D. Moyer Vergouwen, Matriliny and the Toba Batak

In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 141 (1985), no: 2/3, Leiden, 339-342

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DAVID S. MOYER VERGOUWEN, MATRILINY AND THE TOBA BATAK

In her Korte Mededeling (BKI 139:465-469), Sandra A. Niessen writes a critique of two of my publications. In addition to attributing me with an incorrect motivation for one of the articles, I believe she misrepresents the views that I presented in the other. While reading Professor J. Keuning's Preface to the English Trans- lation of J. C. Vergouwen's Het Rechtsleven der Toba-Bataks, I came across a footnote in which Keuning mentions an omission from the translation. He wrote: "For this reason his theoretical digression on the possibility that a matrilineal system preceded the present patri- lineal organisation was omitted from the translationl It is no longer accepted in social-anthropological theory" (Keuning 1964 p. ix). My translation of the omitted passage, together with a short introduction, was published under the title 'Matriliny among the Toba-Batak?' (BKI 133:357-362). In a note from the editorial board which accompanied the article it was suggested that an article by H. Th. Fischer and H. C. van Renselaar entitled 'Over enkele Batakse verwantschapstermen' (BKI 115:40-55) may have induced Professor Keuning to leave out the pas- sage under discussion. In my introduction to the translation I referred to the missing passage as "one of the anthropologically most significant aspects of Vergouwen's work" (Moyer 1977:357). I pointed out that Vergouwen was discussing what he believed to be the evidence for matriliny or a matrilineal principle in an otherwise patrilineal with asymmetrie cross cousin . I was drawing attention to the fact that Vergouwen's data seemed to cast light on a hotly contested issue in Dutch . What I did not do was offer an interpretation of Vergouwen's comments or their relation to the various theoretical arguments. Thus, Niessen's ad hominem remarks about my "jubilation" are inappropriate. Her fanciful reconstructions such as, "here he had stumbled across very valuable information to support the theory of doublé and P. E. de Josselin de Jong's intuitibn about a 'Sumatran type' of social organi- zation, and he had salvaged it from the fate of out-of-print Dutch books laid on dusty shelves: being entirely overlooked by the English speaking world" (Niessen 1983:466), are simply wrong. For example, I found an edition of Vergouwen in the immaculately neat reading room of the Royal Instituut and I offered no comment on the relationship between Vergouwen and P. E. de Josselin de Jong's theoretical' position on Sumatran social organization. My motivation for publishing the missing piece was much less noble than she suggests. I was concerned about the practice of cosmetic trans- lation. I have repeated this complaint about another "adatrecht" trans-

Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 08:16:45PM via free access 340 Korte Mededelingen lation elsewhere (Moyer 1983). This practice of removing blemishes from the original, or trying to tidy up the terminology while editing a translation, impedes the study of Dutch intellectual history. Most of the titles in the Institute's Translation Series do not suffer from this fault. One need only mention Needham's translation of Van Wouden's Types of Social Structure in Eastern Indonesia, which is perhaps the finest translation of any anthropological work. My arguments concerning doublé descent appeared in another place (Moyer 1976). Unfortunately, Niessen did not quote the concluding paragraph of the chapter which she otherwise cites in detail. There I state the following: "In conclusion I feel that doublé unilineality and exchange principles are related principles. However, they are related in an anti-thetical and opposed manner which makes it unlikely for them to occur in their strongest forms simultaneously" (Moyer 1976:4). At the end of the next chapter I drew the following conclusion: "and thus there is good evidence for the argument that in a strong doublé unilineal society, such as South Sumatra, there is at least occasionally demonstra- tive anti-exchange behaviour, thereby supporting the hypothesis put forward at the end of Part I" (Moyer 1976:8). Niessen did not present my conclusions, which were very clearly stated, but rather some of the admittedly more opaque passages of the argument. Further complica- ting the picture is the fact that she tries to apply an argument that I developed to explain particular attributes of South Sumatran , i.e. strong doublé descent, the absence of exchange systems and the occasional presence of what might be called anti-exchange behaviour, to explain the Toba Batak, a culture that appeared to have a strong uni- lineal ideology coupled with alliance principles and a weak or absent doublé descent principle. I am not surprised that the exercise failed. This is especially true because the nineteenth century South Sumatrans stressed doublé descent, while recent evidence (Lando 1979:97) suggests that the Toba stress exchange even more than patrilineal de- scent as the basis of their society. And lastly, Niessen seems to misunder- stand what I called the Paradox of Unilineality, i.e. "the more unilineal a system is or becomes the less likely it is to remain unilineal" (Moyer 1976:3). Though I was referring to certain specific processes that I thought were typical of Indonesian social systems, I now believe that the process is more fundamental. This change of viewpoint is largely due to Eric Wolf s work. He recently argued that "the tendency to maximize external oppositions vis-a-vis other groups goes hand in hand with a multiplication of internal oppositions. First, there are oppositions between men and women. Some complementary equilibrium between gender roles can perhaps be main- tained as long as kinship is but one ordering element among others in a situation of open resources. With the emergence of pedigreed groups into the political field, however, affinal relationships become political relations and women lose status in relation to men as they become tokens of alliance" (Wolf 1983:93). Phrased in these terms, the Paradox of Unilineality asserts that the strong external opposition that unilineality entails leads to internal differentiation. In the case of many Indonesian societies óne manifesta-

Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 08:16:45PM via free access Korte Mededelingen ' 341 tion of this internal differentiation is a complementary opposition of descent principles that has, rightly or wrongly, been called doublé de- scent. In the case of West African societies complementary filiation has been used to describe an analogous but different process of internal opposition. When one compares the Indonesian societies of Sumatra and Eastern Indonesia it appears that doublé descent and exchange are often antithetical principles. When one comes to the fore the other recedes into the background and yice versa. This is true even in very closely related societies and cultures. This has been demonstrated by Van Wouden (1956) at the social level and P. E. de Josselin de Jong (1956) at the cognitive level. My analysis of nineteenth centüry material from South Sumatra suggests that the relationships hold there at both social and cognitive levels. What remains to be explained is which circumstances lead to alliance and which lead to doublé descent pre- dominating. Objectively seen, Vergouwen's evidence for the existence of a matri- lineal principle is very weak. But that is exactly the point. Assuming that Vergouwen was making the best arguments he could, his evidence leads one to conclude that a matrilineal principle was, at best, minimally present. Thus once again we have an occurrence of the observation that Niessen seems to ignore, i.e., where exchange and a single descent principle are very strong the other descent principle and thus doublé descent seem to recede into the background. Where we totally part company is on the interpretation of the weak evidence that Vergouwen saw as representing matriliny. Niessen sees this as representing exchange (or alliance). I see it as evidence for doublé descent. At the level of an individual society her explanation is as good as, if not better, than my own. However, in a comparative framework that includes the cultures of Sumatra, some problems arise if one persists with the alliance based interpretation. First, there is the Minangkabau concept of bako. De Josselin de Jong has described this in the following terms: "The term is often used for one's father's matrilineage, some- times for patrifiliation, but also for a recognised quality transmitted by fathers to sons through the generations. This may be the quality of leadership, or aptitude for silek (the partly spiritual and partly physical art of self-defence) or for mysticism and divination" (de Josselin de Jong 1975:19). This could be reinterpreted in exchange or alliance terms using an approach that Leach has used for a number of things, including the matrilineal pigs of the nominally patrilineal Kachin (Leach 1961). Indeed, Niessen's model for the Toba Batak would seem to require such a reinterpretation of the Minangkabau data if one wished to persist with the comparative task. Second, South Sumatra as a region cannot be satisfactoriiy explained at all using an alliance model. On the other hand, here the doublé descent model is particularly fruitful. Quite simply, doublé descent is a very useful, powerful notion when one is trying to compare the different forms of Sumatran social organization. If one abandons the idea of regional comparison then doublé descent is no longer necessary and alliance models may be more useful. But if one persists with the comparative task, either at a Sumatran or Indonesian level, doublé descent cannot be ignored.

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REFERENCES CITED

Fischer, H. Th., and H. C. van Renselaar 1959 'Over enkele Batakse venvantschapstermen', BKI 115:40-55. Josselin de Jong, P. E. de 1956 'De visie der participanten op hun cultuur', BKI112:147-168. 1975 Social Organization of Minangkabau, Leiden: Instituut voor Culturele Antro- pologie en Sociologie der Niet-Westerse Volken, Publicatie No. 8. Keuning, J. 1964 'Preface', The Social Organisation and Customary Law of the Toba-Batak of Northern Sumatra by J. C. Vergouwen, Translation Series 7, Koninklijk Insti- tuut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde. Lando, R. P. 1979 The Gift of Land: Irrigation and Social Structure in a Toba Batak Village, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Riverside. Leach, E. R. 1961 Rethinking Anthropology, London: The Athlone Press. Moyer, D. S. 1976 Paris-Leiden and Other Oppositions, Leiden: Instituut voor Culturele Antro- pologie en Sociologie der Niet-Westerse Volken, Publicatie No. 16. 1977 'Matriliny among the Toba-Batak?', BKI 133:357-362. 1983 Review of Van Vollenhoven on Indonesian Adat Law: Selections from Het Adatrecht van Nederlansch Indië (Vol. I, 1918; Vol. II, 1931, edited by J. F. Holleman, Newsletter of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 7-11. Niessen, S. A. 1983 'Toba-Batak matriliny: a deception?', BKl 139:465;469. Wolf, E. R. 1983 Europe and the People Without History, Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Wouden, F. A. E. van 1956 'Lokale groepen en dubbele afstamming in Kodi, West Sumba', BKI 112: 204-246.

P. VOORHOEVE

DE OUDE GOUVERNEMENTS-HANDSCHRIFTEN Het roemloos einde van de St. Martin's collectie Maleise en andere handschriften is niet (zoals ik in 1964, Malayan and Indonesian Studies . . . R. Windstedt, p. 266, veronderstelde) aan het Bataviaasch Genoot- schap te wijten. In 1820 adviseerde prof. Reinwardt, een commissie in te stellen om het door de Regering uit de boedel van Ds. Zomerdijk aangekochte manuscript van een Ned.-Mal. woordenboek, begonnen door Leij- decker en door anderen aangevuld, uit te geven. Hij stelde voor (Rein- wardt, Reis. . ., 1858, p. 276): "Behalve het volledig handschrift van het Maleitsch-Nederduitsch woordenboek van wijlen den heer Zomerdijk, zullen voorts ook aan de Commissie alle verdere stukken tot haren arbeid betrekkelijk, en zich in de archieven van het Gouvernement bevindende, of die elders verkrijgbaar zijn, moeten ter hand gesteld

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