Children of the black patola stone : origin structures in a domain on Palu'e Island (Eastern Indonesia)

Abstract

This thesis investigates the social and ceremonial order of one of twelve domains on Palu'e, a small volcanic island in Eastern Indonesia. Domains are identified as individual ceremonial, political and territorial units that are linked with each other in a system of ceremonial and political alliance, and enmity. Each domain is constituted by its ceremonial centre of which a senior member of a first settling group is the guardian. Within the domain first settling groups maintain a position of precedence over subsequently settling groups. Every domain conducts its own ceremonial cycle, at various stages of which narratives of origin are recited at the ceremonial centre. First settling groups hold the knowledge of these narratives. In these narratives the origins of the first settling groups and those of the island are conflated. Through the appropriation and manipulation of such origin structures, the first settling groups of a domain maintain a position of precedence, whereby later settling groups model themselves after the first settlers. This thesis examines the origin structures of the domain and the ideas that the people of the domain hold about those structures. In this process the social and ceremonial order of the domain is exposed.