Togar.

Togar's own are called just that, without any fuss: the people of the forest, or the ones up in the canopy. There's nothing poetic in the name; it describes a fact: they're the ones who live up high, in the trees. In fact, the word "orangutan" comes from the Malay orang hutan, which means exactly that: person of the forest.

And Togar is a six-year-old person of the forest, with everything that brings. He never sits still. He's interested in every thing that moves, every fruit that changes color, every new noise among the branches. He lives up there with his mother, who is practically his whole world, and he goes after her everywhere.

He's playful and curious in equal measure, with that infant mix of wanting to do everything now and still needing his mother for almost everything. A child, really, only with reddish hair and a whole canopy of trees for a yard.

There's a time of year when the forest fills with fruit all at once. The trees bear all together, and then there's hardly any need to move to eat: the ripe fruit is right there, within reach. For Togar, these are the best days of the year.

His mother takes him from tree to tree the whole day long, the two of them stuffed with figs and durian, bellies full and the canopy loaded on every side. There's barely any need to walk or search: the food is ripe and to hand. The lean seasons will come soon enough, when the forest gives less; but that's for later. With a belly full of durian and his mother on the same branch, Togar is, those days, an utterly happy child.

Togar is one of the little ones of Animal Kinhood, the series of animal portraits I sign as Yago Partal. This version of him, on a kids' t-shirt, is the one most his own age: a little one of the canopy to keep another little one company, with his orange stripes, his denim overalls and the alert face of a six-year-old infant.