Crocodiles are sacred in Timor-Leste. Timor-Leste has bad crocodile management policies as they won't kill them.
It’s
said that if a person is bitten by a crocodile, it was in retribution for a sin
that that person has committed in his/her life.
I’ve been told that if a person dies from a
crocodile bite or attack then many families will agonise for days discussing
that persons entire life, trying to figure out what it is that could have made
the person deserving of the attack. If no satisfactory conclusion can be found
then the topic will be revisited for years after (not so strange, really, as
the subject would come up at anytime the deceased is remembered but it sounds
nice and exotic in the telling, don’t you think?)
Traditionally (I’m told), if a person is at
risk of an impending crocodile attack but is oblivious to the fact, then you shouldn’t
warn that person. It’s up to the crocodile whether to attack or not and if you
shout a warning then you are impeding the crocodile from carrying out a
deserved act.
The Timorese feel a close bond to the
crocodile, often referring to it as ‘grandfather’, due to Timor-Leste’s
creation myth.
Some Timorese actually believe this story literally,
I was looking at a carving by a Timorese man which depicts the story and he
asked me, referring to the carving “Do you know our history?”
The story of the Boy and the Crocodile:
There was once a crocodile that lived in a
faraway place. The crocodile lived far from the ocean in a lagoon which sounds
like a nice place to live but it didn’t have enough food for the crocodile.
Because of this the poor crocodile was small and weak and spent every day
struggling to catch enough to survive.
The crocodile wanted to grow big and
strong, and he wanted to travel in the sea but his country was very hot, and
his lagoon was very far from the sea, and he might not survive the journey as
he was so small and weak.
Even so, one day the crocodile decided that
he would risk the long journey to the sea, and when he got there his life would
be better. It was worth the risk.
And so the crocodile set off away from his
home and towards the sea. But the further he walked, the weaker he became, the
sun dried him out and he became slower, without food he became weaker, until
finally the crocodile realised that his dream of reaching the ocean would
remain unfulfilled and he lay down on the hot ground, with sun beating down on
his scales, to die.
As luck would have it not much time passed
when a kind boy came across the dying crocodile so far from water.
Realising that the crocodile would not
survive with the boy, he picked up the crocodile and carried him in his arms
all the way to the sea, and when he lay the crocodile into the cool water the
crocodile was instantly revived. Realising where he was and what the boy had
done for him, the crocodile was overjoyed and filled with love and gratefulness
for the boy.
“little boy”, said the crocodile “you have
saved my life and I will always be in your debt. If you need my help in any way
or you want to travel the world with me then you need only come to the water
and call my name and I will come to you” and then the crocodile swam away.
A few years passed and the boy grew curious
about the places the crocodile would be travelling to, he wanted to feel the crocodile’s
independence and travel in order to see the wonders of the world and he
remembered the crocodiles promise.
So he went down to the water’s edge and
called to the crocodile “Brother crocodile!”
After a short while the crocodile appeared
and now he was big and strong and he was delighted to see the kind boy again.
“Brother crocodile, I want to travel with
you and see the world” said the boy.
“Climb on my back” said the crocodile “and
tell me which way you would like to go”
“Towards the sun rise” replied the boy.
[this next bit isn’t in all of the tellings
but I’ll include it because I like the monkey]
The boy and the crocodile travelled for a
long time and the crocodile loved the boy. Even so, the crocodile was a
crocodile and the boy looked tasty, so the crocodile sometimes had to fight his
urge to eat the boy, and that really bothered him.
When the boy was on land, exploring, the
crocodile went to the tiger and asked what the tiger thought. “No, you can’t
eat the boy. Without him you would be dead, you owe him your life”.
Another time, when the boy was asleep, he
asked the whale, who said the same.
And he asked the buffalo and many other
animals until, one day, he asked the wise monkey.
After hearing the crocodile’s story, the
monkey swore at him and vanished. And the crocodile was suitably shamed by the
monkey that he stopped asking the animals and decided once and for all not to
eat the boy.
[The rest is in all of the telling and is
the important bit.]
So the crocodile continued to travel with
the boy on his back for many years, always in the direction of the rising sun,
and together they saw many lands and had many adventures.
Until one day, as the crocodile was
swimming, he said to the boy, “we have been travelling for many years and I am
now very old, soon I will die, but I feel that I can never repay the kindness
you gave to me when you carried me to the ocean. Because of you my dream of
growing big and strong and travelling the world has come true. So when I die, I
will make myself into a beautiful island where you and all of your descendants can
live on my back”
Soon after that the crocodile died and when
he did, his body grew and grew even bigger than he was before. He grew so large
that the ridges on his back became the mountains the run the length of Timor
and his scales became hills, and to this day Timor has the shape of the old
crocodile.
The boy and the crocodile had travelled so
far to the East that the boy called the new island Timor-Lorosa’e, which means ‘Timor
where the sun rises’.
The boy had many descendants, who inherited
his qualities of kindness, friendliness and strong sense of justice.
And to this day, when the people of
Timor-Leste swim in the sea they call out “Crocodile don’t eat me, I’m you grandchild!”
