Table of Contents
The island of Palu’é,[2] located off the north coast of Flores, covers seventy square kilometres and consists of a population of approximately 10,000. It is divided into fourteen separate territorial, political and ceremonial domains known as tana. One of the remarkable features of the island is the absence of accessible drinking water. During the long dry season its inhabitants rely mainly on the juice of the lontar palm (Borassus flabellifer or Sundaicus) for their daily intake of fluid. Water for cooking is tapped from banana trunks, bamboo and from a number of trees, and in some places volcanic steam is trapped in earth catchments and condensed in bamboo poles.[3] The circular island consists of an almost nine hundred metre high mountain and of a number of active volcanic vents which are slightly to one side of the mountain top. Everyday life on Palu’é is overshadowed by the constant threat of eruptions which can shower fields and settlements with rocks and hot ashes.[4]
Equally remarkable from a cultural standpoint are the ceremonial cycles of the island’s domains. Of the fourteen domains, seven maintain ceremonial cycles culminating in the sacrifice of water buffalo[5] whereas the other seven domains conduct cycles involving the sacrifice of pigs. At the opening of a new cycle water buffalo are purchased on the neighbouring island of Flores and brought back to Palu’é. There the animals are raised over a period of five years at the end of which they are sacrificed in a large-scale ceremony. Considering the lack of water on the island raising these animals represents a considerable achievement. More often than not water buffalo fail to adjust to the dry environment and die before the prescribed five-year period is up. In such a case another ceremonial purchase must be carried out in order to open up the cycle as soon as new resources are available.[6]
The individual ceremonial cycles of each domain provide an arena for the contestation of an order of precedence.[7] By employing specific strategies aimed at enhancing its prestige a given domain can emerge from a cycle in a new position of precedence among its allied domains. After the cycle has been completed this new position is often consolidated through warfare. In the following such a process will be illustrated by means of a case study of one complete ceremonial cycle. Precedence is invariably subject to contestation and understanding the dynamics of contestation is essential for understanding the social life of these societies. Some aspects of the process of contestation of an order of precedence at the level of traditional domains will be analysed here by applying a set of analytic tools[8] to a number of key events surrounding the cyclical ceremonies of the domain of Ko’a. In societies with a “hierarchical” use of dual categories, such as those found throughout eastern Indonesia, an order of precedence involves the conjunction of several analytical features, the most important of which are recursive complementarity, categorical asymmetry and categorical inversion.[9] These features are exemplified in this paper.
Before proceeding to the description and analysis of a number of key events that occurred during the last ceremonial cycle of the domain of Ko’a some general information on Palu’é categories of social order will be given as well as an outline of the ceremonial cycle and an overview of political and ceremonial alliance.