Most successful among the non-human primates in terms of geographical distribution and adaptability to ecological habitats, macaques have existed for many thousands of years in close contact with modern humans, the only primate more successful than them. Centuries-old literary works attest to the fact that macaques have always been an intrinsic part of human lives and imaginations. In their interactions with humans, macaques play multiple roles that often transcend the boundaries of categorization. They are often, simultaneously, wildlife and domestic pets, sentient beings and experimental subjects, crop-raiding pests and religious symbols. In many parts of the tropics, macaques are an economic resource for human communities, as they provide meat and money through tourism and the animal trade. Equally, they cause much damage and bring about great economic losses due to their crop- and house-raiding tendencies. A more recent cause for alarm has been the possibility of transmission of diseases to humans due to contact with macaques. Across Asia, macaques, perhaps more than any other animal species, exemplify the multiple facets of synurbization and the conservation problems of commensal species.
Humans and macaques associate in rather remarkable ways, and The Macaque Connection explores the tone and nature of those human-macaque connections by focusing on various forms of interactions between macaques and humans, change in human attitudes vis-à-vis macaques over the ages, cultural views on macaques, human-macaque conflict and its conservation implications. Its holistic perspective of the myriad aspects that illustrate the singular relationship between men and macaques makes it essential reading not only for primatologists and anthropologists but also for anyone interested in the intricacies of human-animal relations.
PREFACE iii
CONTRIBUTORS viii
PART I: INTRODUCTION 1
1. The Gulf between Monkeys and Men; Sindhu Radhakrishna 3
PART II: TRADITIONAL VIEWS OF MACAQUES 30
2. The Nature of Love; Harry F Harlow 32
3. The Japanese and Japanese Monkeys: Dissonant Neighbors Seeking Accommodation in a Shared Habitat; Yoshihisa Mito and David Sprague 53
4. Songs of Monkeys: Representations of Macaques in Classical Tamil Poetry; Sindhu Radhakrishna 80
PART III: COOPERATIVE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN HUMANS AND MACAQUES 112
5. Macaques and Biomedicine: Notes on Decolonization, Polio, and Changing Representations of Indian Rhesus in the United States, 1930-1960; Neel Ahuja 114
6.Macaque Tourism: Implications for their Management and Conservation; Avanti Mallapur 154
7. Pets, Property, and Partners: Macaques as Commodities in the Human-Other Primate Interface; Agustin Fuentes 180
PART IV: CURRENT SCENARIOS OF HUMAN-MACAQUE CONFLICT 212
8. Gaadli; K. P. Poornachandra Tejaswi - Translated from Kannada by Honnavalli N Kumara and Shantala Kumar 214
9. Macaque-Human Interactions in Past and Present-Day Sri Lanka; Charmalie A. D. Nahallage and Michael A. Huffman 227
10. Monyet Yang Dihargai, Monyet Yang Dibenci: The Human-Macaque Interface in Indonesia; Jeffrey Peterson and Erin Riley 251
11. Out of Asia: The Curious Case of the Barbary Macaque; Bonaventura Majolo, Els van Lavieren, Laetitia Marechal, Ann MacLarnon, Garry Marvin, Mohamed Qarro and Stuart Semple 286
PART V: HOW LIVING WITH AND BESIDE HUMANS HAS AFFECTED MACAQUES 317
12. The Monkey in the Town’s Commons, Revisited: An Anthropogenic History of the Indian Bonnet Macaque; Anindya Sinha and Kakoli Mukhopadhyay 319
13. Genetic Consequences of Anthropogenic Effects on Macaques; Debapriyo Chakraborty and David Glenn Smith 358
14. Managing Humans, Managing Macaques: Human-Macaque Conflict in Asia and Africa; Nancy E. C. Priston and Matthew R. McLennan 391
INDEX