains a question. Early in the twentieth century, reports by local people described dragons as present in the northeast, while in 1985, officials of the Indonesian department of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation reported catching specimens of V. komodoensis in the vicinity of Cape Kotabaru in northeastern Flores. Camera trapping conducted between 2014 and 2019 by field zoologists failed to produce evidence of dragons in this region. Yet, during recent ethnographic research, the present author recorded reports of local people encountering specimens in Kotabaru. In view of locally recognized differences between Komodo dragons and the related, though much smaller, water monitor (Varanus salvator ), the present study discusses local knowledge of Komodo dragons among the Lio people of northeastern Flores as a prelude to reviewing local sighting reports, some from as recently as 2016 and 2017. With regard to mostly anthropogenic factors that would account for recent decline in dragon numbers throughout Flores Island, as well as features of the species that render it resilient to these, the paper concludes that a small number of dragons remain in the Kotabaru region, so that recent sighting reports are likely valid.

A Catholic priest and amateur palaeontologist, Father Theodor Verhoeven ( SVD ) is best known for his discovery of sites on Flores Island (Indonesia) that yielded fossilized remains of Middle Pleistocene stegodons and lithic materials suggesting early occupation by pre- sapiens hominins. Eventually, these finds influenced investigations that resulted in the discovery of Homo floresiensis in Liang Bua cave. Verhoeven’s earliest fieldwork, however, concerned other Florenese caves, where he found Late Holocene remains of small-bodied Homo sapiens which he identified as ‘negritos’ or ‘proto-negritos.’ In this article, I present new evidence revealing that Verhoeven believed negritos survived on Flores as discrete populations during his own time and, moreover, that one such negrito was a fellow Catholic priest. Though Verhoeven died 13 years before the discovery of floresiensis , his views on both prehistoric and living ‘negritos’ suggest that he would likely—though ultimately incorrectly—have interpreted both as descendants of floresiensis and earlier hominin contemporaries of Middle Pleistocene stegodons. The significance of Verhoeven’s palaeoanthropological and archaeological discoveries for subsequent, professional research illustrates one of the most remarkable collaborations between academics and amateurs in the history of anthropology.

ABSTRACTForty years ago Robert Blust published a comprehensive, comparative analysis of what he called the ‘thunder complex’. Found among linguistically and culturally diverse populations in the Philippines, Indonesia, and peninsular Malaysia, the complex comprises a series of taboos and rites that centre on a belief that certain actions involving a confusion of categories will bring about a punitive storm and the death of offenders in resulting floods, landslides, or lightning strikes. The most typical and widespread of such taboos concern making fun of animals—for example, by dressing them in human clothes, talking to them, or otherwise making them appear ridiculous and so causing people to laugh. The present paper has three objectives. First, I identify a series of rituals performed by adherents of the complex that involve deliberately breaking taboos on animal mockery in order to produce needed rain. Secondly, I introduce a ceremony performed by ethnic minorities in southwestern China for the same purpose. The ceremony has all the hallmarks of the thunder complex and coexists with taboos on making fun of animals. Finally, I discuss what the complex, found among otherwise culturally and linguistic diverse societies, implies for their ontology in regard to human‐animal relations.

A Catholic priest and amateur palaeontologist, Father Theodor Verhoeven (svD) is best known for his discovery of sites on Flores Island (Indonesia) that yielded fossilized remains of Middle Pleistocene stegodons and lithic materials suggesting early occu-pation by pre -sapiens hominins. Eventually, these finds influenced investigations that resulted in the discovery of Homo floresiensis in Liang Bua cave. Verhoeven's earliest fieldwork, however, concerned other Florenese caves, where he found Late Holocene remains of small-bodied Homo sapiens which he identified as `negritos' or `proto-negritos:In this article, I present new evidence revealing that Verhoeven believed negritos survived on Flores as discrete populations during his own time and, moreover, that one such negrito was a fellow Catholic priest. Though Verhoeven died 13 years before the discovery of floresiensis, his views on both prehistoric and living `negritos' suggest that he would likely-though ultimately incorrectly-have interpreted both as descendants of floresiensis and earlier hominin contemporaries of Middle Pleistocene stegodons. The significance of Verhoeven's palaeoanthropological and archaeological discoveries for subsequent, professional research illustrates one of the most remark-able collaborations between academics and amateurs in the history of anthropology.

ABSTRACT Expanding on recent anthropological writing on cryptozoology, this paper demonstrates how animals perceived as both rare and cosmologically anomalous can be usefully compared with cryptids, “mystery” animals not currently recognized by scientific zoology. The case is advanced with reference to the dugong (Dugong dugon) as experienced by the Lio people of the eastern Indonesian island of Flores, who credit these large sea mammals with supernatural properties even while otherwise recognizing them as physical or natural creatures. Lio describe the seldom seen animals as half human and half fish and, as detailed in a widely known myth, descendants of a human female. Their human quality finds expression in dugongs’ retaining or regaining human form, particularly in dreams, and in numerous magical uses made of dugong body parts, most of which are explicitly rationalized with reference to the animal’s human origin. But while the spiritual or supernatural character of dugongs reflects their derivation from a human, Lio otherwise treat the animals as a kind of “fish,” and most people will consume dugong flesh – a duality that finds further expression in the variety of names Lio give to dugongs. Combined with their unusual morphology and behavior (displaying numerous features of land mammals while living exclusively in the sea), it is the rarity of dugongs – understood as a quality of remaining “hidden” from all humans except those who are privileged to encounter one – that explains both their supernatural quality and their close similarity to cryptids. Accordingly, the paper aims to advance an anthropological study of rarity, conceived as a quality of not being regularly accessible to the perception of ordinary humans, as a factor connecting certain empirical animals both to spiritual beings and to the usual subjects of cryptozoology.