Abstract/Sumáriu:

Fronteira entre Timor-Leste no Timor Osidentál fahe komunidade iha reinu antigu “Koba Lima” nian ho konsekuénsia ba sira-nia relasaun ho fatin, rai no bee lulik sira. Maski nune’e, Timor nia animál no ai-horis sira kontinua buras no hakat liu fronteiru fíziku hodi garante unidade materiál no espirituál ba povu ne’ebé moris iha área fronteira nian.

The border bifurcating the island of Timor was arbitrarily
created in the late nineteenth century by the Portuguese and
the Dutch. It is a border that has divided and separated the
people of the ancient kingdoms of Koba Lima ever since,
constraining relationships with their ancestral sacred sites,
lands and waters. Timor’s wild animals, plants and natural
phenomena challenge this division. Their free co-existence and
movement through the region remain essential to the material
and spiritual unity of life for people along the border. The
ancestral and metaphysical connections they embody and
enable are continually honoured in people’s ritual practice and
speech, connecting and binding together what cross-island
politics has otherwise held apart. In this paper, we trace the
effects of this constant mingling of places, words, and morethan-
human beings, and elucidate the ways they subtly re-work
the material divisions of colonial and now postcolonial borders.
The effects of such re-workings are, we argue, to continuously
extend boundaries, to celebrate multiplicity and diversity and,
despite the many challenges, to determinedly maintain a
commitment to practices that ensure cross-species unity and the
flow of life.