J. Platenkamp the Severance of the Origin; a Ritual of the Tobelo of North Halmahera

J. Platenkamp The severance of the origin; A ritual of the Tobelo of North Halmahera

In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Rituals and Socio-Cosmic Order in Eastern Indonesian Societies; Part II Maluku 146 (1990), no: 1, Leiden, 74-92

This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access J.D.M. PLATENKAMP

'THE SEVERANCE OF THE ORIGIN' A RITUAL OF THE TOBELO OF NORTH HALMAHERA

'[...] the participants' views are made clearer by contrast, and the ideals are more sharply defined by conflicts'. (P.E. de Josselin de Jong 1977: 247)

'Presque toujours il s'agit, non simplement d'evacuer, mais de reconduire vers son foyer d'origine la substance mystique que le transgresseur s'est indument appropriee'. (R. Hertz 1988: 56)

1. Introduction Robert Hertz' research into the nature of sin and expiation, published posthumously by Marcel Mauss, led him to define 'sin' as 'a transgression of a moral, order that is conceived to produce by its own virtue fatal consequences for its actor, and that concerns exclusively the religious society' (Hertz 1988: 51-2). Whereas the last part of the definition serves to distinguish, within the context of western secularized society, sin from crime and from transgressions of aristocratic codes of honour, this restric- tion does not apply to his definition of expiation. This involves 'certain . generally ritual actions [which] can reestablish the state of things prior to the transgression, abolishing the latter and satisfying justice without the transgressor and his near kin being crushed' (Hertz 1988: 55; my transla- tions, JP). These definitions, qualified by Mauss as 'excellent [...] and worthy of being classic' (Hertz 1988: 55), will serve as a guideline for the analysis of a ritual performed by the Tobelo of North Halmahera. It is called 'the severance of the origin' (o ahali ma dodoaka (Indonesian: putus asat); o ahali (< Indonesian: asat), 'the origin'; ma dodoaka < ha toaka, 'to sever', 'to cut'). This name refers to the consequence of its performance. Upon the contraction of a marriage between partners who belong to the same House, the relationship which the groom's relatives maintain with this House's ancestral 'origin' becomes severed. This consequence is considered an extremely serious one, since the highly valued relations of solidarity between 'the people of one House' are disconnected and transformed into the potentially hostile relations among 'strangers'. Therefore the ritual is seldom performed. Whenever it is, it is inserted into the marriage ritual. The ritual is an austere one. Immediately after the major exchanges of weapons, money, plaited artefacts and foodstuffs have been made by the relatives of the bride and the groom in the yard of the bride's house, an

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 'The Severance of the Origin'. A Ritual of the Tobeb 75 elder representing the bride's relatives leads male adult members of both parties to the nearby river or lake. There he utters a short formula, throws one or more valuables into the water, and the ritual has been completed. We shall observe how the 'severance of the origin' represents an overt expression of a particular hierarchization of the values that constitute Tobelo society as a socio-cosmic whole (Van Wouden 1968; Barraud et al. 1984). Since this society is conceived of in terms of different representations about 'origin' and 'ownership', I shall first present a synopsis of the way in which these ideas are formulated in myths and are operative in structuring the marriage exchanges.

2. The differential origin of society The Tobelo1 are a non-Austronesian language speaking society living in the eastern part of the northern peninsula of Halmahera and on the isle of Morotai, off the peninsula's northern coast. They number about 20,000 people, most of whom inhabit coastal villages in the subdictrict (Indon.: kecamatan) of Tobelo. A large majority has been converted to the Protes- tant denomination of Christianity that was introduced by Dutch missiona- ries from the beginning of this century onwards. This conversion, and the incorporation of Tobelo society into the larger polities of the Ternatan sultanate, the Dutch colonial government, and finally that of the Indone- sian Republic, have resulted in a formal tripartition of agama, hukum and adat (Indon.) that nowadays is applied by some village elders to order the corpus of current socio-religious concepts. Agama thus refers to the Bib- lical teachings and the Christian rituals such as baptism, the funerary service and the Sunday service. Hukum designates, in contrast to the administration of justice at village level by the elders acting as 'supporters of adat' (o adati majqjo), the legal procedures conducted by the represen- tatives of the Republic's Ministry of Justice in the subdistrict's capital of Tobelo. It is adat (o adati), however, which signifies all the precepts that set apart 'the way of the inhabitants of To-beloho' (o To-beloho'ka manga dodagi) from those of the societies of Galela to the North, Loloda and Tobaru to the Northwest and Tobelo Boeng to the South. The ideas and precepts that are discussed below pertain to this domain of adati. Tobelo villages consist of households formed by nuclear families that are joined sometimes by the families of one or more in-married children. Households maintain ideally patrilineal relationships that form a fam (< Dutch: familie). A fam represents a 'stem' (o utu), a metaphor which

The fieldwork among the Tobelo, conducted mainly in the southern part of Tobelo district from July 1979 till December 1980, and for some months in 1982, was made possible by a grant from the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO), The Hague, under the auspices of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences (LIPI), Jakarta. I wish to thank C. Barraud, D. de Coppet, R. Jamous and M.-J. Jamous, and the members of the Leiden research team CASA-Erasme for their perceptive comments on a previous version of this article.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 76 J.D.M. Platenkamp

encompasses two aspects that are expressed in the rule that 'the male children.hold on to the stem, the fruits/flowers they can give away' (o utu o ngohaka ma nauru ya so, ma hohoko y 'akunu ngongike). On the one hand there is the permanence of the stem of the tree. This relates to the con- tinuous occupation by male members of the jam of those territories where forest land, after having been transformed into ladang, has been turned into plantations of fruit-bearing trees. This association between a jam and its cultivated lands is closely related to the/am's name. Dissociation of jam members from these lands, usually as the result of an elder brother's refusal to share with his younger brothers, may induce the latter to reject that name. On the other hand, and in contrast with this male continuity, there is the transitivity of the female 'flowers/fruits' (ma hohoko) issued from the 'stem'. This refers to the rule that sisters and daughters do not perpetuate the fam, since they marry.out. They 'wade through the river to the other side' (yo tobongo o ngaere ma hononga-ika) to be 'planted in the yard' of the husband's house. Marriage creates relations between people 'at the woman's/female side' (o ngoheka-ino) and people 'at the man's/male side' (o naur-ind). The former represent the 'stem' from which a woman as 'fruit' is taken in marriage by the latter. For each person, therefore, his father's 'stem' is a 'stem at the side of the man' (o utu o naur-ind), whereas the 'stem' of his mother's brother and that of his sister's children are 'stems at the side of the woman' (o utu o ngoheka-ino). The relationship of 'stem at the woman's side' is valorized by the idea that the woman-as-fruit embodies the ca- pacity to regenerate the 'life' (ogikiri) of the person. The 'stem' from which the woman was issued therefore occupies a superior position in relation to the 'stem' that received the woman in marriage whenever this 'life' of a person is at stake. We shall observe below that ideologically this life originates in the primordial transformation of the soil into the bodies of the first human couple. In contrast to this idea of the living body of man stands the idea of his 'image' (o gurumini). A common origin (o ahali) of image is shared by the fam that mutually relate as elder and younger 'stems at the man's side' and constitute a House (o tau).2 Whenever the House acts ('stands up') as a collectivity these ideally patrilineal relations of 'elder and younger brothers' (o ro-ria-dodoto) between the 'stems', and the affinal relationships that (under particular conditions, see below) may have been established between them, are all subsumed under this encompassing idea of 'origin-in-image'. This emerges for instance from the formula with which in certain ritual contexts 'the people of one House' (o tau moi ma nyawa) are addressed. Even if some of those present relate both as members of 'elder and younger stems' and as affines to one another, they are never-

2 I shall use the capital H to distinguish 'house' as a social category from 'house' as a material structure.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 'The Severance of the Origin'. A Ritual of the Tobelo 11 theless addressed as 'all elder and younger brothers, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters' (o ro-ria-dodoto, o ama de o ayo, o hiranga de o biranga mata-mata). However, the 'House' is a complex concept that cannot be defined by criteria of kinship alone. The common identity of the members of a House derives from the idea of sharing 'one origin' (o ahali moi), yet this origin refers primarily to the association of people with a particular territory. It is the occupation of such a territory (ma hoana) that subordinates people to the precepts of the adati of a particular House and its hoana. According to the pre-Christian tradition of the Tobelo, it is a particular animal species the image of which represents the supreme ancestor (o wongemi) who is the 'origin' of the precepts prevailing in a hoana. From this 'origin' the House derives a name that is distinct from the ones of its constituent 'stems'.3 In the past, the permanent settlements of Tobelo as well as those of the linguistically closely related Tobelo Boeng, Galela, Tobaru and Loloda4, were centered around a temple (o halu). This temple was devoted to an ancestral animal, the image of which was carved into the poles. Within the prevailing system of antagonistic inter-village relationships these iconographic representations of ancestral image were jealously guarded, and heavy fines sanctioned the prohibition of adopting the image of other settlements. Present-day Tobelo society is conceived as being the outcome of a long process of differentiation (see Van Fraassen 1980). Constituted originally in the inland territory of Hinianga on the shores of Lake Lina, subsequent migrations to the coast are said to have resulted in the segmentation of the people into four hoana. Whereas Lina had maintained its temple in the interior, the hoana Huboto, Momulati and Gura/Hibua Lamo erected their own temples in their coastal territories. Historical data (Hueting 1921-2) confirm that until the first decades of this century all hoana were still united under the aegis of Lina's supreme ancestor whenever the war rituals were performed.5 Whereas nowadays the appropriate adati precepts still apply

3 Preceded by the possessive prefix to- ('to belong to'), the names identify the origin as a particular animal species. Hence there are House names such as To-kol*oba, 'to belong to the fish-eagle', and To-gohomanga, 'to belong to the crocodile'. 4 The languages of Tobelo-Boeng, Loloda, Galela, Tobaru and Tobelo are dialects of the Northeast Halmaheran Language (Voorhoeve 1988). 5 The incorporation of the coastal Tobelo into the Ternatan sultanate has resulted in a partial modification of the ideas about the 'origin' of the four large hoana. Thus the prerogatives of its inhabitants within the political structure of the sultanate became additional features of hoana identity. The names of the Houses were either re-interpreted or modified altogether according to the titles allocated by the Ternatan sultanate. Hence To-beloho became To-belo, 'I the stake people', 'because the Ternatan sultan when visiting Tobelo ordered the inhabitants to serve as stakes to attach his canoe to' (Hueting 1921-2). This modification of ideas about the 'origin' of the House, incorporating changing historical circum- stances, is an on-going process. Nowadays there is a tendency to reinterpret the identity of hoana within the idiom of the Republic of Indonesia, and to distinguish hoana from one another as if they represented the Republic's various ministries.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 78 J.D.M. Platenkamp

within the river boundaries of each of these four hoana, the villages located in their territories no longer unite around a single hoana!?, temple. The process of segmentation and differentiation appears to have continued, and present-day villages display their own House-like characteristics. Although one tends to express the inter-village competition that is characteristic of the antagonistic relationship between the ancestors of 'strange' Houses in the idiom of Christianity, and to strive to surpass other villages in the grandeur of the village church and the volume of its bells, the 'origin' of the association between the inhabitants of a village and particular areas of forest land still relates directly to an ancestral animal image. This 'origin' of the image of the house continues to contrast with the 'origin' of the life that is reproduced along the relations of 'stems at the woman's side' that intersect the fam. This contrast in 'origin' derives its meaning from the way in which the person and society are represented as being part of a cosmic order, the properties of which emerge from myth and ritual. Some of these rituals are no longer performed,6 but these social representations have not ceased to be valid, even though there is an ongoing effort to modify their meaning in accordance with church and state ideology.

A fundamental representation is ma dutu. In general, this construct designates a hierarchical relationship between a superior element and an in- ferior element; the former is said to 'own' and 'command' the latter, the latter to 'belong to' the former. According to the traditional ideology, all elements constituting the universe, including human beings, are connected to other elements in such relations of ma dutu. By means of this concept the universe is ordered into systems of intrinsically hierarchical relationships, of which relations of consanguinity (also designated by ma dutu) are but a particular manifestation. Ma dutu relationships provide the person with his constituent parts. Embodied in man, these ontological parts 'belong' to spiritual 'owners'. Severance of these relationships results in alienation of these 'owners', and ultimately in the death of the person.

6 In the course of recent history some of the rituals that constituted the socio-cosmic cycle to which these societies were subject have been abolished. Until the first decades of this century, yearly periods of dispersal and concentration, marked by differential astronomical cycles, used to correspond to different forms of social organization and above all to different configurations of the values operative in the rituals performed (Platenkamp 1988a). Whereas the marriage ritual, and the rituals that focus upon the life and growth of people and plants are still performed, the rituals of male initiation, of preparation for war and of purification afterwards, and the second mortuary ritual — which included a ritual of female initiation — have not survived the introduction of Christianity. Also the pacification of the area, and the termination of the role of Tobelo as warriors in the service of the Ternate sultanate, may have made the performance of the war rituals redundant. Yet the basic ideas expressed in these came to the fore again in public discussions when Tobelo who had served in the regular Indonesian army operating in East Timor returned • to their villages in 1980. Still, many a Sunday sermon is devoted to the message that the 'strong ancestors', whose task it is to assist the warrior in hunting and battle, are 'mere devils' (Indon. setan), and that the performance of rituals 'belongs to the pagan era'..

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 'The Severance of the Origin'. A Ritual of the Tobeb 79

A Loloda myth of creation (Van Baarda 1904:442-446; Platenkamp 1988a:23-25) stipulates that the creation of human beings requires that relations of ma dutu between man and his ancestors must be established first. Initially these ancestors assume the identity of the male and the female of a particular animal species, made from the lifeless faeces of an unspecified 'owner of the earth/land' (o tonaka ma dutu).1 These ancestors replace and particularize this concept of 'owner of the earth', and this allows for the subsequent formation of the bodies {ma ro'ehe) of the first human couple out of the soil. These bodies, however, can only come alive if another constituent is inserted first. It is man's image which, in contrast to the body created out of the soil, derives from an origin in the heavens. It is the most abstract notion of 'ownership', designated by the name Jou ma dutu, 'Lord owner [of everything]', which attributes this constituent to the first human beings. But, in contrast to the particularized ancestral couple who have replaced the abstract notion of 'owner of the earth', this origin of 'image' is still abstract and all-encompassing. Because the autochthonous ancestral 'owners' of man's living body have been created, the first human couple are able to exploit human and vegetable fertility. Thus the woman — on whom the myth further focuses — gives birth to her first son, cultivates a rice garden on the bank of a river, and becomes pregnant of her second son. But then the river floods and destroys half of the garden. After the woman has cursed the river, her second son is affected in a particular manner. He is born incomplete, hence 'he cannot work, he only eats and drinks'. This inability to.perform male duties — of which hunting, fishing and waging war are the most significant ones — is expressed in his name, 'Half-body'. Recall that at this stage of the creation process, the 'owner' who inserted image has not yet been particularized as an ancestor. The myth points out that not only the second son, but society as a whole is incomplete, for it still lacks a differentiated category of ancestors who are the 'owners' of these people's image. In order to become complete the second son must ascend to the heavenly source of image, where he receives the complete image that is reflected in the water of a lake. By this very act the second son, and more specifically his face, becomes 'more perfect' than the first one. The latter then also ascends to the heavenly origin of image. Insisting before a reluctant Jou

Tobelo myths identify the 'owners of the land' (o tonaka ma dutu) as the 'people who lived here long ago'. There are various names current in the area to designate them: o moro- ka ('the inhabitants of Moro', an ancient culture inhabiting the east coast of North Halmahera and the Isle of Morotai until the end of the 16th century, when they were defeated by Ternatan forces; see Villiers 1983); ojini« Arab); o widadari (< Old Javanese < Sanskrit). Their identity is marked by particular features: apart from their trickster qualities, they are 'smell-less', which implies that their corpses are no. longer decaying. They are 'life-less' and therefore sometimes represented by ashes. And finally, they are 'image-less', for they have no personal name and no individual face (Platenkamp 1988a: 98-100). These 'owners of the land' are the primordial life-givers. The clearing of forest land for the cultivation of rice fields still requires the performance of rituals to placate them.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 80 J.D.M. Platenkamp

ma dutu that he wants to 'become as perfect as [his] younger brother', he is submerged in the water. He emerges again as an animal with a particular image, which, although being fed with the 'left-overs from the table', is to be venerated by the Loloda people as their 'owner' and 'elder brother'. The elder brother has replaced and particularized Jou ma dutu, the encompassing concept of'ownership', to become the 'owner of the water' (o akere ma dutu), the 'owner of the image' of Loloda society. Thus two abstract notions of 'origin', viz., 'Lord owner [of everything]' and 'the owner of the earth', are particularized into two ancestral identities, each of which relates as 'owner' to that constituent of the person over which it exerts authority. An animal couple of autochthonous origin, made from matter that is no longer 'alive', have replaced the 'owner' of the soil out of which the person's body is constituted. A single male ancestor to whom an animal image has been attributed represents the 'owner' of the people's image. Although in both cases the same animal species (that is, a dog) is concerned, these ancestral identities and human constituents do not have an equivalent status. First of all, for the body of man to become a 'living' entity the insertion of image is a precondition: as long as image has not been inserted the earthen body 'falls apart'. At this initial stage of creation birth and death still coincide. Only the insertion of image permits these to be separated, and allows for man to acquire a lifespan, and for processes of life, decay and reproduction to be initiated. Furthermore, the ancestors who replace the 'owner of the earth' are a male and a female. They are literally of a previous generation in relation to the first human beings, and this contrast is marked as the difference between the 'living' and 'decaying' bodily substance that derives from the autochthonous soil. The ancestor, however, who as the 'owner of the water' is the particula- rization of the 'Lord owner [of everything]' is exclusively male. He relates to the Loloda people as 'elder brother' to 'younger brothers', a contrast which is marked as the difference between an ancestral animal image and 'complete' human beings. Derived directly from Jou ma dutu, this ancestral image connects the skies, reflected in the water of lakes and rivers, to the earth in a hierarchical relationship in which the 'owner of everything' encompasses the contrast between this foreign origin of image and the local origin of living body.

3. The marriage exchanges This particular configuration of'ideas-values' (Dumont 1983) concerning the notions of'ownership' and 'origin' of society and the person constitutes an ideology in which Tobelo society is represented as taking part in processes of a cosmic nature. Natural resources of land and water are accessible to man only after the relations of differential ancestral 'ownership' have been created, to which people are subordinated. Neglect of these relationships results in the death of the person and in the destruction of society.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 'The Severance of the Origin'. A Ritual of the Tobelo 81

In this socio-cosmic order two distinct principles of 'increase' operate. There is an increase manifest in the growth of the 'body' of people and plants. But there is also the notion of the flooding water, which indicates the 'growth' of image. Several other North Halmaheran myths of origin elaborate upon the idea that the relation between these two principles of increase is a hierarchical one that can assume different forms. Either the floods, which transform people into ancestral images, are stopped to enable the growth of the body of people and plants, or the floods create ancestors but at the expense of life on earth (Platenkamp 1988b). The same principles are involved in the acquisition of 'life' and 'image' by means of exchange. A myth about Paca, a village in the territory of the hoana Lina, relates how one of the five 'elders' (ma dimono) who represent this village as a whole once went to hunt in an unknown forest area. There he met with a particular animal. Acting as the 'owner' of the lake which marks that area, the animal granted the title to the land and the water in exchange for the vow that 'descendants' of this animal would never be killed or eaten by the descendants of the village elders. This covenant (one of the applications of the concept ma bohono, 'forbidden'/'respected') qualifies as ma dutu the relations between all who have access to the territory on the one hand, and the hunter whose ancestral image has become that of the animal on the other. At that point in the myth, however, people from a neighbouring village appropriated by trickery the same area, and they drew the boundaries that marked this area for the cultivation of rice. From that moment onwards, the land is explicitly valued for its fertility, and no longer as hunting territory.8 The animal image might have inspired the people of Paca to reconquer the area by force, thus 'increasing' the heroic image. But the myth stipulates otherwise. In order to acquire the land again, an exchange must be made that at first glance seems astonish- ing. Although the bohono rule forbids the elders to kill and eat the animal species, they nevertheless kill it and smoke its meat, and give this to the people of the neighbouring village in exchange for the 'bounded' land (Platenkamp 1.988a: 112-121). These events derive their meaning from the hierarchical relationship between the two levels of exchange which identify Tobelo society. At one level there is the exchange of violence between 'strange people/people from elsewhere' (o nyawa ma homoa; ma homoa is the antonym of ma dutu). By killing 'strange' people and animals — acts for which ancestral image is indispensable — one's image increases. This applies not only to the waging of war, but to hunting and fishing as well. Since the ma dutu relationship connects people to their ancestors, whose image is that of one particular animal species only, all other animal species potentially embody

Violation of bounded' land is 'equivalent to the violation of an in-married woman' (Indon.: nilai sama dengan rampas isteri).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 82 J.D.M. Platenkamp

the images of'strange people'. Thus in the pre-Christian tradition a father used to kill a 'strange' animal, the image — and name — of which was to be 'consumed' by his new-born child in order to 'increase' that child's image. By the same token the father's ancestral image was proclaimed as being of superior strength. The relationship between 'strange' Houses is therefore of a potentially antagonistic nature. At this level of inter-House relationships it is the exchange of valuables that can prevent the antagonism from turning into outright violence. Hence whenever the image of a House is damaged, particularly by acts affecting the House's in-married women, the culprit is condemned to pay a fine in so-called 'dead money' (o tiwi ma honenge). It is the ancestral image of the offended House that sets the standard for these fines. Proclaiming the restoration of the House's image requires the conversion of image into 'dead money'. Of a 'strange' origin by definition, the 'increase' in the House's image can be measured by the amount of'dead money' extracted from 'strangers' (Coppet 1981).9 Once this 'dead money' has been transferred it is irretrievable; in reference to the water as the origin of the House's ancestral image, the money is said to have 'sunk to the bottom' (i lutu-ka). The transfer of 'dead money' is only partly dependent upon the actual performance of hostile acts. For not only the damage done to their image entitles a House to demand the money, but also the intention of strangers to marry one of their women. Whenever a House is approached to act as 'the woman's side' and to give a girl in marriage to a strange House, it is entitled to demand from 'the man's side' a sum of'dead money' that serves to 'cover the shame' (o mal*eke ha tatoko) which the latter are thought to have inflicted upon them. As was said, this is to a certain extent indepen- dent of the actual conduct of the people at 'the man's side'. Rather, it is a prerequisite as such for the transformation of the antagonistic relationship between strange Houses into an affinal one. Only after its ancestral image has been increased and proclaimed superior to the groom's House by means of conversion into 'dead money' can the House act as bride-giver. This transfer takes place before the actual marriage ritual is performed, when the relationship between the two Houses is still valorized by their respective ancestral images. Bringing in 'dead money' from abroad, the House 'at the man's side' subordinates its image to that of the House 'at the woman's side'. When, however, the actual marriage ritual is performed10, a profound

9 D. de Coppet's seminal analysis of this type of conversion processes among the 'Are'are of the Solomons proved to be of great heuristic value for the understanding of Tobelo and Galela exchange systems. See also Barraud et al. 1984. 10 For a detailed analysis of the Tobelo marriage ritual see Platenkamp 1988a. D. Nijland (1985) registered the ritual on film; see also Nijland 1989.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 'The Severance of the Origin'. A Ritual of the Tobelo 83 change occurs. One shifts to another level of value11, at which the House 'at the woman's side' is no longer identified by its superior ancestral image, but as the giver of the life that is embodied in the bride. The relationship between the exchange partners is valorized accordingly in a different manner. Now those 'at the man's side' replace the life, manifest in the offspring that will be born of the bride, by the transfer of 'living money' (o tiwi ma ngango). The origin of this life is not identified in relation to the ancestors of the House of the bride's father, but in relation to her mother. Therefore the living money should equal the sum that was transferred in a previous generation in exchange for the bride's mother.12 Unlike 'dead money', 'living money' does not 'sink' in the House 'at the woman's side', but is distributed among all the bride's 'mother's sisters' who have contri- buted to the prestigious plaited artefacts which as part of the ritual exchanges, 'cover' the gifts made by 'the man's side'. As the life embodied by the bride increases in her offspring, likewise the 'living money' is subject to 'growth'. When it 'comes floating up' (i puda-puda) to be retrieved upon misconduct of the bride, its amount is doubled after the woman has given birth to children. The gift of 'living money' is part of a whole that consists of the relation between this money and a set of weapons. This set is called 'the replacer of the container' (o ngi ma dagali) and consists of a shield, a spear and a sword, which are tied together by a white head-cloth and are offered by the women 'at the man's side' to the people 'at the woman's side'. This set is valorized by the ancestral images of the House of the former. The shield's decorations testify to the victims killed by its ancestors, and the 'medicines' (ma houru) wrapped around the shaft of the spear represent the 'spine', 'descended' from the ancestors of the House to guarantee the warriors' invulnerability. This set relates as 'head' (ma haeke) and 'owner' (ma dutu) to the 'living money'. Yet at this particular level of exchange, the 'head/ owner' part is subordinated, in order for the life to be of superior value. Only if the affinal relationship is disrupted by the bride's misconduct, and 'the woman's side' refuses to return the 'living money', will 'the head-cloth turn loose'. 'Coming alive', the weapons 'will eat the bride'.

1' This change in the level of value is marked by several inversions. To give some examples: the house of the 'woman's side' takes out the plaited sleeping mats from the 'closed' domain of the sleeping rooms to put them on display attached to the 'public' front wall of the house; 'red' is no longer the colour that marks the relationship as potentially 'hot' and violent, but 'white', the feature of fertility and bodily growth. Most significant, however, is the fact that it is the women, both of 'the woman's side' and of 'the man's side', who act as the exchange partners during the performance of the marriage ritual. 12 Attempts by 'the man's side' to ignore this rule and to bring down the sum of'living money' will shorten the bride's lifespan. If, however, 'the woman's side' demands a higher bride price than the one they themselves transferred in the previous generation in exchange for the bride's mother, then 'the money will weigh upon the bride's children and grandchildren'.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 84 J.D.M. Platenkamp

Image and life, then, are converted into the differential valuta13 of'dead' and 'living' money. This money is valorized by these ontological constituents of the person, constituents which belong to ancestral 'owners' of different origin. Their ability to generate the 'growth' of image and of life is manifest from the transfer of the money. Circulating through Tobelo society at two contrasting levels of exchange, the money continually 'replaces' (ha tagali, 'to replace'/'to substitute') the constituent parts which the person derives from his ancestral relationships. Whereas at the beginning of society ancestors of different origin had to be created, so that the living body of man could be constituted out of earth and his image out of water, the monetary conversions allow for the formation of 'complete' children issued from marriage ever since.

4. Transgression If a marriage is contracted between people who are related to one another as 'mutual dutu' (o gia-dutu), a fundamental rule is violated which stipulates that 'it is forbidden to marry one's dutu' (i bohono ho mol*oka de nanga dutu); that 'one shall not replace amongst one another [in marriage]' (i dadi-ua ho ma teke tagali) with one's dutu; that 'the people of one House' sharing 'one blood and one flesh' (o awunu moi de o akeme moi) and 'one origin' (o ahali moi) cannot marry. This negative rule of 'prohibition' (ma bohono) has its counterpart in a positive rule of exogamy. It is stipulated that the women of a House should 'go out three times' before a descendant can marry back into the House. An analysis presented elsewhere (Platen- kamp 1988a: 225-25) indicates that this rule relates to the idea that third cousins no longer share an origin of 'life', whereas second cousins still do. This origin is alienated in the fourth descending generation. Formulated in genealogical terms, this rule allows for a man to marry the kintype PPPSbDDD. The unity of the House, however, is not primarily defined in terms of genealogical relationships, but in terms of the relations of ma dutu that people maintain with the ancestral origins which are associated with a particular area of water and land. The valorization of these relationships, which need not even be preserved in the form of precisely known genea- logies, may be incompatible with the ideas which valorize affinity. For even if people share an ancestral origin at a higher level than the fourth ascending generation but still constitute one House, a marriage between them is not allowed unless the marriage exchanges are adapted in a particular manner. Two options are open for modifying the affinal relationship, and these involve the attenuation, or the negation altogether, of the superiority of the people 'at the woman's side' over those 'at the man's side'.

13 The standard sums of 'living' and 'dead money' are measured in real Arab and real Makassar respectively. See Platenkamp 1988a: 236-241 for the calculus employed in converting these real into Indonesian rupiah.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access "The Severance of the Origin'. A Ritual of the Tobelo 85

The first option is the exchange of sisters in marriage. This exchange creates a perfectly symmetrical relationship which is characterized as 'placing the two tubes of palmwine against one another' (yo bori daluku ma dadangono). Although this results in a rather awkward situation in which people who are related as 'elder and younger brothers' within one House now become each other's brothers-in-law and hence 'cannot open their mouth to one another again', neither party can claim superiority as 'people at the woman's side' over the other. No party has to make the gift of 'dead money' or that of weapons and 'living money' to the other. The second option is that of a regular marriage between members of a House. No sisters are exchanged, and each party gives the prescribed foodstuffs: rice and vegetables are presented by 'the woman's side', fish and/or meat, sago and palmwine by 'the man's side'. However, neither the 'dead money' that 'covers the shame' nor the 'living money' replacing the life embodied by the bride are demanded by 'the woman's side'. There are elders who advocate these types of marriage. They argue that the unity of the House of Tobelo, which according to the myths prevailed in the original setting of the hoana Lina in the interior, was lost when the people migrated 'in a disorderly way' to their respective coastal territories. A policy to encourage marriage between the members of the original hoana would succeed in 'collecting the people in one hoana, so that we would be numerous and strong again'. This ideal to reinforce the solidarity and strength of the House — always defined by reference to ancestral origin — by arranging marriages between people who share this origin, necessarily involves the relative subordination of the life embodied in the bride to the ancestral image shared by the members of the House as a whole. For whether one relinquishes the right to the 'living money' or one exchanges sisters in marriage, in each case one prevents the superiority of 'the woman's side' over 'the man's side' being proclaimed at the expense of their relations to this ancestral origin, and hence at the cost of the solidarity between 'people of one House'. However, it does occur, albeit rarely, that in a marriage contracted between 'people of one House' these considerations are set aside, and that people 'at the woman's side' demand the transfer of the complete set of gifts. This is a very grave decision. In the only case I actually witnessed14 it was provoked by the fact that the 'elder/younger brother' relationship between both parties had deteriorated as a result of insulting remarks about the virtue of the bride, which according to the father of the bride had been made by relatives of the groom prior to the marriage negotiations. The 'shame' (o mal*eke) imposed by these remarks was deemed so great that the bride's relatives decided not only to demand a large sum of 'dead money' to 'cover the shame', but also an enormous amount of living

14 The case is extensively described in Platenkamp 1988a: 231-2.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 86 J.D.M. Platenkamp

money15 with which to proclaim publicly the value of the life embodied by the bride. Among the groom's relatives this provoked bewilderment. 'In fact, we are "elder and younger brothers", why do they do such a thing?' Yet it was evident that for 'the woman's side' their image, damaged by the insults, outweighed the value of constituting one House with 'the man's side'. Hence they rejected the options mentioned earlier that would have enabled them to proceed with the marriage without affecting the House's unity. By insisting upon the transfer of the gifts of 'dead money' and the 'dead' weapons they demanded the subordination of the image of the groom's relatives to that of themselves. In each regular marriage exchange it is a 'strange' ancestral image that is subordinated, first to the image of the people 'at the woman's side' at the higher level of exchange, and subsequently to their life at the lower level of exchange. In this case, however, it was the ancestral image shared by both sides that became subordinated, first to the image of 'the woman's side' only, and subsequently to the life embodied in the bride. This absolute inversion of the hierarchical relationship between image as encompassing value and life as encompassed value would have disastrous consequences, unless the bride's relatives took the proper ritual action to dissociate their ancestral origin from that of the relatives of the groom.

5. The sanction The subordination of the dutu relationship which connects the relatives of the bride and the groom to a shared ancestral origin would provoke a reaction of veritable cosmic dimensions. It would unleash dopaha, disastrous 'rains, storms and floods' (o awana de o rato de o nguihi) that inundate the land and its settlements, and destroy the territorial unity of the hoana to which both marriage partners belong. Not the life embodied in people and plants would display its propensity to grow, but the water, source of ancestral image, would 'come alive' to manifest its destructive 'growing' force. Whereas the image of 'the owner of the water' should unify the various fam to one House, dopaha would establish a schism that deprives the House of its territorial integrity. The events that preceded the creation of the primordial people would be repeated, and the members of the House would be reduced to 'half-people', people who do have life but have lost their image.16 There is only one way in which to avert this catastrophy, and that is by performing the ritual of 'the severance of the origin'. As was said, the ritual involves the offering of valuables to the water of the nearby river or lake. It is performed by an elder male representative of'the woman's side' in the company of adult male members of both 'sides'. Before the valuables are thrown into the water a short formula is uttered:

15 On the particular condition of being 'only mentioned' {ma ilinga dika), a sort of suspended payment, 'the woman's side' demanded Rp. 500,000 as 'living money'. 16 This is the fourth relation of a Kleingroup, logically predicted in a comparative analysis of a series of origin myths from North Halmahera (Platenkamp 1988b).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 'The Severance of the Origin'. A Ritual of the Tobelo 87

'Lord! seawards [we take] the severance of our origin. Let the storm and our dopaha be terminated.' (Koano! geng-oko mia ahali ma dodoaka. Ho nako ka to ngomi mia dopaha i bot-ohi de o rato)11. Also a more elaborate speech may be delivered: 'All elder and younger brothers, surely what happens at this hour is evident from [the object] we hold in our hands, from what we display: it is the severance of our origin. But let us not be angry about what our children have done. Even though the name speaks of the severance of the origin, our origin is still one knot, still one bond. Here we enact only the temporary severance of the origin, and we throw [the object into the water], but let us be of one mind!'18 Thereupon he offers one or more valuables to the water.

The offering made to the river Paca as part of the ritual 'severance of the origin'.

17 Recorded in the inland settlement of Telaga Paca. 18 Recorded in the coastal village of Paca.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 88 J.D.M. Platenkamp

By performing the ritual the relations between 'the woman's side' and 'the man's side', previously being 'mutual dutu' (gia dutu), 'people of one House', are transformed into relations between 'strangers'. Since they no longer share the same origin, a marriage between them, and their descendants, may be contracted without fear of cosmic interference. However, it is precisely on this point that the second speech testifies to a certain ambiguity. While acknowledging the fact that the ritual must be performed the speaker implored both parties to act as if it never had been. This is quite understandable. The decision to perform the ritual followed upon a serious conflict between co-resident members of the same House. The antagonism between 'strangers' is difficult to reconcile with the solidarity expected from people who inhabit the same village and who have access to the same territory. Yet these considerations are of secondary importance. For, whereas in this case one tried to temper what is ruled at the level of the cosmic order, one did not decide to abstain from performing the ritual altogether. Whether or not in agreement with it, the intentions of individual people are subordinated to this ancestral order. So even if a marriage is contracted between partners who to the best of one's knowledge are not related to the same origin, and heavy rains follow, one concludes that they must have an origin in common the record of which has been lost. If the rains do not stop even when the ritual is performed after all, this indicates that a third party must be involved in an illicit affair. The relation between individual decision-making and the ancestral order may seem to involve an element of free choice, the alternatives of which are given in the following reminiscence. 'Once in the island of Kakara [off the coast of Tobelo] a marriage was contracted between mutual dutu without their origin being severed. Thereupon the island split in two. To undo this the elders threw silver coins into the straits created by the flood, and the island became whole again.' Here the choice seems to be between a decision to divide the House, or to allow the flooding water to separate the territory while preserving the unity of the House. Yet also in this case the outcome was certain. Com- plying with the ritual prescriptions, the elders hastened to sacrifice the unity of the House for the benefit of the completeness of the island and the integrity of the socio-cosmic order.

6. An expiation? In comparison with the primordial events which in the Loloda myth of creation preceded the genesis of man, the society has mastered an alternative to avert the destructive 'growth' of water. Recall how at one point in the creation process a flood destroyed half of the first rice garden, where- upon the first woman cursed the water. This caused her second son to be born as a 'half-body', a person without image. The re-constitution of his

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 'The Severance of the Origin'. A Ritual of the Tobelo 89 completeness with an image reflected in the heavenly water was followed by the transformation of his elder brother into the first ancestral 'owner' of the images of Loloda society. The myth suggests that in order to undo the destructive consequences of the 'growing' water, a human being had to 'sink' into the heavenly water in order to 'come floating up' as an ancestor. Present-day society has an alternative to this death by drowning which the first woman still lacked. The ancestral images having been created, and the means to convert these into 'dead money' being determined by adati, the Tobelo can re-enact the primordial events while replacing the human victim with valuables. In the ritual witnessed in 1982, the object thrown into the Paca river was a modern tin tray featuring the portrait of a woman. It had been made in Taiwan and bought in a shop in the subdistrict's capital, Tobelo. People argued that actually an antique bronze plate — rare nowadays in the area — should have been employed, but that it would have taken the groom's relatives too long to find one among the people 'at the man's side'. Whether a tray imported from Taiwan, or a bronze plate made in Java, what is concerned are valuables originating from abroad the very acquisition of which testifies to the 'strength' of the House's ancestors. The standard value of the objects which in the Tobelo region are offered in this ritual is a function of the identity of the ancestral image of the particular House. In the southern inland part of Tobelo subdistrict this value is precisely determined by the adati that prevails in the various hoana. There the standard relates to those set for the 'living' and 'dead money' that 'belongs to' a particular territory (Platenkamp forthcoming). Thus in the hoana To-gisoro, 10 rupiah should be inserted into a split piece of bamboo and thrown into the river To-gisoro. In the hoana To-kinito 9 rupiah is offered in a similar manner to the river Tunuo. In the hoana To-todoku 9 rupiah is put on a porcelain plate and given to the To-todoku river. (In these prescriptions, one rupiah equals the pre-1940 Dutch silver guilder.) By contrast, the situation prevailing along the coast seems to permit a certain degree of improvization. But also in these coastal settlements the valuables are classified as 'dead money'. These valuables are supplied by 'the man's side' and handed over to the 'woman's side'. Yet, whereas all other fines in 'dead money' demanded by a House to restore its damaged reputation — including the 'cover of the shame' that precedes a marriage — become inalienable property 'belong- ing' to the House, this gift of valuables may not remain in the possession of the recipients. Therefore, the gift should not be made in current cash money. As one informant observed: 'Who would want to throw cash money into the river? The people at the woman's side would be tempted to share this money among themselves.' It is the third party involved in the relationship (Mauss 1983:157-161; Casajus 1984), viz., the'owner' of the image of both 'the man's' and 'the woman's side', to whom the gift is due. Having been transferred to 'the woman's side', the gift is sub-

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 90 J.D.M. Platenkamp

sequently offered to this 'owner of the water'. It has become irretrievable.'9 The 'severance of the origin' thus effectuates the return of the image which 'the man's side' shares with 'the woman's side' to the source of the House's ancestral image. As a result, the groom's fam now occupies a position which is similar to that of an immigrant. No longer being related to the ancestral 'owner' of land and water, the fam receives an autochthonous woman in an uxorilocal marriage. Only after three generations will this fam again be integrated into the House and its territory (Platenkamp 1988a: 76-96). Yet for the time being, thefam's reputation has 'sunk to the bottom'. It will not 'come floating up again'.

7. Conclusion Claude Levi-Strauss (1984:189-99) has suggested that Indonesian 'societes a maisons' resemble European medieval societies in the sense that 'houses' constitute basic social categories (see also Fox 1980). According to Hertz, in the latter societies there may not have been a clear-cut distinction between 'sin' and transgressions of particular codes of honour. 'He who by his own fault [...] no longer preserves his honour intact feels himself directly deprived of a mysterious quality embodied in his being, which was for him the first among his goods, more precious than life itself. 'To lose honour was for him to lose the most precious part of his being' (Hertz 1988: 47, 53). The loss of 'image', with its connotations of name, reputation, and emblem reminiscent of the valor of medieval society, indeed threatens to reduce the Tobelo person to an incomplete being, a 'half-body'. However, neither the act of transgression described above, nor the consequences that threaten to result from it, affect the individual person alone or even in the first place. To apply the concept of 'sin' in an analysis of these kinds of transgression, therefore, would be a fundamental mis- representation of the configuration of ideas and values that constitutes Tobelo ideology. The Tobelo concept of gurumini cannot be equated with the Christian concept of'soul', a constituent of the Christian individual that is endangered when a transgression of a religious rule distorts the relation between the transgressor and the deity. On the contrary, 'image' being a constituent that belongs to an ancestral origin which valorizes the relations between the person arid the other members of his House, the devaluation of image is an act that affects the cosmic order of which the society forms a part, and to which the intentions and acts of the individual person are subservient. If, therefore, a particular hierarchy of values which subordinates the fertile growth of the living to the ancestral images of the House is inverted because some of the members of a House value their status as 'life-givers' higher than the ancestral relations shared with those who receive this life, retaliation follows, the very nature of which bears testi-

19 Along the coast it is said that once the sacrifice has been made, an old — that is, a barren — woman may take the object out of the river for her own use.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 'The Severance of the Origin'. A Ritual of the Tobelo 91 mony to this socio-cosmic order. Re-enacting a dramatic part in the genesis of mankind, the water threatens to reclaim what it once provided. The only way to avert this disaster is to return the image to its ancestral origin, and the sacrifice of money, to which ancestral image can be converted, serves this purpose. Yet there is no return to an initial state of affairs, and hence there is no expiation in the strict sense of the word. The social relations between 'people of one House' must be severed in order for the socio-cosmic order to be preserved.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baarda, M.J. van, 1904, 'Het Loda'sch, in vergelijking met het Galela'sch dialect op Halma- heira; Gevolgd door Loda'sche teksten en verhalen', Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 56: 317-496. Barraud, C, D. de Coppet, A. Iteanu, & R. Jamous, 1984, 'Des relations et des morts. Quatre societes vues sous Tangle des echanges', in: J.-C. Galey (ed.), Differences, valeurs, hierarchie, pp. 421-520. Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Casajus, D., 1984, 'L'enigme de la troisieme personne', in: J.-C. Galey (ed.), Differences, valeurs, hierarchie, pp. 65-78. Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Coppet, D. de, 1981, 'The life-giving death', in: S. Humphreys & H. Kings (eds), Mortality and immortality: The anthropology and archeology of death, pp. 175-204. New York: Academic Press. Dumont, L., 1983, Essais sur I'individualiSme; Uneperspective anthropologique sur I'ideolbgie modeme. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Fox, J.J., 1980, 'Models and metaphors. Comparative research in eastern Indonesia', in: J.J. Fox (ed.), The flow of life. Essays on eastern Indonesia, pp. 327-334. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Fraassen, Ch.F. van, 1980, 'Types of sociopolitical structure in North Halmaheran history', in: E.K.M. Masinambow (ed.), Halmahera dan Raja Ampat. Konsep dan strategipenelitian, pp. 87-150. Jakarta: Leknas-Lipi. Hertz, R., 1988, Lepeche et I'expiation dans les societes primitives. Paris: Editions Jean-Michel Place [edited by M. Mauss; orig. publ. in 1922.] Hueting, A., 1921, 'De Tobeloreezen in hun denken en doen, deel 1', Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 77: 217-359. —, 1922, 'De Tobeloreezen in hun denken en doen, deel 2', Bijdragen totde Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 78: 137-342. Josselin de Jong, P.E. de, 1977, 'The participants' view of their culture', in: RE. de Josselin de Jong (ed.), Structural anthropology in the Netherlands; A reader, pp. 233-252. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. [KITLV Translation Series 17; orig. publ. in Dutch 1956.] Levi-Strauss, C, 1984, Paroles Donnees. Paris: Plon. Mauss, M., 1983, 'Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de Pechange dans les societes archai'ques', in: Marcel Mauss, Sociologie et anthropologie, pp. 145-284. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. [Orig. publ. in 1923-4.] Nijland, D.N., 1985, Tobelo marriage, film, 16 mm., colour, 110 min., optic sound. Leiden: Institute of Social and Cultural Studies. —, 1989, Schaduwen en werkelijkheid. [Ph.D. thesis, Leiden University.] Platenkamp, J.D.M., 1988a, Tobelo. Ideas and values of a north Moluccan society. Leiden: Repro Psychologic [Ph.D. thesis, Leiden University.] —, 1988b, 'Myths of life and image in northern Halmahera', in: D.S. Moyer & H.J.M. Claessen (eds), Time past, time present, time future. Essays in honour of P.E de Josselin de Jong, pp. 148-67. Dordrecht-Holland/Providence USA: Foris Publications.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access 92 J.D.M. Platenkamp

—, forthc, Tobelo identity'. [To be published in the Proceedings of the Seminar Penelitian Indonesia Bagian Timur, Manado, Indonesia, July 1985.] Villiers, J., 1983, 'The Jesuit mission in Moro 1546-1571', in: E.K.M. Masinambow (ed.), Halmahera dan Raja Ampat sebagai kesatuan mqjemuk, pp. 277-288. Jakarta: LEKNAS/ LIPI. Voorhoeve, C.L., 1988, 'The languages of the North Halmaheran Stock', Papers in New Guinea Linguistics 26: 181-209. [Pacific Linguistics A-76.] Wouden, F.A.E. van, 1968, Types of social structure in Eastern Indonesia. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. [KITLV Translation Series no. 11; orig. publ. in Dutch in 1935.]

Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 06:45:40AM via free access