Austronesians in linguistic disguise: Fataluku cultural fusion in East Timor

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Volumn 38, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 355-375

  McWilliam, Andrew ^a  

^a AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL IDENTITY; ETHNICITY; LANGUAGE;

ASIA; EURASIA; LESSER SUNDA ISLANDS; MALAY ARCHIPELAGO; SOUTHEAST ASIA; SUNDA ISLES; TIMOR; TIMOR-LESTE;

EID: 34250723316     PISSN: 00224634     EISSN: 14740680     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463407000082     Document Type: Article

References (103)

1. See Andrew Pawley, 'The Trans New Guinea phylum hypothesis: A reassessment', in Perspectives on the bird's head of Irian Jaya, Indonesia: Proceedings of the conference, Leiden, 13-17 October 1997, ed. Jelle Miedema, Cecelia Ode and Rein A.C. Dam (Amsterdam, Atlanta GA: Rodopi. 1998), p. 683.
2. Revisiting earlier work of Stephen Wurm, 'Papuan languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene', New Guinea Languages and Language Study, vol. 1 (Department of Linguistics, Research, School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. Pacific linguistics series C-No, 38, 1975),
3. and others, Pawley provisionally assigns the Timor-Alor-Pantar group of New Guinea languages to the (West) TNG Phylum on lexical grounds but he acknowledges that the evidence remains slender and that the TNGP grouping is lexico-statistically highly diverse. Ross finds evidence for pronoun linkages and common innovations between the New Guinea Bomberai coast languages and those of East Timor (see Malcolm Ross, 'Pronouns as markers of genetic stocks in non-Austronesian languages of New Guinea, Island Melanesia and Eastern Indonesia', in Papuan languages and the Trans New Guinea family, ed. A Pawley, M. Ross and M. Osmond (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics), forthcoming.
4. See James J. Fox, 'Tracing the path, recounting the past: Historical perspectives on Timor', in Out of the ashes: Destruction and reconstruction of East Timor, ed. James J. Fox and Dionisio Babo Soares (Adelaide: Crawford House Publishing, 2000), pp. 4-5.
5. Fox has suggested that Adabe on Atauro Island might also be included in this grouping. However, I note Geoffrey Hull disagrees strongly that Adabe is a Papuan language, arguing that Atauroan languages are all 'unmistakably Austronesian' in structure and in their lexemes and grammatical form, see, Geoffrey Hull, 'The languages of Timor 1772-1997: A literature review', Studies in languages and cultures of East Timor 1 (1998): 1-38.
6. See also the Oirata language of Kisar Island off the north-east coast of Timor in J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong, Oirata: A Timorese settlement of Kisar, studies in Indonesian culture (Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akadamie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam: Afdeeling Letterkunde Nieuwe Reeks, Deel XXXIX, 1937).
7. C. L. Voorhoeve, 'Contact-induced change in the non-Austronesian languages in the north Moluccas, Indonesia', in Language contact and change in the Austronesian world, ed. Tom Dutton and Darrell T. Tryon (Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1994), pp. 649-74.
8. See also A. Capell, 'The West Papuan phylum: General and Timor and areas further west', in Papuan languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene, ed. S.A. Wurm (New Guinea Area Languages and Language study, vol 1, Pacific Linguistics Series C, No 38, Australian National University, 1975), pp. 667-711, 672-3.
9. Hull also notes that [a] common non-Austronesian core is still discernible in the basic vocabulary of the four languages. Most basic adjectives, pronouns, nouns and formatives are still of Papuan origin. Geoffrey Hull, 'The Papuan languages of Timor', Estudos de língua e culturas de Timor-Leste, 6 (2004): 23-99.
10. More specifically, Nikolaus Himmelman refers to 'a fairly complex morphonology which tends to obscure the quite substantial (and completely non-Austronesian) morphological apparatus involving affixes as well as clitics', in Nikolaus Himmelman, 'A report on the current sociolinguistic situation in Lantern (East Timor), Estudos em línguas e culturas de Timor Leste, 4 (2001): 88-97.
11. A phrase I have borrowed from a reported observation of Geoff Irwin referring to a similar blurring of language and cultural forms in Papua New Guinea.
12. Peter Bellwood et al., The Austronesians: Historical and comparative perspectives (Canberra: Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 1995).
13. Peter Bellwood, 'The Austronesian dispersal and the origin of languages', Scientific American, 265, 10 (1991): 88-93.
14. James J. Fox, 'Foreword', in People of the source: The social and ceremonial order of Tana Wai Brama on Flores, ed. E. Douglas Lewis (Dordrecht-Holland: Foris, 1988), p. xii.
15. Inside Austronesian houses: Perspectives on domestic designs for living, ed. James J. Fox (Canberra: Australian National University, 1993), p. 5.
16. See for example, James J. Fox and Clifford Sather, eds., Origins, Ancestry and Alliance: Explorations in Austronesian ethnography (Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 1996)
17. Andrew McWilliam, Paths of origin: Gates of life: A study of place and precedence in southwest Timor (Verhandelingen 202) (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002)
18. Thomas Reuter, The house of our ancestors: Precedence and dualism in highland Balinese society (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002)
19. Transformations of hierarchy: Structure, history and horizon in the Austronesian world, ed. Margaret Jolly and Mark Mosko (History and Anthropology, vol. 7, Chur and Reading: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994)
20. Precedence: Processes of social differentiation in the Austronesian world, ed. Michael Vischer (Canberra: Pandarms Press), forthcoming.
21. McWilliam, Paths of origin, gates of life, p. 292.
22. Peter Bellwood, 'Hierarchy, founder ideology and Austronesian expansion', in Origins, ancestry and alliance, ed. Fox and Sather, pp. 18-40.
23. Pamela Stewart and Andrew Strathern, The Python's back: Pathways of comparison between Indonesia and Melanesia (Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 2000).
24. During the period of Indonesian rule in East Timor (1975-99), Tetum was discouraged in favour of Bahasa Ladonesia. Portuguese is only spoken by older people with experience of former colonial times.
25. This view is one asserted by Sa'ané language speakers living in the highlands of Luro in western Lantern. Another commonly heard idea is that dagada or an alternate term, sokolori is a dialect form of Fataluku spoken widely in areas such as Daudere and Lai vai (north-western Lantern). Capell refers to the language as 'commonly but wrongly known as Dagoda', 'The West Papuan phylum', p. 672.
26. John Hajek et al., 'Lovaia: An East Timorese language on the verge of extinction', International Journal of the Sociology of Language 160 (2003): 155-67.
27. The same might be said of Makasai communities in neighbouring Baucau district, who appear to have expanded across extensive areas of eastern Timor supplanting former Austronesian speaking communities. As the naturalist H. O Forbes noted over one hundred years ago, 'In the eastern extremity of the island the people, I am told, resemble Malays, and they speak the Malay language', in 'On some of the tribes of the island of Timor', Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 13 (1884): 402-30.
28. 'Capell, 'The West Papuan phylum'.
29. Peter Bellwood, 'The archaeology of Papuan and Austronesian prehistory in the Northern Moluccas, eastern Indonesia, in Archaeology and language II: Correlating archaeological and linguistic hypotheses, ed. Roger Blench and Mathew Spriggs (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), pp. 128-40.
30. This Fataluku term is likely to be a direct borrowing from the Austronesian word *lakaw. The term la'a (to go), for example, is identical to the same Austronesian Ngada language term in central western Flores.
31. Himmelman comments that the four non-Austronesian languages in Timor have lost many of their grammatical and lexical features and have become largely assimilated to the surrounding Austronesian languages, although he suggests that Fataluku may be the most conservative in this regard; Himmelman 2001, p. 4.
32. Tetum spelling of the still widely used Portuguese phrase, 'Chefe do Suco'.
33. See Marshall Sahlins, Islands of history (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 87.
34. Elizabeth Traube, writing on Mambai cosmologies in East Timor presents another version of this theme where the Portuguese ruling power is conceived of as the returning younger brother; Cosmology and social life: Ritual exchange among the Mambai of East Timor (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1986).
35. See also Jukka Siikala, 'The Elder and the younger - foreign and autochthonous origin and hierarchy in the Cook Islands', in Origins, ancestry and alliance, ed. Fox and Sather, pp. 41-54.
36. It is noteworthy in this respect that one of the AN Lovaia (Makua) collective references to the Fataluku people is Sa malai, or so I am told.
37. Fox, 'Introduction', in Origins, ancestry and alliance, ed. Fox and Sather, pp. 1-12.
38. Ibid, p. 5.
39. I have recorded two exceptions to this general view, namely the self-identifying groups Kati Ratu near their ancient settlement high on the Plain of Nari, and Tutuala Ratu, on the far eastern tip of East Timor. Both their mythic histories assert autochthonous origins, and lay claim to settling other immigrant Fataluku speaking groups arriving within the territory. This may suggest an affiliation with prior Austronesian speaking settlers in the region pre-dating Fataluku settlement although clear evidence is weak.
40. See, for example, Traube, Cosmology and social life.
41. Not all Fataluku claim affiliation to one of these 'stone boats' referring instead to alternative ancestral arrivals via marine creatures such as shark, crocodile, turtle and dolphin among others; see, for example, Andrew McWilliam, 'Harbouring traditions in East Timor: Marginality in a lowland entrepot', Modern Asian studies (in press).
42. The first settlement of the ancestors on Timor may also be indicated by the emplacement of two carved figurines (male and female) or altar posts known as ete uru ha'a (heartwood). They represent the first ancestral couple and are said to guard 'the path of ancestors'. Customarily, they were placed facing the direction of their origins. However, during the period of Indonesian rule in East Timor, they were subject to desecration and looting so that many have been moved to locations within or closer to present settlements.
43. See Andrew McWilliam, 'Fataluku forest tenures and the Konis Santana National Park (East Timor)', in Sharing the earth, dividing the land: Territorial categories and institutions in the Austronesian world, ed. Thomas Reuter (Canberra: ANU E Press, 2006), pp. 253-75. Graves and other ancestral markers are visited to overcome illness and ill-fortune among members of the patrifilial group. Periodically major ceremonial gatherings involving multiple sibling sets or lineages of the Ratu/ Paca clans are undertaken to reaffirm group prosperity and solidarity.
44. The characteristic invocation to ancestors uses the phrase calu ho papu. These terms refer to ego's second and third ascending generation of forebears but they invoke the collective ancestry.
45. Women and young children of the ratu may not consume the sacrificial meat because of its spiritual heat (timiné). Younger daughters of the ratu are explicitly excluded because of their intended incorporation within their future husband's ritual group.
46. Andrew McWilliam, 'Healing and medical pluralism in post-independence East Timor: Anthropological perspectives on Fataluku ethno-medical practice', Paper presented to the Australian Anthropological Society Conference, Cairns, Queensland, September 2006.
47. Horo is a reference to the stony coralline surface of land characteristic of this part of East Timor.
48. Historically, the senior landholder and ritual authority of Fataluku domains (mua ho cawaru) sometimes co-existed with the executive mediating rule of the Cao hafa malai, to effect a diarchic structure of politico-religious authority, a feature prevalent among neighbouring Austronesian language groups. Both titles, however, were sometimes held by a single ratu.
49. These chants may be preceded by forms of song dances (sau fa, sau ia mari) which recount the life and deeds of the deceased. Fataluku distinguish between dead shades and living spirit. The latter is known as hutu or hutu teino(sacred spirit) which is the animating life force, and one's dreaming being.
50. The names of the first ancestors are highly proscribed and are usually only uttered in connection with invocation or prayer.
51. Maria Olimpia Lameiras Campagnolo, L'Habilitation des Fataluku de Lorehe (Timor Portugais). These de Doctorat de 3eme cycle (Academie de Paris, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Université Rene Descartes, Paris, 1975) ['The final (third) stage of the Doctoral thesis' (Paris Academy of the School of Advanced Studies, University of Rene Descartes, Paris, 1975)], p. 75.
52. James J. Fox, The poetic power of place: Comparative perspectives of Austronesian ideas of locality (Canberra: Australian National University, 1997).
53. Fox, Out of the ashes, p. 1.
54. Here the term itself refers to the category of 'grandfather/male ancestor' and reflects a greater sense of respect.
55. Traube, Cosmology and social life, p. 29.
56. For examples, see H. G. Schulte Nordholt, The political system of the Atoni of Timor (Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, vol. 60) (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), pp. 238-9.
57. James J. Fox, 'Introduction' in To speak in pairs: Essays on the ritual languages of eastern Indonesia, ed. James J. Fox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 1-28.
58. Gregory Forth, 'To chat in pairs: Lexical pairing as a pervasive feature of Nage mundane speech', Canberra Anthropology, 19, 1 (1996): 31-51.
59. Fox, To speak in pairs, p. 2.
60. The term vaku is used in relation to a path made by livestock, or undomesticated animals.
61. Protocols and status strategies that inform the relationship between sibling groups, can be seen in a marriage practice known as following 'the little path' (i ia moko). This term refers to a strategy of reciprocal marriage exchange between two named clans, conventionally proscribed according to the asymmetric conventions of Fataluku marriage. However it is acceptable for clans to exchange their daughters and sisters in marriage when an internal differentiation is sustained between elder and younger sibling groups. In other words, a senior segment (kaka) from Cailoro Ratu may marry a woman from Pai'ir Ratu. Subsequently, the junior or younger sibling segment (noko) of Cailoro may bestow one of its daughters or sisters in marriage as a gift to a man from Pai'ir Ratu. This practice enables the material gifts of marriage, buffalos, gold, land and cloth, to circulate within two allied Ratu groups. It represents a contrasting strategy to marriages of 'the great path' (i ia lafae) which maintain a unidirectional exchange of women and gifts. The male gender bias in this characterisation reflects common Fataluku formulations of the nature of marriage exchange. Fataluku kinship terminology prescribes marriage between matrilateral cross cousins (MBD/FZS) who are referred to as ia tupuru and ia nami (the female and male path respectively).
62. See also James J. Fox, 'Sister's child as plant: Metaphors in an idiom of consanguinity', in Rethinking kinship and marriage, ed. Rodney Needham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 219-50
63. Andrew McWilliam, 'Trunk and tip in West Timor: Precedence in a botanical idiom', in Precedence: Processes of social differentiation in the Austronesian world, ed. Michael Vischer, forthcoming.
64. Roxanna Waterson, 'Houses and the built environment in island Southeast Asia: Tracing some shared themes in the use of space', in Inside Austronesian houses: Perspectives on domestic designs for living, ed. James J. Fox (Canberra: Australian National University, 1993), pp. 220-35.
65. Hauser Schaublin, Kulthäuser in Nordneuguinea, 2 vols. (Abhandlungen und Berichte des Staatlichen Museums für Völkenkunde Dresden no. 43) (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1989), p. 618,
66. cited in Fox, Inside Austronesian houses, p. 13.
67. See, for example, Traube, Cosmology and social life, p. 46
68. Reimer Schefold et al., Indonesian houses: Tradition and transformation in vernacular architecture (Leiden: KITLV Press 2003)
69. Roxanna Waterson, The living house: An anthropology of architecture in South-East Asia (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1993).
70. See examples from Campagnolo, L'Habilitation des Fataluku de Lorehe pp. 91-5.
71. Although many of these and similar houses were destroyed during the violence that characterised the end of Indonesian rule in East Timor, as elsewhere across the country the high value placed on their cultural and political significance means that reconstruction of these customary house styles has begun. See Andrew McWilliam, 'House of resistance in East Timor: Structuring sociality in the new nation', Anthropological forum, 15, 1 (2005): 27-44.
72. Fox, Inside Austronesian houses, p. 1.
73. The aca kaka hearth is a ritually and symbolically potent structure which includes three hearth stones (lilivana) representing the male siblings and children of the group (noko kaka ho moco) while two small wooden altar posts (saka) within the hearth stand for the female and male members of the House group respectively (saka tupuru and saka calu). Often a third saka is secured above the doorway to the house providing a protective field for the occupants (known as the le o'o hana).
74. Peter Bellwood, 'Austronesian prehistory in Southeast Asia: Homeland, expansion and transformation', in The Austronesians, ed. Bellwood, Fox and Tryon, pp. 96-111.
75. Capell, The West papuan phylum, p. 699.
76. Ibid., p. 709.
77. Matthew Spriggs, 'The Lapita culture and Austronesian prehistory in Oceania', in The Austronesians, ed. Bellwood, Fox and Tryon, pp. 112-33, 127.
78. See, for example, Malcolm Ross, Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of Western Melanesia (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics C-88, 1988)
79. also 'Pronouns as markers of genetic stocks in non-Austronesian languages of New Guinea, Island Melanesia and eastern Indonesia' in Papuan languages and the trans New Guinea family, ed. A. Pawley et al. (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 1996).
80. Pawley, The Trans New Guinea phylum, pp. 684-5.
81. Hull, 'The languages of Timor 1772-1997: A literature review.'
82. The neighbouring non-Austronesian language of Makasai and its variants represents a comparable case, given the significant numbers of linguistic islands of Austronesian languages that are found across the Baucau district. The evidence of a recent expansion of Makasai speakers can be seen in the prevalence of Austronesian place names in Makasai language areas, a feature less apparent in Fataluku areas.
83. Bellwood, 'The archaeology of Papuan and Austronesian prehistory in the northern Moluccas', p. 130.
84. Stephen Wurm, 'Papuan languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene', p. 950.
85. See Jos Platenkamp, North Halmahera: Non-Austronesian languages, Austronesian cultures (Leiden: Oosters Genootschap in Nederland, 1990)
86. C.L. Voorhoeve, 'Contact-induced change in the non-Austronesian languages in the north Moluccas, Indonesia', in Language contact and change in the Austronesian world, ed. Tom Dutton and Darrell T. Tryon (Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1994), pp. 649-74
87. Bellwood, The archaeology of Papuan and Austronesian prehistory in the northern Moluccas, p. 138.
88. For a PNG example see Tom Dutton, 'Borrowing in Austronesian and non-Austronesian languages of coastal south-east mainland Papua New Guinea', in Papers from the third international conference on Austronesian linguistics, vol. 11, ed. Amran Halim, Lois Carrington and S.A. Wurm (Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Pacific Linguistic Series C-No 74, 1982), pp. 109-77.
89. Sue O'Connor, 'Nine new painted rock art sites from East Timor in the context of the Western Pacific Region, Asian Perspectives, 42, 1 (2003): 96-128
90. Chris Ballard, 'Painted rock art sites in western Melanesia: Locational evidence of an Austronesian tradition, in State of art: Regional rock art studies in Australia and Melanesia, ed. Jo McDonald and Ivan Haskovic (Occasional AURA Publication no. 6, Melbourne: Australian Rock Art Research Association, 1992), pp. 94-106.
91. See Ross, 'Pronouns as markers of genetic stocks in non-Austronesian languages of New Guinea', forthcoming
92. Andrew Pawley, 'Recent research on the historical relationships of the Papuan languages, or, What can linguistics add to the stories of archaeology and other disciplines about the prehistory of Melanesia?' Paper presented at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists for Podium Symposium; The second garden of Eden - Island Melanesian genetic diversity, p. 21.
93. Hull, 'The Papuan languages of Timor'.
94. Ibid., p. 66. The statement would make more sense if Hull meant to write, 'than among their non-Austronesian speaking neighbours', but the observation remains pertinent.
95. Aone van Engelenhoven and Justino Valentim Cailoru, 'The Makuva Enigma: Locating a hidden language in East Timor', Paper presented at the 2nd Conference on Austronesian Languages and Linguistics, Oxford, 2-3 June 2006, pp. 1-17 (Access at www.fataluku.com). The authors suggest that 'many of the awkward Austronesian features of the Fataluku language and society could be explained as originally (local) Makuva features that survived' Fataluku settlement.
96. Fox, Out of the ashes, p. 4
97. see also Bellwood's analysis of West Papuan phylum language and cultural forms in Halmahera (Moluccas), suggesting the blending of genetically Asian population with Papuan languages may offer a relevant line of enquiry here; 'The archaeology of Papuan and Austronesian prehistory in the northern Moluccas', 1998.
98. William A. Foley, 'Toward understanding Papuan languages', in Perspectives on the bird's head of Irian Jaya, ed. Jelle Miedema, Cecilia Ode and Rien A.C. Dam (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi B.V. 1998), pp. 503-18.
99. This being the principal criteria for the genetic classification of language.
100. Foley, 1998, p. 504.
101. Bellwood, Hierarchy, founder ideology and Austronesian expansion, p. 22.
102. Cited in P.G. Rubel and A. Rosman, Your own pigs you may not eat (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1978), pp. 320-3.
103. In this regard, I have also considered the character of Fataluku kinship terminologies which exhibit many regular Austronesian features, such as the reciprocal marking of MB/ZS relationships and the central role of sibling relationships. As a recognisably asymmetric prescriptive terminology, it is not out of place in the wider region. Furthermore, the high prevalence of the number 'seven' (fitu) in Fataluku cultural schema, suggested possibilities of Papuan links in this regard but I found no strong evidence to support this idea. Seven is a significant number in all world religions as well as in Austronesian mythologies and cultural forms. As it happens, Fataluku 'seven' (fitu is also an Austronesian term although in this regard, Gomes suggests that the archaic and possibly original Fataluku term for 'seven', is nunu-muli (Francisco de Azevedo Gomes, Os Fataluku (Doctoral thesis, Instituto superior de ciências sociais e política ultramarina. Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, 1972, p. 176).