For the indigenous Mentawai living in Siberut Island (West Sumatra, Indonesia), the salt-water crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) is both the embodiment and the companion of the spirit of the water (taikaoinan). In cosmological myths, the crocodile appears as the personification of taikaoinan and key figure in the origin of the Mentawai’s social and cultural institution: the longhouse (uma), the rituals (lia), and the shaman (kerei). The animal has double forms: the crocodile-animal (sikoinan) and the crocodile-spirit (sikameinan).  Both the crocodile animal and the crocodile-spirit are seen as a divine arbiter, guarding moral and social order and manifesting social unity. The animal is feared and respected and symbolizes both danger and protection, a benevolent and malevolent power at once. The Mentawai take precautions against the crocodile and have strict taboos on killing it. The only exception is when someone dies in the water or is attacked by the crocodile-animal. A crocodile attack is always seen as an avenge for human’s asocial behavior and a punishment for the lack of sharing in the community. Only then, the animal is hunted, killed, and consumed. Then, an elaborated ritual and offers are required to restore the peace between humans, taikaoinan, and the crocodile and to re-establish the social order. The Mentawai’s attitudes towards crocodiles are, therefore, personal, respectful, tolerant, and non-aggressive, enabling them to have peaceful relations for centuries. However, the future of the crocodile on the island is seriously in question as rampant modern development, ecological degradation and uncontrollable commercial hunting done by external actors have forcefully moved the crocodiles away from their original habitat. Furthermore, a large scale industrial tourism project has proposed to transform the last habitat of the crocodile in South Siberut. The project designs to transform coastal and small islets, mangroves, lowland tropical forests, and wetland ecosystems into a massive surf tourism landscape. It potentially destroys crocodile's habitat, disrupts the cultural valuation and cosmological relations between humans and the crocodile, and generates social disorder. The Mentawai now (again) associate a series accidents of people drowned in the water, the social inequality generated by development agendas, and community tensions caused by land dispute in the tourism project with the disappearance of the crocodile from their surrounding. People believe that the crocodile-animal might be vanished but the crocodile-spirit is now watching the social disorder from deep water.

Keywords: Siberut Island, crocodiles, the spirit of the water, social order, environmental transformation, the Mentawai

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Darmanto is an anthropologist interested in the human dimension of environmental governance. His research particularly focusses on the intersections of ecology, cosmology, social movement, food, and social value(s) in the Southeast Asia and the Pacific region.