ABSTRACT
In east central Timor the rocks and soil of the Mundo Perdido 1 mountain range (also sometimes known as K: Wai Nete Watu Ba’i (‘rising water, sacred rock’)) are conceptualized as the skin beneath which water pools after rising up through the earth from the sea (see Map 2.1, Figure 2.1). As it rises, this salty water is transformed into fresh water. Whilst life giving, it does not yet have the necessary force to transform into life itself. Rather, life requires its activation by another element – the sun, or its associative force, fire (cf. Kehi and Palmer 2012). Emerging forth from the subterranean darkness into the light of the surface world, the life potential inherent in water is transformed into life itself by the power of fire. In this continual process of emergence and becoming a range of agencies, human and non-human, strive to balance darkness with light, night with day, ‘nature’ with culture.
