To follow the blood : the path of life in a domain of Eastern Flores, Indonesia

Abstract

The thesis examines social structure as a product of human experience in the domain of "five villages" (Lewolema) towards the eastern end of the island of Flores in what is now the Republic of Indonesia. This entails an emphasis on the processual aspect of cultural themes, as well as a recognition of the temporality of structures. It thus involves consideration of the dynamic inherent in the model of exchange described here and a continuing shift from more formal modes for the analysis of asymmetric alliance to an approach which takes seriously the local symbolism embedded in such structures. In exploring local representations of life, therefore, I follow the trajectory of human life from its initiation in the womb through birth and death to notions of the afterlife and relations with the ancestors. Equally salient to an exploration of the nature of life in this area are representations of the developmental cycle of cultivated crops and I refer to this complementary scheme of ideas and practices throughout my account. Within the political structure under the Raja of Larantuka, Lewotala the central village of Lewolema was the historic seat of the "regent within the house" and, as such, an adjunct to the ten regents of the districts in the realm. The ethnographic data in the thesis focus on this village, now known officially as Bantala, comprising over 1,500 people and consisting in recent times of two relatively separate communities distinguished as Lewotala and Rian Kotek. The study concentrates on the social and ritual organization of contemporary village life. In so doing, it depicts social structure as an historically constituted framework for the culturally elaborated strivings of local men and women in pursuit of their aspiration for life in its fullness. In Chapter One, I focus on the local categories "blood" and "heat", then on the concept of a person and, finally, on an iconic form and the ritual agency evoked in rites of the life cycle in Lewotala. The next five chapters follow the path of human beings from birth to death, drawing attention to the social structures and ritual processes which both shape and are shaped by men's and women's experience. Thus, Chapter Two describes birth rites as a transition to personhood. Chapter Three explores not only men's and women's differential rights in clans, but also clans' rights in people and their prerogatives in the social and ritual life of the community. Then Chapter Four deals with marriage through a consideration of the strategies and idioms, rites and exchanges that define it. In Chapter Five, I analyse relations of kinship and affinity, looking at the principles involved as well as the characteristics of social process which limit their range. Chapter Six considers what local treatment of death can tell us about the nature of life and examines mortuary rites for insights into relevant aspects of eschatology and cosmology. In conclusion, Chapter Seven provides an overview of local features of alliance and exchange particularly salient for comparison with other accounts of structure and experience in eastern Indonesia and the Austronesian world. In this comparative dimension, the thesis is an instance of how it is possible to see each eastern Indonesian society as "an expression of a set of common concerns about the nature of life" (Fox 1990:21). Show more