Skip navigation
Skip navigation

Narrating the gate and the path: place and precedence in South West Timor

McWilliam, Andrew R

Description

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the historical and cultural dimensions of contemporary settlement patterns in the southern central highlands of West Timor. The Atoin meto people of this region are subsistent agriculturalists who live out their lives in the restricted world of household and hamlet. Social networks within and between hamlets are organised on the basis of dispersed clan group affiliations and marriage alliance. Knowledge of the past is recorded and expressed...[Show more]

dc.contributor.authorMcWilliam, Andrew R
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-03T01:01:56Z
dc.date.available2017-05-03T01:01:56Z
dc.date.copyright1989
dc.identifier.otherb1737792
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/116752
dc.description.abstractThe purpose of this thesis is to explore the historical and cultural dimensions of contemporary settlement patterns in the southern central highlands of West Timor. The Atoin meto people of this region are subsistent agriculturalists who live out their lives in the restricted world of household and hamlet. Social networks within and between hamlets are organised on the basis of dispersed clan group affiliations and marriage alliance. Knowledge of the past is recorded and expressed through an oral narrative tradition which provides a legitimating discourse for establishing claims in the present. In this thesis I draw on one exemplary oral narrative from the prominent clan group Nabuasa. This provides a basis for reconstructing the former political order in the study area of southern Amanuban. The analysis of the narrative reveals that the Nabuasa clan came to occupy the central position of an autonomous political system founded on an expansionary cult of warfare and headhunting. The history of twentieth century southern Amanuban has been one of diverse change. I argue, however, that Atoin meto communities maintain an orientation to the political order of the past and the central Nabuasa position within it. The legacy of this orientation may be observed in the patterns of land tenure, marriage alliance, and the system of localised political authority. These practical concerns are symbolised and represented through an inherited corpus of metaphorical idioms expressed in a pervasive dyadic form. These recurrent metaphors of life, such as gate and path, trunk and tip, female and male, and inside and outside, express cultural notions of relative precedence and social continuity. In these and other ways the present is constituted in terms of the past. Social reproduction is ordered by a system of asymmetrically structured social relations, articulated by a complex of gift exchange and legitimated and framed by recourse to historical precedent.
dc.format.extent324 p.
dc.language.isoen
dc.subject.lcshEthnology Indonesia Amanuban
dc.subject.lcshSocial structure Indonesia Amanuban
dc.subject.lcshAmanuban (Indonesia) Social conditions
dc.subject.lcshAmanuban (Indonesia) Economic conditions
dc.subject.lcshIndonesia Politics and government
dc.titleNarrating the gate and the path: place and precedence in South West Timor
dc.typeThesis (PhD)
local.contributor.supervisorFox, James J.
dcterms.valid1989
local.description.notesThis thesis has been made available through exception 200AB to the Copyright Act.
local.type.degreeDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)
dc.date.issued1989
local.identifier.doi10.25911/5d74e32cce2df
dc.date.updated2017-04-29T08:46:03Z
local.identifier.proquestYes
local.mintdoimint
CollectionsOpen Access Theses

Download

File Description SizeFormat Image
b17377924_McWilliam_Andrew_R.pdf119.66 MBAdobe PDFThumbnail


Items in Open Research are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Updated:  17 November 2022/ Responsible Officer:  University Librarian/ Page Contact:  Library Systems & Web Coordinator