social relations of territorial management

7/29/2019 Social Relations of Territorial Management

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C. Friedberg

Social relations of territorial management in light of Bunaq farming rituals

In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Rituals and Socio-Cosmic Order in Eastern

Indonesian Societies; Part I Nusa Tenggara Timur 145 (1989), no: 4, Leiden, 548-563

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CLAUDINE FRIEDBERG

SOCIAL RELATIONS OF TERRITORIALMANAGEMENT IN LIGHT OFBUNAQ* FARMING RITU ALS/ . IntroductionAgricultural rituals may be considered a means of bringing into play theforces that a society deerns necessary for the control of its subsistence,hence of its reproduction. A nthropology has dwelled on this problem . Notonly has it shed light upon the way in which certain social actors areinvested as individuals, as heirs, or in the name of the group withoffices of ritual control over the fertility of the fields. It also has analysedhow these offices are embedded in the society's order of values.

The variety of actors among the Bunaq of Upper Lamaknen in Timorwho perform rituals conc urrent w ith agricultural practices from thetime of sowing to the con sum ing of the first fruits called for an e xam -ination of the complex social relations involved in obtaining a successfulharvest. It seemd particularly difficult to identify the various types ofcontrol exercised in this process.Theoretically, the phenomenon was simple enough: one will only pro-duce a good harvest if one upholds the exchange relationships with thebeings who a re at its origin. An thropologists following M auss havedem onstrated that such a pheno me non results from a principle inherent inthe social nature of mankind. Yet, who are these beings that conditionprosperity by acting on the soil, the climate and the plants? To deal withthese problems, each society develops a procedure that refers back to the

organization of relations between people through the intermediary ofofficiants of different status.Before discussing these phenomena, some general remarks about thesocial organization of the Bunaq of Up per Lam akn en must be ma de. Thesewill furnish the background for understanding the agricultural ritualsobserved in Abis, a village situated at an altitude of nearly 800 metres,whose territory is bounded in the Southeast by East Timor.1

1 This description, though set in the present tense, results from fieldwork carried ou t betw een1966 and 1973. Since then, the Lamak nen Bunaq have experienced the turmoil ensuingfrom the political changes taking place in Portugal in April 1974. Portuguese Timor wasinvaded by the Indonesian arm y in late 1975 . Lam akne n, a subdistrict (Indon. kecamatan)of the district (Indon. kabupateri) Belu, was located on the Indones ian side along the bo rder.Although the Bunaq initially fled from the territory, most of them returned once peace

* The transcription q is employed here to indicate a glottal stop.


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Bunaq Farming Rituals 5492. The social organization of the Bunaq of Upper Lama knenTh is society's basic un it, both in ritual an d in econo m ie term s, is the ho use(deu), each of which ha s a nam e. Houses maintain relationships qualifiedas malu ai (a contraction of malu ai baqa), which define the direction inwhich wo men and certain goods circulate. As malu, houses give wives andfeminine goods (pigs and cloth), whereas as ai baqa, they receive wivesand give masculine goods (formerly gold, silver and water buffalo, butnowadays money and cows). Although the circulation of goods is reacti-vated during ho use celebrations (such as on the occasion of the recon struc-tion or repair of the house, and of funerals), and even though the relationsbetween malu and ai baqa play an essential part in the rites which d eal w ithpeople's health and 'the flow of life', not many women actually circulatebetween the houses. This results from the fact that marriage is usuallyuxorilocal, and each spouse continues to belong to his or her house oforigin while the offspring belongs to the house of the mother. In anothertype of marriage, however, the woman is represented metaphorically asa cutting that is transplanted in the ai baqa house. She and her offspringthen become members of her husband's house, in which she inauguratesor continues a descent line called dil. On this type of marriage themalu - ai baqa relationship is founded.

Although a house may maintain as many as fifteen malu relationships,there are never more than three to six dil per house. These dil are recog-nized as grou ps descen ded from different malu, and are perpetuated insidethe house by the contraction of uxorilocal marriages. Carrying the nameof its house of origin, eac h Jj'/keeps the prop erty, sacred ob jects or insigniarepresenting the offices which have been passed through w ome n from a man to his uterine nephew. Furthermore, there are sacred objectscom mo n to all house m em bers. This conc erns in particular the objects thatrepresent their life-force; these are said to be their 'roots'.

In summ ary, every Bu naq belong s to the house of his mo ther at the timeof his birth. If his pare nts co ntrac ted an ux orilocal m arria ge , then his fatherbelongs to a different house from his mother's, and he will return therewhenever the performance of ceremonies requires this. But if his parentsmarried virilocally, then his father and mother belong to the same house,but to different dil. In bo th c ases, his father can only pass on to his son thegoods acquired during his lifetime.Formerly, all house members lived in single lineage houses. The onlypersons who no wad ays reside there are the guardian s of the house's sacredobjects. They are a classificatory brother and sister pair descending fromthe ancestors who founded the house. They are called taka guzu hone was restored. In the meantim e, Abis was burned dow n. Because of its border location,I have not been able to visit Lamaknen again since these events took place. I have metBunaq in Atamb ua and noticed that their l iving conditions have ch anged considerably. Aroad su itable for mo tor traffic now crosses the A bis area, wherea s in former days this couldonly be reached on horseback, and water mains have been laid.


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550 Claudine Friedbergmone, 'man holding the black basket ' , and taka guzu honepana, 'womanholding the black basket ' . Sometimes a young couple lives there as wellto help them with their daily chores.

The last major traditional conflict took place at the beginning of thecentury, whereupon the two coloriial powers occupying Timor imposedpeace. Since then, increasing numbers of Bunaq have been leaving themore or less fortified villages which for strategie purposes were locatedon high sites, and have set up family dwellings near water supplies. Thusscattered, the house members only return to their lineage house for theperformance of ceremonies.Each lineage house has its altars, some of which are set up inside thehouse and others outside. Within the house, the main altar is located at the

foot of one of the two pillars that support the ridge-pole. This particularpole is called lor bul2 and stands opp osite the hearth. Outside altars includethose located at springs, and those employed in case of war.Lineage houses are grouped into villages (tas), and each village has itsown territory. Inside the village, there is a collective village altar calledbosok o op, 'altar and height', which represents the life-force of theinhabitants. This village altar is also called pana getel mone goron, ' rootof women, leaves of men'. This is a metaphor of vitality: leaves move androots enable a plant to seek the necessary water. The longer the root, the

longer the plant's life. So people may express their wish for a long life bysaying i etel legul, 'let our roo t be long!'; or i etel huruk, 'let ur root b e cool!'Coolness in association with water symbolizes fertility, whereas heat isassociated with danger and death.

Not all lineage houses have the same status. Thus there are noble housescalled sisal tul, 'bone piece'. This refers to the rule that a specific share ofritually offered anim als contain ing a bone is due to them (F riedberg 198 7).However, not all noble houses have the same status either. The higheststatus is attributed to the house of the 'feminine chief. He is the one w hosettles problems arising within the village. Then comes the house of the'masculine chief, who deals with the relationships between the village andthe outside w orld. Other noble ho uses hold the office of aide to the villagechiefs, or else are considered as 'door' to the houses of those chiefs.Although they wield an 'extended power' (pe nolaq), the 'feminine' and'masculine' chiefs are subordinated to the ritual chiefs of their house. Thelatter wield a 'restricted power' (oe til) in the internal affairs of the house.The oe til is the guardian of the house's sacred objects. As in all houses,

No Bunaq was able to translate lor, which is also used in Tetun (Franc illon 1967) todesignate the house pillar at the foot of which rites are executed. According to Fernandes(1964), this word in Tetun means 'south' or 'toward the sea', in contrast with rae, ' nor th 'or 'tow ard the lan d'. Hence this word can be taken to refer to a direction, like lor'm Javaneseor kelod in Balinese. In Abis, all lor pillars in the lineage house stand on the side towardthe village's collective altar (Friedberg 1973).


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Bunaq Farming Rituals 551whether noble or commoner ones, the guardian is the man of the classi-ficatory bro ther and sister pair mentio ned abov e. Th ese guard ians officiatein all rituals, whether agricultural or not, whether individual or collective.

The U pper Lam aknen say that when their forefathers migrated into theirpresent territory they chased away or killed the Melus. The name Melusdoes not refer to any known population of Timor, and I could never obtainprecise information about the Melus. Might it be a general term me aning'native'? Does it refer to the Dawan, a people who live at present inWestern Tim or but m ay have inhabited a m uch larger territory in the past?Or were they Tetun, the people who settled between the Bunaq and theDawan, and spread along the northern and southern coasts?Neither have I been able to learn anything about the Melus language;yet such information would be helpful, since the Daw an and Tetun, unlikethe Bunaq, speak Austronesian languages.It is also difficult to teil whethe r the Bunaq a nd M elus once interm arried .The genealogies recorded do not reveal tnalu - ai baqa relationshipsbetween Bunaq and Melus.The Melus who lived in Abis were chased from the land by means oftricks. However, after having fled before the Bunaq, three members ofSabaq D ato , the 'feminine' chief s house of the Melus, cam e back andhanded over the Melus' sacred objects, including their village altar (bosoko op), to the new inhab itants of their house. One of these three Melus w asa woman who was past child-bearing age. This detail dispenses with thepossibility of a M elus dil among the present Bunaq members of the houseSabaq Dato.3According to the genealogical texts preserved by the 'Masters of the W ord',the ancestors of the principal lineages were bom from a primeval couplein the upperw orld. Fro m this world, which is divided into seven layers, theancestors brought the heirlooms inherited from the parental couple. Thetexts further teil about their migra tions on Tim or, and about the fou ndation after having approac hed L am akne n of the houses, about the con-traction of the first malu - ai baqa alliances, about the transfer of theinsignia of power and the organization in villages.4 The texts also speakabou t the tilling of the first fields and the crops plan ted. A lthough it is not

Nonetheless, a member of this house pointed out to me, in Atambua, a descendant of hishouse's Melus lineage.Two phenomena seem to be combined so as to mix up the history of how the Melushanded over the title of feminine chief to the newly arrived Bunaq. First of all, the latterrefuse to adm it they might be descende d from the Melus. Secondly, inheritance migh t havechanged from patrilinear among the Melus to matrilinear among the Bunaq. A similarambiguity figures in genealogies: inheritance seems to be patrilinear when talking aboutthe itineraries of the first ancestors, but matrilinear when explaining, looking back fromthe present, how a house has inherited its offices.Louis Berthe, the first ethnologist to work among the Bunaq, has recorded several of theancestors' itineraries {bei gua). For those of the three main lineages, see Berthe 1972.


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552 Claudine Friedbergstated explicitly, the Bunaq say that their ancestors brought these plants,or their seeds, from the upperworld.When the jour ney of one of the main lineages had broug ht the Buna qin the vicinity of Lamaknen at the time the fields should be prepared, theyonce again asked their parents in the upperworld for seeds. After severalincidents, Bei Suri, an autochthonous man who had joined the Bunaqancestors, was burned on a field altar as the trees from the cleared landwere set on fire. Several prose versions of this mythical episode explainhow all the crops, including the maize (which is known to have beenbrought to Timor by the Europeans), issued from parts of the sacrificedhero's body. Versified versions, however, only mention a few varieties ofrice. And in Upp er La m akn en, rice is still the ceremonial food, even thoughit is grown less than maize.3. The yearly farming ritualSince an exhaustive description of all farming rites cannot be presentedhere (see Friedberg 1974, 1977, 1980, 1982), let us concentrate on theones which m ost clearly reveal the social relationships brought into play.3.1. From the dry to the rainy seasonThe farming season starts before the rains arrive, which usually occursbetween October and December. Then the fields are cleared by slashing,cutting and burning, and the 'Lord of the Seeds' and the 'Masters of theRice' set the dates for a whole series of ceremonies.

The 'Lord of the Seeds' belongs to the house whose ancestors wereinvolved in the mythical episode that deals with the sacrifice of Bei Suriand the origin of the seeds. This house is not a noble one. The 'Mastersof the Rice' are the guardians of the sacred objects of: the houses of the 'feminine' and the 'masculine chief (oe til); the three houses that descended from the latter houses, and that werethe first to be founded in Abis (taka guzu hone mone); the house of a 'feminine chief from another village whose land is nowincorporated within the territory of Abis (this and other houses fromthis village sought refuge in Abis after their village was destroyed bya landslide); the guardians of the sacred objects of the house Sabaq Dato, the heirto the M elus 'feminine' chie f s house.The ritual precedes the sowing and involves several days of hunting. Themen range over the village's territory in search of game, wild pigs inparticular. For the rest of the year, the Bunaq no longer hunt as much asthey used to . As the population is increasing, more and more land is com ingunder cultivation and game is becoming scarce. Now and then they beatthe countryside, not so much in order to procure game as to keep wild


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Bunaq Farming Rituals 553anima ls from dam agin g the crops. In the ritual hunt, howe ver, the me aningof game is much more complex.

In this first act of the ritual cycle, game is related to the kukun ('theobscure ones'). This refers to invisible beings, that is, the deceased or thespirits of particular places. They are opposed to the roman ('the clearones'), that is , the living. Th e kukun are in partic ular the spirits of dece asedMelus whom the Bunaq conceive to be the actual pan o mukgomo ( 'heavenearth master ') . They are the 'masters of the land', and hence the 'Mastersof the Game'.Scattered over the territory there aresmall, inconspicuous altars builtfrom a few stones. These muk kukun ( 'earth obscure') are the sites whereone co mm unic ates with these spirits. Ne ar the village is the m ain a ltar. On

the eve of the first day of the ritual hunt, the 'Lord of the Seeds' surroundsthis bro ad pile of stones with a liana , and ties its end s to two stake s p osteda few centimetres apart. This liana conceptually encircles the pigs andprevents them from escaping save through this narrow gate. Here thehunters can lie in wait.The next day, when the hunters beat the cou ntryside, the 'Ma sters of theRice' go to the muk kukun altar located in the area selected for the hunt.They offer betel, some alcoholic drink, and the feathers of a living chick,so that the 'Masters of the Land' will release the game, and in particular

the wild pigs. Th e 'M asters of the R ice' then lie down around the altar andfeign to fall asleep, so that the pigs will also be asleep. This will make iteasier for the hunting dogs to start them up. This act reveals anotherm eaning attributed to the gam e. It is said that the hun ters are looking forlolon win ('stalk ears'), terms referring to the staple grains maize andrice. Moreover, the hunters who kill or wound the wild pigs do not receivethe share of the meat which is due to them in an ordinary hunt. All gameis hand ed over to the 'Lord of the Seeds' wh o, acco m panied by the 'Mastersof the Rice', will eat it in the course of the ritual cycle. Only during thefinal ritual will the hunters receive large baskets of cooked rice in return.In the evening of the first day of the hunt, the game is brought to thevillage, where it is welcomed by a woman of the house of the 'Lord of theSeeds' with betel, as one welcomes a guest. Then one performs a ritualcalled hoto boto hosok ('welcome the smoke of fre'). This phrase signifiesthe reception, by the 'Lord of the Seeds' and the 'Masters of the Rice' onthe collective village altar (bosok o op), of the seeds issued from the corpseof Bei Suri. One of the 'Masters of the Word' sacrifices a cock with fieryred feathers, by clubbing it to death. He does not cut its throat as isnormally don e to prevent cutting the 'roo ts ' of the seeds. He recites a

text of welcom e and addresses a praye r to the 'Masters of the village altar ' .This title refers to the Melus who had erected this altar, and to the firstBunaq who inherited it and whose descendants are its present guardians.The cock's caecum is examined to augur the agricultural season and its


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554 Claudine Friedberg

/ . A t ae r e of the Rice at a muk kukun altar (some stones on the soil at thefoot of a big tree)offering betel to the Masters of the Land.

2. A t e O T o /? ^e ^ c e a t the village altar (thepile ofstone s on the rightjfor the hoto boto hosokntual A M aster of the Word is offering a cock withfkry redfeathers and reciting the ritual textwelcoming the seeds.


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Bunaq Farming Rituals 555climatic conditions. The cock is boiled and carved, and the pieces areplaced, with cooked rice brought in small baskets by village women.Som e of these are offered to the village altar. The ba ske ts placed on topof the altar are then handed over to the house of the 'feminine chief; th eones placed at the bottom are passed on to the house Sabaq D ato, the hou seof the 'feminine chief of the Melus. One basket is offered to Bei Suri, themythical hero from whose burned corpse all cultivated plants have comeforth. This bask et is recov ered by the 'Lord of the Seed s'. Th e other b ask ets,finally, are distributed among the hunters.

In the night preceding the third day of the hunt, the 'Lord of the Seeds'and the 'Masters of the Rice' silently so that the predator animals willnot notice carry the mat, considered to contain the seeds, to anotheraltar. At this altar, called lataq and situated at the village limit, other ritualsare performed which serve to protect the seeds from the anim als, birds andinsects that might eat them even before they have sprouted. To that pur-pose the animals are symbolically fed with rice and chicken meat.During the afternoon of the third day, the members of each house visitits graves bringing fruits and especially prepared cakes. There they meetwith the m em bers of their malu houses, who have also brought cakes andfruits. After they have been offered to the dead, the gifts are handed overto the members of the ai baqa houses who have come to fetch them.

The next day, after the last hunt has been completed, a final collectiveritual is performe d.5 Women from all the village houses bring cooked riceto the lataq altar, where they hand it over to the 'Lord of the Seeds'. Thisrice will be redistributed among all the hunters who have wounded orkilled pigs. The first heavy rains are expected to fall at this very moment,and this was what actually happened on both occasions I witnessed theritual.6 The coming of the rains is an aspect of the ritual cycle that cannotbe further d iscussed he re. It is associated with the sacrifice of Bei Suri, whoasked the people to stop crying, and subsequently was turned into a birdthat augurs the rains (Friedberg 1980, 1982).From the next day onwards, one can begin to sow the field.7 Actually,a ritual must be performed at each field altar, in which a piglet and a goatare slaughtered. Th e piglet 's blood, considered to be 'cool' , serves to 'coo l'Herein, the simplest ritual is described. Every three years, a longer, more complicatedceremony is held during which a text is sung, for a day and night, about the 'itinerary ofcultivated plants' (a gua) to Lamaknen. This ceremony probably corresponded to theclearing of a new field in triennial fallow rotation (soron). Every house used to have fieldsin each phase of rotation.The effectiveness of these rites obviously depends on setting their date to coincide withthe first heavy rains. The success of the harvest depends on this timing. About the signsused to set this date, see Friedberg 1973, 1982.Th e soil, after being b urned off, is sown without being work ed. A digging-stick (nut) witha m etal blad e 8 to 10 centim etres wide at its end is used to place the seeds in the soil. Th esame tooi is used for weeding. There are no irrigated rice fields in Abis. Elsewhere inLamaknen, such fields are prepared by having the water buffalo or cows tread them.


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556 Claudine Friedbergthe seed; for in the Bunaq symbolic system, 'coolness' is associated withfertility. The goat is thought to carry on the tip of its horns the 'souls' (melo)of the trees felled while clearing the land, to the upperworld.

During my presence, these rituals were no longer performed, un-doubtedly because one no longe r could afford them . Yet I witnessed peopleperform collectively a symbolic 'cooling' ritual at the village a ltar (bosoko op) for the benefit of the agricultural activities of all the inhabitants. Theritual for the souls of the trees are no longer carried out, perhaps becausethe same felds are cleared over and over again, and the trees no longergrow tall enough to require such a ritual. However, one argued that if afarmer would have good harvests in successive yea rs, he should be carefulto perform the ritual lest he falls ill.3.2. Prohibitions on the harvestsBefore the crops are ripe, general prohibitions are imposed upon allharvesting. One by one these have to be lifted before the crops can bereaped. The person who is in charge of this is called kapitan, and he isassisted by several makleqat ('to hear to see').8 Each makleqat sees to it thatthese rules are adhered to in a specific section of the territory. The kapitanhimself is the assistant to the hohon niqatgomo, 'Master of Firstfruits' (alsocalled kosoq zobel turul wezun gomo, 'M aster of Sprouts, of the San dalwo odand Beeswax').The office of makleqat is not a hereditary one, but can be assigned byth e kapitan to any house in the village. However, the office of 'Master ofFirstfruits' and that of his 'secular arm', the kapitan, belong to particularmatrilineages. In Abis, this is the hou se Sabaq D ato, heir to the Melus h ouseof the ' feminine chief.3.3. The first harvestsThe first crops to be harvested are mangoes and candlenuts. Once picked,they must be brought to the village meeting-place. First, the entire mangoharvest is redistributed. One starts with the top of the hierarchy, the housesof the 'femin ine' and 'masculine chiefs' receiving the largest shares. Then ,th e kapitan gives a part of the candlenuts to the ' feminine chief, and keepsthe rest in store for general use.3.4. From the rainy to the dry season: the maize and rice harvestsAs soon as the 'Master of Firstfruits' deerns it necessary for the sun tocontribute to the maturation of the rice, he asks the kapitan to organizea series of rituals to ward off the rain and to attract the sun. The first takes8 Kapitan belongs to a group of words used in Timor to refer to certain social and politicaloffices borrowed from the Portuguese, probably through the intermediary of the half-breedTopasses. About the colonization of Timor, see Schulte Nordholt (1971) and Fox (1967) .

Makleqat is used in Tetun for the same office (Francillon 1967). In fact, many Tetun wordshave passed into the Bunaq's mythical and ritual language.


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Bunaq Farming Rituals 557place at a spring altar owned by the house Sabaq Dato. In the nearbyorchard, one gathers 'medicines' (roots, dry pieces of bark) that can repelhum idity. People take these to their field altar s, where they p erform a ritualthat attracts the sun. Each one erects a bamboo pole to which a youngsugar palm is at tached in a circle representing the rays of the sun. Thekapitan is the first to perform this ritual at his field altar; the last to do sois the officiant of the house of the 'feminine chief. The latter then carriesa basket of rice to the 'Master of Firstfruits', who brings it to the villagealtar, and sets the date for lifting the prohibition on harvesting the maize.

That sam e evening, the prohibition on harvesting the areca nuts is lifted.The nuts are collected by the makleqat on the village altar, and thenredistributed among the hou ses, from the top of the hierarchy dow nwards.Again the houses of the ' feminine' and 'masculine chiefs' receive thelargest shares.

Next morning, the prohibition on harvesting the m aize is lifted. Actu ally,this concerns the maize that has matured late, and that will be stored forthe year to come. The maize ripened earlier has already been picked andeaten by the house holds w hose stores from the previous year had been usedup. Each house brings to the village altar a certain num ber of maize stalksand ears. As in all other rituals in which harvest prohibitions are lifted,these offerings are first laid out on the altar and at its base. The 'Masterof the Words' recites a text, thank ing the Masters of the altar, that is, theMelus and the first Bunaq ancestors to arrive at Abis. There upon the stalksand the ears are redistributed. Now the house of the ' feminine chiefreceives nine of them, that of the 'masculine chief seven, etcetera. Someof these ears are taken to the graves, together with cakes and fruits, andthe exchanges between malu and ai baqa houses, mad e at the occasion ofthe sowing ritual, are repeated.

That evening, in each lineage house another ritual is performed. Theguardians of the house's sacred objects offer some of the consecrated earsto the sacred objects themselves, to the founding ancestors of the house,and to those ancestors who have returned to the upperworld.Now only the rice still remains to be harvested. Instead of a collectiveritual to lift the harvest prohibition, a ritual is performed in the fields tocall the 'soul ' {meld) of the rice, so that the ears will be full of grains andth e kukun, the 'Masters of the Land', will not steal them. To that purpose,one uses a silver disk that is conceived to be the seat of Bei Suri duringthe entire harvest period, and a bundie of 'medicines'. Each house ownssuch 'medicines', which serve to ward off the 'Masters of the Land ' andto increase the yield of the erop. A small pig is sacrificed, and its meat andrice from the previous year are put into baskets. These are offered to BeiSuri, to the field altar, to the four corners of the field, to the springs thatwater the field, and, finally, to the village altar. This last basket is usuallygiven to the highest ranking noble present, although it should be presentedto the 'feminine chief. The other baskets are handed over to the owners


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558 Claudine Friedbergof the fields. Other baskets prepared for the ancestors and for the nearestaltar of the 'Masters of the Land' are divided among the people workingin the fields.After the rice harvest has been completed, a final ritual takes place ineach lineage house. It concerns the consumption of the first fruits of therice, in which the ancestors from the upperworld are invited to partake.It is on this occasio n th at one dec ides on the rituals celebra ted by the housein the com ing year. D ates are set for repairing the roof, for rebuilding thehouse altogether, or for the funerary ritual in which the house memberswho hav e died since the previous ritual will be conducted to the primo rdialancestors. In all these rituals, goods will circulate between the malu andai baqa partners of the house.4. Operational levels and social relations in the agricultural ritualsThe analysis of the yearly cycle of rituals reveals several levels of oper-ation. First, there is the village, which constitutes an auton om ous ritual unitto which all ritual officiants belong. The altars are located within itsterritory and there the entire cycle takes place. This autonomy is charac-teristic of the Lamaknen villages. In the neighbouring Bunaq territory ofDomon Siwe in eastern Timor, a single lataq altar pertains to severalvillages; together these constitute the ritual unit. Among the Tetun andDawan of western Timor, the fertility rituals are performed by rulerswhose territories comprise several villages.

Th e house represents a second level. Rituals are performed at its altarsinvolving the house's sacred objects and relating to its ancestors. The field,fnally, is also a place of symbolic manipulations.At each level, however, elements are called upon which refer to thevillage as a global society. Other elements stress the fact that the societydep end s for its very existence u pon a flow of life-force. T his flow origin atesin th e malu houses that are sometimes far removed in time and space; andit reaches the ai baqa houses, which may belong to different villages. This

calls for a detailed analysis of the way in which these elements arearticulated.In the rituals preced ing the sow ing of the crops , it is the village as a w holethat comes to the fore. As a structured collectivity it is entitled to the rightto exploit its territory. Thu s, on several occ asion s the represe ntativ es of thepolitical hierarchy, who are the guardians of this right, and who shouldguarantee the village's territorial integrity, partake in the rituals. Thisoccurs in particula r w hen a w elcom e is paid to the seeds on the collectivealtar of the village, a symbol of the life-force of all its inhabitants. How-

ever, the territory does not only belong to the Bunaq inhabitants. It is alsooccupied by the invisible kukun, wh o are not subject to the authority of theliving. Rather than to attempt to reconcile these kukun, one seeks tosymbolically transform the game, which the earth produces when it isunder their control, into a harvest that is due to the efforts of man.


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Bunaq Farming Rituals 559Yet this harve st not only depen ds upon the kukun, but also upon the seedswhich the Bunaq ancestors received from the primordial ancestors in theupperworld, and which they brought with them when they arrived atLamaknen. Although each lineage has particular heirlooms, only a de-scen dan t of the m ythical a nce stor, who first received the seeds of cultivatedplants, regulates all agricultural rituals. He does not officiate alone, how-ever. He is acco mp anied by the 'Masters of the R ice', the guardian s of thesacred objects of the first Bunaq houses established in Abis.Possessing the seeds does not gu aran tee a harvest. They must g erm inate,grow, flower and bear fruit. The plants must perpetuate the flow of life-force, just as the malu - ai baqa relationships do.Exchanges at the graves bear witness to the manner in which the flow

of life-force traversing the houses is rooted in the soil of Abis. These ex-changes underline the parallel drawn by the Bunaq between the repro-duction of people and that of plants. Just as the dead are buried, but theflow of life-force continues through their offspring, likewise plants dieafter having borne the seeds that will be planted.Once the collective rituals have been performed, each farmer bearsresponsibility for the plan ts that he dea ls with himself, that is, the ones thathe destroys and those he sows in their place.The prohibitions that mark the beginning of the harvest season express

the internal order of the community. The kapitan, who imposes them, isthe 'secular arm' of the 'Master of Firstfruits'. That the latter is also called'Ma ster of Sprouts, of the Sanda lwood and the Bee swax' w ell indicates thecom plexity of his tasks. As maste r of all prod uce from the land, he is maste rof the sandalwood trees and the beeswax, in former times the sources ofthe wealth of chiefs. In fact, he unites two offices: one inherited from theautoch thons, and ano ther as part of the village hierarchy and streng-thened by the monopoly over what used to be the only cash products.Th e redistribution of mang oes is of little economie importance. Gather-ing the candlenuts in the house of the kapitan was a means to supplyeveryone with light at a time when there was no other source of lighting.Th e chiefs receive the largest shares of areca nuts indispensable p artof a gift of betel, which reflects their duty to receive numerous guests.Du ring the rituals that ma rk the passa ge from the rainy to the dry sea son,the 'Master of Firstfruits' and, in his name, the kapitan, play an essentialrole in setting the date for the rituals for the harvest of the maize. Theredistribution of the maize, offered at the village altar, among the villageofficiants in accordance with their status, is symbolic. Given the smallqua ntity involved, it can h ardly be com pare d to the tribute paid to the rulers

who in western Timor perform the rituals of fertility for their territory asa whole.The gifts of cakes and fruits, made at the graves by the malu to their aibaqa houses, serve to reactivate the flow of life-force, as they do during


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560 Claudine Friedbergthe rituals that prece de the sow ing. In contrast, the ritual performed in theevening at the lor bul altar in each ho use has a quite different m ean ing.Add ressed to the ancestors wh o have gon e to the upperw orld, it closes thecycle of exchan ges that w as opened by mean ing of the consump tion of thefirstfruits of the rice. M oreo ver, on that occ asion one fixes the date s for thehouse rituals, and hence for a reactivation of the exchanges between thehouses.

As for the rice harvest, the person who works the field is implicated inthe relations with the kukun and Bei Suri, for, in the end, he is the one wh owill consume the offerings made to them. Yet the political hierarchy thatguards the village's territorial integrity is involved as well, since a noblereceives the basket offered to the village altar.5. ConclusionAccording to the Bunaq beliefs that emerge from the agricultural ritualsperformed in Abis, agricultural production activates several circuits ofexchange. These exchanges take place between the Bunaq and their an-cestors in the upperworld; between the malu and the ai baqa houses; andbetween the visible humans who inhabit the village territory and theinvisible kukun who also live there. The notion of 'mother earth' does notemerge here; the soil is rather the substrate of agricultural activity and thehabitat of the kukun. The forms of agricultural ritual practised by theBunaq of Upper Lamaknen are those of farming nomads. They can per-form their rituals wherever they go, provided that upon their arrival theyerect the altars for communication with their ancestors and with localkukun. Only the corpses of their dead are truly rooted in the territory, likethe seeds of cultivated plants received from the upperw orld. Nev ertheless,for the global society represented here by the village of Abis thevalue of this territory essentially is in its use. Therefore the chiefs whoguarantee the territorial integrity are always associated with the agricul-tural rituals, whereas other people control the different types of exchangesdiscussed above. The global society asserts its control over its means ofsubsistence by delegating the ritual responsibility to some of its mem bers.What distinguishes the Bunaq of Abis from other eastern Timoresepeoples is the assertion of a ritual control at village level over the flow oflife-force that traverses the houses and cuts across the village bound aries.Furth erm ore, they affirm their indepe nden ce from a particular territory bywelcoming each year the seeds from their ancestors, whereas elsewhere as in Lower L am akne n the seeds, once received, are reproducedeach year in sacred plots. Neither do they submit to a superior externalpow er, as happe ns with the Tetun and the D aw an, wh ere the ruler cond uctsthe rituals of fertility. And finally, the transfer of authority over the land,from the autochthons to the Bunaq ancestors, as well as their refusal toassign all ritual task s to a single person or lineag e as is the case am on gthe Dawan sets them apart from their neighbours as well.


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Bunaq Farming Rituals 561A hierarchy of houses came into being because not all the descendantsof the primeval ancestors were able to preserve the heirlooms which thelatter had brought from the upperworld. The heirlooms acquired in thecourse of the lineages' long m ythical journ eys justify that the houses thatinherited them h old different offices in the village org aniz ation . Nev erthe -less, all Bunaq of Upp er Lam akn en consider themselves to be of the sam eessence. This global society, composed of houses which themselves aremade up of dil, results from an association which' is localized in time andspace. As the history of the Bunaq p roves, this association may always becalled into question. Both houses and dil are mobile. When a conflictbreaks out, they can depart and associate with another group elsewhere,which also conceives of itself as a global society but does not necessarily

follow the same ritual rules.Th us ritual control m ust be excercised ov er the flow of life-force in orderfor the society to be established on a particular territory.Let us return to the question posed at the beginn ing of this article. In theBunaq vil lages of Lower Lamaknen one indeed observes a tendency toacknowledge a single order of values. This emerg es in particular from the. fact that the gam e killed during the ritual hun t is distributed acc ordin g towhat we have called the political hierarchy. This hierarchy in fact repre-sents a dyarchy. By contrast, in the Upper Lamaknen village of Abis,different values are acknowledged depending upon context. These revealthe impo rtance to preserve through ritual control the complexity of forcesthat are active in the reproduction of society.

BIBLIOGRAPHYBerthe, L., 1 972, Bei Gua, itinraire des anctres. Mythes des Buna q de Timor. Par is: CNRS .Fernandes, A.J. , 1964, Pequeno metodo pratico para apender o Tetun. Comando TerritorialIndependante de Timor.Fox , J.J., 1 977 , Harvest of the palm Ecological change in eastern Indonesia Cambridge, Mass.:

Harvard University Press.Francillon, G., 1 967, Some matriarchic aspects of the social structure of the southern Tetun ofmiddle Timor. [Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University, Canberra.]Fr iedberg, C , 1973 , 'Espace bunaq' , in: L'homme, hier et aujourd'hui Recueil d'tudes enhommage a A. Leroi-Gourhan, pp.391-419. Paris: Ed. Cujas., 1974, 'Agricultures t imoraises' , tudes Rurales 53-56: 375-405., 19 77, 'The de velopme nt of tradit ional agricultural practices in western T imor; From theritual control of consumer goods production to the political control of prestige goods',in: J. Friedman & M.J. Rowlands (eds), The evolution of social syslems, pp . 137- 171 .London: Duckworth., 1980, 'Boiled woman and broiled man: Myths and agricultural ritual of the Bunaq ofcentral Tim or', in: J.J. Fox (ed.), The flow oflife; Essa ys on eastern Indonesia, pp.266-289.Cambridge Mass. and London: Harvard University Press., 1982, Muk gubul nor, 'la chevelure de la terre': Les Bunaq de Timor et les plantes. [Thesede Doctorat d'Etat , Universit Paris V, Paris, 5 tomes.]


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562 Claudine Friedberg, 1987, 'Corps animal, corps social , ou Ie partage des os dans quelques populations despetites les de la Sonde', in: J. Hainard & R. Kaehr (eds), Des animaux et des hommes,pp.63-86. Neuchatel: Muse d'Ethnographie.Schulte Nordholt , H.G., 1971, The polical system of the Atoni of Timor. The Hague: M.Nijhoff. [KITLV, Verhandelingen 60.]


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Map of the Area 563

Indonesia

, 100 km .

TANA'AI

KODIWEWEWA

LABOYASumba

B 120100 km

124

social relations of territorial management

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