'Died in the service of Portugal': Legitimacy of authority and dynamics of group identity among the Atsabe Kemak in East Timor

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 335-355

  Molnar, Andrea K ^a  

^a NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL HISTORY; CULTURAL TRADITION; IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION;

ASIA; EURASIA; SOUTHEAST ASIA; TIMOR-LESTE;

EID: 33646772222     PISSN: 00224634     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463406000579     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. Pierre Bourdieu, The logic of practice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990)
2. Bourdieu Outline of a theory of practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
3. By shared cultural patterns, I am referring to an overwhelming agreement on representations of political power and authority among the people of the former kingdom of Atsabe - regardless of which particular chiefdom of the Atsabe and regardless of chiefly lines (elite) or commoner representations.
4. Clifford Geertz, Negara: The theatre state in nineteenth-century Bali (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).
5. Bourdieu, Logic of practice, pp. 52, 56.
6. Bourdieu, Logic of practice
7. Michel Foucault, The archaeology of knowledge [translated from the French by A. M. Sheridan Smith], (London: Tavistock Publications, 1972).
8. Ted C. Lewellen, Political anthropology: An introduction, (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003).
9. Indeed, illiterate vendors at the weekly market would throw around terms such as 'gender' (which now has been borrowed into the languages of East Timor) and 'member of Portuguese speaking nations', as if they have been conversant with these abstract notions all their lives. I was shocked to find their level of understanding and interpretations of these concepts as roughly equivalent to those of secondary school students in many Western countries. While the UNTAET (United Nations Transitional Administration of East Timor) might have made many mistakes, they were surprisingly successful in many of their socialization programmes.
10. Bourdieu, Outline of a theory of practice, p. 3.
11. Ideas and practices from the many different cultures and nations represented by the personnel working for the UN also had a big influence on local worldviews and knowledge.
12. I am grateful for the warmth and generosity of the Atsabe Kemak who are too numerous to name, from several different villages. I want to acknowledge their eagerness and often insistence to teach me at a highly accelerated pace about their history, traditions and especially language in 2001 and 2002. My cultural informants came from a wide range of social and gender classes of the population in the subdistrict, including the 'elites', such as teachers, catechists, the chiefly families, both secular and ritual heads of origin groups, and ordinary folk who also greatly contributed many genealogies and explanations on their understanding of political precedence in the former Atsabe kingdom and their often unsolicited perception of the rapid changes they experienced since 1999, and now with their new national independence. Discussion and analysis in this article is based on the common patterns that emerged from data acquired from all levels of society. Therefore, when local world views or views on local identity, or views on power and legitimacy are discussed, they are views voiced by all levels of the population. Both Indonesian and Kemak languages were utilized in the research. I also wish to thank the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of Northern Illinois University for the summer faculty grant awarded for 2002.
13. Brigitte Clamagirand, 'Rapport de Mission au Timor Portugais', Archipel, 2, 2 (1971): 22-9
14. Clamagirand 'Le travail du cotton les Ema de Timor Portugais', Archipel, 3, 3 (1972): 55-80
15. Clamagirand 'La maison end (Timor Portugais)', Archipel, 6 (1975): 35-60
16. Clamagirand 'The social organization of the Ema of Timor', in The flow of life: Essays on eastern Indonesia, ed. James J. Fox (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 231-47
17. Brigitte Renard-Clamagirand, Marobo: Une société Ema de Timor (Paris: SELAF, 1982).
18. The oral history from all component chiefdoms of the former Atsabe kingdom tends to depict the small Marobo chiefdom as having a peripheral position. Indeed, oral accounts suggested that the Marobo are marginal Kemak due to their intermingling with the Bunaq group over generations. It may also be pointed out that there are one line references to Atsabe in a number of historical sources. There is also a brief mention of Atsabe in a travelogue by Margaret King (Eden to paradise [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1963], pp. 59-60), mainly with reference to a cultural dance performance (the eagle dance). There are many mentions of Atsabe in travel books, such as the Lonely Planet, but providing a full bibliography of every source and every instance where the name of the subdistrict is mentioned is not the purpose of this article. For a bibliography of Timor, please see Kevin Sherlock, A bibliography of Timor: Including East (formerly Portuguese) Timor, West (formerly Dutch) Timor and the island of Roti (Canberra: The Australian National University, Research School of Pacific Studies Aids to Research Series No A/4, 1980).
19. Some of the village names have been changed over time, or rather the original village name is now only retained in the name of a hamlet. Atsabe contains the following villages: Malabe (Atu Dame or Acu Dame in old writings), Paramin, Laclo (oral histories suggest that it was another founding origin village of the Kemak), Laçao, Atara, Lau Buno, Boboe Leten and Boboe Craic (formerly one village Boboe), Mali Mea (the new thirteenth village branched off from Atara), Tiar Lelo (Ciar Lelo) (became central in being the village of the ruler of the former kingdom of Atsabe; although oral histories suggest that these were usurpers of authority of the first origin village of Lemian [or Lemia] on top of the Dar Lau mountain and of Laclo), Obulo (population is related to Marobo group and similarly intermarried with Bunaq), Batu Manu, and Lemia Leten (part of Lemia and the origin village for all Kemak; Lemia Craic is now in a different sub-district, namely: Hatolia).
20. While the Atsabe Kemak show slight variations with and even greater complexity than the social organization of the Marobo community in Renard-Clamagirand's study (Marobo), the basic units of social organization - the hierarchically ordered named source houses - are also at the core of Atsabe social structure. Another, neighbouring cultural-linguistic group, the Mambai, also show similar patterns of social organization; Elizabeth G. Traube, Cosmology and social life: Ritual exchange among the Mambai of East Timor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).
21. Indigenous conceptualization of social organization along the lines of 'origin groups' and 'source houses' is widely documented for many Austronesian societies; Origins, ancestry and alliance: Explorations in Austronesian ethnography, ed. James J. Fox and Clifford Sather (Canberra: Dept. of Anthropology, Australian National University, 1996).
22. Artur Teodoro de Matos, Timor Portugês 1515-1769: Contribuição para a sua história (Lisbon: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto Histórico Infante Dom Henrique, 1974).
23. René Pélissier, Timor en guerre: Le crocodile et les Portugais (1847-1913) (Orgeval, France: Pélissier, 1996).
24. Kevin Sherlock, East Timor: Liurais and chefes de Suco; Indigenous authorities in 1952 (Darwin: Kevin Sherlock, 1983)
25. and Hélio A. Esteves Felgas, Timor Português (Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, Divisâo de Publicações e Biblioteca, 1956).
26. Indeed in some origin stories this putative common origin and brotherhood is extended to an inter-island sphere, which includes the islands of Flores, Kisar, Alor, and Ambon in eastern Indonesia.
27. Traube, Cosmology and social life, pp. 200-3.
28. The secondary burial is the means by which the soul of the deceased is transferred to the village of the ancestors on Ramelau Mountain and thus transformed into an ancestor. For similar significance of secondary burial practices among the Marobo Kemak and the Aileu Mambai see, Renard-Clamagirand, Marobo;
29. Traube, Cosmology and social life.
30. David Hicks, Tetum, ghosts and kin: Fieldwork in an Indonesian community (Palo Alto: Mayfield, 1976), p. 13
31. Jill Jolliffe, Cover-up: The inside story of the Balibo Five (Melbourne, Australia: Scribe Publications, 2001), p. 219.
32. There are many works that can be cited for this, including: Alberto Osorio de Castro, A ilha verde e vermelha de Timor (Lisbon: Republica Portuguess Ministerio das Colonias. Insulindia Portuguesa. Divisao de Publicacoes e Biblioteca Agencia Geral das Colonias, 1943)
33. Pinto A. Cap. Correia, Timor: De les a les (Lisbon: Republica Portuguesa Ministerio das Colonias. Divisao de Publicaoes e Biblioteca. Agencia Geral das Colonias, 1954)
34. Hélio A. Esteves Felgas, Timor Português (Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, Divisâo de Publicações e Biblioteca, 1956).
35. Renard-Clamagirand (Marobo, 1982, pp. 143-4) refers to this as taka no lia among the Marobo Kemak with several slight variations in the ritual process.
36. According to Traube (Cosmology and social life, p. 200), the Mambai also classify funerals as 'black rituals'. Secondary funerary rituals are also present among the Mambai (maet-keon) although there does not seem to be an actual exhumation and reburial of the remains.
37. Maurice Bloch, Prey into hunter: The politics of religious experience (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). The living are involved in continuous social interaction and exchange cycles of goods amongst kin. Such social and exchange relations, while transformed, do not cease just because a kin becomes deceased. Thus, the nature of relations between the living and deceased are that of relations between kin.
38. In the local belief system, if the secondary rites have not yet been performed, the soul of the deceased is said to stay near the house and village (asi naba coa pu). The longer the leko-cicir lia is delayed, it is believed that the soul of the deceased becomes ever lonelier for companionship, and thus calls the souls of the living to him. So a number of deaths close together in the same family is a sign that the leko must be performed and the souls must be transformed into ancestors and transferred to the ancestral villages.
39. Bourdieu, Logic of practice.
40. Peter Carrey, 'The Catholic church, religious revival, and the nationalist movement in East Timor, 1975-98', Indonesia and the Malay World, 27, 78 (1999): 77-95
41. Geoffrey C. Gunn, 'The five-hundred-year Timorese funu', in Bitter flowers, sweet flowers: East Timor, Indonesia and the world community, ed. Richard Tanter, Mark Selden and Stephen R. Shalom (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), pp. 3-14.
42. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). The idea of being part of a global community was expressed in yet another manner. A frequently recounted story also surrounded the first time that the UN flag was lowered and in its place the East Timorese flag was raised. According to the various local accounts, people were in tears for days and produced a special hand woven textile (tais) in which to wrap the UN flag, as if it were a death shroud, but also to protect it and to preserve its mystical 'sacred' power. This flag came to symbolize liberation and protection but more importantly a recognized place in the global union of nations as a country in its own right. In September 2002 East Timor became a member of the UN, a milestone event that was celebrated and much publicized in local media. Atsabe Kemak insisted on raising the UN flag, which in 2002 was flying on a post outside the sub-district administrative compound. The UN flag not only came to symbolize liberation to the Atsabe Kemak, but a newly found possibility of 'imagining' a rightful membership in a global community.
43. I was unable to get an accurate dollar amount from informants. Many who are not related to the family of the former ruler gave a high amount - US $4000-$5000. However, the family of the former ruler of Atsabe kingdom claimed a smaller amount - 'about US $1000'.
44. The language issue is contentious. For young East Timorese, the Portuguese, Indonesian and English languages are the means of locating the local populations vis-à-vis the global. Although the language issue plays an important role in defining the new nation, it is only in relation to East Timor's historical experiences and current processes of seeking a place within the international community as a Portuguese-speaking nation. Benedict Anderson, 'Imagining East Timor', Arena Magazine, 4 (April May 1993), [http://www.uc.pt/timor/imagin.htm]
45. Nancy M. Lutz, 'Colonization, decolonization and "integration": Language policies in East Timor, Indonesia', Paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association Chicago, 20 Nov. 1991.
46. '27 per cent of East Timorese between the ages of 35-50 can speak Portuguese, as opposed to only 11 per cent of those under 25.' East Timor national survey of voter knowledge (preliminary findings), (New York: The Asia Foundation, 2001), p. 6.
47. This also became painfully evident when from the very first day in Atsabe I was asked by local leaders, teachers, head of school and parish priest to give talks and hold discussion sessions with students as well as provide English language lessons at the school.
48. Jolliffe, Cover-up, pp. 219-27.
49. Hicks, Tetum ghosts and kin, p. 128
50. Geoffrey Hull, Standard Tetum-English dictionary (Crows Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2001), p. 236
51. Renard-Clamagirand, Marobo, p. 302
52. Traube, Cosmology and social life, pp. 142-3.
53. 'The interest leading an agent to defend his symbolic capital is inseparable from the tacit adherence, inculcated in the earliest years of life and reinforced by all subsequent experience, to the axiomatic objectively inscribed in the regularities of the (in the broad sense) economic order which constitutes a determinate type of symbolic capital worthy of being pursued and preserved.' (Bourdieu, Outline of a theory of practice, p. 182).
54. Bourdieu, Outline of a theory of practice pp. 53, 55
55. Ibid., p. 72.
56. Appadurai, Modernity at large, p. 3.