The Rotinese, who number over 120,000, occupy both the island of Roti, off the west tip of Timor, as well as stretches of West Timor. Since the seventeenth century, Roti has been divided into various separate domains known as nusak that have consistently endeavoured to distinguish themselves from one another. There were seventeen such domains with considerable variation — linguistic, social and political — among them. I confine myself here to common cultural features of all the domains.

Each Rotinese domain is composed of a number of named leo which are internally segmented to the level of individual uma. These are the Rotinese origin groups. Residence is scattered and members of different leo live interspersed with one another. All leo acknowledge a shared origin (hu) and formerly, this common heritage was celebrated at an annual Feast of Origin (Hus) performed around a large living tree ringed by rocks. The idea that the leo was once represented by a single cult house persists, especially in parts of West Roti, but in fact, after several centuries of Christianity, leo no longer possess a common ceremonial focus.

The different lines within a leo are described as its branches (ndanak) and precedence among these branches is structured according to relations of elder/younger (ka’a/fadi). Elder generally takes precedence over younger, although in some instances of succession, ultimogeniture overrides precedence by relative age. Thus the “last-born” (mulik) may take precedence over the “firstborn” (uluk). The last-born son, for example, inherits the parental house and the ancestral cult that it houses.

Some leo are divided into named “stomachs” or “insides” (teik); in such cases, the teik rather than the leo is the exogamous group. Teik, in turn, are described as consisting of uma, “houses”. Links between uma or between teik within each leo are traced by reference to a succession of patronyms. This reckoning distinguishes the genitor lines of each origin group. They are the structural equivalent of the fada/lisa lines among the Mambai and of the various uma segments among the Ema.

Rotinese society shows greater similarities to the Ema than to the Mambai and indeed Rotinese society has developed and elaborated tendencies that Renard-Clamagirand identifies in Marobo. All leo are either autochthonous leo or immigrant leo, with immigrant leo overwhelmingly predominant — both numerically and socially. In all domains, however, autochthonous leo retain precedence in matters of ritual, particularly rituals of the earth.

In each Rotinese domain — as is the case in Marobo — one immigrant line is the source of political authority and claims precedence over all other leo. This line is the “source” of nobility which is defined by an equation between “rule” and “maleness” (mane = male, lord). This lordly line sets the point in relationship to which status is determined according to a complex system of precedence. The status of all leo — and their segments — is thus politically defined. To exist within the domain, a leo must be recognized by the royal court. This pervasive political dimension to Rotinese society is not a recent phenomenon but can be traced back to the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (see Fox 1979a,b). The prior “cult” foundation of leo/teik/uma has been transformed within a court framework.

Like the Mambai and Ema, most Rotinese acknowledge two progenitor lines.^[2] They are referred to collectively as the to’o-bai-kala, “mother’s brothers and mother’s mother’s brothers”. Specifically, the representative of each of these progenitor lines is identified as the to’o-huk, “mother’s brother of origin”, and the bai-huk, the “mother’s mother’s brother of origin”. The recognition of progenitors is not acknowledged at the level of the leo nor — except in the case of a few royal lines — at the level of the teik, but only at the level of the uma. This means that progenitors are not regarded as primordial but differ for each sibling group derived from the same mother.

For purposes of comparison, it is worth noting here that the Rotinese have a term for son-in-law or daughter’s husband, mane feuk, which literally means “new male”. This term is cognate with the Mambai term maen heua and Ema mane heu. However, among the Rotinese, “new male” is not used in a wider sociological sense to define a line of engendered progeny. The female equivalent is “new female”, feto feuk, which refers to a daughter-in-law or son’s wife.

Among the Rotinese, a progenitor relationship is recreated for each generation. Instead of focusing on the mane feuk, this relationship focuses specifically on the sister’s child who is referred to as “plant” (selek) or as the “planted sprout” (sele-dadik). In Rotinese, there is no other “kin term” for sister’s child except this designation as “plant” (see Fox 1971).

In this situation, the payment of bridewealth is fundamental to the establishment of a progenitor relationship. Bridewealth (belis) serves as a critical marker of the relationship and the amount of bridewealth paid is an index of the “status” of the progenitor line. However, equally crucial to this relationship is temporality. It is not an enduring relationship. Severance of this relationship is essential to it. Mortuary payments do not simply acknowledge this relationship. At the appropriate point, they formally sever it. Thus the progenitor relationship is explicitly one of short duration. It always exists but it changes in each generation.

The situation can — and does — occur where genitor and progenitor relationships are confounded. This occurs whenever bridewealth is not paid and a woman’s child is incorporated in his or her mother’s origin group. Rotinese prefer to cast a shroud over occurrences of this kind but they are always made evident when mortuary payments must be made. When a house has no sons and only a daughter, the daughter may be allowed lovers in the hope of giving birth to a son who will continue the male line. This is described as “retaining a sister [for her] to give birth for her father and brother”.

Alternatively a stranger — someone from outside the domain or preferably from another island — may “marry” a daughter of the house and have children who are regarded as children of their mother’s origin group. After two generations, the tracing of origins by the recitation of a succession of genealogical names obscures this situation and the names of children of women are assimilated to the male line. The adoption of children, except of children of the closest members of one’s own origin group, is rare and is not given social approval.