In the description of the categories which structure political and ceremonial alliance we have twice encountered Dumont’s “scandale logique”: at the highest organizational level the unity and equality of allied domains are expressed by the metaphor of the “three hearth stones”. At that same level inequality is expressed by means of asymmetric recursive complementarity in the idiom of a male-female classification. In different contexts either one or the other metaphor is applied to the relations between the three allied domains. In our account of the events surrounding the Ko’a ceremonial cycle the metaphor of unity was evoked only at one instance, when the three domains came together in Ko’a in an effort to solve conflicts existing between all three of them. During most of the cycle, however, the dominant metaphor was either explicitly or implicitly that of inequality. The unity between Ko’a and Cawalo expressed in the metaphor of the “domains of the coconut tree” was repeatedly called upon by the Ko’a negotiators at their meetings with the Cawalo priest leader. However, for the main priest leaders of both domains, the male-female classification remained in the foreground throughout the cycle.

It is in the tension created between the two seemingly contradictory notions of equality and inequality that the potential of a categorical inversion is located which lasts beyond the period of the sacrifice. In this investigation of the Ko’a sacrificial cycle the potential was only realized in the relationship between Tomu and Ko’a in that Tomu came to recognize the precedence of Ko’a. The relationship between Ko’a and Cawalo was subject to influences originating at other organizational levels.

In contrast to Dumont’s characterization of Indian society, in which one set of oppositions, pure and impure, is portrayed as hierarchically structuring and pervading society at all levels, the example of Ko’a has shown that in this case there is no such all-pervasive opposition but that several classificatory oppositions at various levels are involved in the process of contestation of an order of precedence. The male-female opposition has been shown to be the idiom of relations between domains that stand in a relationship of ceremonial and political alliance, whereas their relationships to other allied domains who participate in the cycle but do not practice the water buffalo sacrifice are marked by an opposition based on a distinction of relative age, i.e. elder and younger sibling.

At the intra-domain level the relationship between the groups of Houses of priest leaders and those of subsequently settling groups of Houses is marked by an opposition based on a generational distinction, i.e. “father people” and “child people”. Here the possibility for categorical inversion is not given and the space for contestation is minimal. The asymmetric aspect of the “father-child” relationship between priest leader and population of a domain is stressed by a ritual speech couplet which states that “the lakimosa carries (his people) in the folds of his loin-cloth, he cradles (them) in his lap” (lakimosa tongo lae rongo, kai lae ka’i). However, a contrasting couplet which is often evoked by both sides in decision-making processes at formal meetings of the whole of the domain modifies this asymmetry and emphasizes interdependence and complementarity by stating that “a father needs children (as much as) children need a father” (hama tau no’o’ hanané, hana tau no’o hamané). It is this aspect of their relationship that permitted the “child people” of Ko’a to plead with the “younger brother” to mediate between Ko’a and Cawalo.

Interestingly the relationship between the two groups of “father people” of the same domain is not marked by a metaphorical opposition. As this case has shown both their priest leaders were considered to be equal by the Cawalo priest leader. In the account of the Ko’a ceremonial cycle a distinction was made between a main priest leader as opposed to a lesser priest leader (lakimosa ca, lakimosa lo’o, lit. the big lakimosa, the small lakimosa). However, these attributes are only employed in an informal context and do not constitute formal designations. The asymmetry of the relationship is most evident in the sequencing of ceremonial events. Once again we are confronted with an apparent logical contradiction in which the status of the priest leaders is both equal as well as unequal. Although the ethnographic record is not conclusive on this point there are indications that in the past the two positions have undergone inversions. Cawalo countered the Ko’a claim to precedence in part by exploiting the tension created by the two opposed notions for its own ends.

Relations within groups of Houses are marked by an elder-younger sibling distinction. Here complementarity is no longer recursive in that the marked categories consist of one single House that assumes a position of seniority which is opposed to all other Houses of the same group. Relative age with respect to original descent establishes the seniority of this House. Even though the opposition is not recursive, the intricacies and ambiguities of child transfer and succession can provide an opportunity for the playing out of claims to elder sibling status both within the same House as well as between Houses, as was the case with the main Ko’a priest leader and his “younger brother”. Here again Cawalo managed to manipulate the situation and gain advantage.

The various sets of oppositions at all of these levels are involved in the contestation of an order of precedence between allied domains. This Ko’a case study does not presume to represent an exhaustive treatment of this process. It has confined itself to demonstrate by way of example and by focusing on a sequence of key events how the analytical features of recursive complementarity, categorical asymmetry and categorical inversion operate in such a process.