Restoring the wild as partner

Restoring the wild as partnerThe previous chapter explored the Christian revival that changed the way Maututu communities expressed their 'home' communities and how they related to the spirit world in the expanding world of outsiders.The revival emerged at a time when Maututu were overwhelmed by the industrial developments that had stripped them of soil, regimented their oil palm plantings and attracted thousands of strangers to the formerly quiet outpost of Bialla.The Christian revival was a reassertion of spirit power that enabled Maututu to reshape relationships with the outside.This chapter examines another industrial-era transformation in Maututu relations with the wild, in this case the forest itself.Maututu view the forest as a resource, but a resource only made beneficial to them through partnership with the beings who inhabit its dark spaces.Their stories portray buata, taua, frog, spider, birds and the like as beings interacting with humans as kin or partners or enemies.They are wild in their location outside the domestic world of the hamlet, and unpredictable in their interactions with humans, but they are also potential partners.Maututu stories suggest that wild plants and animals 'are endowed with agency, volition and the capacity to form mutual relations within and beyond their own species' (West, 2016, p. 517).Industrialisation initially marginalised Maututu to 'the shadow of the palms' (Chao, 2022).The vast expanse of oil palms distanced them from the forest realms of the hinterland and, like the industrial companies that had devastated the area, many Maututu began to see the remaining forest and their village domains as a mere capital asset to be exploited.This chapter maps that degeneration and the subsequent revival of respect for the wild.