'East Meets West':
Comparisons of Indonesian and Melanesian Ethnographic Themes
The comparison of ethnographic materials from related geographic areas is one of many stimuli that prompt anthropologists to think more deeply about the data that they have gathered in their specific field areas. Although many methods of comparison have been employed historically, we have utilized the approach of searching for commonalities and disparities in particular themes within a defined geographical area. The aim is to explore specific, interrelated topics in order to arrive at a perspective which includes Eastern Indonesia and Melanesia in a single analytical purview.By Pamela J. Stewart-Strathern and Andrew Strathern
Materials that were generated by the ISIR project here in Leiden have enriched our analysis on the ethnographic comparison of the literature on a number of anthropological topics: Female Spirits, Sky-Beings, and Cassowaries in mythology; on ideas of Witchcraft; on notions of 'Slavery' and Personhood; and on changing patterns of Kinship systems. These six themes constitute the chapters of a book that we are writing. In addition there will be a chapter on the problems of producing comparative analysis in anthropology.In our earlier analysis of Female Spirits (who can provide fertility, wealth, and health) in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, we have proposed a Collaborative Model for gender relations as expressed in ritual practices (P.J. Stewart and A. Strathern, forthcoming). We argue that these practices are best understood as forms of gendered collaboration that reflect the 'ideal' model of society as seen by the people themselves. We extend this analysis to include the nitu spirits among the Nage of Flores who are primarily described as beautiful women who can be beneficent providers of wealth, if an appropriate relationship is established with them. Nitu are not the keystones of descent, but they are the givers of life and wealth, in many different permutations. The sea-nymph female spirit in the Aru Islands of Eastern Indonesia is yet another example of this pattern. The Sea-nymph provides shells for the male diver, who has a 'marriage' with her, in exchange for a sacrifice of shop-bought white plates. Diving for pearlshells is a strongly ritualized activity, perhaps because of the risky nature of the undertaking, and thus it requires the protection of a powerful spirit.
Sea-nymph
Female spirits are often closely associated with Sky-Beings. The realms of Sky and Earth form a convenient vehicle for expressing concepts of dualistic unity that are prominent both in Eastern Indonesia and in Papua New Guinea societies. Myths about the original state of earth and sky include the elements that: (1) sky and earth were originally very near to each other; (2) sky and earth were connected by a cord, seen as a rope, a python, or a kind of umbilicus, so that their powers were joined together; (3) this rope has in some way to be cut in order for the primordial categories of sky and earth to become separate and for social order to be established. The python imagery is common and can be associated both with sky as the rainbow and with earth in its snake form -- it is often also connected with kinds of wealth and fertility.
The cassowary is sometimes compared with Female Spirits, but can also be a male spirit. In myths it sometimes appears as the originator of peoples or as a source of material culture. In the Aru Islands the cassowary spirit and the ancestors who belong with him are responsible for the bounty of the pearlshells which the sea-nymph helps divers to discover and harvest. Cassowaries are also seen to be primal ancestral figures such as among the Ilahita of the East Sepik of Papua New Guinea where The First Male marries a cassowary-woman and from this union the world is supplied with people. This particular myth is also common in the Bird's Head area of Irian Jaya.
The category of the 'slave' in Eastern Indonesian societies provides an interesting test case of definitions of personhood. We have found that the term covers a wide range of empirical situations, and that institutions of 'adoption' involving the transfer of children, in return for goods, blend in with the processes by which relations of bondage generally come into being. This is a strongly marked feature in the Bird's Head societies, and provides a part of the local basis in terms of which the wider trading of persons for wealth goods such as cloths (kain timur) was established. Individuals traded in this way lost aspects of their personhood as defined through kinship, but gained other aspects through being incorporated into the household structures of their owners.
Witchcraft
Definitions of personhood and personal agency are intimately involved in acts of witchcraft and accusations of witchcraft activity. Throughout Eastern Indonesia and New Guinea witchcraft has and does still today function as a source of instability in relations between persons. Christianity has not displaced the beliefs in witches or in their powers and in some instances as among the Duna people of Papua New Guinea ideas about the approaching millennium and the potential return of Jesus have heightened fears that Satanic forces such as witches are on the increase.
Finally, in our studies of kinship we are looking at forms of marriage as practised in the region, including types of marriage with cousins and sister-exchange marriage and examining how these have historically been altered in the Bird's Head and in Papua New Guinea by colonial control and the availability of trade goods. In the Eastern Indonesian cases, as Dutch anthropologists pointed out early on, a particular type of cousin marriage has been fundamental to the constitution of local inter-group relations, and the impact of change, including Christian church regulations forbidding the marriage of first cousins, is another topic for study.
Our chapter on comparisons reviews a range of opinions on how these should be done and explains why we have chosen a thematic approach. One reason is that this enables us to stay closely within the framework of ethnographic materials. Another is that we are able to show that similarities exist across major differences of language and prehistory, since our comparisons of Eastern Indonesian cases are made largely with examples from the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea where the inhabitants are linguistically unrelated to the vast majority Eastern Indonesian peoples who speak languages known as Austronesian. We find similar structural principles operating across the linguistic divide. We also find that reading ethnographies comparatively assists in the understanding of particular ethnographic cases.
Reference:
Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern. Female Spirit Cults as a Window on Gender Relations in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (In press).
Dr P. J. Stewart-Strathern and Prof. A. Strathern were IIAS Senior Visiting Fellows in November and December 1998. They can be contacted at the Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 USA. E-mails: Strather+@pitt.edu or PAMJAN+@pitt.edu.