Historical change in the traditional use of forests and its association with belief in tiger spirits in the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia: The impact of war and wildlife trade on the relationship between humans and tigers

Abstract

This article explores changes in the traditional use of forests and their relationship with belief in tiger spirits in the Cardamom Mountains in southwest Cambodia. Locals inhabiting the mountains believe that spirits associated with tigers bite those who violate taboos on forest use. However, the tiger population has declined due to the wildlife trade, which experienced rapid growth during the civil war of the 1990s. The article examines the impact of the war and wildlife trade on the traditional use of the forest by analyzing the relationships among traditional beliefs, changes in the tiger population caused by the growth of the wildlife trade, and war-related changes in the social order. Before the war, beliefs associating tigers with forest use could be observed on several societal levels. The belief that tigers punish violators was practiced on village and inter-village levels, while another form of belief was also practiced on family and individual levels. However, the tiger's disappearance from the region because of the wildlife trade made such beliefs ineffective. A new belief arose that violators were punished by crop damage caused by wild pigs and other animals. Nevertheless, those who practiced the belief at the individual and family levels still believed in the association between the tiger and spirits and their role in forest use. Therefore, the impact of the aforementioned factors on tiger beliefs differed according to societal level; the extinction of living tigers does not necessarily result in the disappearance of belief at all levels of society.