National Geographic

He feels an ownership, because his familycame from that land. The government took awayhis birthright, in his view, so he takes it back.But if everyone does the same, I start to say—and for the first time, Jasmin bristles.“As long as there is a forest,” he repeats. “Butthey are taking the forest.”He raises an index finger, angry now, andbegins to reel of a series of scientific butterflynames. I choose one—Ixias piepersi—and look itup in one of his illustrated books. It doesn’t seemremarkable in any way, just yellowish and small.But they have existed only in a small stretch ofcoastline between Bantaeng and Bulukumba onthe south edge of the island. Now coastal fishfarms have wiped out their habitat, Jasmin says,and he fears they are going extinct.Now Jasmin’s eyes are wet. “No one loves thekupu-kupu more,” he says. “Look at my home.Look around.”Butterflies are woven into his tablecloth andpainted into the decor. He has signed editions ofMr. Nishiyama’s books in Japanese and Englishthat he cannot read, but which he gazes at withhis granddaughter. The bricks in the walls them-selves are shaped into familiar wings.There’s no part of Jasmin’s home, like his life,that isn’t touched by butterflies.``````IT’S DIFFICULT TO SAY why butterflies inspiresuch obsession. Why Victorian collectors wentmad for them or Japanese businessmen devotewhole rooms to them, or why the great novelistVladimir Nabokov studied them in microscopicdetail throughout his lifetime. “I have huntedbutterflies in various climes and disguises,”he wrote in Speak, Memory, “as a pretty boy inknickerbockers and sailor cap; as a lanky cos-mopolitan expatriate in flannel bags and beret;as a fat hatless old man in shorts.”I suspect the endurance of their appeal liesin their very ephemerality. Like the blumeithat Aris pinched so tenderly on the Sulawesimountaintop, they seem to exist on the edge ofnonexistence, to float along just this side of amortal veil. Such is their delicacy that they areunattainable in life, and unsatisfying in death.In the spring, back home in Alabama, myyounger daughter looked up during a car rideand said, “Do you know something Mommyalways wanted us to do?”She’s 11 now, and we’ve been on our own forfour years. Four years that I’ve flinched at ques-tions like this one. They remind me that becauseI have not found another mate, my girls have nomother figure; and of everything I haven’t done,or can’t do, or am too tired to try, alone.But I can’t let her see that, so I say, “Nope,what’s that?”“A butterfly garden.”“That’s a good idea,” I say. And then, to myself:It really is. I can do that.So we pick a spot in the yard and dig severalholes and lower into them an assortment ofplants and flowers that monarchs love. Lantanacamara and Bulbine frutescens, especially.After the last one we step back for perspec-tive. My older daughter says, “Not bad. I hopethey come.”They will. It’s just a matter of waiting for theseason to change, I tell her. And the days arealready getting warmer. j``````Collectors and dealersbuy and sell butterflyspecimens from Africa,Asia, the Americas, andbeyond at the annualTokyo Insect Fair, whichhas no website butattracts enthusiastsfrom around the globe.The international mar-ket for butterfliesis, like the creaturesthemselves, quiet anddifficult to pin down.Estimates of the traderange as high as hun-dreds of millions ofdollars a year.``````Matthew Teague profiled South Sudanese ele-phant herds in the November 2010 issue. EvgeniaArbugaeva photographed reindeer herders inthe Russian Arctic for the October 2017 issue.BUTTERFLY CATCHERS 133