There is an old idea in the ethnology of South-East Asia about the differences between lowland or coastal peoples and the peoples of the interior highlands. This distinction between lowland and highland peoples is condensed in the title of Robbins Burling’s book on South-East Asian cultures; Hill Farms and Padi Fields (1965). In Burling’s conception,

… each country in southeast Asia has both hill people and plains people, and the contrast—and sometimes conflict—between the two ways of life can provide a theme which helps to bring order into our understanding of the area. (Burling 1965: 4)

The peoples of the relatively densely populated lowlands are culturally homogeneous wet-rice cultivators who are adherents to one of the universal religions; the hill people, ‘who are always far more heterogeneous’, speak different languages, have no political unity among themselves, and practice shifting cultivation (ibid.). ^[23] With due respect to Burling, in Kabupaten Sikka, lowland and coastal people tend to view their highland cousins as just that: somewhat coarse, not completely Catholic, uneducated, a bit simple, and barefoot, but nevertheless their cousins. As an educated Sikkanese man once told me in the course of a conversation about the differences between his people and the Ata Tana 'Ai, ‘They are still what we once were.’ ^[24]

We can distinguish, as do the coastal Sikkanese themselves, three varieties of Sikkanese people: the Ata Tana ’Ai of the eastern valleys, the Ata ’Iwang (the phrase means orang udik [BI: person from a rural village; hillbilly] or, somewhat less pejoratively, orang pedalaman [BI: person of the back country] ^[25] ) of the central hills, and, roughly, the southern and coastal Sikkanese, that is the people of the skewed crescent-shaped region from Nita in the west southward to Léla on the south coast, through Sikka Natar, to Bola in the east. Of these ethnonyms, the Ata Tana ’Ai call themselves Ata Tana ’Ai (at least, they acquiesce when others call them that) and the Sikkanese call themselves Ata Sikka (but, then, so does everyone in the district); but the Ata ’Iwang do not call themselves Ata ’Iwang: who, after all, refers to himself by saying, ‘I am a heathen hillbilly’?

There is a small, fourth group: the ruling Sikkanese. In the district of Sikka, a ruling house arose on the south coast of Flores, in the village of Sikka. The house was Lepo Geté, the Great House, and its people used the name da Silva. The rulers it produced were known as ratu (rajas). This designation ‘ruling Sikkanese’ is easily quarrelled with because just who these early Sikkanese rulers were is something of a problem. All of the people of Sikka agree that the people of the ruling house are Sikkanese, but according to their own myth of origin, they are not. That myth tells the story of how, long ago, a sailing ship was wrecked on the south coast of Flores near Sikka Natar. Its crew, who were from ‘Siam’ (or ‘Sailan’, depending on the version of the myth one has to hand), could not repair their vessel, and so they took up residence on Flores. They met the orang asli (BI: ‘aboriginal people’) in the hills, with whom they made alliances. The myth relates the subterfuge by which, later on, the immigrants seized Sikka Natar from its aboriginal inhabitants and how immigrants from other parts of Flores and from farther away settled in Sikka to create a confederation of immigrant houses from which the whole of the region came to be ruled. In other words, the ‘ruling’ Sikkanese were immigrants; they were all ‘new’ Sikkanese.^[26]

In one of the most important episodes in the myth, one of the descendants of the marooned ship’s crew, Don Alésu, travelled to Malaka, where he ‘studied ilmu politik [BI: ‘political science’]’ and became a Christian. On his return, he and a travelling companion brought Catholicism to Sikka and founded the Rajadom of Sikka. If we jump forward to the end of the 19th century, we find Alésu’s descendants ruling Kerajaan Sikka with authority delegated by the Dutch. ^[27] This Alésu’s descendants did until 1954. Sikka is thus a good example of the process of formation of a state which incorporated rulers on the coast who had direct links to the outside world and people of a hinterland who, while absorbed into the state, were not at its political centre.

Whereas the Ata Tana ’Ai preserved much of their hadat and have continued practising the rituals of their ceremonial system, which are the essence of their tana, during the past two or three centuries, the tana pu’ang of central Sikka lost their power and Christian symbols were added to the mahé of the region (see Plates 1, 2 and 3). In the same centuries, the people of Sikka Natar took Portuguese names and developed a state; 1) whose office-holders took titles that reflected Sikkanese perceptions of Portuguese organisations in eastern Indonesia, including ranks of the Portuguese military hierarchy; 2) whose efflorescence coincided historically with the rise of Dutch dominance in Flores; 3) whose foundation, as recounted in the mythic histories of the rajadom, coincided with the introduction of Catholicism in Sikka; and 4) whose development paralleled that of the Catholic Church on Flores. But more is required to understand what happened to Sikka’s tana.

The tana of central Sikka (and their tana pu’ang) were not displaced entirely under the rajas’ rule. Boer’s diagram of the structure of the rajadom under Don Alésu is crucial evidence bearing on this question. The chart identifies localities and clusters of villages which were allied to the new rulers. Boer’s and Kondi’s histories tell us how these allegiances were secured and how the alliances were formed. The diagram also depicts graphically the imposition of a hierarchical system of governance over what theretofore had been autonomous local domains, a system imposed (according to Boer and Kondi) by an alien, immigrant people, according to an alien, Portuguese system of organisation, and, later, condoned by the alien, Dutch Colonial Government.

A central clue to what happened to the tana of Sikka is to be found not in what is in Boer’s diagram, but what is not. Boer connects the raja and his ministers with lines that indicate their relationships. He connects the tana pu’ang to the villages under their authority with vertical lines, but there are no direct connections between the offices of the rajadom and the tana pu'ang identified on the chart. Furthermore (and somewhat puzzling), the crossed elephant tusks of the diagram, which indicate alliances, are not placed between the rajadom and the tana, but between the clans named as pu’ang and the territories associated with them.

This evidence points to a simple hypothesis: the rajas did not directly interfere with Sikkanese tana but, through time, usurped the tana pu'ang by incorporating them as lowest-level functionaries in the rajadom’s government. As the Church and rajadom grew in power and influence in the district, the ritual importance of the tana pu'ang and thus their tana as territorial institutions simply withered away, although the concept of the tana as a ceremonial domain that bound its people together in a small-scale community remained. This progression was in most respects complete by the time the rajadom came to an end in 1954, and the tana as a territorial institution did not survive the transition to the modern government in the regency.

Not only did the immigrant rulers of Sikka usurp whatever local authority might have existed among the indigenous Sikkanese, the origin myth of the Sikkanese ruling house makes the claim that the immigrant rulers created the tana and tana pu’ang of central Sikka. Three key passages from the Hikayat Kerajaan Sikka (The History of the Rajadom of Sikka) illuminate this claim:

In the beginning, because of his wise policy, his majesty the Raja of Sikka ordered every tribe of the interior, those who were wealthy and brave, to a meeting in which they were given offices by his majesty the Raja along with the titles Mo'ang and Kapitan; each tribe had such an officer and they lived continually in the nation of Sikka. Thus the nation’s origins were in the interior and outside and as each became an ally of the nation, they were governed by the Raja and the Raja took decisions about matters to make the nation safe and its allied villages in the interior with their Tana Pu’ang … and Kapitan whom he had appointed in the interior. (Kondi 2001: 7)

Secondly,

In his lifetime, Mo’ang Bata Jawa sailed here and there, obtaining on his journeys large plates which he then brought home to his country. ^[28] After returning, he visited all the inhabitants of his territory, telling them: ‘We human beings must have a God, from whom we ask assistance. Thus there must be a place for making offerings. So the plates which I have brought I must divide among all the negeri [i.e., tana] and designate in each a tana pu’ang (Source of the Earth).’ (Kondi 2001: 27)

Finally, as recounted in Kondi’s Hikayat Kerajaan Sikka, Mo’ang Baga Ngang, the third of Sikka’s ‘proto-rajas’, appointed tana pu’ang and created tana. Kondi tells how Baga Ngang went around central Flores making alliances with the ‘tribes’ of the interior of the island:

Mo’ang Baga asked: ‘Who is your leader?’ They replied: ‘We here do not have a leader.’ Mo’ang Baga said: ‘When you have a dispute, who unravels and decides the matter?’ They replied: ‘There is no one. Whoever happens to be present mediates our quarrels. And if we do not accede, it is just left so and whoever is strongest is the one who wins.’ Mo’ang Baga said: ‘In that case, there is no order. I will choose a person for you who will be your leader.’ … After that Mo'ang Baga praised them, saying that ‘I along with my companions have come from Nata Gahar [High or Great Village] wishing to visit you here … Perhaps you know who among you is the most respected and who was the first to come and open a garden and to live here?’ Then two men stepped forward and faced Mo’ang Baga, saying: ‘We are the two who originally came here and we are also the two who are most respected.’ Mo’ang Baga replied: ‘Good. This one is appointed as Source of the Earth and is to be called by the title tana pu’ang; he is the one who will make offerings on the altar (watu mahé) whenever you make a feast for opening a new garden, require the healing of illness, marry, build a new house, and for other things. You must bring offerings and when there is a dispute, just go to him.’ … Then Mo’ang Baga took a little of the heart of a pig, some rice, and gin and placed them atop the altar, which Mo’ang Baga had ordered constructed as an example for the Source of the Earth [tana pu’ang]. After finishing these things mentioned above, the people began serving food to entertain Mo’ang Baga and his companions. (Kondi 2001: 31- 2)

The most curious thing about these passages is that these mythic proto-rajas are credited with creating something that must already have existed: the ceremonial domains and the tana pu’ang who headed them.