From patriliny to matriliny : structural change among the Redjang of southwest Sumatra
Abstract
This thesis attempts to describe in its cultural
setting the social structure of the Redjang people of
Southwest Sumatra in the way that I observed and experienced
it in the course of twenty months field work from
May to October 1961 and from March 1962 to April 1963. The
rich variety of Redjang social life can only partly be described
with the written word. The structural forms of the
remote past, the near past and the infinite gradations of the present, need more than written words to describe them«,
Patterns of domestic organisation, for example, require
graphic illustration to explain past and present arrangements
adequately. Similarly the change of ideology from
patriliny to matriliny is not merely a change in a
sociological norm or an institutional adjustment but represents
a major social and cultural shift that is expressed
and reflected in myths, legends, anecdotes, ceremonial
songs, lamentations, dances, gestures, rituals,
sociodramas, apparel, ornamentation, cuisine, domestic
architecture, household composition, kinship relations and
terminology, village structure, the rules of marriage and
the relative statuses of the spouses.