The Founding of the House and the Source of Life: Two Complementary Origin Structures in Buru Society

The island of Buru is approximately 140 kilometres east to west and 90 kilometres north to south. It is the third largest island in the Indonesian province of Maluku, second in size only to Seram and Halmahera. Just 110 kilometres of Banda Sea separate Buru from the provincial capital on the island of Ambon, but despite its geographical proximity Buru has historically been on the periphery of much that has occurred in the regional context. Having no native clove or nutmeg trees, Buru was of little importance to the spice trade which brought Asians and Europeans to other islands in Maluku as early as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Not only did the boats of the spice trade by-pass Buru, much of the foreign contact that came to the region did as well (Map 1).

Approximately 43,000 people consider themselves “people of Buru island” (geb fuku Bururo) and although they freely acknowledge some dialectal differences, they insist on being considered a cohesive linguistic and ethnic group belonging to this relatively large island by virtue of their origins. It is significant that the geb fuku Bururo comprise less than half the total population of 102,000 inhabitants on the island. Thousands of immigrants, particularly from the islands of Buton and Sula, have colonized the north and west coasts of Buru. Many of these colonies have been on Buru for several centuries and still regard themselves as ethnically distinct from Buru people and often continue speaking the languages of the islands from which they originated. Recently around 23,000 more people have come to the island, some brought initially as political prisoners after the 1965 political upheaval in Indonesia and others later as transmigrants. This predominantly Javanese influx has been localized on the island and almost without exception, all the immigrants on the island — longterm residents as well as recent arrivals — reside along the coast or on a few flat plains areas near the coast.

The interior of Buru is very mountainous, covered with dense jungle. Geb fuk Bururo often prefer to live in the mountainous jungle of the interior, rather than on the coast. The island of Buru can thus be characterized as having an indigenous minority population which is traditionally-oriented to the vast interior of the island while numerous colonies of immigrants from other parts of the archipelago fringe the coastal regions. The majority of immigrants on Buru are Moslem as well as a portion of the geb fuk Bururo now living on the coast. In the interior of the island geb fuk Bururo practice both Christianity and their traditional religious beliefs.^[2]

The daily activities of geb fuk Bururo living in the interior of the island centre around gardening and hunting. Extensive hunting is done by men for wild pig, deer, cuscus and other small animals. Gardens are made, often on steep mountainsides, and shifting cultivation focuses around yams, cassava, and taro with smaller amounts of millet, dry rice and corn also grown. Where the terrain is suitable, sago is planted and cultivated. Considerable labour is necessary for gardening, particularly for opening new gardens in the jungle and for harvesting. During these long labour-intensive periods, people often live in their isolated garden huts scattered across the mountains. They may also have a house in a village but as it may be many hours’ walk away from their gardens they return to live in the village only when the garden work temporarily permits them to do so. When fully inhabited, interior villages consist of 50 to 200 people living in 10 to 30 households.

Hunting and gardening is the responsibility of each household which typically includes a man, his wife or wives and their unmarried children. The individuals in each household are incorporated into higher level social groups called hum lolin and noro. A hum lolin, which literally means “house-circle”, consists typically of agnatic kin related over four or five generations. In this paper I refer to hum lolin both by the Buru term and by “House”, as it is a social group conceptualized in terms of a house metaphor. The genealogical connections between all the members of a hum lolin are known, and kin terms are used to refer to everyone within an ego’s hum lolin. Leadership of a House is invested in geb emtuato meaning “old people”, a term used to refer to parents and what approximates the English term “elders”. In a political sense, geb emtuato are men who function in decision-making and negotiations as representatives of their House, particularly in matters concerning land and marriage.

Several hum lolin together comprise a noro. The relationship between a noro and its separate Houses is expressed as a whole which has broken into sections, using the term ekfakak meaning “to be broken into pieces”. Each House has a “founding father” (tama) and “founding mother” (tina) who were the first to establish the House as separate from other Houses in the noro. Same sex sibling terms of relative age (kai “elder”/wai “younger”) are used to describe the relationship between the various Houses within a noro.

A noro is the highest level social or political structure in Buru society and the total geb fuk Bururo population is divided into over 35 noro. No centralized political hierarchy unifies the different noro on the island and the situation, as they say, is one where “each noro governs its own noro” (noro saa printa tu nake noro). Marriages must be transacted between Houses of different noro. What defines Buru society as a whole is not any overarching political order, but networks of inter-noro relationships which can be characterized as much by alliance and marriage as by hostility and warfare. Although there may be less inter-noro warfare today than in the past, marriage alliances do not preclude warfare between noro and the threat of hostility from people of other noro is always considered present.

Before considering how the identity of Buru Houses and noro are articulated in terms of their origin structure, it is necessary to first discuss how individuals become affiliated with these social groups. Marriage and bridewealth are very important aspects of affiliation on Buru. Upon marriage, men “stay in the house to guard the sharpening stone” while women “exit” (suba) their natal House to “return” (oli) to the House and noro of their husband. Marriage thus transfers a woman to another House and noro, and hopefully results, through her fecundity, in the increase of her husband’s House. Because of this, marriage is very much the concern of the hum lolin. When a “son” of a hum lolin is to marry, it is the responsibility of the entire hum lolin to contribute to the bridewealth, part of which goes to the actual parents of the bride and part to her hum lolin elders.

After a woman marries, children born to her belong to the House and noro of her husband. While it may in effect appear as if the father-child link is the important criterion, affiliation to Buru social groups is not constructed in terms of such links.^[3] People on Buru formulate their ideas about the affiliation of children in terms of “child rights” (hak anat) which are transferred in the marriage process from a woman’s natal hum lolin to the hum lolin of her husband in a different noro. The affiliation of children is thus intricately tied to the marriage process. It is only after the bride’s House has received some form of “compensation” (filin) for their loss of the bride and the final stages of the marriage process have occurred, that hak anat is transferred to the House and noro of a woman’s husband. Before marriage negotiations for a particular woman have been initiated, hak anat belongs to her natal hum lolin. Any children born to her before she is married belong to her natal hum lolin and noro, the noro of her brother, who is under those circumstances called her child’s “father” (ama).

In many cases bridewealth is given to replace the bride and bridewealth becomes an important indicator that hak anat has been transferred. Then, as they say on Buru, bridewealth should “bear fruit”. That is, bridewealth should result in the increase of members in the House. This idea is expressed in a number of different ways. When a woman is barren, her bridewealth is said to have borne no fruit and the collection of it by her husband’s House is considered to have been wasted effort. If a young bride dies before she has given birth to a child, her natal House is obligated to replace her with another bride, because the bridewealth has not yet borne fruit. However, if a bride dies after giving birth to a child, it is not necessary for her natal hum lolin to replace her. If the child she has borne is a son, the bridewealth has borne fruit and her husband’s House has increased. If she has borne a daughter, the daughter will eventually “return her mother’s bridewealth” to the hum lolin when she marries. Beside bridewealth, there are other ways to replace a bride. A child can be given to the bride’s House or sister-exchange can take place. Whether it is by bridewealth, a child, or another bride, when the bride has been replaced, the affiliation of her future children belong to the House and noro of her husband.