Table Of ContentOrigins, Ancestry And
AlliAnce
Explorations in austronEsian Ethnography
Origins, Ancestry And
AlliAnce
Explorations in austronEsian Ethnography
Edited by James J. Fox and Clifford sather
a publication of the Department of anthropology
as part of the Comparative austronesian project,
research school of pacific studies
the australian national university
Canberra aCt australia
Published by ANU E Press
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200, Australia
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://epress.anu.edu.au
Previously published in Australia by the Department of Anthropology in association
with the Comparative Austronesian Project, Research School of Pacific Studies, The
Australian National University, Canberra 1996.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Origins, Ancestry and Alliance:
explorations in Austronesian ethnography.
Bibliography.
ISBN 0 7315 2432 2 (print)
ISBN 1 920942 87 4 (online)
1. Ethnography - Islands of the Pacific. 2. Ethnography - Asia, South
East. 3. Kinship - Islands of the Pacific. 4. Kinship - Asia, South East.
5. Islands of the Pacific - Social life and customs. 6. Asia, South East -
Social life and customs. I. Fox, James J., 1940- . II. Sather, Clifford,
1938- . III. Australian National University. Dept of Anthropology.
IV. Comparative Austronesian Project.
305.899
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Typesetting by Norma Chin; drawings by Robert Nee/Neville Minch
Cover design by Griffiths & Young Design/Bronwyn Dillon
© The several authors, each in respect of the paper presented, 1996
This edition © 2006 ANU E Press
Origins, Ancestry and Alliance
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Chapter 1. Introduction James J. Fox 1
The Comparative Austronesian Project 1
Origins, Ancestry and Alliance 2
The Austronesian Language Context 2
The Discourse on Origins Among the Austronesians 4
Idioms in the Discourse on Origins 5
Precedence as Discourse and Practice 9
Origin Narratives and Historical Formations 12
Bibliography 13
Chapter 2. Hierarchy, Founder Ideology and Austronesian Expansion
Peter Bellwood 19
Introduction 19
Early Austronesian Ranking: The Evidence 20
Founder-Focused Ideology Among Austronesian-Speakers 25
Founder-Focused Ideology: Some Instances 25
Initial Austronesian Expansion: Some Parameters 28
Founder Rank Enhancement and its Possible Significance 29
Some Afterthoughts 33
References 34
Chapter 3. The Elder and the Younger — Foreign and Autochthonous
Origin and Hierarchy in the Cook Islands Jukka Siikala 43
In Principle, Everything is so Simple 43
Ngaputoru 45
Genealogy or Genealogies: Path and Birth 47
References 54
Chapter 4. Rank, Hierarchy and Routes of Migration: Chieftainship in the
Central Caroline Islands of Micronesia Ken-ichi Sudo 57
Introduction 57
Socio-Political Organization 59
Oral History of Satawal: Chiefly and Commoner Clans 60
Two Legendary Homelands of the Caroline Islanders 62
Political Relationship Between Yap and the Outer Islands 63
Clan and Land 66
Conclusions 67
References 69
Origins, Ancestry and Alliance
Chapter 5. “All Threads Are White”: Iban Egalitarianism Reconsidered
Clifford Sather 73
Introduction 73
The Iban, Borneo, and the “Egalitarianism” Debate 75
Iban Egalitarianism 79
Equality and Adat 79
Egalitarian Leadership 81
The Concept of Pun 83
Objective Inequality and the Absence of Stratification 85
Equality and Hierarchy 91
The Political Economy of Traditional Inequality 94
Textiles and “Women’s Warfare” 98
Ritual and Hierarchy 100
Conclusion 103
References 105
Chapter 6. Origin, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism Among the Mandaya of
Southeast Mindanao, Philippines Aram A. Yengoyan 113
Culture as Value and as Precedence 114
The Context of Mandaya Precedence and Egalitarianism 116
Conceptions of Precedence 118
Egalitarianism as Culture Value 124
Conclusion 128
References 129
Chapter 7. The Transformation of Progenitor Lines of Origin: Patterns of
Precedence in Eastern Indonesia James J. Fox 133
Introduction 133
Precedence in Eastern Indonesia 134
The Concept of Origin Group: Genitor and Progenitor 135
1. The Mambai 136
2. The Ema 138
3. The Rotinese 139
4. The Atoni Meto 142
5. The Tetun of the Southern Plain of Wehali 144
6. The Ata Tana ’Ai 147
Comment and Conclusion 149
References 152
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Origins, Ancestry and Alliance
Chapter 8. Origin Structures and Precedence in the Social Orders of Tana
’Ai and Sikka E. D. Lewis 157
Clans, Houses and History: The Origin Structure of Tana Wai
Brama 157
Protogenitrix Lines and the Precedence of Houses Within Tana ’Ai
Clans 158
The Generation of Houses Within Tana ’Ai Clans 159
Precedence and the Delegation of Authority in Tana Wai Brama 162
Precedence, Delegation and the Origin Structure of Sikka 163
Authority, Precedence and Delegation in Tana ’Ai and Sikka 168
Conclusion 174
References 176
Chapter 9. Precedence Among the Domains of the Three Hearth Stones:
Michael P. Vischer 179
Introduction 179
Some Categories of the Social Order 180
The Ceremonial Cycles of the Domains of Water Buffalo Blood 181
Political and Ceremonial Alliance 186
The “Domains of the Three Hearth Stones”: Pre-Sacrifice 189
The Ko’a Ceremonial Cycle, 1985-1988: Categorical Inversion 191
Conclusion 196
References 197
Chapter 10. The Founding of the House and the Source of Life: Two
Complementary Origin Structures in Buru Society Barbara Dix Grimes 203
An Overview of Buru 203
The Founding of the House 207
The Source of Life 212
Conclusion 216
References 217
Chapter 11. Histories of Diversity, Hierarchies of Unity: The Politics of
Origins in a South-West Moluccan Village Sandra Pannell 219
Introduction 219
The Setting 220
“Histories” of Diversity 221
Hierarchies of Unity 226
Concluding Remarks 233
References 234
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Origins, Ancestry and Alliance
Chapter 12. Rivals and Wives: Affinal Politics and the Tongan Ramage
Aletta Biersack 241
Complexities of Rank: Blood and Garland 243
Affinal Politics 247
Twentieth-Century Foundations 252
The Affinal Politics of the Twentieth Century 264
The King’s Body 270
References 274
Chapter 13. The Politics of Marriage and the Marriage of Polities in Gowa,
South Sula Wesi, During the 16th and 17th Centuries F. David Bulbeck 283
The Wider Background 283
Background to Gowa 286
Methodology 291
Makassar Titles and Their Wider Equivalents 292
Correlations in Titulation Across Next-Of-Kin 295
Horizontal Links Between the Royal Cores 299
Makassar Status Lineages 301
Makassar Lineage Groups 302
Gowa’s Initial Expansion (c.1500-1593) 306
The Golden Period of Greater Gowa (1593-1667) 307
The Survivors (Post-1667) 307
Conclusions 313
Acknowledgments 314
References 314
Chapter 14. The Cultural Construction of Rank, Identity and Ethnic Origins
in the Sulu Archipelago Charles O. Frake 319
References 329
Contributors 333
iii
Acknowledgements
This volume has been a long time in preparation. As a result, acknowledgement
and thanks are due to the patience and forbearance of those contributors who
waited for their papers to appear while this volume slowly took shape and then
took its place in the queue for publication. A majority of the papers in the volume
were initially presented at a conference of the Comparative Austronesian Project.
For the organization of that conference and of the project in general, we wish
to thank Annegret Schemberg for her efforts and enthusiasm.
The cover of this volume was designed by Bronwyn Dillon of Griffiths &
Young Design Pty Ltd. The textile that forms the background is a man’s cloth
of the Atoni Pah Meto of west Timor. The ikat centre of this cloth consists of
anthropomorphic figures arranged in a succession of sizes, thus forming a kind
of ancestral chain. The cloth is composed of a central warp ikat with
multicoloured borders of woven cotton thread, each with a supplementary ikat
stripe. The photograph on the front cover shows a recitation of origins among
the Atoni. This photograph was taken in the central village of the Nabuasa clan
in the mountains of southwestern Timor at a ceremony in which a high-ranking
member of a branch of the clan, which had migrated from the centre generations
earlier, returned to request a recitation of the chant that recounts the origin and
migration of the Nabuasa clan. In the photograph, a woman holds a betel nut
offering basket to the side of the main chanter. For reproduction of the textile,
we wish to thank the National Gallery of Australia and the former curator of
Asian textiles, Robyn Maxwell, who now teaches in the Department of Art
History at The Australian National University. The photograph is from the
private collection of the editor, James J. Fox. Figures and cartography in the
volume were done by Robert Nee and Neville Minch of the Cartography Unit
of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies.
As editors, we wish to express our particular thanks to Norma Chin for her
considerable and unstinting effort in producing this volume. She has carried
out deft copy-editing of individual papers, careful proofreading, the arrangement
and formatting of the volume and the exacting preparation of the index. Since
she also edited The Austronesians, she has provided vital editorial continuity to
the series. We are particularly indebted to her for her skill, efficiency and
determination to produce a volume that would be of scholarly value and of
general interest.
James J. Fox
Clifford Sather
April 1996
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Description:anthropology/cultural history
