Forest peoples

Map of the Moluccas by N Sanson (1683)

There’s too much blame mysterious about this island.
— Dido’s observation in chapter 6

This is another post in the series giving the background to one of Joan Aiken’s Wolves Chronicles, Limbo Lodge. This instalment focuses on the islanders of Aratu, the island that Dido finds so full of mysteries. I can’t help being reminded of some of the issues that are raised in novels like Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest and Alison Croggon’s The River and the Book, issues about land exploitation and deforestation and the effects they have on local populations and ways of life. In Limbo Lodge we sense there may be some rapprochement between communities towards the end, a rapprochement that sadly doesn’t seem to be common in our own world.

The Dilendi are Aratu’s forest dwellers, indigenous to the island since time immemorial; they have a creation myth for their world, naturally. They reverence wise women (though the Angrians call them witches) and also elders who keep the islanders’ traditions and are able to recount them from memory. Young and old have the ability to melt into their surroundings and a surprisingly keen sense of hearing, and even communicate over distances through the language of drums.

Dilendi individuals named in the novel

Tylo: Dido’s excellent guide across Aratu; about Dido’s height.
Asoun: Tylo’s great-grandfather; a sisingana and Lord Herodsfoot’s informant.
Tonto: Manoel Roy’s house-boy.
Oynat: young boy found injured two or three hours from the Kulara stones and treated by Dr Talisman.
Yorka: a young girl rescued by Dido from a snake who goes on to play a key role in subsequent events.
Desi: Yorka’s uncle.
Professor Tala’aa Limisoë: Yorka’s aunt, her mother’s sister; a kanikke or wise woman of great powers; studied at Cambridge and the Sorbonne after her Master’s in Occult Philosophy.
Trinki: Captain Sanderson’s guide from Regina to near Mario Ruiz’s residence; he left to see his dying father near the south coast but returned to take Sanderson back to Regina.
Kaubré: a Dilendi poet, married to Luisa Ereira and father of Miria Francisca; killed by Luisa’s father and brother.
Zmora: a so-called fire-trimmer; thrown over the Kai gorge to his death for questioning Manoel’s orders.
Naewe and Tobure: possibly Tylo’s deceased aunt and uncle.
Ta’asbuie: another fire-shooter; an orphan fostered by an Angrian teacher, now an alcoholic, belying his claim to be “Number One fireshooter”.
Erato: an orphan; brought up by John King and named after the Greek Muse of lyric poetry and hymns; John’s wife and mother of Talisman until a jealous Manoel had her poisoned; a stone monument raised in honour of her on Mt Fura becomes her Ghost House which she haunts with her songs.

Some words in common Dilendi use

ashtaa: compliment meaning Well done! or Congratulations!
baraat: common sense
Dilendi: ‘forest people’
djingli: favour or tip
ekarin: trance, or withdrawal from the world
folly cub: sting- or scorpion-monkey
hamahi: one of the ‘guides’ who sing history of island
kaetik: beautiful; satisfactory
kanikke: wise-woman
khajri: mustard-like paste
kulara: place of stones (monoliths)
kw’ul: pearl or pearl necklace
lo’ongoh: one way or another
nooma: innate power
nusa: light
Ritari-ga’ar: Aratu as the central axis of the universe
sisingana: elder
shaki: foreign person
taba: throwing stick
taku: gift of ‘invisibility’, of being inconspicuous
teirale haseem: to go with light feet
teryak: calming
wedhoe: good luck charm prized by Angrians; a talisman
wocho: (abandoned) house or hut

I’ve not been able to discover whether Joan made up these names and Dilendi vocabulary or whether she based them on a language or dialect common in the Banda Sea south of Seram and Ambon; perhaps a reader familiar with this part of the world can enlighten me? Some of them seem to be words from Australasia and Asia that Joan liked the sound of: for example kulara is an indigenous Australian placename.

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In the next and probably final instalment of this inordinately long series I want to focus on the aspect that resulted in Limbo Lodge (1999) appearing first as Dangerous Games in the US in 1998. I’d also like to discuss how board games, card games and games of chance may have influenced the narrative to this novel, perhaps even determining its plotting. I may of course be completely wrong …