This article tells the story of the sacred place named Mata Loko ("River's Source") in Karendi on the western end of the island of Sumba. This ethnographic case of an eastern Indonesian society where the traditional religion of Marapu persists sheds light on questions of how local belief systems are part of environmental adaptations. The use of sacred resources is restricted by the belief that marapu, the ancestors, are guardians of the forest and is enforced by supernatural sanctions. The ecological and religious processes that are described in this article illustrate that interactions between indigenous and world religions impact local cultural ecologies. In experimenting with their indigenous religion, Karendi people are simultaneously experimenting with traditional resource management. The Mata Loko case illustrates that the ritual management of scarce resources such as water and culturally/historically valuable resources such as bamboo is a form of conservation planning. Together cultural history, reciprocal exchange, and ancestral religion provide a framework for protecting valuable natural resources.
Ethics is a core interest of practicing ethnobiologists and a function of healthy relationships between individuals, cultures, researchers, and the foci of study. Changing times and cultural identities require clear reflections among scientists and responsive interactions with the individuals and cultures who work with ethnobiologists. This Ethnobiology Letters special issue, “Ethics in Ethnobiology,” explores the diverse ways in which intentional conversations about ethics guide us as we encounter unforeseen circumstances and witness changing values in ourselves as well as our collaborators. Moreover, by integrating the ethics of diverse interlocutors into their own research endeavors, these authors illustrate how ethnobiologists listen deeply to the values of their research collaborators.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.