International Conference

Aquatic Powers:

Divine Animals of the Asia-Pacific

1–3 June 2022・University of Oslo

From the Himalayan glaciers to the expanses of the Indian and Pacific oceans, Asia is intersected and connected by waterways. Riverine and maritime trade networks have long enabled cultural and economic exchange between different parts of the Asian continent and the larger Pacific region.

Countless human and non-human animals depend upon the Himalayas and the plains and deltas of rivers like the Mekong, Yangtze, and Ganges for survival. Myriad others live along continental and island coasts and depend upon the sea. Asia-Pacific societies and ecologies are shaped by the glaciers, rivers, lakes, deltas, seas, and oceans that connect them.

To many people, these waters are sacred—as are the creatures that inhabit and protect them.

The sacred waterways of continental Asia and the maritime Asia-Pacific region are home to a variety of divine animals. People worship albatrosses, catfish, cranes, crocodiles, dolphins, dragons, dugongs, nagas, octopuses, orcas, rays, sharks, squid, turtles, whales, and other animals.

These animals are divine messengers, incarnations of ancestral spirits, and the embodiments of gods. They are divine agents who affect human lives and are central to numerous Asian and Pacific cosmologies and ritual traditions. But they are also threatened: by habitat loss, climate change, overfishing, river dams, and pollution.

What happens to more-than-human spiritual ecologies when divine animals die out? What new meanings do these sacred creatures acquire in a time of mass extinction, ecological breakdown, disenchantment, and religious transformations?

Conference Program

Location: Seminar room 1, Sophus Bugges hus
13:30–14:00   Arrival and Coffee
14:00–14:15   Welcome
14:15–15:45   Panel 1: Ritual Innovation and Change (I)
Chair: Lindsey DeWitt Prat
Susan M. DARLINGTON (Deep Springs College): Long Life for a River: Water, Spirituality, and Environmentalism in Northern Thailand
Marius PALZ (University of Oslo): The Okinawa Dugong: A Messenger in Past and Present
Aike P. ROTS (University of Oslo): Creatures of the Bodhisattva: Comparing Whale Worship in Japan and Vietnam
15:45–16:00   Break
16:00–17:30   Panel 2: Environmental Degradation and Community Identity
Chair: Florence Durney
Yvonne TAN (Independent Researcher): Remembering and Rethinking the Water Nagas and End of Paradise
DARMANTO (Czech Academy of Sciences): Crocodile, Social Order, and Environmental Transformation on Siberut Island (Indonesia)
Piyawit MOONKHAM (Washington State University)*: ‘Nagascape’: An Observation of Local Myth, Communal Space, and Cultural Landscape in the Chiang Saen Basin, Thailand
17:30–20:00   Welcome Reception at IKOS - Room 454, P.A. Munchs hus
Location: Seminar room 1, Sophus Bugges hus
9:00–10:30   Panel 3: Nature Conservation and Species Diversity
Chair: Marius Palz
Victoria C. RAMENZONI (Rutgers University): The Sarong of the Sailfish: Endenese Cosmologies about the Maritime World and the Legend of the King of the Ocean
VŨ Long (Center for Biodiversity Conservation and Endangered Species) and Ellen HINES (San Francisco State University): Whale Temples Hold Critical Knowledge About Marine Mammal Diversity in Central Vietnam
Fynn HOLM (Harvard University): Three Thousand Ebisu: Dolphin Worship and Hunts in Northeastern Japan
10:30–10:45   Break
10:45–12:15   Panel 4: Fishing Industry and Trade
Chair: Florence Durney
Evan NICOLL-JOHNSON (University of Alberta): The Eel who Became a God: Animals of the Yangtze River in Early Medieval Chinese Narratives
WAKAMATSU Fumitaka (Kyoto University)*: Imagined Commodity: Nationalism, Fetishism and Whale Meat in Japan
Suneel KUMAR (University of Georgia): Transforming Ecological Knots: Palo, Khawaja Khizer and the Ethical Relations During the Times of Environmental Crisis in the Indus Delta of Pakistan
12:15–13:00   Lunch
13:00–14:30   Panel 5: Materiality and Representation
Chair: Nguyễn Anh Tuấn
Alexandra DALFERRO (Cornell University): Nagas in Knots: Silk Patterns as Conduits and Connections to Unseen Worlds
Veronica WALKER VADILLO (University of Helsinki): The Snake, the Crocodile, and the King: Nautical Technology and Supernatural Potencies in Angkor
ĐOÀN Thị Mỹ Hương (Vietnam National Institute of Culture and Art Studies): The Turtle Symbol in Vietnamese Culture
14:30–14:45   Break
14:45–16:15   Panel 6: Indigenous Ethics and Natural Resource Management
Chair: Aike P. Rots
Sonja ÅMAN (University of Oslo): Solidarity and Self-Determination in Indigenous Whaling Politics
Brendan A. GALIPEAU (National Tsing Hua University)*: Salmon Ancestors and Climate Change in Indigenous Taiwan
Barbara AMBROS (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)*: Refraining from Killing and Releasing Aquatic Life in the Edo Period
16:15–16:30   Break
16:30–18:00   Panel 7: Boundaries and Contact Zones
Chair: Lindsey DeWitt Prat
Quoc-Thanh NGUYEN (Lyon Institute of East Asian Studies)*: Whale and Crocodile Worship: What Maritime Cults Teach Us about Southeast Asia and Cultural Syncretism in Troubled Times
Florence DURNEY (University of Oslo): Ocean Bordering: Hunting, Belief and Species Interdependency in Nusa Tenggara Timor
Fabio RAMBELLI (University of California, Santa Barbara)*: The Ichthyosphere and the Sacred: Maritime Animals and Japanese Religions
19:00–22:00   Conference Dinner
Olympen Restaurant Grønlandsleiret 15, Oslo
Location: 10th floor, Lucy Smiths hus
9:00–10:30   Panel 8: Aesthetics and National Heritage
Chair: Sonja Åman
Yuske TANINAKA (Independent Artist/Researcher): Geo-Body of Whale / Alternative Oceans
NGUYỄN Thị Hiền (Vietnam National University): Images of the Sacred Dragons, Turtles and Claws in the Folk Consciousness of the Việt People
NGUYỄN Anh Tuấn (University of Oslo): Mass Tourism and Stranded Whale Gods: The Invention of Tradition and the Search for Cultural Identity in Central Vietnam
10:30–10:45   Break
10:45–12:15   Panel 9: Ritual Innovation and Change (II)
Chair: Aike P. Rots
Andrew Alan JOHNSON (University of California-Berkeley): The Fish King and the Black Naga
Erling Hagen AGØY (University of Oslo): “Thousands of Flood-Dragons and Clam-Monsters Came Forth”: Divine Animals as the Causes of Climate Events in Late Imperial China
Kathryn DYT (Institute of Historical Research, University of London)*: Crocodiles and Dragons: Liminal Aquatic Beings in Vietnam During the Nguyen Dynasty
12:15–13:00   Lunch
13:00–15:00   Panel 10: Fluid Identities
Chair: Florence Durney
Lindsey DEWITT PRAT (Ghent University): Meandering with the Water Goddess in Japan: Dragon to Snake, River to Sea, Mountain to Island, and More
Darcie DEANGELO (University of Oklahoma): Bucketed Women & Fainting Giantesses: Everyday Ecological Transformations and Gendered Sorrows in Cambodian Stories
Ika NURHAYANI (University of Brawijaya)*: Ecolinguistics: Indonesian Folklores on Divine Marine Animals
Mark TEEUWEN (University of Oslo): Crocodiles in Early Imperial Mythohistory? The Riddle of the Ancient Wani
15:00–15:15   Break
15:15–16:30   Final Discussion and Publication Plans
Optional: Pizza and Drinks (self-funded)