Abstract
This essay aims to portray the image of the forest and the sea perceived by the Bugis people in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. In a word the forest and the sea share the same image of ambivalence: both extremely maleficent and beneficent. Avoiding these ambivalent spheres, the people chose to live in an ecotone between the forest and the sea or aquatic areas. Owing to recent exploitation, however, this ecotone seems to have lost its meaning as the most suitable sphere of living for the Bugis. Thus the ambivalence in the forest and the sea have been mostly cleared but its magical part is still in the mind of people.
