Book Reviews - J. Abbink, Edward LiPuma, The gift of kinship; Structure and practice in Maring social organisation. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press, x + 241 pp. - Martin A. van Bakel, P. Bonte, Dictionnaire de l éthnologie et de l ànthropologie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1991., M. Izard, et al (eds.) - M.A. van Bakel, C.J. Healey, Maring hunters and traders; Production and exchange in the New Guinea highlands, Berkeley: University of California press, 1990. - Guido P.F. van den Boorn, H.J.M. Claessen, Verwenen koninkrijken en verloren beschavingen; Opkomst en ondergang van de vroege staat. Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1991. VIII + 250 pp.; 21 zw/w kaarten). - Martin van Bruinessen, Werner Kraus, Islamische mystische Bruderschaften im heutigen Indonesien, Hamburg: Mitteilungen des Instituts für Asienkunde 183, 1990. 205 pp., bibliography, index. - Martin van Bruinessen, Michael Charles Williams, Communism, religion, and revolt in Banten. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University, 1990 (Monographs in international studies, Southeast Asia Series, no.86). - J. Bijlmer, R. Jordaan, A. Niehof, Paul Alexander, Creating Indonesian cultures, (Oceania ethnographies 3), Sydney: University of Sydney, 1989, vii + 230 pp. - J.G. De Casparis, J. Fontein, The law of cause and effect in ancient . Koninklijke Academie van Wetenschappen, Verhandelingen Afdeling Letterkunde, Niewe Reeks, Deel 140, 1989. - Victoria M. Clara van Groenendael, Mally Kant-Achilles, Bèbèr; Das wiederentdeckte Bildrollen drama zentral . Stuttgart: Franz Stiener Verlag, 1990. 262 pp. + 133 pp. of illustrations. Photographs, maps, bibliography, glossary cum index, authors index, appendices., Friedrich Seltmann, Rüdiger Schumacher (eds.) - J.R. van Diessen, Susan Abeyasekere, Jakarta - A history. Oxford, etc.: Oxford University Press, 1989. - Caroline Dissel, Colin Clarke, South Asians overseas; Migration and ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, 375 pp., Ceri Peach, Steven Vertovec (eds.) - P. van Emst, Ron Brunton, The abandoned narcotic; Kava and cultural instability in Melanesia. Cambridge studies in social anthropology 69. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge, University Press, 1989. - Th. van den End, Karel A. Steenbrink, De bekeken door koloniale Nederlanders. Utrecht/Leiden: Interuniversitair Instituut voor Missiologie en Oecumenica, 1991, 174 pp. - Th. van den End, Sutarman S. Partonadi, Sadrachs community and its contextual roots; A nineteenth century Javanese expression of Christianity. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, 1990, 317 pp.

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access - Antonio J. Guerreiro, Bernard Sellato, Nomades et sedentarisation a Borneo; Histoire économique et sociale. Paris, Editions de lEcole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Etudes insulindiennes/Archipel 9, 1989, 293 p.; ill. - Jos G.M. Hilhorst, P.J.M. Nas, De sad in de Derde Wereld; Een inleiding tot de urbane antropologie en sociologie. Muiderberg: Coutinho, 1990; pp. 244. - S.R. Jaarsma, Stefan Dietrich, Kolonialismus und Mission auf Flores (ca. 1900-1942), Hohenschaftlarn: Klaus Renner Verlag (Münchner Beiträge zur Süd- und Südostasienkunde Band 1), 1989, vii + 347 pp. - M.C. Jongeling, Th. van den End, Ragi carita; Sejarah gereja di I 1500-1860, 3rd impr. Jakarta 1987, - Roy.E. Jordaan, Michaela Appel, und die Kinder des Putut Jantaka; Beziehungen zwischen Mensch und Reis in Mythologie und Brauchtum auf Java und . München: Anacon Verlag, 1991. - S.C. Kersenboom, Joel C. Kuipers, Power in performance; The creation of textual authority in Weyewa ritual speech, 1990. Philadelphia, Pa: University of Pennysylvania press, conduct and communication series. - J. Kleinen, Marie Alexandre Martin, Le mal cambodgien; Histoire dune societe traditionelle face a ses leaders politiques 1946-1987, Paris: Hachette, 1989. - G.J. Knaap, A. Booth, Indonesian economic history in the Dutch colonial era, Monograph series 35 Southeast Asia studies. New Haven, 1990. xiii + 369 pp., W.J. OMalley, A. Weidemann (eds.) - Gisele de Meur, F. Tjon Sie Fat, Representing kinship; Simple models of elementary structures. 1990. (Doctoral thesis. Leiden, published by the author.) - Toon van Meijl, Maurice Godelier, Big men and great men; Personifications of power in Melanesia, Cambridge/Paris: Cambridge University Press/Editions de la maison des sciences de lHomme, 1991, xviii, 328 pp., maps, tables, figures, bibliography, index., Marilyn Strathern (eds.) - J.A. de Moor, B.A. Hussainmiya, Orang rejimen; The Malays of the Ceylon rifle regiment. Bangi: Universiti Kebangsaan , 1990, 185 pp. - Pieter Muysken, J.M.W. Verhaar, Melanesian pidgin and tok pisin; Studies in language companion series 20. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1990, xiv + 409 pp. - Niels Mulder, Paul Voogt, Thailand. Amsterdam/s-Gravenhage: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen/NOVIB, 1991. 70 pp. + kaart, slappe kaft., Han ten Brummelhuis, Irene Stengs (eds.) - Ton van Naerssen, George Cho, The Malaysian economy; Spatial perspectives. London: Routledge. 1990, 300 pp. - Julianti Parani, J.R. van Diessen, Jakarta/Batavia. Het centrum van het Nederlandse koloniale rijk in Azië en zijn cultuurhistorische nalatenschap. Cantecleer Kunst - Reisgidsen. De Bilt: Cantecleer, 1989. 343 pp. - A. Ploeg, Christopher J. Healey, Pioneers of the mountain forest, University of Sydney, 1985, Oceania Monographs no. 29, v + 64 pp., plates, figures, maps. - Els Postel-Coster, Carla Risseeuw, The fish dont talk about the water; Gender transformation, power and resistance among women in Sri Lanka, Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1988, 415 pp., also published as Gender transformation, power and resistance among women in Sri Lanka; The fish dont speak

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access about the water, New Delhi: Manohar Book service, 1991. Ca. 400 pp., - Willem van Schendel, Mya Tan, Myanmar dilemmas and options; The challenge of economic transition in the 1990s. : Institute of Southeast Asian studies, 1990, 288 pp., Joseph L.H. Tan (eds.) - Heather Sutherland, James R. Rush, Opium to Java; Revenue farming and Chinese enterprise in colonial Indonesia, 1860-1910. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1990. x + 281 pp., photos, index. - A. Teeuw, Arena Wati, Syair pangeran Syarif Hasyim al-Qudsi, 192 pp.,'Syair perang Cina di Monterado. 195 pp.,'Syair pangeran Syarif. 182 pp.,'Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 1989. - Albert A. Trouwborst, R. Schefold, Harmonie en rivaliteit; Verbeelding van botsende principes in Indonesië. Rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van hoogleraar in de culturele antropologie en sociologie van Indonesië aan de Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden op vrijdag 23 maart 1990. - James F. Weiner, D. Gewertz, Twisted histories, altered contexts; Representing the Chambri in a world system. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1991, xiv + 258 pp., F. Errington (eds.) In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 148 (1992), no: 1, Leiden, 135-194

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Edward LiPuma, The gift of kinship; Structure and practice in Maring social organization. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, x + 241 pp. Price: £ 27.50. J. ABBINK University of Nijmegen

For a long time, the study of New Guinea Highland societies has been bogged down in misleading and confusing discussion - based both on the 'descent model' of social organization and the disjunction between the practice of social life and its symbolic or ideological aspects. The efforts of many anthropologists, while ethnographically often superb, must be recast along theoretical lines that restore the interplay of 'structure' and 'practice' of New Guinea 'tribal' societies as they socially sustain or reproduce themselves in the flow of daily life. This, briefly, is the thrust of Edward LiPuma's brilliant new book on the Maring peoples, al- ready famous through the works of Brown, Clark, Lowman, Rappaport, Strathern, Vayda, Wagner and others. We have here a very challenging work which offers something new for any ethnologist interested in theory. Its premises, analyses and conclusions are relevant well beyond the ethnographic context treated here, and many readers will experience refreshing moments of recognition, having strug- gled with similar problems of analysis in their own work. The book presents a very clever and realistic view of social life in 'kin-ordered societies'. Many pseudo-questions about kinship, descent, local group, rules and cultural ideals or norms can be avoided, or better, redefined and answered by an approach such as LiPuma's (he calls it 'pragmatic structuralism'). The author's strategy, in answering the question as to how Maring societies work and reproduce, is to completely abandon the framework of 'descent' theory. Instead he returns to the elementary basis of social life as an interactive play between cultural categories and principles (the more or less 'given' ideas about social and natural order) and practice (the actual behavioural strategies and actions of individuals in daily work and life). Local Maring ideas about how they live and should live within the frame- work of their exogamous clans and local groups are central. These ideas show underlying 'generative schemes' (p. 2), operating in the overall social reproduction process of clans and local groups. One such generative scheme involves the idea of reproduction as the flow of 'substance' (that is, clan 'grease' and blood) and of group formation and identity grounded in the idea of opposition between sharing (within the clan/subclan) and exchange (between subclans as wife-exchanging units). Another such scheme is grounded in the opposition between male and female, or be- tween the ancestors and the living (p. 35). The assumption here is that social action is motivated by a 'cultural logic of practical necessity' (p. 3). The idea of co-substance, while not consciously or ideologically for- mulated, is the predominant one in defining - indeed, creating - kinship.

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Genealogy and the precise lines of common ancestry are irrelevant for the Maring. Clanship is 'produced' through participation in the reproductive cycle of the clan, through co-exploitation of common (clan) land, and by partaking of the same food. Practice determines whether a relationship becomes salient and relevant or is enshrined in the kinship idiom, creating agnates as full-blown members of the local group, who are fully integrated in what could be called the genealogical sense, by the third generation. In Chapter 2 the argument is further developed with a treatment of how social exchange works in the traffic between clans, creating and empha- sizing co-substance ties on the basis of the generative schemes related to procreation, the male-female relationship and ancestral spirits. The next chapter, on the natural cycle, highlights the connection between co-sub- stance of human groups and the natural factors: land, animals and food. Here LiPuma's own field data on the Kauwatyi clan-cluster, skilfully woven into the narrative, is used to explicate the model of clan propagation based on the idea of vegetative growth. Again, the notion of exchange between clans is fundamental; food, 'planting material', women and land rights are exchanged. Through these exchanges new kinship bonds are produced (p. 101, 105). Chapters 4, 5 and 6 meticulously analyze the actual composition and (re)construction of clans and local groups, and as such, these chapters form the nucleus of the book. The fourth chapter, on the structure of clanship, focuses on agnation and its role in clan consti- tution and in the delineation of kinship ties. Interesting is the relevance of lateral over lineal (descent) relationships, although recently introduced productive non-agnates have much more limited rights and options in the clan (p. 125, 140) than the 'real' clan members. The chapter on marriage exchange analyzes the effects of marriages as lateral links on the repro- duction of the clan (clusters). In this sphere reciprocity is more important, with clans acting more or less as an entity to further alliances in order to enhance its reproductive capacity. This is a most convincing chapter. The penultimate chapter, Chapter 6, is about the making of local groups. Here it may not be entirely clear what the local group is: perhaps a subclan or a compound (compare p. 22), or that part of the agnatically conveiced clan living in the ancestral territory? The distinction between the principles and practices which constitute the clan and the local group should have been better explained. It is not sufficient to point again to agnation, to production of a co-substance bond and to the exchange of women and children. Here, some of the problems of LiPuma's analysis become clear: the all-explanatory effects of a dialectical view, and the repetitiveness in the argument (occasionally cloaked in obtuse language). The best part of this chapter is perhaps the critique of earlier analyses of Maring social organization (p. 214f). As noted, both descent and lineage are absent from LiPuma's analysis. But the clan is all the more important. It is seen as the fundamental social unit of Maring life because the idea of co-substance creates it, gives it identity. An interesting course for future research would be to see what happens to it in times of change, with the increasing penetration of the market economy, immigrants, increasing land shortage, individual Maring entrepreneurship in an economic and political sense, and state administra-

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 137 tion. (In this last case, compare the prohibition of the traditional public burial of male clan members, which was thought to refertilize clan land (p. 63-64), or the implications of legal mapping of clan boundaries (p. 69), which, incidentally, may have reinforced clan identity in the first place.) LiPuma indicates that so far external factors have been successfully as- similated into the representations and practices of the Maring (compare the notes on p. 5, 53). But the question is whether this process can ward off more fundamental changes in the long run and whether it will, for example, prevent the emergence of larger units of identification than the clan (cluster) or new, more hierarchical power structures. Also, the way in which the 'received cultural order' (compare p. 4) will be modified must be addressed. New cultural premises will be generated that go beyond traditional Maring ideology. All this is not a critique of LiPuma's argu- ment, however, because it seems to be open to such amendments. But what is unsatisfactory is the tautological ring of the argument to which I alluded above: the assertion that structure and practice operate in close conjunction, determining each other, and so can be explained in terms of each other. This is helpful to describe the measure of integration and uniqueness of Maring social life and culture, and perhaps the best argument available. Nevertheless, at certain points it has an uneasiness about it. As with every dialectic reasoning, it has the nature of an entrench- ed clause, self-sufficient, taking cultural premises for granted. Their rele- vance in the Maring social reproductive cycle is obvious; their unintended effect, going beyond the native grasp, is similarly obvious. But when the cognitive content of such premises (about co-substance and its production, procreation, lineal relationships, and so on) is gradually changed, notable changes in the structure of reproduction can be expected, which will lead to accelerated transformation. LiPuma has partly anticipated such criticism in his approach, however, and does consider the influence of missions, traders and state agents. He has shown the mediating role of individual members of clans in this process and has, all things said, demonstrated convincingly that one cannot ana- lytically separate the economic from the social or the ideological; their explanation is found in the structure of their interaction. In The gift of kinship this point is not.merely a rhetorical strategy but a substantial and unified theoretical argument which has decisively furthered our under- standing of how societies like the Maring really work.

P. Bonte, M. Izard, et al (eds), Dictionnaire de T ethnologic etde Vanthropologie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1991. MARTIN A. VAN BAKEL

It is always a hazardous undertaking to publish an overview, or in this case a dictionary, of a scientific discipline. However carefully one tries to include as many aspects and subdisciplines of the field as possible, it is

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always easy to find fault with the choice to include or omit aspects or sub- disciplines that critics judge to be essential. In spite of this, the editors of the Dictionnaire de I'ethnologie et de I'anthropologie had the courage to stick out their academic necks, knowing that such a book would be worth the while and was long overdue. With this I cannot agree more. In its more than 750 pages this French-language dictionary covers a great deal of the vast field of anthropology and ethnology. About 230 authors from many countries and different schools of thought contributed to this undertaking. The many entries are placed in alphabetical order, from acculturation to White, Leslie. Of course this poses somewhat of a problem, since items that belong together can be far apart on an alpha- betical list. To combat this, the dictionary includes various indexes, not in alphabetical but in topical order. Divided in two parts - the anthropolo- gical arena {constitution du champ de I'anthropologie) and anthropological domains (les domaines de I'anthropologie) - the indexes list main anthro- pological topics. In the first part are listed: history and institutionalization of anthropology (from associations and societies of scientists to primiti- vism in art), methodology (from culture areas to visual anthropology), concepts and notions (from acculturation to values), anthropological the- ories (from culturalism to structuralism), national anthropologies (from Germany to the USSR) and important anthropologists born before 1930 (from Balandier to White). In the second part of the index we find: related disciplines (from archaeology to religion), specific domains (from art to technology), geographical and cultural areas and development of regional studies (from antique societies, Africa, America, Asia, Europe to Oceania), environment, technique and economy (from agriculture to clothing), prac- tice, knowledge and expressions (from architecture to ornaments), social organization (from alliance to vengeance), politics and rights (from Big Man to transmission), personal representation; the individual and society (from age to lifecycles), representations of the world and religion (from ancestors to totemism) and contemporary anthropology of the modern world (from political criticism to urban minorities). As already stated, in the case of an all-encompassing book it is relatively easy to find flaws and oversights - such as 'why is there such a great discrepancy between Francophone and other leading anthropologists' (for example, only one important Dutch anthropologist, J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong, gets extensive coverage, there are no Russians, and so on) or, more importantly, the neo-evolutionism is only mentioned, and so on. Admit- tedly, these are minor defects. On the whole this Dictionnaire is a well- written and well thought-out work. As a quick reference or guide it is a good buy for anthropologists and students alike.

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C.J. Healey, Mating hunters and traders; Production and ex- change in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, Berkeley: Univer- sity of California Press, 1990. Price: $39.95. M.A. VAN BAKEL

Contrary to most works concerned with the economy of a people or a number of peoples, in this book Healey does not so much concentrate his efforts on the production, consumption and exchange of subsistence goods. He prefers to concentrate upon the production, consumption and exchange of valuables, or rather the exploitation of non-subsistence goods. As such this work offers valuable information on and insight into an extremely important, yet largely neglected, aspect of economy. Just from this point of view this book would already be worthwhile. Yet it offers its readers much more. Central in his argument is the exchange of bird plumes (as well as, to a lesser extent, of marsupial pelts and cassowaries) in non-local (= re- gional) networks. Healey demonstrates that, though the perspective of each individual Papuan trader is more or less parochial, ethnocentric or even egocentric, they function in a variety of regional systems of exchange networks even though they are only hazily aware of these networks and of their place herein. In addition to this, the changes that occurred within these systems of exchange both before and after the advent of colonial authority are studied. The whole of this is given flesh and blood by an ethnographic account of one community of the Mating speakers on the northern fringe of the Papua New Guinea Highlands. In this ethnographic account one aspect of production and exchange, the organization of hunt- ing and trade, is especially examined. The construction of the argument throughout the book is very straight- forward. In the introductory chapter the concept of trade is analysed, resulting in a preliminary model of trade. Then, in the first chapter, the setting is presented by a more or less traditional ethnographical account of the Kundagai people. Only after this comes a chapter on the central valuables, the uses and significance of bird plumes, followed by a chapter on hunting and its regulation. Though bird plumes form the main theme of this book, in the fourth chapter they are placed within a wider context of valuables and prestations. In the fifth chapter the structure of trade is analysed, followed by chapters on the development of trade and on ex- change rates. In the last chapter on 'Utilitarianism, sociability and the organization of trade' the whole is firmly drawn together. The book is completed with a number of appendices, notes, a bibliography and an index. As can already be grasped from the foregoing, Healey has not set himself a simple task. But in my opinion he has succeeded extremely well. He proves to be a very hard working and thorough'scientist. Moreover, he is an excellent writer. The result is not only a highly readable book, but also an outstanding example of scholarly craftsmanship and erudition. More- over, the argument is illustrated with a wealth of photographs, maps, figures and very fine drawings. A minor point of critique might be that Healey sometimes is inclined

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to try to give too much information, be it in map form or otherwise. For instance, in Map 2 (p. 16), partly due to minimal differentiation in color- ation, part of the information only can be gathered with the help of a magnifying glass. In the same vein he sometimes offers nice, and often very important, distinctions or insights, without further development of the implications of these. One example may suffice. For instance, the distinc- tion made in p. 26 between overall population density and economic density is an important one. Yet, though the relevant figures for both are given, he makes hardly any use of them or of their implications. However, in this review truncated on account of limitation of space, I am not inclined to stress or to criticize other - very minor indeed - differences of opinion with the author. The reader has to do this for himself, as this book is too worthwhile to recommend otherwise. Not only Mela- nesianists, but also anthropologists, economists, and all those who consider themselves as (becoming) such, simply ought to study this work as one of their basic books.

H.J.M. Claessen, Verdwenen koninkrijken en verloren bescha- vingen; Opkomst en ondergang van de vroege staat. Assen/ Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1991. Vin + 250 pp.; 21 zw/w kaarten). ISBN 90-232-2578-3. Pr. DFL 45,-. GUIDO P.F. VAN DEN BOORN

In dit voor een ruim publiek geschreven boek legt Claessen in drie etappes een 'ontdekkingsreis naar de Vroege Staat' af (p. VII). Na een woord vooraf en de inleiding neemt hij de lezer in Deel I, getiteld 'De plaats van de Vroege Staat', mee op de wegen waarlangs de theorieen over het verschijn- sel 'staat' tot stand zijn gekomen. Hij gaat op zoek naar de plaats en de karakteristiek van het concept in de politieke antropologie om vervolgens de betrekkelijkheid aan te geven van de antropologische, historische en archeologische bronnen waarop onze kennis berust. Verder gaat hij aan de hand van een tiental thema's uitgebreid in op het ontstaan van de staat als specifiek type sociaalpolitieke organisatie. Als algemeen verklaringsmodel legt hij de lezer het Complexe Inter- actie Model (CIM) voor dat hij in de jaren tachtig ontwikkelde samen met Van de Velde. Hierin blijken drie factoren uiteindelijk - in onderlinge beinvloeding - bepalend te zijn. Volgens dit model is de evolutie van de staat (als vierde factor) het resultaat van het samenspel tussen het formaat van de samenleving en haar bestuurlijke organisatie, de (beheersing van de) economie en de ideologic In Deel II, 'Het beeld van de Vroege Staat', schuift Claessen de praktijk over de theorie. Daartoe rubriceert hij zijn materiaal naar de vier zo juist genoemde categorieen. Als een echte ontdekkingsreiziger richt hij zijn sporen -kras over de wereld op zoek naar voorbeelden en verklaringen, van de prille staatsontwikkeling in de Sumerische stadstaten van Zuid- Mesopotamie rond 3000 v.C. tot de recente dekolonisatie van Z.O.-Azie

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 141 en Afrika. Niet begrensd in tijd en ruimte laat hij Inca's en Franken, oude Egyptenaren en Tahitianen tot ons 'spreken'. Hij benadrukt daarbij dat deze bronnen getekend zijn door de tijd en hijzelf 'in opdracht van de tijd' zijn constructie van het verleden geeft. Puttend uit dat rijke bronnenmateriaal draagt hij gegevens aan om de vele aspecten van de Vroege Staat te doorgronden. Hij verankert daarmee het concept van de Vroege Staat op de evolutionistische ladder tussen het stadium van hoofdschappen en de Volgroeide Staat. Tenslotte onderzoekt de schrijver in Deel III, 'Het einde van de Vroege Staat', dat wat dit abstracte en statische concept in werkelijkheid maakt tot een levend systeem, nl. de dynamiek van bloei, stagnatie en verval. Terecht constateert Claessen dat 'geen van de ons bekende samenlevingen dat pad [van beginnende Vroege Staat via Volgroeide Staat naar de Indus- triele Staat - vdB] in een ononderbroken race naar de "vooruitgang" heeft kunnen afleggen' (p. 186). Om te bereiken dat zijn verklaringsmodel ook die dynamiek en veelvormigheid kan duiden toetst hij de theorie opnieuw aan de praktijk. De ontwikkeling van de Vroege Staat stoelt in zijn visie op een samen- spel van demografische, economische, ideologische en politieke factoren, zowel binnen als buiten de betrokken samenlevingen. Geheel volgens de lijnen van het CIM versterken deze factoren elkaar (positieve feedback), of heffen ze elkaar op (negatieve feedback). In dit krachtenspel schuilt de motor van de ontwikkeling. Ook hier wijst een groot aantal voorbeelden de lezer de weg van de theorie naar de historie en vice versa. 'Vroege Staten zijn er niet meer', stelt Claessen nuchter vast (p. 205). Willen we hen terugvinden dan hebben we een gids nodig door tijd en ruimte. Van die taak heeft de schrijver zich voortreffelijk gekweten. Als een Baedecker van het verleden leidt hij de lezer langs verdwenen konink- rijken en verloren beschavingen op zoek naar de Vroege Staat als ver- schijnsel. Hij doet dat met grote eruditie en een indrukwekkende kennis van zaken waarbij hij de antropologische liefde voor het etnografische detail niet schuwt. Tegelijkertijd vormt dit boek een testimonium van Claessen's persoon- lijke ontdekkingstocht in de politieke antropologie. Het doet verslag van zijn onderzoek naar de Vroege Staat dat in 1970 startte met zijn dissertatie 'Van Vorsten en Volken'. Zijn methode is kenmerkend. Om zijn beeldvor- ming te funderen en te verdiepen put Claessen vrijelijk uit de kennis van antropologische, historische en archeologische specialisten op allerlei deelgebieden. Vaak zijn anderen tot die kennis gekomen op zijn aanreiken, door zijn vragen en hypothesen. De resultaten incorporeert hij vervolgens in een materiaalbestand dat sinds 1970 indrukwekkende vormen heeft aangenomen en niet minder dan 5000 jaar wereldgeschiedenis omvat. Claessen blijkt een manager van moderne wetenschap. Vanuit de pro- bleemstelling rond de Vroege Staat kijkt hij over de grenzen van het eigen vakgebied heen, 'delegeert' onderzoeksvragen aan specialisten en komt samen met hen tot theprievorming. Deze blijkt vervolgens in vele vak- gebieden toepasbaar en zorgt daar voor nieuwe spin-off. De resultaten vloeien vervolgens weer terug naar de politiek antropoloog. In dat proces schuwt hij het interdisciplinaire debat zeker niet, geeft aan waar hijzelf

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voor staat en waar hij zich op anderen moet verlaten. Zo creeert de evolutionist wetenschaps(r)evolutie. Het is een benadering die zijn nadelen kent. Zo zal de specialist in dit boek stellig zaken beschreven vinden die op zijn vakgebied onzeker of omstreden zijn. Het blijkt ook niet altijd gemakkelijk per vakgebied de meest recente literatuur aan te boren of de stand van een wetenschappe- lijke discussie objectief en geheel te vatten. Het zijn nadelen die inherent zijn aan zijn wereldomspannende aanpak. Des te meer respect dwingt die benadering af. Respect niet alleen voor Claessen's visionaire gedrevenheid, maar ook voor het feit dat hij hier laat zien wat interdisciplinair onderzoek vermag. Het doorgronden van een wereldomvattend fenomeen als de Vroege Staat vereist teamwerk en datamanagement. Claessen heeft van meet af aan voor die aanpak geko- zen en als geen ander weet hij in dit boek de resultaten helder en leesbaar te presenteren. Tot slot moet hier toch op een kleine onvolkomenheid gewezen worden, nl. het kaartmateriaal. Dat is van zeer wisselende kwaliteit en niet zoals van een boek dat voor een breed publiek geschreven is, verwacht mag worden. Eenduidige conventies en typografie ontbreken (vgl. pp. 92 en 114). Legenda zijn soms onleesbaar (p. 63), andere kaarten bevatten te veel diachrone gegevens om in een oogopslag helder te zijn voor niet- ingewijden (p. 81). Dit minpuntje doet echter geen afbreuk aan de waarde van deze mo- nografie. 'Verdwenen koninkrijken en verloren beschavingen' is een uiter- mate boeiend en uitdagend boek geworden dat op vele niveaus gelezen kan worden: als een ontdekkingstocht door tijd en ruimte van het verleden; als het relaas van een wetenschapsontwikkeling; als het verhaal van de persoonlijke speurtocht van Claessen en als duiding van sociaal-politieke golfbewegingen in de menselijke evolutie, iets dat in dit turbulent tijds- gewricht stemt tot relativeren en reflectie.

Werner Kraus (ed.), Islamische mystische Bruderschaften im heutigen Indonesien, Hamburg: Mitteilungen des Instituts fur Asienkunde 183, 1990. 205 pp., bibliography, index. MARTIN VAN BRUINESSEN

The tarekat (Islamic mystical orders) in Indonesia drew some attention in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century because of their per- ceived role in a few anticolonial rebellions. Since then they have attracted little academic interest, however. Students of contemporary Indonesian Islam have been more interested in Muslim reformism and in the political struggle of Islam. The general assumption of those who did give the tarekat a thought at all was that they were moribund. The orders never ceased functioning, however, and over the past decades have even experienced something of a revival in Indonesia, as elsewhere in the Muslim world. Western scholarship has been slow to recognize this, as may be judged from the (adequate) bibliography in the volume under review. It lists only

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 143 two recent European-language case studies of a single tarekat, both of them very modest, and four or five short surveys. Of the older literature, only Schrieke's work on West and Pijper's excellent study of the emergency of the Tijaniyya in Java (in his Fragmenta Islamica) deserve mention. More recently, Sartono Kartodirdjo has written extensively on the role of the tarekat in nineteenth-century peasant rebellions, but he does not focus on the orders as such. The present work, the first full-length study of Indonesian tarekat, is therefore to be welcomed as an addition to the literature on the subject, even though it lacks coherence and offers little analysis. Werner Kraus, who in an earlier book (Zwischen Reform und Rebellion, Wiesbaden 1984) devoted some attention to the role of the tarekat in nineteenth-century Minangkabau, for this volume has requested the coop- eration of two leading Indonesian experts on the subject, Djohan Effendi and Moeslim Abdurrahman. Effendi outlines the conflict-ridden history of the PPTI, the first nation-wide umbrella organization of tarekat, which was established by the unconventional Naqshbandi sheikh Jalaluddin of Bukit- tinggi. It was and is the most 'political' of tarekat organizations (the acronym once stood for 'Political Party of Islamic Tarekat' and in its heyday was quite influential. In another chapter Effendi briefly describes a number of'local' tarekat (i.e., those not affiliated with one of the great international orders, and which are usually syncretistic). Abdurrahman also contributes two chapters. In one of these he discusses one particular tarekat, the Tijaniyya, which has recently made much progress in East Java (particu- larly among the Madurese), resulting in doctrinal controversies and con- flicts with ulama who felt their positions were threatened. The most interesting chapter of the book is his essay on the new roles - therapeutic, educational and economic - that some tarekat are assuming. Kraus himself opens the volume with a general historical and regional survey of tarekat activities during the present century and of the relations of tarekat with the political establishment. This introduction, covering almost half the book, is very uneven in quality. The author makes a few interesting observations and comments, but too often gives only a sum- mary of his (mostly secondary) sources. Even this is useful, however, for many of these sources are not readily available to other researchers. Kraus has drawn on a large number of Indonesian monographs on individual tarekat teachers or , most of which were written as research reports for the Ministry of Religious Affairs or as skripsi at one of the State Institutes for Higher Islamic Learning (IAIN). Such materials often lack analytical depth, but are very useful for a first orientation. Future resear- chers on Indonesian Islam are well advised to take note of the wealth of documentation that has by now been produced in the form of IAIN skripsi (mostly at the Ushuluddin faculties). Unfortunately,these theses are not kept in any central collection while even in the faculty libraries they tend to disappear within a few years. This book makes available some infor- mation that would otherwise be hard to find. It is not free from errors of fact and interpretation, however. Hence, like much of the material on which it is based, it should be used for a first orientation rather than as an authoritative source.

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Michael Charles Williams, Communism, religion, and revolt in Banten. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University, 1990 (Monographs in International Studies, Southeast Asia Series, no. 86). Price: $14.-. MARTIN VAN BRUINESSEN

This fine study presents a strong argument in favour of oral history in that it shows how much essential information, even concerning rather distant events, can be retrieved by careful interviews. Whereas the comparable studies by Lucas on the Tiga Daerah and Cribb on Jakarta dealt with events in the 1940s, Williams focuses on the 'communist' rebellion of 1926 in Banten. His interviews were conducted half a century after the events, when one would expect people's memories to be defective or distorted. Williams shows that in spite of such drawbacks, oral sources can provide useful information and particular insights not available elsewhere. There is also a vast amount of contemporary written material - newspapers, police reports, administrative memoirs and the famous Bantam report - of which Williams makes extensive and judicious use. It is the interviews with participants, however, that give life to this account and add a perspec- tive lacking in the written sources. The author has succeeded in locating many surviving witnesses and participants, or their relatives - no small feat in itself - and interviewed well over a hundred people. Parts of this study's main section, which describes the rebellion itself, have been published before (as Sickle and crescent; The communist revolt of 1926 in Banten, Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, 1982). However, this book, Communism, religion, and revolt in Banten, is more than three times as large, and has much more background and analysis. Williams describes the economic and political peculiarities of Banten in detail, and shows why and in what respect Dutch administration and taxation had a different impact on Banten than it did elsewhere in Java. He provides a detailed account of the local development of the and later the Communist Party, and attempts to explain why the ulama of Banten in particular, were attracted to political radicalism. The apparently dual character of this rebellion, communist and Islamic, planned by professional revolutionaries but carried out by peasants under ulama leadership, has baffled many observers (although 'Muslim commu- nism' was not such a rare phenomenon in Asia during those years). Williams shows how the communist organizers were singularly successful by refraining from textbook approaches and adapting to local circum- stances, establishing alliances with some of the ulama (and by recruiting jawara, the local bandits and strong men, as well). Since the higher in Banten were generally much less rooted among or connected to the populace than elsewhere, the ulama had a correspondingly higher legit- imacy and influence - especially those who could also claim descent from Banten's sultans, such as Hadji Achma'd Chatib who became the commu- nists' major asset. It was largely due to the influence of the ulama that the communists could successfully recruit the thousands of Bantenese pe- asants that they did. The arrest of party workers, therefore, could not prevent the uprising from taking place; the leading role simply fell upon

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 145 certain ulama and jawara radicals, who continued to prepare for armed insurrection even after the party's central leadership had become hesitant. According to Williams' account then, the 1926 rebellion was neither communist nor Islamic. He emphasizes the anti-colonial and national dimension of these events. '[T]he revolutionary movement', he writes 'even in its lower ranks, was conscious of being one front of a nationwide assault on Dutch colonial rule' (p. 314). It was this that distinguished the 1926 rebellion from earlier, purely local revolts. The communist party workers had acted as brokers, introducing the discourse and the methods of modern mass politics, while the ulama, as the most strongly rooted elite, emerged naturally as leaders of the movement, apparently without changing its objectives. A final chapter carries the narrative forward two decades, to the social revolution of 1945-47, in which we again see some of the same people in leading roles - notably the radical ulama, Hadji Achmad Chatib. This account is more sketchy than that of the earlier rebellion and, one feels, not sufficiently tied to developments at the national level, of whose import- ance, as Williams himself insists, the ulama were acutely aware. Informa- tion about the army's role, apparently significant to the gradual divestment of ulama power, is lacking. Although Williams emphasizes the crucial role played by the ulama and makes serious attempts to explain why they could do so, in his account they remain an unstructured, almost monolithic category. He has little to say about how they organized and increased their influence. He does not even mention the tarekat Qadiriyah wa Naqsyabandiyah, with which some of the leading ulama were affiliated. As Williams repeatedly remarks, Achmad Chatib owed much of his prestige to his father-in-law, the vene- rated Asnawi of Caringin. Kyai Asnawi was, in fact, the leading shaikh of the tarekat, while the son-in-law was named after the founder of the tarekat, Ahmad Khatib of Sambas. Did the rebels perhaps use the pre-existing network of this tarekat, as had happened in 1888? My own interviews with present followers of this tarekat suggest that this was in fact the case. Also, in the revolutionary years, what, if any, was the role of the ulama associated with Matla'ul Anwar, the Bantenese reformist organiza- tion? These considerations however are little more than an afterthought. The book as a whole is well-researched. Williams has asked many of the right questions and was resourceful in locating both the people and the written material which would help him answer them. No one interested in either Banten, the history of Indonesian communism or in peasant mobilization, can afford to pass up this book.

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Paul Alexander (ed.), Creating Indonesian cultures, [Oceania Ethnographies 3], Sydney: University of Sydney, 1989, vii + 230 pp. J. BIJLMER, R. JORDAAN & A. NIEHOF

As indicated in the title, this collection of ten papers views culture as a historical product, where culture is continually created and recreated in daily life, such as 'the creation of a pan-Indonesian culture by a relative small urban centre or the attempts by members of the myriad societies which comprise Indonesia' (Introduction, p. 1). However, the contributors take different approaches to the question of how cultural change is effected. At one extreme, in the final chapter, E.D. Lewis argues that the locus of cultural change should be traced to the creativity of single individuals. In this paper, titled 'Why did Sina dance? Stochasm, choice, and intentionality in the ritual life of the Ata Tana 'Ai of eastern Flores' (p. 175-198), Lewis submits that 'the evolution of a society [...] results from mechanisms of selection acting upon randomly occuring innovations and novelties generated within the socio-cultural system itself (p. 178). The unprecedented dance by Sina, a ritual specialist, at a major ritual of the Tana 'Ai of eastern Flores is meant to illustrate the potential of individual creativity to initiate change. In contrast, Mary Hawkins' paper, ' in South ' (p. 159-174), demonstrates the constraining, choice-limiting influence of culture - so much so that the slametan pattern is currently used as the organizational model for political meetings, civil servant associations and other non-traditional social events. In the South Kalimantan community that Hawkins studied, two different and distinct slametan traditions were identified, which coincide largely with the division between urang gunung (Javanese peasant transmigrants) and urang pasar (Javanese and Banjar traders and civil servants). Accretions or new fashions do occur, but whether the changes will last also seems dependent on their 'fit' with the slametan traditions prevailing. Similarly, Paul Stange's contribution, 'Interpreting Javanist millenial imagery' (p. 113-134), reveals the persistent influence of 'Javanist' (kejawen) millenial cults centred on Semar, who aside from being a promi- nent wayang figure, is also represented as the ancestral of guardian spirit of Java. Allegedly, Semar was incarnated in the form of Sabdopalon, a minister at the court of . With the fall of the last Hindu-Javanese empire, Semar 'retired' and retreated into Central Java. He prophesied a long period of foreign and external domination, after which he would return to usher in a new golden age for the Javanese. It is this Semar who became the cult figure in various Javanese millenial mythical groups, past and present. Semar's position as an ancestral cult figure is comparable to that of Nyai/Ratu Lara Kidul, the mysterious Javanese goddess of the South Sea. Their resemblance, however, deserves more careful consider- ation than Stange's passing reference. The fact that the sacred power points associated with both figures are predominantly natural phenomena (deep forests, mountain tops, caves, sea) brings into question the validity of the distinction within the spirit world between ancestral and natural realms.

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It seems quite probable that both spirits were indigenous gods, incorpo- rated into a Hindu-Javanese tantristic pantheon. In present-day Indonesia, Semar and Nyai Lara Kidul groups and movements are known as aliran kebatinan, seeking legal recognition as a system of belief. Through bene- fitting from the sympathies of and some members of his govern- ment, the status of kebatinan groups remains ambivalent. Their religious status is a controversial point for orthodox Muslims, while the government itself is understandably wary of political unrest phrased in millenial terms. 'Choosing contraception: cultural change and the Indonesian Family Planning Programme' (p. 21-38) by Kathryn Robinson deals with family planning as guided enculturation. While in western societies such choices are private matters, in Indonesia the choices for birth control and for the method of birth control have been proclaimed a matter of legitimate public interest. Robinson takes up a point made by other observers as well, that in the (New Order) Family Planning Programme, practice came first, knowledge and attitudinal change later, which refutes the validity of the familiar KAP sequence. To illustrate this, she traces the impact of govern- ment family planning interventions in rural South . The case study also shows how much the development of a positive attitude towards family planning is linked to other changes which occur around the same time. Obviously, socio-cultural change is not singular and linear, but multi- facetted and multi-stranded, and its pace may be faster than allowed for by the traditional frameworks used to describe it. The article 'Balinese political culture and the rhetoric of national devel- opment' by Carol Warren (p. 39-54) provides a historical background for the New Order -Pembangunan (National Development) ideol- ogy. It also provides examples of its manipulation in practice. Although its significance applies to the whole of Indonesia, Bali is indeed an inter- esting case. There is little room for compatibility between the prevailing national ideology and bureaucratic polity on the one hand, and Bali's resilient indigenous socio-political order on the other. A fine example of Pancasila-and-Pembangunan argumentation was found in Indonesia's leading daily (Kompas) 26 november 1990, which quoted a cabinet min-. ister as saying there will be no strikes if workers and companies understand the Pancasila. 'Social harmony as ideology and practice in a Javanese city' (p. 55-74) by Patrick Guiness deals with a 50-year-old inner-city area in . This interesting study dwells on some of the social and cultural tensions between streetside residents and the lower-class kampung population liv- ing off the street sides. Though streetside residents administratively form part of a neighbourhood association called Rukun Kampung (literally, Neighbourhood Harmony), their participation remains mostly limited to cash contributions for community projects. Kampung people, on the other hand, exhibit a strong sense of community and espouse the ideology of harmony, which characterizes kampung relations and which express their class solidarity. This ideology is fostered by the State and, as the author argues, enables a smooth running of the urban administration, provides grassroots control and keeps the urban lower class effectively organized into a large number of small, discrete communities. While reading this case

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access 14 8 Boekbesprekingen study, keep in mind that the overwhelming part of urban Indonesia is less than half a century old and so both geographically and socially more peripheral. Also, consider that ward associations often consist of over 20 or 30 families, and that significant numbers of the streetside residents come from other ethnic groups. In 'The hidden economy and kampung women' (p. 75-90) Norma Sullivan remarks that while many participants of the informal sector are female, this does not seem problematic to most scholars of urbanization processes in developing countries. In fact, women play a dominant role in activities which are not primarily or overtly income-generating - in what Sullivan calls the hidden economy. To understand the workings of the hidden economy, one should study the underlying social relations through which food, services, tools, and labour are exchanged within a kampung community. Thus, the hidden economy provides an invisible source of income based on barter and exchange over and above the visible sources of income from formal economic sectors. This may clarify why this economy is hidden and how poor people manage, but not why this social phenomenon is termed 'economy'. Nor is it clear why the author does not refer to the concept of subsistence economy, which also tries to clarify survival mechanisms of poor people. Other articles in Creating Indonesian cultures, but not discussed here, include Krishna Sen's 'Power and poverty in New Order cinema: conflicts on screen' (p. 1-20), 'Pollution in paradise: Hinduism and the subor- dination of women in Bali' (p. 91-112) by D.B. Miller and Jan Branson, and Julia Howell's 'States of consciousness and Javanese ecstatics' (p. 135-15 8). As a final note, readers may notice that the proofreading of this small collection of essays is not quite satisfactory.

J. Fontein, The law of cause and effect in ancient Java. Konink- lijke Academie van Wetenschappen, Verhandelingen Afde- ling Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, Deel 140, 1989. Price Nfl.75,—. J.G. DE CASPARIS

Although the title of this work may suggest a general discussion of the (Buddhist) theory of the relations between cause and effect, this study is actually concerned with interpreting the reliefs of the so-called hidden base of Borobudur. After Sylvain Levi had discovered that these reliefs are based on the Mahdkarmavibhanga, a Buddhist Sanskrit text dealing with the consequence of good and bad acts, Krom produced a detailed study of the relation between this text and the 160 relief panels of the hidden foot of Borobudur. Although this work, published in 1933, left many problems unanswered, no further analysis has appeared until this scholarly study. The author, until recently Keeper of the Oriental Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, has made a courageous attempt to achieve

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 149 a correct 'interpretation of some of the finest sculpture that the Buddhist world [has] produced [...] by a study of all possible discrepancies between the transmitted texts and the visual evidence of the reliefs' (p. 12). He is rightly convinced that the sculptors were guided by a 'planning committee' which used one particular version of the text, different from any of the extant versions in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese and Kuchean. Although the precise version used for the reliefs is unknown, the author often succeeded in establishing some of the details of this version. On this basis he strongly disagrees with certain other scholars who thought that the sculptors of Borobudur sometimes took liberties with the text (p. 75). There is, however, a serious difficulty: how can one be so sure that the sculptors followed the text closely, when the precise contents of the text are unknown? One must be careful to avoid circular reasoning: whenever a certain detail of the reliefs cannot be found in any of the extant versions it is assumed to have been part of some other text, used by the sculptors, and since it was part of that text, the sculptors followed it as accurately as possible. It is, however, obvious that they (or rather the 'planning committee') could not express in sculpture everything expressed or in- cluded in the text. They were bound to make choices between what was to be included or omitted. There were also additions. This is probably the case with the depiction of the horrors of hell. Thus, with reference to different kinds of punishment awaiting perpetrators of various crimes, Jan Fontein writes: 'when we turn to the scenes on the panels 0-86 through 0- 92 we immediately realize that the sculptors of Borobudur opted for a much more elaborate and dramatic illustration of the infernal horrors.' As no such detailed descriptions are found in any of the extant versions, it is likely that the 'planning committee' did take liberties with the text. Instead of the simple mention of rebirth in Hell, an account of the different hells, known from other texts, was inserted. It is theoretically possible that there once existed a version of the Mahdkarmavibhahga which included a de- tailed account of all those hells, but such an assumption cannot be subs- tantiated. On the other hand, the reliefs also provide examples of what appear to be intentional omissions from the text. Thus, the author himself empha- sizes that, although all transmitted texts present the phrase 'one will soon enter Nirvana' at the end of the lists of effects of meritorious deeds, this important effect was ignored by the sculptors. In this connection he rightly suggests the possibility that 'the selection of the Lalitavistara version of the Life of the Buddha, concluding with his Enlightenment instead of with his entrance into Nirvana, is part of the same attitude'. For the sculptors of Borobudur (or rather the 'planning committee') the emphasis is clearly on the Complete Enlightenment, the (samyaksam)bodhi and on the First Sermon, a few days later, not on the ultimate Nirvana. We may therefore fully agree with the arguments set out on pp. 78f. On the other hand, it follows that the sculptors, far from faithfully following the text, gave expression to their own ideas (or those of the 'planning committee' or even of the Sailendra kings), of course, within the doctrinal frame oiMahdydna Buddhism. With reference to the hidden base of Borobudur the author disagrees

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access 150 Boekbesprekingen with the arguments given in support of 'a symbolic motivation' (p. 80) of its subsequent covering. It is true that neither of the two motives discussed there is wholly satisfactory. The same applies, however, even more stron- gly to the opposite view - purely technical considerations may account for this procedure, which is inefficient, as has been convincingly shown by Dumarcay. The present reviewer feels that a strong argument against purely tech- nical motivation can be based on the short inscriptions found on top of a considerable number of relief panels of the hidden base. While the reading of these inscriptions raises no problems, there is disagreement as to whether they were meant to guide the ancient spectators or the sculptors. Since the inscriptions are hardly useful for the spectators, most scholars opt for the latter alternative: the inscriptions as instructions to the sculptors. This makes sense. A member of the 'planning committee' would have given the necessary instructions to ensure a balanced representation of the text. But why should such instructions have been carved into the stone? And why are such instructions confined to the hidden foot? I can think of only one answer: if the reliefs were not meant to be seen after the com- pletion of the monument, there was no reason why they should not be carved into the stone instead of being written in ink or paint. Such perish- able indications to the sculptors may once have been written over other relief series of Borobudur but have left no trace after more than ten centuries of equatorial rains. The inscriptions were probably carved before the work on the reliefs was started. This would provide an explanation for such inscriptions as mitthyadrsti on 0-122, which offers no clue to the meaning of the scene represented in the relief panel. Presumably the sculptors were at a loss about how to illustrate the false view of denying the 'Law of cause and effect' (p. 54) and, after consultation with a member of the 'planning committee', substituted a scene showing the preparation of forbidden food (viz. mice). If, at that stage it was already intended that the reliefs should be covered, there was no need to efface the inscriptions. Even if one disagrees with the author on one or two details, there is no doubt that this is a very important work which casts fresh light on many details and thus contributes to a better understanding of this great monu- ment. But the importance of this publication is not confined to such details, nor to Borobudur alone. As this is one of the cases where one can follow the reliefs with the text in hand, the author gives us a rare insight into the attitudes towards the text of both the 'ecclesiastical planning committee' and the artists. We get some idea of what may have moved them to make their choices both in selecting the Mahdkarmavibhanga and, in that text, the parts and passages fit for illustration. In the last chapter Dr. Fontein discusses the importance of these reliefs as a 'Mirror of gesture'. There he describes a number of gestures which may give a clue as to the meaning of particular relief panels. The meaning of certain gestures is, however, not always obvious and these have been misunderstood in the past. What renders the interpretation of gestures even more difficult is the fact that the same gestures may sometimes have different meanings in different contexts. Thus, the pointed finger generally has a negative aspect by pointing out bad behaviour or even crimes, but

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 151 sometimes also functions as 'a device to connect consecutive episodes' of a story (p. 88). Just as the meanings of words often depend on their context, the meanings of certain gestures also depend on the expression and behav- iour of other participants. In this manner the author discusses the meaning of a number of other gestures. This short, 102-page work is remarkable for its richness in sharp ob- servations and for the excellent quality of thirteen plates with three to eight illustrations each. Among the considerable number of publications on Borobudur that have appeared in the past few years, Jan Fontein's work stands out as a splendid contribution to our understanding of this great monument.

Mally Kant-Achilles, Friedrich Seltmann, and Riidiger Schu- macher, Wayang Beber; Das wiederentdeckte Bildrollen Drama ZentralJavas. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1990. 262 pp. + 133 pp. of illustrations. Photographs, map, bibliography, glossary cum index, authors' index, appendices. VICTORIA M. CLARA VAN GROENENDAEL

The wayang beber probably is one of the least-known representatives of the Javanese wayang theatre. The authors only knew of two extant sets of scrolls intended for performances. These were named after the villages of their respective owners: the wayang beber of Gedompol (in Pacitan, East Java) and the wayang beber of Gelaran (in Gunung Kidul, the Special District of Yogyakarta). The latter had not been used for performances for a long time, because there was no longer any dalang there who knew its story. One of the aims of the authors therefore was to document these two groups before, from lack of interest, they might even go completely lost. This documentation was done mainly from the fine arts (Kant-Achilles) and ethnomusicological (Schumacher) perspective. Seltmann, the third author mentioned on the title page, has not contributed any parts of the text. His involvement with the project nevertheless has been considerable, as can be deduced from the references by Kant-Achilles in the text and the footnotes. The central chapters of the book contain detailed descriptions and analyses of the wayang beber sets of Gedompol (Part B) and of Gelaran (Part C). These two chapters are preceded by a general introduction (Part A) containing a very brief introduction to the wayang theatre (I), to the wayang beber (II), and to the history and age of the wayang beber, together with a few remarks on story scrolls in other parts of South Asia (III), and, most important of all, a general outline of the iconography of the two sets of wayang beber scrolls (IV). To this last part belong the 133 pages of illustrations at the end of the book, consisting of drawings by Kant- Achilles of details of the scenes depicted on the scrolls. These drawings are most helpful. Not only do they facilitate the 'reading' of the photographs of the scenes inserted between the text of Parts B and

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C, but, in my opinion, they may also prove helpful in the identification of corresponding patterns on other artefacts, such as temples and batik cloths, for instance. In this respect the significance of the book transcends its immediate objective. Through careful analyses and comparisons of ico- nographic particulars of the scenes, Kant-Achilles, with the help of Selt- mann, has moreover identified some characters that other authors have not been able to place, has corrected a number of earlier interpretations of some of the scenes, has suggested a sequence for the Gelaran scrolls, and has attempted a reconstruction of the story of Remeng Mangunjaya, which is presented with the Gelaran scrolls. Iconography, for a long time a more or less neglected field in Western studies of the wayang theatre (with the exception of Mellema 1954), has lately come more and more into the foreground, as can be deduced from the study of the Balinese wayang (Hobart 1987) and the wayang golek of West Java (Buurman 1980), to mention only a few. The present book on the wayang beber shows that this branch of study may prove of great help, not only for the identification of the various characters on the scrolls, but also for gaining an understanding of the relation between the story and its pictorial presentation. It is regrettable that, probably due to technical (or financial?) restric- tions, the descriptions and the photographs of the various scenes are seldom (and even then only by a lucky coincidence) on the same, or facing pages. This makes the 'reading' of the photographs a rather elaborate undertaking, the more so because the very detailed descriptions can only be followed through constant consultation of the photographs they de- scribe. For this rather annoying feature, however, the authors are not to blame. The last chapter (Part D), concerning the acoustic aspects of the per- formance, has been written by Schumacher. In contrast to his co-authors, he had no personal acquaintance of wayang beber performance practices and had to rely wholly on secondary material. With a healthy caution regarding the usefulness of (transcriptions of texts from) sound-recordings of live performances, he has made a careful analysis of the acoustic material provided by Kant-Achilles of the performance recorded by her of the dalang Ki Sarnen of Gedompol in 1963, and of the recording of a performance by the same puppeteer at the Goethe Institute at Jakarta in 1981. By consulting additional material, such as manuscripts and books containing texts (or parts of texts) of wayang beber and other wayang performances, he has moreover made a reconstruction of the suluk songs of the performances of Ki Sarnen, without offering a translation, however. Instead, he cautions that much more research needs to be done before a satisfactory reconstruction can be made and a translation offered (p. 183). The discussion of the acoustic material and of the iconographic features of the wayang beber, together with the illustrations by Kant-Achilles of details of the two sets of scrolls, constitute by far the most interesting part of the book. Because of the detailed and, in the case of Schumacher, rather technical approach to these subjects, the book is not easily accessible for the general public, however, although its beautiful lay-out may suggest otherwise. For the specialist, on the other hand, the book is not wholly

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 153 satisfactory either. Although a wealth of sources has been consulted, the result is rather disappointing. Several times the authors have missed the opportunity to tackle crucial questions, such as, for instance, concerning the sbcio-religious role of wayang beber in the context of the life of the villagers. This may be, in part, because the performances that are referred to have all been organized specifically with an eye to Western sponsors and have been executed in an a-typical context. It is to be hoped, however, that the socio-religious aspect of wayang beber will also receive attention soon, before it is too late. The frequent use of abbreviations in the text (although an apology for this has been made in advance), the rather clumsy system of cross-refe- rencing, mentioning both the part and the page where the page would have been sufficient, the even clumsier bibliography, and the not always justified treatment of the words indexed in the glossary, detract somewhat from the many positive qualities of the book. With these restrictions in mind, however, I would certainly recommend it. For the casual reader it is an attractive book full of photographs and illustrations; for the more serious reader its iconographic and acoustic descriptions and analysis are certainly worthwhile.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Buurman, Peter, 1980, Wayang golek; Defascinerende wereldvan het West-Javaanse poppen- spel. Alphen aan de Rijn: Sijthoff. Hobart, Angela, 1987, Dancing Shadows of Bali; Theatre and Myth. London and New York: K.P.I. Mellema, R.L., 1954 [Reprint 1988], Wayang puppets; Carving, colouring and symbolism. [Amsterdam]: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen. [English translation by Mantle Hood.]

Susan Abeyasekere, Jakarta - A history, Oxford, etc.: Oxford University Press, 1989. Price: £ 14.00. J.R. VAN DIESSEN

According to the cover, Jakarta - A History presents the first general history of the city. The book's cover also outlines the major themes in this historiography, like the origins and impact of Jakarta's enormous ethnic and cultural diversity, or the (alleged) discrepancy between grand govern- mental views and policies regarding the status and functions of the city and the harsh reality of daily life for most of its inhabitants. First of all, it should be said that Susan Abeyasekere has written a valu- able and fascinating book, relating a very complete account of Jakarta's history from the early 16th century to the 1980s within 298 pages. Es- pecially for readers outside The Netherlands and Indonesia, it provides a wealth of information and views. For a first exposure it will be of great use to anyone preparing for serious study in the field, not least because of its very thorough index of sources. At the same time, Jakarta is written with

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an eloquence and style that make the book a true pleasure to read - for anyone - without sacrificing its scientific value. Whether Abeyasekere's approach really lives up to the promise made on its cover, however, is another matter. One might expect the two major themes to be based on truly new research. Admittedly, the work is very complete and intelligent, but to the very critical eye, Jakarta is descriptive rather than analytical work, without much of a great or innovative vision of its own. The book basically compiles and combines data from other publications and (then) unpublished reports, used for reference rather than as a basis for independent research. The use of quantitative data, for instance, with respect to demographic and economic developments in Batavia and Jakarta is sparse and rather uncritical. Those more intimately familar with the existing literature on Batavia and Jakarta, therefore, will not come across much new information. In contrast, though, a substantial part of the book is devoted to the city's post-colonial history, for which a large number of relatively little-known, fairly recent Indonesian sources is introduced. This is a very positive aspect of the work. To summarize, Jakarta, though not pioneering, can be characterized as a thorough and safe survey, valuable primarily because it is so complete, both in terms of subjects and sources. But in spite of the cover's claim that Jakarta '... presents the first general history of the city' (my emphasis), in my opinion the only work truly deserving of being named the history of the capital city - though it does not cover this century - is Dr. De Haan's famous and unsurpassed Oud-Batavia (1922). Considering the extensive use she too made of this almost inexhaustible source, Abeyasekere herself no doubt would be the first to agree.

Colin Clarke, Ceri Peach and Steven Vertovec (eds), South Asians overseas; Migration and ethnicity. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, 1990, 375 pp. ISBN 0.521.37543.6. Price: £35, $54.50. CAROLINE DISSEL

This collection of articles is the product of a symposium on the overseas migration of South Asians, which was held in Oxford in March 1987. The editors have divided the volume into two halves, to reflect the two main phases of South Asian mass migration they identify. Colonial politics brought about the first phase. After the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, over a million South Asians - particularly Indians - were trans- ported to various other colonial territories. There they served as indentured labourers. Labour migration from India to other South Asian countries was usually of a short-term nature and also involved millions of people. The second phase of mass migration started early this century and still conti- nues. In this period the movement is more voluntary, this time to Western countries and the Middle East, and is motivated by economic factors. The book contains 15 articles arranged under two headings. Part 1 deals

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 155 with South Asians in colonial and post-colonial contexts. It includes con- tributions by Hugh Tinker, Jo Beall, Singravelou, Steven Vertovec, Victor Lai, Anthony Lemon and Michael Twaddle. The areas of settlement that are discussed range from Burma and Malaysia (Tinker) to Southern and Eastern Africa (Beall, Lemon and Twaddle) and on to the Caribbean and Fiji (Vertovec, Singravelou, Lai). Articles focusing on South Asians in contemporary Western countries and in the Middle East make up the second part of the volume. The case- studies by Roger Ballard, Elinor Kelly, Vaughan Robinson, Anwar and John Eade all concentrate on South Asians in Britain. The other two contributions deal with the position of South Asian countries on the world labour market (Beatrice Knerr) and Indians in the United States (Surinder Bhardwaj and N. Madhusudana Rao). It is hard to comment on the quality of the book as a whole. Although the aim of the editors was 'to produce a volume with a coherent but comparative theme: migration and ethnicity as they relate to South Asians overseas' (p. xx), the issues, levels of analysis and theoretical perspectives of the contributions vary as much as their regional foci. The book derives its coherence mainly from the introductory chapters by the editors. This offers the reader a useful socio-historical overview of the processes influ- encing community development in the areas of settlement. Readers will also feel indebted to the editors for linking the various contributions to more general questions around migration and ethnicity.

Ron Brunton, The abandoned narcotic; Kava and cultural in- stability in Melanesia. Cambridge Studies in Social Anthro- pology 69. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge, University Press, 1989. Price £25.—. P. VAN EMST

Early on in The abandoned narcotic Brunton clearly outlines his intentions: 'The purpose of this book is to argue that independent discovery is ex- tremely unlikely, and that the problem of kava is but one aspect of the broader and more fundamental anthropological problem of cultural stabi- lity in stateless societies'. The author is not afraid to follow, at least in part, the theories of Rivers, put forth more than three-quarters of a century ago. In the eight chapters of this book Brunton considers and reconsiders Rivers' arguments around the diffusion of kava use in Melanesia. He also discusses the disappearance of the places where, as Rivers saw it, the 'kava people' had been replaced by the 'betel-people'. Important is Brunton's painstaking summary of the traditional drinking of kava in Melanesia. As the first professor in Anthro- pology at the Amsterdam University used to say: 'A real researcher must have the courage to be tedious'. Well, Brunton has had this courage - to our profit. In the book Brunton uses the kava complex on the island of Tanna, a most extended case, which is built on his fieldwork there. In his

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conclusion Brunton says, or repeats, that the use of kava is mostly cer- emonial and that in some places in Melanesia it has been adopted, while in others it has been abandoned. This has to do with 'the problems of authority legitimation, which underlie and exacerbate the cultural insta- bility of Melanesia'. Of course, the author knows very well that Melanesia is multicultural and that it is rather difficult to pinpoint those aspects that might be considered the indicators for a cultural region. Perhaps the area where Brunton did his fieldwork, Tanna (or even merely a few villages there), gets a bit too much attention. An overly critical reviewer might remark that this book actually consists of two smaller books, one on the spread and disappearance of kava in Melanesia, the other on aspects of kava in a few villages in Tanna. Brunton correctly emphasizes that in most cases the use of kava must be considered more than just another habit (such as cigarette smoking). Kava is more important; it is an aspect of the religious complex in most Melanesian societies. Culture and religion in Melanesia have changed and were changing, not only under European influence, but already long before European-Melanesian contact. Suppose Rivers and Brunton had been working and writing about other cultures and areas - would their ideas about the appearance and disappearance of certain cultural aspects be the same? Rivers is more explicit in this than Brunton - he asks: 'Is this movement a specialty of Melanesian cultures?' It has to be said that Brunton is far more cautious than Rivers, as a modern researcher has to be. In the latest edition, Cambridge University Press promotes this book as a 'recent highlight'. For years the instability of quite a lot of Melanesian cultures has been known. As far as I know, this is the first time that an author has taken such pains to acknowledge and document this instability, or at least a part of it, in detail. As far as I can see, The abandoned narcotic is an example of the way research should be conducted.

Karel A. Steenbrink, De islam bekeken door kobniale Neder- landers. Utrecht/Leiden: Interuniversitair Instituut voor Mis- siologie en Oecumenica, 1991, 174 pp. [IIMO Research Pu- blication 31.] ISBN 90-6495-237-X. NUGI632. Prijs/ 26,50. TH. VAN DEN END

De schrijver was van 1981-1988, als eerste niet-moslim, docent aan de staatsacademies voor islamwetenschappen (IAIN) te Jakarta en Yog- yakarta en is nu stafmedewerker aan het IIMO en hoofdredacteur van het tijdschrift Begrip, dat beoogt de relatie tussen christenen en moslims te verbeteren. Hij heeft de uitgangspunten ontworpen voor een islamitisch- christelijk leerhuis en in de laatste hoofdstukken van dit boek schetst hij enkele historische en tevens actuele achtergronden voor de noodzaak van zo'n leerhuis. Het boek bestaat uit een Inleiding en zeven hoofdstukken.

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In de eerste drie hoofdstukken komen uiteenlopende oordelen van chris- tenen over de moslims gedurende de periode 1600-1840 ter sprake (mos- lims als 'gerespecteerde ketters', als 'verfoeilijke ketters' en als 'trouweloos en fanatiek'). In de volgende twee de benadering door gouvernement (Holle, Hurgronje, Hazeu) en zending en missie (Kraemer, Van Lith e.a.) tussen 1860 en 1940. In hoofdstuk 6 komen moslims, 'Maleiers en Java- nen', zelf aan het woord en 7 tracht lessen te trekken uit het verleden. Het boek omvat een periode van 350 jaar en maakt daardoor een wat fragmentarische indruk; de lezer zou graag de achtergrond van een en ander beter beschreven hebben gezien, ook tot een beter verstaan. Ander- zijds geeft het gevolgde procede een blik op de continu'iteit gedurende deze lange periode. De auteur kent de Indonesische islam van binnen uit en is daardoor in staat een goede indruk te geven van de gevarieerde reactie van de moslims. Het kader waarin zijn historisch relaas staat bei'nvloedt zijn interpretatie van en oordeel over zending en missie (Kraemer, Van Lith). Het oordeel over Kraemer (108) kan niet worden afgeleid uit de bronnen waarnaar de auteur direct en indirect verwijst (108) en het 'conflict' tussen Kraemer en Haji was slechts een product van wishful thinking van de redactie van het weekblad De Taak. De door Kraemer geinspireerde omslag in zendingsmethode van de jaren '30 blijft onvermeld. Enkele errata: 'geheughen' (3), Marsil (43), Hervormde Kerk (97), Moeriers (106). Het boek is met zeer aantrekkelijke en zorgvuldig geko- zen illustraties verlucht. Het IIMO moge zich aantrekken dat de bladen bijna bij eerste aanraking loslaten van de rug.

Sutarman S. Partonadi, Sadrach's community and its con- textual roots; A nineteenth century Javanese expression of Christianity. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, 1990, 317 pp. ISBN 9.051.83094.7. TH. VAN DEN END

Sadrach (± 1835-1924) was the leader of a religious movement in Central Java initially affiliated with the Dutch Missions Society (NGZV) but which went itsown way in a nominal relationship with a branch of the Catholic Apostolic Church following Sadrach's denunciation as a heretic in 1891. Sadrach and his movement have been studied extensively since the late 19th century, (see L. Adriaanse, Sadrach's kring, 1899 and C. Guillot, 'L'affaire Sadrach', BKI, 1984: 339; Indonesian ed. Kiai Sadrach, Riwayat kristenisasi di Jawa, Grafiti Pers, 1985). Guillot, the French historian, studied Sadrach's community as a social movement. In Sadrach's community and its contextual roots Sutarman, a minister of the Christian Church of Central Java, is primarily interested in the genesis of Sadrach's religious doctrine and the organization of his followers, and in the accusations levelled against him by the missionaries. Consequently, his book - a VU dissertation written under the supervision of Prof. A. Wessels - ends with a plea for the contextualization of the

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Christian faith. The introductory chapter is followed by a brief description of socio- cultural and socio-religious life in Java and of the Dutch missionary efforts in the 19th century. Chapter II recounts Sadrach's biography, while Chap- ter IU describes the Sadrach movement, its organization, its worship, preaching and rituals, and its spiritual life and spirit of independence. Chapter IV treats the accusations brought against Sadrach and his com- munity. In Chapter V the author stresses the importance of Sadrach's contribution to the contextualizing efforts of the Church. This is followed by summaries in Dutch and Indonesian and the appendices: a helpful synopsis of Reformed Churches and Reformed mission organizations, statistical tables, several documents from the Karangjasa archives, and two maps. The book has both a subjects index and a names index. The text contains some errors and omissions, especially when quoting Dutch texts. The book is written in a clear, comprehensive style. It offers a lucid picture of Sadrach's concepts and their footing in Javanese thought. At the same time it allows us to understand the missionaries' opposition to these concepts by describing the doctrines prevailing in the NGZV, the Re- formed Mission Society which was absorbed by the Zending der Gerefor- meerde Kerken in Nederland (ZGKN) in 1894. Rather than covering the same ground in their work, Guillot and Sutarman study the subject from different points of view. Moreover, on several issues Sutarman's vision is at variance with that of Guillot. While Guillot stresses Sadrach's background, Sutarman, referring to Van Akkeren's Sri and Christ, sees his movement as 'Kristen Jawa ' (p. 211). Guillot's assertion that after 1891 the Sadrach movement dwindled in numbers, which supports his thesis that Sadrach's success was due primarily to his function as middle- man between the poor Javanese peasants and the European rulers, is contradicted by Sutarman on the strength of statistical data from the Karangjasa documents (p. 129). Although narrower in scope, Adriaanse's Sadrach's kring is not rendered obsolete by the present study because it is more detailed and gives a sharper insight into the Dutch roots of Sadrach's doctrine. The author treats Sadrach's opponents too gently perhaps, and takes the NGZV and its missionaries more seriously than they deserve. He could have pointed out the ironic fact that Sadrach's most 'principled' opponent, the missionary R.J. Horstman, abandoned the ZGKN in later years and founded an independent community at Temanggung, which became the nucleus of the Pentecostal movement in Indonesia. The inability of the NGZV and most of its missionaries to respect Sadrach and to see his movement in a broader framework reveals a fundamental weakness of the 19th century Dutch missions. There are several reasons why the mission- ary movement lacked the broader framework in which to combine its burning love for Christ and obedience to the great commandment of Matthew 28:19f with a profound knowledge of, and respect for, the cultures and religions it encountered in the mission field: the refusal of the Church to shoulder its missionary responsibility; the liberal leanings of scientific theology; and the unwillingness of academically trained theolo-

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 159 gians to become missionaries. Nevertheless, the author's approach seems justified to the extent that the NGZV, however incompetently, represented Reformed orthodoxy in Holland. Kuyper's leadership had just brought about the secession called Doleantie (in 1886). In this context, the conflict between the NGZV (of which Kuyper was a prominent member) and Sadrach was actually an extension of an internal Dutch conflict between the Reformed orthodoxy and less strict Protestants. Approaching the sub- ject from other points of view leads to the same conclusion. It is true, as the author states, that 19th century missions brought the Gospel to Indo- nesia in the form of Western Christianity, bound to Western culture. But it is incorrect to state that these missions generally 'understood Church planting to be simply the extension of the church of the homeland', as was the case with the VOC and the Indische Kerk (p. 124). In this respect, the NGZV was an exception. Most mission societies emphatically dissociated themselves from this position. In some cases, such as with the NZG, but also the DZV and NZV, there was a marked departure from Dutch ortho- doxy. Sadrach's doctrine, which was condemned as heretical by the NGZV, was greatly influenced by the writing of these missionaries, as shown in detail by Adriaanse. From this perspective Sadrach was the victim of Dutch orthodox distrust of everything deviating from Reformed ortho- doxy, only exacerbated by Kuyper's struggle. A comparison of the Sadrach case to a similar event in West Java leads to the same conclusion. In 1884, after Anthing's death, the independent congregations he left behind asked for assistance from the NZV missiona- ries. These missionaries, who were less militant but still orthodox, worked in much the same way as Wilhelm did in Central Java; nothing was forced upon the indigenous Christians, and their leader, Leonard, was left in place with all the powers that Anthing had vested him with. Also, there was no question of Leonard not being invited to sit on a chair (which in Central Java was a test of being pro or contra Sadrach); from the start (1863) NZV missionaries offered a chair to every Indonesian who came to their house, regent, and tani alike.

Bernard Sellato, Nomades et sedentarisation a Borneo; Histoire economique et sociale. Paris, Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Etudes insulindiennes/Archipel 9, 1989, 293 p.; ill. Price: Fr.F.180. ANTONIO J. GUERREIRO

Bernard Sellato's long-awaited book focuses on the characteristics of what he terms 'the traditional Punan culture' found in the area of central Borneo. This includes parts of Central, West and East Kalimantan, Sarawak and ; there are no nomads living in Sabah. It deals especially with the progressive sedentarization of these hunter-gatherers during the two last centuries. The transformation processes are examined from the perspec- tives of economics and trading activity, political relations, social organi-

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zation and cultural borrowing. The book combines two selected cases of sedentarization: the Bukat (Bukoet/Bukat is their true autonym) and Punan Kereho-Busang, with a more general essay on the hunting and gathering cultures of Borneo. Besides the unsurpassed data from his Kalimantan fieldwork, collected over a period of twelve years between 1973 and 1985, the author uses a wide range of historical and anthropological sources to build up his argu- ments. The work reads pleasantly; the integration of Dutch sources into this contemporary ethnography is well balanced in the treatment of the two selected cases. Drawing mainly on the oral history, the author carefully reconstructs the movements of the nomadic bands. The methodological parti pris of not including the oral sources (texts or documents, as well as footnotes) is coherent. However, the flavour of the authentic narrative is missing - the colourful speech of the forest people. In any case, it does greatly facilitate the reader's efforts to follow the puzzling migrations and settlement sequences of the Bukat and Kereho-Busang in the Miiller- Schwaner range. The author corroborated this oral data with the various agriculturalist groups that live close to the nomad territories: the Kayan (Mahakam and Mendalam Rivers), the Long Gelat, Aoheng, Taman, Ot Danum, Siang and even going as far afield as the Iban. Additional infor- mation is provided by the records left by travellers, administrators and explorers, especially about the earlier period of 1850-1915. Here a word should be said about the numerous maps, of a high standard, which help trace both band distribution and their complex movements, Brownian in nature, which occurred in the area (delimited by the left banks of the Baleh, the Kapuas, Mahakam, Barito River basins). A description of the topogra- phy of the Miiller-Schwaner and Madi ranges - which the author knows so well - would have added to the understanding of the segmentation of the bands and of the lexical evidence of river naming, toponyms and ethnonyms (as noted by Sellato, p. 173-4). One might also like to know more about its social expression. The second part of the book (Chapters IV and V), which is devoted to the analysis of the traditional Punan culture, draws on published sources and the author's own data. Sellato's central argument is that the Punan have conserved a distinct cultural substratum or, following Louis Dumont's concept, an 'ideology', buried under the fragments of , mythology, rituals borrowed from their Dayak neighbours - and this despite the profound transformations brought about by sedentarization. The cultural duality of Punan society persisted even after the sedentari- zation phase, with varying amounts of flexibility according to each group's position in the forest product trade networks. The author deals only briefly with the religious and sacred dimensions of Punan life, which have indeed been less studied and less documented. For instance, death-names repel the spirit of a dead person, while also recording the event within the band, thus marking a continuity, an 'incor- poration' of death for the kindred of the deceased (see Needham 1965, Nicolaisen 1978). Where the author gives the kinship terminologies for the two groups studied, he does not provide data concerning necronyms. What are the origins of Punan? While referring to the recent controversy

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(see, for instance, the Borneo Research Bulletin 20-2(1988):81-129), Sel- lato has the common sense to ask why, in several areas of the island, perhaps certain diachronical processes of 'devolution' from agriculture to hunting-gathering, or transitions from mixed forms of horticulture/fora- ging to agriculture have not taken place. Besides this, he questions the synchronic juxtaposition of these processes within one area. This book is the first valuable contribution on central Borneo hunter- gatherers, if one disregards one previous study based on the available literature (Hildebrand 1982). It is already a reference work for students of Bornean cultures and Indonesianists in general; as a genuine analysis of Punan culture, it contains a wealth of ethnographic material. The value of the book lies in the careful attention given to the current transformation processes which are rooted in their historical perspective. The only draw- back in this book is the lack of indexes (by author, and subject) that could have made it more convenient to use.

REFERENCES

Brosius, J.P. 1986, 'River, forest en mountain: the Penan Gang landscape', Sarawak Museum Journal xxxvi (57):173-84. Hildebrand, H.K. 1982, Die Wildbeutergruppen Borneos, Munich: Minerva Publikation, Miinchner Ethnologische Abhandlungen. Needham, R. 1965, 'Death-names and solidarity in Penan society', BKI 121:58-76. Nicolaisen, J. 1976, 'The Penan of the Seventh Division of Sarawak; Past, present and future', Sarawak Museum Journal xxiv (45):35-62. 1978, 'Penan death-names', Sarawak Museum Journal xxvi (47):29-41. Rousseau, J. 1990, Central Borneo; Ethnic identity and social life in a stratified society, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

P.J.M. Nas, De stad in de Derde Wereld; Een inleiding tot de urbane antropologie en sociohgie. Muiderberg: Coutinho, 1990; pp. 244. ISBN 9062837808. Price: Dfl. 38,50. JOS CM. HILHORST

This textbook is in many ways original in character. Apart from being well-written, its starting point containing an analytical description of the cities of Dakar, Brasilia and Menado is a feat not often observed and it will no doubt function as a stimulating appetiser for the undergraduate or graduate student, who is expected to absorb the other eleven chapters. This eleven item menu is not always equally easy to swallow or digest. Chapter 2 is entitled 'The Essence of the City', Ch. 3 discusses the concept of the pre-industrial town, Ch. 4 deals with typologies of cities, Ch. 7 with an approach to urban theorizing, Ch. 8 applies this approach to the case of Indonesia. Ch. 9 identifies a number of policy problems, Ch. 10 examines schools of thought on the future of urban areas, Ch. 11 shows Nas's interest in poetry and art as sources of knowledge on cities, Ch. 12 providing a

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dessert of thoughts on urban sociology and anthropology. The book is also original in that its author uses a highly personal style and has made an equally personal choice of aspects of urbanisation and of themes in thinking about urbanisation. Otherwise it follows the usual method of textbooks by closing every chapter with a conclusion. Thus, Nas concludes Chapter 3 by saying that the concept of pre- industrial city as developed by Sjoberg has misleading qualities in that it overlooks the specific cultural character of these cities and their contexts without which they would not be able to function. It is not clear why Nas ascribes Sjoberg's concept to some ideological purpose, and having been set on that trail, the reader is left to wonder what ideological objective Nas serves in the typologies of cities in Chapter 4: historic-evolutionary; mul- tiple criteria; and factor-analytic ones. The criteria for distinguishing these typologies (in fact Nas makes a typology of typologies, the types over- lapping) are not clear. Here the conclusion is that it is desirable to develop a typically anthropological approach that distinguishes cities by what Nas calls 'spheres', i.e. meaningful frameworks for orientation and related behavioural patterns. In addition such an anthropological typology would have to take into account a city's regional or even national context. The chapter on urban-rural relations is somewhat disturbing, in that it criticises these ideal types without recognizing them as such. At the same time it omits to discuss the (again ideal-typical) economic interaction between these two extremes. The discussion is the more disturbing in that it suggests that in this 'dichotomy' the notion 'urban' would stand for a single urban place. It is true, of course, that a number of authors use these concepts in this way, but that does not mean that all do this. In addition, this discussion shows the weakness of the conclusion of Ch. 2, which says that the notion of city cannot be defined unambiguously. This results in a certain haziness in the argument, as Nas sticks to this conclusion, so that it is not altogether clear what is being argued. The reader is left with a discussion that refers to various eras and geographical situations, obscu- ring rather than clarifying the issues. The chapter is saved by a discussion of the effectiveness of rural development policies that aim to reduce migration to urban areas. Nas is of the opinion that policy makers should not expect these policies to achieve their objective and one could not agree more. This discussion also leads him to conclude that cities should not be considered in isolation but as parts of an urban system, while this in turn should be studied in its relations with the rural areas. To speak of urban systems is, of course, to speak of urban hierarchy and levels. In Chs 7 and 8 Nas deals explicitly with these and the connections existing between them. The levels refer to places in a hierarchy of decision makers in the public sphere. In the case-study of the emergence of autono- mous urban governments in Indonesia during the colonial period, the top is formed by the national government, the intermediate level is operated by the colonial civil service in a number of crucial ministries while Nas places the urban citizens at the third level, i.e., the bottom of the hierarchy formed by the Indonesians, Chinese and Indo-Europeans living in the cities. As an approach, it is certainly useful for a grouping of phenomena, but whether the emergence of urban authorities is explained by it or by the

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 163 shifts over time in the interests of the various levels and their power position remains to be seen. Chapter 9 on the critical urban sociology of the sixties and seventies could have been left out given its lack of relevance to the book's title. Although the author is right enough in what he writes about it, the 'spheres' of most Third World cities appear not to have allowed for the adoption of some of the ideas of this period. The same is true to some extent, but less so, for Chs 10 and 11. This is a pity, because the author might have taken elements from some of the policy documents that exist for India.and for Indonesia, such as the National Urban Development Strategy, which project images of the city. One could not agree more with the conclusion of Ch. 12. First Nas gives a definition of the field of study of urban anthropology and sociology as the societal process of change that implies increasing interdependence in densely populated settlements, or the process of urban development that goes through various phases, a process that took place in different ways in different cultures. Then he says (and I translate): 'even if urban devel- opment of Western and non-Western countries can be distinguished, these should not be separated. Both are part of one and the same societal process of development and in addition, comparative analysis can lead to a deep- ening of insights, although transposing theory from one to the other must be treated with a certain reluctance'. Nas provides a useful bibliography at the end.

Stefan Dietrich, Kolonialismus und Mission auf Flares (ca. 1900-1942), Hohenschaftlarn: Klaus Renner Verlag [Munchner Beitrage zur Sud- und Sudostasienkunde Band 1 ], 1989, vii + 347 pp. (Dissertation Universitat Tubingen). Price: DM 38.-. S.R. JAARSMA

Until the turn of the century the Dutch administered most areas outside of Java according to a policy of non-intervention. The introduction of the Ethical Policy implied a radical revision of this principle. Dietrich de- scribes in depth the resulting changes in the administrative relations on Flores. Based on ethnographical material, Dietrich reconstructs the political structures on Flores in the late nineteenth century. The pacification during the 1910s introduced a system of indirect colonial rule that increasingly integrated local dignitaries into the colonial adminstration. Dietrich also briefly expands the scope of his argument to describe these transforma- tions in Dutch colonial policy in more general terms. Reverting to Flores he provides an extensive description of the effects of the introduction of a modern colonial administration. Describing a period of roughly thirty years, the chapter ends with a short but interesting sketch of the eve of the Indonesian independence.

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In his sixth chapter Dietrich again extends his line of argument to describe the missionary involvement in the colonial process. This is but a limited foray, mainly involving the effects of missionary presence on the pacification and administrative expansion. The concluding chapter is prin- cipally a synopsis of his argument, underlining the developments he dis- tinguishes in the dual administration on Flores. Dietrich has gathered an impressive amount of high-quality historical material. Working chronologically through his material he reconstructs the process of administrative expansion on Flores. His straightforward use of chronological sequence implicitly illustrates the ongoing change in indigenous society. On the other hand, the exclusive focus on administrative inroads dis- guises parts of the social reality. Dietrich looks mainly at relations between the Dutch and indigenous administrations, extending his argument only to include the role of the Roman Catholic mission. In several places he briefly indicates reactions of the indigenous population to developments in colo- nial rule. He does not, however, attempt to integrate this material. Though Dietrich sketches the general development of nationalism in the , his references to indigenous political feelings on Flores remain vague. He mentions the presence of a political opposition following World War II, linking this to a modern elite educated by the mission, but he elaborates no further. These and other references suggest that Dietrich has enough interesting material on the full range of reactions to expansion of colonial rule. He shows adequately why he has limited himself to the dual administrative structure, but to my mind it creates an artificial separation between those administering (especially the indigenous administration) and those being administered. Dietrich provides us with a well-written, interesting book, but I would welcome a slightly revised commercial reprint, not least because the book lacks finishing touches. It could only benefit from an index of names and places and a glossary of the Dutch terms that are consistently used, but all too often remain unexplained. Though Dietrich supplies the original Dutch versions of the quotations he uses, these contain many errors ranging from small typing errors to the total omission of sentences. Also, his use of abbreviations is not always as consistent and clear as it should be. The book shows all the signs of preparation in haste which adds nothing to its usefulness as a work of reference.

Th. van den End, Ragi carita; Sejarah Gereja di Indonesia I 1500-1860, 3rd impr. Jakarta 1987, ISBN 975-415-188-2, // 1860-sekarang, Jakarta 1989, ISBN 975-415-425-3. M.C. JONGELING

Van den End, who taught church history at the school of Divinity (Sekolah Tinggi Theobgia) in Jakarta from 1970 to 1980, has succeeded in telling the complicated history of the Protestant churches in Indonesia.

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The book leads the way through a jungle of names, dates and subjects with its references to literature in Indonesian and indexes. In the period which Van den End covers, the years 1800 and 1864 mark changes which have influenced the development of churches, such as the expansion of Islam, the colonial policy of subjection, but also the spiritual movements in Europe: the Enlightenment, Pietism, Revivalism and the Dutch version of Ritschlean theology (ethical theology) and Karl Barth's dogmatic con- ceptions. The author intersperses the study of each church, in its region, with sections about both the general situation and the range of ideas of Christians themselves. A hurried reader might only browse through the general reflections given in each volume. The important question: 'Which is the decisive moment of the beginning of a church?' is answered just as the author's predecessor, Dr. T. Miiller- Kruger, answered it: 'The date of the first baptism is the starting point of a church in a certain region.' For Indonesia that beginning was around 1522, in Halmahera, during the Portuguese period. From that time on we can follow the development of churches in a variety of models such as the oldest colonial state-church, dominated by the government until 1934/5. Sejarah Gereja covers the whole ecclesiastical spectrum, reflecting both the missionary and the governmental approach to socio-religious struc- tures, to Islam, to education, to nationalism, and to independence. We see the fruits of different missionary approaches, church history and history of the proclamation of the gospel going hand-in-hand. There were small flocks, protected from the hostility of their original environment in rural Christian villages and there were 'tribal' churches with their regional languages, their hymns and church orders, in which the problems of gospel and adat are incorporated in a new way. The non-Christian religions and their attitudes towards the proclamation of the gospel are also considered, as are people's motives for becoming Christians, and the problems of how to transmit the biblical faith. This work also examines the religious policy of the VOC and the later Dutch colonial government. Here a comparison with the religious politics of the Indonesian churches might have been interesting. After four countries, the year 1930 marked a new period for these churches. Under the influence of the nationalistic movements, Christian congregations were declared independent by their missionary foster par- ents and Indonesian churches were founded. Why most of the congrega- tions of baptized Christians had to wait so long is critically examined. However, the author does not address the question of whether the financial crisis of the late twenties accelerated the process. A survey of churches which originate from North-American enterprises - though incomplete - provides useful information which Indonesians cannot easily find elsewhere. It is regretteable that the author could not find the patience to wait for the day that a younger generation of Indonesian (church)-historians begin to describe their own story (Ragi carita). Such complex and thorny ques- tions must not be treated only by those who are called, to use missionary terminology, 'partners in obedience'. Perhaps that partnership could be the start of a project.

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Michaela Appel, Dewi Sri und die Kinder des Putut Jantaka; Beziehungen zwischen Mensch und Reis in Mythologie und Brauchtum auf Java und Bali. Munchen: Anacon Verlag, 1991. [Ganesha, Band 4]. ROY E. JORDAAN

Although of relatively small format (less than a hundred pages of text), Appel's book gives a useful compilation of information about the mytho- logical and ritual relationships between man and rice in Java and Bali. Starting from a keen observation of certain significant similarities between Javanese birth customs, the Nini Towong performance, and rice-rituals, the author tries to find their common underlying mythological structure. For Appel the comparison of birth customs and rice-rituals goes further than the mere mention of examples of the botanical-biological analogies between women and rice. Such botanical metaphors have long been known to ethnologists, at least since Pleyte (1906), and have recently been elaborated upon in various other studies. What is new in Appel's analysis, in my opinion, is the confirmation of the accuracy of a casually expressed surmise by Kats (1916) about the interpretability of Javanese birth cu- stoms in terms of the rice-myth of Dewi Sri, particularly with respect to the newborn baby's four invisible, spiritual siblings (who are known in Javanese as sadulur papal, in Balinese as kanda empat, in Madurese as taretan empa', etc. - in German ethnological studies they are usually referred to as 'spirituelle Geschwistef). Referring to the ritual measures of defence mentioned in the text Pustaka Raja Purwa in connection with the birth of Tisnawati (a twin sister, or perhaps alter ego, of Dewi Sri, being the goddess of the dry rice), Appel points out that the enemies threatening the life of the newborn baby are identical to the enemies of the rice mentioned in other myths. Nowadays, this link with Tisnawati and Sri is forgotten and no longer recognized by the common people; the ritual measures of defence at birth are considered fitting for every newborn child. They are thought to give protection against evil spirits who are known as sawan sarap and can cause serious illness among the under fives. Originally, according to another Javanese text quoted by Appel, sawan and sarap were the children of Putut Jantaka who, in their animal forms (such as a dog, pig, ox, bird, etc.), posed a threat to Dewi Sri. After having been destroyed by the god Wisnu, they were transformed into the sawan and sarap spirits which haunt small children. Sawan and sarap, however, are also identified with a child's spiritual 'elder' and 'younger' siblings connected with the lochia or afterbirth (e.g. birth- fluid, placenta, umbilical cord, membrane). Their usual number is four, but in some divinational manuals and mystic teachings the number of elements comprising the afterbirth is larger and so, consequently, is the total number of spiritual siblings. Quite often, each of these siblings is attributed or associated with a particular colour, point of the compass, constellation of stars, emotion, and the like. In Bali, as pointed out in Appel's reading of the ethnographic literature, the spiritual siblings may also be linked with the so-called pancamahabuta and the navasanga doctrines. Appel's study raises important questions. The author herself, for

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 167 instance, wonders why certain animals, particularly the dog, pig, ox and bird, are singled out as a threat to the rice and small children, and why they are known as the children of Putut Jantaka (page 95). Indeed, the very identity of Putut Jantaka remains an enigma for the reader. Since nothing is said about him by Appel, it would have been better, I think, not to have mentioned his name in the book's title. Putut may have been a title for a demon whose mythological position equals that of Sri. Perhaps Jantaka is connected either with the Sanskrit word jataka (meaning rebirth) or with Jataka, a name of a well-known genre of Buddhist literature. The possible connection with Buddhism also seems suggested by the fact, not explicitly mentioned by Appel, that the enemies of the rice are often said to come from abroad, notably from Palembang (Hidding 1929:40 nl). As is well- known, the Palembang area is the possible site of the capital of Srivijaya, the Buddhist empire that long held sway over large parts of the Archi- pelago and which was a formidable rival of early Hindu-Javanese dyna- sties. Putut Jantaka may thus represent a historical allusion couched in mythological lore. Demons, however, by their very nature, can be very tricky. I think it is misleading to call sawan sarap evil spirits. Sawan sarap is an illness term, referring to the symptoms of tetanus neonatorum. In Indonesia, particularly in the rural areas, the occurence of this disease is still very common and often proves fatal. So dramatically haunting is its onslaught that evil spirits provide the only plausible explanation for ordinary villagers. Clearly, it is but one step from singling out a class of demons as the cause of a particular disease to giving them a name derived from the disease. The suggestion about a historical allusion to Hindu-Buddhist rivalry notwithstanding, I do not agree with Appel's conclusion (page 95) that 'diese Weltsicht in ihrem Kern altindonesisch (Laubscher 1979) bzw. hindu-javanisch und hindu-balinesisch [ist]'. What exactly is meant by 'altindonesisch'? Does not Appel's own corroborative remarks on the Malayo-Polynesian origins of certain ideas relating to the widadari (first recognized by Hazeu) actually point beyond Hinduism? The reference to the work of her teacher, Laubscher, should, in my opinion, have implied the same. Curiously enough, Laubscher's earlier publications on East Indonesian myths of creation are not mentioned in the bibliography. This has nothing to do, it seems, with a strict regional delimitation on the part of the author, for Appel regularly refers to studies dealing with agriculture and rice-rituals in other parts of Indonesia (such as Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Halmahera). A field of ethnological study approach, as developed in Leiden, allows for all these excursions. Speaking of Java proper, two other important omissions in the bibli- ography must be mentioned. These are Kern (1948) and Rikin (1973). Kern is relevant because of his observation of the use among the Sundanese of snake names for the different stages of rice growth, which provides another illustration of the chthonic connection of the rice-goddess. The latter study demonstrates that the female character of the rice not only plays a part with regard to the women. In Rikin's analysis, the circumcision ritual of a boy amounts to a symbolic wedding with the rice-goddess. Children of either sex can seek Sri's protection and blessing. Sri's apparent

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access 168 Boekbesprekingen indifference for their sex is paralleled by the gender neutral character of a man's spiritual siblings. Finally, I want to mention a recently published article on Sri and Seddhana and Sita and Rama by Robert Wessing (1990). His article connects the agricultural myth centred on Sri with the Rama-type state myths. Addressing different sorts of questions, Wessing's discussion of aspects of Sri nevertheless supplements some of Appel's findings. Both Appel and Wessing, each in their own way, have helped to advance our understanding of some hidden strands in the web of mythological stories featuring Dewi Sri.

REFERENCES

Hidding, K.A.H., 1929, Nji Pohatji Sangjang Sri. Leiden [Ph.D. thesis]. Kats, J., 1916, 'Dewi Sri', TBG 57-3:177-99. Kern, R.A., 1948, 'Zang en tegenzang', BK1 104:119-36. Pleyte, CM., 1906, Toekang sadap; Een bijdrage tot het vraagstuk dat planten bezielde wezens zijn', BKI 59:591-647. Rikin, W. Mintardja, 1973, Ngabersihan als knoop in de taliparanti. Bijdrage tot het verstaan van de besnijdenis der Sundanezen. Meppel: Racmo [Ph.D. thesis]. Wessing, R., 1990, 'Sri and Sedana and Sita and Rama: Myths of fertility and generation', Asian Folklore Studies 49-2:235-57.

Joel C. Kuipers, Power in performance; The creation of textual authority in Weyewa ritual speech, 1990. Philadelphia, Pa: University of Pennsylvania Press, Conduct and Communi- cation Series. Price: $24.95. S.C. KERSENBOOM

This work, Power in performance, is a welcome contribution, strengthening the present interest in performance. It is in itself a powerful work. Earlier disciplines have tried to capture performance events in terms of religion, folkloristics, philology, literary criticism, linguistics, ethnography and theatre anthropology. Somehow, performance defies canonic codifi- cation, formal and functional analysis, and suggestive description. Power in performance speaks of Li'i 'words of ancestors' that safeguard the welfare of Weyewa society past, present and future. The Department of Education and Culture 'showed a real interest in printing some of these texts for educational purposes in order to develop a national folklore, an emerging category of state culture', (p. 1) However, in 1987 the Indonesian government also banned the performance of such ritual speech (li'i ma- rapu), fearing the powerful effects it produces among participants. This work traces that power. Kuipers does not reduce the performance to a two-dimensional moment of textual data, nor does he describe the ritual as a selfcontained, three-dimensional device. Instead he shows Weyewa ritual speech as a process, alive, a continuum embracing past and

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 169 present, an interactive event embedded in various vibrant networks of meaning, and which requires a multidisciplinary approach. In short, it seems to me that the author situates Weyewa ritual speech in a fourth dimension: the dimension of time. This enables him to analyse the perform- ance as: 1. a product (artifact) that is wished for (see preface, Chapter 1 and 3, Conclusions); 2. a product (faction) composed of various skills (artes) like 'words of the ancestors' (Chapter 4), 'sorting out the Word' (Chapter 5), 'songs, gongs and oratory' (Chapter 6); 3. a synchronic process of mediation (modus operandi) like 'agents, action and exchange' (Chapter 3), 'divination as dialogic performance' (Chap- ter 5), 'poetic accomplishment of consensus' (Chapter 6); 4. a diachronic process of: a. the artes employed as in 'continuum of style' (Chapter 4), b. their modus operandi as in 'innovation and convention' (Epilogue), c. the cultural texture into which ritual speech is woven (see Chapter 2 'History of Land, power and authority'), 5. an effect: a power emerging from the performance (see Chapter 3 'Spiritual authority in the context of calamity'). It is this 'field of vectors' that constitutes performance. Kuipers glosses field and process into one term, 'entextualization', meaning 'a process in which a speech event [. . .] is marked by increasing thoroughness of poetic and rhetorical patterning and growing levels of (apparent) detachment from the immediate pragmatic context' (p. 4). Its 'resultant': 'the inscription of meaning is a fundamental and powerful force in the patterning of discourse and the social circumstances that discourse organizes' (p. 171). To capture field, process and resultant is no small achievement. It requires almost as much from the researcher as from the performer: presence, that is, a sharing of time and place, (linguistic) knowledge, artistic skills, intimacy and wisdom. Kuipers proves to be in command of all; his work attests to extensive fieldwork, knowledge, empathy, even performance skills (see p. xiv). His wisdom is found not only in their publication: an abstraction that still enfolds the four dimensions of performance. A book, is a book, is a book . . . but still, this book has realized the ambitious goal to which the author aspires: T hope I have [...] "assembled the lips in pairs, brought together all the face", so that a dialogue can begin' (p.V.) It will.

Marie Alexandre Martin, Le mal cambodgien; Histoire d'une societe traditionelle face a ses leaders politiques 1946-1987, Paris: Hachette, 1989. 304 pp. J. KLEINEN

In Le mal cambodgien, French ethnobotanist and anthropologist Marie Alexandre Martin shows her bitterness and anger over the cruel fate of Cambodia caused by the political events of the past 20 years. In eleven

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chapters she discusses the modern development of this tiny colony-turned- state on the mainland of Southeast Asia. The book is divided into two, reflecting the two parts of Cambodia's history: before and after 1970, the year that saw the peaceful coup d'etat of Lon Nol and its violent consequences. Martin herself witnessed at least a part of those tormented years when se did her doctoral study on the indigenous flora of Cambodia's central plain. She contributes many new facts, based in part on archival documents kept in French archives. Part I is titled Le Cambodge paisible and deals with the traditional society, the consequences of French colonization, the emergence of Cambodian na- tionalism and the Sihanouk years. Part II, Le Cambodge dans le douleur, describes the Khmer Republic (1970-1975), the Khmer Rouge genocide, the Vietnamese occupation and Cambodia's fragile future in the light of the aftermath of the civil war. Martin uses the Khmer version of the Indian , the Aspara (Cambodia's most renowned dance and immor- talized in the sculptures of Angkor Wat), as a metaphor to remind the reader that good triumphs over evil. A lengthy portion of the work is devoted to a chronology and the reprinting of several documents men- tioned in the main text. But, in the French tradition, the book lacks an index of sources that explains where to find the many people specified in the book, often a help to more specialized readers. Although Martin has a personal involvement with Cambodian affairs - she lost many friends, but was reunited with some of them after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 - the writing remains detached and scholarly most of the time. Her anger begins to surface as her narrative approaches the present. The treatment of Cambodia's viet- namization, based mainly on refugee accounts and on Esmeralda Luciol- li's report of her experiences as a medical doctor working for the Medecins Sans Frontieres, reaches a polemical tone, but is not wholly convincing. Hanoi's failure to colonize the conquered country seemed to be paralleled by the failed transmigration of people on a mass scale from the congested northern deltas to the South. What happened instead was a more natural movement that undoubtedly had many negative effects, but was less Manichaean, as the author supposes. The way she deals with Pol Pot's genocide is, in my opinion, disap- pointing. The tone is too political; the treatment needs more sociological or anthropological explanation of the violence that devastated the country. The failure of the Khmer state to become a nation-state and the leader- ship's lack of legitimacy, whether communist or nationalist, are more convincing arguments than the ideological motives of Pol Pot and his henchmen. By pretending that Cambodia was peaceful under French colonial rule and in the subsequent Sihanouk years compared to what happened after 1970, Martin risks reinforcing the stereotype view of Cambodia as a gentle land disturbed by international politics. The violent acts of the Khmer Rouge cannot be fully understood without the socio- cultural background. Martin's inclination to mix personal observations with analysis, sometimes extending them to incoherent endnotes, means the book is not always as easy to read as its could have been. But in spite of these weaknesses, Le mal cambodgien adds important new insights to

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A. Booth, W.J. O'Malley, and A. Weidemann (eds), Indonesian economic history in the Dutch colonial era, Monograph Series 35 Yale University Southeast Asia Studies. New Haven, 1990. xiii + 369 pp. G.J. KNAAP

This volume contains a collection of thirteen essays, besides an introduc- tion and an epilogue, which were originally written as papers for a con- ference on Indonesian economic history in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century at the Australian National University in Canberra. The Australian editors have done a fine job, and the present volume has become an excellent book, with contributions which make very easy reading, even for someone who is not specialized in economic history. There are some interesting contributions (by R.E. Elson, G.R. Knight and R. van Niel) on the Cultivation System in Java. The debate here centres on the question of whether or not the Cultivation System brought pros- perity for Javanese peasant society. Another interesting contribution is that of C. Barlow and J. Drabble, in which a comparison is made between the rubber industries of Indonesia and Malaya and the roles played by the Dutch and British colonial governments with regard to this fast expanding sector of the export economy. In the epilogue Ann Booth and Thee Kian Wie briefly discuss the 'directions of further research'. They forecast that the increasing avail- ability of long-term colonial statistics, as published by the Changing Econ- omy in Indonesia group of historians associated with the Royal Tropical Institute, will give rise to much more quantitative, economic theory- oriented analysis. On the other hand they foresee that economic historians will never be able to do without 'conventional' qualitatively oriented research, simply because the statistics cover only a part of the economic reality. They round off their discussion with a call for more comparative studies on the economic history of colonial areas, as well as for a greater involvement of Indonesian scholars in the economic history of their own country. There are a few minor flaws, which were in part already to be witnessed in William J. O'Malley's useful introduction. Firstly, as the 'Dutch colonial era' started at the beginning of the seventeenth century, one might say that the title of this volume, which only deals with the period 1800 to 1942, is rather misleading. Secondly, the collection of essays is rather Java- centric, which means that the areas outside Java are only occasionally touched on.

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F. Tjon Sie Fat, Representing kinship; Simple models of elemen- tary structures. 1990. [Doctoral thesis. Leiden, Published by the author.] GISELE DE MEUR

I think it is high time that more of this kind of books appear on the anthropological bookshelves: literature that is well documented, full of empirical examples and inspiring comments, but also rigourous, meticu- lous and structured. Representing kinship contains an extended, eclectic and up-to-date bibliography of around 400 titles, with author and subject indexes. The text, which makes frequent references to historical back- ground, could also inspire many interesting epistemological digressions. The author was able to recognize invariant patterns pertaining to math- ematical models in a huge variety of kinship contexts, and demonstrates that a knowledge of modern algebra and geometry opens the mind to new insights in social sciences. I hope that many scholars make the intellectual investment of following Tjon Sie Fat. Tjon Sie Fat's work is challenging to the end: this book is not an easy read, and it might be tempting to avoid the effort under the guise of a statement like 'flesh and blood and human passions cannot be reflected by equations'. The mathematics involved rely essentially on elementary group theory and its representation (cyclic groups, direct and semi-direct products of two groups, morphisms and quotients, with a generalization to semi-group in Chapter 5). But the originality of the book lies more in the diversity of applications of the models: restricted or generalized exchanges, elemen- tary, complex or semi-complex structures, matrimonial or age classes, spouses or goods circulation, and so on. Another of this book's strong assets is its emphasis on fertile concepts like symmetry and invariance, or order and chaos. Going beyond their general acceptance in common language, they provide a powerful tool for scientific analysis - one already fully acknowledged in the natural sciences but overlooked in other fields. A few comments on the presentation: there are very few misprints or errors in this book. Yet the typography, rather dense and monotonous, does not make for comfortable reading. More figures (both earlier on and with more indications) could be of help to the reader. Finally, an introductory chapter on groups and their geometric representation would have a legit- imate, useful place in this volume. Homework for the second edition, perhaps?

Maurice Godelier and Marilyn Strathern (eds), Big Men and Great Men; Personifications of power in Melanesia, Cam- bridge/Paris: Cambridge University Press/Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1991, xviii, 328 pp., maps, tables, figures, bibliography, index. Price: £32.50/US$49.50 (hb), ISBN 0.521.39018.4 (hb). TOON VAN MEIJL

This volume contains the proceedings of a workshop convened by the

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 173 editors in Paris in 1987 to discuss Godelier's seminal contribution to the debate on political typologies of Melanesia and Polynesia. In 1982 the French pioneer of Marxist anthropology published La production des Grands Hommes (translated as The making of Great Men, 1986), an eth- nography of the Baruya who live on the fringe of the Highlands in Papua New Guinea. In this monograph Godelier discussed, among other things, Sahlins' influential contrast between the political systems of Melanesia and Polynesia as characterized by 'big men' and 'chiefs' respectively, a distinc- tion which was epitomized by the labels of'achieved' and 'ascribed' status. His critique focused on the prescriptive generalization from specific eth- nographic cases which were viewed as typifying either Melanesia or Polynesia, and which, in turn, resulted in the a priori classification of all Melanesian societies as 'big man' types and all Polynesian societies as 'chiefly'. Whereas, for long big men were reported to dominate the scene in the societies of the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea, Godelier had to coin a new concept to describe the prominent men among the Baruya, whom he referred to as great men. The strength of Godelier's contrast between big men and great men is that he did not simply refine a typology of political leadership, but that he linked different types of leadership with the conditions of social repro- duction, or, in his own words, the 'logiques sociales' of societies. The distinction between big men and great men societies, as sketched by Godelier, can be summarized as follows. Big men achieve their positions of power as entrepreneurs in the context of competitive exchange patterns in societies in which wealth has entered into the dimension of kinship relations; wealth objects, such as pigs and cowrie shells, can be substituted by persons, for example, to exchange women by marriage or to compen- sate for war casualties. Great men, on the other hand, generally have a partly ascribed and partly achieved status as warrior, shaman or ritual expert in societies which are constituted ritually rather than through the circulation of wealth. The prominence of ritual in great men societies is, in turn, parallelled by a pattern of direct exchange which is characterized by the non-equivalence of persons and things, viz. marriage is not effected through the transfer of women against bridewealth, but through direct sister exchange, while war victims cannot be substituted for by wealth objects, as compensation takes place on 'an eye for an eye' basis. The most important aspect of the distinction between big men and great men socie- ties is the link between the nature of exchange patterns, whether unequal (wealth for life) or equal (life for life), and the reproduction of social relations, which in the former case depend on the accumulation of wealth, while in the latter they are created and re-created in ritual. It is this hypothesis of the correlation between power, kinship, exchange and we- alth which is examined in the volume. Most essays take the theoretical debate as their point of departure and discuss the validity of Godelier's argument for specific ethnographic cases throughout Melanesia. Seven papers focus on various societies in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Lemonnier provides an overview of the debate on the Highlands and endeavours to develop a model for a struc- tural explanation of the transformation from great men to big men socie-

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access 174 Boekbesprekingen ties. Wagner compares the Highlands material with New Ireland, while five other contributors situate their fieldwork in a Highlands society within a comparative perspective on the region (Gillison on the Gimi, Strathern on Hagen, Lederman on the Mendi, Modjeska on the Duna and Jorgensen on the Mountain Ok). Seven other articles discuss the relevance of Godelier's distinction between big men and great men for other Melanesian societies: Liep for the Massim, Jolly for North Vanuatu, Battaglia for Sabarl Island, Mosko for North Mekeo, Tuzin for the Ilahita Arapesh of the East Sepik, Juillerat for the Yafar of the West Sepik, and Schwimmer for Oro Province. My main problem with the volume is that it is quite inaccessible to those who are only marginally familiar with Melanesian ethnography and, more specifically, with the theoretical debate on the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The complexity of the issues and the technical nature of the discussion require a proper introduction that should both elaborate Gode- lier's pioneering review of political typologies in detail and spell out the relevance of the debate for anthropological theory in general. For this reason, too, I believe the composition of the volume is somewhat unba- lanced: the extensive summary of Godelier's original argument by Gode- lier himself in the final chapter should have been incorporated in the brief introduction by Strathern. This would have made redundant several other abstracts of Godelier's hypothesis which are now scattered throughout the case studies.

The esoteric character of most contributions to this book is compounded by the lack of a clear theoretical synthesis. The discussion of the typolo- gical distinction between big men, great men as well as chiefs (in the Austronesian societies of coastal New Guinea) is often frustrated by the description of exceptions, particularly the co-existence of types within one society or between neighbouring groups. This divergence of ethnographic cases, interesting in itself, causes some authors to reflect on the parameters of comparative research. In a fascinating but nearly impenetrable paper Wagner, for example, attempts to transcend the axioms of the anthropological approaches which have created typologies in Pacific studies in the first place. He argues that conventional dichotomies between individual and group, singular and plural, part and sum, conflict with emic notions of what he labels 'the fractal person', a concept which he coins to describe the simultaneous operation of singularity and plurality in indigenous cognitive systems. Other contributors, particularly Battaglia, Mosko, Schwimmer, Leder- man, Modjeska and Jorgensen, approach the traditional typologies as successive stages of an historical evolution in which the introduction of the sweet potatoe has played an important, yet debatable, role. Consequently, they concentrate on reconstructing the historical transformation from great men to big men societies, which at the same time should explain the intermediary position of the societies in which both types of leaders, and, more importantly, the principles of their operation, co-exist. I agree with those contributors who, according to Strathern in her introduction, advo- cate a further development of this theme because it seems the most obvious avenue towards a resolution to the intricate ethnographic and theoretical

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 175 problems in Melanesian anthropology. However, in spite of the lack of a collective view and a clear conclusion on the main issues discussed in this collection of essays, it is undoubtedly one of the most important books on Melanesia published in recent years. It provides not only a useful overview of a central debate in Papua New Guinea, but it also offers a decisive contribution to the never-ending process of understanding one of the most complex issues confronting anthropology.

REFERENCES

Godelier, Maurice, 1982, La production des Grands Hommes; Pouvoiret domination masculine chez les Baruya de Nouvelle-Guinee, Paris: Fayard. 1986, The Making of Great Men; Male domination and power among the New Guinea Baruya, Cambridge/Paris: Cambridge University Press/Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (translated by R. Swyer)

B. A. Hussainmiya, Orang Rejimen; The Malays of the Ceylon Rifle Regiment. Bangi: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 1990, 185 pp. ISBN 9.679.42165.1. Price M$ 28.00. J.A. DE MOOR

This monograph describes the remarkable history of the rise and decline of the Malay community in nineteenth-century Sri Lanka. About 1790, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) could scarcely muster the 4,000 sol- diers needed for the colony's defence. No less than 1700 of them were Asian soldiers, divided into three categories: Malays, Sipahi's (Indian men enlisted in Coromandel or Surat) and 'Free Moors' (Sinhalese in the Company's service since 1763). The Malays consisted of a mixture of peoples from the Indonesian Archipelago; they were the largest group, for whom the Dutch showed a marked preference. As one Dutch observer wrote in 1790: 'They are the best troops not only because of their bravado, but also on account of their profound devotion to the Dutch Nation and the fear and awe they generally inspire in the Sinhalese'. The Malays had arrived in Sri Lanka along various routes: In the event of impending war or overseas expeditions (e.g. on Sri Lanka), the VOC recruited Asian soldiers among the Batavian ethnic groups living in their own kampong (e.g. Ambonese or Buginese); secondly, as an alternative, the Company concluded treaties with princes outside Java for the supply of fully armed and equipped military companies under indigenous commanders for ser- vice overseas. Through such 'capitulations' some 240 Madurese had ar- rived in Sri Lanka in 1787 and 1789. The various Malay groups formed the Malay soldiers' community of the island, consisting of almost 1100 professional soldiers in 1790. They lived with their families dispersed over garrisons in Colombo, Galle, Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa. When the British assumed power in 1796, they were quick to recognize the military capabilities and usefulness of the Malays. They had been the only ones who had at least offered some armed opposition to the British.

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The new masters decided tot keep them and gave them a military role once again. So, the Malays happily exchanged their much praised devotion to the Dutch cause for a new and lifelong allegiance to the British. By 1800, they had already been brought into action in South India, in the Polygar Wars, and 'distinguished themselves by their active and indefatigable intrepidity', as Governor North, himself the active and indefatigable cham- pion of the Malays, wrote home. This latest acquisition proved to be a real success! From that moment on, the Malay Corps gradually developed into a permanent military force until it was finally designated the Ceylon Rifle Regiment (CRR) in 1827. As such it remained in existence till 1873. Its average strength in the first half of the nineteenth century was about 1700 men, roughly 75% of the adult male Malays. It proved difficult, however, for the small community of only several thousand people, to keep the ranks filled. Although the sons were successfully induced to follow their fathers' example, in the long run the supply of new men proved insufficient. Attempts were made to enlist young men in the Malay Peninsula (partly successful) and in the Netherlands Indies in 1816, the 1830s and 1844 (entirely unsuccessful). This book tells the story of this regiment, but it is not primarily a military history. On the contrary, it is rather the life story of a small community sharing more of less the same origins, religion, customs, language and food, but above all, sharing the same profession. It was the military vocation more than anything else that gave this community its peculiar character and social cohesion. The Malay families seized the opportunity offered to them to obtain material prosperity and status, education and social usefulness, with both hands. It was from their military employment that a sense of identity and self respect was derived. The women were soldiers' wives; the sons, future soldiers; the elderly men veterans. Stabi- lization as a community went hand in hand with consolidation as a military class. The author describes the community's life in the barracks, payment and pension, education of boys and religious practice. By far the most interesting chapter is on cultural life. The Malays produced literary texts, both copies of classical hikayat and syair, as well as original literary works written by members of the community. Over 100 manuscripts were dis- covered by the author. The orang rejimen could even read about the local news in their own newspaper, Alamat Langkapuri, established by an ex- soldier and grandson of a Madurese military man who had come to Sri Lanka in the eighteenth century. However, the dependency on the military profession eventually proved fatal. The British felt that the regiment had become an anachronism. As a result it was disbanded in 1873. Although many individual Malays found new jobs as police officers, jail guards, plantation overseers or firemen, the community as such lost its privileged status, material prosperity and, indeed, its future. Nowadays a Malay group is still present in Sri Lanka but significantly belongs to the poorer groups in society. This monograph is a successful mixture of military and ethnohistory. It is based on archival research in Sr Lanka and England. It is refreshingly written, devoid of academic jargon, and not marred by any circumlocution. More could have been said on the origins of the Malay community and its

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 111 formation in the eighteenth century, of which the author states that it achieved a 'certain degree of cohesion' even before 1795. Further research (also in Dutch language material), however, would be necessary to answer this question.

Paul Voogt, Han ten Brummelhuis, Irene Stengs, Thailand. Amsterdam/'s-Gravenhage: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen/NOVIB, 1991. 70 pp. + kaart, slappe kaft. ISBN 90-6832-306-7. Prijs /14,90. NIELS MULDER

Dit, in de Landenreeks van het Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Novib en NCOS verschenen boekje, beoogt de niet-gespecialiseerde lezer een overzicht te geven van de achtergronden van de economische groei van Thailand. Het doet dit door die speciale kenmerken te belichten, die het land in de ogen van buitenlandse investeerders bijzonder zouden maken. Die bijzonderheid blijkt dan voornamelijk te liggen in een opvallende mate van politieke en economische stabiliteit. Het verklaren van die stabiliteit wordt daarmee de voornaamste opgave van de auteurs. Naast een consistent liberate economische politiek en een pregnant pragmatisme, blijken ook culturele en historische factoren belangrijk om de stabiliteit te begrijpen. Van eminent belang is nog steeds de ambtelijke rijksorganisatie die teruggrijpt op de staatshervormingen van 1892, het aanvaarden van hierarchie en intermenselijke ongelijkheid, de succesvolle integratie van de Chinezen en het charisma van de koning. Als bedreigend voor de stabiliteit komen factoren als de zeer grote inkomensongelijkheid, de plattelandsarmoede, milieuvraagstukken en de grenzen van de groei van de hoofdstad Bangkok, naar voren. Binnen de 70 pagina's van het aantrekkelijk uitgegeven boekje komen te veel herhalingen voor en aan de ethnische en religieuze informatie mankeert nogal wat. Helaas blijven ambtelijke organisatie {bureaucratic polity) en het morele karakter van hierarchie en ongelijkheid onderbelicht, terwijl vraagstukken als centralisatie versus spreiding en de grenzen van Bangkok's groei weliswaar genoemd maar onbesproken zijn.

J.M.W. Verhaar (ed.) Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin; Studies in language companion series 20. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1990, xiv + 409 pp. Price: Hfl 150.—/$.79.00. PIETER MUYSKEN

This well-produced work represents a wide variety of subjects, and covers the proceedings of the First International Conference of Pidgins and Creoles in Melanesia', held in Madang, Papua New Guinea, in 1987. The title is slightly misleading since 13 of the 18 papers deal primarily with Tok Pisin, while only two discuss but one of the Melanesian Pidgins to

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which the title refers (Bislama of Vanuatu). A further three papers relate Tok Pisin to other languages (Nigerian Tok Pidgin, Taiap and Kalam). Other potential confusion arises from the fact that Crowley (p. 1-18) subsumes Tok Pisin under the general nomer of Melanesian Pidgin. In his introduction Verhaar stresses the role various official institutions, univer- sities throughout the world, and missionary groups have played in contri- buting to the book and it reflects this in its variety of perspectives. At one end of the spectrum we have Talmy Givon trying to bring the study of the interface of language and cognition in serial verb patterning onto a more sound empirical footing; at the other end we have Bob Conrad dealing with problems in translating from the Tok Pisin Nupela Testamen into Mufian. Rather than discussing the papers one by one and in sequence, I will briefly survey some of the papers that cover similar ground. The papers not discussed here are: - Terry Crowley, 'The position of Melanesian Pidgin in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea' - Peter Muhlhausler, 'Tok Pisin: model or special case?' - Frank Mihalic, 'Obsolescence in Tok Pisin vocabulary' - Geoff P. Smits, 'Idiomatic Tok Pisin and referential adequacy' - Bob Conrad, 'Problems in translating from Tok Pisin to Mufian' - Karl. J. Franklin, 'On the translation of official notices into Tok Pisin' - Norm Mundhenk, 'Linguistic Decisions in the Tok Pisin Bible' - Dicks R. Thomas, 'A course in practical Tok Pisin' John Lynch (p. 387-97) tries to explain why Tok Pisin has such a low status (as compared e.g. to Bislama in Vanuatu) by listing a number of prejudices, often of colonial origin, against Tok Pisin, and political difficulties the language faced. He goes on to make a number of specific proposals for improving its status. Robert L. Litteral describes the role Tok Pisin plays in modernization, at various levels. In a very interesting paper, Don Kulick and Christopher Stroud analyse Taiap/Tok Pisin code switching. They conclude that Tok Pisin has led to a decrease in multilingualism, and that code switching still has a primarily rhetorical purpose. Hence there is a preference for clearly marked intersequential code switching. A number of articles deal with the substratum issue. Ger P. Reesinks article (p. 289-306) argues for substrate influence in Tok Pisin by seeing how stabilized Rural Pidgin, as spoken by speakers of three substrata languages, co-varies with differences between those three languages: Usan, Polopa and Mbula. Although the statistics are not always easy to evaluate, the argument is rather convincing. But certainly Bickerton would not deny there is first-language influence in the pidgin state. The question is: what happens to this first language influence in the Creole stage? A similar issue is raised in the article by Tom Dutton and R. Michael Rourke (p. 251 -62) on the use of taim as a clause-final rather than a clause- initial (as in mainstream Tok Pisin) adverbial subordinator on the Nembi plateau. Nembi substrate is plausible, but the question remains: why did the Nembi introduce it into Tok Pisin while speakers of similar substrate languages did not? In a very long and detailed paper, Nicholas Faraclas (p. 91 -170) makes a fourway comparison between Nigerian Pidgin, Tok Pisin, and two sets

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 179 of putative substrate languages. Faraclas argues that there is strong evi- dence for substratal and areal influence on both Nigerian Pidgin and Tok Pisin. In addition, he argues against supposedly Euro-centric grammatical analyses, for example with respect to the predicate marker, which Faraclas wants to see as a subject referencing pronoun. Commenting on individual points in this paper would require a monograph in itself, however. Another article which deals with the substrate issue is Crowleys analysis of verbs and prepositions in Bislama. Crowley analyzes verbal and prepo- sitional structures in Bislama in some detail and argues that Bislama grammar has moved away from Standard English in the direction of a number of Oceanic substrate languages. Evidence for this is found, for example, in serial verb constructions. A few papers deal with specific grammatical issues. Peter Miihlhauslers article on the development of the predicate marker (p. 235-50) stresses the need for more adequate longitudinal data but does not give a new analysis of this very interesting syntactic feature. Suzanne Romaine (p. 187-204) takes up the issue of future marker bai once again and concludes, in contrast to Sankoff and Laberge, that the proverbial positioning of bai is not related to creolization per se. Finally, Talmy Givons highly innovative article (p. 19-55) phonetically measures 'temporal packaging' of serial verb phrases and embedded clauses. The author concludes that there are significant differences, and thus argues against the idea that serial verb patterning simply is a different way of segmenting reality. Rather, they represent a different grammatical- typological way of coding event sequences. In addition, Givon compared serialization in Tok Pisin and Kalam. It turns out that serial verbs are much more frequent in Kalam, where serialization is lexicalized, than in Tok Pisin, where it is grammaticalized. This book gives a lively view of the issues in Tok Pisin research covered at this first conference, and contains a number of interesting papers on a wide variety of subjects, even for a non-Tok Pisin specialist. Typographical errors are few.

George Cho, The Malaysian economy; Spatial perspectives. London: Routledge. 1990, 300 pp. ISBN 0.415.02096.4. Price: H.B. £35.—. TON VAN NAERSSEN

Over the past decade a number of books on various aspects of the Malay- sian economy have been published. None of them, however, focuses on the spatial dimension of economic development. Does economic growth change the uneven distribution of regional incomes, in particular between the peninsula and East Malaysia? How do the Malay states fare in com- parison with the West Coast of peninsular Malaysia? What influence does Singapore exert on the Malaysian economy? Will spatial concentration in the Klang Valley continue and for what reasons? What is the impact of

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rural-urban migration on the rural areas? Do industrial estates generate growth and development in their respective regions? All these are import- ant questions not in the least because of their political consequences. Unfortunately, although Cho repeatedly suggests that the main aim of his study concerns the spatial component of economic development and plan- ning, the contents of his book only partly fulfils the promises. As a matter of fact, too many pages are spent on general aspects of economic growth and planning. The structure of the book is standard. After a general introduction, the consecutive Five-Year Plans are the subject of Chapter Two. Chapter Three deals with the rural context of regional planning. It examines the land settlement programmes of Malaysia's highly praised Federal Land Development Authority and the lesser-known Regional Development Authorities. 'Cities at the cross roads' covers subjects such as urbanization, urban hierarchy and rural-urban migration with addition of some remarks on social issues and urban management. Chapter Five focuses on the manufacturing industry, with a breakdown of industrial development per state as the sole spatial dimension. The book ends with a discussion of socio-political issues, which will probably affect the country's attractive- ness to foreign investors. This book contains sufficient information to be of use to a reader looking for an introduction. But there is too much repetition of what has been said in other publications, in particular government plans en reports. The author does not offer new perspectives or enter new fields, hence the conclusions drawn are predictable. Readers who want more than a general introduction will be disappointed.

J.R. van Diessen, Jakarta!Batavia. Het centrum van het Neder- landse koloniale rijk in Azie en zijn cultuurhistorische nalaten- schap. Cantecleer Kunst - Reisgidsen. De Bilt: Cantecleer, 1989. 343 pp. ISBN 90.213.0409.0. JULIANTI PARANI

Reviewing this travel guide evokes a sense of discovery which stimulates an interest beyond practical purposes. Although its introduction is modest, it has attractive pictures and many pages of intelligent reference material. The citizens of Jakarta would consider this book a worthy tourist promotion. Moreover, it gives another historical insight into a world regrettably fading in the face of the city's rapid expansion. This guide is divided into three parts. The first 132 pages consist of historical background. The next 189 pages outline five different sight- seeing routes supported by comprehensive background information based, to some extent, on the author's own discoveries during 1987and 1988.The last 13 pages contain practical information for travellers. The first part, the historical background with its informative pictures, is a pleasure to read. This part takes us back to the times of Sunda-Kelapa,

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 181 the harbour of the kingdom Pajajaran, which first attracted the Europeans due to its strategic location. The book also describes how the Portuguese defied Fatahillah, the hero of Jakarta who was known by several names because of his many virtues. In this book he bears the unexpected title of Khan, which is not common in Indonesia. Besides describing the Dutch in Batavia, the author deals with the social development of the different other ethnic and racial groups which make Jakarta/Batavia such a melting-pot, which he characterizes as being posi- tive. The author also pays considerable attention to the history of Batavian art, science and architecture. The pictures reveal the deterioration of some buildings. The book lists historical buildings representative of various architectural styles: neo-classical, neo-gothic, art deco and new business. The segment on the establishment of Kebayoran Baru, a satellite com- munity of Jakarta, is useful for comparing with other such elite towns that have been springing up around the capital of Indonesia. Sadly, the first of the five sight-seeing routes describes the old city of Batavia or Kota (the City), as having lost its grandeur. In comparison, Chinatown, the area's pleasing commercial sector, has retained its histori- cal splendour. The old Stadhuis (City Hall), which was restored about a decade ago to become Taman Fatahillah (Fatahillah Park), beautifies historical Jakarta. Van Diessen describes over fifty sight-seeing attractions, each backed up by extensive reference material. The aquarium and laboratory of Ocean Research, formerly located at Pasar Ikan and which was moved to the Ancol Amusement Park in the seventies, is not adequately covered. Apart from minor oversights here and there, the first route provides travellers with a good historical overview of Jakarta/Batavia. The second route describes the former Weltevreden and the surrounding area to Kota. It includes the former residence of Reinier de Klerk, Arsip Nasional, and several 18th century mosques. The De Klerk residence and its 18 th century architectural style become even more interesting when the design of the garden is connected to the Louis XV style. The interior of the house is the typical combination of European baroque and Chinese South East Asian, like other buildings in Kota. The Toko Merah at West Kalibesar also combines these styles. The Post Independence spirit has stamped new, self-respecting features on historical Jakarta. New monuments and buildings were built in the city to reflect this new pride and new identity. It began in the fifties, moving through the strongly felt nationalistic atmosphere of the sixties and the need for globalization after that, resulting in today's modern establish- ment. Examples of this change are the Monas (National Monument) in the centre of Medan Merdeka, the former Koningsplein, and the Irian Jaya Liberation monument at Lapangan Banteng, the former Waterlooplein. It is rather unnecessary to note that the Irian Jaya monument is socialist- communist inspired, since this is a political issue of no relevance to the monument - it commemorates Irian Jaya's liberation from the Dutch. Like other famous monuments of the sixties, this one was the brainchild of a former Governor, rumoured to have communist affiliations. In describing this route, Van Diessen overlooked the former estate of the celebrated

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painter Raden Saleh at Cikini, a part of which became the former Planten- en Dierentuin of Batavia in 1864. As a celebrated centre, like the Con- cordia and the Harmonie in the past, and since 1968 like the Jakarta Art Centre/Taman Ismail Marzuki, it should not have been neglected. The third route reminds us of the former Dutch authorities' love for beautiful country houses. This route takes us past seven dilapidated buil- dings, the remains of old Dutch country houses originally built in the Dutch-Indian amalgamated style of East and West: high ceilings, roomy and comfortable spaces, cool and natural atmosphere. We are lucky that the author could find pre-war photographs to show us how beautiful these buildings once were. In the fourth route Van Diessen describes many of the sites around Ancol, Cilincing and Tugu, including points of interest that pre-date European arrivals like the temple of Ancol or Da-Bo-gong Miao, a holy place for both the Chinese and the Moslems. In addition to the sites redolent of Dutch presence, this northern part of Jakarta has other cultural and historical treasures, of the Betawi people of Jakarta for example. There is also a Dutch World War II Memorial situated near the Amusement park Taman Impian Jaya Ancol, which should have received more attention in this book. The fifth and last route describes the Bay of Jakarta and includes both reminders of former Dutch colonial days and the increasingly popular holiday resorts of the present. The scholarly and readable nature of the book is due to Van Diessen, who is known as a social geographer, and is probably also a typical feature of Cantecleer Kunst Reisgidsen.

Christopher J. Healey, Pioneers of the mountain forest, Univer- sity of Sydney, 1985, Oceania Monographs no.29, v + 64 pp., plates, figures, maps. ISBN 0.876.58194.8. A. PLOEG, Utrecht University

This brief monograph is a useful addition to our knowledge of the Maring, some 8,000 people living on the northern edges of the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea. It discusses in detail the settlement history of one Maring group, the Kundagai, living in the northeast of the Maring terri- tories. A remarkable amount of research has been carried out among the Maring. The people became known through Rappaport's classic Pigs for the ancestors (1968). Rappaport was then a member of a team which included Vayda, Lowman and Buchbinder, each of whom published the results of their research. At about the same time the social geographer Clarke worked among the Maring and in 1974, 1979 and 1980 LiPuma worked among the Tugun and Kauwatyi Maring. Both published the resulting Ph.D. theses, in 1971 and in 1988 respectively. Healey and LiPuma refer to two unpublished theses: by Maclean (1984) on the poli-

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 183 tical economy of the Maring and by the geographer Manner (1976). Finally, Healey recently published his own Ph.D. thesis (1990). The work under review here is a detailed discussion of the settlement history of one Maring group, the Kundagai, who live in the northeast part of the Maring territories. The account is based on oral history. It makes several, disparate contributions. Firstly, and strikingly, while the Maring most likely migrated into their present territories from the south, Healey documents movements to the south. Possibly the Kundagai, and other Maring, had earlier avoided this area because it was at higher altitude and was considered to be less fertile. However, Healey does not provide an explanation. Kundagai migrations were prompted by epidemics and warfare. Healey concludes that warfare is a recent phenomenon among the Maring, resul- ting from, or at least made possible, by larger and more stable local groupings. This implies that the Maring pig feast, so central in Rappaport's analysis, is also recent. While the ecological functions which Rappaport attributes to this festival are disputed, its importance in Maring culture is not. It is therefore surprising to read that the festival is likely a novel institution adopted from neighbouring groups. Hence, Healey's data also reminds us of the changes that occurred in New Guinea societies before the imposition of colonial rule. Although the Maring live in what has become a remote part of the recently established state of Papua New Guinea, their land can now be put to commercial use, resulting in active claims. Given both the multiple claims and the multiplicity of types of claims to specific tracts of land, due to conquests, grants, payments and so on, long bitter disputes seem likely to occur in the near future. Healey reports that no changes in land tenure rules had occurred at the time of his research. The account is hard to follow, and unnecessarily so. While going through the chronicle of events in Chapter 2, the readers must consult tables at the beginning of the chapter, and preferably memorize a large number of unfamiliar geographic and kin group names. Readers must also consult the notes which follow the text, and the maps which follow the notes. The maps have to be studied before they give any insight into the mountainous terrain which they depict. They also use a different orthogra- phy for the unfamiliar names. But the effort is worthwhile.

REFERENCES Buchbinder, G. 1973, Maring micro-adaptation; A study of demographic, nutritional, genetic and phenotypic variation in a Highland New Guinea population. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University. Clarke, W. 1971, Place and people. Los Angeles, University of California Press. Healey, C. 1990, Maring hunters and traders; Production and exchange in the Papua New Guinea Highlands. Berkeley, University of California Press. LiPuma, E. 1988, The gift of kinship; Structure and practice in Maring social organization. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

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Lowman,C1980, Environment, society and health; Ecological bases of community growth and decline in the Maring region of Papua New Guinea. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University. Maclean, N. 19 84, To develop our place; A political economy of the Maring. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Adelaide University. Manner, H. 1976, The effects of shifting cultivation and fire on vegetation and soils in the Montane Tropics of New Guinea. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hawaii. Rappaport, R.A. 1968, 2nd ed. 1984, Pigs for the ancestors; Ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea people. New Haven, Yale University Press. Vayda, A. 1971, 'Phases of the processes of war and peace among the Maring of New Guinea', Oceania 42: 1-24.

Carla Risseeuw, The fish don't talk about the water, Gender transformation, power and resistance among women in Sri Lanka, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1988,415 pp., also published as Gender transformation, power and resistance among women in Sri Lanka; The fish don't speak about the water, New Delhi: Manohar Book Service, 1991. Ca. 400 pp., ISBN 81-85425-68-X. ELS POSTEL-COSTER

Carla Risseeuw's doctoral dissertation 'The fish don't talk about the water' is now available in two versions. A new and slightly revised edition has recently appeared in New Delhi. It seems a laudable initiative to provide a second edition that will be more readily available to the many English- speaking Asian scholars for whom this study is interesting and relevant. The research is based on a period of anthropological fieldwork that lasted for one and a half years, during which the author was closely involved with a group of women coirmakers who belonged to the poorest sections of the population in South Sri Lanka. During her fieldwork, she became involved in forms of action and support for the women. Ultimately, this resulted in institutional support, not only for the village concerned, but also for a wider circle of women living in similar circumstances. In this context, she regularly returned to the area. In order to collect the basic information necessary to help the women develop appropriate strategies of resistance against their exploitation, the author extended her research from the village to the macro-level of na- tional and international dimensions of the coir industry. Moreover, she delved deeply into history in order to tackle the question of why and how the gender-linked power relations, that seemed so persistent and perni- cious to women, could have developed and survive. This led to a study of power relations in precolonial and colonial times that gives the book a historical depth uncommon in anthropological writing. Focus of the study remains the original group of women coirmakers in a South Sri Lankan village. The analysis of their situation, however, goes far beyond the micro-level, so familiar to anthropologists. In the first part of the book, the author convincingly shows the connection between local

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 185 gender and power relations and macro-economic and political processes from historical times up to the present day. It has certainly not been an easy task to develop a theoretical perspective that could embrace the wide scope of the research. Gender, transforma- tion, property relations and power, in particular as it operates in subtle and silent ways, all had to be taken into account. The second part of the book reflects the author's search for a theory of power which would serve this purpose. In a brief, perspicacious style, she treats several recent as well as older theoretical approaches, their problems and advantages. Most promi- nent among these are Bourdieu's 'theory of practice' and Wertheim's concept of 'counterpoint'. As neither of the existing theories of power covers the whole field, - the gender concept is most conspicuously-absent in most - some adjustments had to be made in order to compose a feasible theoretical framework. This is a common feature of studies on gender and power. Not only does the Perfect Grand Theory in this field not exist, it is also highly improbable that it will ever be found, as Davis (1991) has so eloquently argued. It is for this very reason that an example of well- founded eclecticism will be to the benefit of other researchers who will meet similar problems in this field. In the third and last part of the book, the actual situation of women in the village is analysed in terms of the theoretical framework composed. It serves to illuminate the power relations in which the women are caught, but also their often subtle strategies of resistance. To sum up, this book is a valuable and original contribution to the theory of power and gender relations. It is both a thorough analytical study that opens up new theoretical perspectives and the testimony of a deeply engaged researcher.

LITERATURE:

Davis, Kathy, 'Critical sociology and gender relations', in: Kathy Davis, Monique Leijenaar and Jantine Oldersma (eds), The gender of power, London: Sage Publications, 1991.

Mya Tan and Joseph L.H. Tan (eds), Myanmar dilemmas and options; The challenge of economic transition in the 1990s. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1990,288 pp. WILLEM VAN SCHENDEL

This book predicts a real change of government in Myanmar (Burma) in the 1990s, or at very least a local form of perestroika. Its introduction and nine chapters address the economic problems that a democratically elec- ted government would face. The book was completed before the elections of May 1990 that brought a crushing defeat for the Myanmar's military junta, which has ruled since 1962. But the military refused to hand over

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power to the largest party, creating a political stalemate which continues today. In the light of these developments the book's usefulness remains limited, at least as far as its recommendations to the new government are concerned. The main theme is economic transition; the book addresses the question of how to redirect the country from its dead-end road, 'the Burmese way to socialism', to economic growth and prosperity. In the introduction Myanmar is likened to a 'sick homo economkus' suffering from a 'chronic, though not incurable or terminal, malady [...] rooted in the malfunctioning inward-looking development strategy and compounding mismanagement of the economy practised since the military takeover in 1962'. In separate chapters - devoted to monetary and fiscal policies, agricultural pricing and rice pricing policies, industrial development, the country's foreign invest- ment law, prospects for export-oriented growth, and United Nations tech- nical aid - the eleven contributors prescribe a cure that consists of supply- led financial development, a free market economy, and liberal doses of foreign aid and foreign investment. Myanmar dilemmas and options is an excellent overview of the country's economic ills - what is known of them. It provides the reader with many recent government statistics that are difficult to come by, and it suggests a periodization of the past 30 years on the basis of various macro-econ- omic indicators. Such analysis is badly needed to tackle the 1990s. Any book that covers such a wide range of issues has drawbacks. Readers will find a strong emphasis on macro-economics but relatively little political information. This is remarkable in view of the fact that Myanmar politics have been so dominant in its economic planning. Only in the book's last chapter ('Remodelling Myanmar' by John Badgley) do we learn something about the country's political economy and how it might be transformed. Another limitation is that very little is said about the reliability of the statistical material on which the book and its many recommendations are based. In this case the book should have alerted readers to more than the usual caveats concerning Third World statistics; the Yangon (Rangoon) government cannot collect information in large tracts of land because these are controlled by regional autonomy movements. Moreover, much of the country's trade is illegal despite the recent legalization of some border trade, and does not show up in official statistics. Any future govern- ment will have to come to terms with the huge shadow economy, black marketeering and extensive smuggling, especially of drugs, rice and con- sumer commodities. The book tells us little about these or how they make an impact on the official data. A final limitation is that, although one of the chapters deals with United Nations aid, and several chapters recommend foreign aid as a crucial instrument of economic regeneration, hardly anything is said about the effects of bilateral foreign aid. An article on Japanese or German aid and its effects would have been particularly welcome. The book pleads for an opening-up of the Myanmar economy, a relin- king with the international economy. It does mention that this may create problems of equity in the longer run but remains vague on how these

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 187 problems might be handled. In this light, it is perhaps more apt to compare Myanmar with its western neighbour, Bangladesh, than to compare it with its eastern neighbour, Thailand. Foreign aid and trade under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (strongly recom- mended by Y Tun Wai in the book) have exacerbated equity problems in Bangladesh to a quite intolerable degree. Myanmar needs to open up, but it should not go overboard in its quest for economic growth. Recent teak and fisheries concessions to foreign companies are alarming from both an equity and an environmental point of view. These concerns need to be incorporated into Myanmar's economic transition in the 1990s and beyond. Myanmar dilemmas and options is a timely book in a much-neglected field. The material presented could be used by a future government to fuel discussion on the economic options open to them. A macro-economic perspective is indispensable, but it alone will not suffice. I hope the book is followed by similar works highlighting political, social and cultural dilemmas and options facing the citizens of Myanmar in the 1990s.

James R. Rush, Opium to Java: Revenue farming and Chinese enterprise in colonial Indonesia, 1860-1910. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1990. x + 281 pp., photos, index. Price: $ 34,95 + 10% Overseas. HEATHER SUTHERLAND

Anyone interested in understanding nineteenth century Java could well begin with this book, a fluently written analysis of one of those 'grey zones' so typical of colonal life and business. In this case, the focus - the opium trade - is particularly colourful, and revealing of the ambiguous interac- tion of Chinese, Dutch and indigenous local elites as they manoeuvred to maximise their status, wealth and power. The gap between official regu- lations and institutions on the one hand, and informal arrangements and social networks on the other, was very wide indeed, but this space offered ample opportunity for mutual benefit. Chinese opium farmers were hol- ders of concessions, purchased from the Indies government. But they and their henchmen played on both sides of the fence: strongly, even violently, protecting their regional monopolies in alliance with the colonial state, but at the same time feeding the market by smuggling. Various region-based kongsi fought for control of the farms and their rural networks, apart from their own profitability, also provided capital and distribution possibilities for other commercial enterprises. Profit in the opium trade did not lie in supplying the small core of hard (mostly Chinese) addicts, but in the vast mass of petty consumers in east and central Java, who used opium spiced cigarettes to dull the pain and ease the illnesses of their hard labouring lives. Penetration of this market was impossible via the government stores alone, and depended upon the

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access 188 Boekbesprekingen fine web of pedlars, roadside stalls and village dens, the patungan trade, where price and connections decided who bought and sold, and legality was of little concern. Opium to Java combines an easy if familiar sketch of the nineteenth century context with fascinating detail, culled from the colonial archives, on the regional Chinese business elites. Themes of major historical interest are also touched upon, and briefly discussed, such as the decline of the farms as centralised bureaucratic and financial institutions developed, or the effect of the farm's demise on local Chinese society. Since the appearance of Rush's 1977 Yale dissertation ('Opium farms in nineteenth century Java; Institutional continuity and change in a colonial society, 1860-1910') students of Indonesia have made grateful use of both the thesis and related articles, but the appearance of this rewritten and more accessible version is very welcome. It is an excellent and lively contribution to a major and neglected area of Indonesian history. While the focus is upon the Chinese farmers, and to a lesser extent on colonial policy, the fascinating sketch of the pantungan world reminds us that ultimately it was the sweat of the Javanese that fed the system. Despite the neat layering of the white/yellow/brown 'Plural Society' pyramid, the different comunities were inter-dependent, and the deals they cut - and not only in the opium trade - gave the real colonial world a very different texture. In Rush's study the rich detail on the later nineteenth century makes the account of the early twentieth seem a little pallid. This reveals, I think, a shortcoming in an otherwise admirable book, namely, the absence of information collected from within the Chinese community itself. Had he gathered family histories in Indonesia, Singapore and China, we might have had a stronger account of such important topics as the eleboration of Chinese capital into modern business, and the inter-weaving of older and newer economic elites. Rush uses the rather well known case of Oei Tiong Ham to illustrate this phase, but a wider sample and fresher infor- mation would have reinforced his account, and perhaps have led to a stronger analysis. In particular, a broader and more comparative approach to Chinese economic activities and networks would have been welcome, showing how opium farming interlocked with other economic sectors, from similar monopolies such as pawnshops, to free trade in various commodities. Nevertheless, Rush's book remains one of the few that teachers can strongly recommend to their students. The combination of a good story well told, with interesting characters and much double dealing, would probably prove more attractive than the familiar accounts of agricultural change and colonial policy. Perhaps then a few students might feel impel- led to follow in Rush's footsteps, and give us the good books we so badly need on business history, on institutional change, on criminality and courts: topics touched upon in this fascinating book, but offering ample opportu- nities for further work.

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Arena Wati, Syair Pangeran Syarif Hasyim al-Qudsi. 192 pp., ISBN 967-942-170-8.

Arena Wati, Syair Perang Cina di Monterado. 195 pp., ISBN 967-942-171-6.

Arena Wati, Syair Pangeran Syarif. 182 pp., ISBN 967-942-172-4. Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 1989. A. TEEUW

The publication of editions of these three syair is one of the fruits of a stay in Leiden of Malaysia's Poet Laureate (Sasterawan Negara Malaysia) in the spring of 1984. Together with his wife, Hajah Halimah Sulong, he transliterated three Malay manuscripts, viz. Cod. Or. 2094, Ms. Klinkert 84, and Cod. Or. 6062F respectively, and subsequently prepared them for publication. The editions are non-critical, and even where other manu- scripts of the same texts were available, no effort has been made to utilize them. However, on the basis of several checks carried out on all three editions, it can be stated that the number of errors in the transliterations is quite minimal and that the editions are generally reliable as far as they go. All three texts could be said to be biographical. The first is a poetic adaptation, made in Riau in 1870, of an autobiographical prose text written by the eponymous protagonist of the story himself. Pangeran Syarif Hasyim, a peranakan Arab related to the royal family of Riau (not to be confused with the Pangeran Syarif of the third poem!), played an important role in helping the Dutch subject Banjarmasin in the period 1860-1864. Understandably the editor has little sympathy for this all too loyal lackey of the Dutch. In the introduction some other documents referring to Pangeran Syarif Hasyim, which are contained in the same manuscript, are also reproduced. The second poem, written by an unknown author in 1854, deals with the well-known war waged by the Dutch against the Chinese mining communities in West Borneo, which is also called the Kongsi War, in particular with an episode in the war against Montrado (1853-1854). The role of Pangeran Suta of Mempawah and other members of the local Malay and Bugis nobility (of Pontianak, Sambas and Singkawang), as well as the involvement of the local Dayak and Malays is emphasized. The point of view of this text, too, is clearly pro-Dutch and anti-Chinese, the Malay and Bugis participants here siding with the Dutch. The third poem, the Syair Pangeran Syarif, is considered by Arena Wati to be the most interesting and best, and I fully agree with him. The text was written by the sultan of Matan (south-west Kalimantan) in July 1895. It tells, in the form of a letter addressed to the author's eldest son, Pangeran Syarif Abdul Rahman, of his recent nine-week visit to Pontianak, with the author referring to himself as rama or ayahanda (father). The purpose of this visit was to try to intercede with the Dutch Resident on behalf of his younger brother, Pangeran Muda Ulama, who had been arrested for

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access 19 0 Boekbesprekingen engaging in subversive activities. His mission was unsuccessful, as the Dutch Resident was away in Batavia and his representative, Van Heuvel, was quite uncooperative. During his stay in Pontianak the sultan had ample opportunity to witness its prosperity, but he also observed how this was at the expense of the sultanate's independence, with the Chinese seizing more and more economic power and the Dutch steadily strengthening their political grip on the area. He reflects on the splendour of the sultan's court and compares this with the decline in power of his own state. The alternation of vivid descriptions of people and life in rapidly modernizing multicultural Pontianak with gloomy contemplations on his own sad situation, and on life in general, make this poem quite interesting reading. All three books have a similar design: they all give some information on the relevant syair and its author; they deal with the literary qualities and poetic structure of the work; and they all describe the historical back- ground of the stories concerned, especially with respect to the characters appearing in them. The edition of the respective texts is followed by 'annotations', presenting a synopsis of the text while also mentioning difficult or doubtful readings of the manuscript. Each of the books con- cludes with a list of proper names and toponyms, a glossary and a bibli- ography. The books seem to have been written for a general public and bear a non-specialist character, in spite of the effort which the editor has made to discuss all kinds of things, both historical matters and, for example, aspects of the verse structure of the syair concerned. It is obvious that the author is not always familiar with the relevant specialized literature. Moreover, sometimes his expositions are unduly long-winded and some- what out of focus. But then it would be unreasonable to expect in these works full-fledged expertise in the various fields covered by the introduc- tions. The main and most important thing is that these three interesting texts dealing with various persons and incidents in Bornean history are now available in a reliable and attractive form to the public at large, and that sufficient background information and explanations are given to make them accessible for modern readers in general.

R. Schefold, Harmonie en rivaliteit; Verbeelding van botsende principes in Indonesia. Rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van hoogleraar in de culturele antropologie en sociologie van Indonesie aan de Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden op vrijdag 23 maart 1990. ALBERT A. TROUWBORST

Lange tijd heeft onzekerheid bestaan omtrent de man of vrouw die de prestigieuse antropologische leerstoel in Leiden zou gaan bezetten. Het is Schefold geworden: geen De Josselin de Jong en geen Nederlander. Wie echter gevreesd mocht hebben dat dit het eind van een traditie zou zijn kan

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 191 zich nu gerustgesteld voelen. Het zijn zeer Leidse geluiden die ons uit deze rede tegemoet klinken. De nieuwe hoogleraar windt er geen doekjes om dat hij zal blijven voortgaan op de weg die naar het etnologische studieveld leidt. Vijf en vijftig jaar nadat J.P.B. zijn befaamde rede uitsprak - Schefold memoreert dat ook zelf - is dat idee dus springlevend gebleven. Zoals men mocht verwachten brengt Schefold ook nieuwe accenten aan die vooral betrekking hebben op, om zijn eigen woorden te gebruiken, de manier waarop structurele samenhangen inhoudelijk op elkaar betrokken zijn. Dat begrip inhoudelijk komt in zijn verhaal herhaaldelijk voor en verwijst klaarblijkelijk naar de denkbeelden of symbolische voorstellingen die uitvoerig besproken worden. Nu zijn Leidse antropologen nooit vies geweest van het woord symbool - Schefolds voorganger heeft ooit eens een bundel over symbolische antropologie geredigeerd - maar in deze rede dringt het zich wel heel sterk op. Schefold spreekt van een 'aandachtsveld van symbolisch gericht onderzoek' dat hij via twee tema's presenteert: 'de manier waarop symbolische voorstellingen modellerend optreden voor patronen van sociale organisatie' alsmede 'de symbolische reflectie op deze patronen in rituelen' (p. 21). Van die voorstellingen, hij noemt ze ook wel denkbeelden, geeft hij twee voorbeelden: de stroom van het leven (Fox's 'flow oflife^ en de versterking van levenskracht. Die twee denk- beelden berusten volgens hem respectievelijk op de twee botsende prin- cipes van harmonie en rivaliteit waarvan in de titel van de rede sprake is. Het eerste tema behandelt Schefold aan de hand van een klassiek onderwerp uit de Leidse antropologie: verwantschap. Hij laat zien hoe dubbele afstammingsregels kunnen samengaan met een asymmetrisch huwelijkssysteem, beiden verbonden door het concept van de 'stroom van het leven'. Een en ander zou leiden tot een harmonieuse relatie tussen groepen. Typerend is het dat Schefold dit deel van zijn rede afsluit met de opmerking dat het 'voor vanmiddag wel genoeg verwantschaps-algebra' was geweest om naar het lijkt gehaast over te stappen naar het veel langere ritueel-symbolische deel. Dit tweede deel gaat over het principe van de rivaliteit dat hij behandelt aan de hand van een discussie over ritueel als een medium voor symbolische reflectie. Het ligt voor de hand dat hij daarbij vooral zijn eigen Mentawei-materiaal betrekt. In het ritueel dat hij als voorbeeld geeft komen de twee botsende principes van harmonie en rivaliteit achtereenvolgens tot uitdrukking, echter zonder dat er van de kant van de participanten een bepaalde voorkeur wordt uitgesproken. Wel is er bij de afsluiting van het ritueel volgens Schefold sprake van een instemming van de kant van de geesten met dit antagonisme. Geinteresseerd als ik ben in het probleem dat Schefold hier aansnijdt en de manier waarop hij het behandelt verbaast het mij dat hij zich in zijn literatuurkeuze beperkt tot Indonesisch materiaal. Als. Afrikanist moest ik onmiddellijk denken aan de symbolische studies van Victor Turner die, al bezigt hij wat andere termen en formuleringen nu juist ook op harmonie en conflict gericht zijn. Men mag toch aannemen dat Schefold zijn ver- gelijkingen niet tot het Indonesische studieveld zal willen beperken. Een tweede vraag die ik mij stelde bij lezing van dit deel van de rede betreft Schefolds opvattingen over wat hij symbolische reflectie, soms ook

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critische reflectie noemt. Is hier sprake van tegengestelde termen, zoals hij zelf eigenlijk al aangeeft wanneer hij op p. 10 opmerkt dat de zin van rituelen door de participanten 'meestal niet onder woorden worden ge- bracht' en dat het 'wezen van het symbolische' hierin gelegen is dat 'de complexe en vaak ambigue betekenis ervan veelal onuitgesproken bijft'? Wat hij dan ook aan critische reflectie presenteert lijken eerder interpre- taties van hemzelf dan reflecties van zijn informanten. Tegen het eind van de rede presenteert de nieuwe hoogleraar enkele toekomstige onderzoekstema's die volgens hem speciale aandacht verdie- nen, zoals de herinterpretatie in het moderne Indonesie van oude symbo- len, het probleem van de locale uitwerking van algemeen-Indonesische denkbeelden met name in de materiele cultuur, alsmede een vergelijking van diverse waardenstelsels binnen Indonesie en de vraag naar een ver- klaring voor de verschillen daartussen. Zoals men ziet, het zijn allemaal tema's die goed in de Leidse belang- stellingssfeer passen en voor een deel al eerder vanuit Leiden zijn onder- zocht. Nieuw is de manier waarop Schefold een en ander presenteert en beklemtoont. Zeker is dat de rede bevestigt dat men in Leiden met Schefold de toekomst vol vertrouwen tegemoet mag zien.

D. Gewertz and F. Errington, Twisted histories, altered contexts; Representing the Chambri in a world system. Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press. 1991, xiv + 258 pp. ISBN 0-521-39587-9. Price US$14.95 (paper). JAMES F. WEINER

Not since Peter Lawrence's Road Belong Cargo has a work appeared which has captured something compelling about the nature of social and cultural transformation in Melanesia. Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington have produced a landmark in New Guinea ethnographic writing very much in the spirit of Lawrence's earlier masterpiece, in the way this book grips the reader, takes one into the lives of the Chambri characters that are made so alive and so believable. What is so successful about this book, which tells a story about the effects of contact with European colonial society on the Chambri, a low- land Sepik River people who are neighbours to Bateson's Iatmul, is the way the authors locate real and present forces affecting Chambri society in locales far away from their small island in the middle of the Sepik River. Gewertz and Errington bring home with great impact a sense of the dilation of indigenous society, the dispersal and outmigration of its mem- bers that is now more the norm than the exception, a feeling that the borders that anthropologists have so serenely taken for granted in the past, are now the least well known and most indeterminate part of doing anthropology these days. And yet the forces which have been responsible for this expansion are not impersonal abstractions, like the world market, or neo-colonialism, but are the changing attitudes that are brought phy-

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access Boekbesprekingen 193 sically to Chambri Island by its members who have ventured out into a wider world, become changed by it, and have returned to change, in turn, Chambri Island. The relationship between Chambri villages1, the Chambri squatters' camp in the provincial capital, and the diaspora Chambri of Port Moresby and other large Papua New Guinea towns is now incontestably an indigenous fact of life. But it is not just these altered Chambri who return to their island. Power boats now regularly bring groups of American and European tourists to Chambri and other lower Sepik villages so that they may buy local wood carvings and photograph authentic New Guinea initiation rituals. What sobers the reader - as it really shouldn't but does - is how the parties to these meetings systematically and successfully avoid any meaningful exchange of viewpoints, a testimony either to the immense barriers that language, world view and inequities in social standing really represent after all, or to the accomplishment of anthropologists like Gewertz and Errington. The story told thus achieves the dimensions of a Thomas Wolfe novel: The main Chambri characters in this story are all tragic figures, men and women striving either to escape from the now revealed confines of Chambri village life, or trying to bring some manageable piece of this new world to work for them in the village itself. And they all fail to either a greater or lesser degree (except for the energetic Maliwan, who succeeds in playing all his opponents off against each other and in making a buck out of it at the same time). The shortcomings of this analysis are, paradoxically, a result of its very strengths. As was the case with Lawrence's own analysis, Gewertz and Errington are so concerned to bring into sharp focus the points of contact between Chambri and the European world that they deproblematize the Chambri themselves: The ceremonial exchanges - and their alleged inte- grative effects - and the social categories of traditional Chambri society are taken at face value and their culture and society in general emerge as distinct, coherent entities, so that the descriptions of social structure and initiation become almost parodies of a by-gone structural-functionalist epoch. It is indisputable that today, the Chambri have an incomplete 'world picture' and that they do not know the rules. What is questionable is whether they ever had one or ever knew any. And this applies to ourselves, as the practitioners of western society and culture, as well. Because faith in the coherence of a 'world picture' also implies faith in the universality of one's own mode of explanation. In Gewertz' and Errington's account, every act has an explanation, a justi- fication, every motive is accounted for: the twisted histories become straightened out, the altered contexts become re-contextualized, all com- peting sources of power are sorted out and contrasted. And with every act of straightening, the Chambri and the World System become further and further apart, because their separate and contrastive contribution to every piece of history is distinguished and accounted for. Rationality thus perfuses every level of this account. In insisting that they should know what the system - that is, the two distinct systems - consist of, that they know how to use their own to represent the other, that they

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be given the right to speak for themselves (p. 168), the Chambri have to be assumed to possess the rationalizing and expressive urges so bound up with our own notions of the individual and its autonomy. That the Chambri importantly and decisively speak for others - the ancestors in particular - is clear. But Gewertz and Errington gloss too quickly over the other patent observation that for the Chambri, not speaking is both a necessity and a prerogative of the powerful. As the ethnography of this region shows so pronouncedly, for some Melanesian peoples Hegelian self-objectifica- tion is not the final outcome of discursivity but a positive danger looming over all social life and discourse.

KORTE SIGNALERINGEN HARRY A. POEZE

A.Th. Boone en J. van Ekeris, Zending tussen woord en daad; Twee hoofdstukken uit de geschiedenis van gereformeerd pietisme en zending. Kampen: De Groot Goudriaan in samenwerking met Stichting Studie der Nadere Reformatie, 1991, 99 pp. ISBN 90.6140.292.1. Prijs / 32,50. Peter Boomgaard (ed.), The colonial past; Dutch sources on Indonesian history. Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute, 1991, 64 pp. ISBN 90.6832.809.3. Prijs/20,—. D. Meyer Timmerman Thijssen, Twee gouverneurs en een equipage- meester; In en om Malakka 1778-1823. Buren: Frits Knuf, 1991, 192 pp. Prijs / 48,50. (Te bestellen bij de uitgever, Postbus 720, 4116 ZJ Buren.) Greetje Heemskerk, Jaap de Moor, Murk Salverda en Paul van der Velde (red.), Uit menschlievendheid zoude ik barbaar kunnen worden; Reizen in Azie van J.G. Haafner, Q.M.R. VerHuell, J.Olivier en P.P. Roorda van Eysinga tussen 1770 en 1830. 's-Gravenhage: Nederlands Letterkundig Museum en Documentatiecentrum, Amsterdam: Veen, 1992, 167 pp. ISBN 90.254.0482.0. Prijs/ 35,—. [Schrijversprentenboek 32.] Willy Jansen en Huub de Jonge (red.), Islamitische pelgrimstochten. Muiderberg: Coutinho, 1991, 142 pp. Prijs/ 24,50. Rudy Kousbroek, Het Oostindisch kampsyndroom; Anathema's 6. Amster- dam: Meulenhoff, 1992, 494 pp. ISBN 90.290.1891.7. Prijs / 49,50. B. Immerzeel, Moluks verzet WO II; De rol van Molukkers in het verzet in de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Utrecht: Moluks Historisch Museum, 1992, 128 pp. ISBN 90.74352.01.4. Prijs / 17,50. (Te bestellen bij de uit- gever, Postbus 13379, 3507 LJ Utrecht.) Noord Sumatra in oorlogstijd; Oorspronkelijke dagboeken uit internerings- kampen chronologisch samengevoegd; Aek Paminke III 1 januari- 31 december 1943. Makkum: Stichting Noord Sumatra Documentatie, 1991, 255 pp. ISBN 90.71590.02.x. Prijs/ 25,-. (Te bestellen bij de uitgever, De Schar 1, 8754 BK Makkum.)

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