A crocodile is a crocodile is a crocodile, and a man is a man is a man. Does that sound like a truism? Well, it’s not. Afonso Garcia de Solis, for one, was a crocodile was a man was an explorer from Europe and, according to an anthropologist, was a catfish who—out of pure bad luck—ended up being eaten by his own children for lunch.
My friends and I had come to West Tulang Bawang, Lampung, on the invitation of the regent. He was thirty-five years old, with big plans to make his district not just peaceful and prosperous and free from swine flu, but also a pioneer in cool new cultural offerings. This young regent wanted West Tulang Bawang’s stories to be written down and written well, something better than dusted-off old artifacts. So my friends and I, we each came with our own skills to fulfill his desire.
We first gathered at the residence of a tradition-bearing elder in the hamlet of Penumangan to interview two doddering old men. Then my friends went to see a cannon that was said to have a peculiar hobby: it had been wailing loudly ever since it had shot down the flying prayer mat of a missionary from Banten six hundred years ago. Meanwhile I slipped away and started chatting with a fuel retailer named Danil. Danil looked like Clint Eastwood when Eastwood was directing Mystic River, he was selling gasoline in what appeared to be giant milk bottles, and it was from him that I heard about Afonso for the first time.
