Pangolins are boundary creatures; they exist on the boundary between human and animal, village and wilderness, the human world and the spirit world, and mundane life and ritual purity. It is because of their ambiguity that they have gained a special status in Lele society – and in other societies as well. Pangolins are hunted in several regions in Asia for their scales, sought after for their use in traditional medicine. The extensive exploitation of pangolins is believed to be a key to understanding the Covid-19 crisis. According to one theory, humans contracted the virus from pangolins, who were in turn infected by bats. Douglas underlines in a foreword to the 1975 edition of Implicit Meanings that ”it is an anachronism to believe that our world is more securely founded in knowledge than one that is driven by pangolin power” – “our world” meaning a globalised modern culture. In times of crisis, according to Douglas’ observations, the Lele would put their trust in the senior pangolin man of the village and in the Pangolin initiation and feast. Toilet paper, in contrast, is the pangolin of the moderns. The members of the modern global culture thus put their trust in advertised sanitary products and engage in ritual hoarding of toilet paper rolls, hoping that the paper rolls will magically purify the impure. Some feast on toilet paper pastries, filled with cream and covered in toilet paper patterned marzipan, which became popular in Sweden during the toilet paper shortage.
Special issue: Pandemic (Im)Possibilities vol. 2