Comparison is the critical task of anthropology. A controlled comparison sets forth as precisely as possible the framework within which a particular comparative effort is undertaken. In this paper, the general framework has been provided within a comparative Austronesian context but with a specific focus on three linguistically distinct cultural groups—the Rotinese, the Atoni Pah Meto and the Tetun—in the Timor area of eastern Indonesia. The concern has been with each cultural group’s categorical conception of land and territory and how these categories are defined within specific historically formed, ritually defined, (state-like) structures—Termanu, Amanuban and Wehali.

Such comparisons lead to wider issues fundamental to each of these societies—ideas of rule and authority, of precedence and derivation, of encompassed and encompassing, of subordination and superordination—all linked intimately to conceptions of ‘male’ and ‘female’. Each of these societies possesses its own variant understanding of the world and has articulated this understanding within specific, historically bound, socially constructed polities. Comparison allows us to appreciate how these various articulations relate to one another and how they may relate to other Austronesian societies.

Based on present linguistic and archaeological evidence, it would appear that Austronesian-speaking populations have been on Timor for more than 4,000 years. Timor, as a rich source of precious aromatic sandalwood, has been the target for long-distance traders for at least 1,000 years (see de Roever 2002) and its populations have been subjected to European influences for more than 500 years. These factors—a long-resident population that has had time to differentiate and to settle the diverse environments of a relatively large island, that has been open to a steady flow of trade goods including weapons, seeds and tools and that, as a result, has been able to develop and elaborate a variety of related, yet competing polities—have given the Timor area a distinctive cultural signature within the wider Austronesian-speaking world.

Similar configurations of categories and ideas define the Timor area in ways that can be seen to differentiate Timor from other parts of eastern Indonesia and, more broadly, from other parts of the Austronesian world. At the same time, many of the basic categories on which these configurations are constructed are common (or at least similar) throughout the Austronesian-speaking world. Perhaps it is only when we have clearly defined the categories of one area of the Austronesian world and come to understand their historical variation that we can move on confidently to wider comparisons.