I now turn to the situation among the “domains of the three hearth stones” as it presented itself before 1985, when Ko’a initiated its last ceremonial cycle.

With respect to the criteria of population and size of territory Cawalo is clearly the first among these three domains. It has a population of approximately 1,200 people and claims a territory of more than ten square kilometres. Ko’a, its southern neighbour, has a population of only 380 people and at present its territory is less than eight square kilometres. Finally, the population of Tomu to the north of Cawalo numbers approximately 600 people. Its population is larger than Ko’a but Tomu claims a territory of only two and a half square kilometres. Only the domains of Cawalo and Ko’a are ritually complete in that they have both “feet” and “head”, their territories reaching from the sea up to the mountain top. The domain of Tomu only has “feet”, the “head” section being occupied by the domain of Kéli.

Cawalo and Ko’a are also known as the “domains of the coconut tree” (tana nio bu’uné) (Map 2). At one level this designation is an allusion to the shape they make up together. Both territories run alongside each other from the sea up to the mountain, whereby the actual mountain top is part of Cawalo and the neighbouring volcano part of Ko’a. Together these sections of their territory make up what is referred to as “the trunk” (bu’u) of the coconut tree. Past the mountain top and the volcano their territories stretch in two long strips again all the way down to the sea. The two strips represent the fronds or “the tip” (ngalu) of the coconut tree. Because of the proximity of the volcano “the tip” is at present not habitable. Implicit in this botanic metaphor is the same notion of equality we have encountered in the image of the “three hearth stones”. At this level both domains are considered to be of the same size, or as they put it, “like the two halves of a coconut tree”.

On the basis of these main criteria, Cawalo, in the years preceding 1985, regarded itself as conceptually male with respect to both of its allies, Ko’a and Tomu. This view was not challenged by either of their main priest leaders and they largely accepted their conceptually female status with regard to Cawalo. In past times, however, the population of Ko’a was proportionally larger. Due to warfare, bad harvests and disease, numbers have declined, hence its smaller population in relation to Cawalo. Furthermore, Ko’a territory was almost identical in size to Cawalo until 1972 when Ko’a lost about a third of its “trunk” in a war against the domain of Nitu, its neighbour to the north. In that unfortunate war all of its villages were burned to the ground and its ancestral treasures and most of its livestock were lost. This was the last of a series of wars which Ko’a had lost and only recently had the domain begun to recover. From the point of view of Ko’a, Cawalo was regarded as its conceptually male counterpart. However, at least some of the Ko’a elders who had seen better times maintained that this need not always remain so. Ko’a still had enough “maleness” to maintain this position with respect to Tomu and might one day even be able to challenge Cawalo.

The priest leaders of Tomu, the third ally, were never very explicit about their domain’s position with regard to Ko’a. Relations between the priest leaders of the two domains were cordial and visits between them frequent. At such occasional meetings the rhetoric displayed by the priest leaders in ritual speech never touched upon their respective maleness and femaleness. However, if questioned separately both would consider themselves to be conceptually male with respect to the other. A recurrent topic of discussion at such meetings was the deteriorating relations of the priest leaders of both domains to the main priest leader of Cawalo. Tomu could come up with a number of misgivings directed against Cawalo and so could Ko’a. At the bottom of these misgivings lay the fact that the main Cawalo priest leader was an ambitious younger man and a Christian who showed little respect for the two considerably older main priest leaders of Ko’a and Tomu. The Cawalo priest leader’s father, the former priest leader, whom those of Ko’a and Cawalo may not have been fond of but whom they respected, had failed to teach his son all the intricacies of ritual speech and, therefore, communication with him was always felt to be unsatisfactory and prone to misunderstandings. Such was the situation before the Ko’a ceremonial cycle was opened in 1985. Table 2 brings together the relative positions of the “Domains of the Three Hearth Stones” at that point in time.

One event that created misgivings between the three allied domains deserves mentioning because it sheds light on the strategies employed by the Cawalo main priest leader to manipulate internal tensions between the two groups of “father people” of Ko’a. A number of years earlier the Cawalo priest leader had offered an ivory tusk to the two Ko’a priest leaders in order to get them to accompany his purchasing party to Flores to obtain water buffalo. At the time the main Ko’a priest leader had refused this traditional prestation that secures the following of the allied domain because of some unresolved conflict between him and the main Cawalo priest leader. The lesser Ko’a priest leader, however, had accepted the tusk and instead of the main Ko’a priest leader one of his “younger brothers” had accepted the prestation on behalf of the main ceremonial courtyard. In doing so he had assumed the position of a House of “elder sibling” status. Also, because the Cawalo priest leader had given the tusk to a person of “younger brother” status the position of seniority of the main Ko’a priest leader had come to be questioned. Rumours were spread that he was not really the rightful main priest leader and that his grandfather, the father of the former main Ko’a priest leader, had originally been adopted from outside the domain into a Ko’a family. Furthermore, the fathers of the “elder” and of the “younger brother” had in the past exchanged their infant sons for a period of time. Eventually, however, both sons had returned to their natal Houses. Because of this interrupted process of child transfer the status of these sons with respect to inheritance was somewhat unclear. After the death of both of their fathers they engaged in a series of litigations over a contested piece of land. The end of these litigations had not yet been reached at the time when the “younger brother” was offered the ceremonial prestation of an ivory tusk by the Cawalo priest leader.