Table of Contents
Narratives are not only structures of meaning but structures of power as well.
Edward Bruner (1986:152)
Writing of local origin “myths” from the “Timorese Archipelago” and the “Moluccas”, F.A.E. van Wouden observes that “one is struck by the remarkable points of resemblance … [between] … the system delineated in these myths … [and] … the structure of society” (1968:195). The legitimating potential of local origin narratives alluded to by van Wouden has also been discussed in a number of more recent studies[2] of cultural groups in “Eastern Indonesia” although few of these works extend the analysis of “myth” beyond the charter paradigm originally proposed by Malinowski (1926) and adopted by van Wouden.
In conceptualizing myth narratives as epiphenomenal charters for the organization of local social and political orders van Wouden and others generally ignore the historical context in which such narratives are constructed, expressed and rendered meaningful.[3] As Sahlins (1981, 1985) suggests, cultural narratives cannot, in fact, be isolated from the wider social and political context in which they are located. Such narratives are shaped by and gather force from their dialectical engagement of other historically-specific stories (see also Bruner 1986 and Kapferer 1988). In this respect, narratives and the particular cultures in which they are articulated are not as isolated or as pristine as many anthropologists would have us believe. Indeed, as James Clifford points out with reference to the Trobriand Islanders, individuals “invent their culture within and against the contexts of recent colonial history” (1988:12). Clifford’s remarks also apply to the cultures of the so-called “Eastern Indonesia” field of study, among which the people of the village of Amaya, Maluku Tenggara may be counted by some.[4]
Although positioned on the geographic margins of the archipelago, the people of Amaya are directly incorporated within the framework of the Indonesian Nation-State and have long experienced the effects of European colonial encapsulation and Christian proselytization. As a result, local origin narratives are but one of several discursive elements which inform social and political life in Amaya. In this respect, the ideologies and ontologies of Protestantism, Indonesian Nationalism and modern capitalism create “new spaces in discourse” (Bruner 1986:152) within which the politics of identity and authority are given expression. These inter-connected “spaces” are interwoven with existing cultural forms and meanings to produce new symbols of opposition, new relations of asymmetry and new orders of hierarchy (cf. Lattas n.d.).
It is precisely through their engagement and coalescence with the discursive structures which inform daily life that the stories contained within local narratives resonate with the same configurations of logic which mediate social action and notions of identity. Consequently, these narratives are held to express stories of ontological and cosmological significance and it is in the circumstances of quotidian life that the themes, relations, and hierarchical possibilities folded into the narratives are realized (cf. Kapferer 1988).
In this paper, I focus primarily upon the conjunction of local origin narratives with the logic and practices of the Indonesian State. In so doing, I “emplot” (Ricoeur 1988:4) some of the hierarchical relations and disjunctions which are empowered by this nexus. I begin by considering some of the themes contained in an abbreviated version of the central Mayawo origin narrative. Of specific concern here is the process by which social narratives are naturalized and, at the same time, represented as historical truth. I then locate the narrative themes of origins, precedence and hierarchy within the context of everyday life in Amaya and examine particular aspects of their engagement with the locally articulated ideology of the Indonesian State. In conclusion, I discuss some of the wider social implications of the dialectics of politics and culture at Amaya.