Authors: Ben Ruhe
Date Submitted: May 31, 2004
Article Type: Journal

On a visit to the west coast of Java some years ago, Philippe Cottenceau of the French kite association Au fil des Vents saw a traditional, probably quite ancient use of a kite not many Westerners have reported on. He saw a kite being used to catch food. Bats, to be precise.

The scene was the village of Pangandaran, west of Jakarta, where an annual international kite festival is held.

“It was twilight, the end of the day, between dogs and fogs,” says Cottenceau, a poet as well as distinguished kitemaker, “and the sky was black.” Flying foxes, or fruit bats, had awakened and were streaming from their sleeping spots in trees and elsewhere toward food sites. They flew in a column stretching from horizon to horizon.

“Young men on the beach were flying large fighter kites, about one meter by one meter, and one guy got his kite up to the level of the kites, at this moment rather low, some 200 meters up the air,” says Cottenceau. “The bats looked very big, because they were!” Flying foxes have a wingspan of six feet.

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