Between Ape and Human

An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid

Gregory Forth

• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781639361441
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Australian & Oceanian History
• Index: Biological Sciences

A remarkable investigation into the hominoids of Flores Island, their place on the evolutionary spectrum—and whether or not they still survive. While doing fieldwork on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, anthropologist Gregory Forth came across people talking about half-apelike, half-humanlike creatures that once lived in a cave on the slopes of a nearby volcano. Over the years he continued to record what locals had to say about these mystery hominoids while searching for ways to explain them as imaginary symbols of the wild or other cultural representations.Then along came the 'hobbit'. In 2003, several skeletons of a small-statured early human species alongside stone tools and animal remains were excavated in a cave in western Flores. Named Homo floresiensis, this ancient hominin was initially believed to have lived until as recently as 12, 000 years ago— possibly overlapping with the appearance of Homo sapiens on Flores. In view of this timing and the striking resemblance of floresiensis to the mystery creatures described by the islanders, Forth began to think about the creatures as possibly reflecting a real species, either now extinct but retained in 'cultural memory' or even still surviving.He began to investigate reports from the Lio region of the island where locals described 'ape-men' as still living. Dozens claimed to have even seen them.In Between Ape and Human, we follow Forth on the trail of this mystery hominoid, and the space they occupy in islanders' culture as both natural creatures and as supernatural beings. In a narrative filled with adventure, Lio culture and language, zoology and natural history, Forth comes to a startling and controversial conclusion.Unique, important, and thought-provoking, this book will appeal to anyone interested in human evolution, the survival of species (including our own) and how humans might relate to 'not-quite-human' animals. Between Ape and Human is essential reading for all those interested in cryptozoology, and it is the only firsthand investigation by a leading anthropologist into the possible survival of a primitive species of human into recent times—and its coexistence with modern humans.

1 APE-MEN OF FLORES ISLAND

In the far reaches of the Indonesian archipelago lies Flores (8.6574° S, 121.0794° E), a long narrow island of high mountains, precipitous cliffs, and deep ravines. The climate is tropical. Rain is seasonal and is heavy when rain-bearing “west monsoon” winds blow from October to April—definitely the wet season in this part of the archipelago. In southern regions, though, and in the high mountain forests that cover much of the island’s interior, rain can fall in any month. By contrast, Flores’s north coast, including a narrow coastal plain that runs along much of the island, enjoys far less rain, is less fertile, and reveals a semiarid landscape. Thus it is only certain parts of the island that live up to the name Flores, “Flowers,” which early Portuguese navigators took from Tanjung Bunga, “Cape of Flowers,” a name given by their Malay-speaking pilots to the island’s eastern and, ironically, not particularly verdant extremity. (Why precisely they called the cape “flowery” remains a mystery.)

Like the rest of Indonesia, Flores belongs to the famous “ring of fire,” the great chain of volcanoes that encircles the Pacific Ocean. Even by Indonesian standards, Flores is highly volcanic—another factor conducive to plant fertility. Yet contrary to what volcanoes, monsoon rains, and tropical forests might suggest, native animal life is neither rich nor varied. Because of the island’s location well east of Wallace’s Line—named after Alfred Wallace, the renowned naturalist and, with Darwin, cofounder of evolutionary theory—Flores falls within the Australasian zoogeographical region and is poor in mammal species. (Australia is obviously located in the same region, but Flores lacks the marsupials found on the great island continent.) Native mammals include mostly rats and bats. So most of the larger mammals now found on the island, including both wild animals (monkeys, exclusively Macaca fascicularis, or long-tailed macaques; porcupines; civets; and deer) and domestic species (pigs, water buffalo, goats, horses, dogs, and cats) were brought to Flores by human immigrants from the north or west—the earliest presumably coming in outrigger canoes.

While not short of birds and reptiles (including crocodiles and at least four species of venomous snakes), Flores therefore lacks—indeed has never had—such large animals as the tigers, leopards, bears, elephants, and rhinoceroses characteristic of larger western Indonesian islands and mainland Southeast Asia. For what comes later it’s important to mention that Flores has never had apes either—those large, tailless primates represented by orangutans on Borneo and Sumatra and by gibbons on Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and Bali.

But what Flores lacks in animal variety it certainly makes up for in the remarkable character of several native species. Among these is the world’s largest rat, the aptly named Flores giant rat (Papagomys armandvillei), a ferocious, mostly tree-dwelling beast that, including the tail, grows up to 80 centimeters long (or over 2.5 feet). The rat is an “island endemic”—meaning it is found only on Flores (see figure 1.1). And almost endemic is the world’s largest lizard, the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), a voracious carnivore and ambush predator with a venomous bite that can attain a length of more than 3 meters (nearly 10 feet). Other than Flores, the dragon occurs only on its namesake island of Komodo and other small islands, all immediately west of Flores.

Looking back into prehistory, I could also mention the evolution on Flores of now-extinct pygmy stegodons, elephant-like creatures no larger than a cow. But the subject of this book is an even more remarkable and even less expected animal—or perhaps two animals of very similar kinds.

One is an extremely small-bodied fossil human named Homo floresiensis (“Flores human”). The species is known only from remains found in 2003 at Liang Bua (“Bua Cave”) in western Flores. Standing little more than a meter (3 feet, 3 inches) tall—the height of a two- to three-year-old Western child—the tiny species quickly became nicknamed “the hobbit,” after the Tolkien characters. In view of this hobbit’s skeletal features—described as “archaic” by paleontologists and, in several respects, comparable to those of Australopithecines (prehistoric “southern apes” that lived from two to four million years ago) or even chimpanzees—another surprise was the species’ extraordinarily recent dates. Initially the last known date for floresiensis was estimated at just twelve thousand years ago, or eighteen thousand years ago for the “type specimen,” or “holotype,” that is, the most complete of several skeletons found at the same site (see figure 1.2). More recently the date was revised to fifty to sixty thousand years ago, but in geological terms this is still remarkably young. The discovery caused a sensation in the scientific world and captured the attention of the general public as well. And in spite of initial controversy, research conducted after the discovery has confirmed that Homo floresiensis is a new species.

The other humanlike creature alluded to above, which for convenience I call an “ape-man,” has yet to be scientifically identified. But one of several ethnolinguistically distinct groups that populate Flores Island, a people called Lio, claims these creatures are alive (if not well) in remote sections of their mountainous territory. In their own language, the Lio (pronounced “Lee-oh”) name these ape-men “lai ho’a.” They describe them as small—in fact about the same size as floresiensis—as walking upright on two legs, and as hairy-bodied or, at any rate, hairier than themselves. Lio also characterize the ape-men as cultureless—lacking tools, weapons, clothing, and even fire. Floresiensis, too, might have been hairy, though we shall never know. And while the question has yet to be settled, there’s no firm evidence for the fossil species having used either fire or stone tools.

Although often described as taller or larger-bodied, humanlike creatures like these ape-men have been reported elsewhere on Flores Island, in Indonesia, and in other parts of the world. But adding to the intrigue of the lai ho’a is the fact that—unlike similar beings reported from other parts of Flores, which local people consider extinct—these ape-men are claimed to have survived to the present. In addition, individual Lio offer credible accounts of specimens they have seen, including eyewitness encounters dating from the 1960s to as recently as 2017 or 2018. And all this on an island that, for thousands of years, was home to an “archaic” species of Homo (the genus that includes Homo sapiens), which according to the reconstructions of paleoanthropologists—anthropologists who study prehistoric humans—seem to have differed hardly at all from the Lio ape-man.

So far as we know with any certainty, modern humans (or what paleoanthropologists more exactly call “anatomically modern humans”) first reached Flores around eleven thousand years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene (or “Ice Age”). By contrast Homo floresiensis had been living on the island since around a hundred thousand years ago, and the species’ ancestors may have arrived much earlier. Because dates are available only from a single site, when floresiensis disappeared—or even if it disappeared—is not known.

As for the ape-men, there’s reason to believe they could be present-day descendants of floresiensis, and if so it could mean that this species still shares Flores with modern humans. Alternatively, species X (as the ape-men might also be called) could descend from a similarly small-sized species that reached Flores over a million years ago and that may have been the ancestor of Homo floresiensis as well—but through a different line. Yet again, the humanlike creatures Lio speak of could be purely imaginary. Which solution is best supported by the evidence is what this book is all about.

Before going any further it’s important to distinguish two similar-sounding terms, including one found in my subtitle. Meaning humanlike, “hominoid” describes any creature that looks like a human but is not a human—or at least not a physically modern human. “Hominin,” by contrast, refers to a group (or scientific “tribe”) that includes all species of the genus Homo (thus Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, and Homo floresiensis) as well as the Australopithecines. The Australopithecines include several species of erect-standing, bipedal apes known only from Africa, of which one apparently later gave rise to the genus Homo. At the risk of complicating things further, hominins form part of a larger group called “hominids” (note the /d/ in place of the second /n/!)—the zoological family Hominidae, which also includes the great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, and sometimes orangutans).

Mostly to vary the prose, I use “hominoid” (not “hominid” or “hominin”) as an alternative to “ape-man.” That said, I recognize that if the ape-men were relatives of floresiensis, they would be hominins too.

As for the most modern of hominins, Homo sapiens, our chief interest lies in the Lio people, briefly introduced just above. Like other Flores Islanders, Lio possess a fascinating and, in many respects, little explored indigenous culture. But for present purposes, their main importance is as the sole witnesses to the continuing existence of ape-men, or what are possibly non-sapiens hominins, on their island. Living some 300 to 400 kilometers east of the western Flores site where Homo floresiensis was discovered, Lio occupy the largest part of east central Flores, one of the island’s most mountainous regions. Though Lio territory extends to Flores’s north and south coasts, especially in the south the highlands begin just a kilometer or less from the sea. This is rugged country by any standard and, even with modern roads (and if one drove straight through), the journey from Flores’s western extremity to Lio’s western boundary can take fifteen hours.

The Indonesian government does not keep records for ethnic populations. As Lio people are divided between two neighboring administrative districts, their current number is not recorded, but according to the broadest definition of “Lio,” it is likely around a hundred thousand. At present, though, most Lio live near the south coast or in other, mostly southern, regions traversed by the Trans-Flores Highway, which runs from one end of the island to the other. For a long time Lio inhabiting coastal regions have traveled locally by sea and engaged in sea fishing while also growing crops. But even today only a minority of men are primarily or exclusively fishermen, and permanent coastal settlements of any size are a recent development. As this might suggest—traditionally and, to a large extent, still today—Lio make their living as cultivators and occasional hunters. They also raise domestic animals, which until recently were used exclusively as animal sacrifices in indigenous rituals and as items of exchange (chiefly as bride price given by a man’s family for a wife).

Not long ago Lio mainly practiced “slash and burn” (or “swidden”) cultivation in highland gardens carved out of mountain forests, where they planted corn (maize), dry-field rice, millet, and other cereals and a variety of vegetables and tubers. The gardens were maintained for several years before plots were abandoned so the forest could grow back. In the 1930s and 1940s, part of the population began cultivating rice in permanent irrigated fields located in lower-lying places closer to the coast. About the same time, some Lio also abandoned highland villages to build settlements nearer to paddy fields and modern roads (initially built by Dutch colonialists, who first arrived on the island early in the twentieth century and left after Indonesian independence in 1945). Even so, many cultivators still plant highland gardens and continue to reside at higher elevations, often at a considerable distance from roads and the sites of other modern institutions. During the twentieth century Lio forests shrank due to human population expansion. Yet the highest mountains remain covered in jungle, not least in several sections where forests are protected by government order. And it is mainly in these regions that the Lio say people, very occasionally, encounter ape-men.

Understanding Ape-men and What People Say About Them

The ape-man is a figure I’ve reconstructed from the statements of numerous Lio people. I have 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 this book 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 Homo floresiensis. I was lucky. I first recorded physical descriptions of the Lio ape-man in July 2003, a month before a team of paleoanthropologists came across the remains of floresiensis in August of 2003 and well over a year before the discovery was announced to the public in October 2004. Even after that time, very few Flores Islanders learned much about the discovery, and those that did (mainly educated people with access to modern media) accepted the opinion of Teuku Jacob, an Indonesian paleoanthropologist, who dismissed floresiensis as a deformed modern human and a seven-thousand-year-old ancestor of certain short-statured villagers currently living close to the floresiensis discovery site at Liang Bua.¹

But even though ape-men are an indigenous idea, this doesn’t mean they exist as flesh-and-blood creatures and thus a real natural species—as opposed to an imaginary being existing only in people’s minds. In the first case, there’s the further question of what sort of species. If not some sort of hominin—including, perhaps, a largely “hidden” group of modern humans—Lio statements about ape-men might reflect nonhuman animals, either already known (monkeys, for example) or a species scientifically undiscovered. Incredible as it may seem, most evidence points to a hominin other than Homo sapiens.

Anyone can dismiss as “mythical” anything whose existence has yet to be proven. But actually demonstrating that the 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 as these are currently known. To be sure, some Lio make what sound like fantastic claims about ape-men—for example, that they are able to “disappear” or even “fly.” Yet many other Lio do not, adhering to a thoroughly naturalistic depiction. And if it is supposed that such naturalistically represented things do not exist, for anthropologists there is still the question of why people think they do—indeed, why some give seemingly credible accounts of ape-man sightings.

I certainly don’t claim to be able to fully prove the hominoids exist. But there’s a simple way to test how likely it is that ape-men are completely fantastic. This is to compare them with what Lio say about more definitely imaginary and fantastical entities, specifically supernatural or spiritual beings, as I do in chapter 3.

Even after showing how ape-men differ radically from spirits, at least one possible physical feature reduces their credibility as beings comparable to scientifically recognized hominins. For the fact is that some Lio say ape-men possess a short tail. This claim I examine at some length (if the pun be excused) in the next chapter. However the tail might be explained, though, it should be stressed that not everything people ascribe to a creature, even supernatural abilities, needs to be accurate for the creature to exist. Among zoological kinds, apparently impossible traits often combine with straightforwardly credible features to disguise the identity of a real animal. Later we’ll meet several animals that Lio describe as supernaturally powerful, but which are unquestionably real species. For present purposes, though, another apparently fantastic creature may serve to make the general point.

Lio call this creature beku. The beku is largely nocturnal. It has a head and face like a dog and a long bushy tail like a cat, and it lives in trees. Alternatively, people describe the beku as looking like a large bat, though it lacks wings. Females as well as males possess testicles. In fact, the creature grows an additional testicle every year until it attains a full complement of twelve. Thus complete, it climbs a tree and wails throughout the night. Then at sunrise it drops dead.

Had I not been familiar with variants of the name “beku” from other Indonesian languages, I would likely have taken this for an imaginary, supernatural being. In fact the creature is the palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus), as Lio themselves recognize. The civet does have a head closely resembling the head of a small dog or a flying fox, a large fruit bat. Also, the animal is mostly nocturnal and arboreal, and it really does wail. The counterfactual element is the multiple testicles. Yet even these have a basis in zoological reality, for the organs in question are actually scent glands that resemble testicles, and their possession by both females and males is reflected in the species’ Latin name, hermaphroditus.²

Of course, similarly questionable aspects of the ape-man cannot be resolved in quite the same way. Whereas I have seen civets in Lio and other parts of Flores, I don’t have a physical specimen of an ape-man to compare with what Lio say the hominoids look like. Nevertheless, as a cultural anthropologist—someone trained in the detailed study and interpretation of cultural traditions and social systems—and as an ethnozoologist (or folk zoologist), who explores local, nonacademic knowledge of animals, I am familiar with the variety of ways humans speak and think about animals. As an anthropologist, I’m especially alert to how particular statements may reflect the sorts of experiences people may have with animals—or, indeed, not have—and furthermore how these statements may reflect personal and social interests or connect with shared representations of a community (or what is commonly called the “cultural context”). And to this task I also bring a background in eastern Indonesian languages.

I need to say more about how I came to learn about ape-men. All my studies on Flores 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. And 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 was in 1984; before that I spent a full two years on the neighboring island of Sumba, where I completed my doctoral research. Since 1984 I’ve returned to Flores nineteen times, typically spending two to three months in the field, thus amounting to a total of some four to five years.

The bulk of my Flores research has been among the Nagé people of west central Flores, and it was among the Nagé (pronounced “Nah-gay”) that I first heard about mystery hominoids on the island. Later, in 2003, I began new fieldwork among the Lio, and it was in that year that, quite by chance, I learned about the Lio ape-men. Focusing mainly on these hominoids and other local creatures, I continued my Lio research in 2005 and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Chapter 1: Ape-men of Flores Island
• Part I: What People Say About Ape-Men
• Part II: Stories of Ape-Men
• Part III: Eyewitness Accounts
• Part IV: What To Believe
• Photographs
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright