r Tefum Sfiosís Rin David Hicks State University ofNew York, Stony Brook WAVELAKD P R E SS, IN< Prospect Heights, Illinois í For information about this book, write or cali: Waveland Press, Inc. P.O. Box 400 Prospect Heights, Illinois 60070 (708) 634-0081 To my wife, Maxine Copyright © 1976 by David Hicks 1988 reissued by Waveland Press, Inc. ISBN 0-88133-320-4 All ríghts reservM. N$gart o f this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval System, or transmiite'a in any form or by any means without permission in writing fróm the publisher. Printéd in the United States of America 7 6 5 4 Confettis Acknowledgements v Editors’ preface vii 1 Fieldwork 1 2 Birth: The cycle opens 19 3 Ecology 3 8 4 The house 56 5 Kin and affines 67 6 Marriage 85 7 Death: The cycle closes 107 Glossary ot Tetum words 127 List of anthropological terms 131 Recommended readings 133 Bibliography 135 Index 137 Achnoroledgemenfs Besides those Caraubalo villagers mentioned in the following chapters, I wish to thank those villagers whose ñames do not appear but without whose help my field research would have been impossible, and the following individuáis and institutions for their assistance: the late Professor Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, Professor Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, Dr. Ravi Jain, Professor H. G. Schulte Nordholt, Dr. Barbara Ward, Mr. Ruy Cinatti, Dr. José Teles, Mr. John Burton, the Junta de Investigares do Ultramar, and the Frederick Soddy Trust. My fieldwork was made possible by a grant from the London Committee of the London-Cornell Project for East and Southeast Asian Studies which was supported jointly by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Nuffield Foundation. Before leaving for Indonesia I had the advantage of studying social anthropology at Oxford University in the scholarly havens provided by St. Edmund Hall in my first year and Exeter College in sub- sequent years. To the Principal and Fellows of St. Edmund Hall, and to the Rector and Fellows of Exeter College go my profound thanks. I am especially grateful for the honor the Rector and Exeter Fellows bestowed on me by my election to the Alan Coltart Scholarship in Anthropology in 1963-1964 and again in 1964-1965. Much of the material examined in this book was analyzed while I was a doctórate student at Oxford work- ing under the supervisión of Dr. Rodney Needham. My personal and scholarly debí to him is incalculable. Dr. Melody Trott, of California State College, commented on an earlier versión of the present text, as did Drs. Robert Edgerton and Lew Langness of the University of California, and my colleague at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Dr. W . Arens. With extraordinarily painstaking care Mr. Gene Tanke went over my entire manuscript and helped improve ít in many ways. Mrs. Mari Walker typed and retyped various drafts in her usual patient manner, and I thank her yet again. Many of my descriptions ofTetum life were first presented to my own freshmen and gradúate students at Stony Brook, and their reactions helped shape the account given here. I com- pleted this book while a Fellow of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (University of Paris) in 1976, and I wish to thank the SSR C Fellowship Panel in the U.K. and the EPH E in Paris for providing me with the op- portunity to exchange ethnographic information and discuss the inter- pretation of data with those of my French colleagues who have also carried out fieldwork on Timor— Drs. Brigitte Clamagirand, Claudine Berthe, and Gérard Francillon. Their contributions to the seminar series I gave from February to May helped me to regard my Tetum data from alternative points of view, and it was an agreeable experience work- ing with them. Drs. Pierre Smith and Dan Sperber provided me with sounding boards for certain of my ideas, and they, too, merit my thanks. It gives me special pleasure to remark on the encouragement Gabor Nadasty, Marietta Nadasty, Phyllis Newman, Jack and Nancy Garraway, and my mother, Anastasia Dorothy Hicks, have given me at different times while I was writing this book; and as an affectionate token of ap- preciation for the help she has selflessly given— and continúes to give— I dedícate it to my wife, Maxine. École Pratique des Hautes Etudes, University of Paris gtfifors preface Anthropology, like all scientific and artistic disciplines, is constantly changing so that research approaches once generally favored inevitably give way to new approaches over time. One of the most important developments in contemporary cultural anthropology is the attempt to analyze cultural phenomena in terms of their symbolic significance in- stead of, or in addition to, their structural, functional, and ecological significance. This approach has given rise to a new sub-discipline that is often referred to as symbolic anthropology. Because symbolic anthropology is such a new development its practitioners vary con- siderably in the ways they structure their studies; and because the sym­ bolic is abstract in its nature, its impact is often difficult to measure, analyze, and describe in concrete terms. For these reasons, there has so far been little published in the way of useful text materials for students who might wish to pursue their own studies in the field. W e believe this ac- count by David Hicks will help to rectify that situation. Religión, of course, is the primary arena for symbolic meanings and acts. Therefore it is not at all surprising that the advent of symbolic anthropology has been accompanied by a resurgence of interest in the study of non-Western, non-literate religions. This revival has been par- ticularly marked in British social anthropology, of which Professor Hicks is a representative. By concentrating on ghosts and kin in this analysis of the symbols employed in the ritual and myth of the Tetum society, vii Professor Hicks enables us to understand much of how the world view of the society relates to its religión. As he himself observes: “When we ex­ amine Tetum culture, taking the ritual relationship between ancestral ghosts and their human kin as our starting point, such different spheres as rituals, religious beliefs, kinship practices, oral literature, ecology, and architecture together blend into a single, expansive field of study.” Thus the book is not only a useful example of symbolic analysis, but it also demonstrates the functional integration of culture which has fascinated anthropologists for at least the past half century. David Hicks was trained in social anthropology at the University of Oxford under the late Professor E. E. Evans-Pritchard and Professor Rodney Needham. After winning a scholarship in anthropology at Ox­ ford he went to Indonesia to carry out fieldwork. W ith the material he collected there, he wrote one thesis that gained him his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford and another that earned him a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of London. The author of two dozen or so essays in anthropology, Dr. Hicks here presents his first book. Robert B. Edgerton L. L. Langness fieltarb 1 The malevolent soul was invisible. But the people who cali themselves the Tetum could sense its presence. Stretching out my hand to steady the cojfn housing the remains o f the well-known eider, Cai Tuli, I suddenly felt the restraining hand o f oíd Leal Soares. Another eider. Leal was a cautious man o f seventy. Both carne from the village o f Mane Hat (“the community o f the fotir brothers’l). That clammy afternoon on the equatorial isle of Timar, in In­ donesia, the cojfn bearers were heaving their barden around so recklessly I feared the corpse might be tossed out. Keeping my hold, I glanced sideways at him as he warned, “The soul o f the dead man is trying to re-enter the corpse. Stay clear! There’s danger here for you!” Was he feigning concern to stop me seeing the finale o f this fascinating ritual o f death? “I f all the soul wants is to return to the corpse, why should it bother me? I don’t wish to prevent it,” I replied. “Maybe. But that doesn’t count. The boys carrying the coffin are too strong. Soon it will be mad with anger,” he explained. “Take my advice, and stand back! We Tetum know what we are doing. The dead soul will vent its spite on someone ignorant o f its tricks.” For the sake o f peace I let the exchange end there. Leal led me to a safer place. Leaving the encircling forest, the funeral cortege hastened into the cemetery. M y chief purpose in this book is to show how ritual in a nonliterate com­ munity brings together many different facets of that community’s l culture— religious beliefs, kinship practices, literature, ecology, even the architecture of the house— and unites them in a comprehensive system. The community in this case is the population of the two villagesrof Mamulak and Mane Hat, which together make up the aristocratic half of a princedom known as Caraubalo. This princedom is found in one of the three main regions inhabited by the Tetum people of eastern Indonesia, among whom I lived and worked for fifteen months. Certain details of culture in Mamulak differ from those in Mane Hat, and I shall point these out when necessary. Otherwise, when making observations common to both villages I shall use the ñames Mamulak and Mane Hat in- terchangeably. T o put this first chapter in its proper context, here is a sketch of the book as a whole.