Book Reviews - H.J.M

Book Reviews - H.J.M. Claessen, David Lewis, From Maui to Cook: The discovery and settlement of the Pacific, Drawings by Walter Stackpool. Sydney: Doubleday, 1977. Bibliography. - P. van Emst, Carl Lumholtz, Among Cannibals. An account of four years travel in Australia and of camp life with the aborigines of Queensland. Firle: Caliban Books. 383 pp. Maps, illustrations and index. Reprinted from the first edition, London: John Murray. - D.C. Geirnaert-Martin, Robert Wessing, Cosmology and social behaviour in a West Javanese settlement, Papers in International Studies, Southeast Asia Series no. 47, Ohio University Center for International Studies, Southeast Asia Program, 1978, Athens, Ohio. - B.G. Grijpstra, William Wood, Cultural-ecological perspectives in Southeast Asia, edited and with an introduction by William Wood, Papers in International Studies, Southeast Asia Studies no. 41, Ohio University Center for International Studies, Southeast Asia Program, 1977, Athens, Ohio. - R. Hagesteijn, M. Jacq-Hergoualch, Larmement et lorganisation de larmée khmère aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles; daprès les bas-reliefs dAngkor Vat, du Bayon et de Bantay Chmar. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. - C.K. Jonker-de Putter, John Ingleson, Road to exile; The Indonesian nationalist movement, 1927-1934. ASAA Southeast Asia Publications Series, No. 1. Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) Ltd., Singapore, 1979. xii + 254 blz. Bibliographie, index. - P.E. de Josselin de Jong, Roland Werner, Jah-het of Malaysia: art and culture, 1975. Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Universiti Malaya. xxxv, 626 pp., 39 figs., 2 maps, 746 plates. - P.E. de Josselin de Jong, Roland Werner, Mah-Meri of Malaysia: Art and culture, 1974. Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Universiti Malaya. xxvi, 485 pp., 13 figs., 3 maps, 460 plates. - Simon Kooijman, Peter Gathercole, The art of the Pacific Islands. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979, 365 pp., 386 illustrations + 6 sketch-maps., Adrienne L. Kaeppler, Douglas Newton (eds.) - Adrianus Koster, Mario Vassallo, From lordship to stewardship, religion and social change in Malta, The Hague, Mouton (Series Religion and Society no. 15), 1979. 270 pp. - Clive Moore, E. Utrecht, The Indonesian army, volume one, South East Asian Monograph Series number 4, James Cook University of North Queensland. (233 pages) - Arie de Ruijter, Jonathan Friedman, System, structure and contradiction. The evolution of Asiatic social formations, Social Studies in Oceania and South East Asia 2, The National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, 1979, 317 pp. - Arie de Ruijter, C.F. Hallpike, The foundations of primitive thought. Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979. 516 pp. - J.J. de Wolf, J.H. Konter, Ujamaa: de ontwikkeling van een Afrikaans socialisme. Van Gorcum

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David Lewis, From Maui to Cook: The Discovery and Settlement of the Pacific, Drawings 'by Waker Stackpool. Sydney: Dou'bleday, 1977. Bibliography. H. J. M. CLAESSEN

David Lewis, the well-known expert on canoe travel in Oceania, presents here a general account of the discovery and settlement of the Pacific. To say only that this is a well written and well documented book is an understatement; there are more books on the same subject to which these qualifications apply. This work, however, is characterized by yet another quality: the author himself has sailed on a number of the routes he describes, and on many in the traditional Polynesian way. This adds a flavour of genuineness and authenticity to the discussions and descriptions that other books lack (with the exception, perhaps, of the works of Thor Heyerdahl!). Most attractive is Lewis' manner of summarizing in lively and authoritative prose several interminable discussions of traditional voyages. The reader is given information on subjects as diverse as the construction of the boats and the developments in this in the course of time, possible dispersion routes, navigation techniques, and the way of life on the newly discovered islands. His method of handling the material, however, requires that the reader have at least some acquaint- ance of the existing Hterature so that he may recognize the places where the relevant data were found. This is not always clear from the text, and hence some notes would have been in order. On the other hand, this might have posed the author serious obstacles in the task of writing a general account for a wide audience. Lewis should, however, have mentioned his source for the statement concerning "flotillas of great canoes bearing whole subtrïbes putting to sea from Nuku Hiva in search of a priest-chief's dream island" (p. 21 ff.). And are the vestiges of South American influences on Easter Island really as limited as he claims (p. 24 ff.)? No less interesting are the chapters on European voyages in the Pacific. All well-known captains are discussed: Magellan (or more correctly, Magelhaes), Drake, Mendana, etc. Schouten and Le Maire are also mentioned, while in another chapter Abel Tasman at last receives the honour he deserves, namely recognition as the man who

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"put more Pacific islands on the map" even than Cook, while "respect- ing the lives of the people he came across" (p. 152). In discussing Cook, Lewis points out that this navigator should never have let himself be persuaded to undertake his last and fatal expedition, as he had been under constant strain for nearly seven years (p. 165). In a separate chapter the encounters between Europeans and Poly- nesians are described. Well-known and less well-known visitors to the islands, from William Mariner and Diaper to a certain couple named Morgan and Ann Butcher, are discussed. The book ends with a summary of a number of recent voyages making use of traditional means. In this same chapter Lewis describes his own experiences with the old navigator Tevake from the Reef Islands, with Hipour of Puluwat and with the Repung brothers from Satawal. The last voyage described is the famous venture of the Hawaiian-made canoe Hokule'a, which in 1976 sailed from Hawaii to Tahiti in the traditional way. Though the book is meant to be a kind of general introduction to the discovery and settlement of Oceania, it is not written only for the layman. On the contrary, even the expert scholar has a lot to learn about the voyages and voyagers in this part of the world. The drawings by Walter Stackpool deserve a special word of praise. Without them much of what is narrated in words would have remained mere description. The drawings most charmingly make this description come alive.

Carl Lumholtz, 1979. Among Cannibals. An Account of four Years' Travels in Australia and of Camp Life with the Aborigines of Queensland. Firle: Caliban Books. 383 pp. Maps, illustrations and index. £ 10.00. Reprinted from the first edition, London: John Murray, 1889. P. VAN EMST

Het boek is een herdruk van een uitgave uit 1889, waarvan de oorspronkelijke titelpagina in facsimile is weergegeven. Er is een korte biografie van Lumholtz aan toegevoegd, waaruit blijkt dat deze Noorse reiziger anno 1876 gradueerde in de theologie. In 1880 vertrok hij voor een expeditie van ruim drie jaar naar Australië en stelde zijn be- levenissen aldaar te boek. Als reisbeschrijving is dit werk zeker geslaagd, aannemend dat men aan zo'n boek de eis stelt dat het boeiend en waarschijnlijk is en aan de lezer geen al te hoge eisen op intellectueel gebied stelt. Kleine en grote avonturen worden zonder gewichtigdoenerij ver- haald en het anecdotische element wordt verwaarloosd noch overdreven. Lumholtz' (zelfopgelegde?) doel was het verrijken van de kennis der

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natuur en het belangrijkste middel daartoe was kennelijk het zoeken en doden van vele en velerlei dieren en het prepareren van derzelver huid en eventueel skelet. Bij deze bezigheden slaagde de auteur er in om vier tot dan toe onbekende zoogdiersoorten te vinden, waarvan er één (de Dendrolagus lumholtzii) naar hem is vernoemd. Deze vier zijn in de oorspronkelijke uitgave in werkelijk fraaie kleuren afgebeeld; in deze nieuwe editie moeten ze het met een schamel zwart-wit stellen. Het belangrijkste gedeelte voor de antropoloog is dat waar Lumholtz de periode van zijn verblijf in Herbert Vale in Noord-Queensland be- schrijft. Toen namelijk trok hij maandenlang met de Aborigines op, at hetzelfde voedsel als zij en sliep in hun zéér tijdelijke onderkomens, kortom participeerde zoals weinigen in zijn tijd en later plachten te doen. Achteraf bekeken heeft hij eigenlijk — waarschijnlijk door zijn toen- malige gebrek aan achtergrond-kennis — een kans gemist. Ondanks zijn intensief deelnemen aan de inheemse leefwijze, ondanks het feit dat hij de taal redelijk moet hebben beheerst, komt hij ten aanzien van deze samenleving niet verder dan het mededelen van een aantal onsamenhangende curiosa en wetenswaardigheden. Het doet overigens weldadig aan, dat hij op een gegeven ogenblik eerlijk toegeeft dat hij meer dan genoeg van zijn gezellen heeft en blij is dat hij weer naar zijn bewoonde wereld kan terugkeren. Geen woord over de welhaast Obligate sympathie voor de zwarte vrienden, die men in vrijwel iedere monografie aantreft. Hij ziet de Australiërs als gewone mensen, mensen, die men kan waarderen of niet. Overigens is zijn bewogenheid met hun lot zeer groot: hij heeft geen goed woord over voor de behandeling die de meeste blanken in de bush aan de Aborigines meenden te moeten geven. De vraag ligt voor de hand, waarom juist van dit boek een heruitgave is verschenen. In hoeverre de biologie er mee gediend is, kan ik niet beoordelen; de waarde als 'bijdrage aan de huidige antropologie is miniem. (Bijzondere gevallen daargelaten: Helmut Reim put er het een en ander uit ten behoeve van zijn betrekkelijk recente werk, Die Insektennahrung der Australischen Ureinwohner. Akademie-Verlag. Berlin (DDR), 1962.) De enkeling die dit werk wenst te raadplegen, kan gemakkelijk ergens een oud exemplaar vinden. Nogmaals: het is een aardig en leesbaar boek, maar het behoort niet tot de klassieken uit het einde der vorige eeuw. De oorspronkelijke uitgave is fraaier uitgevoerd. Met name valt de veel betere kwaliteit van de vele illustraties op. Overigens dient eerlijk- heidshalve over Lumholtz vermeld te worden dat hij naderhand wel degelijk blijk heeft gegeven in staat te zijn tot waardevoller antropolo- gisch werk. Volstaan kan worden met het noemen van zijn Symbolism öf the Huichol Indians (ook Midden-Amerika heeft hij bereisd), uitge- geven als Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History in 1900.

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Robert Wessing, Cosmology and social behaviour in a West Javanese settlement, Papers in International Stu- dies, Southeast Asia Series no. 47, Ohio University Center for International Studies, Southeast Asia Pro- gram, 1978, Athens, Ohio. D. C. GEIRNAERT-MARTIN Robert Wessing's essay deals with Sundanese society. Modes of behaviour are related to the community's cosmology or modes of thought. Central for the Sundanese as the author sees it is the concept of "power", which is conceived of in terms of both mystical outworldly forces and worldly, socio-political authority. A person's ability to accu- mulate and redistribute power determines his social position. These ranking processes are described for both the secular and the religious spheres. The amount of power in the universe is considered to be limited. Cosmic, outworldly forces and those within society should stand in a relationship of eternal exchange. For equilibrium of power is essential to man's well-being. The research centres upon this type of relationship, in which opposi- tional categories such as "in-out", "society-outworld", "high-low", and "male-female" play a preponderent role. The "centre" operates as a mediator between these oppositions. Without it, no redistribution is possible. The reader will associate this type of approach with structural anthropology as it has been presented by Lévi-Strauss. Yet Wessing chooses to depart fundamentally from this scholar's views. Referring to Gestalt psychology and Piaget, he stresses "the process of structuring at the level of the individual", while rejecting "the existence of structures as given phenomena" (see Introduction, p. 2). If the behaviour of Sunda- nese individuals is well illustrated, this methodological apriorism limits the scope of otherwise keen observations. The author makes use of a general model of analysis which he believes to characterize various realms of Sundanese culture. Myth (Ch. 4), the Sundanese house with its male and female domains, parent/- child relationships (Ch. 5), and the position of religious practitioners (Ch. 6) are governed by a pattern in which "power" determines the categories "high" and "low". Schematically the model is as follows (my interpretation): power A high power B intermediate/centre/redistributor power C low (See pp. 51,96, 102-3.) At the level of behaviour, it convincingly corresponds to Sundanese social life. But Wessing's myth analysis, from which he derives this model, in the first place may raise doubts about its value at the conceptual level. The author believes that the exchange of "power" is the main theme to be discerned in the myths as told by Rassers (Ch. 4).

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This may be so, but other processes of exchange, and therefore other types of structures, may also be identified in these myths. A comparison with Pigeaud's Tantu Panggelaran (1924) would have been useful in this respect. At times, one is inclined to think that the importance of the concept of "power" as it shifts from one individual to another is a result of the choice made by the author himself, rather than an inherent element of the structure of the myths. In the process of structuring as Wessing sees it, the individual dis- tinguishes first of all between "in" and "out", then between "high" and "low". "In-out", "high-low" are "cognitive mechanisms" revealing the "deep structure of society" (p. 167). The author considers these categories to be "axioms" upon which order is created (pp. 164-165). The reader may wonder at which level this order is to be understood. After all, social hierarchy is not a mere reflexion of classifications at the conceptual level. The matrix on p. 72 (fig. 6-3) reveals the basic problem of this pri- marily psychological approach.

IN (Gajah) OUT (non-Gajah) = name of the village under study

High Ajengang (religous teachers) other teachers

Low Ustad other Ustads students students children children

Both vertical and horizontal relations are suggested t>y this matrix. This is not the case, however. As is pointed out later (p. 76), no social relationships whatsoever exist between the IN and OUT groups. Therefore the figure represents a mere juxtaposition of categories. We are well- informed about the vertical, hierarchical relationships between individuals within each social group. But as far as groups are concerned, we must be content with a pattern of near segregation. If this is true at the superficial level of behaviour, again the question may rise about its validity at a "deeper", more conceptual level. It has not escaped Wessing's attention that Sundanese classifications are very similar to the Javanese ones. As he remarks himself, "... the back-east portion of the house is dedicated to women, while the front- west section is male. This is the reverse of the Javanese situation" (p. 53). In the discussion of the relationships between "male" and "female" and "in" and "out" categories, he cannot have been unaware that among the Javanese "in" and "out" are at times associated with father or male and mother or female respectively (Geertz, The religion of Java, Univ. Chicago Press, 1960, p. 40). Wessing considers Lévi-Strauss' method, particularly its transfor- mational aspect, "a cumbersome way of doing things" (p. 162). In the

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light of the very nature of the inversions just mentioned, Wessing's work is seen to restate the question about structural anthropology which he so vehemently rejects beforehand as: how wrong is it to assume that social groups tend to think themselves in terms of each other?

Cultural-ecological perspectives in Southeast Asia, edited and with an introduction by William Wood, Papers in International Studies, Southeast Asia Studies no. 41, Ohio University Center for International Studies, Southeast Asia Program, 1977, Athens, Ohio, ISBN 0-82N-0322-2, Price US $ 8.00. B. G. GRIJPSTRA

In this report are published the papers presented at an anthropology symposium held during the Midwestern conference on Asian Affairs at Ohio University, October 23-25, 1976. The participants had been re- quested "to deal with their research interests using an ecological approach or focusing on adaptation in some way". This invitation made for a great variety in the papers presented. Some of the adaptional processes analyzed are those taking place with regard to endogenous population growth. Others concern adaptation after migration, responses to government attempts to modernize agriculture and regulations de- signed to increase or decrease the available amount of land. Most of the contributions are focused on aspects of economie anthropology, especially of agricultural development, but do not fail to depict conco- mitant circumstances relating to kinship systems, settlement patterns, language, and cultural practices. Some relate more particularly to the fields of archaeology and ethnicity. Geographically the papers can be classified as follows. Pre-historic developments in Southeast Asia in general are discussed by Hutterer and Warren Peterson. Kress and Jean Peterson devote a paper to Palawan Island, the Philippines. Omohundro deals with the changing position of Fukien immigrants in an urban Philippine centre. Foster analyses developments in four villages in Thailand. Kipp describes the relations between Karo and Toba Batak in a new settlement area in Sumatra, Indonesia. Krulfeld compares two villages in Lombok, Indonesia. Saxe and Gall deal with the Temuan of Malaya; and Schneider reports on the Selako Dayak of Kalimantan. Chairman Wood, in his introduction to the symposium, states that ecological anthropology is closely related with the natural sciences, "cultural phenomena are explained ultimately as functions of the capture, exchange, and utilization of energy or matter and energy". "The means of procuring, processing, and distributing food are the basics around which social organizations, attitudes, complexes and cognitive structures develop." Another characteristic of ecological anthropology is that its theories are dynamic and processual, because "cultural

Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 09:51:38AM via free access Boekbesprekingen 173 systems must always adapt within ecosystems as well as respond to other cultural systems". It should be kept in mind that adaptation is a conti- nuous process if one wants "to avoid the trap of conceiving cultural systems as static structures or as completely balanced functional equili- bria". Though I fully agree with this view, I want to stress that it poses the anthropological researcher some very fundamental problems. To study change one has to make observations over a long period of time, or to have reliable information about previous times at one's disposal. Most anthropological research is a single-shot case study, lasting one to two years, in societies with few or no reliable historical records. Information about the past is limited mainly to oral traditions in which ideal patterns and generalizations dominate. Especially with regard to day-to-day affairs and non-exceptional items little is generally remem- bered of the variety which probably prevailed. So all the researcher can do is record certain trends of change. The amount of change is much harder to specify. The contributions of Schneider and Gall are clear illustrations of this problem. The authors are not to be blamed for the resultant lack of comparison. Their limited research periods prevented them from going beyond in- dicating certain trends. Their awareness that no situation is stable for an extended period must be praised. Too often in anthropological studies a status quo is presented without any indication of what processes of change are operating. But to provide for more exact comparisons in the future I plead that present and future researchers should make at least one survey in the course of their fieldwork, which may subsequently be repeated by the same or another person to assess the amount of change. Such a longitudinal approach would be especially suitable in ecological anthropology, with its close resemblance to the natural sciences. It is not only anthropology which suffers from lack of nomothetic processual theories. In archaeology, being another young science, too much emphasis is still given to static description and typologies as well. Hutterer, Kress and Warren Peterson, in their respective contributions, argue strongly for a more processual approach which, using general principles, may explain the why and how of changes. Ironically the conclusions of Warren Peterson and Kress with regard to the emergence of sedentary agriculture do not support each other. Warren Peterson is inclined to think that in eco-zones with limited food resources population pressure is a moving factor. Kress hypothesizes that agriculture develops only in a diversified environment, in view of -the fact that primitive agriculturalists cannot live from their swiddens alone. However, to my mind their views can be reconciled by interpreting Peterson's "eco-zones of limited food resources" as eco-zones with decreasing per capita food resources. A useful alternative to the single case study in the development of processual theories is the method of static group comparison. Two or more locations which are supposed to differ with regard to one or more independent variables are studied simultaneously. This approach was adopted by Foster in his study of four villages in Thailand, and Krulfeld

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in her comparison of an upland and a lowland village in Lombok. It remains questionable whether all the relevant variables have been taken into account, as Galaska remarks in his comments on Foster. But this applies to all (quasi-) longitudinal studies. The papers in this volume are recommended reading for everyone interested in Southeast Asia, as they show much of the diversity and unity of this region. The reader will find some contributions more interesting than others, depending on his field of specialization, and will look forward to the future work of the relevant authors. The papers clearly possess the character of try-out reportage, and as such possess definite shortcomings. E.g., the theory of Barth to which Omohundro refers is not fully explained; Warren Peterson introduces his conclusion somewhat abruptly, without clearly relating it to his line of argument; and Schneider fails to formulate an articulate conclusion about processes of change. However, the way in which Wood summarizes the essence of each contribution in his Introduction makes up for these defects.

M. Jacq-Hergoualc'h, L'armement et l'organisation de l'armée khmère aux Xlle et XlIIe siècles; d'après les bas-reliefs d'Angkor Vat, du Bayon et de Bantay Chmar. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. R. HAGESTEIJN Jacq-Hergoualc'h geeft in zijn tweehonderdvierenveertig pagina's tellende boekwerk een beschrijving van gebeeldhouwde oorlogstaferelen op de onderste plateaus van drie tempels in Cambodia uit de twaalfde en dertiende eeuw, te weten Angkor Wat, Bantay Chmar en Bayon, ge- bouwd tijdens de regeringsperiode van Süryavarman II (1113-1150?) en Jayavarman VII (1181-1218?). De auteur voorziet met zijn studie in een behoefte. De oorlogstaferelen op de tempels zijn, zoals ook Boisselier in zijn voorwoord stelt, bij onderzoek verwaarloosd. Religieuze voorstellingen hebben altijd meer in de belangstelling gestaan. Daarnaast is het interessant dat Jacq-Hergoualc'h een punt behandelt, dat sedert enkele jaren ter discussie staat: de relatie tussen Z.O.-Azia- tische culturen en de traditionele Indische cultuur. Tot voor kort werd aangenomen dat beïnvloeding vanuit India dermate groot was, dat de traditionele Z.O.-Aziatische culturen copieën waren van de oude Indische cultuur. Recentelijk worden vraagtekens bij deze zienswijze ge- zet. Gedegen onderzoek zal uitsluitsel moeten brengen. Jacq-Hergoualc'h gaat weliswaar aan deze discussie voorbij, maar hij zou Z.O.-Azië- specialisten van dienst kunnen zijn met zijn bevindingen. De opbouw van het boek is als volgt. In een korte inleiding zet Jacq-Hergoualc'h zijn doelstellingen uiteen: 1'étude que nous allons entreprendre sera essentiellement iconographique (p. 11). Hij wil zo voorzichtig mogelijk te werk gaan, en het gebruik van secondaire bron-

Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 09:51:38AM via free access Boekbesprekingen 175 nen tot een minimum beperken. In het eerste deel van het eigenlijke werk wordt een uitvoerige beschrijving van de drie betrokken tempels gegeven en worden de op de afbeeldingen aangetroffen oorlogswerktuigen systematisch gecategoriseerd. In het 'tweede deel wordt het mate- riaal opnieuw bekeken, maar dan vanuit bovengenoemde vraagstelling: is het Khmer-leger gebaseerd op het model van het oude Indische leger, of heeft het een eigen karakter? Zoals men in de oude Indische epen Ramayana en Mahabharata kan terugvinden, was het Indische leger opgebouwd uit vier categorieën: cavalerie, infanterie, strijdwagens en olifanten. Aan deze vier categorieën zijn de vier hoofdstukken van het tweede deel gewijd. Na nog een derde deel aan andere dan in deze vier categorieën passende personen en zaken te hebben besteed, komt Jacq- Hergoualc'h tot de conclusie dat het Khmer-leger op sommige punten overeenkomsten vertoont met de beschrijvingen in de Ramayana en Mahabharata, maar dat het toch ook een geheel eigen karakter heeft. Deze conclusie is interessant, omdat zij ingaat tegen wat in het algemeen beweerd wordt. Helaas wordt de conclusie weinig onderbouwd gepresen- teerd, en worden de oorlogstaferelen niet in alle mogelijke aspecten uitgewerkt. Zo voorzichtig als Jack-Hergoualc'h is in zijn Inleiding, waarin hij zich wapent tegen alle mogelijke roekeloze interpretaties, zo onvoor- zichtig is hij in zijn Conclusie. Men kan zich afvragen of het methodo- logisch verantwoord is om op 'basis van een vergelijking van dergelijke ongelijksoortige gegevens als afbeeldingen op drie tempels met twee heldendichten, waarbij voornamelijk technische aspecten zijn bekeken, dergelijke verstrekkende conclusies te trekken. De algemene indruk is dat Jacq-Hergoualc'h in het beschrijvende deel van zijn taak geslaagd is. Zijn boek is goed te gebruiken als naslagwerk voor Khmer-oorlogswerktuigen in de twaalfde en dertiende eeuw. De illustraties van de oorlogswerktuigen en verdere details van afbeeldingen zijn duidelijk en goed gecategoriseerd. De theoretische vraagstelling van het boek is belangrijk, maar vanuit anthropologisch gezichtspunt onvoldoende uitgewerkt.

John Ingleson, Road to Exile; The Indonesian Natio- nalist Movement, 1927-1934. ASAA Southeast Asia Publi- cations Series, No. 1. Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) Ltd., Singapore, 1979. xii + 254 blz. Bibliografie, index. C. K. JONKER-DE PUTTER

Het eerste deel van deze door Asian Studies Association of Australia uitgebrachte serie behandelt de zuiver politiek nationalistische Indone- sische partijen tussen 1927 en 1934, namelijk de PNI, opgevolgd door Partindo ('beide in meer of mindere mate onder invloed van Sukarno) en de PNI Baru (onder leiding vari Sjahrir en Hatta). Daarnaast wordt

Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 09:51:38AM via free access 176 Boekbesprekingen het ongelukkige experiment van de federatie van de meeste organisaties, de PPKI, bestudeerd. De religieuze beweging komt alleen ter sprake vanwege haar relaties met bovengenoemde partijen en vanwege de ver- schillen in politiek bereik tussen beide groeperingen. Nadat in 1927 de communistische partij PKI door de Nederlands- Indische regering was geëlimineerd, ontstond er een vacuüm in de politieke organisaties, dat werd opgevuld door de PNI als radicaal revolutionaire partij. Dit radicalisme duidt alleen op de strijd voor onafhankelijkheid en niet op een sociale revolutie. Enerzijds was het sociale element bijna onmogelijk geworden door het verbod van de regering op de communistische partij en anderzijds zou het volgens de zienswijze van de PNI leiding de 'beoogde eenheid aan het nationalistische front in gevaar brengen. Hiermee komt direct de onderlinge strijd naar voren tussen Sukarno en Hatta. Het is de analyse van deze strijd die als een rode draad door het boek loopt en op zichzelf al de uitgave rechtvaardigt naast de reeds bestaande publikaties over de nationalistische beweging. Ingleson heeft een grondig onderzoek verricht naar de scholing van de partijfunctionarissen. Hij toont aan, dat 'het verschil in aantal tussen op Nederlandse en Indonesische wijze geschoolde leiders in beide partijen geheel anders ligt dan men op grond van Hatta's Nederlandse opleiding zou verwachten. Dit geeft hem aanleiding tot verrassende conclusies met betrekking tot de houding tegenover het volk van de kring rond Sukarno en die rond Hatta. Ook de verschillende reacties van de koloniale overheersers worden door de auteur onderzocht. Tegenover de ver vooruitziende politieke visie van gouverneur-generaal A. C. D. de Graeff en enkele van zijn adviseurs stond de beperkte blik van de meerderheid van het plaatselijk bestuur, dat aan handhaving van rust en orde ter bescherming van de directe belangen van de Nederlandse ingezetenen de voorkeur gaf. Tenslotte maakte gouverneur-generaal B. C. de Jonge in 1934 rigoreus een einde aan alle nationalistische verwachtingen. Naar aanleiding van dé gerechtelijke straffen in 1930 zet de auteur vraagtekens bij de onafhankelijke opstelling van de rechtspraak. Voor het onderzoek zijn zowel de archieven van de Nederlands- Indische overheid gebruikt als contemporaine Indonesische publikaties in kranten, tijdschriften en brochures. Een enkele kritische opmerking betreft de indeling van het vierde hoofdstuk. Onder de titel "Government Reaction" verwacht men niet een uitgebreide paragraaf over "PNI Propaganda", die mijns inziens beter in het voorafgaande hoofdstuk "From Organisation to Agitation" had gepast. Voor allen die de nationalistische beweging bestuderen, maar ook voor 'hen die de 'huidige gebeurtenissen in Indonesië in hun historische context willen plaatsen, is dit boek een onmisbare schakel in het geheel van publikaties over de sociaal-economische en politieke ontwikkeling in deze vroegere Nederlandse kolonie.

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Roland Werner, Mah-Meri of Malaysia: art and culture, 1974. Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Universiti Malaya. xxvi, 485 pp., 13 figs., 3 maps, 460 plates. Price (paper covers) US$17.—.. Roland Werner, Jah-hët of Malaysia: art and culture, 1975. Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Universiti Malaya. xxxv, 626 pp., 39 figs., 2 maps, 746 plates. Price (paper covers) US$ 27.—. P. E. DE JOSSELIN DE JONG

The two most remarkable books reviewed here are evidence of the increasing interest in and concern for the aboriginal peoples of Malaysia. They both deal with the woodcarvings of Senoi groups: the Mah-Meri ' (numbering about 1,300) of the Selangor coast, and the Jah-hët (about 2,000) of central Pahang. The author, a German surgeon who was attached to the University of Malaya from 1967 to 1973, made the excellent photographs; he öbtained most of 'his information from Ab- original friends, one of whom set down descriptions of spirit ceremonies in writing, in Malay. The plates constitute the largest and most important part of both books: the brief text serves as an explanatory comment to the illustrations. The Mah-Meri book is mainly about the moyang: ancestral and other spirits, the rituals connected with them, and other ceremonial occasions. It is remarkable that the parts of1 the wedding ceremony are practically identical with those of the Malays, also in their names: bersanding, berhinai. This terminological identity could' be due to the fact that the author relied for a large part of his data on information given in Malay, but the photographs are evidence of strong acculturation in the outward appearance of various ceremonies. This agrees with the occurrence of severai typically Muslim Malay names (e.g. Yusof bin Karim, Rahman bin Kassim) in the list of the forty-nine Mah-Meri woodcarvers (p. 80). Part Two of the book {circa 400 pages) is devoted to photographs of their work: grotesque masks depicting the moyang, arranged in the \alphabetical order of their names, and preceded by explanatory notes and the text of myths in which the depicted moyang play a part. 1 The book on the Jah-hët (or Jah-hut) is similafly arranged, but here the emphasis is on the poyang, i.e. the medicine-man, and his work of curing by controlling the spirits {bès), particularly the spirits of il'lness. Here, too, Dr. Werner relied on a Jah-hët informant's com- munications in Malay, but this book also gives a number of "spirit songs" in the people's mother tongue. As might be expected on the grounds of their more inaccessible location, Malay influence appears to be less strong than among the Mah-Meri. The wooden bès figures are mostly in the form of statuettes, and seldom of masks. The author contrasts the two art forms as •follows: "While Mah-Meri art can be based on a kind of baroque principle, the art of the Jah-hët is more geometrically orientated" (p. xi). The latter is also made more com- prehensible by notes such as: "The identification of a particular spirit

Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 09:51:38AM via free access 178 Boekbesprekingen is made possible by its syrribols. . . An example of this is Bès Sengat which is responsible for itehing pain. The 'itchiness' symbol [viz. a jagged, saw-like element] is the main feature of this carving" (p. xxvii). However, such. elucidations are rare; both books will serve mainly as an amazingly ric'h store of visual information, supported by song and myth texts, for whoever wishes to pursue his own investigation of art in relation to mythology. They are not a Voie des masques, but offer resources for such a study, albeit on a smaller scale.

Peter Gathercole, Adrienne L. Kaeppler, and Douglas Newton, The Art of the Pacific Islands. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979, 365 pp., 386 illustrations + 6 sketch-maps. SIMON KOOIJMAN

The work under review is a catalogue of an exhibition of Pacific art held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington from July lst, 1979, to February 17th, 1980. This fully illustrated book, which exceeds by far the usual size of a museum catalogue, is a reflection of the collection of Pacific-art objects presented in the exhibition. These were given on loan by 84 museums and private collectors. Among the museums were institutions in the USA such as the Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York, which houses the Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection of Primitive Art, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu. From Great Britain the main institutional participants were the Museum of Mankind in London and the Uni- /' versity Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge. The ^ lenders on the European Continent included the ethnographical f museums of Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Basel and Vienna, and the Musée/ de 1'Homme in Paris. In The Netherlands the Tropenmuseum! hi Amsterdam, the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde in Leiden, the Museum . voor Land- en Volkenkunde in Rotterdam, and the Museum voor het Onderwijs in The Hague contributed to the exhibition. From the South Pacific region objects were loaned by the Australian Museum in Sydney, the Australian National Gallery in Canberra, and the museums of Auck- land, Christchurch, and Dunedin in New Zealand. The exhibition covers 417 objects. Of these, 373 are illustrated in photographs in the catalogue. Thus the latter provides an, adequate picture of the exhibition. The first general survey of Pacific art was given in the Arts of the South Seas exhibition 'held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1946. The catalogue of that exhibition, compiled by Ralph Linton, Paul S. Wingert and René d'Harnoncourt,

Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 09:51:38AM via free access Boekbesprekingen 179 constituted the first comprehensive work on Pacific art giving valuable information on style areas, art forms, and the function of art and art objects in the three major regions of the Pacific and Australia. Since then much ethno-aesthetic research has been done both in museums and in the field, and a number of art exhibitions have been held in museums in Europe and die USA (Basel, Neuchatel, Amsterdam, Leiden, New York, Chicago). Most of these dealt with only limited areas, such as those of the Sepik River in the Museum für Völker- kunde in Basel, Lake Sentani in the Museum of Primitive Art in New York, and Asmat in the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde in Leiden. A survey of Melanesian art was given in the exhibition entitled Mela- nesien. Schwarze Insein der Südsee, organized by the Rautenstrauch- Joest Museum in Cologne in 1972, as well as in the catalogue of the same title written by Waldemar Stöhr. In the present book the arts of the Pacific are well represented. The authors, who are expert museum anthropologists, were also the organizers of the exhibition. From the many museums and private collections they are familiar with they carefully selected those items which were both outstanding from an aesthetic point of view and characteristic for the art and culture of the areas involved. A number of these are famous art objects well-known both from the displays of their respective museums and from earlier publications. The latter are mentioned in the book under review in the captions of the photographs. General information on the cultural context of Pacific art as well as specific data on the objects in question are provided in four chapters, one by Douglas Newton, curator of the Department of Primitive Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, one by Adrienne Kaeppler, anthropologist at the B.P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and two by Peter Gathercole, curator of the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge. Newton concentrates on Melanesia and New Guinea, while Kaeppler and Gathercole deal with aspects of Polynesian and Maori- art, as well as Polynesian cultural history. Newton's chapter on 'Continuities and Changes in Western Pacific Art' starts with Oceanic prehistory, special emphasis being placed on the so-called Lapita culture, named after a site in New Caledonia where the relies of this culture were first identified. Items of special significance from the point of view of Oceanic art 'history are the decorated exam- ples of Lapita pottery found in Melanesia and western Polynesia and dating from about 1500 to 600 B.C. On pp. 37-38 the author describes a 'complex curvilinear design' appearing on early Lapita pottery frag- ments which has survived until the present day. Traces of this Lapita motif are found in the 'ethnographic' art of several parts of New Guinea, Melanesia, and Polynesia. This interesting instance of the continuity of an art form over more than three millennia is not illustrated by any pictures or drawings. Thus the critical reader's curiosity is left unsatisfied, since the text alone does not provide sufficient information for an evaluation of the argument.

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Historical data, the oldest from 16th-century Spanish sources, are used to partially reconstruct the art of the period preceding the introduction of metal tools in the 19th century. The book states that "... by the period of the two centuries between Mendana and Cook, a considerable amount of Melanesian material culture and art had stabilized into the forms we know today" (p. 45). This statement is based on ethnohistorical information some of which is quite inaccurate, and the author aptly phrases his conclusion as a working hypothesis. The introduction of tools and weapons of iron and steel marked the beginning of the 'evolved traditional' phase in Melanesian art, to which belong the items presented in the exhibition and the catalogue. In dealing with these objects, Newton places special emphasis on the history and development of art in Melanesia and New Guinea in general, looking for a common background and common characteristics and comparing the arts of a number of style areas, some of them quite far removed from each other. The final part of Newton's contribution is formed by 13 separate sub-chapters, each of them dealing with a more or less separate style area, i.e., 6 groups of Melanesian islands and 7 regions in New Guinea. With reference to the objects pictured, the art of each area is discussed and its cultural context indicated. The treatment is fairly concise, as was only to be expected for a general publication on Oceanic art. Some readers, however, may be especially interested in one or more style areas in Melanesia or New Guinea in particular, and may desire more detailed and specific information on these. For most areas this information is available in other publications, some of which are mentioned in the notes, and others (in f act, the majority) in the list of references at the end of the book (pp. 359-365). A number of works pertaining to important style areas in New Guinea are not mentioned, however. These include, for instance, H. Kelm, Kunst vom Sepik; T. Bodrogi, Art in North-East New Guinea; F. E. Williams, Drama of Orokolo; A. A. Gerbrands, Wow-ipits, and The Asmat of New Guinea: The Journal of Michael Clark Rockefeller. One also wonders why F. Speiser's book on the material culture of the New Hebrides and the Banks Islands {Ethnographische Materialien aus den Neuen Hebriden und den Banks-Inseln) and G. A. Reichard's Melanesian Design do not feature in this list. Data on Polynesian cultural history are provided by Peter Gathercole. The premise underlying his contribution is that of the great degree of basic homogeneity of the visual arts of Polynesia, 'however miuch they differ from one island to another' (p. 67). This homogeneity in the field of art is reflected by more or less homogeneous patterns in the linguistics and archaeology of the area. After a summary of the results of linguistic and archaeological research, a few subjects pertaining to the development of human life in Oceania come up for discussion, namely the history of human settlement in relation to environmental possibilities, and social structure. New Zealand and Easter Island, where the ecological conditions and the cultural patterns were different from

Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 09:51:38AM via free access Boekbesprekingen 181 those in tropical Polynesia^ are treated separately. Western influence and its effect on Polynesian culture and art is the final subject dealt with in this contribution, which forms an introduction to Adrienne Kaeppler's chapter on aspects of Polynesian aesthetic traditions. The latter discusses, in a few introductory pages, the two- and three- dimensional art forms concisely characterizing the visual art of the Polynesians. Contrary to the ephemeral nature of most Melanesian art, the products of the Polynesian craftsman and artist "were meant to endure being passed as heirlooms from generation to generation" (p. 78). This characterization applies to the generations of the past when the Polynesian arts were flourishing and the traditional social structure was still more or less intact. It may even apply to the present generation, at least in a situation where the influence of tradition is still important. This was witnessed by participants of the Second Inter- national Symposium on the Arts of Oceania in 1978 who were the guests of the Maori community of Raukawa Marae at Otaki, New Zealand, where during their visit to the mleeting-house they were shown certain précious heirlooms, products of outstanding craftsmanship and art objects of great beauty, which were in the possession of one of the leading male members of the community. The durability and beauty of Polynesian objets d'art — and the tremendous amount of time and energy involved in the manufacture of a great many of them — are explained by the structure of Polynesian society and the relation of man to his gods: ". . . objects were visual symbols of status, rank, and power and were important indicators of hierarchical order among gods, priests, chiefs, and people. Interwoven with the importance of objects in rank and status was an emphasis on appropriateness for the occasion" (p. 79). After her concise and intelligent characterization of the nature and functions of Polynesian art, Kaeppler moves on to a discussion of the main style areas localized in 10 islands and island groups, including Fiji. Here she concentrates, for each area, on the art objects illustrated in the photographs, providing interesting information on the roles played by them in the social and religious life. The final chapter contains a summary of Maori art by Gathercole. The subjects discussed are the Maori classification of auditive artforms, the significance of the marae for the art of wood-carving, the influence of metal tools, the curvilinear style in carving, and continuity and change in Maori art. The collection of outstanding objets d'art displayed in the exhibition is presented in this book by way of a systematic survey of the art of Oceania. The objects are placed in their cultural context, and are described and commented on as elements of the culture of the island group or región to which they belong. They are also regarded as mosaics in the colourful pattern of Oceanic culture as a whole. Thus the book not only gives an idea of the variety of art forms and style areas in the Pacific, but also provides the reader with valuable information on the meaning of this art and the function of the art objects concerned.

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This information is based on the results of research carried out in museums and in the field. The relevant publications are mentioned in the list of literature cited — to which a number of other titles should have been added to make it satisfactory from a scholarly point of view. This latter omission does not really detract from the quality of the book, 'however. The book will prove useful for the non-specialist reader interested in 'primitive' art in general and the art of the Pacific in particular, while museum anthropologists will find it valuable as a reference book. More- over, one would wish to see it in the hands of students of anthropology intending to specialize in the material culture and art of Oceania.

Mario Vassallo, From Lordship to Stewardship, Religion and Social Change in Malta, The Hague, Mouton (Series Religion and Society 15), 1979. 270 pp. Price D.fl. 65.—. ADRIANUS KOSTER The Roman Catholic Church in Malta with its mediaeval pomp and splendour, its extraordinary number of priests and prelates, its con- troversial role in politics, and its petty parochial conflicts, could not help attracting the attention of anthropologists.1 The book under review, however, was not written by an interested outsider, but by a priest from the island who enjoyed some sociological training after completing his theological studies. This training must have aroused in him a zeal for quantification: the book contains no less than 25 tables giving figures on matters as varied as Maltese demo- graphic developments, 'Percentage Distribution of Sectoral Contribution GDP' (49), and professionals and ecclesiastical specialists. The book is an updated, improved and shortened edition of the author's thesis, Religion and Social Change in Malta (1974), which actually contained an even greater number of tables. I am afraid that any reader who is not conversant with conditions in Malta will not be able to see the wood for the trees. As it is, the relevant data are inserted in the text in rather a haphazard way, and the author moreover does not specify with which period in recent history he is dealing, so that the present reviewer is constantly in doubt whether it is the colonial period, the 20th century, the post-war period, or the period after the independence of Malta (since 1964) which is the subject of the author's analysis. The abundance of sociological jargon makes it often very difficult to find out what the author actually means — its use must be strongly deplored. The reader who is familiar with Malta will often find useful background information on Malta's economie and educational developments in general and on the Church dn particular. Religious practice, lay organizations, vocations, and the Church's relation to economics,

Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 09:51:38AM via free access Boekbesprekingen 183 educationj the family, the media, emigration and tourism are all dealt with in one way or another. The book also gives, in appendices, the names of ecclesiastical bodies and institutions, religious orders and lay organizations. It ends with an elaborate bibliography and two indices. It would take too much space to list all the points which may provoke criticism; hence the reviewer will confine himself to some salient points. The sections on politics are somewhat scant of factual information, and, as was mentioned above, are not systematically arranged, which makes it difficult to understand the true political role of the Church. The brief remarks on Lord Strickland's conflict with the Church repeat the totally unfair and one-sided view of the ecclesiastical establishment and the Nationalist Party in the thirties; besides, to call the stand taken by the Church in the 1962 general elections 'a-typical' (105) is ridiculous when it is recalled that this very same stand was the cause of the cancellation of the 1930 elections, and that this same stand again was adopted de facto in the 1932 and 1966 elections. It is somewhat baffling to see that the author has given up his politically noncommittal position assumed in the previous draft; instead, he now openly attacks Prime Minister Mintoff and his Malta Labour Party Government. Vassallo's representation of the Maltese Church is too harmonious, as if internal conflicts never occur at all. In actual fact, particularly in the period since the official termination of its conflict with the Malta Labour Party (1969), there have been a notable series of conflicts within the Church. Why does the author withhold from his readers the, undöubtedly first-hand, information he has on the struggle for financial reforms and for a more liberal attitude towards birth control, on the quarrels between ex-Archbishop Gonzi and his co-adjutor Gerada, on the reasons why the two stood down, and on the lack of trust between the present Archbishop and the majority of the clergy? Are not all of these manifestations of social change? Or does the collar here impede the scholarly dispensation of knowledge? How is the reader to find out about the hand-in-glove relationship between the Church hierarchy and the British colonial overlords? And why does the author ignore the fact that the recent curtailment of the powers of the Church took place much more on the diocesan than on die parochial level? 2 Is the a-typical religious life of the new parish of Santa Lucia, which satisfies only a few angry young priests who detest processions, more important to 'the reader? And to think that this could have been such an interesting book!

NOTES 1 Cf. Boissevain, Jeremy, Saints and Fireworks, Religion and Politics in Rural Malta, London, 1965; and Koster, Adrianus, Prelates and Politicians in Malta: Church-State Relations in a Mediterranean Island Fortress, forthcoming. 2 Cf. Koster, Adrianus, 'The Kappillani: The changing position of the parish priest in Malta', paper prepared for the Conference on Religion and Religious Movements in the Mediterranean, Amsterdam, 1979.

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Review of E. Utrecht, The Indonesian Army, volume one, South East Asian Monograph Series Number 4, James Cook University of North Queensland. (233 pages) Price A$ 4.00. CLIVE MOORE

Indonesia is run by Army generals, and the Army is run by corruption. To write truthfully about either the Army or corruption in Indonesia is a good way to become persona non grata there. Thus it is interesting to read Ernst Utrecht's The Indonesian Army, volume one, a study of the Army from its inception thröugh to 1975. Utrecht is well qualified to write about the subject. In the 1950s he was a member of the Indo- nesian Parliament and Sukarno's Supreme Advisory Council, as well as Professor of Law at two Indonesian Universities, in Sumatra and Sulawesi. More recently he has divided his time between Holland, the United States of America and Australia-, connected to the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and the Transnational Corporations Research Project in Sydney. His perspective is that of an Indonesian who has participated in the process of government, and that of a critical outsider looking enquiringly at the Indonesian military elite. The Monograph is not intended as a description of the structure of the Army, but as an analysis of the place of the Army as a favoured elite group in society. As such it succeeds and fails. Utrecht provides valuable insights into the workings of the Indonesian military machine, particulafly in the 1950s when he was closely involved with decision makers in the Army. It is very much the work of a participant in Indo- nesian politics; the persona'1 reminiscences of a man privy to the minds of the elite, and with a few old scores to settle. Some of his sources are very high-ranking men in the government. Utrecht's most interesting material comes from Zulkifi and Djoko Bambang Supeno, long-serving senior officers in the Army. Supeno was Sukarno's cousin who feil from grace, having crossed' swords with Nasution, and Utrecht holds him in high regard. Utrecht's information on Suharto's early corrupt behaviour While Commander of the Diponegoro Division in the 1950s comes from Hadisubeno Susrowardójo, the then Governor of Central Java. Another of Utrecht's strengths is his knowledge of the regional revolts against the Java-centered government by the outer regions in the 1950s. Throughout the book Utrecht makes perceptive comments on the work of Feith, Lev, Wilner, etc, and makes several interesting assess- ments of Ulf Sundhaussen's writing on the military. The Indonesian Army is easy to read, albeit almost journalistic in style. Even so it seems carelessly and too loosely written, as if it were a draft rather than the finished product. The section on the Army's "New Order" at the end seems rushed and ill-fitted to the rest of the book. Utrecht intends to publish a second volume to cover the period af ter 1975, so perhaps the two halves wi'11 one day 'be re-written as one. The Indonesian Army is a worthwhile addition to Sundhaussen's Doctoral thesis and monograph

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The Military in Indonesia, Rudolf Mrazek's The United States and the Indonesian Military 1945-1965, and Nugroho Notosusanto's The PETA Army during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia. More particularly, 'both Nugroho Notosusanto and Utrecht have written per- sonal accounts of the Indonesian elite f ram within: the former as a preserver of the status quo, Utrecht as a renegade.

Jonathan Friedman, System, Structure and Contradiction. The Evolution of 'Asiatic' Social Formations, Social Stu- dies in Oceania and South East Asia 2, The National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, 1979, 317 pp. ARIE DE RUIJTER

This stimulating and interesting study discusses the mechanisms and dynamics of development of Kachin society. Friedman analyses the structural tendencies in two different sets of conditions: (1) montane swidden agriculture and (2) plains agriculture. The first condition imposes limits of intensification on the expansionist social system due to social conflicts induced by the incompatibility between economie growth and the material conditions of reproduction. Under conditions of relatively constant population density, this situation leads to a cyclical pattern of equality — hierarchisation — revolt — equality, etc. However, when permanently increasing population density and ecological degra- dation co-exist, there ensues a series of transformations leading toward a politically acephalous and warfare-ridden social system based on competitive reciprocity. The second condition permits increasing intensification without significantly declining productivity, resulting in hierarchical developments in the direction of 'Asiatic' state structures. Friedman has concentrated on the internal characteristics, as if Kachin society is a totally autonomous, closed system. He has neglected the larger context in which the Kachin function. He 'himself acknowledges this objection. Hence we read in the preface that although he leaves the original manuscript — his 1972 Ph.D. thesis at Columbia university — largely intact, he no longer is in agreemeht with the kind of model presented in that thesis (p. 9). However, it becomes évident that he himself does not take this remark too seriously, because he also thinks that much of the validity of his original analysis can be maintained simply by very briefly sketching the place the Kachin occupy in a more encompassing system (p. 11). He conceptualizes this system as a center-periphery model, consisting of three concentric circles, containing respectively: (1) the centers of accumulation, (2) the peripheries or supply zones, (3) the primitive societies, such as the Kachin, "totally

Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 09:51:38AM via free access 186 Boekbesprekingen dependent upon loca'1 resources which are themselves limited by the expansionist nature of the centers" (p. 10). After this elaboration, his theoretical assumptions, including his general model of the social formation (pp. 21-56), his analysis of the Kachin in terms of this model (pp. 57-279) and his conclusions (pp. 280-286) follow. His conceptualization of the 'order of orders' of the social formation is based on Marx' elementary scheme, but incorporates some recent views. He starts from the existence of several levels. Within and between these leve'ls there are dialectica! relationships, though Friedman acknowledges the relative autonomy of each level. He a'lso states that "none of the levels of the social formation are to be considered as specific kinds of organization, but rather as sets of fundamental structural properties from which possible concrete forms can be generated" (p. 29). This kind of wording echoes structural marxism, a term frequently used by Friedman, although at the same time he feels a need to distinguish his kind of model from that of Akhusser and Godelier. He even considers the notion of 'structural causality' as entirely foreign to his approach, which is based on the assumption that "the only way to account for the existence of a social form is by laying bare the structural transformation by which it came into being, i.e. by accounting for its genesis . . . Determination is systematic and historical and not structural" (p. 19). However, the distinction between his 'systematic determination' and Godelier's 'structural determination' is, to me at least, far from clear. In his analysis, Friedman constantly discusses 'structural tendencies', 'structural dominance', 'structural in- version' and 'transformations ruled by interna! contradictions within the system', while his conception of the social formation clearly fits the structural marxist formulations of French anthropology. He defines the social formation as "containing a number of distinct levels which are articulated with one another in terms of a set of intersystemic constraints and are dominated by a particular set of relations of production whose internal properties determine the direction of development of the social formation within the bounds set by those constraints. The interplay of internal variation, structural dominance and intersystemic contradiction generates the multilinear development of the social formation" (p. 284-). I wonder if, by replacing "set of relations of production whose internal properties determine the direction of development of the social formation within the bounds set by those constraints" by "the logde of productive forces", one would lose more than a number of words. Friedman's need to distinguish his model from similar approaches is also evident in his comparison between a marxist and evolutionist framework. He typifies the evolutionist explanation of variation as a particular adaptation to a specific environment, so that individual social forms are "caused" by their environment, whereas in his approach variation is "the result of the reproduction of a system in changing conditions of production where, as with the Kachin, these conditions may be altered by the functioning of the system itself" (p. 285). It may be

Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 09:51:38AM via free access Boekbesprekingen 187 true that an evolutionist locates the source of variatdon in the environment, contrary to Friedman, who thinks the social system is the source, but the fact remains that in the evolutionist explanation a central place is reserved for the interaction between social system and environment, which as in marxism are seen as parts of one system. Finally, I do not agree with Friedman's evaluation of Leach, whom he accuses of "unwillingness to make truly explanatory statements about his evidence" and of having a "purely empirical notion of social structure" (p. 282). Let us be fair! In Political systems of Highland Burma (1954) — which, 'by the way, is missing in the bibliography, although Friedman refers to this study several times — Leach tells us that the egalitarian and the hierarchical forms of political-economic structure are historically related, and postu- lates that both forms tend toward their opposites in such a way that gumsa/gumlao variation follows a fixed cycle. Besides, he suggests reasons for the oscillatory nature of Kachin systems. I admit that one can quarrel about the degree of exhaustiveness, internal consistency and depth of Leach's explanation, but it is not justified1 to state that it is not until 1969 that "Leach's discovery that the two types are 'historically related 'has, finally, foecome reified into his oscillatory hypothesis" (p. 282).

C. R. Hallpike, The Foundations of Primitive Thought. Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979. 516 pp. Price £ 17.50. ARIE DE RUIJTER

I must confess that to start with — perhaps under the influence of debates between Hallpike and his opponents in Man (1977: 530; 1978: 477-8) — I was rather sceptical about the validity of Hallpike's use of developmental psychology to elucidate thought processes of primitive peoples. He uses Piaget's conceptual framework, which is the result of studying children in complex societies, to explore adult thinking in primitive societies, and further uses as principal data collective representations instead of the results of experimental work on adult individuals. I considered this research methodology highly questionable, to say the least. Now, after reading his arguments on the relationship between individual psychology and collective representations and the extent to which mental processes are determined by material conditions of life (see especially pp. 41-126), I find myself wondering whether my doubts are justified. However that may be, Hallpike's study is well thought- out, enlightening and thought-provoking. His basic hypothesis is that, "Quite apart from the institutionalized

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aspects of society, individuals construct representations of reality by their daily interactions with the physical and social environment in ways that are not themselves institutionalized, but are responses to the demands of real situations. Some of these are universal, since all societies and all natural environments have at least some features in common. This interaction is the basis of cognitive growth, which is governed by laws general to human beings in all societies, such that all normal individuals will progress through a sequence of developmental stages which ends at the stage of formal operations. However, they may not attain this level of thought if environmental conditions are insufficiently demanding. In other words, some ways of representing the world are more elementary than others and consequently will occur before more advanced representations in the development of every individual. In societies like our own these elementary forms of representation are inadequate for accommodation to the socio-physical environment, and so the individual is forced to reconstruct them at a higher level of mental functioning. But in primitive societies pre-operatory thinking is perfectly adequate for coping with the demands of everyday life and does not conflict with experienced reality so as to require pre-operatory thought to be reconstructed at the level of concrete or formal operations." (pp. 59-60.) To test this hypothesis Hallpike examines (a) the dialectical, inter- actionist theory of the development of ways of representing the world as worked out by Piaget, (b) the circumstances of primitive life relevant to this theory of cognitive growth, and (c) the general characteristics of primitive representations (among others of number and measurement, space, time, and causality). In this context Hallpike deals with some important issues, such as the relationship between language and thought and the differences between symbolic and linguistic systems. After comparing various kinds of collective representations, Hallpike characterizes thinking in primitive society in the following way: (1) it is bound up in rigid, irreversible associations between the phenomenal attributes of things; (2) it constructs systems of relationships which are of a concrete and affective type; (3) it is not analytic, so that its main type of classification is complexive; (4) it uses language as a means of social interaction rather than as a conceptual tooi; (5) it has no awareness of the possibilities of purely logical inference and deduction, while words are often thought of as having power in themselves and names as having an inherent relation with the thing named; (6) it is unable to grasp the notion of mind as the mediating factor between the external world and the experiencing subject ("It is this conceptual realism that is the basis of the projection of mental states into the external world, and of the parallel assumption that some mental states originate in the external world, with all that this implies for notions of causality"); (7) it is incapable of analysing process into a series of stages and reversible relations (pp. 486-7). So he concludes that "there is a striking consistency between later stages of pre-operatory thought and the

Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 09:51:38AM via free access Boekbesprekingen 189 characteristics of a wide range of primitive thought" (p. 480). This conclusion, by the way, may prompt a reappraisal of Lévy-Bruhl's ideas on the 'pre-logical' character of primitive thought.

J. H. Konter, Ujamaa: de ontwikkeling van een Afri- kaans socialisme. Van Gorcum & Comp. N.V., Assen/ Amsterdam 1978. Serie: Terreinverkenningen in de Cul- turele Anthropologie, nr. 11. Prijs ƒ22,50. J. J. DE WOLF

Deze terreinverkenning voorziet ongetwijfeld in een behoefte aan informatie over het Tanzaniaanse socialisme. Dit alternatieve ontwikke- lingsmodel, met een Swahili woord Ujamaa genoemd — wat zoveel betekent als gemeenschapszin of saamhorigheid — heeft in brede kringen belangstelling gewekt en kan op de sympathie rekenen van allen die de groeiende ongelijkheid in Afrika, veroorzaakt door een ongeremde kapi- talistische ontwikkeling, met zorg vervult. Terecht beklemtoont de auteur dat Ujamaa geen statische formule is maar een voortdurend veranderende dynamische werkelijkheid. Dit betekent overigens wel dat de kans bestaat dat de inhoud door nieuwe ontwikkelingen achterhaald is of zal worden. De auteur heeft dankbaar gebruik gemaakt van een werkstuk ge- schreven door een aantal studenten van de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Dit heeft er wellicht toe geleid dat de hoofdstukken elkaar vaak over- lappen en op verschillende plaatsen herhalingen voorkomen. Het meest originele gedeelte draagt als titel: "De economische nood- zaak voor een socialistische ontwikkeling". Het is gebaseerd op onderzoek dat de auteur in de tweede helft van de jaren zestig verrichtte bij de Nyakyusa, die in het zuidwesten van Tanzania bij Lake Malawi wonen. Zijn stelling is dat door het verdwijnen van onbetaalde samenwerking, waarop de traditionele zelfvoorzienings-economie berustte, de productie stagneert of zelfs terugloopt. Harder en langer werken leidt in veel gevallen slechts tot een marginale verbetering van het inkomen. Boven- dien wordt op rijke boeren voortdurend een beroep gedaan om armere dorpsgenoten te helpen op straffe van sociale isolering. Als de dorpe- lingen het hun ter beschikking staande areaal gezamenlijk zouden be- bouwen en de opbrengst gelijkelijk zouden verdelen, dan zou door een goede organisatie en specialisatie alleen al de productie kunnen stijgen en niemand zou ontmoedigd worden door het idee dat zijn of haar extra inzet alleen of voornamelijk aan anderen ten goede zou komen. Helaas vertelt de auteur niet of deze ontwikkeling zich inderdaad heeft voorgedaan bij de Nyakyusa. Maar zelfs indien het socialistische experiment hier een succes zou zijn geweest, dan is daarmee nog niet gezegd

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dat dit ook de aangewezen oplossing zou zijn voor economische stagnatie of achteruitgang elders in Tanzania. Op verschillende plaatsen in het boek wordt het beeld dat de Afrikaanse socialisten van de traditionele Afrikaanse samenleving hebben aanvaard, zonder dat nagegaan is of de realiteit hiermee in overeen- stemming was of is. Als men echter, zoals Nyerere, traditionele leef- patronen wil gebruiken voor de modernisatie van de samenleving, dan is het van essentieel belang te weten wat deze patronen waren in de verschillende culturen van Tanzania en in hoeverre deze nog steeds relevant zijn voor de bewoners van dit land. In het korte bestek dat de auteur ter beschikking stond was echter waarschijnlijk nauwelijks te ontkomen aan het gevaar van zulke onvol- doend gekwalificeerde generalisaties, maar voor een eerste oriëntatie is zijn beschrijving van het Tanzaniaanse socialisme zeker bruikbaar, tenminste voor de periode tot ongeveer 1975.

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