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.