Sharing the earth, DiviDing the LanD Land and territory in the Austronesian world Sharing the earth, DiviDing the LanD Land and territory in the Austronesian world edited by ThomAs ReuTeR Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] Web: http://epress.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Sharing the earth, dividing the land : land and territory in the Austronesian world. Bibliography. Includes index. For tertiary students. ISBN 1 920942 69 6 (pbk.). ISBN 1 920942 70 X (online). 1. Ethnology - Asia, Southeastern. 2. Ethnology - Oceania. 3. Southeast Asians. 4. Pacific Islanders. I. Reuter, Thomas Anton. 305.800959 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. Cover design by Teresa Prowse Printed by University Printing Services, ANU This edition © 2006 ANU E Press Dedication This book is dedicated to all the people of the Asia Pacific whose land has been alienated in the wake of colonialism, modernity and development, and whose traditional insights into human beings' relationship with their physical environment have rarely received the serious consideration they indisputably deserve. i Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land Table of Contents List of Figures v Acknowledgments ix Chapter 1. Land and Territory in the Austronesian World Thomas Reuter 11 Chapter 2. The Origin Structure of Kute Among the Gumai: An Analysis of an Indigenous Territorial Institution in the Highlands of South Sumatra Minako Sakai 39 Chapter 3. Ritual Domains and Communal Land in the Highlands of Bali Thomas Reuter 65 Chapter 4. Banua or Negara? The Culture of Land in South Bali Graeme MacRae 83 Chapter 5. Tanah Berkat (Blessed Land): The Source of the Local in the Banda Islands, Central Maluku Phillip Winn 113 Chapter 6. Mapping Buru: The Politics of Territory and Settlement on an Eastern Indonesian Island Barbara Dix Grimes 135 Chapter 7. Traditional Territorial Categories and Constituent Institutions in West Seram: The Nili Ela of ’WELE Telu Batai and the Alune Hena of Ma’saman Uwei Christine Boulan-Smit 157 Chapter 8. From Domains to Rajadom: Notes on the History of Territorial Categories and Institutions in the Rajadom of Sikka E.D. Lewis 179 Chapter 9. We Are Children Of The Land: A Keo Perspective Philipus Tule 211 Chapter 10. Contending for Ritual Control of Land and Polity: Comparisons from the Timor Area of Eastern Indonesia James J. Fox 237 Chapter 11. Fataluku Forest Tenures and the Conis Santana National Park in East Timor Andrew McWilliam 253 Chapter 12. Self-Scaling the Earth: Relations of Land, Society and Body Among North Mekeo, Papua New Guinea Mark Mosko 277 Chapter 13. The Ways of the Land-Tree: Mapping the North Pentecost Social Landscape John P. Taylor 299 iii Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land Chapter 14. Finishing the Land: Identity and Land Use in Pre- and Post-Colonial North Ambrym Mary Patterson 323 Chapter 15. People and Place in Tonga: The Social Construction of Fonua in Oceania Steve Francis 345 Postscript — Spatial Categories in Social Context: Tracing a Comparative Understanding of Austronesian Ideas of Ritual Location James J. Fox 365 Contributors 379 Index 383 iv List of Figures Chapter 2 Map 1: Ethnic groups in South Sumatra province 42 Figure 1: Genealogy of Mandi Angin village 43 Figure 2: Genealogy of two Jungkuk of Tanjung Karangan village 46 Figure 3: Genealogy of the origin of the Mimbar of Mandi Angin village 49 Figure 4: Genealogy of Sugih Waras village 50 Table 1: Residential patterns of newly married couples in Gumai Talang between 1994 and 1995 (%) 52 Chapter 3 Figure 1: Ritual networks in the highlands of Bali 71 Figure 2: The path of origin and the ritual order of a domain (banua) 74 Chapter 4 Figure 1: Typical Desa layouts 88 Figure 2: The Pura Gunung Lebah network 93 Figure 3: The Wos Valley 94 Figure 4: The Upper Wos Valley: irrigation 95 Figure 5: The Upper Wos Valley: Rsi Markandeya’s journey 96 Figure 6: The Upper Wos Valley: barong migrations 98 Figure 7: The Upper Wos Valley: bale agung orientations 99 Figure 8: Upper Wos Valley: Puri Ubud patronage 101 Figure 9: Ubud territory in the late 19th century 105 Chapter 6 Table 1: Clan affiliation of households in six Buru villages 140 Table 2: Buru settlement patterns 141 Table 3: Noro of the spouses of Gebhain clan members in the villages of Wae Katin and Wae Loo 143 Map 1: Wae Katin, Wae Loo and surrounding villages 144 Map 2: Coastal immigrant communities on Buru 145 Map 3: Approximate location of coastal villages removed to Kayeli Fort in 1658 147 v Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land Map 4: Regentschap of Buru circa 1850 148 Map 5: Indonesian subdistricts (kecamatan): North-West Buru, North-East Buru and South Buru 150 Map 6: Regentschap of Buru perceived as historical vestiges of Buru ‘tradition’ (adat) in 1991 152 Map 7: The boundaries of desa territories on Buru Island 154 Chapter 7 Map 1: West Seram, Ambon and Uliaser 160 Figure 1: The tree of Nili Sapalewa Batai (circa 1903) 165 Figure 2: The land and settlements of Hena Ma’saman Uwei 171 Chapter 8 Map 1: Settlements and domains (tana) of Tana ’Ai 182 Plate 1: Remains of Mahé Mo’ang Hi’eng at Héwoklo’ang (1979) 186 Plate 2: Remains of the Mahé at Baomékot (1979) 186 Plate 3: Remains of the Mahé at Kangae (2000) 187 Plate 4: The organisation of the Rajadom of Sikka in the era of Mo’ang Don Alésu da Silva (Pareira unpublished [2002]: 12-13) 187 Figure 1: The Organisation of the Rajadom of Sikka in the Era of Mo’ang Don Alésu da Silva (after Pareira unpublished [2002]: 12-13) 188 Map 2: Clusters of placenames and villages identified with the Ten Sitting Lords 192 Map 3: Metzner’s reconstruction of the tana of Central Sikka. 194 Map 4: Dominican mission stations on Flores, Adonara and Solor in the 16th century (after Visser 1925: 292) 200 Map 5: Dutch administrative divisions of Flores, 1879-1907 202 Map 6: Dutch administrative divisions of Flores, 1907-09 202 Map 7: Dutch administrative divisions of Flores, 1909-31 203 Map 8: Political divisions of Sikka towards the end of the 19th century and before Dutch intervention in the border dispute between Sikka and Larantuka 204 Map 9: Political divisions of Sikka in the early 20th century after Dutch intervention 204 Map 10: Administrative divisions of Flores, 1931 to early 1950s 205 vi Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land Chapter 9 Map 1: The Keo Region of Central Flores 214 Figure 1: The founding ancestors of Worowatu and their descendants 224 Figure 2: Structure of precedence in dealing with Keo land cultivation 227 Figure 3: The genealogy of the Hadramis in Ma’unori 229 Chapter 11 Map 1: Lautem showing approximate location of the conservation zone 262 Chapter 12 Figure 1: Village, bush and daily transfers between them (after Mosko 1985: 36) 282 Figure 2: Body Space: inside, outside, inside everted and outside inverted 286 Figure 3: Classification of North Mekeo chiefly offices 288 Figure 4: The clan body and kofuapie relationships 291 Chapter 13 Figure 1: Land-tree one 306 Figure 2: Land-tree two 310 Figure 3: Lineal segmentation from a unity (left, after Rumsey 2001: 29), and serial bifurcation at specific nodal points (right) 313 Chapter 15 Figure 1: Territorial/social divisions of fonua 356 vii Acknowledgments The editor initiated the process culminating in the publication of this volume by organising an invited session at the annual conference of the Australian Anthropological Society in Perth in October 2000. This session was to explore changing concepts of territoriality and patterns of land distribution in the Austronesian world. My thanks go to the conference organisers for providing this initial forum, and to the participants for their contributions. Preliminary discussions identified land as a central concern in the traditional and modern lives of Austronesian-speaking peoples across the Asia Pacific, and revealed a number of common cultural themes in how the relationship between humans and the land is conceptualised in the region. I therefore proposed for these findings to be explored further in an intensive two-day workshop with a wide range of invited contributions to reflect some of the immense cultural diversity of the Austronesian world. Such a workshop was eventually held at The Australian National University in Canberra, on June 18-19, 2001. I would like to express my gratitude to the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (ANU) for hosting this event and contributing to the payment of participants' travel expenses. The more vital debt to be acknowledged here, however, is of an intellectual kind. The editor would like to thank Professor James Fox, in particular for his advice and support throughout the inception and publication of this volume. More generally, the contributors, many of whom are his former students, are indebted to Prof. Fox for encouraging us to share and deepen our understandings of the varied cultures of the Austronesian world by way of systematic ethnological comparisons. The present volume should be seen as a further contribution to the hugely successful series of edited volumes published as a direct or indirect result of the Comparative Austronesian Project at the RSPAS, of which Prof. Fox was the main initiator. I would like to thank Monash University for institutional support and the Australian Research Council for two successive fellowships and grants.