Lore Lindu, on Indonesia’s island of Sulawesi, is a forest with secrets. There are birds that laugh like people and primates three inches high. There are also ancient granite carvings, called megaliths, that no one can explain.
The megaliths vary in size from a few inches to 15 feet (4.5 meters) high. No one knows who carved them, when, or why. According to local legend, they were long-ago criminals who turned to stone and were abandoned.
Until now, the existence and location of the megaliths was not formally documented. The Nature Conservancy is helping Indonesian park officials to find and protect the carvings, as well as the forest around them. So far more than 400 of the carvings have been found in and around the park.
Among the megaliths are about 30 arca menhirs, or human forms. Some are toppled over in rivers, their massive faces and unblinking eyes covered in mud and drifting leaves. Others stand forgotten in rice fields, obscured by long grasses.
Simplistic Features
Local people believe some of the statues may have been used for ancestor worship. One named Tokala’ea, for instance, is said to be a rapist turned to stone; deep cuts in the rock represent scars from knives. Another statue named Tadulako—once a trusted village protector who turned to granite after stealing rice—was left to gaze across the valley at the villagers he betrayed.
All of the carvings on the arca mehirs is minimalistic. The statues have oversize heads, round eyes, and a single line to define eyebrows, cheeks, and chin. They have straight bodies and no legs; some have oversize genitalia. Many stand alone, while others are in pairs or small groups.
Also found amid the figures are large urns called kalambas, which may have been used as elaborate coffins or cisterns for water. Some local people insist they were bathtubs for nobles, but Edward Pollard of The Nature Conservancy said that’s unlikely, pointing to the heavy lids usually found nearby. “You’re not going to mess with a thick stone cover like that just for a wash,” he said.
Neglected for centuries, many of the cracked kalambas are now filled with delicate white flowers on wire-thin grasses. Nearby are stone tablets with cavities, perhaps used for grinding food, and low, cracked stone tables, which may have been altars.
The original purpose of the carvings remains a mystery. They were abandoned long ago, and no tools or other evidence of the society that built them has been found.
Carvings Unique
The carvings may be related to a 2,000-year-old culture that carved megaliths in Laos, Cambodia, and other parts of Indonesia. However, the arca menhirs and kalambas are found nowhere else in Asia.
“That’s the curious thing,” Pollard explained. “That’s one of the reasons no one knows what these carvings are for, because we can’t relate them to anything else in the world…if these stones didn’t exist, we wouldn’t even know the culture existed. It was too long ago, before recorded history.”
The surrounding forest harbors more than the strange stone carvings. Second only to Madagascar in number of endemic animals, Sulawesi has many unusual creatures.
The rare babirusa, “resembling both a pig and a hippopotamus,” according to The Nature Conservancy’s mammal surveys, has spiraled tusks that grow through the roof of its mouth, curling back over its eyes. The equally rare tarsier is a tiny, monogamous primate that only comes out after dark. Weighing a mere 65 grams, it is the world’s smallest primate. First discovered in 1917, it’s only been recorded a handful of times since.
Snakes are more plentiful in Lore Lindu. There are 68 species in the park, including the largest snake in the world, the reticulated python. It’s been known to eat people. The python is found throughout Southeast Asia, but the biggest one ever found—30 feet [4.5 meters] from head to tail—was in Sulawesi.
Forest Under Threat
The park also has many unusual birds. Of its 227 bird species, 77 are found only in Sulawesi. One example is the endangered maleo bird. It buries a single egg in hot sand near geothermal springs, letting the heat incubate its young while it digs false pits nearby to trick predators.
The giant allo, with a five-foot (1.5-meter) wing span, has even more unusual nesting habits. The male, with help from the female, builds a mud wall to close her inside a tree trunk hole, leaving a slit where he can slip her food. She’s stuck there until she lays her eggs. Their loud cries sound like harsh laughter, bringing an eerie resonance to an already peculiar place.
Unfortunately, the magnificent forest with its unique life-forms and ancient carvings is in trouble. There are 60 villages along the park’s border. Migrants, many pouring in from Java and Bali, have doubled the local population in just 20 years.
The burgeoning population, combined with Indonesia’s devastated economy, may spell doom for Lore Lindu’s art and animals. In June of this year, the eastern edge was invaded by hundreds of squatters, who are clearing large patches of the forest for agriculture. When park officials ordered them to leave, they refused and threatened violence.
Like all of Indonesia’s national parks, this one is vulnerable to the political upheaval that has plagued the country, undermining its laws. It’s uncertain whether Lore Lindu’s megaliths and maleos will survive in a country where national parks offer no guarantee of protection. (Jennifer Hile, National Geographic Today; December 12, 2001)
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