Origins, Ancestry And AlliAnce Explorations in austronEsian Ethnography Origins, Ancestry And AlliAnce Explorations in austronEsian Ethnography Edited by James J. Fox and Clifford sather a publication of the Department of anthropology as part of the Comparative austronesian project, research school of pacific studies the australian national university Canberra aCt australia Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] Web: http://epress.anu.edu.au Previously published in Australia by the Department of Anthropology in association with the Comparative Austronesian Project, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra 1996. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Origins, Ancestry and Alliance: explorations in Austronesian ethnography. Bibliography. ISBN 0 7315 2432 2 (print) ISBN 1 920942 87 4 (online) 1. Ethnography - Islands of the Pacific. 2. Ethnography - Asia, South East. 3. Kinship - Islands of the Pacific. 4. Kinship - Asia, South East. 5. Islands of the Pacific - Social life and customs. 6. Asia, South East - Social life and customs. I. Fox, James J., 1940- . II. Sather, Clifford, 1938- . III. Australian National University. Dept of Anthropology. IV. Comparative Austronesian Project. 305.899 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Typesetting by Norma Chin; drawings by Robert Nee/Neville Minch Cover design by Griffiths & Young Design/Bronwyn Dillon © The several authors, each in respect of the paper presented, 1996 This edition © 2006 ANU E Press Origins, Ancestry and Alliance Table of Contents Acknowledgements ix Chapter 1. Introduction James J. Fox 1 The Comparative Austronesian Project 1 Origins, Ancestry and Alliance 2 The Austronesian Language Context 2 The Discourse on Origins Among the Austronesians 4 Idioms in the Discourse on Origins 5 Precedence as Discourse and Practice 9 Origin Narratives and Historical Formations 12 Bibliography 13 Chapter 2. Hierarchy, Founder Ideology and Austronesian Expansion Peter Bellwood 19 Introduction 19 Early Austronesian Ranking: The Evidence 20 Founder-Focused Ideology Among Austronesian-Speakers 25 Founder-Focused Ideology: Some Instances 25 Initial Austronesian Expansion: Some Parameters 28 Founder Rank Enhancement and its Possible Significance 29 Some Afterthoughts 33 References 34 Chapter 3. The Elder and the Younger — Foreign and Autochthonous Origin and Hierarchy in the Cook Islands Jukka Siikala 43 In Principle, Everything is so Simple 43 Ngaputoru 45 Genealogy or Genealogies: Path and Birth 47 References 54 Chapter 4. Rank, Hierarchy and Routes of Migration: Chieftainship in the Central Caroline Islands of Micronesia Ken-ichi Sudo 57 Introduction 57 Socio-Political Organization 59 Oral History of Satawal: Chiefly and Commoner Clans 60 Two Legendary Homelands of the Caroline Islanders 62 Political Relationship Between Yap and the Outer Islands 63 Clan and Land 66 Conclusions 67 References 69 Origins, Ancestry and Alliance Chapter 5. “All Threads Are White”: Iban Egalitarianism Reconsidered Clifford Sather 73 Introduction 73 The Iban, Borneo, and the “Egalitarianism” Debate 75 Iban Egalitarianism 79 Equality and Adat 79 Egalitarian Leadership 81 The Concept of Pun 83 Objective Inequality and the Absence of Stratification 85 Equality and Hierarchy 91 The Political Economy of Traditional Inequality 94 Textiles and “Women’s Warfare” 98 Ritual and Hierarchy 100 Conclusion 103 References 105 Chapter 6. Origin, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism Among the Mandaya of Southeast Mindanao, Philippines Aram A. Yengoyan 113 Culture as Value and as Precedence 114 The Context of Mandaya Precedence and Egalitarianism 116 Conceptions of Precedence 118 Egalitarianism as Culture Value 124 Conclusion 128 References 129 Chapter 7. The Transformation of Progenitor Lines of Origin: Patterns of Precedence in Eastern Indonesia James J. Fox 133 Introduction 133 Precedence in Eastern Indonesia 134 The Concept of Origin Group: Genitor and Progenitor 135 1. The Mambai 136 2. The Ema 138 3. The Rotinese 139 4. The Atoni Meto 142 5. The Tetun of the Southern Plain of Wehali 144 6. The Ata Tana ’Ai 147 Comment and Conclusion 149 References 152 i Origins, Ancestry and Alliance Chapter 8. Origin Structures and Precedence in the Social Orders of Tana ’Ai and Sikka E. D. Lewis 157 Clans, Houses and History: The Origin Structure of Tana Wai Brama 157 Protogenitrix Lines and the Precedence of Houses Within Tana ’Ai Clans 158 The Generation of Houses Within Tana ’Ai Clans 159 Precedence and the Delegation of Authority in Tana Wai Brama 162 Precedence, Delegation and the Origin Structure of Sikka 163 Authority, Precedence and Delegation in Tana ’Ai and Sikka 168 Conclusion 174 References 176 Chapter 9. Precedence Among the Domains of the Three Hearth Stones: Michael P. Vischer 179 Introduction 179 Some Categories of the Social Order 180 The Ceremonial Cycles of the Domains of Water Buffalo Blood 181 Political and Ceremonial Alliance 186 The “Domains of the Three Hearth Stones”: Pre-Sacrifice 189 The Ko’a Ceremonial Cycle, 1985-1988: Categorical Inversion 191 Conclusion 196 References 197 Chapter 10. The Founding of the House and the Source of Life: Two Complementary Origin Structures in Buru Society Barbara Dix Grimes 203 An Overview of Buru 203 The Founding of the House 207 The Source of Life 212 Conclusion 216 References 217 Chapter 11. Histories of Diversity, Hierarchies of Unity: The Politics of Origins in a South-West Moluccan Village Sandra Pannell 219 Introduction 219 The Setting 220 “Histories” of Diversity 221 Hierarchies of Unity 226 Concluding Remarks 233 References 234 ii Origins, Ancestry and Alliance Chapter 12. Rivals and Wives: Affinal Politics and the Tongan Ramage Aletta Biersack 241 Complexities of Rank: Blood and Garland 243 Affinal Politics 247 Twentieth-Century Foundations 252 The Affinal Politics of the Twentieth Century 264 The King’s Body 270 References 274 Chapter 13. The Politics of Marriage and the Marriage of Polities in Gowa, South Sula Wesi, During the 16th and 17th Centuries F. David Bulbeck 283 The Wider Background 283 Background to Gowa 286 Methodology 291 Makassar Titles and Their Wider Equivalents 292 Correlations in Titulation Across Next-Of-Kin 295 Horizontal Links Between the Royal Cores 299 Makassar Status Lineages 301 Makassar Lineage Groups 302 Gowa’s Initial Expansion (c.1500-1593) 306 The Golden Period of Greater Gowa (1593-1667) 307 The Survivors (Post-1667) 307 Conclusions 313 Acknowledgments 314 References 314 Chapter 14. The Cultural Construction of Rank, Identity and Ethnic Origins in the Sulu Archipelago Charles O. Frake 319 References 329 Contributors 333 iii Acknowledgements This volume has been a long time in preparation. As a result, acknowledgement and thanks are due to the patience and forbearance of those contributors who waited for their papers to appear while this volume slowly took shape and then took its place in the queue for publication. A majority of the papers in the volume were initially presented at a conference of the Comparative Austronesian Project. For the organization of that conference and of the project in general, we wish to thank Annegret Schemberg for her efforts and enthusiasm. The cover of this volume was designed by Bronwyn Dillon of Griffiths & Young Design Pty Ltd. The textile that forms the background is a man's cloth of the Atoni Pah Meto of west Timor. The ikat centre of this cloth consists of anthropomorphic figures arranged in a succession of sizes, thus forming a kind of ancestral chain. The cloth is composed of a central warp ikat with multicoloured borders of woven cotton thread, each with a supplementary ikat stripe. The photograph on the front cover shows a recitation of origins among the Atoni. This photograph was taken in the central village of the Nabuasa clan in the mountains of southwestern Timor at a ceremony in which a high-ranking member of a branch of the clan, which had migrated from the centre generations earlier, returned to request a recitation of the chant that recounts the origin and migration of the Nabuasa clan. In the photograph, a woman holds a betel nut offering basket to the side of the main chanter. For reproduction of the textile, we wish to thank the National Gallery of Australia and the former curator of Asian textiles, Robyn Maxwell, who now teaches in the Department of Art History at The Australian National University. The photograph is from the private collection of the editor, James J. Fox. Figures and cartography in the volume were done by Robert Nee and Neville Minch of the Cartography Unit of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. As editors, we wish to express our particular thanks to Norma Chin for her considerable and unstinting effort in producing this volume. She has carried out deft copy-editing of individual papers, careful proofreading, the arrangement and formatting of the volume and the exacting preparation of the index. Since she also edited The Austronesians, she has provided vital editorial continuity to the series. We are particularly indebted to her for her skill, efficiency and determination to produce a volume that would be of scholarly value and of general interest. James J. Fox Clifford Sather April 1996 ix Chapter 1. Introduction James J. Fox This is the third in a series of volumes produced in the Departme of Anthropology from the work of the Comparative Austronesian Project.1 The first of these volumes examined the comparative design of Austronesian houses and related these spatial forms to the social and ritual practices of their resident groups. The second volume provided a general survey of the Austronesians focusing on their common origins and historical transformations. This third volume explores indigenous Austronesian ideas of origin, ancestry and alliance and considers the comparative significance of these ideas in social practice.