Downloaded From

A. McWilliam From lord of the earth to village head; Adapting to the nation-state in West Timor

In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 155 (1999), no: 1, Leiden, 121-144

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

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access ANDREW R. McWILLIAM From Lord of the Earth to Village Head Adapting to the Nation-State in West Timor

Introduction

To date the success of the New Order government in Indonesia since the 1960's has been founded in part upon the implementation of a universal system of administration integrating a myriad of local-level social formations within formally structured tiers of national government. Although the pat- terning of administrative arrangements is everywhere more or less the same, their expression at the local level is modified to varying degrees by the influence of indigenous social forms and practice: what might be broadly charac- terized by the Indonesian term adat. This is perhaps no more clearly apparent than at the village or desa level of administration. In eastern Indonesia, where the concept and institution of the desa represent a comparatively recent development that has taken place over the past thirty years1, the existence and continuing significance of parallel indigenous political formations and sensibilities is particularly evident. These formations might be described in terms of the politics of local domains which predate the creation of the village organization and strongly influence the marmer of its implementation. This interaction and the ways individuals and groups have come to terms with the dynamic and sometimes competing demands of desa and domain authority inform the following paper.

1 The present formal make-up of the village (desa) derives from the national Village Law No. 5 (Undang Undang No.5 Tahun 1979 tentang Pemerintahan Desa) (MacAndrews 1986:38). However, the creation of the various administrative structural elements which comprise the contemporary village is the outcome of an extended developmental history (see, for example, N. Schulte Nordholt 1987, Quarles van Ufford 1987). For much of West Timor, I would argue, the relevant changes tended to lag behind implementation elsewhere, and to a significant degree existed more at the terminological level than as actual practical reforms.

ANDREW McWILLIAM took his PhD at the Australian National University in Canberra and is cur- rently an Honorary Fellow at the Northern Territory University and a Research Anthropologist with the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority. His publications include 'Case studies in Dual Classification as Process; Childbirth, Headhunting and Circumcision in West Timor', Oceania 1994:57-74, and 'Severed Heads that Germinate the State; History, Politics and Headhunting in South West Timor', in: J. Hoskins (ed.), Headhunting and the Social Imagination in Southeast Asia, pp. 127-66, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Dr. McWilliam may be contacted at 12 Sanders St., Jingili, NT 0810, Australia.

BKI 155-1 (1999)

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access 122 Andrew R. McWilliam

In reflecting upon those two characteristic manifestations of socio-political organization in Indonesia, the desa and the domain, it is tempting to view them as a pair of complementary category oppositions. Being neither wholly opposed nor neatly complementary, the terms for village (desa) and domain (which, for want of a better term might be designated by the Indonesian wilayah adat) nevertheless may be viewed as iconic references to that complex interplay of local-level political relations and national ideological structures that provide the contemporary backdrop to much of present- day local politics in Indonesia. From one perspective the term desa, as referring to the local unit of formal government, can be said to connote a pervasive set of ideological prescrip- tions and administrative powers extending across the country through the apparatus of the modern Indonesian state (MacAndrews 1986; Hoadley and Gunnarsson 1996). Conversely, the term domain incorporates something of that equally significant semantic field relating to inherited forms of localized Indonesian politico-ritual experience and cultural history. In the rhetoric of the contemporary Indonesian formal administration the dichotomy of desa and domain is frequently defined idiomatically in terms of a distinction between modernity and tradition. In the modernity camp is the desa as the primary vehicle for the hegemonie penetration of the nation-state ideology with its special emphasis on (economie) 'development' (pembangunan). lts counterpart, the domain, in many Indonesian minds at least, evokes a world view centred upon 'traditional practice' (adat) which, depending on one's political outlook, is associated with a range of inherent qualities connected with backwardness, feudalism and economie inertia on the one hand, and social order, moral consensus, practical knowledge and familial security on the other. In reality, of course, the apparent duality of desa and domain, modernity and tradition, or the distinction between modernist administrative systems and some essentialized traditional politico-religious order, is to a significant degree an ideological construction of the state apparatus and its official spokespeople. It forms part of a continuing struggle for legitimacy by the national government over against what is perceived as the manifestation of the atomistic and divergent qualities of customary law and its attendant moral codes.2 The differences between the two kinds of political authority are real, but the interaction between them is a subtle dialectic realized in and through practice. Critical to this process in West Timor, I would argue, is the

2 I would note that this is not a new development in Indonesia but is the contemporary expression of a historical tension and conflict, from Dutch Colonial times, between the imposi- tion of Western legal systems and the preservation of codified so-called customary law systems (adatrecht) (Geertz 1983:208-11; Warren 1993).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access From Lord of the Earth to Village Head 123 position and the role of the village head (kepala desa), who, in the context of weakly developed village administrative institutions, stands as a powerful local mediator between the two spheres of practice. In this sense, village heads in Timor are synaptic leaders (Moerman 1969) and provide a critical focus for the perpetuation and reproduction of the state and its authority in the context of historically embedded patterns of political alliance at local levels.

The Desa in West Timor

The modern Indonesian administrative system based on the hierarchical model of the province, kabupaten, kecamatan and desa was introduced in West Timor in the 1960's. The introduction of this system of political authority and administration heralded the official demise of the former system of indigenous rule focused around central rajas (Swapraja). The latter system of rule was a legacy from the Dutch colonial period, which in turn represented a modified twentieth-century version of earlier indigenous domain allegiances. Outward symbols of the authority of the raja, including office bearers, ritual specialists, harvest tribute and courtly customs, were swept away in the process. In its place a more secular, wholly new form of government apparatus was officially introduced. In an assessment of the impact of the desa system in West Timor and, more specifically for the purposes of this paper, in the region known as Amanuban (South Central Timor), it becomes apparent that the desa model has come to be increasingly important in defining local-level political processes in the region. As a vehicle for the dissemination of national and regional government policy, and as the official instrument for the implementation of this policy, the village as a system of legitimate local authority has to a significant degree displaced older patterns of local political and ritual authority. Although clearly no two desa in West Timor are identical, most exhibit a range of similarities which make possible some general statements. The concept and reality of the desa in Timor differ in a number of important ways from the more mainstream desa concept and its realization in Bali and Java. Principal among these differences is the relatively large size of many West Timorese villages. In the district (kabupaten) of South Central Timor (Timor Tengah Selatan), villages covering an area of up to fifty square kilometres are not unusual. These larger areas often include tracts of thinly populated savanna woodland and open secondary forest. Village areas are to a significant degree determined by population size (2,000 inhabitants representing the optimum population), rather than by the historical boundaries of political communities, although attempts have been made to retain older boundaries,

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access 124 Andrew R. McWilliam especially where local political tensions remain high.3 In these general respects, villages in Timor are markedly different from their typical Javanese counterparts, but have considerably more in cofnmon with those in other regions in the outer islands of Indonesia. A second significant feature of Timorese villages is the absence of a focal centre and the generally dispersed residential pattern. The costs and con- straints of the administration of extensive village areas with scattered populations have led to the promotion of settlement concentration and extensive road construction in the highlands by the government (McWilliam 1995). As a result of significant investments in road construction over the past ten years, the majority of villages are now accessible to vehicle traffic even during the wet season. These policies represent a continuation and development of former Dutch colonial initiatives and are inspired primarily by perennial government concern with national internal security. Government rhetoric also represents these policies as providing more cost-effective government services and encouraging the relatively isolated highland communities to participate in external market opportunities. As a consequence, the typical settlement pattern observable in West Timor today is rather different from that of twenty to thirty years ago. These days a more linear pattern of settlement, with houses strung out on either side of arterial roads linking communities to markets and administrative centres beyond, is common. A number of such linear clusters in three or four different locations may then comprise a village. These changes in settlement pattern, which tend to be defined in the idiom of development and economie rationalism, appear to be widely accepted by local Timorese people, notwithstanding the fact that increased population densities in specific areas have led to water and fuel shortages and increased travel times to distant food gardens. Connected with the pressure to develop larger clusters of settlements is the introduction of the official village administrative model. This model incorporates a range of necessary institutions and organizational forms. Each village, for instance, is supposed to include a desa complex (kompleks desa) comprising the residences of the village head (kepala desa) and his senior staff, as well as a village office (kantor desa) as a centre for collecting village statistics and for holding public meetings and the deliberations of the village council or Community Security Organization (Lembaga Ketahanan Masyarakat Desa). Beyond the administrative centre, the village typically comprises a limited number of smaller administrative units. These include two to four dusun

3 Intervillage rivalry and conflict over territory, particularly in border regions, are endemic in West Timor. Rising population levels, especially in the last fifty years, requiring the creation of additional village administrative units, have, if anything, exacerbated the problem.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access From Lord of the Earth to Village Head 125

(subvillages), each in turn comprising several RK (Rukun Keluarga) or RW (Rukun Warga), and finally RT (Rukun Tetangga, the smallest administrative unit, usually incorporating one or two hamlet clusters). The names for these obligatory sub-desa units reflect the non-local origins of the village structure. Rukun warga and rukun tetangga4 are Indonesian terms (from Javanese) denoting community and neighbourhood harmony or cooperation respect- ively. Consistently with the national character of the desa administrative structure, this terminology, perhaps intentionally so, incorporates no local names. It is worth noting, however, that in daily reference to the desa system most Timorese from Amanuban use the words lesa and lusun and the abbre- viations LW and LT, as their uab banamas5 dialect contains no d or r consonant. There is also some variation between villages in the function and significance accorded to different subvillage structures. As the formally constituted local vehicle for the implementation of government programmes, each desa in West Timor is required to carry out a wide range of administrative tasks and development activities. These include, among other things, the collection of annual land and livestock taxes, the execution of road and other infrastructural repairs in the village, the promotion of reforestation or regreening projects, and the implementation of a range of other smaller-scale communal projects. In Timor these activities are undertaken with varying degrees of success. What is clear is that, for all the outward signs of obedience to the regulations and guidelines for nation- building at the village level, much administrative commitment to formal desa activities is highly ritualistic, or at best perfunctory. As in many areas of government practice in Indonesia, the emphasis in these activities tends to be on form and presentation for short-term ceremonial purposes, and rather less on substance and real service. For these reasons, despite the superficial sorial and cultural acceptance of the desa model in Timor, this administrative system often remains weakly integrated in local community structures. It stands, at best, as a system of externally imposed rules and obligations which individuals manipulate or avoid to their advantage.6 A few examples may serve to highlight the relative superficiality of the desa administrative system. Among the varied range of government-promot- ed development programmes pursued in rural Timor, as elsewhere, is the village competition programme (perlombaan desa or lomba desa). This national

4 These were originally introduced by the Japanese as units in a system of residential wards and were later retained under the same names by the Indonesian government (Fox 1988:7). 5 The term uab banamas refers to the dialect of the indigenous language of the numerically dominant Meto Timorese communities of West Timor, or uab meto, spoken by the people of Amanuban (atoin banam). 6 Cunningham (1967:87) observed a similar tension between administrative and traditional authority thirty years ago. .

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access 126 Andrew R. McWilliam initiative is designed to identify the most progressive villages at different regional levels on the basis of predetermined environmental and administrative criteria. The winning villages are rewarded for their efforts with cash subsidies and other support. In practice, the exercise takes on many of the aspects of farce, with the participants appearing as actors in the subterfuge. After the selection of villages to be assessed in the framework of the programme, there follows a flurry of activity throughout each village to tidy up the administration and beautify the settled landscape, with special emphasis on the road the local government assessors are to travel along. This is a period when the euphemism gotong royong, denoting voluntary mutual assistance in development, is very popular with officials. Timorese villagers, however, more typically and realistically describe the work involved as mepu ple- nat (government work) in view of the compulsory nature of the partidpation in externally defined programmes implied by the term. In preparation for the competition the road is patched, the necessary paperwork is hastily done and statistics compiled, flimsy bamboo fences are erected, and trees, fences and marker stones are given a liberal coat of white- wash. On the day of inspection the village community assembles en Hoc and welcomes the official guests with ceremonial dances to the accompaniment of gong and drum music. A feast is laid on, and by late morning the caval- cade of inspection officers rattles off to another village for a repeat performance. Almost immediately after the departure of the inspection team, all inter- est in the project is lost and its continuation abandoned. The local community returns to the pursuit of more immediate objectives and to its familial concerns, safe in the knowledge that the theatrics of lomba desa will pass to other villages in the following years. Although the administrative objective of the lomba desa programme is clear enough, in practice it is basically ritualistic, non-participative and bureaucratically self-serving. A second example of the artificiality of imposed desa government is provided by the functioning of the local village councils. Since 1979 each village is required to have a council with local representatives appointed in ten predetermined areas of responsibility, such as development, family welfare, health, religion, and so on. The council, bearing the rather unwieldy name Lembaga Ketahanan Masyarakat Desa (LKMD, Village Community Security Organization), is ideally supported by a second institution, known as Lem- baga Masyarakat Desa (LMD, Village Community Organization), which represents the elders of the community and is designed to approve the decisions of the LKMD (N. Schulte Nordholt 1987). This dual advisory council mirrors at the local level the duality of the national 'parliament' with its DPR (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, People's Representative Council) and MPR (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat, People's Advisory Assembly). In reality,. after

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access From Lord of the Earth to Village Head 127 years of personal experience with dozens of village administrations in Timor, I think I am right in saying that the village council (LKMD) and its counterpart the advisory committee (LMD) exist primarily in name only. The official Indonesian position is that the village council system is still imperfect or that it does not yet function optimally (belum berfungsi secara optimal). In practice the LKMD and LMD play only a minimally effective planning and advisory role in local government and local decision-making. As in the case of most other desa institutions, their reality is generally limited to a notional category on an idealized wall chart illustrating the village structure. Having said this, I should point out that it is equally apparent that the desa as it is perceived and as it functions in reality as a local community and a political entity (as opposed to an administrative unit) is becoming stronger and is increasingly accepted as a legitimate system of authority. The main reasons for the apparent contradiction between political and administrative authority, it seems to me, are threefold. Firstly, there is the rather obvious reason that no feasible alternative to the desa system is permitted and that after the thirty years it has been in operation people have become familiar and more comfortable with the desa as a vehicle of government. Secondly, in the absence of effective desa-based institutions, the underlying indigenous organization and practice persist and flourish, at least to the extent that they do not openly conflict with government proscriptions. This feature of the contemporary desa in West Timor is to a large degree implicitly encouraged by the circumstance that, although desa administrative boundaries are to some extent new boundaries created for administrative purposes, a great many of them are derived directly from older patterns of political allegiance. Indeed, in a number of areas formal village boundaries have been left inde- terminate precisely because of concerns expressed in terms of domain politics and relationships. The point is that many older rural Timorese think of current desa administrative boundaries in terms of older cognitive maps of socio-political allegiances and divisions. The desa subsumes the older patterns of political organization under the name of modern government. In so doing, it makes it possible for more customary relationships and forms of consultation to be preserved and reproduced under the guise of New Order desa politics. A third factor, illustrating the importance of the desa as a repres- entation of legitimate political authority and at the same time the weakness of the supporting institutions of the organization, is the position of the village head (kepala desa). The role of the kepala desa is crucial to an understanding of the relationship between the desa and the domain in any particular area. This is because it is the kepala desa in particular who must mediate between the often conflicting demands of desa and domain politics. As a result the kepala desa has come to personify the desa to a significant extent, or at least has become its primary representative figure. This is underlined by the common

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access 128 Andrew R. McWilliam reference to the village leader as bapak desa, 'father of the village', who is expected to display equal proportions of paternalistic concern and discip- lined fairness. It is common for villagers to refer to their heads also by older forms of address associated with former rajas and prominent domain authorities. These forms of address include terms like Usif, Uis Le'u and Le'u Tuan, each conveying a sense of greatness and 'lordship'. Even if the use of such terms may at times seem ironie, given the relatively low status of the village head in the affairs of state, for many villagers it is entirely consistent with their own status vis-a-vis this head. Typically in West Timor there are two general categories of kepala desa. There are those who are appointed by the district government (kabupaten), usually temporarily because of perceived problems or disputes in the village. These men (there have been no females to date) are drawn from local government institutions like the police force, the army, or district government offices. The idea behind this, I would argue, is that the aura of authority will have the desired effect of directing the village community along the ideolo- gically dictated path of development {pembangunan) and dutiful adherence to the precepts of Pancasila, the state-ordained social philosophy. Inevitably, however, these heads are regarded as outsiders or foreigners (kase) by local Timorese village communities, and consequently often have trouble estab- lishing any firm basis of legitimate local authority. This political impotence may then give rise to community inertia or passive resistance to reform. This kind of response in turn confirms the stereotypical view of mountain Timorese as lazy and recalcitrant - a view that is widespread among government officials and city dwellers. The second category of kepala desa - the majority - is that of heads elected as such by their local communities, though their appointment is still subject to the procedural rules of the district government. In the politicking preceding desa elections, domain-based alliances and other relationships become highly significant. That is to say, it is the patterns of informal authority that tend to influence electoral decisions and the processes of formal village government. In West Timor informal authority is vested in a variable group of individuals collectively referred to as amnasi' (an honorific for 'father(s)'), the equivalent of the Indonesian term ketua adat. These individuals draw their authority from historically grounded power relations established before the institution of the desa organization (see also Pannell 1996). The persistence of these older patterns of local authority is instrumental in maintaining the influence of the domain on the desa, and par- adoxically it is one of the principal reasons for the growing importance of the village structure in local affairs.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access From Lord of the Earth to Village Head 129

Features of the Domain in West Timor

It seems to me that the notion of domain as it applies in West Timor may be viewed in two ways. Firstly, there is the narrow view which focuses on the formal organization and structure of indigenous political entities. Taken in this sense, indigenous political domains in West Timor have clearly been superseded and subsumed by the modern state administrative structure. Secondly, there is the broader view of the domain as encompassing the wider complex of ritual and political alliances and acts that inform the distinctive pattern of community relationships in contemporary social life. These relationship patterns predate the desa organization and, in their reproduction, naturally and inevitably project aspects of domain politics and ritual into the contemporary desa context. This is another way of saying that the desa organization did not begin with a clean slate, but inherited a complex of socio- political relations which subsequently had to be integrated into the desa administrative system. The process continues to this day, with varying degrees of success. In an attempt to define the character of indigenous Timorese (Meto) domains, the image one forms on the basis of a survey of the published liter- ature is one of considerable complexity and variability. Timorese indigenous domains, particularly in the nineteenth century, were highly fluid and changeable entities. In many areas there existed a dynamic tension between the forces of integration and fusion into federations and the equally com- pelling forces of disintegration and division into smaller, quasi-independent and mutually antagonistic territories. Much depended on the relative capacity of competing political centres to attract and maintain networks of alliances. The ideal indigenous pattern of political integration was based upon a ritual conceptual model for describing the domain. In this conception the territory was made up of four subterritories, conceived of as doublé pairs, surrounding a fifth, sacral ruling centre to which harvest tribute was directed. In return the centre provided ritual services to the four quarters of the domain to ensure the prosperity and fertility of the land and the abundance of its resources. Of vital importance in this domain organization was the role of the ruling centre. For the eastern domains of West Timor, authors such as H.G. Schulte Nordholt (1971) and Cunningham (1962,1965) have emphasized the diarchy of the ruling centre, composed of a so-called immobile and conceptually 'female' ritual Lord (Atupas, 'one who sleeps') and an active, 'masculine' executive counterpart, indicated by various names, which integrated the outer quarters in political affairs. In the more westerly domains of Timor, such as Amanuban, Fatu Le'u and Amarasi, the masculine aspect predom-

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access AMANOEBANG

Map of Southern Amanuban showing prominent settlements (Topographische Inrichting, Batavia 1920)

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access From Lord of the Earth to Village Head 131 inated and there was no 'female' counterpart as such. Instead, to the extent that the ruling centre retained control of the principal rituals and sacred emblems of the domain, it embodied and subsumed the female principle. Symbolically female qualities were also attributed to sacrificial rituals punc- tuating the cycle of swidden agriculrure. The dualism of the authority in the centre of the domain was paralleled in the relationship between the centre and the constituent subterritories. The outer, conceptually male, subdomains fed the centre through harvest tribute and constituted its defensive perimeter. Each subdomain in turn was ordered in terms of male and female conceptual categories and to a significant degree mirrored the unity of the larger federation on a smaller scale. The relative size of any autonomous political community was dependent upon the capacity of a particular prominent clan to mobilize political support for its central ritual authority. In principle there was no limit to the number of political communities that could be accommodated in a domain, provided they acknowledged the authority of the centre, which alone could legitimate their status within its territory (Fox 1983:27). In practice the inherent tension between the centre and its constituent parts frequently resulted in a collapse of the fragile unity when the authority of the centre was challenged or under- mined. Thus, when speaking of the domain in West Timor, it is important to recognize its dynamic qualities both in terms of scale and structural make-up over time. We are not dealing with some ancient, established politico-ritual order that persisted in a relatively pristine form into contemporary times. Closely bound up with the internal dynamics of indigenous Timorese domains was the influence of external trading and colonial interests. Of all places in eastern Indonesia, with the exception perhaps of the Moluccan islands, West Timor has the longest history of adjustment to foreign influences on indigenous political processes. For at least six centuries there has been continuing interaction between external colonial/commercial interests and the interests of local politico-ritual domains. In the successive waves of traders and colonists from China, the Moluccas (Ternate), Sulawesi, Portugal and The Netherlands, among other areas, the mountain Timorese have had to adapt to political and technological changes that have swept across the island at different times. These influences have had a profound effect on domain politics as various colonial interests competed for political and economie hegemony. In this context, indigenous politics reflected the changing political fortunes as the size and influence of local domains waxed and waned with the changes in political alliances. The advent of the village (desa), as a metaphor for Indonesian 'postcolonial' government, in the mid twentieth century should be seen in this context as yet another powerful external factor affecting the character of indigenous Timorese political strucrures.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access 132 Andrew R. McWilliam

The Legacy of the Domain in Southern Amanuban

The geographic focus in this.article is the region known as southern Ama- nuban, which includes the southern mountains and western lowlands of Amanuban (see Map 1). In this region the year 1907 represented a significant watershed in the political landscape. At that time the Dutch colonial government, which had its basis in the far west of the island at Kupang, undertook a series of successful military operations in the interior of the island to bring the local populations under its direct administrative control. Among the political communities which submitted to the Dutch was that headed by the powerful Nabuasa clan of southern Amanuban. It and its allies surrendered after apparently little resistance, and in so doing acknowledged both the superior power of the Dutch authorities and the revitalized authority of the Raja of Amanuban, of the clan Nope, with whom Nabuasa and its allies had been feuding for much of the nineteenth century.7 In the following discussion I focus upon one principal aspect of domain politics, as it intersects with the contemporary desa system of government. This is the aspect of domain leadership and the continuing influence of former leadership patterns right into contemporary times. I am indebted for my understanding of the organizational structure of the domain of Noebeba under Nabuasa authority to the histories narrated by senior Nabuasa men in the region, and to a lesser extent to the relatively sparse Dutch references to the area. The general picture that emerges from a study of these sources is one of an autonomous and largely independent indigenous domain centred upon the clan Nabuasa, which provided the leadership, with an array of subsidiary allied clans, ordered in a system of doublé pairs and sustained by an expansionist policy of warfare and headhunting against neighbouring domains. The history of southern Amanuban illustrates the changeable, dynamic character of Timorese domains. Myths about the territory of Amanuban fore- ground the Nabuasa group as originally one of the four senior warrior groups of the Raja of Amanuban. These bore the title Meo Naek (literally 'Great Cat/Warrior') and were known, in alternative metaphorical terms, as 'the four males, the four bulls' {mone ha ma keso ha) of Amanuban. Their task, and that of their political allies, was to protect the wider domain and defend its boundaries, in this particular case the western boundary. By the middle of the nineteenth century the Nabuasa leadership had evidently become disaf- fected from the Raja of Amanuban. It sought to make its territory an independent political domain actively challenging the old centre of Niki Niki (to

7 Indeed, it was following a request for assistance by the aging, beleaguered Raja Nope of Niki Niki that the Dutch armed forces were emboldened to enter Amanuban.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access From Lord of the Earth to Village Head 133 the north) through warfare. It did so through an elaboration of the cult of headhunting and subsequent expansion into the territories of neighbouring communities, including those which remained loyal to the Raja of Ama- nuban, further to the north and east (McWilliam 1996). Towards the end of the nineteenth century the core of the Nabuasa domain comprised four related subterritories, each ruled by a member of the Nabuasa clan or house (kanaf). The senior Nabuasa group was located in the mountains of Lasi and was referred to as the 'trunk' or 'source' Meo (Meo Uf). The remaining three Nabuasa territories, to the west of Lasi, were referred to as 'younger sibling' domains, implying a subordinate role in the political structure. Each of the four Nabuasa domains was politically supported by four senior allied clans (often referred to as 'father people', atoin amaf), while the remainder of the population in these regions came under the patronage and authority of the Nabuasa leaders and the four senior allied clans. Surrounding this conceptual core, and linked to it, was a range of allied domains which acknowledged Nabuasa's central authority and paid tribute to the Meo Uf Nabuasa in Lasi. Each allied territory was structured along similar political lines, with the senior member of the central name group being supported by a further four subsidiary allied clans. Formal narratives about the political structure of the domain identify the clan groups as Isu and Telnoni, Tenis Tuan and Ataupah. Each was assigned an area in the broader domain territory. These allied clans did not exhaust the alliance relationships in the region, but represented the senior, formally acknowledged groups in the narrative tfadition. An important feature of this political order was the central and apical position of the Nabuasa leading clan, which was able to enrich itself thanks to its control over the agricultural tribute, which included the important export commodities sandalwood and beeswax, and the allegiance of the population of allied areas. In this position, at the navel (usan) of the polity, the Nabuasa Meo Uf was 'lord of the earth' (pah tuaf) and the effective source of authority, exercising the exclusive right 'to speak and to wage war' (natoin ok am maken ok). The geographical arrangement of the key Nabuasa domains in southern Amanuban is illustrated in Map 1. Based on a 1920 Dutch map of the region, this reproduction has been modified to highlight the Nabuasa centres at the time and to show their orientation to the rival Raja Nope of Niki Niki in the northern highlands, on the other side of the relatively uninhabited grass- lands that separated the two political entities. It is interesting to note that the main centres identified in the south-western highlands by the Dutch carto- graphers are indeed those which are accorded significance in Nabuasa narrative discourse. Lasi, Oe Ekam, Oe Peliki and Polo were clearly key settlements in the region at the time. The place named Oe Baki, which separates

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access 134 Andrew R. McWilliam

Lasi from the sibling domains further west, was the stronghold of one of the four principal political allies of Nabuasa, the clan Ataupah.

From Domain to Desa

The establishment of direct Dutch colonial control in the h'rst decade of the twentieth century ushered in a new system of political administration known as Swapraja. Under this system the position of the formal rulers was strengthened and the territories were divided into regencies or districts (kefettoran) and subdistricts (ketemukungan). During the early decades of the twentieth century the ruling centre of Amanuban again became powerful, and one of the younger brothers of the by now entrenched ruler, Usi Pina Nope, became Fettor8 of Noebeba and head of government of the region which incorporated the Nabuasa domains. This was clearly a conscious attempt to undermine the autonomy of Noebeba under Nabuasa and to rein- force the authority of the Raja of Amanuban over the domain. As part of this process each of the respective Nabuasa leaders was reduced to the status of temukung besar (or temukun naek, 'great temukung') in the administrative area of Kefettoran Noebeba. To this extent their status was equivalent to that of the heads of dozens of other political communities within the broader territory of Amanuban. Their renewed obligations to the raja in the centre included the payment of taxes {poni pah), mainly in the form of agricultural produce, and the provision of 'voluntary' corvée labour during the dry season. The inability of the Nabuasa leadership to continue to appropriate the harvest surplus from its domains, combined with the forced pacification of the territory, curtailed its capacity to act independently and further pursue the policy of aggressive warfare which had fed its power base. This political realignment initiated a long-term decline in the influence of Nabuasa throughout the area, which continues to the present day. At the same time, while Nabuasa acknowledged this decline in broader political influence, the internal political structure of its domains remained essentially unchallenged throughout the early decades of this century. In its respective domains, Nabuasa leaders remained pah tuaf (lord of the earth) and continued to dominate the organization and the administrative direction of the respective temukung domains. Records from 1908 (Venema 1916) show that the leaders of the extended Nabuasa clan remained the formal government leaders in their formerly autonomous domains (see Figure 1). The same is true of other areas where politically central groups were able to adjust to

8 The Fettor was the appointed head of the kefettoran.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access Front Lord of the Earth to Village Head 135 the new political situation and preserve the precedence of their internal jurisdiction. The contemporary Indonesian administrative system introduced in the 1960's was designed in part to sweep away the feudal elements of the hered- itary Swapraja order and to provide for a 'guided' democratie process involv- ing political elections at village and higher levels. This 'New Order' in the national political organization further weakened the status and the autonomous position of the Nabuasa name group in the region. Alleged Nabuasa involvement in the activities of the subsequently outlawed PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia, Communist Party of Indonesia) prior to 1965 did little to promote its reputation with provincial or district officials, and probably affected its political fortunes in a negative way in the following years. The results of preliminary research on this subject suggest that the motives for participation in the PKI were various. It seems to have been induced in part by resistance to Evangelical Protestant Christianity, which had many active adherents opposed to the performance of traditional animistic rituals. It may also have partly represented an attempt by Nabuasa territorial leaders and their political allies to reassert their political autonomy vis-a-vis the ruling house of Amanuban, the clan Nope, and possibly the state apparatus.9 The subsequent execution of several senior Nabuasa figures and other prominent local authorities in the violent reprisals against PKI members during the so-called 'Gestapu' (Gerakan September Tiga Puluh, Movement of 30 September) effectively put a stop to any further moves towards political autonomy and is still constraining political aspirations in the region. One immediate outcome of the new administrative arrangements was the creation of a number of villages carved out of the former ketemukungan and placed under the formal authority of village heads. This development was in large part a response to population growth in the region, which has continued at over 2% per annum for many years and has been bolstered by a continuing westward migration into the formerly thinly populated lowlands in the far west of Amanuban. The process of further division of the existing territories into series of politically equal units had a doublé effect in the old territory of Noebeba. Firstly, Nabuasa leaders who stayed on as formally recognized local government representatives lost the title 'great temukung' (temukun naek) and became village heads {kepala desa) with jurisdiction over

9 The low level of literacy among the rural Meto population to this day implies that any sort of affiliation with the 'Communist' movement was inspired more by a combination of populist propaganda and hamlet solidarity than by any detailed understanding of historical materialism and Marxism. It is difficult to find out how widespread the PKI movement was in West Timor. A name on a list was probably as far as many farmers went in supporting the cause of Communism. Certainly many rural people claim to have been duped and lured into siding with the PKI by promises of unspecified beneh'ts, including land.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access 136 Andrew R. McWilliam

smaller territorial units. At the same time, the increase in local government villages enabled individuals from other name groups to achieve positions of similar formal authority within the territory of the former federated domain. In 1985, when I first did fieldwork in the region, the direct descendants of original Nabuasa great temukung had retainéd the leadership of just four villages. These villages represented core areas of Nabuasa's sphere of influence, where the historical importance of this group was clearly tangible and per- sistent. Leadership of the newly created villages carved out of the former ketemukungan besar had been assumed by members of other family groups from these areas. Typically, these individuals nevertheless recognized historical affinal relations with senior Nabuasa households and could be viewed as old political allies of Nabuasa. In 1995, during a visit to Timor, I checked the current leadership of these villages and noted that after ten years the heads of the four original core villages were still members of the extended Nabuasa clan and were linked by direct kinship ties to the original Nabuasa leaders whose names were record- ed as such in 1908. This result, in a contemporary context where leadership is by and large democratically determined, constituted a remarkable demonstration of the continuity of Nabuasa political pre-eminence, although the area of jurisdiction was greatly reduced and the status of the leaders was that of kepala desa. In attempting to explain this continuity in power relations it is not suffi- cient to argue that the village populations in these cases are simply following some idea of tradition and acknowledging the historical primacy of the Nabuasa house in the conduct of local affairs, although there is some truth in this view. People's disposition10 to view the Nabuasa clan as the rightful group to provide local leadership remains widespread, but there is also a great deal of local politicking and active rivalry in maintaining the political alliances necessary to win votes. As a result, in the four core Nabuasa villages at least there is still a remnant of the formerly extensive domain. Here domain politics have been successfully transformed into desa politics. Figure 1 illustrates this pattern of continuity. Note that the toponyms in brackets designate those areas that have been separated from the original larger temukung or domains. It is only in the four core areas that formal Nabuasa predominance has persisted with regard to the village headship. Even here, however, a qualification should be made to give an idea of the extent of achieved status. The occurrence of Nabuasa names (here printed in italics) in the relevant territories is not continuous over the entire period. Nevertheless, the recurrence of these names and their persistence, as well as

10 In the Bourdieu sense of 'habitus', defined as a system of dispositions which incorporates the notions of tendency, propensity and inclination to act in the world (Bourdieu 1977).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access From Lord of the Earth to Village Head 137

Figure 1. Comparison of occupants of leadership positions (temukun naek) in the Nabuasa domains in southern Amanuban in 1908,1985 and 1995

Name of Temukung besar Village head domain/village (1908)11 1985 1995 LASI Safe Nabuasa ]. Nabuasa Y. Nabuasa (Olais) J. Benu OE PELIKI Sane Nabuasa D. Nabuasa D. Nabuasa (Naip) T. Tenis (Fatutnana) J. Nitbani OEEKAM Bota Nabuasa F. Nabuasa F. Nabuasa (Mio) M.Tobe POLO Suni Nabuasa L.B. Nabuasa L.B. Nabuasa (Kiubaat) S. Biaf (Linamnutu) Nubatonis (Batnun) Nubatonis (Bena) J. Biaf the close genealogical connections between individual leaders, are striking. In Desa Lasi, the former 'trunk' or 'source' (uf) area of autonomous Nabuasa, Y. Nabuasa, the younger brother of J. Nabuasa, was only recently elected kepala desa. He replaced a Florenese military officer who had occupied this post the previous five years and who had been widely unpopular. Safe Nabuasa, the former great temukung, was- the paternal grandfather of these men. At the time of my visit the village head of Oe Peliki, Daod Nabuasa, was considering stepping down after nearly twenty years in office as such. He was due to be replaced by a local man, A. Beis, who had been village secre- tary (sekretaris) for thirty years, and before that temukung. In Desa Oe Ekam, F. Nabuasa was recently reinstated as kepala desa after a period out of office due to his family's alleged connections with the Com- munist movement in 1965. In the interim J. Puai, a member of one of the four former principal allies (atoin amaf) in the former domain of Oe Ekam (Lopo- Puai, Nau-Tunliu), had been his popularly elected replacement. This Nabu- asa is a direct descendant of the former Meo Besi (Invulnerable Head- hunter/Warrior) Bota Nabuasa, although in a younger sibling line. Lefinus Nabuasa in Desa Polo is the grandson of the former Meo Pae (Hero Headhunter/Warrior) and great temukung (temukun naek) of Polo, Suni Nabuasa. He took over the position of kepala desa from his elder brother in the late 1970's and has held it for nearly 20 years, save for a short interregnum

11 Information taken from Venema 1916.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access 138 Andrew R. McWilliam

when J. Biaf occupied it after being elected. As in Oe Ekam, the name group Biaf is associated with one of the four allied houses or groups (atoin amaf) of the domain (Tefu-Mnao, Biaf-Kabnani). Interestingly, the official reason given for Biaf's relinquishing the post of kepala desa before the end of his five- year term was that he was suffering from a debilitating chronic illness. Many people associated this illness with his attempting to assume a position of authority without sanction, which upset the proper order (atolan) of political precedence in the desa and domain. Political continuity is also evident from the names of two new villages in the region of Polo which were founded in 1995. These names, Bena and Batnun, are derived directly from the former ritual name for the Nabuasa domain of Polo, namely Bena-Humone, Luluf- Batnun Finally, although other villages formed from the territory of the wider domain do not show the same respect for the formal central position of Nabuasa within the village structure, typically they tend to have strong indirect ties of alliance with Nabuasa groups. For example, M. Tobe, the new kepala desa of Mio village (1996), is married to Bi A. Nabuasa12, a classificat- ory sister of F. Nabuasa {kepala desa of Oe Ekam) and daughter of Ke Nabu- asa, who occupied the position of Fettor of Noebeba for a few years in the 1950's, prior to this function being abolished. Tobe replaced Y. Puai, another member of one of Nabuasa's former atoin amaf groups in the domain of Oe Ekam, out of which Desa Mio was carved. There are many examples of such links between the leadership groups of the villages of southern Amanuban. In this connection strategie affinal and social alliances have ensured the continued existence of particular prominent groups in the community. His- torically based control of resources such as arable land, cattle, and human capital is of key importance for enlisting support for one's candidacy for a five-year term of office and preserving the political confidence of the elect- orate (toh). A further factor in the longevity of Nabuasa's local leadership and position of influence, it seems to me, is the fortuitous merging of the domain and village leadership in relation to land distribution. Traditionally the central authority of the domain controlled access to arable land and hunting and grazing rights with respect to residual forest and savanna areas comprising the territory. Many settlement stories acknowledge the primacy of a former ruler who would 'direct and delegate' (anlek am anlul) allies subordinate to him to settle particular parts of the domain, often in its defensive perimeter. In return for access to farming land, such settler groups would provide the Nabuasa centre with gifts of agricultural produce and labour. This is why it

Female names among the Meto are generally prefixed with bi.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access From Lord of the Earth to Vülage Head 139 is sometimes said that all people in southern Amanuban ultimately feed off Nabuasa. For most residents of southern Amanuban, the former Kefettoran Noebeba, present rights to arable land and food gardens are derived from the ultimate authority of the Nabuasa clan, the pah tuaf (lord of the earth). These rights have superseded any claims to land prior to Nabuasa expansion into the area. The following account by an elder of the modern village of Linamnutu, in the former domain of Polo, illustrates something of this relationship. It tells how the people of the hamlet came to settle in the area around the turn of the 20th century.

We were eight (men), sir. Hai hiut pah tuan (Lists names of settlers.) We came here from Oe Peliki. Haim em antia i nako Oe Peliki We entered and informed the Haim tam am onam eut neo Lord of Polo. UsifPolo This land, the Lord was Liukole Pah i, tuan es Usif Liukole Nabuasa13, Nabuasa who then Es okatan ordered us to venture forth leunkaim nok hai poi neman and directed us to this place Nun Besa manlek kai bale i Nun Besa Ie i so that we lived there for a time. Na on haim tokom bin Ie na We were pioneers there. On haim i pe'e Ie na, Wild forest, nasifui, no settlement, no garden, kan muifkuan, kan muiflene. wild land. pahfui We settled there, sir, Haim tok tok anbin, pah then we asked again and na es on haim totim tenima (Nabuasa) again directed us here. lekanten kai Ie i Then we got up and again came to na haim jen neman ten neo Oe Tua here. Oe Tua Ie i. Here there is mature forest, Le i nasimnasi there also mature forest, atna msa' nasimnasi until this time, Talan tia poi tabu le i for three generations. on batan tenuen.

Today the local arbiter in land right questions is the village head (kepala desa), who has the authority to grant rights of use to uncultivated, so-called 'state

13 Son of Suni Nabuasa, Meo Pae and founder of the domain of Polo.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access 140 Andrew R. McWilliam land' (tanah negara).u Officially, rights to state land earmarked for cultivation may subsequently be converted by the farmer into a formal title by following the appropriate bureaucratie procedures. In other words, there is an assump- tion that the land is effectively alienable and subject to ownership by individuals. In practice, those who are granted permission to cultivate or utilize state land tend to do so with the tacit permission of the senior land guardian, namely the 'lord of the earth' (pah tuaf) of the domain. Alternatively, permission may be sought from the head of a local settlement or hamlet (kuan). These settlement heads (kua tuaf) typically acknowledge a relation of political alliance with the pah tuaf, from whom they derive certain powers in local land jurisdiction. Just as in earlier times, there is an implicit sense of continuing obligation to the 'lord of the land', which may even take the form of the presentation of harvest gifts in acknowledgement of the link with him. Although the réciter of the above historical account regularly pays taxes on the land he cultivates to the state, he does not forget that his rights to that land derive from his relationship to the domain pah tuaf. These factors continue to play an important role in garnering the necessary political support for'attaining or maintaining the locally powerful position of kepala desa. In the contemporary context, where it is the village head who has authority over village lands, his position is somewhat easier if he is also a representative of the pah tuaf group or of some other senior political grouping in the old domain. Where the village head is an outsider, his position is potentially fraught with difficulties. Any attempt to ignore old patterns of land distribution and land claims may lead to conflict15, although this is not an inevitable outcome. All village heads must negotiate an accommodation between con- sent and dissent in their constituencies (Quarles van Ufford 1987:19). Tradi- tion is one source of legitimation, but not the only one, in contemporary Timor.

14 This category of land was introduced by the Basic Agrarian Law (1962), which attempted to make all categories of land rights (hak atas tanah), classified in a graded system, subject to a single administrative procedure. The rules by which customary rights to land are recognized tend to be somewhat ambiguous under this system. 15 Disputes over land use are endemic in Timor, where feuds may continue unresolved for many years. Individuals and groups do make use of district courts in often expensive and incon- clusive attempts to obtain favourable rulings. However, in most cases it is the kepala desa and his staff who resolve land issues at the village level.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access From Lord of the Earth to Village Head 141

Adaptation and Resistance

It is evident that over the years the relationship between the desa and the domain in southern Amanuban has continued to be one that is subject to negotiation and transformation. It is likely that, until desa systems of authority and administration - including wide-scale surveying and registration of land - become stronger and more effective, the old patterns of domain authority will continue to exert a strong influence on local government and politics. Indeed, there could hardly be any other conclusion for Timor, where central models of village administration in practice remain weak and customary law and authority structures persist as vital and familiar points of orientation in social life. I would conclude this discussion with a report of a recent event in the village of Lasi which illustrates something of people's continuing concern with historical antecedents and competing systems of authority. It took place at a meeting at the central Protestant church in Lasi in November 1994. This gath- ering was also attended by representatives of prominent Nabuasa families from the old domain of Noebeba. lts aim was the performance of what was referred to as a 'prayer of release' (onen fetin) by a team of fundamentalist Christian evangelists from the kabupaten capital, Soe. The underlying cause was a widespread concern on the part of influential Nabuasa members that the bloody headhunting past was continuing to affect the living members of the kanaf (name) group in various negative ways. This could be seen as the cause of infant deaths and several cases of chronic illness. In years gone by I had also often heard people express the sentiment that the reason Nabuasa had never been successful in educating its children, reaching the higher levels in the government administration, or gaining material wealth was that it had played a central role in the killing of people in earlier times. This per- nicious legacy from the feuding past is talked of in terms of a curse (Timorese supat, Indonesian tuntutan darah), with the blood of the slain victims being believed to constrain and infect. the living members of the Nabuasa name group. The continued usè by people of the name Nabuasa, which is said to be a sacred ritual name (kan le'u)16 derived from the name of the headhunting and war ritual (le'u musu) of this group, is thought by a number of my respondents to be a further disadvantage. When I heard that most of the Nabuasa elders had attended this service

16 The term le'u may be translated as 'sacred'. When Meto communities and groups converted to Christianity in large numbers in the 1960's and earlier, they frequently changed their family name through a formal ritual whereby any ill will or ill fortune that clung to the deeds of their ancestors was shed. By adopting Christian names (kan aslani) or names untainted with the blood of the past they hoped to ensure good fortune. The Nabuasa group's refusal to participate in this process is thought by some to be hindering their collective success in the contemporary world.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access 142 Andrew R. McWilliam to participate in the prayers and in a large communal feast, I immediately enquired whether L. Nabuasa from the old Nabuasa mountain settlement of Pupu had been present and was interested to hear that he had refused the invitation. My reason for this was that L. Nabuasa is genealogically the seniormost living member of the Nabuasa name group and, more signific- antly, while nominally a Catholic, is the contemporary guardian of the arcane lore, spells and paraphemalia that form part of the Nabuasa war ritual (Ie 'u musu). Had he attended this prayer meeting, this would have been a clear demonstration that the ghosts of the violent Nabuasa past had finally been laid to rest. However, he did not appear and, indeed, explicitly rejected the proposal that he should attend. His objection was reportedly inspired by a sense of the inappropriateness of conducting the service in the church in the main settlement of Desa Lasi. He reasoned that if it was to take place it should be held at the site of the former Nabuasa headhunting cult house (uim le'u musu), which lies in ruins on the mountain top. His private reasons for not participating, however, had to do with his continued position as reposit- ory of Nabuasa ritual authority. To relinquish or discard the attributes and the substance of this ritual power would have been physically risky for him personally and, he believed, for his wider family group. As evidence for this he pointed to the case of one young Nabuasa man from his settlement who had been persuaded to attend the service and had subsequently suffered the loss of his wife in childbirth early in the next year. In the end the service proceeded without L. Nabuasa and his family from Desa Olais, and it was judged to be moderately successful. Most people with whom I discussed the issue were nevertheless uncomfortable when I ques- tioned the benefits of the exercise if one of the chief exponents of the very knowledge and past that they sought to wipe out refused to be present. This dualistic image of the aging sorcerer nurturing his black powers and ritual authority in his mountain home and the devout Christians seeking comfort and direction in the power of prayer perhaps constitutes a religious analogy of the tensions and unresolved contradictions that exist between the desa and the domain in the political sphere. Like Christianity, contemporary administrative structures reflect foreign models whose origins are remote from the Timorese experience. Both discursive frames - one local and indig- enously derived, the other assertively hegemonie but derived from an external source - are reproduced and transformed through their articulation of competing loei of authority.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access From Lord of the Earth to Village Head 143

Condusion

The village administrative structure in West Timor, espedally in the interior of the island, represents a relatively new phenomenon. It reflects a central Indonesian government concern to promote ideological uniformity throughout the Archipelago and is the latest in a long chain of attempts to regulate indigenous social relations in Timor. As a result of their adaptation to the nation-state, structures and patterns of local Meto authority have been subsumed in the administrative system of the desa and its attendant structures. For the most part, however, official desa functions and structures remain either dormant or only superficially relevant to the everyday practice of government. Most village life is enacted and made meaningful through recourse to older patterns of indigenous political affiliation and obligation. In this context the village leadership, and particularly the village head (kepala desa), emerges as a mediator between the competing demands of government and of tradition {atolan). In this paper I have outlined the experience of one formerly powerful political group, the extended Nabuasa clan of southern Amanuban, who have struggled to retain the leadership over the territory they once dominat- ed as 'lords of the earth' (pah tuaf). In this process they have been relegated to the status of village heads in a reduced portion of their former territory, with powers that are considerably circumscribed in comparison with those their ancestors once enjoyed. This experience of generational change is repeated in varying forms throughout Timor and other parts of eastern Indonesia (see, for a comparison, Pannell 1996). It is an experience that reflects the success of the national government of Indonesia in extending its authority over the communities of the various islands of the Archipelago and their local political elites. At the same time, the administrative and political institutions of the central government remain only a superficial graft on the local body politie, and in these circumstances local elites are still able to find ways of reinventing traditional patterns of leadership for the purpose of securing positions of authority and power in the space available to them.

NOTE Anthropological research for this paper was undertaken in West Timor between 1984 and 1987, and after that intermittently between 1989 and 1992, under the auspices of the Australian Agency for International Development. Funding from the Australian National University supported additional fieldwork. The paper was completed during a visiting fellowship at the International Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden, whose assistance is gratefully acknowledged. The paper has benefited from the advice and critical comments of two anonymous reviewers.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access 144 Andrew R. McWilliam

REFERENCES

Bourdieu, Pierre, 1977, Outline of a Theory ofPractice, London: Cambridge University Press. Cunningham, Clark E., 1962, People of the Dry Land; A Study of the Social Organisation ofan Indonesian People. [Ph.D. thesis, Oxford University, Oxford.) -, 1965, 'Order and Change in an Atoni Diarchy', Southwestern Journal of Anthro- pology 21:359-82. -, 1967, 'Soba; An Atoni Village of West Timor', in: Koentjaraningrat (ed.), Villages in Indonesia, pp. 63-89, Ithaca/ London: Cornell University Press. Fox, James ]., 1983, 'The Great Lord Rests at the Centre; The Paradox of Powerlessness in European-Timorese Relations', Canberra Anthropology 5-2:22-33. -, 1988, 'Village and State; Indonesia's "Bantuan Pembangunan Desa" Program', Paper prepared for the Conference 'State and Civil Society in Contemporary Indonesia', Monash University, Melbourne. Geertz, Clifford, 1983, Local Knowledge; Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, New York: Basic Books. Hoadley, Mason C, and Christer Gunnarsson (eds), 1996, The Village Concept in the Transformation of Kwal Southeast Asia, Richmond: Curzon Press. MacAndrews, Colin, 1986, Central Government and Local Development in Indonesia, Singapore / New York: Oxford University Press. McWilliam, Andrew R., 1995, 'Rhetoric and Reticence; Notes on the Anthropology of Development in West Timor', Journal ofAsian and African Studies 2-1:138-50. 1996, 'Severed Heads that Germinate the State; History, Politics and Head- hunting in South West Timor', in: Janet Hoskins (ed.), Headhunting and the Social Imagination in Southeast Asia, pp. 127-66, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Moerman, Michael, 1969, 'A Thai Village Headman as a Synaptic Leader', Journal of Asian Studies 28;535-49. Pannell, Sandra, 1996, 'Histories of Diversity, Hierarchies of Unity; The Politics of Origins in a South-West Moluccan Village', in: James J. Fox and Clifford Sather (eds), Origins, Ancestry and Alliance; Explorations in Austronesian Ethnography, Canberra: Australian National University. Quarles van Ufford, P. (ed.), 1987, Local Leadership and Programme Implementation in Indonesia, Amsterdam: Free University Press. Schulte Nordholt, H.G., 1971, The Political System of the Atoni of Timor, The Hague: Nijhoff. Schulte Nordholt, Nico G., 1987, 'From LSD to LKMD; Participation at the Village Level', in: P. Quarles van Ufford (ed.), Local Leadership and Programme Imple- mentation in Indonesia, pp. 47-63, Amsterdam: Free University Press. Venema, ]., 1916, 'Nota over Zuid-Midden Timor [Report on South Central Timor]' Memorie van Overgave, 778 Microfiche, Inter-Docümentation Centre, Zug, Switzerland, 1982 (5). Warren, Carol, 1991, 'Adat and Dinas; Village and State in Contemporary Bali', in: Hildred Geertz (ed.), State and Society in Bali; Historical, Textual and Anthropological Approaches, pp. 213-49, Leiden: KITLV Press. 1993, Adat,and Dinas; Balinese Communities in the Indonesian State, Oxford/ London: Oxford University Press.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 04:45:10AM via free access