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‘Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian phratry dualism’

In a recent paper illustrating the application of the Comparative Method in linguistics to historical problems in social anthropology (Blust 1980), I proposed a reconstruction of early Austronesian social organization which-despite fundamental differences in the evidence considered and the types of arguments adopted-closely agrees with the non-linguistic reconstruction of early Indonesian society suggested by J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong (1935/1977), 1 and worked out in considerable detail for eastern Indonesia by his gifted student F. A. E. van Wouden (1935/1968). Among the features common to these strikingly convergent results are three that merit particular mention: 1. exclusive cross-cousin marriage, 2. a division of the total society into four great classes, 3. a two-by-two grouping of the foregoing classes into 'male' (or 'upper') and 'female' (or 'lower') divisions.

R. Blust Notes on proto-Malayo-Polynesian phratry dualism In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 136 (1980), no: 2/3, Leiden, 215-247 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl ROBERT BLUST NOTES ON PROTO-MALAYO-POLYNESIAN PHRATRY DUALISM* I. METHOD In a recent paper illustrating the application of the Comparative Method in linguistics to historical problems in social anthropology (Blust 1980), I proposed a reconstruction of early Austronesian social organization which — despite fundamental differences in the evidence considered and the types of arguments adopted — closely agrees with the non-linguistic reconstruction of early Indonesian society suggested by J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong (1935/1977), 1 and worked out in considerable detail for eastern Indonesia by his gifted student F. A. E. van Wouden (1935/1968). Among the features common to these strikingly convergent results are three that merit particular mention: 1. exclusive cross-cousin marriage, 2. a division of the total society into four great classes, 3. a two-by-two grouping of the foregoing classes into 'male' (or 'upper') and 'female' (or 'lower') divisions. The remarks that follow are inspired by a similar application Comparative Method in linguistics, expanded and occasionally mented by controlled (i.e. genetic) ethnographic comparison. there appears to be justification, broad typological comparison invoked. In all genetic linguistic comparison the precise demands of of the suppleWhere is also phono- ROBERT BLUST, who majored in English at the University of California and took his B.A. in anthropology and Ph.D. in linguistics at the University of Hawaii, is at present Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages and Cultures of Southeast Asia and Oceania at Leiden. His main field of interest is comparative Austronesian linguistics, and major publications are 'Proto-Austronesian addenda', Oceanic Linguistics 9 (1970): 104-62, and The Proto-Oceanic palatals, Memoir 43, 1978, The Polynesian Society, Auckland, New Zealand. Dr. Blust's current address is: Vakgroep talen en culturen van Z.O. Azie en Oceanie, Postbus 9507, 2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands. 216 Robert Blust logical reconstruction must be reconciled with the much less welldefined demands of semantic reconstruction; attested forms cannot be regarded as cognate unless it is possible to demonstrate that they are both semantically similar and derivable by recurrent phonological changes from a common prototype. Due to the smaller number of functional primes and greater transparency of patterning, it is generally agreed that phonological relationship is relatively easier to demonstrate than semantic relationship. Thus, despite their virtually identical semantic range, reflexes of *baliw(-an) and *bales 'repay, return in kind, take revenge; equalize a loss or debt' in most Austronesian languages are assignable to only one or the other etymon. While it is true that reconstructed Austronesian forms such as *bulu 'body hair, feathers' and *bulu 'wash the hands' are not likely to be related, however, the situation is far less clear-cut in other cases, as where Dempwolff (1934-38) cites Proto-Austronesian *ayam 1 'toy, plaything', *ayam 2 'tame'. The problem of determining underlying semantic identity is perhaps most acute with nuclear cultural concepts, since by its very centrality an idea may be many-faceted. In hopes of minimizing this problem the strategy of historical inference adopted here proceeds in two steps: 1. the juxtaposition of phonologically identical proto-forms, each justified by a cognate set within which the semantic relationships are relatively non-controversial, 2. the search for possible semantic connections between the proto-forms so established. Through this approach it will be seen that non-obvious etymologies can sometimes be supported by reference to comparative ethnographic materials, a procedure I will call 'ethnographic elaboration'. Conversely, it will be found that reconstructed linguistic glosses may also provide an important stimulus to cultural comparison. Etymology, which profits from ethnography on the one hand, thus serves it on the other. Moieties and 'phratry dualism1 Van Wouden cited extensive ethnographic evidence from eastern Indonesia, and De Josselin de Jong indicated agreements between eastern Indonesian and Sumatran societies (particularly the Toba Batak) which appear to point to matrilateral — hence 'exclusive' — cross-cousin marriage as an ancient Indonesian ideal. This inference is corroborated by such categorial equations in reconstructed kinship terminology as Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 217 MB = WF (*ma(n)tuqaS), ZS (ms) = DH (*(dD)awa), FZS •=• ZH (ms) (*laya), and by the absence of affinal meanings among known reflexes of *aya FZ. It may be added with some emphasis that the linguistic evidence not only permits, but requires us to assign features 1-3 to a hypothetical society that was ancestral to all Austronesian-speaking groups outside Formosa (hence including e.g. the Philippines, Madagascar, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia). In accordance with a subgrouping proposal for the Austronesian language family developed elsewhere (Blust 1977) I call this linguistic community 'Proto-Malayo-Polynesian' (PMP). Both De Josselin de Jong and Van Wouden viewed ancient Indonesian exclusive cross-cousin marriage as embedded in a system of 'circulating connubium' or 'generalized exchange' (Levi-Strauss 1949/ 1969), whereby the total society was seen to embrace an aggregate of clans united in unilateral affinal alliance such that A was wife-giver to B, B was wife-giver to C and C wife-giver to A. Although the number of exogamous units necessary to maintain such a system need not exceed three (the 'basic triad' of Ego clan, wife-giving and wifereceiving clans), it was held that the number of clans present in ancient Indonesian society was at least four. The basis for this deviation from a minimal model was the comparative ethnographic evidence from much of Indonesia indicating a two-by-two grouping of clans into larger and similarly exogamous phratries. In the words of De Josselin de Jong (1977: 170): "We may assume at present that this phratry dualism was in force, if not in all, at any rate in an extremely large part of Indonesia, even though it often escaped the attention of ethnographers. The phratries stand in a very special relationship to each o t h e r . . . The typical characteristics of this relationship are rivalry and antagonism, along with reciprocal aid and systematic cooperation. Usually one phratry is represented as masculine and superior, and the other as feminine and inferior. There is always a strong consciousness of their mutual dependence as the two complementary halves of the total community which is maintained by their exchange of marriage partners and their mutual cooperation. Phratry. dualism can of course only go hand in hand with the system of triads if the number of clans is even and comprises at least four." ""•-. Once again comparative linguistic evidence confirms a view originally justified solely by comparative ethnographic materials. Thus, reflexes of *suku 'descent group, clan; quarter' are widespread in Indonesia, and the expression *na xe(m)pat na balay (lit: 'the four council-halls') 218 Robert Blust is attested as the title for a chiefly retinue of ritual ministers — evidently each representing an actual or mythological descent group — not only in western and eastern Indonesia (Minangkabau ampe' balai, Tetum uma hSt2), but as far east as Tonga in western Polynesia (falefS). Similarly, next to *datu as the title for a descent groupconnected politico-religious official (among other things probably the leader of the sacrifice in clan ritual), we must posit the distinction 'male' datu (or datu of the 'upper half) and 'female' datu (or datu of the 'lower half) on some higher level of social organization. While not directly indicative of the kind of phratry dualism inferred by De Josselin de Jong and Van Wouden, such a reconstructed distinction would seem to provide indirect testimony to the posited division of early Austronesian society into complementary halves. The descent groups in such a system of unilateral affinal alliance fully meet Levi-Strauss's (1969: 73) description of marriage classes: "The term clan will be reserved for unilineal groupings which, in that they are exogamous, permit a purely negative definition, and the term class, or more exactly marriage class for those groupings which permit a positive determination of the modalities of exchange." Moreover, since each class is otiose with respect to the exchange relations of its partner of the same phratry, there is nothing to prevent the phratries from themselves forming descent groups of a higher segmentary order. In such a situation we are entitled to speak of the consanguineally opposed, affinally united dual divisions as 'moieties'. The marriage classes and their formal interrelations can thus be represented as in Figure 1: FIGURE 1 Model of early Austronesian unilaterial affinal alliance with four marriage classes (A-D) and exogamous moieties (A/C, B/D) 'male' Figure 1 represents essentially the situation with respect to early Austronesian descent groups and their interrelations that can be inferred Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 219 from the linguistic evidence collected to date. However, this situation differs from Van Wouden's reconstruction in an important respect. Although lexical clues permit us (contra Murdock 1949) to rule out exclusive organization around the bilateral kindred as a likely descent principle in early Austronesian society, they provide no further information about the descent principle employed. Based on the evidence of comparative linguistics, then, we can conclude that early Austronesian society was lineal (i.e. possessed descent groups), but we cannot specify the type of lineal descent that was culturally sanctioned. Van Wouden argued at some length that ancient eastern Indonesian society was not based exclusively either on patrilineal or on matrilineal descent, but incorporated both principles in a system of double unilineal descent. De Josselin de Jong (1977: 170-2) added that such an arrangement probably was characteristic also at an earlier time of various Sumatran peoples. Important support for the latter view was subsequently adduced by P . E . de Josselin de Jong (1951). Following his initial attempt to develop a model of early eastern Indonesian social organization based on exclusive cross-cousin marriage and patrilineal descent, Van Wouden concluded that under such an arrangement either unilineal descent principle (patrilineal or matrilineal) automatically implies the other (1968: 90-2): "If we take a patrilineal clan system with unilateral affinal relationships, and exclusive cross-cousin marriage as the obligatory form of marriage . . . the conclusion emerges that in addition to the four patrilineal clans there must also exist four exogamous matrilineal groups which are similarly connected by a chain of unilateral affinal relationships . . . It is a consequence of the unilateral system that both patrilineal and matrilineal principles of grouping co-exist and are entirely equivalent." 3 Van Wouden further observed (p. 92) that both patrilineal and matrilineal clans in a system of circulating connubium with double unilineal descent form moieties by pairs of clans. The result is a 16-class marriage system in which the patrilineal moieties intersect the matrilineal moieties to divide the entire society into quarters. Such a system of marriage classes differs from a classic four-class system (cf. Levi-Strauss 1969: 155-67) by virtue of the unilaterality of affinal links and the practical restriction of marriage to members of the same generation. Following P. E. de Josselin de Jong (1951: 40) — who simplifies the diagram in Van Wouden, p. 93 — these relationships can be schematized as in Figure 2: Robert Blust 220 FIGURE 2 Model of early Austronesian unilateral affinal alliance with sixteen marriage classes and intersecting exogamous moieties (numbers = patrilineal clans, grouped in patri-moieties 1 + 2, 3 + 4; letters = matrilineal clans, grouped in matri-moieties A + B, G + D; exchange relations are between diagonally positioned major quarters) 1 2 3 4 A A B B G G D D 1 2 3 4 As P. E. de Josselin de Jong points out (1951: 39), although the term "moiety' retains its appropriateness as a description of either the patrilineal (1 + 2 vs. 3 + 4) or the matrilineal (A + B vs. C + D) dual divisions, in a system of double unilineal descent neither descent principle can independently define a descent group (thus 1 + 2 and 3 + 4 are descent groups only with respect to patrilineal descent, while A + B and C + D are descent groups only with respect to matrilineal descent). In the context of a functioning system, then, such divisions are perhaps better denoted by the more neutral term 'phratry'. The quarters resulting from moiety intersection, on the other hand, are descent groups each comprising four marriage classes, and it is to these functional units or their representative functionaries that terms such as PMP *suku and *na xe(m)pat na balay presumably referred. II. PMP. *BALIW: HOMOPHONY OR POLYSEMY? With this brief historical background as justification for our use of the expression 'phratry dualism' we can turn now to a consideration of new linguistic evidence bearing on the question of dual divisions in early Austronesian society. As already stated, comparative linguistic evidence provides independent support for the conclusion of the early Dutch structuralists that exclusive cross-cousin marriage is an ancient feature in the Indonesian area, and requires us moreover to assume that such an arrange- Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 221 ment was found in a community ancestral to all Austronesian-speaking societies outside Formosa. Linguistic comparison further corroborates the comparative ethnographic inference that early Austronesian society embraced an important functional quadripartition. Despite the ceremonial bipartition implied in the distinction 'male' datu (or datu of the 'upper half) vs. 'female' datu (or datu of the 'lower half), however, direct linguistic testimony to early Austronesian phratry dualism has until now remained elusive. The purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate that such evidence exists, and to explore some of its implications for the structure of the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian social order in its ritual and cognitive aspects. To explain the comparison Tagalog baliw 'insane', maliw 'transformation, metamorphosis', Merina ( = 'Hova') valu 'alteration', Dempwolff (1934-38) proposed Proto-Austronesian *baliw 'transformation, metamorphosis'. Other languages attest this reconstructed gloss more or less faithfully: la) *baliw/maliw 'transformation, metamorphosis' Hanunoo baliw 'transformation, metamorphosis' (next to balyu 'change, exchange'), Bolaang Mongondow balui (met.) 'exchange, replace, renew, transform', Long Jeeh (Kenyah) baliw, Sebup (Kenyan) maliw, Long Atip (Kayan) baluy (met.) 'change state', Iban bali 'changing', ukoi b. 'chameleon', manang b. 'medicine man who dresses as a woman', Ngadha bhale 'change, exchange, alter'. In addition some languages in the Philippines reflect *baliw-an, and in these the meaning varies over the range 'change; substitute; repeat': lb) *baliw-an 'change; substitute; repeat' Ilokano a.g-bdliw 'change, vary, alter, fade, be inconstant, fickle, unstable', baliw-an 'repeat, reiterate, do, etc. again', Bontok bdliwan, nin-bdliw 'change, as one's habits or appearance, Maranao balioan 'instead of, substitute' (next to baloi 'make into, convert, mutate, enchantment by evil spirit"), Tiruray baliwan 'a replacement; to replace'. In a partially overlapping collection of languages extending from the northern Philippines to eastern Indonesia we find reflexes of a superficially distinct linguistic form *baliw that sometimes express the idea of opposition or antagonism, sometimes that of mutual support or friendship, sometimes both notions commingled, and sometimes little more than the essential reciprocity that unites them: 222 Robert Blust 2) *baliw 'oppose, opposite part; friend, partner PHILIPPINES Ilokano baliw 'opposite bank, shore' SULAWESI Bolaang Mongondow sinim-balui 'oppose, answer back or contradict the village head', Bare'e ball 'reverse side, opposite part, different, changed; sam-ia/i 'one side', si-bali 'merged or fused with', Tae' bali 'companion, mate; partner, whenever two parties oppose each other, as in a cockfight; opponent; answer, oppose, resist; to pa-foa/i-an 'assistant, helper; the slave who stands at the side of the to mebalun (funeral director) at the performance of the death ritual; also the slave who stands at the side of the to minaa (priest) at the performance of offerings to the gods', sang-bali 'one side, either member of body parts that come in pairs', si-bali 'become a pair, marry', Proto-South Sulawesi *balii 'side (friend, partner)', *bali]. + i 'stand beside; help', *bali2 'enemy (oppose)', *bali 3 'answer (contradict, answer back)' MADAGASCAR Merina vady 'partner, husband, wife; a companion, an associate; a mate, one of a set of two (thus the saucer is the vady of a cup); vady lahi 'a friend' 4 LESSER SUNDAS Manggarai bali 'friend; enemy; divided in halves; foreign, alien', Roti fali 'help, stand beside', Sika wali-bali hadeng 'the left or right side of a valley or a river', Leti wali 'side, half; partner, companion; opponent', like wali-li 'opposite side of the river', Yamdena bali-n 'side, opposite side; half, one of a pair', ngrije bali-n 'enemy, opponent; opposed party', Kei wali-n 'side, opposite side'. What is remarkable about these comparisons is the frequent juxtaposition of antithetical meanings ('friend, partner; stand beside, help' vs. 'enemy, opponent; oppose, contradict, answer back', etc.). As already seen, J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong in particular pointed out the widespread importance of exogamous phratries as the basis for more ramified forms of social organization in Indonesia, noting that "The typical characteristics of this relationship (between phratries) are rivalry and antagonism, along with reciprocal aid and systematic cooperation". Van Wouden (1968, Ch. II) collected numerous ethnographic details Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 223 which suggest the existence or former existence of dual divisions in much of eastern Indonesia (where one is often associated with the younger brother and the sky, and the other with the elder brother and the earth), 5 and similar evidence has been presented for various peoples in western Indonesia, as with the two Minangkabau lareh, periodically pitted against one another in the traditional mock combat called parang adat ('war of custom'). 8 There is thus good reason to believe that among other things *baliw meant 'moiety' or 'phratry', and encompassed the ambivalent attitude inherent in the opposed complementarity of the halves, an attitude characterized most succinctly by Held (1935: 298) as one of "hostile friendship". Still another superficially distinct cognate set pointing to *baliw (or *baliw-an) concerns the donning of mourning apparel: 3) *baliw(-an) 'don mourning apparel; mourn for a deceased spouse' PHILIPPINES Batad Ifugao balu 7 'that which a man or woman wears to indicate that his/her spouse has died; to put on clothing to indicate that one's spouse has died', Pangasinan baliw-an black clothing worn by a person in mourning; to wear such clothing' BORNEO Timugon Murut m-aluy, n-aluy (met.), 'change into white mourning clothes on the death of one's spouse' LESSER SUNDAS Fordat na.-ba.li-n (cited sub balin) 'veil oneself, as a woman does when her husband is dead; hence the sign of mourning', na.-bali-n nitu 'mourn for the dead, be in mourning'. Finally, in several widely separated languages a reflex of *baliw (or *baliw-an) carries a reciprocal meaning which is sometimes positive* (repay, return in kind — of gifts, etc.), and sometimes negative (retaliate, take revenge), but which is perhaps most essentially rendered as 'to equalize (a loss or debt)': 4) *baliw(-an) 'repay, return in kind; retaliate, take revenge'; hence, 'to equalize (a loss or debt)' PHILIPPINES Ilokano baliw-an 'set right, correct, mend' SULAWESI Tae' ball 'repay, retaliate' 224 Robert Blust SUMATRA Achehnese baluy (met.) 'take revenge; restore or replace after a loss' LESSER SUNDAS Li'o vali 'restore, equalize a loss, win back what was lost in a game', Manggarai wali8 'return in kind (gifts, etc.)'. Comparisons 1-4 confront us with a basic lexicographic problem (and thus in diachronic terms a problem in semantic reconstruction): do the prototypes of these superficially distinct cognate sets collectively constitute an instance .of homophony or of polysemy? Under the former interpretation we would regard the meanings as unrelated (as e.g. Mills 1975 does for Proto-South Sulawesi *bali 1-3), and write *baliw1 'transformation, metamorphosis', *baliw2 'moiety, phratry', *baliw3 'don mourning apparel', *baliw4 'equalize (a loss or debt)'; under the latter interpretation we would see a connecting thread uniting at least some of the comparisons which we have thus far distinguished. The argument for homophony requires no further comment. What, then, are the arguments for polysemy? The attested meanings subsumed under la-b generally suggest an alternation between two or more states which may be regarded as divergent instantiations of a single substance or reality. Thus, a metamorphosis can be conceived either as the transformation of appearance (with unrestricted possibilities of change), or as the transposition of essence between fixed states or appearances (with restricted possibilities of change). Instances of the first concept are Bontok bdliw-an, ninbdliw 'change, as one's habits or appearance' and Iban ukoi bali 'chameleon'. The second concept is perhaps best illustrated in the data cited by Iban manang bali 'medicine man who dresses as a woman' (where the contrast of dress presumably is between two fixed categories, male and female). An exemplary instance of the second concept of metamorphosis not attested among the reflexes included here but evidently important in some parts of insular southeast Asia, is the relationship between ice and water (in the form hail:rain). 8 In all such instances there is a complementarity of attributes in time: a chameleon cannot be both brown and green at once, a medicine man who dresses as a woman cannot at the same time dress as a man, a given quantity of hydrogen dioxide cannot simultaneously be ice and water, etc. By contrast the relationship between moieties or phratries within a Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 225 larger society is characterized by simultaneity — the halves necessarily coexist. There is, however, a complementarity of attributes between moieties which can be viewed as conceptually close to the complementarity of attributes in comparison 1. Just as ice and water jointly manifest a single underlying substance, so 'male' and 'female' moieties jointly manifest a total society. It is perhaps worth noting how closely the semantic range of the first two comparisons taken together approximates that of the notion 'alter ego' in various European languages in the double sense 'Jekyll and Hyde' and 'inseparable companion'.10 Just as alter ego must be regarded as polysemous in English, then, *baliw must be regarded as polysemous in comparison 1 and 2. At this point it will be useful to recall the claim, made at least as early as 1903 by Durkheim and Mauss, that systems of dual organization governing marriage typically are correlated with dualistic systems of cosmological classification. Needham (1962: 95-7) argues that such symbolic classifications are associated with systems of matrilateral alliance with or without moiety divisions, and describes as presumably universal concomitant features contrasts such as the following: u Left Wife-takers Inferior Female Female goods Below Earth Bad death Profane Right Wife-givers Superior Male Male goods Above Sky Good death Sacred The data to hand seem to justify at least one other inference in connection with comparison 2. Both in Ilokano of northern Luzon and in Sika and Led of the Lesser Sunda islands a reflex of *baliw singly or in combination with other morphemes means 'opposite side of the river'. This agreement between distantly related languages would appear to be explained most simply on the assumption that the meaning 'opposite side of the river' was a component of the meaning 'dual division'. A possible historical link between these concepts in Austronesianspeaking societies is provided by Van Wouden (1968: 27), who observed of the social organization of eastern Sumba that "Laura is divided into two, viz. Letena, the older branch, associated with the mountains, and 226 Robert Blust Maradana, the younger branch, associated wit the plain". These halves of the main village are separated by a ravine, with the Letena on the 'left hand' and the Maradana on the 'right hand' sides. He continues (p. 28): "Since it is plain that Letena and Maradana inhabit one village, even though it is split into two, we can take it that the association of Letena with mountain and Maradana with the plain is purely traditional. Further instances of dual organization are found in Lauli, which is divided into Lauli Bondo (above) and Lauli Wawa (below) . . . On the right bank of a certain river lies the village of Sodan, where a younger brother of the ruler is guardian of the sacred objects. The village of Wunu Wulata, on the left bank, is the residence of the ruler himself." It thus seems likely that the dual divisions of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian society were at least traditionally, if not physically, associated with settlements on either side of a river. Just how this assumed physical congruence with organizational principles might be reconciled with double unilineal descent, however, is unclear. Similarly, the relationship of such a pattern of physical or mythical distribution to the titles 'datu of the upper half and 'datu of the lower half raises questions of interpretation, though we might expect in accordance with the universal properties of dualistic classification systems that male/upper = 'right' (bank) and female/lower = 'left' (bank). A relationship between the preceding comparisons and comparison 3 is by no means obvious on inspection, but can be seen as probable upon scanning the general ethnographic literature on mourning. Thus, in his classic cross-cultural study of the ceremonial expressions of changes of social status, Van Gennep (1909/1960: 147) observed that since mourning requirements depend on degrees of kinship "It seems right that widowers and widows should belong to this special world for the longest time". In agreement with this probably universal expectation most reflexes of *baliw3 make specific reference to the mourning requirements of the surviving spouse. Frequently, however, the relatives of the surviving spouse also have onerous mourning duties. Fortune (1932: 12), for example, notes of a bereaved Dobuan man that "At both harvests the village kin are obliged to bring big gifts of yams and give them to the kinsfolk of his dead wife, getting back smaller gifts, no great recompense, a few days after each gift". Where a society is divided into moieties, as with the Iroquois, such ritual obligations not uncommonly become the responsibility of the moiety of the surviving spouse (Hoebel 1966: 374). Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 227 Although initial impressions suggest that comparison 3 might be connected with the earlier comparisons through the equivalence 'donning of mourning apparel' = 'change of appearance' .= 'transformation, metamorphosis', the basis for this connection thus appears to be more subtle. If Proto-Malayo-Polynesian society was organized on the highest level into mutually opposed, mutually dependent exogamous dual divisions (whether these were simple, or intersecting as a result of the operation of double unilineal descent), each marriage represented on the individual level the formal bond of exchange joining the phratries into a social totality, and its dissolution on the death of one or both spouses represented a weakening of this bond. In, such a society the ritualization of mourning a deceased spouse would constitute only one expression — albeit an extremely important one —- of the antiphonal character of moiety relations. As Levi-Strauss (1969: 80), quoting Gay ton (1945), observes of the quasi-duaiistic Yokut(s!) and Western Mono of central Califdrnia: "On all occasions of... jubilance or sorrow there was always a reciprocal group who supplied services or gifts which were balanced with gifts of equivalent value in the form of bead money, baskets, feather ornaments, furs or foodstuffs." Gayton's mention of the importance of ultimate balance in reciprocal prestations among the Yokuts and Western Mono brings us, of course, to comparison 4. Like the concept of moiety divisions itself, the idea of balance implies a reciprocal relationship between the halves of a whole that is in some sense bilaterally symmetrical. The resemblance between comparisons 2 and 4, however, extends beyond the simple idea of reciprocity, as both exhibit a positive and a negative aspect: the "friendly" aspect of comparison 2 is the (predominantly) nominal counterpart of the "return in kind (gifts, etc.)" aspect of comparison 4, while the "hostile" aspect of the former shows a similar correspondence to the "retaliate, take revenge" aspect of the latter. The semantic range of comparison 4 is thus indistinguishable from that of Dempwolff's *bales: 12 i *bales 'repay, return in kind;.retaliate, take revenge'; hence 'to equalize (a loss or debt)' Toba Batak balos 'repay someone for something; take revenge; return (kindness); answer (a letter)', Malay balas 'requital; repayment; reply, e.g. to a letter; b. budi 'return a kindness; hulur b. to replace a slain man', Ngaju Dayak baldh 'take revenge; repay (a debt)', Merina vali 'answer', Cebuano Bisayan bdlus 'do back to someone what he did to 228 Robert Blust the agent (return a smile, answer a letter, repay a kindness)'; for something to happen one way and then the opposite way; for a brother and sister to marry people who are also brother and sister', Casiguran Dumagat bales 'term for the custom where a Negrito 13 works for a lowland person for a few days, and then the lowland person works for the Negrito for the same number of days', Ilokano bales 'take revenge, vengeance; to reward, repay; to grow afresh (after having been transplanted and drooping)', a.g-ba.-bdles 'to vary, alter, change, alternate', Paiwan v-n-alet 'oppose someone, talk or strike back, do in return', pa.-valet 'trade places with; return a visit; oppose', ki-valet 'take revenge'. Given the virtual identity in semantic range between *bales and comparison 4 it might be argued that die agreement of antithetical senses in comparisons 2 and 4 is no necessary indication of lexical affinity, as a similar ambivalence is found in other Proto-MalayoPolynesian morphemes, and for that matter, in other languages (e.g. German vergelten). Since *bales is not known to be reconstructible with any other meaning, however, it must be regarded as the best available candidate for the meaning 'repay, return in kind; take revenge'.14 By a process of elimination the association of this meaning with *baliw appears therefore to have been either derivative or partial. If anything, then, die occurrence of *bales strengthens die probability that comparison 4 is not a homonym of *baliw as reflected in comparisons 1-3, but is rather still another realization of a single underlying idea. III. GIFTS AND HEADS: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ELABORATION In the preceding section the interrelations of comparisons 1-4 were established in several distinct ways: that of comparisons 1 and 2 by analysis of the complex ideas 'metamorphosis' and 'inseparable companion', together with die detection of a parallel ambiguity in the notion 'alter ego'; that of 2 and 4 by a generally nominal:verbal correspondence in terms which exhibit a similar affective ambivalence; that of 1 and 4 by implication. The relationship of comparison 3 to die others, however, was demonstrable only by reference to comparative ethnographic materials, a technique that might appropriately be called 'ethnographic elaboration'. Although die connection of comparison 4 with the others seems fairly certain already, this connection can be further strengthened and illuminated in perhaps unexpected ways by ethnographic elaboration. Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 229 If we begin with the "friendly" aspect of reciprocity — that of exchange, of the giving and receiving of gifts — we immediately encounter again the system of 'circulating connubium' first described for Indonesia by J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong and Van Wouden, since in systems of matrilateral alliance the circulation of women is only a part — though clearly the major part — of a larger system of counterfissive exchange which includes the circulation of j'male' and 'female' goods in opposite directions (De Josselin de Jong 1935/1977: 170). In such a system every descent group possesses a tripartite nature: that of Ego group (consanguines), that of wife-giver, (superior affines) and that of wife-taker (inferior affines). Sometimes overlooked, however, is the fact that the superiority of the wife-giving group is conceived in spiritual or magicb-religious rather than strictly political terms, and that the affective tone of the son-in-law/father-in-law relationship partakes more of the powerful ambivalence and intensity typical of attitudes toward the supernatural than! it does of the less emotionally-charged attitude toward objects in thei ordinary workaday world. Mabuchi (1952: 201) recognized this quality in; a brief comparison of the social organization of the central tribes of Formosa with the exemplary systems of eastern Indonesia: , " . . . the bride-giving group stands in a superior position, often both secularly and spiritually, toward the bride-receiving group; members of the bride-giving group as the maternal relatives of the bride-receiving group, act as patron, adviser and supervisor and have the power to bless or curse the latter, and this relationship is most typically exemplified between mother's brother and sister's child." Mabuchi's remarks accord closely with die expectations created by Needham's universal schema of dualistic classification systems (section I I ) , where wife-takers are symbolically assigned to the profane and wife-givers to die sacred world. A particular case of the sacred/profane dichotomy in. a society ordered by asymmetric exchange is reported by Barnes (1974: 251-2), who describes the authority!of the epu (a category including MB/WF) vis-a-vis the anaq maqing (a category including ZS/DH) among the people of Kedang, central Lesser Sundas as "essentially spiritual", in contrast with the authority of the elder members of one's own clan, which is binding in temporal affairs. How is this sacred character of the wife-giving group conceived? As noted elsewhere (Blust 1980), in its beneficent aspect die power of the superior affines assumes a miraculous, curative or fecundating in- 230 Robert Blust fluence, while in its maleficent aspect it is a dreaded source of disaster. This Janus-faced control over life and death is particularly clear in Vergouwen's (1933/1964: 54-5) description of 'the magico-religious character1 of the relationship between wife-giving (hula-hula) and wife-receiving (boru) groups among the Toba Batak: "The hula-hula is a source of supernatural power, of individual vitality for its boru. The boru sees the members of its hula-hula as being endowed with sahala, that special power which can be regarded as a rich, more than usually potent force of the tondi = soul. A beneficial and salutory influence for the boru can emanate from this sahala; at the same time, however, its power creates fear and respect for i t . . . If a boru does not fare as well in life as it would wish to, if no children are born, if a disaster like continual sickness strikes it, if there is a death in the family, if there is a fire . . . then it turns to its hula-hula with its urgent entreaties... in order that some of the hula-hula's, sahala may be reflected upon it and thereby reinforce its defence against the powers of evil that assail it." Similarly, among the Belu of central Timor according to Vroklage (1952, 1: 252) there is a belief that the wife-giving group (uma mane) has the power to start fires, and to cause illness or even death for men, livestock and the crops. That the salutory influence of a harmonious relationship with the wife-giving group permeates not only the collective humanity of the wife-receiving group but also its agricultural holdings seems clear from Hicks' (1976: 103-4) description of the imagery of nuptial speeches in an ideal MBD marriage (hafoli) among the Tetum of Timor: "The wife-giver's speech overflows with images of union and fertility which transcend sexual intercourse and affinal alliance. .. The u'e (liquid, water), as in previous speeches, joins with the idea of "multiplication"; and an association (again found in earlier speeches) is made between the fertility of the married couple and that of the rice-lands .. . The earth is symbolically equivalent to the wife's womb, and the rice seed the husband's sperm. Hence the rice crops equal children." What we have seen in the foregoing passages can be summarized as follows: matrilateral marriage not only serves to strengthen established ties of political alliance on the level of the clan; on the level of the moiety/phratry it can also be viewed as a symbolic expression of the union of the male and female halves of the cosmos. As such the preferred marriage (followed by a harmonious relationship between affinally-connected groups) provides magico-religious guarantees of Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 231 general well-being and fertility, with particular emphasis on childbearing and the success of the rice crop. As seen above, in addition to the "friendly" aspect of comparison 4 centering around the exchange of gifts, there is a "hostile" aspect centering around the notion of retaliation or revenge. In view of the double nature of the creative/destructive force widely believed to reside in the wife-giving group, it might be thought that the "hostile" aspect of comparison 4 refers to the negative expression of this power. But as already noted, the potency of the wife-giving group is predominantly of a magico-religious character; in case of affront its punitive efficacy would therefore presumably be largely automatic. Retaliation, by contrast, is an act not merely of conscious, but even of calculated (even if defensive) hostility. In short, on the supra-individual level it is an act of war. Among the more than 2,200 entries in his Proto-Austronesian lexicon, Dempwolff (1938) does not include a convincing reconstruction for 'war'j nor has a comparison pointing exclusively to this meaning been discovered in the intervening four decades.15 Dempwolff did, however, reconstruct *kayaw 'headhunting', and further support for the antiquity of this item and the associated practice has since accumulated (Blust 1976). Surely the expression par excellence of warfare in at least the nonOceanic portion of the Austronesian world is the taking of heads. In many of the more traditional societies of this area the concepts 'war' and 'headhunting' are represented by a single morpheme (e.g. Paiwan q-in-atsap 'headhunting', ma-q-in-atsap 'go to war', Uma Juman (Kayan) t$ayo 'go to war, go headhunting', Iban kayau 'war expedition, headhunting'), and it is clear from the general ethnographic record that warfare dissociated from the taking of heads is a relatively recent phenomenon (cf. note 15). As has long been recognized, however, what is most remarkable about headhunting in the Austronesian world (and elsewhere) is the matrix of magico-religious concepts in which the practice is inextricably enmeshed. Downs (1955: 41) gives as reasons for headhunting among the Toraja of central Sulawesi the following: "A head was necessary for ending the mourning for an important person, and for the consecration of a temple. Young men took heads to prove their bravery to girls and it was sometimes done to prove one's innocence with regard to some accusation or other. Apart from such specific grounds, however, there was the general one that the 232 Robert Blust well-being of the village as a whole and the success of its crops depended on the taking of heads." A partly overlapping set of reasons for headhunting in Nias is given by Loeb (1935: 145), who suggests that the "basic motive behind this custom .. . was religious in nature". In several parts of Indonesia the dead were commemorated at a great annual feast, and here too heads were required. The attested distribution suggests considerable antiquity for this association: Nias (Loeb 1935: 145), Ngaju Dayak (Scharer 1963: 131-41), west Geram (Jensen 1948: 159f). Dozier (1967: 74) reports that among the Kalinga of northern Luzon the reasons given for participation in a headhunting venture are 1) to retaliate an attack by enemy headhunters, 2) to "even the score" when a man has lost a close relative either by natural death or as the result of an accident, 3) to gain prestige and renown. In agreement with Barton (1949: 236-7), however, he indicates at least an attenuated connection with fertility concepts (p. 74): "The reasons for and functions of headhunting among the mountain people of northern Luzon have been generally attributed to religious factors, most specifically to fertility concepts . . . With the Kalinga, at least, fertility concepts involving the miraculous increase of crops and human life as an associated aspect of headhunting appear to be absent, except that there is a widespread belief that the taking of the life of an enemy may cure childlessness in one's wife or female relative. Barrenness may be dispelled by bringing death to a nonregional member by any method, however, not necessarily by the expedient of headhunting." Although headhunting apparently was not associated with the fertility of the crops either in Nias or among the Kalinga, the attested distribution of this association, like that between headhunting and the feast of the dead, leaves us little choice but to assume that it has a long history among Austronesian-speaking peoples. One informant's account of the origin of headhunting in the Solor archipelago as reported by Arndt (1938: 8), for example, holds that the practice is necessary to provide skulls for the granary of the principal god, Lera-Wulan (SunMoon), without which there would be "no rain, no vegetation, no crops, sickness and death". Similarly, according to Kruyt (1922: 567), in Laura and Lewa on the island of Sumba headhunting was associated with agricultural vitality, and Downs (1955: 56), citing Jensen, notes that in western Ceram headhunting was connected with magico-religious Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 233 ideas involving "the production of food by human sacrifice". As the negative expression of the headhunting mystique Le Bar (1975: 147) points out that among the Atayal of northern Formosa after a successful war expedition "Warriors drank a token portion of millet beer and blood poured from the head, after which it was added to those already on the village skull shelf in front of the chiefs house. The spirits of all these heads became part of the collective rutux (spirits, including those of the ancestors) that guarded and protected the village from disaster." Finally, the probability that headhunting not only was associated with the fertility of the crops, but also was ceremonially connected with the agricultural cycle, is strengthened by Downs' (p. .41) statement that headhunting among the Toraja "was usually done while the rice was ripening or during and after the harvest", together with Uma Juman kayo 'post-harvest ceremony for the ritual purification of weapons', tyayo ( = rj + kayo) 'go to war, go headhunting'.- Further support for this view appears in Schulte Nordholt's (1966/1971: 329) remark that among the Atoni of western Timor one of the causes for a headhunting raid was the failure to bring harvest gifts to the ruler (construed as a sign of rebellion), and perhaps more significantly,' in the parallel use of a hooked implement (kait) to gather first plants of the harvest and to ritually incorporate captured heads into the circle of fertility (nono) of the Atoni sacred world (p. 352). Both through the contraction of a correct (i.e. matrilateral) marriage with harmonious relations of affinal exchange and through the taking of heads, then, the early Austronesian human/agricultural community received magico-religious guarantees of health and fertility, and was able to avert disaster. What can be the basis of this detailed similarity of influences characterizing the spiritual power of wife-givers and of heads taken in battle? Downs (p. 51) maintains that the magico-religious efficacy of headhunting derives from its role as a rite of passage involving the ritual reenactment of "the cosmic cycle of life and death and struggle between the two halves of the universe, the Upper- and Underworlds". In accordance with this reasoning he concludes (p. 69) that "there is no sharp distinction to be made between ritual combats and headhunting". As support for his position Downs cites an impressive array of examples from Indonesian societies in which headhunting evidently formed part of a ritual combat between dual divisions of the same 234 Robert Blust society, thus providing further indications of a connection between comparisons 2 and 4. While Downs may be justified in his conclusion that headhunting was connected with ritual combat, however, it is difficult to believe that it was in any way restricted to such symbolic or ceremonial functions. Everywhere that headhunting is described in the ethnographic literature there is ample evidence that it was practiced at least sometimes — and probably primarily — against real enemies. We are thus led to look beyond ritual combat in the narrow sense for a connection between the magico-religious benefits of affinal exchange and headhunting. Our attention is drawn again to the common thread connecting the meanings 'to repay' and 'to retaliate'. Magic equilibrium While the semantic structure of individual lexical items such as *baliw4 or *bales apparently need not imply anything about the significant values of a culture, the assumption that it does can be of heuristic value. Thus, if the essential meaning of comparison 4 is 'to equalize', and if this concept was connected with affinal exchange and headhunting, we are led to ask whether the idea of balance might not have played a role in both types of activity. And if so, could this idea underlie the magico-religious efficacy common to the voluntary transfer of life (in affinal exchange) and to its forcible capture and ritual incorporation (in headhunting) ? 10 The heuristic value of the linguistic evidence in relation to this essentially ethnographic question lies less in its novelty than in its power to compel us to reconsider suggestions made by an earlier generation of investigators, and now largely discarded. According to Koentjaraningrat (1975: 98) the idea of a kind of ideal socio-cosmic balance, or 'magic equilibrium' goes back at least as far as Van Ossenbruggen (1916), who saw in various Indonesian cultural practices a belief "that organisms, elements and objects. . . are charged with a magical power substance, excessive amounts of which will create a dangerous situation and will disturb the equilibrium of magical power which maintains the cosmic order". Although Koentjaraningrat himself is skeptical of Van Ossenbruggen's proposal, or at least of some applications of it (particularly that of Malinckrodt 1928), a variety of quite independent statements in the ethnographic literature do support the contention that equilibrium is regarded in many attested Austronesian-speaking societies as conducive to health and fertility, and that disequilibrium is perceived as a prelude to misfortune. Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 235 The major theoretical difficulty in testing such a proposition — and one which Mallinckrodt evidently never satisfactorily overcame — involves the discovery of an observational basis for the definition of 'equilibrium'. Two such bases suggest themselves' immediately: the reciprocal relations expressed in affinal exchange and in headhunting. Because it is not central to the concerns of this paper we will content ourselves with establishing a prima facie case for the theoretical utility of the construct 'magic equilibrium' through direct reference to statements in the ethnographic record, and through limited comparison with alternative theories. Matrilateral marriage, as we have seen, typically forms part of a larger system of affinal exchange in attested Austronesian societies. Although such exchanges are non-reciprocal or 'asymmetric' in the sense that each category of goods flows in only one;direction, it stands to reason that the reciprocal exchanges of categorically opposed goods are expected eventually to balance — that is, that the imbalance initiated by the circulation of female goods (including women) is corrected by the counter-circulation of male goods (frequently mislabeled 'bride price'). This achievement of equilibrium in no way alters the differential status of the wife-giving and the wife-receiving groups, but it serves to neutralize the culturally perceived danger of a situation in which imbalance remains. To provide a frame of reference for this attitude it is necessary to consider the relationship of a man to his ZS/DH or to his MB/WF in exemplary matrilateral societies. As observed elsewhere (Blust 1980), the relationship of a man to his father-in-law in Austronesian-speaking societies that do not enjoin matrilateral marriage is reportedly much the same as his relationship to his own parents, a relationship characterized by what might be called 'ordinary respect'. His relationship to his MB/WF in typical matrilateral societies, on the other hand, is distinctly different. Thus Schulte Nordholt remarks repeatedly (1971: 107, 114) that although the young Atoni bridegroom has respect for his father (amaf), he lives in fear of his father-in-law (atoni amaf). In time, when the bridewealth has been paid the relationship to the father-in-law becomes less strained, and although the son-in-law is expected to be prepared at all times to assist with such tasks as the felling of trees or the building of a house (since the status inequality is permanent), in return for his services he will receive the counter-gift of a meal. ! This marked anxiety of the bridegroom during what might be termed the state of imbalance of the affinal relationship is not entirely in- 236 Robert Blust telligible from the status inequality of the individuals or groups involved. A man's father-in-law, after all, is the brother of his mother — hence a person whom he has known from earliest childhood —, and perhaps most importantly, his greatest potential living benefactor. It seems likely that the explanation for this outwardly exaggerated behavior involves the assumed power of the wife-givers to bless or curse their inferior affines. But why should a man during the early years of his marriage live in fear of the negative expression of his father-in-law's superior spiritual power? One explanation is that the greater the imbalance in the exchange relationship the greater the perceived danger to the wifereceivers from the superior spiritual power of the wife-givers. Schulte Nordholt emphasizes (1971: 352) that among the Atoni affinal exchange, like headhunting is ultimately conceived as a transfer of lifeforce (smanaf) between descent groups, and he mentions (p. 140) among the structural principles which govern the Atoni kinship system the following: "(3) the principle of reciprocity by means of which it is endeavoured to maintain the stability of the balance of life. The ume (limited lineage) always requires the same amount of smanaf it has given away to be given in return, no matter by what means." Barnes (1974: 247) reports that in Kedang "wife-givers are not generally feared or regarded as excessively exploitative", but he adds (pp. 289-90) as a feature of Kedang marriage transactions and of asymmetric alliance systems in general "their predilection for finding closed cycles in which exchange results in equilibrium". Though less directly indicated, a similar attitude is evidently prevalent among the Toba Batak. Particularly revealing is Vergouwen's description (1964: 62) of the speech that accompanies a piso (countergift) given by the wife-receivers to their wife-givers on receipt of a parcel of land (ulos na so ra buruk) intended to reinforce the spiritual powers of an ailing boru: "You have now enriched your daughter's soul, tondi, with a cloth of her soul.17 Here now is our piso gift so that our souls may always remain strong . . ." As the accompanying Batak text uses the exclusive genitive pronoun (nami) it is clear that the expression 'our souls' refers exclusively to the wife-receivers. But why, if the ulos confers spiritual benefit in itself, should the piso be necessary to ensure its efficacy in perpetuity? The hoarding of spiritual grace — as a sign of ingratitude — evidently is Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 237 a perilous stratagem, capable of upsetting the delicate balance of magico-religious forces which underlie and maintain the order of things. More generally, as Barnes has remarked (1974: 294): "According to Mauss's interpretation of the gift, a prestation always carries with it a part of the owner's spirit, and not to return this with a reciprocal gift is dangerous". The significance of socio-cosmic equilibrium as a precondition to collective health and fertility is similarly indicated in the practice of headhunting. In two important early contributions to the comparative study of religious ideas Tylor (1871/1958, I I : 42-4) argued that headhunting, like the execution of slaves, was intended to procure servants in the afterlife, and Frazer (1890/1960: 502) maintained that the practice was a form of human sacrifice for the crops. While Tylor's argument undoubtedly touches on a significant aspect of headhunting not elaborated here, it cannot be a full explanation, as it fails to account for the widespread connection of the practice with a belief in the 'miraculous increase' of the crops. Similarly, although Frazer's hypothesis recognizes the fecundating efficacy of headhunting in connection with the fertility of the rice, it fails to illuminate the parallel between this and the efficacy of headhunting in connection with the fertility of the human community. As seen earlier, two major occasions on which heads are required in various Austronesian-speaking societies are the death feast and the harvest ceremony. Both of these ceremonies are annual events, and hence represent the conclusion of a cycle in the socio-cosmic life of the community. They are thus — as Downs has pointed out — occasions for the renewal of collective vitality. But what is the sociocosmic mechanism by which rebirth in the following cycle is to be insured? The conclusion of any cycle in human life is a time for assessing gains and losses, and the overall state of one's condition. The death feast clearly is a recognition of loss to the community, and while the harvest may appear to represent a gain this is probably never true in relation to labor (or *sumai}et) invested, given the inevitable loss of crops to the predations of birds and wild animals. Both of these pivotal events might therefore plausibly be seen as occasions on which the community must confront the reality of loss to its collective vitality during the cycle about to be completed. Through incorporating the spiritual force of vanquished enemies, the capture of heads serves as compensation for these losses. Given this cognitive framework we might 238 Robert Blust infer that only an unfavorable imbalance of spiritual force would be detrimental to the well-being of a community. Yet the evidence to hand suggests that any imbalance is detrimental, and that headhunting — like affinal exchange — strives toward dynamic equilibrium as the culturally perceived precondition to health and fertility. As already mentioned, Dozier (1967) cites as one reason for headhunting among the Kalinga of northern Luzon the need to "even the score" when a man has lost a close relative either by natural death or as the result of an accident. What is noteworthy here is that the idea of re-establishing balance can have no connection with retaliation, an observation which simplistic physicalist interpretations cannot easily explain. Among the Kalinga, as elsewhere, the significant fact in such cases appears to be rather that life-force has been lost from the community, and must be compensated. Much the same idea evidently lies behind Downs' remark (1955: 41) that among the Toraja "feuds between villages or tribes... were suspended from time to time when the score between the two antagonists was considered to be approximately even". In a similar vein, Schulte Nordholt (1971: 329) relates a traditional Atoni story about headhunting in which the name of the intermediary sent to secure the peace is literally ','he who restores the equilibrium". Apart from such relatively direct expressions, the cultural value of socio-cosmic equilibrium also appears to be widely maintained under a dualistic symbolic guise. In various parts of Indonesia and the Philippines the concepts "hot" and "cool" are paired respectively with supernatural states of danger and safety/well-being, and rites of "cooling" play a significant part in the transition through periods of spiritual crisis.18 Schulte Nordholt (p. 344), for example, writes that among the Atoni "Heat and flames are symbolic of danger, disease and death. But the objective of headhunting is the welfare of the community, its "coolness" . . . This is analogous to the procedure which we observed in agriculture: first the field has to be burnt down so that later it may produce food; first it is rendered hot (maputu), i.e. dangerous, so that later it may bring forth coolness (mainikin), i.e. well-being, welfare." The object of headhunting among the Atoni, then, reportedly is the restoration of "coolness", as it is this state which conduces to the wellbeing of life. Similar ideas regarding the value of "coolness" evidently occur in Wetar, where De Josselin de Jong (1947: 139) recorded Erai tjirin 'cold, cool; healthy, safe', in Malaya/Sumatra where Wilkinson Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 239 (1959) gives Malay panas 'heat; (fig.) unholy (of magical practices) or heated (of temper)', ilmu panas 'black magic'; sejok 'coolness; (fig.) lessening of passion or excitement', Minangkabau sajok hati 'care-free; quiet in mind', and in southern Mindanao, where Schlegel (1971) cites Tiruray Peduf '(1) warm, hot; (2) spiritually dangerous, used of places that meginalew (spirits, superhuman beings) are believed to frequent or use as a pathway', legeney '(1) cool; (2) spiritually safe, used of places where one is not bothered by meginalew'. Curiously enough, the association of a "hot"/"cool" distinction with states of spiritual balance occurs in Kelabit of northern Sarawak. (LeBar 1972: 162), but is reversed. : Finally, the probable equivalence of "coolness" with "equilibrium" in the collective, ritual sense is strengthened by similar notions that apply on the level of the individual personality. This is apparent, for example, in portions of the Malay and Minangkabau glosses quoted above, and in Vergouwen's remark (1964: 81) that among the Toba Batak "Coolness, dingin, promotes the stability of the tondi (soul); heat (anger, excitement) is prejudicial". In summary, then, there are abundant references in the ethnographic literature to the magico-religious efficacy of equilibrium or its symbolic equivalent "coolness". The heuristic value of comparison 4 has been amply demonstrated, but inevitably we are driven to return to our earlier question: why should equilibrium be valued more highly than an imbalance in one's favor? An answer is suggested by Barnes' description (1974: 293) of the evolution of prescriptive alliance systems: "The more ties that are established, the more a system begins to appear which tends to prevent permanent imbalances and restricts the possibilities of hoarding. Competition appears then only in the absence of the system. Even in these instances, the appearance of purchase is avoided, and a two-sided exchange is established of which the woman herself is a part. Where the ties become, or rather can be made to be, systematic, the system takes the form of two reciprocal cycles, of which one includes the unilateral circulation of women . . i" Through purely pragmatic considerations of efficiency and political solidarity, then, systems of affinal alliance based on matrilateral marriage tend toward a state of dynamic equilibrium, since sooner or later the hoarding of spiritual benefit qua material advantage would precipitate a breakdown in the exchange order. What is perhaps most noteworthy about this observation is that the concordance between social organization and cognitive organization already observed in 240 Robert Must mechanical terms (division into marriage classes and phratries vs. totemism or its classificatory equivalent) appears again in what might be called 'telic' terms (the creation of socio-political order vs. the creation of magico-religious order). Moreover, balance can be seen to have become a value in itself, since a belief in the fecundating efficacy of magic equilibrium persists in societies that are now organized exclusively around the bilateral kindred. We are forcefully reminded of the seminal insight of Durkheim that the forms of social organization provide the models of cognitive organization, or at the very least exhibit a congruence with them that cannot easily be explained by appeal to chance. Needham (1970: xiv, xxiv) has correctly accused Durkheim of argument by petitio principii in advancing the thesis that forms of social organization are logically prior to the cosmological classifications of which they are descriptively a part. Yet he himself fails to answer the question why systems of dualistic classification would arise independently in various parts of the world if they were only abstract conceptual schemes imposed simultaneously on Nature and Society. In effect, the debate between sociological determinists of Durkheimian persuasion and non-determinists — or, as they might be called 'ideationists' — like Needham reduces to the question: which (if either) came first, the idea or the (social) reality? While the onus of proposing a non-social alternative to sociological determinism can perhaps be avoided in the preceding case through appeal to the obvious model of bilateral symmetry in biological organisms, the concordance of social organization and cognitive organization in telic terms poses what is in some ways a more difficult problem. To date it is not known whether such a concordance is universal or is unique to Austronesian-speaking peoples. If it proves to be universal, the ideationist alternative to sociological determinism must demonstrate some plausible universal basis for the idea of equilibrium as a pervasive principle maintaining socio-cosmic order. Even if evidence of a belief in 'magic equilibrium' is not found in other language families, however, the ideationist argument in the Austronesian case must be regarded as weak, as it maintains gratuitously that the principle of equilibrium is an a priori idea, yet such an idea evidently would follow as an anticipated by-product of unilateral affinal exchange. Afterthoughts One final extrapolation from the *baliw comparisons will perhaps not be amiss. Comparative linguistic evidence strongly supports the inference Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 241 that early Austronesian society was from a material standpoint relatively advanced, possessing agriculture (including rice and millet), a sophisticated maritime technology, and very likely some knowledge of iron by a date that could hardly have been later than 4,000 B.C. (Blust 1976). Though the details differ for obvious ecological reasons, this cultural inventory compares favorably with that of contemporaneous Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent — areas that spearheaded the food-producing and urban revolutions leading to the modern world (Braidwood and Willey 1962). As Solheim (1970) and others have shown, the material preconditions for revolutionary technological change were probably present in Southeast Asia even earlier than in the Middle East, yet the area as a whole has tended toward a relatively static technological history during the past 3,000-5,000 years. We are hardly the first to ask 'why should this have been the case?'; for the western mind imbued with the notion of progress as an almost ineluctable concomitant of human history such a situation creates a fundamental philosophical quandary. Yet the area in question corresponds closely to Levi-Strauss's 'axis of generalized exchange', a region characterized from early times by forms of affinal alliance based on matrilateral, marriage. If such systems of alliance tend automatically toward the; institutionalization of equilibrium as a social value (as suggested by the Austronesian evidence), mutually reinforcing cultural norms presumably would work against the competitive accumulation of goods or services necessary to revolutionary technological change. As a causal explanation for the failure of Southeast Asian societies to undergo spontaneous technological revolutions of the sort seen in the Middle East despite similar technological potential at a correspondingly early period, such a suggestion is admittedly inadequate. China, afterall, is included in Levi-Strauss's famed 'axis', yet was able to transcend what presumably was an early ethic of equilibrium, and various Austronesian-speaking societies have evolved relatively more open societies based on the bilateral kindred without thereby undergoing significant technological advancement (Blust 1980). But as a contributory explanation of the relative technological conservatism of Austronesian-speaking peoples who — despite their dramatic conquest of nearly half the watery surface of the earth — in many areas remained effectively in the stone age and even reverted to nomadism, these remarks are perhaps not without value. 242 Robert Blust NOTES I am grateful to J. C. Anceaux, Bernd Nothofer and D. J. Prentice for information and critical comments offered during the writing of this paper. They, of course, are absolved from any responsibility for shortcomings in the finished product. To economize on space sources of language material that can be referred to the list of sources in Blust (1979) are not repeated here. Additional sources are: Proto-South Sulawesi : Mills 1975 Achehnese : Djajadiningrat 1934 Roti : Jonker 1908 Bare'e : Adriani 1928 Batad Ifugao : Newell 1968 Sebup : Blust n.d. Fordat : Drabbe 1932 Sika : Meyer 1937 Li'o : Arndt 1933 Tae' : Van der Veen 1940 Long Atip : Blust n.d. Tetum : Hicks 1976, Van Wouden Long Jeeh : Blust n.d. 1935/1968 Merina : Richardson 1885 Tiruray : Schlegel 1971 Minangkabau : De Josselin de Jong Toba Batak : Warneck 1977 Tongan : Goldman 1970 1951 Paiwan : Ferrell 1978 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 To preserve historical continuity works in translation or nineteeenth century classics more generally available in recent editions are cited both by the original publication date and by the date of translation or reissue. All page references are to the more recent work, which alone is cited in the References. With lexical replacement. In its general sense PMP *balay apparently meant 'public building'. As shown elsewhere (Blust 1980), *Rumaq (the source of Tetum uma), on the other hand, probably had the literal meaning 'domicile, family dwelling' and possibly the metaphorical meaning 'descent group, lineage'. Fox (1967: 190-4) takes issue with analyses that infer the presence of double unilineal descent automatically from the presence of cross-cousin marriage and a marriage class system, arguing (p. 194) that double unilineal descent through dual moieties is "latent in the reciprocal exogamy system" (between moieties), but need not be exploited. These objections affect Van Wouden's reconstruction, then, only to the extent that the latter can be regarded as a deduction from the model rather than a consequence of empirical investigation. Dempwolff (1938) cites this — almost certainly in error — sub *bali 'escort'. Alternatively this opposition/complementarity may be expressed as 'Male' and 'Sky' vs. 'Female' and 'Earth'. Van Wouden's argument is not necessarily to be interpreted as meaning that such divisions are (or were recently) still functional in all cases, as some of his data were in the nature of survivals. P. E. de Josselin de Jong 1951: 107. For other examples of dual divisions in Indonesia see the review of the literature in Koentjaraningrat 1975: 145-65. For the universal character of affective ambivalence among moiety divisions (cf. Levi-Strauss 1949/1969: 69-70), where it is pointed out that this attitude is often institutionalized in ritual combat or games (as with the Iroquois game of lacrosse). Due to its rarity in reconstructed words the regular development of the diphthong *-iw in Batad Ifugao is unclear. The diphthong *-uy, with which *-iw merges in most languages that have not preserved the original situation intact, appears as -uy: *xtapuy > qapuy 'fire'. Gp. Manggarai bait 'friend, enemy'. Manggarai exhibits occasional doublets in b/w (ba/wa 'carry', batjang/watjang 'wash', benel 'plentiful, of rice grains', wenSl 'heavy, of rain', etc.). Notes on Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Phratry Dualism 8 243 The evidence for this claim will be discussed in a forthcoming paper on early Austronesian taboos. 10 The double sense of alter ego is perhaps clearer from the definition in Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language (1. another self; another aspect of oneself, 2. a very close friend or constant companion) than . from that in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (L. (Cicero) 'other or second I. A second self; an intimate'). 11 For perhaps the fullest elaboration of such a scheme proposed to date cf. Jenner (1976), who raises the intriguing prospect that dual classification systems may lie at the origin of grammatical gender. 12 The Cebuano Bisayan, Casiguran Dumagat, Ilokano and Paiwan forms have been added to Dempwolff's cognate set; Merina ( = Dempwolff's 'Hova') vali evidently cannot reflect *baliw, as *1 before original *i became d. . 13 I.e. a Dumagat person. 14 Additional comparisons showing some phonological and semantic resemblance to 1-4 such as Bare's sambali iwengi ( < root ball) 'day before yesterday', Roti manafalik-a ( < root fali) 'last year, the preceding year' almost certainly derive from *balik 'reverse side; return, go back (to a starting point)', as does Iban balik 'used by older people to avoid pagila "tomorrow" in speaking of plans'. Dempwolff's *baluy 'return, go back', on the other hand, is probably unjustified, all reflexes being assignable either to *balik or *baliw, with some confusion of forms among daughter languages (cf. Malay kembali, but Negri Sembilan kembalik 'return, go back', Javanese (Ngoko) ball oo wall 'return, go home', but kosok-bali 'opposite'). 15 Reflexes of Dempwolff's *pe(r)at) 'war' are limited to Toba Batak, Javanese, Malay and Ngaju Dayak — a distribution that could plausibly result from borrowing. Forms such as Casiguran Dumagat ge'ra, Western Bukidnon Manobo gira 'war', which are widespread in the Philippines, clearly derive from Spanish guerra, and thus attest to the relative recency of the concept of war dissociated from a traditional context of magico-religious ideas. 10 Space does not permit an extensive discussion of early Austronesian religious ideas here, but it will perhaps be useful to note the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian forms *sumarjet 'vital principle, soul of a living being', *iiawa 'soul, in its association with the breath, breath-soul', *qanitu 'spirit of the dead, ghost', and the genitive phrase *sumaf)et ni pajey 'spirit of the rice'. Perusal of the sketches in LeBar 1972, 1975 further suggests an early belief in temporarily dispensable souls of the right and left shoulder joints, and in an essential or main soul located in the head, from which it exited on death through the sutures of the skull, or through the fontanel of young children. The magicoreligious basis of headhunting —- particularly its perceived connection with the fertility of the rice — was thus almost certainly rooted in a belief that a captured head = a captured life-force capable of incorporation into the human/agricultural community of the victors. 17 Reference is to the ulos ni tondi, the spiritually-charged cloth presented to a woman by her father during her first pregnancy as a blessing and safeguard against danger. Gifts of land intended as a benediction are believed to revitalize the spiritual benefit initially conferred by the cloth, hence the metaphor. 18 See, for example, LeBar (1972: 19) on Acheh, where "cooling" is regarded as exorcistic, Fox (1972: 108) on Roti, where it is described as a "purification", Van Wouden (1935/1968: 51, 111) on human sacrifice at the reception of harvest gifts among the Belu of south-central Timor to "cool the earth", and Barnes (1974: 73, 193), who maintains that the notion is marginal in Kedang, but is important in the Lamaholot-speaking area of the Solor archipelago. 244 Robert Blust REFERENCES Adriani, N. 1928 Bare'e-Nederlandsch woordenboek, met Nederlandsch-Bare'e register, Leiden, Brill. Arndt, P. P. ? 1933 Li'onesisch-Deutsches Worterbuch, Ende, Flores. 1938 'Demon und Padzi, die feindlichen Briider des Solor-Archipels', Anthropos 33: 1-58. Barnes, R. 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