C.

Friedberg Social relations of territorial management in light of Bunaq farming rituals In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Rituals and Socio-Cosmic Order in Eastern Indonesian Societies; Part I Nusa Tenggara Timur 145 (1989), no: 4, Leiden, 548-563

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CLAUDINE FRIEDBERG

SOCIAL RELATIONS OF TERRITORIAL MANAGEMENT IN LIGHT OF BUNAQ* FARMING RITU ALS

/. Introduction Agricultural rituals may be considered a means of bringing into play the forces that a society deerns necessary for the control of its subsistence, hence of its reproduction. Anthropology has dwelled on this problem. Not only has it shed light upon the way in which certain social actors are invested as individuals, as heirs, or in the name of the group with offices of ritual control over the fertility of the fields. It also has analysed how these offices are embedded in the society's order of values. The variety of actors among the Bunaq of Upper Lamaknen in Timor who perform rituals concurrent with agricultural practices from the time of sowing to the consuming of the first fruits called for an examination of the complex social relations involved in obtaining a successful harvest. It seemd particularly difficult to identify the various types of control exercised in this process. Theoretically, the phenomenon was simple enough: one will only produce a good harvest if one upholds the exchange relationships with the beings who are at its origin. Anthropologists following Mauss have demonstrated that such a phenomenon results from a principle inherent in the social nature of mankind. Yet, who are these beings that condition prosperity by acting on the soil, the climate and the plants? To deal with these problems, each society develops a procedure that refers back to the organization of relations between people through the intermediary of officiants of different status. Before discussing these phenomena, some general remarks about the social organization of the Bunaq of Upper Lamaknen must be made. These will furnish the background for understanding the agricultural rituals observed in Abis, a village situated at an altitude of nearly 800 metres, whose territory is bounded in the Southeast by East Timor.1
1

This description, though set in the present tense, results from fieldwork carried out between 1966 and 1973. Since then, the Lamaknen Bunaq have experienced the turmoil ensuing from the political changes taking place in Portugal in April 1974. Portuguese Timor was invaded by the Indonesian army in late 1975. Lamaknen, a subdistrict (Indon. kecamatan) of the district (Indon. kabupateri) Belu, was located on the Indonesian side along the border. Although the Bunaq initially fled from the territory, most of them returned once peace

* The transcription q is employed here to indicate a glottal stop.

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2. The social organization of the Bunaq of Upper Lamaknen This society's basic unit, both in ritual and in economie terms, is the house (deu), each of which has a name. Houses maintain relationships qualified as malu ai (a contraction of malu ai baqa), which define the direction in which women and certain goods circulate. As malu, houses give wives and feminine goods (pigs and cloth), whereas as ai baqa, they receive wives and give masculine goods (formerly gold, silver and water buffalo, but nowadays money and cows). Although the circulation of goods is reactivated during house celebrations (such as on the occasion of the reconstruction or repair of the house, and of funerals), and even though the relations between malu and ai baqa play an essential part in the rites which deal with people's health and 'the flow of life', not many women actually circulate between the houses. This results from the fact that marriage is usually uxorilocal, and each spouse continues to belong to his or her house of origin while the offspring belongs to the house of the mother. In another type of marriage, however, the woman is represented metaphorically as a cutting that is transplanted in the ai baqa house. She and her offspring then become members of her husband's house, in which she inaugurates or continues a descent line called dil. On this type of marriage the malu - ai baqa relationship is founded. Although a house may maintain as many as fifteen malu relationships, there are never more than three to six dil per house. These dil are recognized as groups descended from different malu, and are perpetuated inside the house by the contraction of uxorilocal marriages. Carrying the name of its house of origin, each Jj'/keeps the property, sacred objects or insignia representing the offices which have been passed through women from a man to his uterine nephew. Furthermore, there are sacred objects common to all house members. This concerns in particular the objects that represent their life-force; these are said to be their 'roots'. In summary, every Bunaq belongs to the house of his mother at the time of his birth. If his parents contracted an uxorilocal marriage, then his father belongs to a different house from his mother's, and he will return there whenever the performance of ceremonies requires this. But if his parents married virilocally, then his father and mother belong to the same house, but to different dil. In both cases, his father can only pass on to his son the goods acquired during his lifetime. Formerly, all house members lived in single lineage houses. The only persons who nowadays reside there are the guardians of the house's sacred objects. They are a classificatory brother and sister pair descending from the ancestors who founded the house. They are called taka guzu hone
was restored. In the meantime, Abis was burned down. Because of its border location, I have not been able to visit Lamaknen again since these events took place. I have met Bunaq in Atambua and noticed that their living conditions have changed considerably. A road suitable for motor traffic now crosses the Abis area, whereas in former days this could only be reached on horseback, and water mains have been laid.

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mone, 'man holding the black basket', and taka guzu honepana, 'woman holding the black basket'. Sometimes a young couple lives there as well to help them with their daily chores. The last major traditional conflict took place at the beginning of the century, whereupon the two coloriial powers occupying Timor imposed peace. Since then, increasing numbers of Bunaq have been leaving the more or less fortified villages which for strategie purposes were located on high sites, and have set up family dwellings near water supplies. Thus scattered, the house members only return to their lineage house for the performance of ceremonies. Each lineage house has its altars, some of which are set up inside the house and others outside. Within the house, the main altar is located at the foot of one of the two pillars that support the ridge-pole. This particular pole is called lor bul2 and stands opposite the hearth. Outside altars include those located at springs, and those employed in case of war. Lineage houses are grouped into villages (tas), and each village has its own territory. Inside the village, there is a collective village altar called bosok o op, 'altar and height', which represents the life-force of the inhabitants. This village altar is also called pana getel mone goron, 'root of women, leaves of men'. This is a metaphor of vitality: leaves move and roots enable a plant to seek the necessary water. The longer the root, the longer the plant's life. So people may express their wish for a long life by saying i etel legul, 'let our root be long!'; or i etel huruk, 'let ur root be cool!' Coolness in association with water symbolizes fertility, whereas heat is associated with danger and death. Not all lineage houses have the same status. Thus there are noble houses called sisal tul, 'bone piece'. This refers to the rule that a specific share of ritually offered animals containing a bone is due to them (Friedberg 1987). However, not all noble houses have the same status either. The highest status is attributed to the house of the 'feminine chief. He is the one who settles problems arising within the village. Then comes the house of the 'masculine chief, who deals with the relationships between the village and the outside world. Other noble houses hold the office of aide to the village chiefs, or else are considered as 'door' to the houses of those chiefs. Although they wield an 'extended power' (pe nolaq), the 'feminine' and 'masculine' chiefs are subordinated to the ritual chiefs of their house. The latter wield a 'restricted power' (oe til) in the internal affairs of the house. The oe til is the guardian of the house's sacred objects. As in all houses,
No Bunaq was able to translate lor, which is also used in Tetun (Francillon 1967) to designate the house pillar at the foot of which rites are executed. According to Fernandes (1964), this word in Tetun means 'south' or 'toward the sea', in contrast with rae, 'north' or 'toward the land'. Hence this word can be taken to refer to a direction, like lor'm Javanese or kelod in Balinese. In Abis, all lor pillars in the lineage house stand on the side toward the village's collective altar (Friedberg 1973).

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whether noble or commoner ones, the guardian is the man of the classificatory brother and sister pair mentioned above. These guardians officiate in all rituals, whether agricultural or not, whether individual or collective. The Upper Lamaknen say that when their forefathers migrated into their present territory they chased away or killed the Melus. The name Melus does not refer to any known population of Timor, and I could never obtain precise information about the Melus. Might it be a general term meaning 'native'? Does it refer to the Dawan, a people who live at present in Western Timor but may have inhabited a much larger territory in the past? Or were they Tetun, the people who settled between the Bunaq and the Dawan, and spread along the northern and southern coasts? Neither have I been able to learn anything about the Melus language; yet such information would be helpful, since the Dawan and Tetun, unlike the Bunaq, speak Austronesian languages. It is also difficult to teil whether the Bunaq and Melus once intermarried. The genealogies recorded do not reveal tnalu - ai baqa relationships between Bunaq and Melus. The Melus who lived in Abis were chased from the land by means of tricks. However, after having fled before the Bunaq, three members of Sabaq Dato, the 'feminine' chief s house of the Melus, came back and handed over the Melus' sacred objects, including their village altar (bosok o op), to the new inhabitants of their house. One of these three Melus was a woman who was past child-bearing age. This detail dispenses with the possibility of a Melus dil among the present Bunaq members of the house Sabaq Dato. 3 According to the genealogical texts preserved by the 'Masters of the Word', the ancestors of the principal lineages were bom from a primeval couple in the upperworld. From this world, which is divided into seven layers, the ancestors brought the heirlooms inherited from the parental couple. The texts further teil about their migrations on Timor, and about the foundation after having approached Lamaknen of the houses, about the contraction of the first malu - ai baqa alliances, about the transfer of the insignia of power and the organization in villages.4 The texts also speak about the tilling of the first fields and the crops planted. Although it is not
Nonetheless, a member of this house pointed out to me, in Atambua, a descendant of his house's Melus lineage. Two phenomena seem to be combined so as to mix up the history of how the Melus handed over the title of feminine chief to the newly arrived Bunaq. First of all, the latter refuse to admit they might be descended from the Melus. Secondly, inheritance might have changed from patrilinear among the Melus to matrilinear among the Bunaq. A similar ambiguity figures in genealogies: inheritance seems to be patrilinear when talking about the itineraries of the first ancestors, but matrilinear when explaining, looking back from the present, how a house has inherited its offices. Louis Berthe, the first ethnologist to work among the Bunaq, has recorded several of the ancestors' itineraries {bei gua). For those of the three main lineages, see Berthe 1972.

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stated explicitly, the Bunaq say that their ancestors brought these plants, or their seeds, from the upperworld. When the journey of one of the main lineages had brought the Bunaq in the vicinity of Lamaknen at the time the fields should be prepared, they once again asked their parents in the upperworld for seeds. After several incidents, Bei Suri, an autochthonous man who had joined the Bunaq ancestors, was burned on a field altar as the trees from the cleared land were set on fire. Several prose versions of this mythical episode explain how all the crops, including the maize (which is known to have been brought to Timor by the Europeans), issued from parts of the sacrificed hero's body. Versified versions, however, only mention a few varieties of rice. And in Upper Lamaknen, rice is still the ceremonial food, even though it is grown less than maize. 3. The yearly farming ritual Since an exhaustive description of all farming rites cannot be presented here (see Friedberg 1974, 1977, 1980, 1982), let us concentrate on the ones which most clearly reveal the social relationships brought into play. 3.1. From the dry to the rainy season The farming season starts before the rains arrive, which usually occurs between October and December. Then the fields are cleared by slashing, cutting and burning, and the 'Lord of the Seeds' and the 'Masters of the Rice' set the dates for a whole series of ceremonies. The 'Lord of the Seeds' belongs to the house whose ancestors were involved in the mythical episode that deals with the sacrifice of Bei Suri and the origin of the seeds. This house is not a noble one. The 'Masters of the Rice' are the guardians of the sacred objects of: the houses of the 'feminine' and the 'masculine chief (oe til); the three houses that descended from the latter houses, and that were the first to be founded in Abis (taka guzu hone mone); the house of a 'feminine chief from another village whose land is now incorporated within the territory of Abis (this and other houses from this village sought refuge in Abis after their village was destroyed by a landslide); the guardians of the sacred objects of the house Sabaq Dato, the heir to the Melus 'feminine' chief s house. The ritual precedes the sowing and involves several days of hunting. The men range over the village's territory in search of game, wild pigs in particular. For the rest of the year, the Bunaq no longer hunt as much as they used to. As the population is increasing, more and more land is coming under cultivation and game is becoming scarce. Now and then they beat the countryside, not so much in order to procure game as to keep wild

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animals from damaging the crops. In the ritual hunt, however, the meaning of game is much more complex. In this first act of the ritual cycle, game is related to the kukun ('the obscure ones'). This refers to invisible beings, that is, the deceased or the spirits of particular places. They are opposed to the roman ('the clear ones'), that is, the living. The kukun are in particular the spirits of deceased Melus whom the Bunaq conceive to be the actual pan o mukgomo ('heaven earth master'). They are the 'masters of the land', and hence the 'Masters of the Game'. Scattered over the territory there aresmall, inconspicuous altars built from a few stones. These muk kukun ('earth obscure') are the sites where one communicates with these spirits. Near the village is the main altar. On the eve of the first day of the ritual hunt, the 'Lord of the Seeds' surrounds this broad pile of stones with a liana, and ties its ends to two stakes posted a few centimetres apart. This liana conceptually encircles the pigs and prevents them from escaping save through this narrow gate. Here the hunters can lie in wait. The next day, when the hunters beat the countryside, the 'Masters of the Rice' go to the muk kukun altar located in the area selected for the hunt. They offer betel, some alcoholic drink, and the feathers of a living chick, so that the 'Masters of the Land' will release the game, and in particular the wild pigs. The 'Masters of the Rice' then lie down around the altar and feign to fall asleep, so that the pigs will also be asleep. This will make it easier for the hunting dogs to start them up. This act reveals another meaning attributed to the game. It is said that the hunters are looking for lolon win ('stalk ears'), terms referring to the staple grains maize and rice. Moreover, the hunters who kill or wound the wild pigs do not receive the share of the meat which is due to them in an ordinary hunt. All game is handed over to the 'Lord of the Seeds' who, accompanied by the 'Masters of the Rice', will eat it in the course of the ritual cycle. Only during the final ritual will the hunters receive large baskets of cooked rice in return. In the evening of the first day of the hunt, the game is brought to the village, where it is welcomed by a woman of the house of the 'Lord of the Seeds' with betel, as one welcomes a guest. Then one performs a ritual called hoto boto hosok ('welcome the smoke of fre'). This phrase signifies the reception, by the 'Lord of the Seeds' and the 'Masters of the Rice' on the collective village altar (bosok o op), of the seeds issued from the corpse of Bei Suri. One of the 'Masters of the Word' sacrifices a cock with fiery red feathers, by clubbing it to death. He does not cut its throat as is normally done to prevent cutting the 'roots' of the seeds. He recites a text of welcome and addresses a prayer to the 'Masters of the village altar'. This title refers to the Melus who had erected this altar, and to the first Bunaq who inherited it and whose descendants are its present guardians. The cock's caecum is examined to augur the agricultural season and its

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/. Ataere of the Rice at a muk kukun altar (some stones on the soil at thefoot of a big tree) offering betel to the Masters of the Land.

2. AteOT o/?^e ^ c e at the village altar (thepile ofstones on the rightjfor the hoto boto hosok ntual A Master of the Word is offering a cock withfkry redfeathers and reciting the ritual text welcoming the seeds.

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climatic conditions. The cock is boiled and carved, and the pieces are placed, with cooked rice brought in small baskets by village women. Some of these are offered to the village altar. The baskets placed on top of the altar are then handed over to the house of the 'feminine chief; the ones placed at the bottom are passed on to the house Sabaq Dato, the house of the 'feminine chief of the Melus. One basket is offered to Bei Suri, the mythical hero from whose burned corpse all cultivated plants have come forth. This basket is recovered by the 'Lord of the Seeds'. The other baskets, finally, are distributed among the hunters. In the night preceding the third day of the hunt, the 'Lord of the Seeds' and the 'Masters of the Rice' silently so that the predator animals will not notice carry the mat, considered to contain the seeds, to another altar. At this altar, called lataq and situated at the village limit, other rituals are performed which serve to protect the seeds from the animals, birds and insects that might eat them even before they have sprouted. To that purpose the animals are symbolically fed with rice and chicken meat. During the afternoon of the third day, the members of each house visit its graves bringing fruits and especially prepared cakes. There they meet with the members of their malu houses, who have also brought cakes and fruits. After they have been offered to the dead, the gifts are handed over to the members of the ai baqa houses who have come to fetch them. The next day, after the last hunt has been completed, a final collective ritual is performed.5 Women from all the village houses bring cooked rice to the lataq altar, where they hand it over to the 'Lord of the Seeds'. This rice will be redistributed among all the hunters who have wounded or killed pigs. The first heavy rains are expected to fall at this very moment, and this was what actually happened on both occasions I witnessed the ritual.6 The coming of the rains is an aspect of the ritual cycle that cannot be further discussed here. It is associated with the sacrifice of Bei Suri, who asked the people to stop crying, and subsequently was turned into a bird that augurs the rains (Friedberg 1980, 1982). From the next day onwards, one can begin to sow the field.7 Actually, a ritual must be performed at each field altar, in which a piglet and a goat are slaughtered. The piglet's blood, considered to be 'cool', serves to 'cool'
Herein, the simplest ritual is described. Every three years, a longer, more complicated ceremony is held during which a text is sung, for a day and night, about the 'itinerary of cultivated plants' (a gua) to Lamaknen. This ceremony probably corresponded to the clearing of a new field in triennial fallow rotation (soron). Every house used to have fields in each phase of rotation. The effectiveness of these rites obviously depends on setting their date to coincide with the first heavy rains. The success of the harvest depends on this timing. About the signs used to set this date, see Friedberg 1973, 1982. The soil, after being burned off, is sown without being worked. A digging-stick (nut) with a metal blade 8 to 10 centimetres wide at its end is used to place the seeds in the soil. The same tooi is used for weeding. There are no irrigated rice fields in Abis. Elsewhere in Lamaknen, such fields are prepared by having the water buffalo or cows tread them.

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the seed; for in the Bunaq symbolic system, 'coolness' is associated with fertility. The goat is thought to carry on the tip of its horns the 'souls' (melo) of the trees felled while clearing the land, to the upperworld. During my presence, these rituals were no longer performed, undoubtedly because one no longer could afford them. Yet I witnessed people perform collectively a symbolic 'cooling' ritual at the village altar (bosok o op) for the benefit of the agricultural activities of all the inhabitants. The ritual for the souls of the trees are no longer carried out, perhaps because the same felds are cleared over and over again, and the trees no longer grow tall enough to require such a ritual. However, one argued that if a farmer would have good harvests in successive years, he should be careful to perform the ritual lest he falls ill. 3.2. Prohibitions on the harvests Before the crops are ripe, general prohibitions are imposed upon all harvesting. One by one these have to be lifted before the crops can be reaped. The person who is in charge of this is called kapitan, and he is assisted by several makleqat ('to hear to see').8 Each makleqat sees to it that these rules are adhered to in a specific section of the territory. The kapitan himself is the assistant to the hohon niqatgomo, 'Master of Firstfruits' (also called kosoq zobel turul wezun gomo, 'Master of Sprouts, of the Sandalwood and Beeswax'). The office of makleqat is not a hereditary one, but can be assigned by the kapitan to any house in the village. However, the office of 'Master of Firstfruits' and that of his 'secular arm', the kapitan, belong to particular matrilineages. In Abis, this is the house Sabaq Dato, heir to the Melus house of the 'feminine chief. 3.3. The first harvests The first crops to be harvested are mangoes and candlenuts. Once picked, they must be brought to the village meeting-place. First, the entire mango harvest is redistributed. One starts with the top of the hierarchy, the houses of the 'feminine' and 'masculine chiefs' receiving the largest shares. Then, the kapitan gives a part of the candlenuts to the 'feminine chief, and keeps the rest in store for general use. 3.4. From the rainy to the dry season: the maize and rice harvests As soon as the 'Master of Firstfruits' deerns it necessary for the sun to contribute to the maturation of the rice, he asks the kapitan to organize a series of rituals to ward off the rain and to attract the sun. The first takes
8

Kapitan belongs to a group of words used in Timor to refer to certain social and political offices borrowed from the Portuguese, probably through the intermediary of the half-breed Topasses. About the colonization of Timor, see Schulte Nordholt (1971) and Fox (1967). Makleqat is used in Tetun for the same office (Francillon 1967). In fact, many Tetun words have passed into the Bunaq's mythical and ritual language.

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place at a spring altar owned by the house Sabaq Dato. In the nearby orchard, one gathers 'medicines' (roots, dry pieces of bark) that can repel humidity. People take these to their field altars, where they perform a ritual that attracts the sun. Each one erects a bamboo pole to which a young sugar palm is attached in a circle representing the rays of the sun. The kapitan is the first to perform this ritual at his field altar; the last to do so is the officiant of the house of the 'feminine chief. The latter then carries a basket of rice to the 'Master of Firstfruits', who brings it to the village altar, and sets the date for lifting the prohibition on harvesting the maize. That same evening, the prohibition on harvesting the areca nuts is lifted. The nuts are collected by the makleqat on the village altar, and then redistributed among the houses, from the top of the hierarchy downwards. Again the houses of the 'feminine' and 'masculine chiefs' receive the largest shares. Next morning, the prohibition on harvesting the maize is lifted. Actually, this concerns the maize that has matured late, and that will be stored for the year to come. The maize ripened earlier has already been picked and eaten by the households whose stores from the previous year had been used up. Each house brings to the village altar a certain number of maize stalks and ears. As in all other rituals in which harvest prohibitions are lifted, these offerings are first laid out on the altar and at its base. The 'Master of the Words' recites a text, thanking the Masters of the altar, that is, the Melus and the first Bunaq ancestors to arrive at Abis. Thereupon the stalks and the ears are redistributed. Now the house of the 'feminine chief receives nine of them, that of the 'masculine chief seven, etcetera. Some of these ears are taken to the graves, together with cakes and fruits, and the exchanges between malu and ai baqa houses, made at the occasion of the sowing ritual, are repeated. That evening, in each lineage house another ritual is performed. The guardians of the house's sacred objects offer some of the consecrated ears to the sacred objects themselves, to the founding ancestors of the house, and to those ancestors who have returned to the upperworld. Now only the rice still remains to be harvested. Instead of a collective ritual to lift the harvest prohibition, a ritual is performed in the fields to call the 'soul' {meld) of the rice, so that the ears will be full of grains and the kukun, the 'Masters of the Land', will not steal them. To that purpose, one uses a silver disk that is conceived to be the seat of Bei Suri during the entire harvest period, and a bundie of 'medicines'. Each house owns such 'medicines', which serve to ward off the 'Masters of the Land' and to increase the yield of the erop. A small pig is sacrificed, and its meat and rice from the previous year are put into baskets. These are offered to Bei Suri, to the field altar, to the four corners of the field, to the springs that water the field, and, finally, to the village altar. This last basket is usually given to the highest ranking noble present, although it should be presented to the 'feminine chief. The other baskets are handed over to the owners

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of the fields. Other baskets prepared for the ancestors and for the nearest altar of the 'Masters of the Land' are divided among the people working in the fields. After the rice harvest has been completed, a final ritual takes place in each lineage house. It concerns the consumption of the first fruits of the rice, in which the ancestors from the upperworld are invited to partake. It is on this occasion that one decides on the rituals celebrated by the house in the coming year. Dates are set for repairing the roof, for rebuilding the house altogether, or for the funerary ritual in which the house members who have died since the previous ritual will be conducted to the primordial ancestors. In all these rituals, goods will circulate between the malu and ai baqa partners of the house. 4. Operational levels and social relations in the agricultural rituals The analysis of the yearly cycle of rituals reveals several levels of operation. First, there is the village, which constitutes an autonomous ritual unit to which all ritual officiants belong. The altars are located within its territory and there the entire cycle takes place. This autonomy is characteristic of the Lamaknen villages. In the neighbouring Bunaq territory of Domon Siwe in eastern Timor, a single lataq altar pertains to several villages; together these constitute the ritual unit. Among the Tetun and Dawan of western Timor, the fertility rituals are performed by rulers whose territories comprise several villages. The house represents a second level. Rituals are performed at its altars involving the house's sacred objects and relating to its ancestors. The field, fnally, is also a place of symbolic manipulations. At each level, however, elements are called upon which refer to the village as a global society. Other elements stress the fact that the society depends for its very existence upon a flow of life-force. This flow originates in the malu houses that are sometimes far removed in time and space; and it reaches the ai baqa houses, which may belong to different villages. This calls for a detailed analysis of the way in which these elements are articulated. In the rituals preceding the sowing of the crops, it is the village as a whole that comes to the fore. As a structured collectivity it is entitled to the right to exploit its territory. Thus, on several occasions the representatives of the political hierarchy, who are the guardians of this right, and who should guarantee the village's territorial integrity, partake in the rituals. This occurs in particular when a welcome is paid to the seeds on the collective altar of the village, a symbol of the life-force of all its inhabitants. However, the territory does not only belong to the Bunaq inhabitants. It is also occupied by the invisible kukun, who are not subject to the authority of the living. Rather than to attempt to reconcile these kukun, one seeks to symbolically transform the game, which the earth produces when it is under their control, into a harvest that is due to the efforts of man.

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Yet this harvest not only depends upon the kukun, but also upon the seeds which the Bunaq ancestors received from the primordial ancestors in the upperworld, and which they brought with them when they arrived at Lamaknen. Although each lineage has particular heirlooms, only a descendant of the mythical ancestor, who first received the seeds of cultivated plants, regulates all agricultural rituals. He does not officiate alone, however. He is accompanied by the 'Masters of the Rice', the guardians of the sacred objects of the first Bunaq houses established in Abis. Possessing the seeds does not guarantee a harvest. They must germinate, grow, flower and bear fruit. The plants must perpetuate the flow of lifeforce, just as the malu - ai baqa relationships do. Exchanges at the graves bear witness to the manner in which the flow of life-force traversing the houses is rooted in the soil of Abis. These exchanges underline the parallel drawn by the Bunaq between the reproduction of people and that of plants. Just as the dead are buried, but the flow of life-force continues through their offspring, likewise plants die after having borne the seeds that will be planted. Once the collective rituals have been performed, each farmer bears responsibility for the plants that he deals with himself, that is, the ones that he destroys and those he sows in their place. The prohibitions that mark the beginning of the harvest season express the internal order of the community. The kapitan, who imposes them, is the 'secular arm' of the 'Master of Firstfruits'. That the latter is also called 'Master of Sprouts, of the Sandalwood and the Beeswax' well indicates the complexity of his tasks. As master of all produce from the land, he is master of the sandalwood trees and the beeswax, in former times the sources of the wealth of chiefs. In fact, he unites two offices: one inherited from the autochthons, and another as part of the village hierarchy and strengthened by the monopoly over what used to be the only cash products. The redistribution of mangoes is of little economie importance. Gathering the candlenuts in the house of the kapitan was a means to supply everyone with light at a time when there was no other source of lighting. The chiefs receive the largest shares of areca nuts indispensable part of a gift of betel, which reflects their duty to receive numerous guests. During the rituals that mark the passage from the rainy to the dry season, the 'Master of Firstfruits' and, in his name, the kapitan, play an essential role in setting the date for the rituals for the harvest of the maize. The redistribution of the maize, offered at the village altar, among the village officiants in accordance with their status, is symbolic. Given the small quantity involved, it can hardly be compared to the tribute paid to the rulers who in western Timor perform the rituals of fertility for their territory as a whole. The gifts of cakes and fruits, made at the graves by the malu to their ai baqa houses, serve to reactivate the flow of life-force, as they do during

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the rituals that precede the sowing. In contrast, the ritual performed in the evening at the lor bul altar in each house has a quite different meaning. Addressed to the ancestors who have gone to the upperworld, it closes the cycle of exchanges that was opened by meaning of the consumption of the firstfruits of the rice. Moreover, on that occasion one fixes the dates for the house rituals, and hence for a reactivation of the exchanges between the houses. As for the rice harvest, the person who works the field is implicated in the relations with the kukun and Bei Suri, for, in the end, he is the one who will consume the offerings made to them. Yet the political hierarchy that guards the village's territorial integrity is involved as well, since a noble receives the basket offered to the village altar. 5. Conclusion According to the Bunaq beliefs that emerge from the agricultural rituals performed in Abis, agricultural production activates several circuits of exchange. These exchanges take place between the Bunaq and their ancestors in the upperworld; between the malu and the ai baqa houses; and between the visible humans who inhabit the village territory and the invisible kukun who also live there. The notion of 'mother earth' does not emerge here; the soil is rather the substrate of agricultural activity and the habitat of the kukun. The forms of agricultural ritual practised by the Bunaq of Upper Lamaknen are those of farming nomads. They can perform their rituals wherever they go, provided that upon their arrival they erect the altars for communication with their ancestors and with local kukun. Only the corpses of their dead are truly rooted in the territory, like the seeds of cultivated plants received from the upperworld. Nevertheless, for the global society represented here by the village of Abis the value of this territory essentially is in its use. Therefore the chiefs who guarantee the territorial integrity are always associated with the agricultural rituals, whereas other people control the different types of exchanges discussed above. The global society asserts its control over its means of subsistence by delegating the ritual responsibility to some of its members. What distinguishes the Bunaq of Abis from other eastern Timorese peoples is the assertion of a ritual control at village level over the flow of life-force that traverses the houses and cuts across the village boundaries. Furthermore, they affirm their independence from a particular territory by welcoming each year the seeds from their ancestors, whereas elsewhere as in Lower Lamaknen the seeds, once received, are reproduced each year in sacred plots. Neither do they submit to a superior external power, as happens with the Tetun and the Dawan, where the ruler conducts the rituals of fertility. And finally, the transfer of authority over the land, from the autochthons to the Bunaq ancestors, as well as their refusal to assign all ritual tasks to a single person or lineage as is the case among the Dawan sets them apart from their neighbours as well.

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A hierarchy of houses came into being because not all the descendants of the primeval ancestors were able to preserve the heirlooms which the latter had brought from the upperworld. The heirlooms acquired in the course of the lineages' long mythical journeys justify that the houses that inherited them hold different offices in the village organization. Nevertheless, all Bunaq of Upper Lamaknen consider themselves to be of the same essence. This global society, composed of houses which themselves are made up of dil, results from an association which' is localized in time and space. As the history of the Bunaq proves, this association may always be called into question. Both houses and dil are mobile. When a conflict breaks out, they can depart and associate with another group elsewhere, which also conceives of itself as a global society but does not necessarily follow the same ritual rules. Thus ritual control must be excercised over the flow of life-force in order for the society to be established on a particular territory. Let us return to the question posed at the beginning of this article. In the Bunaq villages of Lower Lamaknen one indeed observes a tendency to acknowledge a single order of values. This emerges in particular from the . fact that the game killed during the ritual hunt is distributed according to what we have called the political hierarchy. This hierarchy in fact represents a dyarchy. By contrast, in the Upper Lamaknen village of Abis, different values are acknowledged depending upon context. These reveal the importance to preserve through ritual control the complexity of forces that are active in the reproduction of society.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Berthe, L., 1972, Bei Gua, itinraire des anctres. Mythes des Bunaq de Timor. Paris: CNRS. Fernandes, A.J., 1964, Pequeno metodo pratico para apender o Tetun. Comando Territorial Independante de Timor. Fox, J.J., 1977, Harvest of the palm Ecological change in eastern Indonesia Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Francillon, G., 1967, Some matriarchic aspects of the social structure of the southern Tetun of middle Timor. [Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University, Canberra.] Friedberg, C , 1973, 'Espace bunaq', in: L'homme, hier et aujourd'hui Recueil d'tudes en hommage a A. Leroi-Gourhan, pp.391-419. Paris: Ed. Cujas. , 1974, 'Agricultures timoraises', tudes Rurales 53-56: 375-405. , 1977, 'The development of traditional agricultural practices in western Timor; From the ritual control of consumer goods production to the political control of prestige goods', in: J. Friedman & M.J. Rowlands (eds), The evolution of social syslems, pp.137-171. London: Duckworth. , 1980, 'Boiled woman and broiled man: Myths and agricultural ritual of the Bunaq of central Timor', in: J.J. Fox (ed.), The flow oflife; Essays on eastern Indonesia, pp.266-289. Cambridge Mass. and London: Harvard University Press. , 1982, Muk gubul nor, 'la chevelure de la terre': Les Bunaq de Timor et les plantes. [These de Doctorat d'Etat, Universit Paris V, Paris, 5 tomes.]

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, 1987, 'Corps animal, corps social, ou Ie partage des os dans quelques populations des petites les de la Sonde', in: J. Hainard & R. Kaehr (eds), Des animaux et des hommes, pp.63-86. Neuchatel: Muse d'Ethnographie. Schulte Nordholt, H.G., 1971, The polical system of the Atoni of Timor. The Hague: M. Nijhoff. [KITLV, Verhandelingen 60.]

Map of the Area

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Indonesia

, 100 km . TANA'AI

KODI WEWEWA LABOYA

Sumba

100 km

120

124