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Sakaliou: reciprocity, mimesis, and the cultural economy of tradition in Siberut, Mentawai Islands, Indonesia
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Sakaliou: reciprocity, mimesis, and the cultural economy of tradition in Siberut, Mentawai Islands, Indonesia
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Content
SAKALIOU:
RECIPROCITY, MIMESIS, AND THE CULTURAL ECONOMY OF TRADITION
IN SIBERUT, MENTAWAI ISLANDS, INDONESIA
by
Christian S. Hammons
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ANTHROPOLOGY)
December 2010
Copyright 2010 Christian S. Hammons
ii
Epigraph
The absolute can be likened to fire:
too near and one gets burned, too far away and one gets nothing.
Between these two extremes is a zone
where one is warmed and heartened by the welcome light.
- Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred (1977: 269)
Moili moili
Slowly, slowly
- Mentawai saying
iii
Dedication
For Sakaliou
And for Sophia
Who cared for me as a child
iv
Acknowledgments
In the indigenous language of South Siberut, the phrase moili moili means slowly, slowly,
or slow down and be careful. It is most often used in response to someone who has acted hastily
or recklessly and suffered the consequences because of it. It reveals an important aspect of the
indigenous people's approach to life, an approach that I learned well over the course of two years
of fieldwork among the Sakaliou clan: trouble cannot be avoided, but going slowly and acting
carefully gives you the best chance of avoiding it and of dealing with it when it comes.
Many years have passed between the last day of fieldwork and the writing of these
acknowledgments, the last step in the writing of this dissertation. The pace has been slow
indeed. It has not always been by design or intention, and I have not always managed to avoid
trouble along the way, but I am convinced that I am better off for going slowly, and I have
Sakaliou to thank for that. First and foremost, I thank Aman Boroiogok, who allowed me to live in
his home and who taught me valuable lessons in living, not only as a Mentawai person, but also
as a human being. His son Aman Asa Iba, the infamous Rustam, quite literally insured my
survival. He brought me to his father, steered our course, protected me from snakes, and more
than anyone else, helped me to stay out of trouble, even when he could not stay out of it himself.
Aman Boroiogok's other sons Aman Dirikerei and Pali graciously assumed the burden of insuring
my survival when their older brother left it to them. I also thank Bai Boroiogok, Bai Asa Iba, Bai
Dirikerei, and all of the children in the uma. I thank Teteou, Aman and Bai Jomanu and their
children, Aman and Bai Suryani and their children, Terason and his family, Kuki, Aman and Bai
Talejat and their family, and Salomo and his family. I also thank Sarul and his family, Matheus
and his family, and Aman and Bai Tatsiboilot and their family, especially Tatsiboilot, with whom I
spent many days in the uma. To everyone in the Sakaliou clan, and to the people in other clans I
knew through them, I thank you in equal measure. Masurabagata.
Closer to home, there are also many people who have made it possible for me to go
slowly. In some cases, they have had to change their own pace to accommodate mine. They
v
include my dissertation committee, especially the head of my committee, Janet Hoskins, in the
Department of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. Any other advisor probably
would have abandoned me long ago. Your patience and persistence are remarkable, not to
mention your knowledge of anthropology and Indonesia. I also thank the other members of my
committee: Eugene Cooper, Nancy Lutkehaus, and Cheryl Mattingly in the Department of
Anthropology and Jane Iwamura in the Department of Religion. Your support and
encouragement have been at the appropriate distance. I thank Rita Jones in the Department of
Anthropology, various deans in the Graduate School, and all of the other people at USC who
have contributed to my survival, in one way or another, for the many years that I have been
researching and writing this dissertation.
In Siberut, there are a number of people outside of the Sakaliou clan who deserve special
mention. They include: Deddy and his "staff" in Muara Siberut, Santoso of Siberut National Park,
and Koen Meyers of UNESCO. I also thank the local government officials in Siberut and
elsewhere in the Mentawai Islands. In Padang, I thank Universitas Andalas for sponsoring me,
and in Jakarta, I thank the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) for granting me permission to
conduct the research.
Funding for the research was provided by a Fulbright Fellowship from the Institute for
International Education and by a David L. Boren Graduate International Fellowship from the
Academy for Educational Development. Funding for pre-research language study was provided a
Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship and a Foreign Language Area Studies Scholarship. Funding for
writing the dissertation was provided in part by an Urban-Global Fellowship at USC and an
Advanced Doctoral Research Award from the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at USC.
Finally, I thank my family and friends (you know who you are, and you know how much I
appreciate you) and the Harita family of Hilimondegeraya, Nias. Most of all, I thank my daughter
Sophia, who is teaching me everything I really need to know about being human.
I concluded fieldwork and left Siberut, coincidentally, the day before the Indian Ocean
tsunami. Since then, there have been a number of natural disasters in Sumatra, some very close
vi
to Siberut, and I have not always been able to respond appropriately. Whenever there is an
earthquake in Siberut, people shout moili moili to the spirit that causes the ground to tremble
when he rolls over in his makeshift grave in the post hole of the house. They are asking him, not
to refrain from rolling over, but to roll over slowly. They know that earthquakes and other
disasters are inevitable. And they know that going slowly gives people the best chance of
survival.
Moili moili, Sakaliou.
vii
Table of Contents
Epigraph ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgments iv
Abbreviations viii
Abstract ix
Preface x
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Chapter 2: Generalized Reciprocity and Perspectivism 26
Chapter 3: Balanced Reciprocity and the Puliaijat 45
Chapter 4: Negative Reciprocity: Headhunting and Shamanism 77
Chapter 5: Colonialism 99
Chapter 6: The State 123
Chapter 7: Tourism 142
Chapter 8: Environmentalism and Regional Autonomy 162
Chapter 9: Conclusion 174
Glossary 198
Bibliography 202
viii
Abbreviations
The indigenous language of South Siberut is one of several distinct dialects of the
language spoken throughout Siberut and possibly throughout the Mentawai Islands. Although the
dialect spoken in North Siberut is significantly different from the dialect spoken in the
southernmost islands, they remain mutually intelligible (with some difficulty), suggesting that there
is a single, dialectally diverse language spoken throughout the archipelago. This language, often
referred to as Bahasa Mentawai, is significantly different from the most closely related
Austronesian languages, such as Bahasa Nias and Bahasa Batak.
Bahasa Mentawai is beginning to be standardized in its written form, but spelling varies
from dialect to dialect. I have tried to adhere to the emerging standardized form as much as
possible. Whenever spelling differs from the standardized form, it reflects the dialect spoken by
the Sakaliou clan in South Siberut. I have tried to refrain from using too many foreign words, but
for key and recurring concepts, I use the indigenous term. The first time it is used, it is in italics.
Thereafter, it is not italicized. As in Bahasa Mentawai, there is no S to indicate a plural. All terms
in italics are Bahasa Mentawai unless otherwise noted, the most common exception being terms
from Bahasa Indonesia, abbreviated BI. A glossary is provided.
ix
Abstract
Based on two years of fieldwork, this dissertation is an ethnography of the Sakaliou clan,
one of several dozen upriver, forest-dwelling clans in the Rereiket region of south Siberut, the
largest of the Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Although it focuses on
only one clan, it examines their social relations with other clans, with the spirits that live in the
forest, and with the nonindigenous people who live on or come to visit the island, such as traders,
government officials, and tourists. Its main argument is that the way Sakaliou engages in social
relations within the clan, with other clans and spirits, and even with nonindigenous people is
through various forms of reciprocity or gift exchange. Drawing on Rene Girard's theory of
violence and the sacred, reciprocity is reconceptualized as a mimetic practice in which self is
defined in relation to other through the exchange of an object that has no value outside of the
relation it defines. By way of the object, reciprocity creates or recognizes a similarity between self
and other that can mitigate mimetic rivalry or generate it, depending on the exchange. If mimetic
rivalry can result in violence, then exchange can be seen as the deferral of violence, the
exchange of objects instead of bodies or heads. This view of exchange is more or less explicit in
the myth, ritual, and taboo of the indigenous religion, a blend of animism, ancestor worship, and
shamanism, but it is so fundamental to Sakaliou's perspective that it not only shapes their
relations with other clans, it also shapes their relations with nonindigenous people. Despite a
century of colonialism and national modernization campaigns, Sakaliou continues to engage
traders, government officials, and tourists on their own terms: defining self in relation to other,
controlling mimetic rivalry, and deferring violence through the reciprocal exchange of objects.
The dissertation is divided into two parts. The first focuses on social relations within the clan,
between clans, and between humans and spirits, concluding with an analysis of headhunting and
shamanism. The second focuses on social relations with nonindigenous people, including
missionaries, Dutch colonial officials, Minangkabau traders and migrants, Indonesian state
officials, foreign tourists, and international environmentalists.
x
Preface
This dissertation is an ethnography of the indigenous people on the island of Siberut, the
largest of the Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. It focuses on the
upriver, forest-dwelling people, the orang hulu, of South Siberut and the way they engage in
social relations with each other, with the spirits that live in the forest, and with the nonindigenous
people who live on or come to visit the island. Its main contention is that the way the orang hulu
engage in social relations with each other and with spirits is through reciprocity, which is a kind of
mimesis, or mimetic practice, in which persons are constituted through the exchange of gifts. In
reciprocity, the gift is a mediating object between self and other, one that requires the giver of the
gift to see himself or herself from the perspective of the receiver and, likewise, the receiver of the
gift to see himself or herself from the perspective of the giver. A more contentious argument in
the dissertation is that reciprocity is also the way the orang hulu engage in social relations with
nonindigenous people, a large and diverse category that includes migrants, merchants, and
government officials from elsewhere in Indonesia, national and international development
workers, especially environmentalists, and foreign cultural and eco-tourists. Although the orang
hulu distinguish between themselves and nonindigenous people, and even distinguish between
different kinds of nonindigenous people, they engage, or attempt to engage, in social relations
with them through reciprocity. Nonindigenous people do not share the same understanding of
how persons and social relations are constituted, and this leads to misunderstandings and
conflicts, the most obvious of which is the perceived conflict between tradition and modernity.
Conceiving of reciprocity as mimesis, the dissertation brings together the long tradition of
anthropological scholarship on reciprocity and the long tradition of scholarship, mostly outside of
anthropology, on mimesis. Since Mauss' The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in
Archaic Societies (1990), first published in 1923-24, anthropologists have generally come to
accept that gift exchange, unlike commodity exchange, is inextricably embedded in social
relations. Gift exchange occurs among people who know each other or, as in South Siberut, who
xi
hope to know each other. Gift exchange may create, sustain, strengthen, weaken, or in its
failure, end social relations. It may be symmetrical or asymmetrical; it may result in relative
equality or dominance and subordination. Mauss emphasizes the sense of obligation in gift
exchange, the obligation not only to give and receive, but also to return the gift and return it again
in cycles of prestation and counterprestation that may be short or long in duration. The
obligations are sanctioned by custom, morality, sentiment, and religion, making the gift a total
social phenomenon. Following the formalist-substantivist debates of the 1940s and 50s, Sahlins
(1972) identified different kinds of gift exchange based on the social distance between the
persons involved in the exchange and the timing of the return gift. Generalized reciprocity occurs
among people who are socially close to each other, and as a result, there is no expectation of an
immediate return gift. Balanced reciprocity occurs among people who are more socially distant
from each other, and as a result, there is an expectation of a return gift immediately or in the short
term. Negative reciprocity occurs among people who are the most socially distant from each
other. As in balanced reciprocity, there is an expectation of a return gift in the short term, but the
emphasis is on taking rather than giving. In headhunting, for example, which was practiced in
Siberut until the early 20th century, people do not give a head so much as take one with the
expectation that a return gift, a head, will have to be given in the future. Beyond negative
reciprocity, there is no gift exchange, which is to say that there is no social relation between the
persons involved in the exchange of objects. Beyond negative reciprocity lies the impersonal
exchange of commodities.
More recent anthropological scholarship on reciprocity emphasizes the way in which
persons are constituted through gift exchange. A gift, unlike a commodity, is inalienable. A gift
cannot be separated from the person who gives it. Although a gift moves from one person to
another, the gift brings with it something of the giver and will, in turn, bring with it something of the
receiver who gives it to someone else. Often this "something" is simply the knowledge that the
gift was once given or received by a certain person. In the Trobriand kula, for example, the gift
brings with it the entire history of its circulation (Malinowski 1961, Weiner 1992). Elsewhere in
xii
Melanesia, the gift is not just an extension of a person, but part of a person that is detached and
transferred to another person through exchange. Strathern (1988) calls this "partible
personhood" and argues that Melanesians are not individuals so much as "dividuals" because a
person is a kind of aggregate of the other persons with whom he or she has exchanged gifts.
Hoskins (1998) and others (e.g. Thomas 1991) question Strathern's distinction between gift and
commodity, as well as the dichotomy between dividual and individual or partible person and
coherent self. Hoskins argues that in Eastern Indonesia, certain objects are biographical in the
sense that they "are endowed with the personal characteristics of their owners," but that
biographical objects are not necessarily dependent on partible personhood (1998: 7). In fact, no
such conception exists in Eastern Indonesia. The same is true in Western Indonesia: there is no
conception of partible personhood, but there is clearly a sense that objects, especially gifts,
constitute the persons among whom they circulate. Not all gifts are biographical objects, but all
gifts acknowledge the biographies of giver and receiver, as well as the biographies of the persons
with whom each has exchanged, and become part of their biographies and senses of self.
Persons are constituted through their relations with others, and in Siberut, social relations are
made or broken through gift exchange.
In South Siberut, gift exchange among the orang hulu is relatively subtle. With a few
important exceptions, there are no grand prestation events like the Trobriand kula or the Kwakiutl
potlatch. Reciprocity tends to be generalized and frequent. The vast majority of exchanges
involve food and labor within the exogamous patrilineal clan and food for labor between clans
related to each other by marriage. Whenever food is prepared in abundance, it is laid out in
portions on the floor of the longhouse for distribution, and social relations are easy to see in the
piles of pork, chicken, taro, and sago. There is a portion for each nuclear family within the clan
and, in the case of case of food for labor, the nuclear families from other clans. Such scenes of
reciprocity are common among egalitarian peoples. In the few grand prestation events in South
Siberut, the exchanges are much more explicit. In the marriage ceremony, the clan of the
husband presents bridewealth to the clan of the wife, and a return gift (dowry) is made shortly
xiii
thereafter. In the most significant religious ceremony for the orang hulu, the puliaijat or lia, gifts
are presented to the ancestor spirits, who have been invited into the longhouse for the duration of
the ceremony, and a return gift is made shortly thereafter when the ancestors allow an animal to
be killed in the hunt. In the most elaborate healing ceremony, the pabete, shamans present gifts
to the ancestor spirits, but a return gift is made immediately when the ancestor spirits allow the
soul of the person who is sick to remain among the living rather than join them among the dead.
Again, such scenes of exchange are relatively common among peoples with bridewealth,
animism, and shamanism. They do not suggest that reciprocity is more important for the orang
hulu than any other egalitarian people.
I only began to understand the significance of reciprocity for the orang hulu when I
started seeing it in situations other than the small, frequent exchanges of generalized reciprocity
and the large, infrequent prestation events of balanced reciprocity. One such situation was
storytelling. An accomplished storyteller, or even an enthusiastic average storyteller, often used
a kind of visual aid to illustrate the story he or she was telling. The story did not need to be an
important myth, although the visual aid was often used for the telling of myths, too. The story
could be about an everyday event, like an encounter with a friend or enemy in the forest, an
encounter with a wild pig or snake, or gossip about another man or woman's marital strife.
Almost any noteworthy event could become the basis for a story, and the same story could be
told repeatedly and in different contexts. The visual aid did not need to be - and often was not - a
particularly important object. It was certainly not a biographical object, a singular possession that
provided an anchor to narrative experience. It was usually disposable, like a leaf or cigarette
package torn into small pieces. As the story unfolded, the pieces of leaf or cigarette package
were placed on the floor by the storyteller to mark key moments in the narrative. At the end of the
story, the pieces laid out on the flood did not resemble the content of the narrative so much as its
form or structure. Again, the visual aid was not a biographical object, endowed with special
meaning. Usually, it was simply left on the floor for people or dogs to kick aside.
xiv
It was only after two years of fieldwork, in thinking about the pervasiveness of reciprocity
among the orang hulu, that I realized that the visual aids used by storytellers are a kind of gift.
They work the same way that the piles of food on the longhouse floor do, or the piles of
prestations to other clans or ancestor spirits. Unlike the piles of food and prestations, the visual
aids have no use-value. They cannot be used or consumed. For the orang hulu, gifts are not
determined by their use-value. The visual aids are a disposable mediator between the storyteller
and his or her audience. The story told, the narrative that moves from storyteller to audience,
may have a kind of use-value, but it is only a gift if it moves from one to the other by way of an
object. The visual aid is the object through which the narrative moves. It provides a kind of pivot
point between storyteller and audience, so that the audience can adopt the storyteller's
perspective. The audience does not look at the visual aid to understand the story. The audience
looks at the visual aid to understand the storyteller, to see the story from the storyteller's
perspective. The object enables the audience to adopt the storyteller's perspective. Among the
orang hulu, the same is true for all gifts. The piles of food on the longhouse flood are consumed,
but they also enable each nuclear family to adopt the perspective of the others with whom it
sharing a meal. The piles of prestations to other clans are later consumed or saved to be used
as gifts again, but in their presentation, they enable the receiving clan to adopt the perspective of
the giving clan. The piles of prestations to ancestor spirits are actually consumed or saved by the
giving clan, but in their presentation, they enable the ancestor spirits to adopt the perspective of
the giving clan.
Crucially, all of these gifts, from the visual aids to the prestations, also enable the giver of
the gift to adopt the perspective of the receiver, to see the himself or herself from the perspective
of the person to whom he or she is giving the gift. In storytelling, the visual aid is not only a pivot
point for the audience, enabling them to understand the storyteller, but also a pivot point for the
storyteller, enabling him or her to understand the audience's perspective. When stories are told
repeatedly or in different contexts, the storyteller may use his or her knowledge of prior
audiences' perspectives to modify the stories for greater impact, whatever the intended impact is.
xv
Likewise, the piles of food on the longhouse floor enable the family that has provided the food to
adopt the perspective of the families that are receiving the food, the piles of prestations to other
clans enable the giving clan to adopt the perspective of the receiving clan, and the piles of
prestations to ancestor spirits enable the giving clan to adopt the perspective of the receiving
spirits. Moreover, in adopting the perspective of the receiving entity (audience, family, clan, or
spirit), the giving entity sees itself from the perspective of the receiving entity. By way of the gift,
the storyteller sees himself or herself from the perspective of the audience, the giving family sees
itself from the perspective of the receiving family, the giving clan sees itself from the perspective
of the receiving clan, and the giving clan sees itself from the perspective of the ancestor spirits.
The gift mediates between different perspectives. The gift enables giver and receiver to adopt
each other's perspectives and to see themselves from each other's perspectives. In this way,
persons are constituted through the exchange of gifts. An object is a gift if it enables this to
happen.
Reciprocity is first and foremost a creative act, an act of the imagination. The gift is
simply a mediating object between self and other. Unlike commodity exchange, even before a
gift is presented, reciprocity requires the giver to first imagine what the receiver wants, how the
receiver will interpret the gift, what the receiver will do in the future, and so on. In other words,
even before the presentation of the gift, the giver must put himself or herself in the position of the
receiver, must adopt the receiver's perspective. The giver must become similar to the receiver.
Self must become similar to other. In this sense, reciprocity is a kind of mimesis, or a mimetic
practice. Mimesis is notoriously difficult to define. It has something to do with imitation, a self
which is initially different from an other and then becomes similar to that other. The long tradition
of scholarship on mimesis extends back to Plato and Aristotle (Gebauer and Wulf 1992, Potolsky
2006), but within anthropology, after playing a pivotal role in the work of Frazer (2009) and Mauss
(1972), the concept has only recently resurfaced, namely in the work of Taussig (e.g. 1993),
which is largely built on the work of Benjamin and Adorno. Taussig argues that although the
mimetic faculty is historically contingent and was transformed by the colonial encounter, mimesis
xvi
always operates according to the two basic principles of magic set forth by Frazer: the law of
imitation and the law of contact. In the colonial encounter and elsewhere, imitation and contact
often merged into one another, with imitation leading to contact, and contact leading to imitation,
an observation first made by Mauss in his study of magic. For example, when a hunter acts like
his (or her) prey, he may come into contact with his (or her) prey. When a shaman puts on a
mask, imitating a spirit, he or she may then come into contact with the spirit. In mimesis, imitation
may lead to a collapse in the distance between self and other.
In the dissertation, I argue that reciprocity is a kind of mimetic practice in which imitation
and contact revolve around the object of the gift. The gift is a mediator between self and other.
Gift exchange creates similarity between persons because, in reciprocity, each person must see
himself or herself from the perspective of the other. Gift exchange may bring giver and receiver
together in the same time and space, as in the storyteller and his or her audience, families sitting
down to share a communal meal, two clans meeting to exchange bridewealth, or the ancestor
spirits accepting their prestations in the longhouse before they are asked to return to the forest.
But gift exchange can create similarity between persons at a distance as well. The gift requires
the giver to imagine the perspective of the receiver even if the receiver is not present in the same
time and space, and likewise, it requires the receiver to imagine the perspective of the giver even
if the giver is not present in the same time and space. Among the orang hulu, much gift
exchange occurs over a distance. Food is continuously sent between clans related by marriage.
Offerings are continuously made to the ancestor spirits, who normally live outside of the
longhouse in the forest. These gifts, as much as those exchanged in the same time and space,
enable giver and receiver to adopt each other's perspectives. Gifts can traverse distances,
social, spatial, or temporal.
In South Siberut, the social distance between persons correlates with spatial or
geographic distance and an overlapping field of temporal or genealogical distance. A person is a
member of a clan and lives either in the clan's longhouse, called an uma, or in a smaller separate
house, called a sapo. Both are on the clan's land, but even if a person resides in a sapo, he or
xvii
she considers the uma to be his or her home and spends as much time in the uma as in his or
her sapo. So strong is the affiliation of clan with longhouse that the term for clan is also uma.
Beyond the longhouse is the abode of the ancestor spirits, one of several classes of spirits living
in the forest. A clan's ancestor spirits, called saukkui, typically reside on the clan's land, but
because one clan's land adjoins a neighboring clan's land, the same part of the forest may also
be occupied by the neighboring clan's ancestor spirits, called sanitu by people who are not their
descendants (and saukkui by people who are). Beyond the borderland, on the lands of other
clans, lie their longhouses and sapo. Because a clan is exogamous, patrilineal, and patrilocal,
other clans are essential for marriage, and the vast majority of exchange relations between clans
are a result of marriage. A smaller, but still significant portion of exchange relations are not the
result of marriage. Although a clan may have exchange relations with geographically distant
clans, most exchange relations are between clans that live relatively close to each other. The
most geographically distant clans are usually the most socially distant, and until the early 20th
century, the main form of exchange between clans in North Siberut and clans in South Siberut
was through headhunting. Among the orang hulu, generalized reciprocity occurs within the clan,
balanced reciprocity occurs between a clan and its ancestor spirits and between a clan and
neighboring clans, and negative reciprocity occurs between clans that are the most
geographically distant from each other. Social distance corresponds with spatial distance.
The social distance between persons also corresponds with a kind of temporal or
genealogical distance. According to myth, the first people on Siberut came from an island to the
north and landed in what is now the village of Simatalu on the west coast of North Siberut. A
conflict between two brothers led to the fissioning of the original clan, and while one brother
stayed in Simatalu, the other brother moved onto unoccupied land and founded a clan of his own.
Later, a conflict between two brothers in the new clan led to its fissioning, with one brother staying
and the other brother moving on and founding another new clan. Another conflict led to another
split and another new clan until the entire island was occupied, generally in a northwest to
southeast direction. The process then continued beyond Siberut until all four islands in the
xviii
Mentawai Archipelago were settled. According to the myth, all of the clans in the Mentawai
Islands are genealogically related to each other. The most geographically distant clans are
generally the most distantly related as well. This genealogical relatedness, however, does not
integrate the different clans into an encompassing political entity. The only political entity is the
individual clan, and there is nothing prohibiting a clan from being more closely related politically to
a genealogically distant clan than to a genealogically closer one. The genealogy may be used on
occasion to identify a stranger, but in practice, in everyday life, it is irrelevant except for the
social-spatial distance with which it corresponds. The same is true for the distinction between
humans and ancestor spirits, which also emphasizes social-spatial distance rather than temporal
distance. The orang hulu consider the ancestor spirits to be their contemporaries. They live in
the same time, but they do not occupy exactly the same space. Ancestor spirits live in the forest
on the clan's land. They do not live in the longhouse. The fact that they were human in the past
and that humans in the present are their descendants is, like the genealogical relatedness
between clans, less important than the social-spatial distance between them that arises from a
different position in space and the resulting difference in perspective. Temporally, the ancestor
spirits are the most closely related, and so they are the closest in space. Temporal distance
corresponds with spatial distance, but spatial distance, more than temporal distance, determines
social distance.
Both people and objects traverse these distances. To be a member of a clan means to
have the same orientation in time and space as the other members of the clan, to have the same
perspective. To be an ancestor spirit means to have a different orientation in time and space, a
different perspective. To be a member of another clan means to have a different orientation in
time and space, a different perspective. Generalized reciprocity occurs within the clan. The
objects that are exchanged bring people together in the same time and space, aligning their
perspectives. Balanced reciprocity occurs between a clan and its ancestor spirits. The objects
that are exchanged enable each to adopt the perspective of the other. When they go their
separate ways, a constant exchange of gifts, more like generalized reciprocity, reminds each of
xix
the other's perspective. Balanced reciprocity also occurs between neighboring clans. The
objects that are exchanged enable each to adopt the perspective of the other. When they go
their separate ways, a constant exchange of gifts, more like generalized reciprocity, reminds each
of the other's perspective. Negative reciprocity occurs between clans that are the most socially
distant from each other. The objects that are exchanged - heads - enable each to adopt the
perspective of the other, but only momentarily. When they go their separate ways, there is no
constant exchange of gifts to remind each of the other's perspective. The spatial distance is too
great for people and objects to traverse. Reciprocity is constrained by distance. It corresponds
with social-spatial distance because it is constrained by it. In other words, there is a limit to
reciprocity. It cannot be practiced between people who are so distant from each other that they
cannot occupy the same time and space, cannot adopt each other's perspectives, and cannot
use objects to traverse these distances to remind each of the other's perspective.
The first part of the dissertation focuses on the constitution of persons and social
relations through the mimetic practice of reciprocity, following objects as they are exchanged
within the clan, between a clan and its ancestor spirits, and finally, between clans near and far, at
which point reciprocity reaches a limit. The first part consists of four chapters. Chapter 1
provides an ethnographic overview of the orang hulu and addresses methodological issues,
beginning with the fact that the dissertation is based on fieldwork among only one clan, Sakaliou,
and the clans with whom they had social relations. Sakaliou may or may not be representative of
other clans in South Siberut, let alone all of the clans on Siberut or throughout the Mentawai
Islands. Chapter 2 focuses on generalized reciprocity within the uma, understood as both
longhouse and clan, and on the extension of generalized reciprocity to the spirits that live in the
surrounding forest. It argues that animism is essentially reciprocity with spirits or, if reciprocity
constitutes persons in social relations, other-than-human or nonhuman persons. Offerings (as
opposed to sacrifices), certain kinds of magic, and most taboos are best understood as gifts given
to spirits without expectation of an immediate return gift, that is, as generalized reciprocity.
Sacrifices (as opposed to offerings), other kinds of magic, and some taboos are best understood
xx
as balanced reciprocity because there is an expectation of a return gift in the short term. Chapter
3 focuses on balanced reciprocity between clans and between a clan and its ancestor spirits, two
of the three prestation events in South Siberut. The vast majority of exchanges between clans
begin with marriage, although there are other exchange relations between clans as well. After
the presentation of bridewealth and the presentation of the return gift (dowry), gifts then flow
much more frequently between clans, becoming a kind of generalized reciprocity. The same
thing happens after the puliaijat, in which ancestor spirits are presented with gifts and a return gift
is made in the form of success in the hunt. The generalized reciprocity with spirits described in
Chapter 2 is the equivalent of the constant flow of gifts following a marriage. In both cases,
balanced reciprocity gives way to generalized reciprocity, but the lia, unlike the marriage
ceremony, must be performed repeatedly in order to realign the perspectives of humans and
spirits. The failure or sense of failure of generalized reciprocity with spirits is what necessitates a
lia. It can also necessitate a pabete. Chapter 4 moves toward the limits of reciprocity, beginning
with the negative reciprocity of headhunting prior to the early 20th century. When reciprocity fails
within the clan or between clans related by marriage, the normal response is rumor, gossip, and
occasionally, sorcery. When reciprocity fails between a clan and its ancestor spirits, the result is
death. The ancestor spirits take a human (like distantly related clans take heads). Shamanism is
an effort to prevent this from happening by reestablishing the difference between the perspectives
of human and spirit. The shaman, called a sikerei or kerei, adopts the perspective of spirits so
that the person who is sick does not. To do so would mean to become a spirit, to be dead. The
shaman, however, is unique because he is able to hold both perspectives, human and spirit, at
the same time. He is a mediator, a kind of gift - a substitute.
If reciprocity is a way of making sense of self and other through the exchange of objects,
it should also be a way of making sense of the other others in South Siberut, the nonindigenous
people with whom the orang hulu have come into contact. Normally, beyond the limit of
reciprocity, there is no exchange, no social relation, no mutual constitution of persons. But in the
last century, the other others with whom the orang hulu have come into contact have been getting
xxi
closer. Although merchants from elsewhere in Sumatra had established a presence on Siberut
long before the colonial period, exchanging iron for forest products, they were confined to the
coast, and most were enclaved on the smaller islands to the south of Siberut. With the arrival of
the Dutch army and missionaries in the Mentawai Islands in the late 19th century and the
establishment of a penal colony in South Siberut in the early 20th century, followed by the arrival
of the Japanese army during World War II, the return of the Dutch army in the period between
end of the war and Indonesian independence, then the arrival of the Indonesian army and police,
Indonesian officials, migrants, and merchants, and then foreign tourists, environmentalists, and
other development workers, there were simply too many others to ignore, too many to rely on the
spatial distances that made not knowing these others - and self in relation to these others -
possible prior to their arrival. They were beyond the limit of reciprocity, yet needed to be known
because of their proximity. In the second part of the dissertation, I argue that reciprocity was so
fundamental to social relations among the orang hulu that it was initially the way they engaged, or
attempted to engage, in social relations with these other others. Here is it essential to understand
that reciprocity is not just about the exchange of gifts, but also, and perhaps more importantly,
about the use of objects to understand an other's perspective, to make sense of self and other, or
self in relation to other. There are countless stories from the colonial encounter, and not just in
Siberut, in which indigenous people greet strangers by giving them things and, with or without the
strangers' consent, taking things in return. In the earliest account of "first contact" in Siberut
(Crisp 1799), fruit, other forest products, and women are exchanged for beads, looking glasses,
snuff boxes, and most importantly, tobacco. The "natives" are particularly interested in the shoes
of one Mr. Best, "a military gentleman of the establishment," who also submits, in the interest of
science, to being tattooed. It is as if the objects of exchange are only an excuse for people to be
in the same time and place, to understand each other's perspectives, to understand self in
relation to other. Gifts enable bodies to be close to each other. Even today (in the ethnographic
present), when tourists arrive in a longhouse, there is a kind of reenactment of first contact, a
xxii
flurry of gift exchange, followed by the natives sitting, in the tourists' opinion, uncomfortably close
to the strangers.
The second part of the dissertation focuses on the extension of reciprocity beyond its
spatial limits in an effort by the orang hulu to make sense of the other others with whom they
have come into contact throughout their history and up to the ethnographic present. It consists of
four chapters, covering first contact, colonization, missionization, and pacification (the end of
headhunting), incorporation into the Indonesian state, the arrival of foreign tourists and the growth
of a small tourism industry, and most recently, the arrival of foreign environmentalists and other
development workers. Together, the chapters in the second part trace the transformation of
reciprocity and the orang hulu's sense of self in relation to others as they struggle to make sense
of and adjust to the state and the global economy. Its main argument is not only that the orang
hulu engage the state and global economy through reciprocity, but also that this engagement has
created a sense of tradition that is, at the same time, both similar to and different from modernity.
Like persons within a clan are both similar to and different from other persons within the clan, like
clans are both similar to and different from other clans, like humans are both similar to and
different from spirits, the orang hulu are both similar to and different from the other others with
whom they come into contact. Misunderstandings and conflicts arise because the other others do
not recognize the similarities; the only recognize the differences. They fail to reciprocate. The
other others see tradition and modernity as incommensurable, while the orang hulu struggle to
commensurate them through reciprocity. This is not to say that the orang hulu constantly offer
gifts. They do not. They now go to the market for certain goods. They use money. But the
orang hulu see the objects they acquire as gifts that should enable them to understand the
perspective of the person who provides them. Needless to say, the merchant does not. The
limits of reciprocity have been extended, but reciprocity fails in the market. In the past, such a
failure of would have led to no social relation at all, but the spatial proximity of the other others
makes no social relation impossible, so reciprocity persists. This is cultural involution, "...the
xxiii
overdriving of an established form in such a way that it becomes rigid through an inward
overelaboration of detail" (Geertz 1963: 82).
The second part begins with the episode of first contact and the colonial period that
followed. The Mentawai Islands in general, and Siberut in particular, were one of the last places
in the East Indies to be colonized by the Dutch. In the 19th century, their presence was confined
to the islands to the south of Siberut, but in the early 20th century, a garrison was established in
Muara Siberut, which became the site of a penal colony. The Dutch made little effort to move into
the interior, but a military campaign brought headhunting to an end throughout the island before
World War II. When the Japanese army invaded, they took control of the Dutch establishments
and fortified their position, only making excursions into the interior for supplies. After Indonesian
independence, the Indonesian army assumed control of the old Dutch establishments, and the
newly-formed Indonesian government sent police and low-level officials to administer the
Mentawai Islands. Higher level officials remained in Padang, on the island of Sumatra. It was not
until the 1970s, as part of a nationwide program to modernize the suku terasing, the most
"isolated" people in the country, that the Indonesian state began to make inroads into the interior.
Almost overnight, at strategic locations along the largest rivers, the forest was cleared, villages
were built, and the orang hulu were forced to move into them. When people began to drift back
to their longhouses in the forest, the army and police were sent in to force them back into the
government-built villages, and the state began a military campaign, reminiscent of the Dutch
campaign to eradicate headhunting, to eradicate aspects of traditional culture that were deemed
to be obstacles to modernization. In addition to the communal longhouses, the state identified as
the greatest impediment to modernization the traditional religion, known as arat sabulungan, and
the kerei. Longhouses were demolished. Shamans were disrobed, beaten, and imprisoned.
Faced with this kind of violence, most of the orang hulu relented, moved back into the
government-built villages, and remained. A few clans, however, refused to leave their land. The
army and police were sent in again, but this time, the orang hulu countered violence with violence
xxiv
and drove away the army and police, who promised to return with greater numbers. In this
volatile situation, the first tourists arrived.
For years, the fact that tourists were required to have a police escort virtually insured that
no tourists would make the trip to Siberut, let alone upriver into the interior. In the 1970s,
however, a few tourists ignored the requirement and somehow made their way into the interior in
search of what they thought were uncontacted people. When tour guides on the tourist circuit in
Sumatra learned that tourists were interested in the orang hulu and that the escort requirement
could be circumvented, the tour guides quickly established contacts on Siberut and began to lead
package tours to see the primitive, Stone Age, flower people in the forest. The fortuitous arrival
of tourists almost immediately made remaining in the longhouse a viable alternative to living in
the government-built village. The presence of tourists made it difficult for the state to continue its
campaign of modernization by force, but the growth of a small tourism industry also brought
another other into proximity - tourists and guides - for the orang hulu to make sense of through
reciprocity. If reciprocity explains why the orang hulu initially engaged the state and then rejected
it, reciprocity also explains why the orang hulu initially engaged tourists, but now host them
reluctantly and sometimes complain about them. Tourists are preferable to the state not because
they leave the orang hulu alone, but because they are closer to reciprocity. There is no inherent
reason why the orang hulu should have rejected the state's vision of modernity in favor of
tradition. It is not as if traditional people prefer tradition to modernity or, for that matter, that
modernity is inevitable. Many of the orang hulu did embrace the state's vision. Those that did
not valued reciprocity and all that it meant. Traditional people must have a reason to choose
tradition, just as they must have a reason to choose modernity. The reason, in the case of the
orang hulu, is that tourists were closer to reciprocity. But not close enough. The orang hulu are
not surprised by the flurry of gift exchange when tourists are there, nor by the promises made by
tourists to send things in the future. They are confounded when these things never arrive (and on
the few occasions when they do, by their own inability to reciprocate). The effect of tourists was
not only the recognition of tradition as an alternative to modernity, but also the recognition that
xxv
tradition was defined by reciprocity. The tourists equated tradition with reciprocity and all that it
entails, but for different reasons.
The definition of tradition as reciprocity had unanticipated consequences for the
traditional clans. First, it produced a distinction between traditional and modern (or modernizing)
clans that had not existed in South Siberut before the intervention of the state. Second, it clarified
Mentawai "tradition" and, in the process, elevated the position of the shaman from a religious
intermediary, first among equals, to a political economic intermediary who embodied "tradition"
and was more valued than others. Third, it created an opportunity for the traditional clans to earn
money through tourism even as it reaffirmed the rule of reciprocity. The influx of cash from
tourism led, on the one hand, to unacceptable economic accumulation, which was dealt with
through the traditional means of rumor, gossip, and sorcery, and on the other hand, to a more
acceptable kind of cultural accumulation, when the cash was used to build larger traditional
houses and hold more elaborate traditional ceremonies. I argue that these consequences were
unanticipated by the traditional clans because they understood their participation in the global
economy as the extension of the mimetic relationship between self and other that is characteristic
of gift exchange. They rejected the state's modernization programs because they did not make
sense from this perspective. The global economy made more sense, but it created the conditions
for inflation and cultural involution.
The last wave of other others to arrive in South Siberut included national and
international environmentalists, especially the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO). In 1971, the entire island had been divided into logging concessions,
revealing that the government's modernization program was intended not only to provide basic
services to the Mentawai people, but also to clear the forest of humans so that logging could
occur. In the decade that followed, international environmentalists launched a campaign to
preserve the forest, and in 1981, in partnership with the Indonesian Department of Forestry,
UNESCO designated Siberut a Man and Biosphere Reserve. In 1993, the Department of
Forestry designated the western part of the island as Siberut National Park, and in 1998,
xxvi
UNESCO, the Department of Forestry, and other national partners launched a conservation
program that included the eastern part of the island as well. Although there were no logging
concessions within the boundaries of the national park, and the concessions outside the park had
been officially reduced to one, small-scale and unofficial large-scale logging were continuing at an
unsustainable rate. Because official mechanisms were failing to curb deforestation, the program
emphasized indigenous stewardship of the forest through "customary environmental
management." The international attention placed a value on the forest and tied this value to
indigenous knowledge and practices. If the tourists valued culture first and nature second,
international non-governmental organizations and their perhaps reluctant national partners valued
nature first and culture second. Together, cultural tourists and environmentalists made it almost
impossible for the government to proceed with its modernization program. It was no longer
possible to clear the forest of humans in order to clear the island of trees. Although the
conservation program targeted all orang hulu, including those that lived in the government-built
villages, those who had refused to live in the government-built villages, because they still lived in
the forest, were considered to be the primary stakeholders. If conservation was now tied to
custom, they were the primary stakeholders in custom as well. They were the custodians of
tradition.
Other events in the 1990s helped make possible the turnaround in the government's
environmental policy and forestalled the modernization program, but at the same time, created
problems for the cultural tourism industry on Siberut. The 1997 Asian financial crisis led to the
resignation of Suharto and the collapse of the New Order in 1998. The era that followed, known
as Reformasi, emphasized democratic ideals and processes and decentralization through
regional autonomy. The Mentawai Islands were made a kabupaten (regency), with the seat of
government in Tuapejat on the island of Sipora to the south of Siberut. Political authority and
resources were removed from the control of kabupaten Padang, and official responsibility for
modernizing the islands was shifted to the provincial government in Padang and the kabupaten
government in Tuapejat. In the late 1990s, the head of the new kabupaten (bupati) identified
xxvii
tourism as one of the main industries for developing the Mentawai Islands, but it was not the kind
of tourism that had existed in Siberut for the past two decades. It was surfing tourism, and the
center of gravity was the coast and the islands to the south of Siberut. Although cultural tourists
and surfers are different, the shift began draw some of the tourists away from Siberut. The global
effects of the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 were felt in Siberut as well. Tourism
declined - and then declined even further in the aftermath of the bombings in Bali in 2002. When
tourists started coming again, they were very much oriented to the coast. Both local and nonlocal
guides were trying to figure out to how to get in on the money, as the market was monopolized by
foreign-owned boats. Local guides began to advocate a ban on nonlocal guides, which had the
unintended effect of reducing tourists even further. The cash from tourists that had led to cultural
inflation was suddenly removed from the economy, and the bubble burst. The result, however,
was not a conversion to the market, but a retreat into reciprocity. The cultural economy of
tradition retracted, but cultural involution continued.
The second part of the dissertation focuses on the orang hulu's struggle to make sense
of and deal with colonialism, nationalism, and globalization. It consists of four chapters. Chapter
5 examines the colonial period, during which - and in contrast to most other places in Indonesia
and elsewhere - there was a kind of cultural efflorescence. On the island of Siberut and
especially in the interior, the arrival of the Dutch was late, and their presence was relatively light.
Headhunting came to an end, I argue, not only because of the Dutch military campaign to
eradicate it, but also because they filled the role of third-party mediator and, more importantly,
because they introduced objects that could be exchanged between rivals. Chapter 6 examines
the arrival of the state, which could not have been more different from the relatively light presence
of the Dutch. The state pushed into the interior and insisted on changes in a way that the Dutch
had not. More than anything else, the state's modernization programs upset the spatial
distribution on which reciprocity depends, undermining the sense of self in relation to other that
had persisted before and during the colonial period. Chapter 7 focuses on the arrival of tourists
during the height of the government's campaign to modernize the orang hulu by force. Unlike the
xxviii
Dutch, tourists pushed into the interior. Unlike the state, tourists did not insist on changes. In
fact, they insisted that the orang hulu remain the same. More than anything else, tourists enabled
the cultural involution that occurred during the colonial period to persist, at least among the clans
that rejected the state's vision of modernity and participated in the tourism industry. Chapter 8
focuses on the arrival of international environmentalists and on the effects of regional autonomy
after the collapse of Suharto's New Order. If tourists emphasized the conservation of culture,
environmentalists emphasized the conservation of nature, and in the most recent UNESCO
program, culture was tied to nature through "customary environmental management." The new
local government, searching for ways to develop the Mentawai Islands, would have to contend
with the international environmentalists' agenda, and the orang hulu, as usual, would be placed in
the middle. Chapter 9, the conclusion, retraces the transformation of the cultural economy of
tradition and considers the future of the orang hulu.
My argument is that reciprocity, the exchange of objects that creates a sense of self in
relation to the others, is dependent on a spatial distribution, from close to distant, which has a
limit, beyond which reciprocity fails or at least becomes problematic. The state upset the spatial
distribution on which reciprocity depends and therefore upset the sense of self in relation to other,
turning the gift into a commodity. For the few clans that rejected the state's vision of modernity,
the spatial distribution was not upset, and the sense of self in relation to other remained intact.
The state was followed by the arrival of tourists: the tourists came to the clans that had rejected
the state's vision of modernity. The spatial distribution and sense of self in relation to other again
remained intact. The tourists were then followed by the arrival of environmentalists, who came to
the clans that had rejected the state's vision of modernity and had received tourists, and the
spatial distribution and self of self in relation to other once again remained intact. In other words,
the state undermined reciprocity, but the tourists and environmentalists did not, even though they
created an opportunity for the clans that hosted them to earn money and participate in the global
economy. The tourists and environmentalists reaffirmed reciprocity and, at the same time,
injected money and value into the cultural economy of tradition. The conditions were set for
xxix
cultural involution, which indeed occurred, as traditional houses got larger and ceremonies
became more elaborate - and accusations of greed and sorcery erupted.
In a way, the state's strategy was the right one for enacting its bizarre vision of modernity.
Spatial disruption was key to changing the sense of self in relation to other (now the imagined
community of the nation) and to transforming gifts into commodities. There is a revealing contrast
between the clans that accepted the state's vision of modernity and those that did not. In the
1990s, the Australian anthropologist Glen Reeves (2001) conducted fieldwork in the government-
built village of Madobag, the village nearest the site of my own fieldwork. In a detailed and
complicated analysis of the social production of space and kinship, he argues that the uma (both
house and clan) is defined not by its architecture, but by the social practices that occur within it,
or rather, that social practices bring the uma (the architecture of house and clan) into being. In
Madobag, the social practices revolve around the ancestral heirlooms, the bakkat katsaila, that
define house and clan, such that wherever the bakkat katsaila is, so is the uma. Reeves analysis
is interesting not only because it emphasizes the way in which an object orients people in time
and space, but also because it unintentionally shows how the government-built village disrupted
the spatial distribution of reciprocity on which the sense of self in relation to others depended prior
to the state's intervention. The ancestral heirlooms were and are a kind of anchor, but outside of
the government-built villages, they are no more important than the more everyday objects that
move away from and toward the house, enabling people to engage in social relations with others.
It is no coincidence that according to Reeves, his informants' main complaint about life in
Madobag was the lack of reciprocity.
The clans that rejected the state's vision of modernity were concentrated in three areas,
Attabai, Buttui, and Sakaliou, which are now the areas most frequented by tourists. In Attabai
and Buttui, different clans fleeing the oppressive conditions of the government-built villages
resettled on a single clan's ancestral land. Although they rejected the state's vision, they did not
return to their own land for fear of reprisal (and because their longhouses had been demolished).
In Sakaliou, however, nearly the entire clan returned to its ancestral land. Sakaliou is less remote
xxx
than Attabai and Buttui. It is closer to the government-built village of Madobag, but more
importantly, it is more downriver, closer to the coast - the first place that tourists coming upriver
can visit. For this reason, the Sakaliou clan became the main provider of porters and cooks for
the tour guides from Sumatra - and the first representative of "the Mentawai people and culture."
They were the only clan to have rejected the state's vision of modernity and resettled on their
ancestral land in their traditional longhouse (or longhouses), which were necessary for the tourist
industry. The spatial distribution of reciprocity and the sense of self in relation to other remained
intact among the Sakaliou clan, which also felt, more than any other clan, the unanticipated
consequences of their decision to reject the state's vision of modernity.
1
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter provides an ethnographic overview of the upriver, forest-dwelling people of
South Siberut at the time that fieldwork was conducted and introduces the methodological and
theoretical issues raised by the research. The fieldwork was conducted in a very particular time
and place: from January 2003 to December 2004, I lived almost exclusively among the Sakaliou
clan, whose ancestral land is defined by the Kaliou River, a tributary of the Rereiket River, which
enters the Mentawai Strait at the town of Muara Siberut. At the time, Sakaliou consisted of about
a hundred people, but their social relations, the others with whom they exchanged things,
included perhaps a couple of hundred more. The ethnography thus refers to these few hundred
people in the early 21st century. I write in the ethnographic present, but it should be understood
that the present I describe is now in the past, and much of what I describe may now be different.
Any ethnography faces the same problem - the vanishing present - but the problem is especially
acute for South Siberut, where the pace of change was dramatic even during the two years that I
lived there. On the one hand, the cultural tourism industry had collapsed, and a new tourism
industry based on surfing was being built in the islands to the south. On the other hand, the first
free elections in Indonesia would be held in December 2004, and the same people who had
fought the army and police only a few decades prior would be voting for political representatives
at all levels of government. Among the Sakaliou clan, for whom the cultural tourism industry had
been so important in their relations with the state, there was both a sense that change was
needed and a concern about the future.
Ethnographic Overview
Siberut is the largest of the four main islands in the Mentawai Archipelago, which lies
about 100 kilometers off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The other three main islands,
Sipora, North Pagai, and South Pagai, lie to the south of Siberut. They are significantly smaller
and more densely populated. Tuapejat, on the island of Sipora, is the administrative center of the
2
Mentawai Islands, which became a separate regency (kabupaten) in 1999. The total area of the
Mentawai Islands is about 6000 square kilometers. The total area of Siberut is about 4000
square kilometers. Although the islands to the south of Siberut are significantly smaller in area,
they are only slightly smaller in population, with 30,000-35,000 people on Siberut and 15,000-
20,000 people on each of the islands to the south. The population density on Siberut is thus
extraordinarily low, especially by Indonesian standards: there are only about eight people per
square kilometer.
1
Most of the island is covered with forest, and most of the forest is unoccupied
by humans. The highest concentrations of people are along the coast, in towns at the estuaries
of the largest rivers, and upriver, in the villages built by the government in the 1970s as part of a
modernization program. Lower concentrations of people live along the smaller rivers and streams
in the expanses of forest in between the large rivers. Thus, from coast to interior, population
density declines, with the area in the center of the island completely uninhabited.
The interior of the island is hilly, though not mountainous. The highest peak, Teittei Batti,
is only 384 meters. The western part of the island descends abruptly into the Indian Ocean. The
eastern part of the island descends gradually into the Mentawai Strait. In the west, Barringtonia
forest gives way to mixed forest overlooking steep cliffs. In the east, dipterocarp forest gives way
to mixed forest, swamp and sago stands, and up to two kilometers of mangrove. In the valleys in
between the hills of the interior, an average annual rainfall of 4000 millimeters with no extended
dry season feeds numerous creeks and streams. In the east, the creeks and streams feed larger
rivers, which meander through the lowlands to the coast. In the southern part of the island, the
main river is the Rereiket, which enters the Mentawai Strait at the town of Muara Siberut, the
administrative center of South Siberut. The national park headquarters is in nearby Maileppet.
The national park is in the west. The east is unprotected.
2
Administratively, the Mentawai Islands are divided into kecamatan (district). Each
kecamatan is divided into dusun (hamlet), and each dusun is divided into desa (village). In the
1
All of these numbers are unreliable. Cf. Bali or another island comparable in size to Siberut.
2
For more on the ecology of the Mentawai Islands, see Whitten 1999.
3
kecamatan of South Siberut, there are five dusun, each with a desa of the same name. From
coast to interior, they are Muara Siberut, Rogdog, Madobag, Ugai, and Matotonan. These
administrative units do not reflect cultural units. Among the people of the Rereiket, there is some
sense that they belong to the same group, but in terms of daily life, the river is more important for
providing a sense of direction than a sense of political affiliation. People say they are going
upriver, ka ulu, or downriver, ka monga. More often (away from the river), the points of reference
are toward the house, ka uma, or away from it toward the forest, ka leleu. Outside of the
Rereiket, when encountering complete strangers, people may say that they are from the Rereiket
or South Siberut, but within the Rereiket, where a complete stranger is almost never encountered,
clan is used more often than dusun or desa. This is especially true for the people who do not live
in a government-built village. Over the course of two years of fieldwork among the Sakaliou clan,
which is technically part of the desa Madobag, I almost never heard people identify themselves
as from Madobag or the Rereiket. They usually identified themselves as Sakaliou. People who
live in Madobag or another government-built village identify themselves by their desa more often,
but only when encountering a complete stranger, which almost never happens within the Rereiket
(except in Muara Siberut). They usually identify themselves by clan. In the market, people say
they are orang hulu.
Clans are generally named for the rivers that define their ancestral land. The Kaliou
River defines the land of the Sakaliou clan.
3
With the exception of the land that was appropriated
by the state for the government-built villages, land is communally owned by the members of a
clan. Individuals within a clan do not own the land so much as have use-rights to it. Individuals
cannot own another clan's land, but they may use it with permission and may acquire use-rights
to it through exchange, especially marriage, but also through a kind fine, called tulo. In practice,
this usually means trees and garden plots. A clan's ancestral land usually encompasses the
entire watershed of the river that defines it. The boundaries of a clan's land are marked by hills
3
The prefix sa- indicates a social group. It is the same prefix in saukkui. The term Sarereiket is sometimes
used to refer to the group of people in the Rereiket region.
4
and ridges, old trees, rock formations, or another river. The boundaries are more or less
permanent, but disputes occasionally arise as land-use patterns change. Sakaliou's land
extended from the Rereiket River in the west, to a smaller river in the north and east, to a ridge
with a peak in the south. An individual may traverse the land of another clan freely. No
permission is required. However, if an individual wants to use the land of another clan for any
purpose, permission is asked and usually granted. An individual may use his or her own land
freely and, technically, without permission from the rest of the clan. In practice, however,
because every member of a clan knows every other member, and knows what they are doing or
planning, permission is granted implicitly. If an individual does not agree to the planned use of
land, he or she would make it known. There is no political authority or formal political process
within the clan.
Traditionally, each clan has a single longhouse, an uma, on its ancestral land, which may
be occupied continuously by all or some of the members of the clan. An individual or nuclear
family (lalep) may also have a smaller house some distance away from the uma, a sapo, in which
they may live continuously or occasionally, spending part of the time in the uma. Certain events,
like a puliaijat, pabete, or death, require all of the members of the clan to return to the longhouse.
They are summoned by the playing of large slit drums, called tudukat. An uma is distinguished
from a sapo mainly by its architecture and the presence of the clan's ancestral heirlooms, the
bakkat katsaila, which play a pivotal role in the events that bring the entire clan together. An uma
is typically much larger than a sapo. Built on stilts and covered with a sago-leaf roof, it is usually
divided into three rooms. The front room (laibok) is a kind of common area, in which people work
during the day and socialize at night. The middle room (tenganuma) is the men's area, the place
they sleep, store their personal belongings (of which there are few), and work on small projects.
It may also contain a ceremonial fire pit. With or without a fire pit, the middle room is the area
where people sing, dance, and perform other aspects of ceremonies. The back room (batnuma)
is the women's area, the place they sleep, store their personal belongings (of which there are
few), and spend much of the day and night working. Along the back wall of the house, there are
5
two fire pits for cooking. In between them, there is a door, and on each side of the house, there is
a door. The middle room is completely enclosed. The front room is almost completely open, with
benches along both sides and no walls above them, and an open entry way, which may have a
verandah. The house is entered by steps carved into a single small log. Interior walls separate
each of the rooms, with a door or doors to pass from one room to another. The bakkat katsaila is
stored in the women's room on the wall adjoining the men's room (on the right hand side when
facing the house). A sapo may or may not have any of these features. Typically, it is a single
room, in which people work, sleep, and have sexual intercourse, which is forbidden in the
longhouse.
4
Membership in a clan and inheritance are determined by patrilineal descent. A clan is
exogamous and patrilocal, so in practice, a clan consists of men who are related to each other by
blood and all of their wives (who are from other clans) and children (with daughters marrying into
other clans). A clan may be small or large, ranging from just one person to as many as 250. The
average clan size is less than 100 people, most of whom are children. Marriages are thus an
important means of creating relations with other clans. Monogamy is the rule, though it may be
bent, just as the rule of exogamy may be. Marriages may be arranged, but just as often, they are
initiated by men and women in their teens who are attracted to each other and then approved by
their parents and the rest of the clan. Substantial bridewealth in the form of pigs, chickens, trees,
cooking woks, machetes, and cloth is given by the clan of the husband to the clan of the wife,
which later makes a smaller return gift (dowry). Because of these exchanges, divorce is
uncommon. If a man asks his wife to return home, he forfeits the bridewealth. If a woman
returns home on her own, the bridewealth must be returned, even if she has already had children,
who would stay in the longhouse of their father in any case. By their late teens or early 20s, a
married couple usually has at least one child and will continue to have children until they are no
longer able. Families may be very large. The oldest member of Sakaliou, Teteou, who was a
4
As I discuss below, Sakaliou was unusual in that some its sapo were nearly identical to, or even exceeded,
its longhouse.
6
child in the last days of headhunting, had eleven siblings, seven of whom were brothers. His
oldest son, Aman Boroiogok, with whom I lived for two years, was probably in his forties. He had
five children, including three sons. The oldest, Aman Asa Iba, who was probably in his twenties,
had two young children. The youngest, Pali, who was probably in his late teens, was not yet
married. Teteou's youngest son, Aman Jomanu, was about the same age as Aman Asa Iba, his
nephew. The kinship terminology system is the Lakota type, with teknonymy. Aman means
father of, and Bai means mother of.
Within the clan, social relations among adults are strictly egalitarian. Age and seniority
do not necessarily confer greater status within the clan or influence over its members. Wisdom
and charisma may confer greater status or influence, but even the wisest and most charismatic
individuals do not have the political authority to make decisions on behalf of the clan or to
represent the clan in negotiations with others.
5
Decisions affecting the entire clan are made by
consultation and consensus only. When a clan grows too large for a consensus to be reached,
the clan simply divides, with one faction moving onto unoccupied land. According to myth, this
process of clan fissioning began even before the first people arrived in Siberut at the site of what
is now the village of Simatalu and continued until all of the Mentawai Islands were settled. The
disagreements described in myth are usually minor - an argument about a mango, for example -
but such minor disagreements lead to the most serious of consequences, the fissioning of the
clan. Fissioning, however, is preferable to conflict or, worse, political inequality and oppression.
The myths reveal the importance of egalitarianism and the way in which open space makes it
possible. The rule is political equality. Conflict within the clan is resolved through consensus or
fissioning. Political inequality is not an option. Even today, with little or no land unoccupied,
fissioning still occurs. When I arrived in Sakaliou, it had just split into different factions. There
were several longhouses on the clan's land. The argument was about a mango.
The only division of labor is by gender and, to a lesser extent, age. Every man and
woman knows all of the skills that are required for survival and participation in the community,
5
The only recognized political authority is that of parents in relation to their young, unmarried children.
7
both within and beyond the clan. Every man knows the same skills as every other man, every
women knows the same skills as every other woman, and in many cases, men and women know
the same skills. Only men hunt with bows and arrows and spears for wild game in the forest -
wild pig, deer, monkey. Only women fish with nets in the river, though men may "hunt" for catfish.
Both men and women collect fruits and vegetables from the forest - durian, rambutan, mango,
pineapple, coconut, bananas - with men performing the heavier or more dangerous work, such as
climbing a fruit tree. Fruits are planted in the forest and individually owned and inherited. Sago is
abundant. It is the staple food, consumed daily with almost every meal, and a symbol of identity
in contrast to rice-consuming Indonesians. The tree is felled and the bark is stripped by men.
The pith is processed into a flour by both men and women. The flour is cooked in sago leaves
into a bread-like stick by women. Women tend to small gardens, usually near a river, which
produce taro and yams, although men may help prepare the ground for planting. Both men and
women tend to domesticated chickens and pigs, which are fed with sago. They range freely
below the longhouse or sapo and out in the surrounding forest. Only men butcher the pigs and
initially cook them by boiling. Women, however, do most of the cooking. Only men fell the trees
needed for building a house or canoe. Both men and women may work on a house or canoe, but
men tend to organize the construction. Only men drag a finished canoe to the river. Men tend to
be woodcarvers. Women tend to be beadworkers. Men spend more time in the forest. Women
spend more time in the house and garden, and are more involved in child-rearing. From a very
early age, boys accompany their fathers into the forest, and girls accompany their mothers at
home or to the garden. The division of labor is not sharp. Women may go to the forest. Men
may stay at home. But there is a general pattern: the trajectory of men is away from the house
toward the forest, ka leleu, and wild animals; the trajectory of women is away from the forest
toward the house, ka uma, and domesticated plants. Fruits, vegetables, and especially sago are
semi-domesticated plants in the forest. Chickens and pigs are semi-domesticated animals in the
house.
8
Within the clan, men may compete with each other for prestige, the respect of other
members of the clan, and notoriety among other clans. Prestige is granted, sometimes
reluctantly, when a man excels at one or more of the skills that every other man knows, such as
hunting, pig farming, house or canoe building, storytelling, or forging relations with other clans.
(Shamanism is the one exception.) A particularly skilled hunter or storyteller has more prestige
than an average one. But having prestige does not necessarily confer political influence. More
often, it is an end in itself, and its most visible benefit is a swagger. In fact, if prestige is a kind of
social capital, it is not easily converted into political or even economic capital. On the contrary,
prestige usually requires the conversion of economic capital into social capital through the
distribution of the valuables that are produced with the skill at which a man excels. For example,
a man skilled at pig farming may produce many pigs, but he will only acquire prestige if he shares
them with the rest of the clan, especially on ceremonial occasions. A man who has many pigs,
but does not share them may have less prestige than a man who has few pigs, but shares them.
The most prestigious man produces many pigs, but has few of them because he shares them
often. A man who has many pigs because he never shares them is the subject of scorn. Rumor
and gossip, and in extreme cases, sorcery, sabotage, and violence insure that a man who excels
at a particular skill does not accumulate the wealth that is produced with the skill.
A well-known myth tells the story of a great housebuilder, who could build houses faster
and more beautiful than anyone else. A clan was so jealous of his skill that they invited him to
build a new house for them. When he dug the first post hole (the front left), they killed him,
pushed his corpse into the hole, and then completed the house themselves. When the
housebuilder rolled over in his makeshift grave, the ground and the house shook. Today, this is
the cause of earthquakes, and in honor of the housebuilder, whenever there is an earthquake,
people shout moili moili, slowly, slowly, asking him to roll over slowly so that the house does not
collapse. The housebuilder was not known as greedy or arrogant. According to the myth, he
often assisted others in the construction of houses, for which, by custom, he was compensated,
but the myth does not mention that he accumulated wealth because of his skill. The myth reveals
9
the dangers of having prestige - it can be too great even when one is not greedy or arrogant - but
ultimately vindicates the housebuilder, who continues to rollover in his makeshift grave because
his death was unjustified. Storytelling itself is the conversion of one form of social capital into
another: a good story, based on experience or the knowledge of myth, is converted into prestige
through the sharing of the story. A large house or canoe requires the expenditure of both
economic and social capital. In addition to material resources, a housebuilder must ask or
persuade others to help him, to contribute their labor to the building of his house. In exchange,
they are compensated with food. Shamanism brings prestige - the shaman excels at a skill and
receives compensation - but the proceeds must be distributed. In all cases, prestige does not
result from the accumulation of economic or social capital, but from its distribution or expenditure.
Sanctioned positively by prestige on the one hand and negatively by rumor, gossip,
sorcery, sabotage, and violence on the other, as well as taboo, reciprocity within the clan is
almost automatic. When a hunter kills a wild pig, deer, or monkey, the animal is brought back to
the longhouse to be butchered, and the meat is distributed to everyone in the uma. The tudukat
announces that an animal has been killed, summoning the members of the clan to the longhouse
to receive their share of the meat, making known to other clans the skill of the hunter and, by
extension, the clan. Even when a domesticated pig or chicken is killed simply because people
have not eaten meat in awhile, the meat is shared among everyone in the longhouse at a
communal meal. During the fruit seasons, durian, rambutan, and mango pile up in the
longhouse, and members of the clan are free to consume as much as they can. Portions are
delivered to affines and friends in other clans. When the fruit begins to rot, the remainder is fed to
the pigs. (Bananas and coconuts are shared less often, as are pineapples.) An abundance of
meat from ceremonial sacrifices is also distributed throughout the uma and to affines and friends
in other clans. If they have helped with the ceremony, the meat is received in exchange for labor.
If they have not attended the ceremony, the meat is delivered. Any large event, such as
preparing for and performing a ceremony, building a house or canoe, and bridewealth, requires
the labor and material contributions of others, for which they receive food in exchange.
10
Contributions are requested - they are never demanded - and prestige weighs heavily in the
determination of how much an individual will contribute. Prestige cannot be abused. An
individual cannot request something that someone does not have. In this sense, the social
capital of prestige can be converted temporarily into economic capital, only to be converted back
into social capital through the giving of food. A request is not asking for a gift so much as
promising to give one in the near future. The competition for prestige is thus offset by
cooperation and exchange. Borrowing a term from Girard, I will call this mimetic rivalry.
Mimetic rivalry also characterizes the relations between clans. Clans cooperate, but also
compete with each other for prestige. However, because of the spatial distance between them, it
is more difficult for reciprocity to limit the economic and/or social capital that a clan acquires in
relation to other clans. (Clans compete with each other for prestige, but not political influence
because there is no overarching political system.) Cooperation is mainly established through
marriage. After the presentation of the bridewealth and the return gift (dowry), affines exchange
portions of domesticated food (especially when it is in abundance, as with fruit or sacrificed pigs).
Affines also make contributions to larger events, especially contributions of labor, for which they
receive food in exchange. Relations between clans can also be established through a kind of
ceremonial gift exchange outside of marriage called pasiripokat or siripok, friendship, which works
like the relations between affines, except that the relation is between individuals rather than clans.
Friends exchange portions of food and make contributions to larger events. Outside of marriage
and friendship, however, relations between clans are generally competitive and may become a
public rivalry called pako. Clans in the same valley compete with each other for prestige in
hunting. The tudukat announces not only that an animal has been killed, but also the prowess of
the hunter. The tudukat is also played to open a puliaijat, warning other clans to stay away from
the longhouse (not only because one clan's saukkui is another clan's sanitu, but also because
word will get around about the size of the ceremony). The size of a ceremony or a new house or
11
canoe can increase a clan's prestige in relation to other clans.
6
If the rivalry becomes so intense
that one clan resorts to sabotage, theft, or very rarely, murder, the relation between clans may be
reset through a process called tulo, in which the clans meet, sometimes with a third-party
mediator, and exchange gifts, with the clan that lost the most receiving more. Tulo can also be
used to resolve simple cases of theft. The gifts are a kind of fine. In the past, among distant
clans, intense rivalries persisted in the form of headhunting. Thus, in the relations between clans,
distance matters. Those that are close to each other may compete, but there is a limit to the
rivalry. Those that are more distant may compete without limit, although they must acknowledge
that the return gift is a head.
Mimetic rivalry also characterizes the relations between people and spirits, especially a
clan's ancestor spirits, the saukkui, which are other clan's demons or sanitu. The saukkui/sanitu
are one of many kinds of spirits that inhabit the forest. A human has a soul, called a simagere,
which never resides inside the body. The closest it gets is during a puliaijat or pabete, when it is
compelled by a shaman to sit on the crown (or fontanel) of the head. Otherwise, the simagere
wanders around on its own, like a child, independent of the body to which it gives life. The body
is beautified by wearing necklaces, bracelets, flowers, face paints, and tattoos to keep the soul
close, thereby keeping the body healthy. When a soul is too far away from its body, it may take
up residence with the ancestor spirits in the forest, in which case its body becomes ill and dies.
Thus, no matter what a person is doing, his or her soul is usually out in the forest where it can
encounter numerous other spirits, of which there are many. Nearly every feature of the
landscape may have a spirit or be associated with a spirit in some way. An animal or a tree may
have a spirit, but it may also belong to an ancestor spirit. A monkey may be an ancestor spirit's
domesticated chicken. A tree may be near an ancestor spirit's house. Certain spirits live in or
near rivers and waterfalls. Others live underground and in the sky. A rainbow is the trail of a
6
According to Schefold, pako also includes a form of ceremonial gift exchange, similar to the potlatch:
"These consist of extraordinary prestations that are announced publicly in the valley; they are destined to
humiliate the rival but in the long run often prove tiresome" (1999). At the time of my fieldwork, this no
longer occurred.
12
demon. The forest is thus a very crowded place, crowded with persons who are not human, but
who need and have bodies and objects just as humans do. An ancestor spirit has a house and
chickens, which look like a house and chickens to the ancestor spirit, but like a tree and monkeys
to a human. What differentiates humans and the nonhuman persons that inhabit the forest is the
different perspectives they have on the same bodies and objects. They are all persons - the term
simagere can be used for any soul or spirit - but they are persons with different perspectives.
The problem is that they both need the same bodies and objects. A human needs a tree or
monkey just as an ancestor spirit needs a house or chicken. The solution to the problem is for
persons, both human and nonhuman, to engage in reciprocity, to exchange bodies and objects,
but because their perspectives differ, it is difficult to know who is giving and receiving what or,
indeed, if anyone is giving or receiving at all. With nonhuman persons, there is a fine line
between receiving a gift and taking one, between gift exchange and theft, between balanced and
negative reciprocity. Human persons assume that anything they receive from the forest is a gift,
so nothing is taken from the forest without first explaining to the nonhuman person that the thing
is about to be received as a gift. Depending on the thing, a human person may present a small
gift to the nonhuman person first and then receive the return gift, or a human person may receive
the gift first and then present a return gift to the nonhuman person. These gifts are most often in
the form of gaud, magical mediators, which are usually plants, but can be other objects as well.
Properties of the plants or other objects usually correspond to the desired outcome of the
exchange. A plant that proliferates quickly, for example, is offered as a gift when the desired
outcome is proliferation, as in the rearing of pigs. Before a tree is cut down for a canoe or house,
a gift is presented to the spirit or spirits. After a monkey is killed in the hunt, a gift is presented to
the spirit or spirits. Still, it is difficult to know if the spirit has accepted the gift (either initial or
return), which is why the puliaijat and pabete are necessary. In these grand prestation events,
gifts are formally presented to the ancestor spirits, which share the perspectives of other spirits.
Other practices insure that the exchange of objects between humans and spirits is
reciprocal. Taboos insure that spirits do not interpret a human activity as an effort at exchange
13
and reciprocate. A man may not hollow out a canoe while his wife is pregnant so that the spirit of
the tree does not reciprocate by hollowing out his wife. Omens are efforts by the spirits to
exchange and communicate with humans. The call of a bird, the sudden appearance of a
butterfly, or a snake in the house is a gift from the spirits indicating that something is wrong and
that humans need to reciprocate. Along with gaud, taboos and omens are intended to maintain
reciprocity with spirits in between puliaijat ceremonies, which are held at least once a year. In the
lia, gifts are formally presented to the ancestor spirits, clarifying momentarily the ambiguities of
exchange between persons with different perspectives. The ceremony may last for several
weeks, during which time contact with other clans, work, and sex are taboo. The entire clan
attends. The head of the household serves as the rimata, a kind of master of ceremonies, who
works in conjunction with shamans to purify the uma, making it suitable for the ancestor spirits,
which are invited out of the forest and into the house. Sacrifices are made. The entrails of
chickens and the hearts of pigs are read. Human and nonhuman persons sing and dance
together at night, accompanied by drums called gajeuma. The shamans may enter trance.
Toward the end of the ceremony, the ancestor spirits are presented with gifts - the meat of the
sacrificed animals and other foods, cooking woks, cloth (the same things, minus trees, that
constitute bridewealth) - and ushered by the shamans out of the house and back into the forest.
The next morning, men go hunting, and the ceremony only ends when they succeed. The
animals they kill are the return gift. The mimetic rivalry between humans and spirits is reset.
Perspectives are known, and competition gives way to exchange.
If the mimetic rivalry between humans and spirits is clearly demonstrated in the puliaijat,
it is even more intense in the pabete, the healing ceremony to prevent a person's simagere from
taking up residence with the ancestor spirits. A person may fall ill for a variety of reasons. As the
soul wanders in the forest, it may encounter a spirit, of which there are many. All nonhuman
spirits can emanate a force or substance called bajou, which adheres to or penetrates the body of
the person, making it unappealing to the soul, causing it to fall ill. Startling a spirit, failing to offer
it a gift, or breaking a taboo can all cause bajou emanation. Although some illnesses are
14
"natural," all illnesses indicate that a person's soul is too far away from its body. The cure,
therefore, is first to remove or "cool" the bajou and make the body appealing to the soul and then
to retrieve the soul and place it on the crown of the head. By training and initiation, the shaman,
or kerei, can adopt the perspective of spirits. With the help of friendly spirits, he determines the
cause of the illness, placates the offended spirit if there is one, cools the bajou using gaud,
purifies the body, and retrieves the soul. For very sick people, the ceremony can last for weeks,
and several shamans may work together. When a pabete fails, the soul goes to live with the
ancestor spirits, and the body dies. In the past, the corpse was placed on an open platform in a
graveyard far away from the uma, where it lingered as a pitto, a kind of ghost, until it rotted. Now,
the corpse is buried, and steps are taken to insure that it does not return to the uma. The
shaman is unique in his ability to adopt the perspective of spirits. Only the shaman can see
things the way that spirits see them. He performs puliaijat and pabete for his own clan, affines,
and friends, but also for other clans by invitation. He receives gifts in exchange for his skill, but
the gifts, like any gift, must be distributed. Shamanism is a source of prestige, not wealth. When
the state launched its modernization campaign, one of its main targets was the kerei, which it saw
as an icon of backwardness. At the same time, tourists and environmentalists saw the kerei as
an icon of all that is good about traditional culture.
Methodological Issues
I lived in the home of the sikerei Aman Boroiogok from January 2003 to December 2004.
Aman Boroiogok was one of three sons of the oldest living member of the Sakaliou clan, Teteou,
who lived in the clan's small longhouse, a stone's throw away from Aman Boroiogok's large new
uma-sapo.
7
Teteou's youngest son, Aman Jomanu, lived with his father in the longhouse.
Teteou's other son, Aman Suryani, lived in a large sapo nearby. Each of the three sons had
families of their own. Aman Boroiogok had three sons, Aman Asa Iba, Aman Dirikerei, and Pali.
7
I use this term to mean the sapo that have been enlarged and upgraded to the status of an uma. They are
only found among Sakaliou.
15
Aman Suryani had many daughters, but no son. Aman Jomanu had one son, Jomanu. The total
number of people in these three houses, including wives and daughters, was about 25. The total
number of people in the Sakaliou clan, including the women who had married into other clans, but
not their children was about 100. Sakaliou was thus a relatively large clan, and probably because
of this, the clan had recently split up into four factions, with one clustered around Teteou and his
sons (even though they lived in three different houses) and the others clustered around three of
Teteou's brothers, Terason, Salomo, and Kuki and his son Aman Talejat. Terason and his sons
all lived in Terason's large uma-sapo not too far from Teteou's house. Salomo and his sons all
lived in a large uma-sapo on the edge of Sakaliou's land. Aman Talejat and his sons all lived in a
small, but old uma-sapo on another clan's land, in the area known as Dorogot, between Madobag
and Muara Siberut. Several members of the clan lived in single-family dwellings in Madobag, but
returned to Sakaliou frequently, especially for ceremonial occasions and when tourists were
present. They were in the minority, however. The majority of the Sakaliou clan lived on
Sakaliou's land.
Prior to the state's modernization program in the 1970s, the entire clan lived on
Sakaliou's land in one longhouse and about a dozen sapo. The entire clan was compelled by the
state to move into the government-built village of Madobag, but by the 1980s, almost the entire
clan had returned to its ancestral land. Members of other clans also fled the oppressive
conditions in Madobag, but not whole clans, and as a result, factions of different clans joined
together and resettled on a single clan's ancestral land in Attabai and Buttui. Sakaliou was the
only clan to return as a group to its ancestral land. Within a few years, the clan split into the four
factions, but with the exception of Aman Talejat, who moved to Dorogot, the factions continued to
live in Sakaliou. In the past, when a clan fissioned, one of the factions moved onto unoccupied
land and founded a new clan. In the 1980s, there was no unoccupied - or at least unclaimed -
land, so the different factions within Sakaliou moved onto the occupied land within the boundaries
of their ancestral land. It is also possible that the formation of factions was not a precursor to
fissioning. Although the different factions acknowledged that there were divisions within the clan,
16
they also recognized that they were members of the same clan, and with some exceptions, they
continued to act as a single clan, practicing generalized reciprocity, performing ceremonies
together, cooperating while competing. This may have been due to the external pressure of the
state, which necessitated a kind of unified front in order for the clan to defend itself. More likely, it
was due to the growth of the tourism industry, which was concentrated in Sakaliou because of its
location and, more importantly, because it remained "traditional." Had a faction left the clan's
land entirely, it would not have been positioned to host tourists and work as porters and cooks.
By remaining, the factions had to build separate houses, what I have called uma-sapo, in order to
host tourists. In Dorogot, which is even further downriver than Sakaliou, Kuki and Aman Talejat's
impressive uma-sapo was usually the first stop on the tourist itinerary.
After surveying much of South Siberut, including the areas of Attabai and Buttui, I chose
Sakaliou as my fieldsite because it was the center of the tourism industry. Most of the tourists
who visited South Siberut spent some time in one or more of the houses in Sakaliou, and the
majority of the porters and cooks hired by their Sumatran guides were members of the Sakaliou
clan. I myself was recruited by Aman Asa Iba, Aman Boroiogok's oldest son, when I stepped off
the ferry in Muara Siberut, wondering where I was going to live for the next two years. Aman Asa
Iba offered his services as a tour guide, and he must have thought he hit the motherlode: I was a
tourist who was going to stay for two years. (He later learned that I was not exactly a tourist.) I
was also aware of Sakaliou's strained relations with the state. The research proposal for which I
had received funding focused on what I thought of at the time as the formation of Mentawai
cultural identity in the context of tourism and relations with the state. Influenced by postcolonial
theory, especially Pemberton's analysis of the culture effect (1994) on the one hand and Steedly's
critique of the state of culture (1999) on the other, I hypothesized that while tourism enabled "the
Mentawai" to withstand the pressures of the state, it also produced "tradition" or "traditional
culture." Whereas the state viewed tradition as an impediment to progress, tourism viewed it as a
vanishing paradise, a utopia that progress destroyed. I wanted to learn how the Mentawai
17
themselves made sense of these complementary discourses and whether or not cultural identity
could be constructed outside of them. Sakaliou was an ideal place to address these issues.
It was only after two years of fieldwork that I realized just how unique Sakaliou was.
Among the clans that had openly rejected the state's vision of modernity, Sakaliou was the only
one to have returned as a group to its ancestral land. At the same time, Sakaliou had split into
four factions, each of which had built an impressive uma-sapo to host tourists, yet they also
continued to act, to a certain extent, as a single clan. The mimetic rivalry was intense. But was it
intense because of Sakaliou's relations with tourists and the state? For a clan that was not as
large or had not rejected the state's vision of modernity or had not hosted tourists, would the
mimetic rivalry have been as intense? Was the mimetic rivalry among Sakaliou characteristic of
other clans? How representative is Sakaliou? What do they represent? Precisely because of
the mimetic rivalry, it became clear early in fieldwork that I would have to choose between
identifying with Sakaliou - and even with one of the factions, the Teteou faction and Aman
Boroiogok - and identifying with none so as to be able to move freely between different clans.
Outside of Madobag or any government-built village, however, people live far away from each
other in the forest. I needed to live somewhere, and I chose to live with Aman Boroiogok. I thus
identified with the Teteou/Aman Boroiogok faction of Sakaliou, which limited my access to other
clans, except for the clans with which Aman Boroiogok and Sakaliou had relations. Like a tourist,
I was a source of prestige and economic capital for Aman Boroiogok, who guarded me as closely
as any other member of the clan and involved me in his relations with other clans (and spirits). I
did not enter into relations with other clans except through Aman Boroiogok and Sakaliou.
Therefore, I cannot say with certainty that mimetic rivalry was characteristic of any clan other than
Sakaliou and the clans with which it had relations. I suspect that it was, even for the clans that
18
lived in the government-built villages and elsewhere in South Siberut. Beyond South Siberut, I
cannot say.
8
My research method was a calculated risk. I chose to emphasize depth rather than
breadth, in part because I knew that other anthropologists had conducted fieldwork among other
clans in South Siberut and the Mentawai Islands. Foremost among them was Reimar Schefold,
who conducted fieldwork in the 1960s among the Sakkudei clan to the west of Sakaliou and the
Rereiket. Both Sakaliou and the Sakkudei claim to be the bearers of an authentic Mentawai
culture, from which all other clans have deviated. In fact, each recognizes the other as almost as
authentic. Although both rejected the state's vision of modernity and continued to live on their
ancestral land, Schefold conducted the bulk of his research prior to the state's modernization
program and the conflicts that followed. His early work focuses on "the Sakkudei," whom he
tends to describe as living in a kind of pristine, precontact state, with almost all of the cultural
characteristics that I described above based on my own fieldwork among Sakaliou. His later work
focuses on "the Mentawaians," the inhabitants of the Mentawai Islands, whose cultural
characteristics vary by location: the Sakkudei are Mentawaians in South Siberut, for example. In
an article that I will address in detail later, Schefold (1976) argues that the very different cultural
characteristics of the Mentawaians in the islands to the south of Siberut are the result of a
process of cultural involution that occurred as the Mentawaians in south Siberut (like the
Sakkudei) settled the islands to the south. Essentially structuralist in his approach, he sees the
inhabitants of the Mentawai Islands as united by core cultural characteristics that have undergone
predictable transformations from the original in Simatalu as the Mentawai Islands were settled.
For reasons that will become clear, I am not entirely unsympathetic to Schefold's approach.
However, because my experience was limited to Sakaliou, I limit my conclusions to them and
other clans in South Siberut.
8
By the same token, because I am a man, I identified with men, and my research was heavily weighted
toward a male perspective. Although gender relations are more or less egalitarian, men and women are
considered to be different, and there are some things that men and women who are not married to each
other may not discuss. I have tried to include gender issues as much as possible, but I would be the first to
admit that a female anthropologist might see things from an entirely different perspective.
19
Schefold's students and most of the other anthropologists who have conducted research
in Siberut and the Mentawai Islands focus on everyone but the Sakkudei and Sakaliou, which is
to say that they focus on people who live in the towns along the coast and in the government-built
villages upriver. They are mainly concerned with modernization - or rather, the modern or
modernizing clans. They take the state and global economy for granted. Schefold's student
Gerard Persoon (1997) has written extensively about Mentawai-Minangkabau relations. A thesis
by his student Laurens Bakker (1999) describes the tourism industry (mentioning Sakaliou).
Reeves (2001) focuses on the social production of kinship and space in the government-built
village of Madobag, where he conducted fieldwork in the early 1990s, and Ponting (2001) focuses
on the surfing industry in the islands to the south of Siberut. There are also good historical
records, many of which have been addressed by Persoon and Reeves, but most of which focus
on the islands to the south of Siberut. One of the earliest accounts of "the Mentawaians" is
provided by the British explorer John Crisp at the end of the 18th century, an account that I will
address in detail in Chapter 5. Loeb (1928, 1929), Wallace (1951), and Nooy-Palm (1968),
provide accounts from the mid-20th century. In addition, there are numerous popular accounts by
explorers, missionaries, and travelers, as well tourists and environmentalists, beginning in the late
19th century and continuing up to the present. All of these other accounts, from Schefold to the
more recent ethnographies, from historical to popular, provide some basis for comparison with
Sakaliou. Yet none addresses the peculiar situation of Sakaliou: they are unique in that they are
both traditional (like the Sakkudei described by Schefold) and modern (like the people described
by Persoon and Reeves), or rather, I argue, they are traditional because they are modern.
Perhaps the most pressing methodological issue is what to call the people I am
describing. Clearly they are Sakaliou, but their social relations extend to other clans, and they
themselves recognize that they are part of a larger cultural group that includes not only other
clans in the Rereiket, but also throughout Siberut and the Mentawai Islands. There is some
debate among anthropologists about whether the clan (uma) is the largest social group.
According to Nooy-Palm (1968) and Schefold (1986), the muntogat is a higher-order group of
20
clans related by descent from a common ancestor in the distant past. Reeves (2001) argues that
although the muntogat may have existed in the past (or elsewhere in the Mentawai Islands), in
Madobag, the term rakrak was used. While the clans within a rakrak recognized a common
ancestor, it was defined by exchange relations in the present, not by descent. Sakaliou could
readily cite its ancestry all the way back to the founding clan in Simatalu. It recognized that it was
related to other clans by descent and that it belonged to a rakrak called Satoto. But over the
course of two years of fieldwork, I only heard it invoked once by Aman Boroiogok and Sakaliou,
when the last remaining member of a clan within Satoto died, leaving the clan's land unoccupied
and available. Sakaliou made a claim to the land, which it wanted to sell to a logging concession,
on the basis that it was a member of Satoto. Other than that, the rakrak was essentially
irrelevant. Sakaliou did not think of itself as belonging to a rakrak defined by descent. It thought
of itself as a clan with exchange relations that are sometimes indicated by descent. Reeves
himself suggests that although there are higher-order social entities, "the reality is that the suku
remains the basic most directly relevant social group" (2001).
9
Sakaliou also recognizes that they
are included within various administrative units (Madobag, South Siberut, the Mentawai Islands,
West Sumatra), up to and including the large administrative unit, the Indonesian nation-state.
They most often refer to themselves as Sakaliou, but when it is expedient, they may use any one
of these other identifications. Identity shifts depending on the context. In the Preface, I used the
term orang hulu, but the term is inadequate because it usually refers to upriver people or the
people who live in the interior of the island, including those that live in the government-built
villages. Sakaliou says that it is different from the clans that live in the government-built villages,
but it also engages in social relations with some of them, and some of its members live in
9
Reeves uses the term suku, an Indonesian word, to indicate the clan or what I have called the uma. He
reserves the term uma for the house in which the clan's ancestral heirlooms, the bakkat katsaila, are kept,
which in the past was a longhouse, but today in the government-built village of Madobag may be a sapo.
Strangely, he uses the term uma factions to indicate groups within a single suku. An uma faction consists of
one or more household groups called lalep. The term suku was rarely used by Sakaliou. When it was, it
was almost with a wink, to acknowledge that they could speak Indonesian (and English, too). They used the
term uma, even though the clan had split up into factions, each of which resided in a house that was neither
and both uma and sapo, an uma-sapo. A lalep, on the other hand, is simply a family, often a nuclear family,
the occupants of a sapo. Several lalep may occupy an uma.
21
Madobag and married into clans that live in other government-built villages. Claiming to be
different or more authentic is also not surprising given the logic of mimetic rivalry. Even within the
clan, difference is asserted only to be offset by reciprocity and imitation. To be clear, from now
on I will use the term Sakaliou, but it should be understood that I am referring to Sakaliou and, to
a limited extent, the other clans in South Siberut with whom they engaged in social relations.
Theoretical Issues
Mimetic rivalry is not unique to Sakaliou or to the Mentawai Islands or, for that matter, to
Indonesia. According to Rene Girard (and many other philosophers and social theorists), it is
characteristic of the human condition. Mimetic rivalry is one element in Girard's theory of mimetic
desire, which holds that an individual's desires are always determined in relation to an other. An
individual may think that he or she desires something, but he or she only desires something
because someone else desires it. Each individual desires the same object only because the
other one does. Girard calls the object of desire the mimetic object, the individual who desires it
the subject, and the other whose desires are imitated the mediator. When subject and mediator
are distant from each other (external mediation), the subject can acknowledge the imitation and
pursue the object. When subject and mediator are close to each other (internal mediation), the
subject cannot acknowledge the imitation, and the mediator is a rival. Subject and mediator are
in mimetic conflict because they desire the same object, but do not know or cannot acknowledge
that they are imitating each other. Mimetic conflict can lead to violence, and the violence can
become reciprocal if the mediator imitates the desire of the subject (double mediation). The
mediator "is tempted to copy the copy of his own desire" (Girard 1966: 99), and attaining the
object may become less important than preventing the other from attaining it. The only possible
result is violence. Most of this is already apparent in Girard's early work in literary theory,
especially Deceit, Desire, and the Novel (1966).
In the 1970s and 80s, Girard turned his attention from literature to ethnography and
religion, and his theory became anthropological. In Violence and the Sacred (1977) and The
22
Scapegoat (1982), he argues that human institutions (which replace animal instinct) are designed
to control "runaway mimesis" and the violence that can result from double mediation: "Order,
peace, and fecundity depend on cultural distinctions; it is not these distinctions but the loss of
them that gives birth to fierce rivalries and sets members of the same family or social group at
one another's throats" (1977: 49). Girard calls this escalation of conflict and violence that arises
from the loss of distinctions a sacrificial crisis - the erosion of the "regulated system of distinctions
in which the differences among individuals are used to establish their 'identity' and their mutual
relationships" (1978: 49). The sacrificial crisis inevitably leads to the sacrifice of a scapegoat in
order to resolve the conflict. The violence between doubles is suddenly displaced onto a
seemingly arbitrary victim, and in the peace that follows, a new cultural order is born, or at least
the distinctions that are necessary to resolve the conflict temporarily. Girard calls this process the
surrogate victimage mechanism. Within the new cultural order, institutions are designed to
prevent the sacrificial crisis from occurring again (although it always does). Taboos prevent
mimetic behaviors. Modern judicial systems replace the cycle of revenge with a distant or
external mediator (judge and jury) and fixed penalties. The most important institution, however, is
sacrifice. In ritual sacrifice, the violence is displaced onto another surrogate victim, a substitute
for the scapegoat. The surrogate victimage mechanism thus works through the process of
substitution, through the deferral of new violence by commemorating the sacrificial crisis that
gave rise to the sacred. As Fleming writes, "For Girard, ritual and prohibition both function to
control mimesis...by freezing into relatively stable cultural forms the imperfect comprehension of
surrogate victimage....That is, they are institutions of recollection, but institutions structured, and
therefore disfigured, by the operation and impact of the surrogate victimage itself" (2004: 53).
Ritual has a propitiatory function. Prohibition has a prophylactic function. Myth commemorates
the foundation of the cultural order in sacrifice.
23
Girard's theory has been extended beyond the sacred in many ways, but its application to
economic institutions is especially relevant in the case of Sakaliou.
10
In Violence and Truth
(Dumouchel 1988), a cohort of French poststructuralists applies Girardian theory to the market
economy, arguing that the market in modern society fulfills the function of the sacred in
premodern societies.
11
The spirit of capitalism floods the market with so many objects -
commodities - that a sacrificial crisis cannot occur. Dumouchel re-reads Sahlins' Stone Age
Economics in this light and concludes that exchange, like myth, ritual, and taboo, is the deferral of
violence through substitution. Anspach extends Dumouchel's argument to nonmarket
economies:
What interests me is precisely to see how the shift is made from vicious circles to
virtuous ones, from the negative reciprocity of violence to the positive reciprocity
of the gift. With vengeance, each person responds to an offence committed by
the other, each reacts to what the other has already done. This comes down to
letting oneself be dominated by the past. In gift exchange, on the other hand,
one turns toward the future and anticipates the desire of the other. Instead of
waiting for your neighbour to come steal your yams, you offer them to him today,
and it is up to him to do the same for you tomorrow. Once you have made a gift,
he is obliged to make a return gift. Now you have set in motion a positive
circularity (2001).
In gift exchange, the force of reciprocity, which can lead to violence, is turned away from violence
by the object. The exchange must be carefully negotiated, however, because unlike myth, ritual,
and taboo, exchange can easily descend into the negative circularity of reciprocal violence again.
The object of desire must move constantly from hand to hand, as in generalized reciprocity, or
carry with it the sacred, as in balanced reciprocity between humans and spirits. Balanced
reciprocity between human groups is more precarious, because in it lies the greatest potential for
a return to violence. Balanced reciprocity between human groups can easily become negative.
The positive circularity of gift exchange can become the negative circularity of violence.
Among Sakaliou, within the clan, generalized reciprocity dispels mimetic rivalry through
the continuous movement of objects from hand to hand. The objects are gifts. They are given
10
In the United States, Girard's theory has been most developed in the generative anthropology of Gans
(1981, 1985, 1993).
11
In Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1987), Girard argues that Christianity is different
from all other religions. In Christianity, the surrogate victimage mechanism is revealed.
24
and received frequently with no expectation of return in the near future. Time is irrelevant, but
space is critical: the gifts can move from hand to hand frequently because people are close to
each other. They orient people in space, giving them similar perspectives on the object, each
other, and self in relation to other. At the same time, although people have similar orientations
and perspectives, they are not identical, and the gifts reiterate this difference. For objects to
move from one hand to another, there must be an other hand. Generalized reciprocity thus
depends on and generates difference as much as it works to dispel mimetic conflict. It must,
however, unite more than it divides. If it divides more than it unites, the clan fissions. For this
reason, generalized reciprocity is also extended to the spirits that live in the forest and to other
clans. What makes generalized reciprocity work - closeness - also makes it necessary to extend
it to more distant others. With distance, rivals become mediators whose desires can be
acknowledged (internal becomes external), and sacrifices can be made (balanced reciprocity) to
dispel the mimetic conflict within the clan. The clan unites in opposition to spirits or other clans.
At the same time, generalized reciprocity is extended to spirits and other clans in order to dispel
the mimetic conflict that is generated by the sacrifice. The gift, the prestation, is interpreted by
the spirits and other clans as the acknowledgment of a similarity, and so the mimetic rivalry within
the clan is displaced onto spirits and other clans, and becomes mimetic rivalry between humans
and spirits and between clans. Generalized reciprocity ultimately fails over distance. The
exchanges cannot be continuous enough. Over distance, reciprocity must be balanced. Over
great distances, it must negative.
One afternoon, I came home to my sapo to find a bunch of bananas sitting on the table.
The bunch was small and by most measures insignificant. But I immediately wondered who had
given me the bananas. Who had presented me with an anonymous gift? I asked around and
soon found out that the bananas were left for me by Aman Jomanu. It was common for people to
give me things with no expectation of return - they did so every time we ate - but the bananas
were a bit unusual because I did not know who had given them to me. When I found out that it
was Aman Jomanu, I began to wonder why he had left the bananas, what he might want in
25
return, where he was, what he was doing, when he would want whatever it was he wanted in
return, and so on. It turned out that he expected nothing. I had given him tobacco, coffee, and
sugar in the past. He had given me bananas. I would probably give him something in the future,
and as long as we were friends (and even if we were not, as long as I lived there), he would
probably give me something in the future, and so on. It is common to emphasize the social
relations that underlie reciprocity. It is less common to emphasize the work of the imagination
that it requires. I was friends with Aman Jomanu. He gave me a bunch of bananas. I would give
him something in the future. We would continue to be friends. But the bananas were not only an
indication of friendship. The bananas got me to think about Aman Jomanu and to realize that he
must have been thinking about me, that he had put himself in my position, had seen things from
my perspective, and that as I was thinking about him, I was putting myself in his position and
seeing things from his perspective. A gift, unlike a commodity, requires imagination. Reciprocity
is not so much a calculation as a revelation.
26
Chapter 2: Generalized Reciprocity and Perspectivism
This chapter looks at generalized reciprocity within the clan and at the way that it both
mitigates and generates mimetic rivalry. Individuals within the clan compete for prestige through
the distribution of gifts, which creates a similarity between individuals by aligning their
perspectives and, at the same time, distinguishes individuals from each other on the basis of
prestige. In Girard's theory, prestige is the sort of thing that creates a distinction between
subjects, and difference (rather than similarity) helps to mitigate mimetic conflict. With reciprocity,
however, prestige is earned only through the distribution of gifts, and the objects create a
similarity between individuals that works against the distinction of prestige. Mimetic rivalry can
become a mimetic crisis, and if is not resolved, the clan fissions. One solution, according to
Girard, is to turn the rival into a more distanced subject, a mediator. Among Sakaliou, the spirits
that live in the forest surrounding the uma are more distant, both socially and spatially. The main
argument of this chapter is that reciprocity within the clan could not exist without the spirits that
live in the forest around it. Clan members, humans, engage in reciprocity with spirits because
they are different. Their perspective is unknown. By engaging them in reciprocity, however, a
similarity is created, and the result is mimetic rivalry. The difference between mimetic rivalry
within the clan and mimetic rivalry between humans and spirits is that with spirits (1) difference is
always maintained, and (2) mimetic crisis is averted through the formal exchange of gifts in the
puliaijat (which maintains difference). The sum total of animism is not kinship with spirits, but
distinction from them.
Group identity varies from context to context. Depending on the situation and the others
that are present, an individual may claim membership in the lalep, an uma faction, the uma as a
whole, the rakrak (very occasionally), the Sarereiket or the orang hulu, or any one of the
administrative units (Madobag, South Siberut, the Mentawai Islands, Indonesia). But the group
identity that is most often claimed is the clan, the uma. Membership in the uma is determined by
patrilineal descent. The group is exogamous and patrilocal, and is defined in opposition to other
27
clans, other patrilineal, exogamous, patrilocal groups. The group is also defined by the
longhouse (or longhouses) and territory that it shares and, more importantly, by the constant
exchange of objects - by generalized reciprocity and the shared perspective that it creates.
In a way, the clan is defined in opposition to other clans precisely because it is within the
clan that reciprocity is generalized. Descent is less important than exchange, which is one
reason why the women who have married into the clan do not feel like they are always outsiders.
Not only do they give birth to the clan's descendants, women also give and receive as much as
the men in the clan who are related by blood. Through generalized reciprocity, women are not
only treated like members of the clan, they are members of the clan.
12
Women shape or
influence the individual from birth up to about age two.
13
An infant is cared for by his or her
mother, other women in the longhouse, or older female siblings. By about age three, a boy
begins to associate with his father and may begin to sleep with his father in the men's room. Both
boys and girls begin to accompany their parents into the forest, which was dangerous prior to age
three, and learn through imitation rather than instruction. Boys are forbidden to touch a man's
bow, and girls are forbidden to touch a woman's fishing net. Between the ages of six and twelve,
there is a minor rite of passage, usually performed during a larger ceremony like the puliaijat, to
enable a boy to touch a bow and a girl to touch a fishing net. This marks their entrance into the
domain of competition between individuals for prestige. Schefold (1999, 2007) argues that
tattooing, which was associated with headhunting, was another rite of passage, probably marking
the entrance into adulthood and/or eligibility for marriage, but among Sakaliou and probably since
the end of headhunting in the early 20th century, the only other rite of passage before death is
marriage, which not only increases prestige within the clan, but also marks the entrance into the
domain of interclan relations - the cooperation and competition between clans for prestige.
12
They are not, however, necessary for conception. Traditionally, sex was considered necessary for
conception, but the woman did not contribute any essential component to the new individual formed during
sex. Intercourse introduced semen into the womb, where it congealed. Frequent intercourse insured that
there was enough semen to form a new individual. The woman shaped or influenced the developing
individual, but did not contribute to it in any fundamental way.
13
There is a minor rite of passage for a newborn.
28
Marriage also means having children, which greatly increases prestige. Male children
are valued because they insure the continuation of the clan over time. Female children are
valued because they extend the clan over space. Aman Suryani, who had many girls, but no boy,
often said to me that while he really wanted a boy, a descendant, with so many girls, he would at
least be rich in bridewealth, which is to say that he would be rich in prestige because bridewealth
must be distributed. Suryani was the name of Aman Suryani's first child. Children are given and
referred to by individual names, which may reflect their personality or some event associated with
their birth or development. Names may be recycled, but only after many generations, as there is
a taboo on saying the names of the dead. Parents adopt the name of their first child, male or
female (teknonymy) - Aman means father of, Bai means mother of - which as Geertz (1973)
argues, entails a change of identity from adult to parent, from an individual to an individual in
relation to a child and his or her siblings. Unlike Bali, there is no prestige for the first born,
although the first born son does play a certain role in the puliaijat. Even before becoming a
parent, however, an individual is only an individual in relation to others. Clan identity is acquired
first, and only as a child becomes an adult and enters the domain of competition for prestige does
the individual distinguish himself or herself from others.
14
Such distinction is fleeting, though, as
prestige is only earned through the distribution of gifts, which works against distinction. Clan
identity is thus defined mainly in opposition to other clans - and spirits - with whom reciprocity is
not as generalized. The movement of objects from hand to hand is not as frequent or continuous,
so distinction can be maintained.
If clan membership is determined by patrilineal descent, generalized reciprocity, and the
shared perspective it creates, ancestor spirits, the saukkui, both are and are not members of the
clan. The saukkui are dead relatives, people who have just died and all of the people who have
died before them, extending, in theory, all the way back to the first people, about whom Sakaliou
has no myth. The saukkui are members of the clan in the sense that they are related by
14
Contrast this with the so-called Western individual, who is unique from the beginning and then establishes
social relations.
29
patrilineal descent. They are not members of the clan in the sense that while generalized
reciprocity is extended to them, their perspective remains unknown. Here is it essential to
understand that reciprocity is not just about the continuous exchange of gifts, but also about the
shared perspective that the exchanges create. Gifts are given to the saukkui continuously, but
unlike generalized reciprocity among the humans within the clan, the gifts given to the saukkui, as
well as those received from the saukkui, indicate a difference of perspective. Gifts are
exchanged precisely because the perspective of the saukkui is unknown. The saukkui are others
- other persons - in this sense, but they are only one kind of other among many in the forest.
Everything has a soul or spirit, a simagere, or is associated with a simagere. The
saukkui are one type of spirit among many in the forest, including the souls of humans. The
simagere of a human is associated with a human body. It is never inside the body, however. It is
normally wandering around out in the forest, where it may encounter any of the other types of
spirits and their bajou. As long as it is associated with a human body - and preferably remains
close to it - the body remains alive and healthy. If it takes up residence with the saukkui, the body
becomes ill and dies. The body is thus a point of orientation for the soul. The body is beautified
to attract the soul and keep it close. In the puliaijat and pabete, shamans collect the souls of
members of the uma and persuade them to sit on the crown of the head, that is, to be as close as
possible to the body. A person is a human because the point of orientation for the simagere is a
human body. In other words, a human is a human because it has a human body. The house is
an extension of the body, a point of orientation, in contrast to the forest, for all of the souls in the
clan. Other kinds of spirits, including the saukkui, have other kinds of bodies and houses.
Normally, the saukkui and their dwellings are not visible to humans (except shamans). But they
are there - or must be there - because souls must have a point of orientation. The saukkui are
different from humans because their point of orientation is different. They do not have a human
body or a human house, but they do have a body and a house, which they see as a body and a
house. It is not known exactly how they see human bodies and houses. What people see as
30
monkeys the saukkui see as domesticated pigs because that is what they give in return after a lia.
The saukkui see things differently because their point of orientation is different.
The same principles can be applied to all of the other spirits that live in the forest.
Animals, for example, have a soul, which is to say that they have a simagere whose point of
orientation is an animal body.
15
It is not known exactly how they see their own bodies or the
bodies of humans. The saukkui, however, see the bodies of animals as their own domesticated
pigs. Trees have a soul, which is to say that they have a simagere whose point of orientation is a
tree. It is not known exactly how they see their own bodies or the bodies of humans. Their
perspective is unknown. The things made by humans from trees have a soul in this sense:
humans may or may not have taken the body of a tree; they have definitely taken its point of
orientation, the place from which their perspective makes sense. Dislocating and disorienting the
simagere is what presents a danger. A tree that has become a canoe or house may become
confused, angry, and hot - or worse, emanate its bajou - in the same way that the simagere of a
human can become lost in the forest. (In fact, human souls can emanate bajou, too.) Bajou is
described as a force or substance that is emanated by a simagere when it is startled or
disoriented. The substance may adhere to or penetrate an object, including the human body,
which then falls ill. One of the first tasks of the shaman in any ceremony is to remove the bajou
that has accumulated in the body or object, making it a suitable point of orientation for the
simagere. Bajou is the materialization of disorientation. When spirits are not disoriented, bajou is
not emanated, and they are relatively harmless, even if their exact perspective remains unknown.
All of the other spirits in the forest also have points of orientation, although they are less
known than the saukkui, animals, and trees. Other clan's saukkui, the sanitu, also live in the
forest. As with the saukkui, their exact location is unknown, but unlike the saukkui, they are never
invited into the longhouse or extended reciprocity. They are dangerous because they are more
15
The people of Sakaliou insisted that snakes are an exception: they do not have a soul. Almost all of the
snakes on Siberut are venomous. They are the one kind of animal that Sakaliou kills without apology. In
fact, they may chop up the body, destroying its point of orientation, and with exceptionally large snakes,
display its skull as a warning to others.
31
unknown. (They are known to their clan.) There are also other sanitu that are not the ancestor
spirits of anyone, and they are particularly dangerous. Silakokoina lives in tree tops and pounces
on victims below. Silakikio is attracted to abandoned houses. Neither was once a human, and
neither has a fixed point of orientation, so they are unpredictable, and because of this, they are
the most dangerous. They exist in a state of disorientation. More common than silakokoina and
silakikio are various kinds of pitto, the ghosts of people who have suffered an untimely death.
Like silakikio, they are attracted to abandoned houses, but because they were once human and
are only temporarily disoriented (they should be with the ancestor spirits of their clan), they are
considered to be far less dangerous. People prefer not to be alone in a house because a pitto
might be attracted to it, and when people approach an abandoned house or one that has not
been occupied in a while, they do so noisily in order to warn the pitto that might be there that they
are coming. Most are harmless, although there is one kind of pitto that is considered to be as
dangerous as silakokoina and silakikio. Tinigeilat is the ghost of a person who has suffered an
untimely death from wounds received by a machete. It has wild, staring eyes and is usually
covered with blood. It is considered to be so dangerous that the government-built village of
Madobag was moved to a new location after a man was killed in the original village and his
tinigeilat was spotted. Most sanitu, however, are not silakokoina, silakikio, pitto, or tinigeilat.
Most are the ancestors spirits, the saukkui, of other clans because most people do not suffer an
untimely death.
A timely death means that a person becomes a saukkui, which is to say that the
simagere knows its point of orientation was once a human body and a human house, but that its
point of orientation is now somewhere in the forest and is no longer a human body and a human
house except during lia. Reeves says unambiguously, "There is a constant tension between
saukkui as relatives (saraina) and allies (alei) and the inescapable fact that they are sanitu"
(2001). Yet, he goes on to say, his informants always stressed that the saukkui are good and the
sanitu are bad or dangerous. The saukkui always live away from the uma, except during a
puliaijat. Reeves cites an informant from the Sakaliou clan who was not sure where the saukkui
32
live: "He did not consider it very important....When there is a puliaijat, then they appear. The
point is that it does not matter where they are outside of the puliaijat/pabete ritual context when
their presence is requested. The important thing is that they are not around their living relatives
until there is good reason for them to be, such as when either ritual is being held. They are
called, they come, partake of the food, then leave again, all as it should be" (2001). I would
agree with this to a certain extent. Sakaliou did not specify the location of their saukkui. When
asked, they usually said something like, "Out there, in the forest." It is not, however, that they did
not consider it important. They considered it unknowable. The puliaijat makes their location
knowable and, more importantly, makes the location of their human relatives knowable to the
saukkui. They are called, they come, partake of the food, then leave again, all as it should be,
not only because it clears a space for humans, as Reeves suggests, but also because it indicates
to the saukkui that humans will come into their space. Unlike Reeves' informants in Madobag,
people in Sakaliou spend as much time in the domain of the saukkui and other spirits, including
sanitu, as they do in the house.
So what makes the saukkui different from sanitu - and different from humans? Descent
matters, but among humans, descent is enacted through generalized reciprocity. What
distinguishes the saukkui from sanitu is not only that they are related by descent - they are dead
ancestors - but also that the humans to whom they are related extend generalized reciprocity to
them and to those spirits over whom they have some influence, whereas they do not extend
generalized reciprocity to the sanitu, with whom they are not related. They invite their saukkui
into the house during lia. They do not invite sanitu, other people's saukkui. The saukkui are
distinguished from humans by their points of orientation: human bodies and houses for humans,
the forest and other kinds of bodies and houses for saukkui. Because they have different points
of orientation, their perspective is different. The only thing that humans know for sure is that at
the end of a lia, after humans have given saukkui the gift of pigs and other things, the saukkui
return the gift in the form of monkeys or other animals. The monkeys are the saukkui's pigs. The
people of Sakaliou say that the saukkui must have some influence over the other spirits in the
33
forest, but exactly how much it is hard to say. They suppose that their influence is limited in the
same way that an individual human's influence over other humans is limited. The tension is not
so much that the saukkui are sanitu, but that human simagere may be drawn to them. If one
must die, it is better to become a saukkui than a sanitu. The point of orientation is clear (to the
saukkui, but not to humans).
16
The most dangerous sanitu are those whose point of orientation is
not clear. They are dislocated, disoriented, and dangerous.
All of the things that people make or acquire are usually made or acquired by individuals
or families and then shared with the other individuals and families in the longhouse or clan.
These things require individuals to go out into the forest, which is crowded with all of the spirits
described above. Sharing within the clan (and exchanging with other clans) thus requires
humans to engage with spirits, to compete with them. Mimetic rivalry among humans gives rise
to mimetic rivalry between humans and spirits. When people go out into the forest, they assume,
not that there are spirits everywhere in everything, but that there may be spirits somewhere in
some things. Startling a spirit causes it to emanate bajou. For this reason, people move slowly
and cautiously, and when they are ready to take an object, they inform the spirit that may be there
that its point of orientation is about to change. This occurs all day long. In Aman Boroiogok's
family, Aman Boroiogok himself and two of his three sons, Aman Asa Iba and Aman Dirikerei,
each had sapo about a half-day walk away from the uma. There they kept some their own
chickens and pigs (with others kept in the uma), and they were near some of their own sago and
fruit trees, although given the way that sago and fruit trees are acquired through exchange with
other clans, some were also very distant from both sapo and uma. Taro gardens were more
communal, and in Sakaliou, they were on the other side of the Rereiket. Much of the day is spent
tending to chickens, pigs, and gardens, or acquiring other useful resources from the forest, such
as rattan for making baskets. During the fruit seasons, people travel to their fruit trees and
16
In the funeral, some of the objects that were used by the deceased on a daily basis are left with the body,
and some of his or her trees are marked, indicating that they should not be used, at least for a while. This is
one of the few instances of objects being almost completely removed from circulation. It is done because
the deceased needs to know that his or her point of orientation is now different. It is with the saukkui.
34
harvest the fruits. Every few months, people process sago. There are also special projects, like
building a house or canoe. All work requires people to go out into the forest and engage with the
spirits, with whom they are in competition.
At the beginning and end of every day, before people leave the house and after they
return home, there is usually a communal meal, during which everyone in the house sits down
together and eats. Roughly equal portions are laid out on platters on the floor, one for each
family. People contribute the food that they have procured. Not everyone contributes to every
meal, but as long as families contribute sometime, there are no complaints, and there is a taboo
on eating alone. A meal, however, is a strangely quiet occasion. There is no prohibition on
talking, but people generally eat rather than talk. At the beginning of every meal, a small portion,
a pinch, is dropped by the head of the household between the floorboards as an offering to the
saukkui. This is referred to as the saukkui's otsai, their "share" of the communal meal. The
reason for this offering is explained in a myth, which I describe below. The saukkui's portion is a
pinch, but they see it as much more than that. They see it as a fair share. When an exchange is
fair or equitable, it is called paroman. The term, however, is not used to describe the shares of
the communal meal. It does not describe generalized reciprocity or "sharing" rather than
exchange. The term does describe balanced reciprocity. For example, not all of the time is spent
procuring food or resources related to food. There are often projects like building a sapo, making
a canoe, or engaging in relations with other clans. For these other projects, individuals call on
other members of the clan to contribute their labor, and in "exchange," there is a communal meal,
but the transaction is not described as paroman. It is simply clan members receiving their otsai.
However, when members of other clans are called on to contribute their labor to a project, and in
exchange, there is a communal meal, the transaction is described as paroman and the shares
are referred to as upa, reward, or saki, which Schefold (1980) translates as purchase price. In
the daily communal meals, the saukkui receive an otsai, a share, just like any other member of
the clan, not an upa or a saki. In this way, generalized reciprocity is extended to them.
35
In a large clan like Sakaliou, the generalized reciprocity that was taken for granted within
the uma faction was less taken for granted between the uma factions. While Aman Asa Iba
competed with his brother Aman Dirikerei to see who could have more pigs or fruit trees, the
competition was usually offset by sharing and cooperation. Between uma factions, however, it
was different. Generalized reciprocity still applied, especially to visitors from other factions, but
the competition was more intense. For example, the Terason faction could acquire more pigs or
fruit trees than the Aman Boroiogok faction, and because they lived in different houses and did
not eat together every day, there was less sharing and cooperation. Between uma factions,
paroman was a tacit consideration. Between clans, it was explicit. Nevertheless, Sakaliou still
considered itself to be a single clan because even though there was competition between the
uma factions, paroman was still only a tacit consideration. To have made it explicit would have
meant that the clan had fissioned. This suggests that separate uma and bakkat katsaila, while
obviously important, are less important than exchange in clan solidarity. Moreover, even though
different factions had different lia, the other factions were always invited, even if they did not
always attend. The house provides a point of orientation for the uma faction or the clan, but it is
also what goes on the house that creates a shared perspective. An everyday activity like the
communal meal is vital to clan identity, and it is no coincidence that the puliaijat, the ceremony
that brings the clan together in opposition to the spirits, is punctuated by a series of communal
meals. It is also no coincidence that the saukkui are always offered a portion of the everyday
meals. The saukkui will be invited into the house during the puliaijat. In the meantime, they are
the point of contact for humans in the spirit world, the only other-than-human perspective they
might perceive.
The reason the other-than-human perspectives need to be perceived is that humans
must go into the forest, crowded with spirits, in order to live. When a canoe is built, for example,
a tree must be cut down. The tree has a spirit, and it may also belong to an ancestor spirit. It is
not that the tree is a subject as opposed to an object, as Schefold (1973) argues, but that the
subject (the spirit of the tree) has an object (the tree itself), which it sees as its own, similar to the
36
way that a human has a soul and a body, as well as other objects, which he or she sees as his or
her own. The objects possessed by a person, human or nonhuman, can be exchanged. The
problem is that the perspectives of human and nonhuman persons are different, so the exchange
is never certain. On the other side of the object, there is a subject, who sees the object
differently. In reciprocity between humans, objects move between persons with similar
perspectives. In reciprocity between humans and spirits, objects move between persons with
different perspectives. The common "language" between humans and spirits is gaud, the magical
mediators, most often plants, that are offered to spirits in exchange for their cooperation. In the
case of the canoe, gaud would be offered to the spirit of the tree before it is cut down, while the
canoe is being made, and after it is finished. The gaud tells the spirit of the tree that its point of
orientation is changing and will be different in the future. It insures that the spirit of the tree will
not be disoriented and emanate bajou or destroy the canoe. Schefold argues that an object like a
canoe has "psychic properties" and obeys "inner irrational laws." A canoe, however, is not
irrational. The spirit of the tree, a nonhuman person, is perfectly rational, but its perspective is
different. Gaud works across the different perspectives of human and spirit.
17
Perspectivism
Arat sabulungan is similar to what Viveiros de Castro (2002) calls perspectivism among
Amerindians. Perspectivism is "the conception...according to which the world is inhabited by
different sorts of subjects or persons, human and non-human, which apprehend reality from
distinct points of view" (2002: 307). Viveiros de Castro continues:
Typically, in normal conditions, humans see humans as humans, animals as
animals and spirits (if they see them) as spirits; however animals (predators) and
spirits see humans as animals (prey) to the same extent that animals (as prey)
see humans as spirits or as animals (predators). By the same token, animals
and spirits see themselves as humans: they perceive themselves as (or become)
17
So important is gaud that the indigenous religion, arat sabulungan, is often glossed as the religion of
leaves. The word bulu means leaf or leaves. However, I agree with Reeves (2001) that the word
sabulungan is derived from pasibulu, a verb meaning to make an offering or sacrifice specifically to the
ancestor spirits, the saukkui. Arat sabulungan means something more like ancestor worship or the religion
of the ancestors.
37
anthropomorphic beings when they are in their own houses or villages and they
experience their own habits and characteristics in the form of culture....In sum,
animals are people, or see themselves as persons (2002: 308).
In Siberut, perspectivism is different because animals are not predators or prey, but objects of
exchange. While humans see humans as humans, domesticated animals as domesticated
animals, wild animals as wild animals, and spirits as spirits, spirits see humans as spirits,
domesticated animals as wild, wild animals as domesticated, and spirits as humans. Thus,
animals are not spirits who see themselves as humans, although they do have spirits, but objects
of exchange between humans and spirits. This conception is most clearly demonstrated in the
puliaijat, in which the ancestor spirits are called into the house and presented with a sacrifice of
domesticated pigs and other things. The ceremony concludes when humans travel into the
forest, the domain of the ancestor spirits, and retrieve the return gift in the form of wild animals,
usually deer or monkeys. The ancestor spirits receive the pigs; they return them in the form of
deer or monkeys, which they see as their pigs. This difference in perspective also exists outside
of the puliaijat. Humans and spirits engage in social relations across this difference.
The domesticated pig is what makes perspectivism in Siberut - and perhaps in Indonesia
or Austronesia - different from perspectivism among Amerindians. Viveiros de Castro suggests
that Amerindian perspectivism derives from the predator-prey relation between humans and
animals. In Siberut, however, there are no predators (except for snakes). The animals that
people eat will not eat them. Moreover, the domesticated pig is very close to the human pole of
the human-animal continuum. It lives beneath the longhouse and eats the same food as humans,
and in the mythology of Sakaliou, it is not among the animals that were once human and became
animals. Rather than a human that takes on animal characteristics, the domesticated pig is an
animal that takes on human characteristics. Viveiros de Castro argues that when "social
exchange is not mediated by material objectifications such as those characteristic of gift and
commodity economies," the human body is "the prototypical social object" (2002: 317). The
implication is that when social exchange is mediated by material objectifications, the material
objectifications are the prototypical social object. The domesticated pig is the prototypical social
38
object in Siberut. It is the object through which social relations are defined, both within the clan
and between a clan and its ancestor spirits (as well as between clans). It is the point at which the
perspectives of human and ancestor spirits converge. They both have domesticated pigs, but
because their bodies are different, their pigs are different. Where humans see monkeys, the
saukkui see pigs. When humans hunt, they are asking for a share of the ancestors' pigs. This is
no different than a human asking another human for a share - except that the generalized
reciprocity with ancestor spirits acknowledges a difference of perspective rather than a similarity.
In this way, the mimetic rivalry that arises from the constant exchange of objects within the clan is
mitigated in the less-constant, but ongoing exchange of objects between humans and spirits.
The origin of the perspectival world in which Sakaliou is enmeshed is described in their
rich mythology. There are myths about everything. Some describe a primordial time before the
differentiation between humans and animals. The myths are not told in a ceremonial context
(although the myths of settlement may be recited to resolve certain claims, especially to
inheritance and land). They are simply one among the many different kinds of stories that people
tell, usually in the evenings after they have returned to the longhouse from a long day in the
forest. Normally, the myths are not told in any particular sequence. However, I have elected to
present a series of myths that are clearly related to each other. The first describes the origin of
the saukkui. The second describes the origin of pigs - along with the rest of the Mentawai cultural
order - which more than any other animal or object, traverse the perspectives of human and
saukkui. The third describes the discovery of the saukkui's perspective and the way that pigs and
other objects traverse the perspectives. My argument is that what distinguishes Amerindian
perspectivism from Austronesian perspectivism is precisely the importance of pigs - of animals as
objects of exchange - not only between humans, but also between humans and spirits.
The first myth describes the origin of the saukkui. It was recorded by Schefold in Sipora
in the 1960s. Sakaliou was familiar with it, but it was not among the myths that were often told.
Schefold says that it describes the origin of the tai ka leleu, a general term for all of the spirits that
live in the forest. As summarized by Schefold:
39
In earlier times humans did not have to die. They increased so much that they
began to worry lest the earth should soon become too full to be able to feed the
whole of humanity. The people conferred together and found the following
solution. They separated into two groups and each group conjured the other by
means of a black chicken. As a result, each group became invisible to each
other. So the problem was solved. Since they could no longer see each other,
they no longer competed with each other. They lived, as it were, in separate
dimensions. This is how the spirits of the forest came into existence. And this is
why to this day the people make their apologies and offer sacrifices whenever
they clear a piece of the forest, since no one knows whether the clearing may not
go straight through the spirits' houses (1973).
The concern is that people - and souls - grow infinitely in number. With so many people and so
little food, there is competition between them. The solution is to separate them. A chicken is
sacrificed. The two groups become invisible to each other. If they cannot see each other, they
cannot compete. The mimetic crisis is resolved - or so they thought. They still compete for land
and resources. So the original sacrifice, the chicken, only temporarily solved the problem.
Apologies and sacrifices now continue to solve the problem (temporarily). They are not an
exchange of this for that. They are an acknowledgment of a difference, a separation, a
commemoration of the original separation. They are saying, remember, we are different, we are
not the same, we are not in competition with each other. All sacrifices - all exchanges with spirits
- are like this. Exchange with spirits commemorates the original separation that ended the
mimetic crisis. Mimetic conflict exists only in the absence of the exchange of objects.
The second myth describes the origin of pigs - along with the rest of the Mentawai
cultural order. In contrast to the first myth, Sakaliou often told this story. The following is an
abbreviated version:
An orphan boy was buried alive with his mother who had died while giving birth.
He was rescued by an old man and woman. His name was Maligai, and he was
special. His father was Pagetta Sabbau. In a dream, Pagetta Sabbau instructed
Maligai to build an uma in three days, and he did. There were no pigs or
chickens at the time. Then Pagetta Sabbau instructed Maligai to build a pigpen.
It rained. Pigs fell from the sky, filling the pigpen. Others ran into the forest.
Pagetta Sabbau instructed Maligai to build roiget baskets, put sago and coconut
on the ground, and summon the birds. All kinds of birds came to eat the sago
and coconut. People filled the baskets and drove the rest back into the forest.
The birds in the baskets became chickens. Pagetta Sabbau instructed Maligai to
become the first shaman, and he did. Maligai learned everything that people
needed to know. But people were envious of Maligai, and they killed him. Then
40
they realized that Maligai was right, and they began to do what Maligai had done.
Only shamans know how to cure.
With this myth, the Girardian foundation of perspectivism is revealed. Maligai bears the
characteristics of a scapegoat, a victim whose sacrifice resolves a mimetic crisis and founds a
new cultural order. Before Maligai, there was too much hunger, illness, and death. After Maligai,
there is less hunger, illness, and death. Maligai was an orphan and was himself rescued from
death. His father, Pagetta Sabbau, appears in many myths and remains a kind of patron saint of
the kerei. He teaches Maligai everything people need to know, including the puliaijat and other
ceremonies. In short, there is a mimetic crisis that is resolved by the sacrifice of a scapegoat who
not only brought forth pigs, but also brought forth exchange.
While the first myth describes the origin of the saukkui and the second myth describes
the origin of pigs and exchange, the third describes the discovery of the saukkui's perspective
and the way that pigs and other objects traverse the perspectives of human and saukkui. It was
recorded by Schefold among the Sakkudei in the 1960s. Sakaliou often told this story as well,
although it was usually told in a more abbreviated form than the one that follows. I defer to the
Schefold's extended version:
There was once a man who was a keen tracker of game. One day he tracked
down a deer and shot at it with bow and arrow. Whoosh! He shot at it, and
followed it and followed it. He came to a wallow and lost the track. A short time
after, he went tracking again, and again shot a deer. Whoosh! He followed it,
came to a wallow, but the tracks had disappeared and he couldn't find them
anymore. Another day he went out again. He walked and walked through the
wood, walked and walked, walked and walked and then saw a deer. Whoosh!
He shot at it. He went and followed its tracks, followed and followed, came to a
wallow, but did not catch up with his prey, did not even see it, did not even find its
tracks any more.
This had now been happening so frequently that all his brass-tipped arrows were
used up. He began to weep. He wept and wept - then suddenly his eyes
opened and he saw a great house. And as for the wallow, it had become a
feeding-place for pigs, just like what we have at home. And he saw a spirit who
said: ‘Come up here, grandchild!’
So the man climbed up to the house. And there he saw his brass-tipped arrows
that he had previously shot at the deer and wild boars. He saw them sticking out
of the roof which was thatched with leaves. He saw them - ‘Hey, aren't these my
arrowheads? So this is where the game is that I shot. So the people here have
eaten it!’
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The spirit said: ‘What is wrong, my grandson, you are weeping!’
‘I am weeping, grandfather, because I am looking for the animals I have shot,
and I cannot find them.’
‘Are you? Then go and fetch sago for the pigs, my grandson!’
Then he went and fetched sago for the pigs. He chopped up the great logs, and
then carried them, carried and carried, and laid them down in front of the
veranda. Now the spirit said: ‘Quickly, throw it onto the feeding-place, the food
for the swine.’
Then he threw it. Crash, crash, crash, he threw it, to the last piece. And then he
called them together, ‘Kiooo!’ Then wonderful deer came with antlers branching
out wide! The man however said to himself in his thoughts: ‘So, this must be
where they come from, this is the feeding-place of the deer. Then somebody
must own them!’
Now the spirit asked: ‘Tell me, when are you going back, my grandson?’
‘Yes - I was just on the point of going’.
‘When you go, my grandson, I shall give you something to take with you. Meat
for all of you, and for your wife.’
‘So be it, grandfather.’
Now the spirit tested the man. He said: ‘Fetch your arrows, my grandson, shoot
that little deer and take it with you.’
Then the man thought: ‘What, if I only shoot a little one, it will not be enough for
all of us. I will shoot a big one.’ And he fetched his brass-tipped arrows and shot
a magnificent deer. Whoosh! He shot it, and it died. Then he went back up to
the house: ‘Grandfather, it is dead.’ The spirit answered: ‘You are truly clever. It
is right that it should be so.’
‘What shall we do, grandfather? Shall we share the meat?’
‘So be it.’
They now singed the deer. Singed and singed, and then cut up, cut up the meat.
The head they laid in a wooden trough. And now the spirit put his foot against
the deer's ear. His left ear. ‘Come now, divide the meat into two halves, my
grandson.’
And he divided up the meat. Divided, divided, into exactly equal pieces. But the
spirit said: ‘What is this, my grandson? That is not very much meat for us, for
your grandparents. You have given us only a little, we have come off worse’.
‘No grandfather, the shares are exactly equal’, answered the man. In his
thoughts, however, he said to himself: ‘What ever shall I do?’ He divided it up
again, so that he came off worse. He did not give himself much, but he did give
42
a large quantity to the spirits. He divided and divided, and all the while the spirit
tapped his foot against the deer's left ear.
‘So, grandfather, that is the meat for you.’
‘Grandson, what you are doing is wrong. That is not enough for us. You are
simply giving us too little. Really, you're doing nothing but making sure we come
off worse!’
‘No, grandfather, you have more, there is only a little for me.’
‘No.’ And, so saying, the spirit tapped his left foot against the deer's left ear.
Now the man noticed the spirit's foot on the deer's ear, and said to himself: ‘What
ever is he trying to convey? Maybe he's trying to indicate that he would like to
have the meat of the ear for himself?’ He tried this out, and cut off the ear. Cut,
cut off the deer's ear.
‘Yes indeed, my grandson, that is the meat we want! If you ever again shoot a
deer, or a wild-boar, or a Simakobu monkey, or indeed any kind of game, then
give us, your grandparents, its ear as our meat. Its ear - you will be giving but a
little, but for us it is a great deal. Even if you cut the body into equal halves, even
if you give us yet more, it is not much, it can never be much. The ear, on the
other hand, is more than enough!’
He said this to the man, who went to fetch palm-leaflets to pack everything in, the
whole body and the bones, he packed and packed, and then he made to leave.
‘I shall go now, grandfather.’
‘So be it, go now, grandson.’
And so he walked off, walked and walked, and arrived home. And since the deer
he had shot was there, he called his brothers, called his sisters, his brothers-in-
law and his nephews. They all ate up the venison, ate it, ate it up until there was
none left.
Then he went to fetch wood. While he was fetching the wood, the spirit saw him
again. He went up to him and said: ‘How is it, my grandson, is your meat all
eaten up?’
‘Yes, grandfather, it is all eaten up.’
‘Why, grandson, we still have a great amount. We, your grandparents, still have
something left.’
‘Really?’
‘If you think I'm lying, come and see.’
So they went to the home of the spirits. And there was meat everywhere, he saw
it in the bamboo-carriers, he saw it in pots, he saw it in pans and - in what
enormous quantities! All from the deer's left ear. The spirit said: ‘Look, that meat
43
of ours, how much there still is. You took away the whole body, and we took only
one of its ears, but what an enormous amount has come from that!’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘Well, take these for your people, grandson, these two bamboo cooking-vessels
full of meat.’
So the man took a couple of bamboo cooking-vessels full of meat away with him
when he left. Took them away, away, away, came home, and there they ate it up
again, ate it, ate it up.
This is the story and the significance of our sacrificing the deer's ear and the ears
of any game we capture. This and no other (1980).
The myth explains that what seems very small to humans - the left ear of an animal - seems very
large to the saukkui. Schefold argues that the spirit world in general is a kind of inversion of the
human world: small is big, darkness is light, body is spirit, and so on. This is true to a certain
extent, and it explains why the left ear and the ancestor spirits' otsai at each communal meal is a
fair share, but it also reveals that perspectivism in Siberut is characterized by the exchange of
objects between the human and spirit worlds. In other words, the inversion is revealed in the
exchange of objects. The perspectives of humans and saukkui are different, but they meet in the
objects that are shared. The objects indicate a critical difference. The object that traverses the
perspectives of human and saukkui is the domesticated pig, brought forth by Maligai at the origin
of the cultural order. If Maligai was sacrificed then, pigs are sacrificed now. In this sense, pigs
are a substitute for Maligai (and the black chicken in the first myth), and the generalized
reciprocity between humans and the saukkui commemorates the resolution of the original mimetic
crisis.
In this chapter, I have argued that generalized reciprocity within the clan both generates
and mitigates mimetic conflict. The same points of orientation (body, house, objects) create a
similarity that leads to mimetic conflict. Uncontrolled mimesis leads to clan fissioning. Mimesis is
controlled to a certain extent, however, by generalized reciprocity. The constant movement of
objects from hand to hand dispels the conflict before it becomes a crisis. The excess is further
dispelled by the extension of generalized reciprocity to spirits. According to myth, spirits came
44
into being as the result of an original mimetic crisis. Violence was transformed into exchange.
Negative circularity became positive. Generalized reciprocity with spirits thus indicates not only a
difference, but a difference of perspective. Unlike generalized reciprocity within the clan, in which
exchange creates similarity, but alleviates conflict with the constant movement of objects,
generalized reciprocity with spirits reiterates the difference that was created following the original
mimetic crisis. As Girard says, ritual and taboo commemorate the original sacrifice and prevent
mimetic behaviors. The daily offering of food and the left ear indicate a difference of perspective.
Bajou and gaud deal with this difference. But just as generalized reciprocity within the clan
inevitably leads to a mimetic crisis, generalized reciprocity between human and spirits always
verges on creating a similarity, the result of which would be mimetic conflict. The violation of a
taboo leads to misfortune and illness. Death results from the collapse of difference between
human and spirit: a human takes up residence with the ancestors. In both cases (i.e. within the
clan and between human and spirits), the positive circularity of generalized reciprocity always
threatens to slip back into the negative circularity of rivalry, revenge, and violence. The next
chapter focuses on the middle ground between generalized and negative reciprocity, between
positive and negative circularity, that is, on balanced reciprocity. Between clans, balanced
reciprocity turns violence into exchange. Between humans and spirits, balanced reciprocity
commemorates the original sacrifice and reiterates the difference between humans and spirits.
The puliaijat is not only a commemoration, however. It also creates the different perspectives on
which generalized reciprocity with spirits depends. In myth, people remember. In ritual, they
reenact.
45
Chapter 3: Balanced Reciprocity and the Puliaijat
This chapter focuses on balanced reciprocity between clans and between humans and
spirits in the puliaijat. By definition, balanced reciprocity, the exchange of gifts or prestations,
occurs between more socially distant entities. In Siberut, social distance corresponds with spatial
distance: moving away from the longhouse, one first encounters the saukkui and other spirits and
then, beyond the limits of one's ancestral land, other clans. The most distant clans are enemies,
with whom, in the past, only heads were exchanged. Closer clans may be ignored, but they are
usually engaged in one of four social relations, each of which is negotiated through a different
kind of balanced reciprocity. The main reason why a clan reaches out to another clan is for the
purposes of marriage. The rule of clan exogamy requires a man to find a wife from another clan.
Marriage creates an enduring relation between the clans, but after the exchange of bridewealth,
there is no further obligation to give and receive. Portions are sometimes sent to affines, and
affines can be called upon to work, but there are no additional prestation events. In other words,
the balanced reciprocity that is initiated by marriage essentially ends with the exchange of
bridewealth. The second type of social relation is siripok, or friendship, which exists between
individuals in different clans, but not necessarily between their clans as a whole. Siripok are
defined by the ongoing and balanced exchange of gifts. The relation does not exist in the
absence of ongoing balanced reciprocity, and for this reason - and because it is an individual
rather than a clan relation - it is not usually enduring. The third type of social relation is paabad,
an enduring, interclan relation enacted by the exchange of gifts over many generations. The
exchange between clans was initiated as the settlement of a conflict in the past. Paabad, in other
words, is balanced reciprocity which insures that two clans are not rivals. It is one resolution to
the fourth and final type of social relation, pako, which is open, but non-violent hostility between
clans. Pako is mimetic rivalry. Clans in a relation of pako compete with each other for prestige.
Pako may be ended when one clans quits or they both enter a relation of paabad, or it may
escalate into violent conflict, in which case, paabad and tulo is the only possible resolution.
46
Beyond pako lies negative reciprocity and headhunting. Pako is a social relation in the absence
of the exchange of objects, and therefore, it leads to uncontrolled mimesis unless it is resolved
through exchange and paabad.
The four types of social relation tend to be with different clans. A clan cannot be in a
relation of pako, for example, with a clan with whom it is in a relation of marriage, siripok, or
paabad. A man would not look for a wife from a clan with whom his clan is in a relation of pako or
even paabad, but he may look for a wife from a clan with whom he or a member of his clan is in a
relation of siripok. Normally he would not. The social relations are fundamentally different.
Because marriage does not require an ongoing exchange of gifts, it is in conflict with siripok and
paabad, which only exist because of the ongoing exchange of gifts. Pako is hostility. In three of
the four relations, mimetic conflict is mitigated by exchange, but in different ways. In marriage,
the exchange of bridewealth ends the relation except for the occasional generalized reciprocity
between affines. In siripok, the exchange must remain balanced and ongoing. If it is unbalanced
and verges on competitive, or if there is no exchange, the relation simply ends. In some cases,
when it becomes competitive, the clans to which the individuals belong enter a relation of pako.
In paabad, the exchange also must remain balanced and ongoing. It commemorates the end of a
mimetic rivalry, and if it verges on competition again, either the relation ends or it escalates into
pako. Exchange can revert into hostility and violence. In all three cases, the exchange of objects
mitigates the mimetic rivalry that exists in pako, but only because the positive circularity is
carefully maintained. When positive becomes negative, the exchange stops. There is no (longer)
potlatch in Siberut. Mimetic rivalry is mitigated rather than exacerbated by exchange.
The puliaijat is similar to the balanced reciprocity that occurs between clans in the sense
that there is a gift and countergift. A clan presents a gift to its saukkui and expects a gift in return,
an animal in the hunt, the saukkui's domesticated animals. The puliaijat, however, is also a
commemoration of the original sacrifice that separated humans and spirits. It acknowledges a
difference that is not acknowledged in the balanced reciprocity between clans. When gifts are
exchanged between clans, they create a similarity that always verges on mimetic rivalry, and
47
positive circularity threatens to become negative. They are carefully managed, must not
escalate, and more often than not, simply stop or become pako. Paradoxically, when gifts are
exchanged between humans and spirits, between a clan and its saukkui in the puliaijat, they
temporarily create a similarity which is then immediately transformed into difference. Pigs are
given, and pigs in the form of monkeys or deer are returned. The exchange indicates a difference
of perspective, and this difference, as Girard suggests, insures that there will be no mimetic
rivalry between human and spirits. It is the difference reiterated in the puliaijat across which the
generalized reciprocity with spirits described in Chapter 2 occurs. The more that humans can
offer the spirits, the more that they can receive, and the greater the difference. Mimetic conflict
within the clan is dispelled without the danger of generating mimetic conflict, which is the case in
the balanced reciprocity that occurs between clans. In fact, the more elaborate a puliaijat, the
more prestige that a clan acquires in relation to other clans. Those clans in a relation of pako
may actually compete with each other to see who can stage the most elaborate puliaijat. The
mimetic conflict that does not occur between a clan and its saukkui does occur between a clan
and its rivals.
To be clear, in everyday life, people encounter members of other clans, and there are
practical exchanges. People need chickens or sago, for example, and so they trade for them.
These exchanges are utilitarian and more or less amicable. They tend to occur within already
existing social relations. When they do not, they may or may not create social relations that are
enduring. They also tend to be between individuals. The four formal relations between clans are
different. With the exception of siripok, they involve entire clans, and so much more is at stake.
In everyday exchanges, as well balanced reciprocity, the term paroman is used to
describe an appropriate exchange, one that is fair or equitable. An exchange described as not
paroman indicates that one of the parties was slighted by it. Market exchanges, where the
parties do not know each other, are not described as paroman, since the term indicates a relation
of respect. Reeves says that the term "can be translated as 'help'....Paroman can be considered
a quintessential part of both inter-suku and interpersonal social relationships. Where there is not,
48
or where there has not been in the past, paroman on some scale between persons, or between
suku, then no relationship of any consequence exists....The quality of paroman...can precipitate
great social tension. Poor quality paroman is indeed the major cause of the almost evanescent
nature of inter-personal ties of this sort" (2001). The normal contribution to the clan is not judged
in terms of paroman. However, if a clan member with too few pigs, for example, acquires pigs
through exchange with another member of the clan, then the exchange may be judged in terms of
paroman. In fact, it would not occur unless it was paroman. Exchanges between members of
different clans are almost always judged in terms of paroman. This is true for both the utilitarian
exchanges described above and the balanced reciprocity described below. The goal of an
exchange is paroman.
Between Clans
The only thing that requires a clan to engage in social relations with another clan is
marriage. Siripok and even paabad do not have to occur, but the rule of clan exogamy forces a
man to find a wife from a clan that is not his own. People generally say that the rule applies for
four or five generations. In other words, if there is any genealogical relationship back through
four or five generations, the marriage cannot happen. In practice, when there is a genealogical
relationship, the marriage may still be permitted. The men in a clan may or may not take wives
from the same clan. Reeves writes, "There is, generally, no interest in creating or consolidating
alliances with other suku through marriage. Where there is any interest in alliance it is achieved,
rather, through the institutionalized relationship known as paabad" (2001), a point with which I
would agree to a certain extent. Reeves does not explain why there is no interest in using
marriage to create or consolidate alliances. In fact, Reeves argues, "In light of the efforts of each
suku to mark itself off from every other...we might expect marriage to tend towards
endogamy...thereby protecting and enhancing the exclusiveness of each suku" (2001). My own
opinion is that there can be no alliance with a wife's clan because of the mimetic rivalry that it
would create.
49
A marriage is typically initiated by a man and woman who, in one way or another, meet
each other and begin a relationship long before they inform their parents. Premarital sex is
forbidden, and if a woman becomes pregnant before marriage, the man and his clan would be
subject to tulo, bridewealth, and/or brideservice. Parents are usually aware of their children's
relationships and usually ignore them because they are malu, shy, but if they become serious or
the subject of rumor and gossip, they may then intervene to determine the intention of the couple.
If their intention is to marry, and both sets of parents approve, they enter into negotiations to
determine the bridewealth and complete the marriage. Alternatively, a couple may approach their
parents and inform them of their intention to marry. After a preliminary agreement about the
bridewealth, but before it is presented, the woman moves into her husband's house and is
formally inducted into her husband's uma. His saukkui are informed that she is now one of their
children. Several week or months later, the bridewealth is presented, and the woman is formally
relinquished by her uma. Her saukkui are informed that she is no longer one of their children.
Her clan presents a return gift of large pigs. The woman is now a member of her husband's uma,
with all of the rights and responsibilities that it entails, and she is expected to have children in
order to perpetuate her husband's - and now her - clan.
A planned marriage may not come to fruition for many reasons. If either parent or clan or
both disagree with the proposed union, which requires them to contribute to the bridewealth and
the return gift, the marriage could be discouraged. If the couple is committed, they may elope
and establish their own sapo independent of their clans and sort out the details after a period of
time has passed. If the woman's clan disagrees, the woman may simply move into her husband's
house. If the man's clan disagrees, the marriage usually does not happen, but occasionally the
man may move into his wife's house. After time has passed, and either or both clans see that the
couple is committed, their clans may then enter into negotiations about bridewealth, although the
success of the negotiations clearly depends on the good faith of both parties. Reeves says, "No
enduring long term alliance is set up requiring constant (re)affirmation through future exchanges.
At the most it enables members of one suku to say of another that 'they are our saraina
50
(relatives)', but only in the context of that marriage link since in all other respects they are still
Other, a different suku with different ancestors and a different pulaggajat" (2001). Marriage
creates an unimportant, but enduring relation through a single exchange. The relation is
unimportant because a clan gains nothing in particular (other than a wife and bridewealth) by
having strong ties to another clan. In fact, I would argue that the relation must be unimportant
and no further exchange can take place because of mimetic rivalry.
An exception to the rule demonstrates just how clear the rule is. As a teenager, Rustam
began a relationship with a woman from a clan with whom Sakaliou - and specifically Rustam's
father Aman Boroiogok - had been on uneasy terms. Aman Boroiogok and the girl's father had
traded accusations of arrogance. The woman became pregnant before marriage, and although
Rustam attempted to receive the consent of his father and clan, and to acquire the bridewealth,
they refused both to approve of the marriage and to pay the tulo. The woman remained in her
father's house and had the child. Rustam remained in his father's house, and the relationship
came to an end. Neither bridewealth nor tulo was exchanged, made possible by the fact that the
clans were very far away from each other. Rustam later began a relationship with another
woman from a nearby clan. The marriage was approved by both clans, the bridewealth was
exchanged, and she had two children. But Rustam could not forget about the first woman and his
first child. He began to neglect his wife, who eventually fled with the two children to her father's
house. Having paid the bridewealth, Aman Boroiogok retrieved her and the children. She
returned to her father's house again, this time leaving the children. Aman Boroiogok then tried to
retrieve the bridewealth. According to custom, if a man ends a marriage by sending his wife
home, he forfeits the bridewealth. If a woman ends a marriage by returning home, the
bridewealth must be returned. In either case, the children would remain with the man. Rustam's
wife's father, however, had already used the bridewealth in other exchanges and, in any case,
could not replace it, so he ordered his daughter to return with Aman Boroiogok. Meanwhile,
Rustam had rekindled his relationship with the first woman, whom he now visited regularly, both
in her home and in Madobag, neglecting his wife. As a tour guide, he had acquired a significant
51
amount of money, and he decided that he would rather have the first woman as his wife rather
than the current one. He used the money to pay the bridewealth, hoping that this would finally
force his current wife to return home and that having paid the bridewealth himself, Aman
Boroiogok would be willing to forfeit the bridewealth he had paid to his current wife's clan. Aman
Boroiogok did not approve and refused to let Rustam's current wife return home. Rustam brought
his new wife home anyway. Thus began one of the few cases of polygyny in Siberut. Aman
Boroiogok had a problem with Rustam's second wife's father and clan. He could not tolerate her
in his home. He was not particularly close to Rustam's first wife's father and clan, but he was not
distant either. He had no problem with them prior to this affair. Since there is no serious alliance
created by marriage, it should have made little difference to Aman Boroiogok as long as his son
had a reliable wife. But it did because even though Rustam himself had paid the bridewealth,
Aman Boroiogok's relation with Rustam's second wife's clan had not been resolved through an
exchange. Aman Boroiogok had hoped that by refusing to pay the bridewealth, the marriage
would not happen. He gambled and lost. And until Rustam's second wife returned home, her
clan could still make a claim. The normal course of marriage - bridewealth and the end of a
relation - did not occur.
18
My own data from Sakaliou and Reeve's data from Madobag suggest that people tend to
marry close by. Reeves data says that in Madobag, 54% of men took wives from another clan in
Madobag, and 70% of women married into another clan in Madobag. Of those men taking wives
from outside of Madobag, 80% (of 46%) took wives from Ugai or Rogdog, the nearest
government-built villages. This may be due to the practicalities of finding a spouse, but it is also
important to note that while on the one hand, the clans of husband and wife must be on good
enough terms with each other to negotiate and exchange the bridewealth, on the other hand,
there is no further obligation between them. Marriage does not create an active social relation
despite the fact that the clans are usually close to each other. Reeves also argues that the data
"reflect the 'centripetal' force the suku exerts on men who form its core members. If men or
18
This case also demonstrates how tourism has affected the local economy.
52
youths leave the dusun to go elsewhere seeking work or education almost all return to the dusun
and their suku of origin to settle down and marry....The situation is very much the reverse of the
Minangkabau, Melayu, and Acehnese (Siegal 1969) centrifugal practice of male merantau, or
migration away from his household, particularly the Minangkabau where the typical life trajectory
of a male is forever outwards and away from his mother's house" (2001). The concern is that if a
man is not in his home, his wife could return to her father's home, throwing the relation between
clans into question again. Reeves suggests that "the suku's centripetal power of exclusivity" also
explains why marriage is not aimed at alliance. In his data, there were only two instances of
alliance building through marriage. In one case, two brothers each took a wife from the same
clan "in what is regarded by most people in Madobag as a very unacceptable set of marriages"
(2001). Reeves says that they were unacceptable because in both instances the parties could be
traced to a common ancestor. I would argue that an ongoing relation with an affinal clan is
problematic because of mimetic rivalry.
19
In contrast to relations between clans established through marriage, siripok is established
and maintained by individuals rather than clans and only endures as long as the exchanges
between friends occur. A man initiates a siripok relation with another man mainly because they
have some personal affinity for each other. They have the same patuat, or thoughts/feelings.
Their clans may or may not be connected in some way - nearly all clans can be connected, either
through a distant ancestor, marriage, a mutual siripok, or even paabad - but if there is a
connection, it is far less important than the personal relationship between the men. Siripok,
however, is more than just friendship (which exists as well). It is a kind of friendship formalized
through the exchange of relatively small gifts. The gifts must be more than, say, tobacco, which
is almost always shared, but less than the numerous pigs or other valuables exchanged as
bridewealth. The exchange may be immediate or delayed, but it must be ongoing. For example,
19
The one marriage that I observed over the course of two years of fieldwork was Rustam's unusual and
self-financed marriage to his second wife. One difference from normal marriages is that the ceremony itself
was held in the home of his second wife's father, and consequently, there was no formal ceremony to induct
a new wife into Sakaliou. Indeed, there was a great deal of reluctance and uncertainty about whether she
was a member of the clan.
53
a chicken may be given to a siripok in exchange for a few bells, but neither party must need the
chicken or bells. A siripok exchange is not utilitarian, although it may lead to a utilitarian
exchange between one of the men and perhaps one of his siripok's relatives. The exchange
must be paroman, but because both parties acknowledge that it is not utilitarian, the gifts need
not be equivalent, as respect is factored into the value of the gifts. A chicken for a few bells
would be paroman even outside of siripok. Two siripok could exchange a chicken for something
of less value as long as it is felt by the giver of the chicken that the respect of his siripok was
enough to compensate for the difference. The giver of the chicken could not demand more in
return - or rather, he could, but it would shift the relation from one of siripok to one of utilitarian
exchange. If one of the men gave the other a dozen chickens, the relation would almost certainly
and probably immediately come to an end. This would indicate that the two men are in a state of
rivalry, called pako when it occurs between clans. In the case of siripok, then, reciprocity is really
all about social relations, but the relation itself offers no benefit other than the pleasure of
friendship, the possibility of future exchanges and relations, and perhaps most concretely,
another member of the labor pool.
Aman Boroiogok had a few active siripok in different locations, which tended to be more
distant from Sakaliou. One was in central Siberut, one was on the coast in Maileppet, and the
rest were on the borders of the Rereiket. The same is true for the other members of Sakaliou.
Siripok are usually distant, and this distance makes the benefit of adding another person to the
labor pool unlikely to be its primary cause. The exchange indicates that the friends could be in a
state of rivalry, but are not. If the exchange is utilitarian or rivalrous, then it is not siripok. They
are essentially a relation in reserve, which may be called on when the need arises and is
appropriate. One clue is that Aman Boroiogok began with his siripok in central Siberut when he
initiated a claim to the land of the heirless clan in the Satoto rakrak. A man gains some prestige
by having siripok, but there is a limit. Having many siripok does not mean much.
Another clue is that Reeves refers to this relation as sinuruk, a relation in which one man
calls on another man for assistance with a project, such as building a house or canoe or holding a
54
ceremony like the puliaijat. The man who provides the assistance is compensated with a meal or
other small gift. Reeves writes, "the sinuruk is not passed on...to subsequent generations but is
established in one generation as a friendship in which each of the partners define the other as
siripok ('friend') or perhaps saraina ('relative')" (2001). He cites the example, however, of a man
who invited the rimata's sister's son from another clan to help with the puliaijat to inaugurate a
new shaman. The man referred to the sinuruk as punu bua or punu teteu, a child relative. In
other words, they did not refer to each other as siripok. Reeves continues, "If either engages in
some business that requires the 'help' (paroman) of others then they call them. This 'help' is
reciprocated through a share of meat should there be any, or in lieu of this a chicken or two, or
perhaps some taro or newly sprouting coconut trees. It is not the case that 'help' given now will
be reciprocated by help sometime in the future. It is a relationship based on an exchange in the
present, which holds the possibility for future paroman" (2001). Elsewhere, Reeves suggests that
the parties in a relation of paabad (which I discuss below) refer to each other as "saraina
('relatives'), or siripok ('friends': literally 'the one who is/sits opposite, next to, adjacent to'
[oneself]). However when pressed on the matter informants felt that, all things considered, their
paabad relations are with people who are siripok rather than saraina, the latter term defining
people so designated as identical to those who are unequivocally saraina, the members of one's
suku" (2001). Among Sakaliou, the term siripok was sometimes used for labor, but it was usually
reserved for the formal siripok relation, formalized by ongoing and balanced reciprocity. Siripok
are in the labor pool, but not everyone in the labor pool is siripok. The labor pool consisted of
people who were close and usually connected to a man or his clan in some other way, such as
marriage, as well.
20
The third type of social relation is paabad. In contrast to siripok, both Reeves and I agree
that paabad is a relation between clans that is passed on from one generation to the next. The
only similarity with siripok is that the relation tends to be between distant - but not too distant -
20
A third clue is that siripok are especially important for shamans. Just as outsiders are sometimes needed
for projects or ceremonies, shamans from other clans are necessary for certain puliaijat. A shaman's siripok
are usually other shamans. A siripok is an other who is not a danger. He is not a rival.
55
clans. This is because paabad reestablishes or continues the peace between two clans who
were in conflict in the past, a conflict that involved bloodshed or death. Reeves suggests that
these conflicts were associated with headhunting: "The Dutch did much to eradicate this sort of
violence between groups, however there were isolated head-taking incidents until recently. Some
paabad relations were instituted even as late as the early days of the indigenous Indonesian
administration" (2001), which is to say, in the 1950s and 60s. The paabad relation between clans
is enduring in the sense that it continues from one generation to the next. Reeves says that it
exists between uma factions in different suku, but the people of Sakaliou say that it exists
between clans, not just uma factions, although it is enacted by, as Reeves says, the rimata of
uma factions. (It is in this context that Reeves says the two clans refer to each other as saraina
or siripok.) The clans tend to be distant, and there is no intermarriage. The relation is enacted by
the exchange of gifts - small bells, necklaces, and headbands, as well as chickens and pigs. The
exchange may be immediate or delayed. The point is to take turns visiting and exchange. The
return gift may be discussed. The exchange should be paroman.
Like siripok, paabad may be a kind of diversification, but it also clearly originates with the
resolution of a violent conflict. People may have only a vague idea about the original conflict, but
almost always it is related to headhunting or other bloodshed and death. Both Reeves and the
people of Sakaliou say that in the past, after a puliaijat, a clan went in search of a victim,
sometimes in a particular area, always far away, beyond neighbors. If they came across an
individual, they killed him and took his head back to the uma. They may not have known to which
clan he belonged. The point was to kill and take a head. Word eventually got around about who
the perpetrating clan was. A reprisal was always expected and sometimes successful. But in the
recent past, the government intervened, and it is government officials who instituted paabad.
Schefold (1999) suggests that either one of the clans or a third party might perform the same role.
56
An exchange was negotiated: valuables, especially pigs, as compensation for the death, to be
followed by a return gift, then another return gift, and so on, until the present.
21
What Aman Boroiogok referred to as siripok may have been paabad. It is possible that
particularly intense pako, which usually occurs between neighboring clans, may be resolved with
an exchange that then continues over many generations and is thus paabad, but it is more likely
that paabad is a result of the headhunting conflicts between more distant clans. Such large and
balanced exchanges tend to create a similarity between clans that could easily revert to violence.
The positive circularity could become negative again. The distance between the clans in a
paabad relation insures that the mimetic rivalry will not resurface. In the absence of headhunting,
paabad may have shifted to pako, or it may simply be on the wane. It is unlikely, in my opinion,
that such large exchanges between neighboring clans could persist without reigniting the rivalry.
Schefold seems to concur. He says that in the past, or at least among the Sakkudei, potlatch-
type exchanges were, in fact, part of pako. The competitive rivalry, in other words, was
conducted through exchange. Paabad is more likely the relation between clans that exists
because an exchange brought to an end the uncontrolled mimesis of headhunting. The
exchanges that continue to occur commemorate the end of a mimetic crisis, and their positive
circularity depends on the relatively great distances between the two clans. Between closer
clans, exchanges are - or were - a continuation of mimetic conflict. The role that the government,
either Dutch or Indonesian, played was traditionally played by either one of the clans or by a third
party, a role that persists in the institution of tulo.
Almost every ethnographer who has conducted research in Siberut describes tulo as a
fine. Reeves, however, argues that tulo should be seen in relation to paroman and translated as
compensation. If paroman is an appropriate exchange, tulo is the compensation that makes an
exchange that is not paroman into one that is. Reeves argues, "In short if there has not been
paroman between persons or groups where it comes to be seen that there in fact should have
21
For a discussion of headhunting, see Chapter 4. For a discussion of the end of headhunting during the
colonial period, see Chapter 5.
57
been, then the payment of compensation (tulo) to right the wrong, to even up the imbalance
created in the relationships is required. It is misleading to define this in terms of a 'fine' which
immediately drags in notions of western jurisprudence involving 'deterrence' or the positivist,
functionalist construction of analogous institutions to tulo in the literature as a 'control
mechanism'" (2001). Tulo, however, usually follows a transgression of some sort - most often
premarital sex, especially when it leads to pregnancy, and theft. It is rarely invoked when
someone thinks that they have gotten a bad deal in an exchange that was not paroman. It is
possible only because the accused has been caught red-handed, so to speak, or there is good
evidence and a consensus that he or she is guilty. A man who makes a woman pregnant before
marriage would be obligated to pay the bridewealth if the clans consent to the marriage as well as
tulo. If the clans do not consent to the marriage, the tulo would be enormous, perhaps as much
as the bridewealth. A man who steals a chicken or pig or anything else would be obligated to pay
more than the value of the thing he had stolen. According to Sakaliou, the tulo could be as much
as eight times the value of the thing stolen. A man who steals one chicken would have to return
eight. According to Schefold, among the Sakkudei, in cases of theft, the tulo is usually three or
four times the value of the thing stolen (1991: 61). In practice, the tulo is rarely as high as eight
times the value of the thing stolen, but in the negotiations to determine the tulo, it usually begins
that high. The two clans come together, sometimes with a third-party mediator. The accused is
already recognized as guilty. The plaintiff clan begins by asking for as much as eight times the
value of the thing stolen. The defendant clan (the defendant himself usually does not speak)
makes a counter offer that is usually equivalent to the value of the thing stolen. After hours of
discussions, which may be very heated, the two clans usually arrive a value that is above, but not
eight times, the value of the thing stolen, perhaps, as Schefold says, three or four times the value.
The tulo for a stolen chicken would be four chickens. Usually, however, it is paid in other things
that have the equivalent value - sago trees, fruit trees, cooking woks, etc. The exchange may or
may not be referred to as paroman. The result is that there should be no further conflict between
the clans - no additional claims, no additional exchanges, but also no more animosity. It works
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somewhat like bridewealth. Therefore, tulo is not just compensation to make an exchange
paroman. If it was, one chicken would be replaced by another or something of equivalent value.
It is probably best described as a fine.
I was personally involved in a case that ended in tulo, a case that reveals the complexity
of interclan relations as well as the increasing role of the government. Although I lived upriver
with Sakaliou, I also rented a small house in the national park complex in Maileppet on the coast,
where I stayed when I was in transit and began to store my research materials. After a month in
the forest, I went to the house and discovered that some ordinary and dispensable things had
been stolen - a small amount of cash, a t-shirt, a DVD, etc. The first two times, I did nothing. The
third time, when cassette tapes of interviews had been stolen, I decided that I needed to put a
stop to it for fear that other research materials would be lost. Sakaliou and I investigated (asking
if anyone had seen the DVD), and we quickly learned that a boy from Rogdog, a government-built
village upriver, who was attending school in Muara Siberut, had been seen with the DVD. We
later caught him red-handed. Unfortunately, because the house was in the national park
complex, the manager of the complex, who had felt responsible, called in the police, and the boy
was taken to jail. The manager told me that the legal system would handle the rest, which usually
meant that the boy's parents would pay "cigarette money" to the police, and the boy would be
released, which is indeed what happened - except that the boy's parents somehow convinced the
police that I had volunteered to the pay the cigarette money. This infuriated both me and
Sakaliou, and we decided to make a claim for tulo against the boy, his parents, and by extension,
his clan. Upriver, the two clans met in Rogdog. I spoke on my behalf. Another member of the
boy's clan spoke on his behalf. I began by asking for eight times the value of the things that had
been stolen, an exorbitant amount by upriver standards. The boy's clan initially refused to pay
anything at all, claiming that the matter had been settled by the government. I explained that if
the matter had been settled by the government, the boy would still be in jail. I insisted on the
highest value. The conversation became very heated, so heated that I was on the verge of
walking away, not realizing at the time that the lack of resolution would be unacceptable to
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Sakaliou, who would have to live with the fallout. To complicate things, Sakaliou was indirectly
related to the boy's clan through marriage. Sakaliou encouraged me to accept less, and in the
end, the tulo was trees, cooking pots, etc. - which Sakaliou received.
Tulo resolves a conflict through a single exchange. Paabad may begin as a kind of tulo,
but unlike tulo, there is a return gift of equivalent value, and the exchanges continue over many
generations. A case described by Reeves, in which one clan was involved in both pako and
headhunting, and the outcome was paabad, is probably an exception. Paabad ends the mimetic
crisis of headhunting and reprisal between socially and spatially distant clans. Pako, which
occurs between neighboring clans, may erupt into violence or even death, but it is then resolved
through tulo, and there is no further exchange between the two clans. As Schefold suggests, any
further exchange would only exacerbate the conflict; it would be a potlatch. Even if paabad after
pako is not an exception, as Reeves suggests, paabad is "aimed at preventing a further outbreak
of violence between the suku similar to the one that had led to the institution in the first place.
However, the relation is governed by the paroman/tulo institution and is, accordingly, carried on
within very strict parameters about what is or what is not appropriate exchange between suku.
This represents not so much a rapprochement as a stand-off where both parties eye each other
with mutual respect from a distance" (2001).
Among Sakaliou, pako is no longer conducted through exchange. It is conducted by
publicly boasting about the prestige and the prowess of one's clan in relation to another clan, with
the explicit intention of humiliating the rival. The medium may be gossip, but it is most public,
most overt, and considered to be most effective when the medium is the tudukat, the large slit
drums that have a language of their own. Because the tudukat has a spirit which knows the truth,
one cannot lie with them, and because only certain actions can be announced with the tudukat, it
is these actions - hunting and the puliaijat, among others, like a death - that really underlie pako.
Schefold defines pako as institutionalized rivalry (1999). With it, the public secret that
neighboring clans are in mimetic conflict is revealed. In contrast to paabad (and headhunting),
pako only exists between clans that are spatially (if not socially) close to each other, that are in
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earshot of the tudukat. It cannot exist between clans that are related by marriage. Generally, a
clan is in a state of pako with only one or a few clans at a time, but the relation may persist over
many generations, rising and falling in intensity. Occasionally, it may erupt into violence and tulo.
Usually, it falls so low in intensity that the clans turn their attention to other rivals. The point is for
a clan to increase its prestige in relation to another clan by publicly declaring its superiority in
hunting and the performance of the puliaijat, which are closely related. Success in hunting
depends on the benevolence of the saukkui, which is secured through the puliaijat. After a hunt
following a puliaijat, for example, the hunters return to the uma with numerous monkeys and
announce not only that that they have succeeded in the hunt and that the puliaijat was a success,
but also that they are therefore superior to a specific rival. Mimetic conflict exists because there
is no exchange of any kind between the clans in a relation of pako. This suggests, more than
anything else, that exchange mitigates mimetic conflict as long as its positive circularity is
carefully managed through paroman. In the absence of exchange, there is mimetic rivalry.
Pako occurs in the absence or failure of exchange. Although the two sides consider
themselves to be in opposition, to be fundamentally different, they are instead, as Girard
suggests, not only similar, but too similar - they are in mimetic conflict - and neither is willing to
give up the object of desire and transform the negative circularity into a positive one. The conflict
may become a crisis and erupt in violence, for which the only resolution is exchange in the form
of tulo or perhaps paabad, or the negative reciprocity of headhunting. It is precisely this threat of
uncontrolled mimesis for which the puliaijat provides a solution.
Between Humans and Spirits
The puliaijat commemorates the end of the mimetic conflict that led to the separation of
humans and spirits, the original sacrifice, the conversion of violence into exchange. It is balanced
reciprocity with spirits, but because it is with spirits, who have a different perspective, it resolves
rather than generates mimetic conflict. Whereas balanced reciprocity between clans threatens to
erupt in violence because the exchanges create a similarity, in the puliaijat, the exchanges
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between humans and spirits reiterate a difference, which mitigates conflict. Exchange in general
resolves mimetic rivalry, but only exchange with spirits is guaranteed to end it. In the puliaijat,
humans and spirits come together and act as one - they become similar - but then they separate
and become different and exchange across this difference. It is no coincidence that pako is
conducted through the puliaijat: the rivalry between clans is based on a similarity in the absence
of exchange; there is no rivalry between humans and spirits (except death, which is a crisis)
because there is a difference in the presence of exchange; in the case of paabad, there is no
longer a rivalry between clans because there is exchange, but it always threatens to become a
rivalry again because there is a similarity. The spirits are an other that cannot be imitated.
A puliaijat is held about once or twice a year. There is no fixed time for it. The ceremony
is usually precipitated by an out-of-the-ordinary event, ranging from an omen to the building of a
new house. Depending on its purpose, the ceremony may last from a few days to a few weeks,
during which time the entire clan is expected to participate and to observe certain taboos. No
work unrelated to the puliaijat is permitted. No sex is permitted. And eating is only permitted
during the communal meals that punctuate the ceremony. There are many other taboos as well.
The puliaijat thus requires much work and the accumulation of many resources - chickens, pigs,
coconut, taro, sago, firewood, gongs, drums, decorations, and an abundance of gaud - prior to
the beginning of the ceremony. People usually begin preparing for it several weeks in advance.
During this time, the head of the household hosting the ceremony, the rimata, calls on the other
clan members to contribute their share of the resources and labor. He may also call on affines,
friends, and others as well. After all of the preparations are ready, the ceremony begins. People
are mulia.
Schefold (1988) argues that the entire ceremony is divided into two stages: a sikataik
stage, in which the uma is purified of negative influences, followed by a simaeruk stage, in which
positive influences are attracted to the uma. Reeves (2001) adds that each event within the
ceremony - and indeed, each action within each event - also follows the sikataik-simaeruk
structure. First, negative influences are repelled. Then, positive influences are attracted. In the
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following description of the puliaijat, I adopt Reeves' structure, but as he himself points out, each
event within the ceremony is not necessarily identified as a distinct event by the participants.
They usually say that they are performing a puliaijat, that they are mulia, which means that
certain things are done in a certain order. I also adopt Reeves' translation of the ritual phrases,
with some modification for readability. Although Reeves has shown otherwise, each clan thinks
that the exact formulae of the ritual phrases it uses during the puliaijat is unique and cannot be
shared with other clans. Sakaliou asked me not to share its ritual phrases with others, so I defer
to those cited in Reeves, which are very similar to Sakaliou's and have already been made public.
The standard events in the puliaijat, in the order they are performed, are the sogi katsaila,
aggaret toitet, lia goukgouk, irik goukgouk, pusikebbukat, and kokoman sikebbukat. All take
place on the floor of the batnuma, the back room of the house, in front of the bakkat katsaila,
which hangs on the wall adjoining the tenganuma, the middle room. The front room is called the
laibok. In the sogi katsaila, the rimata presents gaud to the bakkat katsaila and distributes gaud
to the other participants. In the aggaret toitet, the rimata presents pieces of coconut to the bakkat
katsaila, the ancestor spirits, and the simagere of forest meat. In the lia goukgouk, a chicken is
presented to the bakkat katsaila and the participants, then killed. Then pigs are killed. Omens
are read in the entrails of the sacrificed chicken and the hearts of the sacrificed pigs. Parts of the
chicken and pigs are saved for the remaining events. In the irik goukgouk, the rimata presents
parts of the sacrificed chicken to the bakkat katsaila, the ancestor spirits, the simagere of forest
meat, and the simagere of uma members. This is followed by a communal meal. In the
pusikebbukat, the rimata's oldest grandson eats parts of the sacrificed chicken in front of the
bakkat katsaila. In the kokoman sikebbukat, the rimata and his wife eat parts of the sacrificed
pigs in front of the bakkat katsaila. While everyone else can eat only during the communal meals,
the rimata and his wife can eat only during the kokoman sikebbukat. Reeves argues that the
entire process occurs in one day. In Sakaliou, however, a puliaijat can last for several days or
even several weeks.
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To open the ceremony, the rimata sounds the gong hanging near the bakkat katsaila and
utters the ritual phrases:
Our fine meat, by the side of the sapo, fine bodies of life.
Come, enter, come hither again our simagere of life, simagere of my children.
Don't go to the foul mouthed ones. Don't go to the dead ones. Don't go to the
angry ones. Don't go near broken things. Don't go near sharp things. Don't go
near alalatek. Don't go near thorns. Don't go near the ketsat that cling. Don't go
near the illness from other laggai. Come hither simagere of my children.
Fine meat by the side of the sapo refers to the pigs waiting to be sacrificed. The foul mouthed
ones, the dead ones, and the angry ones refer to sanitu. Illness from other laggai refers to
sorcery. After the gong is sounded, the tudukat may be played as well to announce to other clans
that the ceremony is beginning. The members of the clan holding the ceremony and their invited
guests should already be in attendance. The gong and the tudukat not only convene the clan and
their invited guests, but also warn members of others clans to stay away from the uma for the
duration of the ceremony. Because the clan's saukkui will be called and are dangerous to
anyone other than the participants (i.e. to people for whom they are sanitu), this warning is
considered to be for the benefit of the other clans.
For the sogi katsaila, the rimata goes into the batnuma and closes the door. He squats in
front of the bakkat katsaila, facing the center of the house, with the bakkat katsaila on his left.
Among the many types of gaud collected for the ceremony is polak, a shoot from the top of a
young doro tree, from which bows are made. The wood from the tree is hard and resilient. The
shoot, however, is pliable. The rimata rubs the other types of gaud - engeu, sikulu, soga, daba,
sibukak - against the shoot and says:
The caressing of our katsaila, the katsaila of my children, engeu. Sickness has
been driven away.
Sikulu, the winds from the sky have been driven away.
Soga, we summon a favorable lauru, we summon life.
Daba, we are sated, my children are sated in life. We are sated until we are old,
until we are stooped over, until our hair is white.
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Sibukak, open our eyes to life.
The caressing of our katsaila, doro, we are firm in life, we are firm until we are
old, until we are bowed over.
We pass by, my children pass by, the countenance of sickness is struck, grasp
the faces of those harboring ill will towards us, struck are those who would curse
us.
The rimata slaps the polak on the floor, splitting it in half. One half is separated into fibers and set
aside for the other participants. The other half is separated at the tip, as the rimata says:
Our katsaila, the katsaila of my children, doro. We are whole in life, we are firm
in life. Sickness is shredded, foul language is stripped away, the shadowy ones
are stripped from our bodies.
We are in lia, my children, drive away the words of illness, drive away the words
of the shadowy ones, the winds from the sky are stripped away from us.
The rimata places the shredded polak into the bakkat katsaila. He gathers all of the gaud that
has been collected for the ceremony and places each kind in the bakkat katsaila:
Our bakkat katsaila, katsaila of my children, daba, we are sated in life, we are
sated until we are old, we are sated with a favorable reading of the lauru, we are
sated in life.
Our bakkat katsaila, sibukak. Open our eyes to life, open our eyes in order for us
to take forest meat.
Our bakkat katsaila, bakkat katsaila of my children, soga. We summon again a
favorable lauru, we summon again a favorable salo.
Our bakkat katsaila, bakkat katsaila of my children, simuinek. We are taking in a
new child, we are whole in life, until we are old, until we are bowed over.
Our bakkat katsaila, bakkat katsaila of my children, taibeleki. We are complete,
all my children are present. I gather together my new children, we are not
lacking in number. We are firm in life, we are firm until we are old, until we are
stooped over, until we are white haired.
From the half of the shredded polak set aside, the rimata makes his own katsaila, separating the
tip of a fiber:
Katsaila, drive away the foul mouthed ones, drive away sickness.
Why is all this done in such a rush? I am subjecting to lia a new child. Here she
lives, drive away the words of sickness, drive away the sickness from other
laggai.
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We are separated from sickness, we are separated from the sickness from other
laggai, we are separated from the winds from the sky.
Once again there is our katsaila business and forest meat. Once again there is
our katsaila business and a favorable reading of the lauru. We are firm in life, we
are whole in life.
He massages his katsaila, asking for a favorable lauru or salo, the omen left in the entrails of a
sacrificed chicken or the heart of a sacrificed pig:
The massaging of our katsaila, we massage the back of the dead ones, we
massage a favorable lauru, we caress life.
When we pass by, the legs of the foul mouthed ones are folded beneath them.
Come hither our simagere, our simagere of the favorable lauru, our simagere of
the favorable salo. Once again there is our katsaila business and forest meat.
He places his katsaila in his headband, then distributes the rest of the katsaila to the other
participants, which they place in their hair or wear as a necklace or bracelet.
After distributing the katsaila, the rimata begins the aggaret toitet. He is accompanied by
his oldest son, referred to in this context as the pamuri, and by three relatives, who play the gong
and gajeuma drums. The rimata places the lulag platter on the floor in front of the bakkat
katsaila. He holds a whole coconut in his hand and says:
When we pass by, when my children pass by, sickness is put behind us, anger is
put behind us, the winds from the sky are put behind us.
With a machete, he strikes the coconut and says:
The favorable lauru does not err, life does not err.
He places a duruk leaf on the lulag platter. He cuts three small pieces from the coconut flesh and
places them on the leaf, one for the rimata, one for pamuri, and one for the rimata's youngest
son. The rimata cuts three more slices from his piece, one for the bakkat katsaila, one for the
ancestor spirits, and one for the simagere of forest meat. As he places the slice for the bakkat
katsaila on the bakkat katsaila itself, the slice for the spirits between the floorboards, and the slice
for the simagere of forest meat on the post from which the bakkat katsaila hangs, he says:
Receive this. For you bakkat katsaila your aggaret, coconut that is one with us in
life, until we are old, until we are stooped over, until we are white haired.
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Ancestors who are no longer with us, here is your aggaret, we have been
removed from the path of sickness, we have been removed from the path of
sharp things, we have been removed from the path of sickness from other laggai.
Come hither again simagere of the favorable lauru. It is you who I summon,
come hither, enter.
Come hither again simagere of the joja, simagere of the bilo, simagere of the
deer. Come hither, enter.
Come hither again our simagere, simagere of my children. Don't go near
sickness. Don't go near the dead ones. Don't go near the winds from the sky.
Come hither again, enter.
Our simagere, the simagere of my children have arrived. As my hand is
separated from the coconut, so we are separated from sickness, we are
separated from sharp things, we are separated from sickness from other laggai.
Where we pass by, where my children pass by, we are put out of the way of
sickness, we are put out of the way of sickness from other laggai, we are put out
of the way of anger.
This irik has banished sickness. The ghosts cannot see us. Open our eyes to
old age, until we are stooped over, until our hair is white. We follow along behind
life until we are old, until we are stopped over, until our hair is white.
Come hither again our simagere, simagere of our children. I welcome us again
to life until we are old, until we are bowed over, until our hair is white.
The gong and gajeuma cease, and the players leave the room. The pamuri picks up his slice of
coconut. The rimata picks up the duruk leaf and the two remaining slices, holds them near his
head, and says:
Felicitations. In this way I lift up our aggaret, the aggaret of my children. As we
do not get as far as the high hills, we do not get as far as the ill-wind from other
laggai. To the tip of the eilaggat tree so tall, we are tall in life, until we are old,
until we are stooped over, until our hair is white.
The joyful movement of the bebeget leaves, we are joyful in life, until we are old,
until we are stooped over, until our hair is white. When my words cease, the
wind from other laggai will cease to afflict our bodies, the sickness from other
laggai will cease. Come hither again our simagere.
The rimata and the pamuri take their slices out to the tenganuma and laibok, and give them to
their wives, who give them to children and grandchildren.
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After the aggaret, the rimata takes a chicken to the bakkat katsaila for lia goukgouk. The
gong and gajeuma players accompany him. The rimata touches the tail feathers of the chicken to
the bakkat katsaila and says:
Receive this. For you your lia, katsaila, a munificent chicken, we are munificent
in life, we are munificent until we are old, until we are bowed over, until we are
white haired. The back of a chicken, we are put behind sickness, we are put
behind the winds from the sky, we are put behind the foul-mouthed ones.
Delivered salo, delivered lauru.
We are in lia, katsaila, bring us to old age, bring in the forest meat, bring in life.
Our lia, lia of my children, delivered salo, delivered lauru.
The rimata takes the chicken to each of the participants, touches its tail feathers to their bodies,
and says:
Distance sickness, distance the shadowy ones, delivered salo, delivered lauru.
He brings the chicken back into the batnuma, touches its beak to the bakkat katsaila, and says:
Leave your salo.
The gong and gajeuma cease, and the players leave the room. The rimata squats, presents the
tail of the chicken to the bakkat katsaila, and says:
You fowl, deliver your salo. Distance sickness from us, distance the foul-
mouthed ones. Once you have done this then fetch our meat, our forest meat.
When you have done this, so be it. Deliver your salo.
The rimata hands the chicken to someone else, who breaks its neck. Its simagere contacts the
simagere of forest meat, to whom it conveys the request to be killed in the hunt that will conclude
the puliaijat. It reports the success or failure of its appeal in the lauru. In important puliaijat, one
chicken is sacrificed for each lalep, with each head of household performing the ritual. The lauru
of the rimata's chicken is examined first, then the lauru of every other chicken. If the lauru is
unfavorable, meaning that the simagere of the chicken has failed to appeal successfully to the
simagere of forest meat, additional chickens are sacrificed until the lauru is favorable. Then pigs
are sacrificed (teinungakek) for the same purpose: to intervene on behalf of the clan. Each pig is
prepared with gaud first. The rimata brushes a katsaila stalk against the pig's body and says:
Your death, pig. Distance sickness. We eat, we make you into our meal. You
have lived there, now we make you into our meal, we who will eat you, my
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children, my relatives. Prepare your teinung. Your teinung is prepared, the face
of our deer meat. Bring us our meat, simakobuk. Your teinung is delivered.
The pamuri applies a bundle of gaud and water (dauk sainak) to the pig's body and says:
Your death, pig. Taipotsala, turn away sickness, turn away the shadowy ones.
Your death, pig. Aileleppet the cool one, our bodies are cool, the bodies of your
relatives are cool. Your death, pig. Cool is our pig, simakainauk the bountiful
one. Your death, pig. Momunuen, aileleppet, taimalauklauk, my pigs do not
decline. Cool are the bodies of your relatives, pig, you who ask for the pot, you
who asked to be downtrodden. Loud is the sound of my pig’s feet. My pigs are
replaced.
The gaud is placed with the skulls of pigs sacrificed in previous puliaijat, which hang inside the
entrance of the house, facing the interior (and the skulls of animals killed in the hunt). The heart
of the pig (teinung) is examined. As with the chickens, additional pigs will be sacrificed until the
reading is favorable. The pamuri takes the chicken's liver, tail fat, and right thigh and the pig's
right hind leg and places them in bamboo containers for the events that follow. The containers
are cooked by the rimata's wife in the rear of the uma. The rest of the meat is cooked by men in
the front.
For the irik goukgouk, the rimata squats in front of the bakkat katsaila. The pamuri and
the gong and gajeuma players accompany him. The ritual phrases are similar to the aggaret.
The rimata places taro dumplings rolled in coconut (subbet) on the lulag platter. He splits open
the bamboo container with the chicken's liver and tail fat, utters phrases similar to opening the
coconut, and places the meat on the dumplings. The rimata takes a pinch dumpling and meat,
offers it to the bakkat katsaila, and says:
Receive this. Here is your irik, katsaila, munificent chicken liver, we are
munificent in life, we are munificent until we are old, until we are bowed over,
until our hair is white.
He offers a pinch to the ancestors spirits and says:
For you ancestors, your irik.
Then he offers a pinch to the simagere of forest meat and the simagere of uma members. The
gong and gajeuma cease, and the players leave the room. The pamuri takes one of the
dumplings and meat. The rimata takes the remaining dumplings and meat and holds them near
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his head, as in the aggaret. He and the pamuri go out to the tenganuma and laibok, and give
their dumplings and meat to their wives, who give them to children or grandchildren.
22
The
remainder of the cooked meat from the sacrificed chickens and pigs is divided up according to
household. Everyone eats except for the rimata and his wife.
After the communal meal, the pusikebbukat begins. The pusikebbukat constitutes the
rimata's "substitute." Pusikebbukat is derived from punu sikebbukat. Punu means representative
or substitute. Kebbuk means elder sibling. Sikebbukat is a synonym for rimata. Pusikebbukat
means substitute for the rimata. Reeves says, "This event is the most private and perhaps,
therefore, the most important in relation to the existential perpetuation of the suku or uma faction
and its reproduction as distinct from all other suku" (2001). The focus is on the ancestor spirits,
the simagere of forest meat, and the simagere of uma members, in the usual sikataik-simaeruk
structure. The rimata sounds the gong, then places elongated dumplings on a taibeleki leaf on
the lulag platter. To the right, he places a length of lead (bulau) and says:
Our gaud, gaud of my children, taibeleki, we are not diminished, my children are
not diminished in life. Cool bulau, our bodies, the body of my children are cool.
The rimata picks up the bamboo container with the chicken's right thigh, opens it, and says:
Sickness is diverted, the angry ones are diverted.
He places the meat on the dumplings. The ritual phrases are similar to aggaret and irik. The
rimata offers a pinch of dumpling and meat (silimen) to the bakkat katsaila and says:
For you your silimen, katsaila. Bring us to old age. The silimen has sent
sickness away from us, it has sent away thunder, lightning.
Then the rimata summons his wife and his son's eldest son, the one who would be rimata after
his son. His wife takes his place. The boy takes the pamuri's place. The rimata's wife picks up a
dumpling and meat and says:
Sickness has retreated, the shadowy ones have retreated. We open out to life,
until we are old, until we are bowed over, until our hair is white.
22
Reeves says, "The aggaret and the irik events can be viewed as two halves of a whole since they are
both based on the utilization of the irik lulag. Indeed the former is often referred to as the irik aggaret. The
latter, the irik goukgouk, complements this through introducing meat into the equation. There is firstly 'raw'
coconut, then cooked 'meat'" (2001). See also Schefold's analysis of the culinary code (1982).
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She hands the dumpling and meat to the boy, who eats it. The rimata sounds the gong.
Everyone leaves.
The kokoman sikebbukat is a meal of dumplings, meat, and sago eaten by the rimata and
his wife in front of the bakkat katsaila. Reeves says, "this event is an engagement with the
bakkat katsaila and the other heirlooms - but it is also a distancing" (2001). The Dutch ceramic
plate may be used instead of the lulag platter. The rimata places elongated dumplings on the
plate. He opens the bamboo container with the pig's right hind leg and places the meat on the
dumplings. A pinch is presented to the bakkat katsaila, the ancestor spirits, the simagere of
forest meat, and the simagere of uma members. The ritual phrases are similar. The rimata
concludes by inviting his wife to receive the simagere, which she does. The rimata eats some of
a dumpling and meat and passes it to his wife, who eats some. Then they eat freely from the
plate. When they are finished, they give the remainder to children and grandchildren. With this,
Reeves says, "the puliaijat has come to a close, or in other words, the participants no longer
define themselves as in a state of mulia, 'engaged in lia'" (2001). He goes on to say, however,
that later that evening, there is a separate meal for the men who will go on the hunt (ukob
tenganuma). The rituals before the meal and the meal itself are conducted just outside the
batnuma, below the skulls of the animals killed in previous hunts. The simagere of these animals
are asked to appeal to the simagere of their living relatives to allow themselves to be killed in the
hunt. The hunters leave in the early hours of the morning and return in the late morning. Reeves
says, "Any 'meat' (iba) taken in the hunt is prepared, cooked, then a little is presented to the
bakkat katsaila and the other beings, similar to the irik or aggaret. If the hunt has not been
successful then 'substitute meat' (punu iba) is presented to the bakkat katsaila and other beings
in an irik format by the rimata alone. The important thing is for the bakkat katsaila to have 'eaten'
meat. This brings the puliaijat to an end" (2001).
Perhaps things are different in the government-built village of Madobag, where Reeves
conducted fieldwork, because in Sakaliou, the puliaijat does not consist only of the core of events
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and the business between the rimata and the bakkat katsaila. As important as the core events
are the communal meals and the more festive aspects of the ceremony, especially the singing
and dancing at night. As important as the rimata are the other participants, including shamans.
And as important as the core events in the uma is the hunt in the forest that follows them.
Sakaliou insisted that a puliaijat is never over until they succeed in the hunt. Failing to kill an
animal would mean that the ceremony had been a failure and would need to be repeated until
success had been achieved.
The rimata plays an essential role in the puliaijat, but every other participant and what
they are doing outside the batnuma are as important. In addition to receiving the things that the
rimata gives them, they work constantly to provide him with what he needs to perform the core
events. They provide him with coconuts, taro, chickens, and pigs. They kill, butcher, and cook
the animals. They divide up the meat, and they share a communal meal. They also provide the
gong and gajeuma players, not only for the rimata, but also for the singing and dancing that
occurs in the evening and throughout the night. The songs and dances, in which anyone may
participate, act out myths, especially the primordial time before the distinction between humans,
animals, and other spirits. Also outside the batnuma are the shamans who have been invited to
attend the ceremony. Even as the rimata is conducting his business with the bakkat katsaila, the
shamans are removing sanitu and bajou from the house and the bodies of the participants and
are calling on the simagere of the participants to come close, to sit on the crown of the head. The
decorations in the house and the adornments on the participants attract both the simagere of the
uma members and the ancestor spirits who will join them. In fact, following the sikataik-simaeruk
structure, after purifying the house and the bodies of the participants of negative influences, the
shamans sing and dance specifically to attract the ancestor spirits. Late at night, after the festive
songs and dances reenacting myth, only the shamans perform. Their songs and dances call the
saukkui from below the house, where they have received their share, into the middle room to
dance with their descendants. The dance sends the shamans into trance (gobok).
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Only after this state of communion between humans and the ancestor spirits has been
achieved can another important event outside the batnuma take place. The ancestor spirits are
asked to leave, to return to the forest. Supervised by the rimata, gifts are laid out on the floor of
the laibok - the meat of butchered, but uncooked pigs and the most valuable domestic items,
such as cooking pots and cloth. The shamans surround the gifts, sing a solemn song, and gently
usher the ancestor spirits out of the house. They cry. It is the only time during the ceremony that
the mood is not festive. It is almost mournful. All of the participants, but especially the shamans,
who can see the ancestor spirits, are sad to see them go. But they must go because their houses
and animals, their points of orientation, are in the forest. The gifts are both their share and an
enticement to leave. For the only time during the ceremony, their share is not a pinch, but the
whole thing, and they are said to take it with them when they go. In exchange for this enormous
parting gift, the ancestor spirits are expected to reciprocate with their blessings - an animal to be
killed in the hunt, one of their chickens or pigs, which look like monkeys or deer to humans. This
is perhaps the most significant difference between Sakaliou's puliaijat and that described by
Reeves for the clans in Madobag. The hunt must occur. As Reeves suggests, after the meal for
the hunters, they leave in the early morning and, depending on the kind of game that they are
seeking, return later in the day. If they succeed, they leave the left ear of the animal for the
ancestor spirits - in this context only, it is called a saki, a purchase price - then return to the
longhouse and triumphantly announce on the tudukat that the puliaijat was a success. If they fail,
they return to the forest each day for as long as it takes. If game is scarce, it may take weeks,
and interest may wane, but until an animal is killed, the puliaijat continues. Again, Sakaliou was
adamant that the ceremony cannot end until they have succeeded in the hunt. Success indicates
that the ancestor spirits are happy. They have reciprocated the gifts that they received.
Another indication of the importance of the hunt for the puliaijat is the way that it was
practiced by the Sakkudei in the 1960s. Schefold (1980) says that after the core events, the men
in the clan set up a hunting camp in the forest and paid a purchase price for the animal before
receiving it. The "crash down" plant (pasaksak) was stuck in the ground. The rimata said,
73
Come hither, o ancestors, o spirits, all of you who have plantations here by the
river, we shall pay the purchase price for the monkeys, the purchase price for life.
Jeee, let your bodies be seen, ancient fathers of the plantations, ancient mothers
of the plantations, o ancient planters, munificent with the wild life of the woods.
Jeee, let your bodies be seen, you whose land this is by the river, come we shall
pay the price!
Then the hunters placed small possessions by the plant. The rimata said,
The place of the things for you, o ancestors, with the name of "crash down." The
monkeys will crash down before our eyes, before the eyes of the dogs. Here are
things for you.
One hunter hid a painted hard-boiled egg behind his back. The others encouraged him to offer it
to the ancestor spirits and place it by the plant. He feigned resistance, then finally yielded and
placed the egg by the plant with the other possessions. The rimata said,
We have given you various things, o spirits, and now we have here a toy for you,
a round one, we also are well-rounded in life, we'll round up the monkeys, what
you give will be round!
Then they went off on the hunt. When they succeeded, the left ear was slammed down on a
fallen leaf. The rimata said,
O, our departed forefathers, friends, o spirits, a tiny young monkey has fallen
before the eyes of your grandchildren. Here is meat for you, let us share the
spoils of the woods. Where shall I lay it? On a fallen leaf. Make his companions
fall now too, his spouse, make those who come from his villages fall, those who
bear his name, his cousins. Do not be grudging in your hearts.
As described in myth, the left ear is the ancestors share (otsai), but in this context, it is referred to
as saki, or purchase price, making it, instead of generalized reciprocity between clan members,
balanced reciprocity between clans. Schefold argues that the ancestor spirits are thus others.
He fails to realize, however, that outside of the puliaijat, the left ear is referred to as otsai, and in
fact, that the ancestors had just been invited into the longhouse to participate in the puliaijat,
during which, except for the presentation of gifts at the end, they only received shares. In other
words, the conclusion of the puliaijat distances the ancestor spirits by giving them a saki, a
purchase price. The ancestor spirits are not offered a purchase price because they are others.
They are others because they are offered a purchase price. The exact same practice - leaving
the left ear - is on one occasion generalized reciprocity and on another balanced. In the context
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of everyday hunting, the left ear is the ancestor spirits' otsai, their share, and it indicates, like any
object, a similarity of perspective. Humans and ancestor spirits are in mimetic conflict over
animals. In the context of hunting after a puliaijat, the left ear is the ancestor spirits' saki, the
purchase price, and it indicates a difference of perspective. Humans are no longer in mimetic
conflict with the ancestor spirits. This explains why the hunt is so important: it distances the
ancestor spirits.
Reeves' analysis of the puliaijat overlooks the crucial events that occur outside of the
batnuma, in the rest of the house and in the forest. He concludes that the entire thing is centered
on the rimata and his business with the bakkat katsaila. It is the rimata who endows each
participant "with the ability to create a space, safe from the threat posed by the dead of 'other'
suku, the sanitu, wherever they go, particularly during sojourns through the leleu (forest)" (2001).
The distribution of katsaila in the sogi katsaila does this for the general group. The lia goukgouk
is also aimed at the general group. The aggaret and irik are aimed at the youngest members.
The pusikebbukat is aimed at the children closest to the rimata. Reeves writes, "the puliaijat
achieves these particular objectives, and therefore the overall goal of producing a habitable
cosmos, through the detailed production of specific, 'good', 'healthy' (simaeruk) spaces...within
the uma. Through the 'activation' of the uma...the cosmos is made habitable" (2001). The
agency of the rimata activates the agency of the ancestral heirlooms and the uma, and in this
way, "the cosmic weave is woven. In the darkened, secretive confines of the uma's inner
sanctum (batnuma), in view of a privileged few and in league with the ancestors, crouched over
the heirlooms they once cared for, the rimata builds a world. Countless times he has articulated
the ritual phrases and gesticulated over his lulag, as he will on many more occasions, in the
perpetual effort to (re)create a habitable space for all uma faction/suku members" (2001). As I
have shown, the cosmos is much larger and more complicated that than the batnuma, and the
space beyond the uma, the forest, is at once the most dangerous and the most necessary for
survival, especially for clans like Sakaliou. Schefold seems to echo this in his analysis of the
puliaijat. He argues that the ceremony is a social drama, a cognitive confrontation, of the clan's
75
dependence on other clans and on the natural environment. The puliaijat is not just a cognitive
confrontation with dependence, however. It actually resolves the conflict that is generated by
mimetic rivalry.
The puliaijat is precipitated by a mimetic conflict - an omen, a marriage, a new uma - but
not an illness because an illness is already a crisis. The task is to remove the objects of desire,
the objects that are generating the conflict. The entire clan is gathered together and required to
contribute. Those with many pigs and those with a few end up with the same shares. As
Schefold says, the clan is separated from other clans and from sanitu, but not from the saukkui.
The ultimate task of the puliaijat is an exchange with the saukkui that reiterates the difference of
perspective because it is in this difference that mimetic conflict is resolved, just as it was resolved
in the original separation, the original sacrifice. The puliaijat is a commemoration. The taboos,
which prevent mimetic behaviors, are in effect. The rimata opens the ceremony. The first thing
that he says is that there is meat by the side of sapo. In the sogi katsaila, the rimata smashes
polak - the hunting flower - on the floor and distributes katsaila to all of the participants, which
include some people who are not members of the clan: brothers-in-law, siripok, other shamans.
In the sikataik phase, bad stuff is sent away. Throughout, all of the good souls are summoned:
bakkat katsaila, uma members, ancestors, forest meat. In aggaret, the rimata and pamuri
sacrifice a coconut. In lia goukgouk, a chicken is sacrificed, and the emphasis is on forest meat.
Everyone is touched. Many chickens may be sacrificed. The entrails are read. In teinungakek,
pigs are sacrificed, and the primary emphasis is on the meal. The rimata says, "Your death, pig.
Distance sickness. We eat, we make you into our meal. You have lived there, now we make you
into our meal, we who will eat you, my children, my relatives." The secondary emphasis is on
forest meat. In irik goukgouk, the rimata and pamuri sacrifice taro, coconut, and the cooked meat
of the chicken (liver and tail fat). The whole group, except for the rimata and his wife, eats. In
pusikebbukat (which means substitute), the rimata sacrifices more taro, coconut, and cooked
meat (the chicken thigh). Then his wife and grandson take his place and do the same. In the
kokoman pusikebbukat, the rimata and his wife sacrifice more taro, coconut, and cooked meat
76
(the pig thigh) and finally eat. Meanwhile, the shamans put the souls of people on their heads.
They then invite the saukkui, who have repeatedly received their share of the sacrifices on the
floor, into the uma to sing and dance. There is a confusion of perspectives, an interpenetration of
worlds that leads to trance, and this goes on all night. The next morning, the saukkui are
presented not with their share, but with a gift - freshly sacrificed and uncooked pigs, along with
domestic goods. They are asked to leave, to return to the forest. The mood is, for the first and
only time, solemn. This is clearly a commemoration of the original separation. The
controlled/uncontrolled mimesis of the night before, in which people acted like spirits, and spirits
acted like people, now gives way to exchange. There is a kind of inversion. The chicken - from
which the puliaijat takes its name - was for forest meat. The pigs were for communal meals. The
ancestors must now take their uncooked pigs and return to the forest. They must return
uncooked pigs in the form of forest meat. The ceremony does not end until the exchange is
complete. Again, the original scapegoat was a chicken. The lia goukgouk commemorates the
original separation. The pusikebbukat is the substitution of pigs for the chicken. It says that
humans and spirits will now use pigs to separate them. Spirits will receive the pigs of humans,
and humans will receive the pigs of spirits, the wild animals. The substitute indicates that a
substitution has been made. The original scapegoat was a human. The whole ceremony has
been leading toward the hunt in which the exchange and the separation are completed. The
ancestors are protective in the sense that they resolve mimetic conflict. They are thought of as
being protective, but they are not gods. Their true protection is that they are an other that cannot
be imitated. In balanced reciprocity with other clans, exchange follows violence and can descend
into violence again (positive circularity becomes negative). In balanced reciprocity with the
saukkui, the violence is expelled on a scapegoat (a human, a chicken, a pig), and because they
are other, the exchange cannot descend into violence again. The puliaijat commemorates the
original sacrifice, the foundation of an order. The bad phase is violence. The good phase,
culminating with the hunt, is exchange.
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Chapter 4: Negative Reciprocity: Headhunting and Shamanism
This chapter looks at the limits of reciprocity, the point beyond which exchange fails to
resolve mimetic conflict and violence. Its primary focus is on headhunting and shamanism.
Schefold briefly addresses headhunting at the end of Lia (1988). In his most recent article
(2007), he returns to the issue and arrives at a similar conclusion: headhunting occurred not for
the head itself, but because the head was a mediator between humans and the spirits that live in
the forest surrounding the uma; the head was simply another kind of sacrifice. I argue instead
that headhunting is mimetic conflict and negative reciprocity in its purest form. Two sides imitate
each other in a negative circularity of violence and revenge. The exchange is in heads. It does
nothing to resolve the conflict. It only perpetuates it and may even escalate it until one side is
eliminated. In Siberut, it occurred between clans that were the most distant from each other, and
it occurred until relatively recently. It began to decline in the colonial period, but there were
isolated incidents in the 1950s and 60s, and there are still rumors of construction-related
sacrifice. Schefold says that it was on its way out anyway, but I think it is more likely that the
Dutch colonial government introduced other changes that led to its decline. I agree with
Schefold, however, that headhunting was associated with the foundation of a new uma. Even
today, at the conclusion of any puliaijat, including one to found a new uma, the hunt is focused on
monkeys, and a monkey head is often placed at the center of the jaraik, the sago palm flower
symbol that adorns many longhouses. It is another case of substitution.
Shamanism is a different issue, although Schefold does suggest that there is a recurring
motif of excursion. I include it in this chapter because like headhunting, shamanism is at the
limits of reciprocity. Shamanism is the response to the failure of the balanced reciprocity that is
achieved in the puliaijat. Shamans treat illness, and in Siberut, illness is caused by the soul's
decision to take up residence with the saukkui in the forest. What the saukkui promised by
delivering the return gift in the hunt - a separation between humans and spirits - is threatened by
illness and death. In death, a human is lost to the spirits. When people are old (as the ritual
78
phrases in the puliaijat repeatedly say), death is to be expected, although there is still work to be
done in the funeral. When a death is premature, however, it indicates that something is seriously
wrong, that there is a confusion of perspectives, that balanced reciprocity has failed, and the
relation needs to be repaired. This is one reason why the puliaijat and the healing ceremony
called the pabete are so similar to each other. Both clarify the perspectives of human and spirits.
It is also one reason why shamans, the kerei, are different from ordinary people. They alone can
see both perspectives. Their ability to see spirits as spirits see themselves enables them to
retrieve the soul of the sick person before it takes up residence with the saukkui. It is not that
humans and spirits are engaged in mimetic conflict (if that happened, there would be a puliaijat),
but that one human is imitating the spirits so that another human, the kerei, must imitate the
spirits as well. The difference between the sick person and the shaman is that the kerei knows
how to imitate the spirits without becoming one. He speaks both languages. He makes
sacrifices. He is a hybrid, and he is therefore similar to a scapegoat. His position is dangerous.
But in Siberut, there are many of them, maybe more than anywhere else, and this is because the
kerei is the one (human) distinction that is acceptable and the one way to make connections with
other clans without the threat of violence. He receives gifts for his services, but like any gift, they
must be shared.
Headhunting
Teteou, who was a child no more than ten years old during the Dutch colonial period, and
his brothers, the oldest members of Sakaliou, distinctly remember headhunting. They all said that
heads were taken from Simatalu, the founding village, the origin of all clans. They also
remembered occasional incidents involving less distant clans, but they insisted that these
incidents were different. They all confirmed that the Dutch administration put a stop to
headhunting with the threat of force and often intervened in conflicts between clans. They also all
confirmed that occasional incidents continued until the Indonesian administration, which
continued the policies of the Dutch and finally put a stop to headhunting completely. Schefold
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says they were ready for it. Unlike other areas in Indonesia, there are no heads around today.
But, in fact, there never were. The heads were discarded. Moreover, there are telltale signs in
the jaraik, the puliaijat, and myth. Although I asked Teteou and the oldest members of Sakaliou
about headhunting, they were reluctant to talk about it. What follows is based mainly on
Schefold's article.
Schefold's aim is to identify the common thread in headhunting across Southeast Asia by
focusing on the case of Siberut. He begins by observing that although headhunting is
widespread in Southeast Asia, there is no single motivation for the practice. Raids were aimed at
obtaining one or a few heads and always had a ritual character, but the rituals were so diverse
that there seems to be no single model of a "head-hunting complex" (cf. Hoskins 1996). A survey
of the ethnographic record reveals a range of motivations for headhunting: fertility, the death of a
chief, the averting of disaster, retaliation, "the idea that new life requires the taking of life" (2007:
480). But only one, Schefold argues, "has pervasive prominence: The motivation of a headhunt
being coincident with the completion of a communal building" (2007: 480). Given this profusion of
aims, Schefold asks, "Why do Southeast Asians believe that the capturing of a head from outside
one's own domain induces propitious consequences of the ritual at home" (2007: 480)? He
objects to Needham's argument, in opposition to Kruyt's soul-substance, that at work in
headhunting is "an 'alternative conception of causality'...in which something can cause an effect
without any intermediary element in between" (2007: 480). Schefold argues that the intermediary
element is other spiritual beings (i.e. not the soul of the head), whose favor the head brings to the
community: "head-hunting is performed for explicit aims and purposes....I have called this
purposeful function of rituals their 'telic' dimension. To reach the ritual goals, mediating instances
can be appealed to, but other practices such as offerings to spirits can also be resorted to" (2007:
481). In the spiritual beings whose favor is sought, "we can expect to find the agent between the
cause and the effects so profoundly missed by Needham" (2007: 481).
The people in Siberut were headhunters until around World War I, when the Dutch
colonial government banned the practice and threatened offenders with severe sanctions.
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Schefold says that "head-hunting was given up at once and without much ado" (2007: 482). In
most other respects, people continued their way of life. Only after "massive attacks" by the
Sukarno government did the majority of people "relinquish their traditional beliefs" (2007: 482).
Schefold arrived in Siberut shortly thereafter, in 1967. The old men were strongly opposed to
changing their way of life, but "they all agreed in expressing the spontaneous relief people had
felt after head-hunting had been banned....everyone was glad, they said, to be liberated from the
constant fear of becoming the victim of a head-hunting raid, and from the vicious circle of them
having to take revenge" (2007: 482). A period of peace ensued, with "opulent rituals of
friendship" that included the payment of fines to redress any imbalance between formerly
opposing clans, rituals that continue today in the form of paabad. Schefold wonders why people
were so willing to accept the ban on headhunting. If they were ready to give it up, why had they
continued the practice until the government banned it? At the same time, how could they
continue traditional rituals without headhunting if it was so important? These are questions to
which Schefold does not provide an answer, or at least a satisfying one. I will offer my own
answer in the next chapter. For now, it is important to note that Schefold's informants, as well as
the older members of Sakaliou, did not condemn headhunting itself. What they condemned was
its negative circularity, the fear of reprisal and the obligation to seek revenge after it came.
Headhunting ended when the negative circularity became positive. The exchange would be in
objects rather than heads.
To understand how momentous this shift was, it is first necessary to understand the
complexity of the headhunting ritual itself. As I have already described, people in Siberut say that
they came from Simatalu. The original clan fissioned, factions moved to other valleys and formed
new clans, and the process was repeated until the entire island was settled. Schefold argues that
clan affiliation is not important (except in marriage) because "the genealogical network of clans
was crosscut by regional subdivisions which narrowed down the possibilities of friendly relations
with people within a person's own district. This subdivision was caused by the headhunt, the
pulakeubat" (2007: 482). There is no myth that the original conflict in Simatalu led to headhunting
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between the fissioning factions, who remained neighbors. In general, conflicts with neighbors do
not result in headhunting. Raids were always aimed at distant clans. According to Schefold,
"head-hunting had resulted in hostile relationships roughly between the valleys in the southern,
the northeastern, and the northwestern parts of the island" (2007: 483). Simatalu was a target for
everyone because it was the most distant. The motivations for a headhunting raid included
individual bravery and revenge, but there was also a ritual incentive: a raid was required after the
completion of a new uma. The initiative to launch a raid (mulakeu) came from a single uma,
called "the originator of the head-hunting ritual" (bakkat labbara), which recruited neighboring
uma (si pamumu). The participants and their families lived together in seclusion, as in a puliaijat.
Part of the labbara was a common procession to the tree on a riverbank in the forest from which
trophies from previous headhunts were suspended. The souls of the victims resided with the
skulls. A small decorated pole was set in the ground, and the souls were exhorted to summon
the souls of their relatives. Back at the uma, the participants sang headhunting songs:
Soon there will be going pai-tou-ku, so there will be going pai-tou-ku,
pai-tou-ku our younger brother,
he carries my wrath out there to the forest hill,
to the mist-veiled forest hill,
on the far side of which stands the koka-tree
with its wide trunk and its wide crown,
on top of which sits the hawk with the concave face
who knows how to seize, who knows how to circle,
circling he seizes the children of the Tubeket Valley,
pa-to-pi-gug-gug, pa-to-pi-gug-gug (2007: 483)!
The tudukat was played, as in the puliaijat or the institutionalized, nonviolent rivalry between
neighboring clans known as pako. Various other rituals insured success in the raid. Schefold
says that "labbara is the name of a special fetish put together and carried by the headhunters"
(2007: 483). In addition, pigs were sacrificed, their hearts were read, and the signs were copied
on heart-shaped stones. The usual taboos on work, raw food, and sex were not only observed,
but intensified: during the labbara, the taboo on sex was extended to eating.
23
The headhunters
wore special attire: a yellow loincloth, a woven belt (kabitat) as a protection against arrows, and
23
Schefold argues that it was only on this occasion that men and women ate in two separate groups, men
on the right side of the uma, women on the left.
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black marks on the face. Dreams and omens were interpreted, especially the flight of birds. A
sea eagle flying in the direction of the target was good. A bird or bird call from the left was bad, a
warning from the ancestors. "The assault was always made by surprise. The participants came
stealing up in a row, the first ones carrying daggers and machetes, the middle ones bows and
poisoned arrows, and the last ones bearing spears. All except the middle group carried shields.
Any victim, man, woman, or child, was welcome. Clearly, bravery was not the main issue."
(2007: 483). If headhunters were spotted, the tudukat announced their presence:
Ku ku ku,
presently the heads of the Saibi people [the headhunters] will be falling,
presently they will be falling with their rotten faces,
with their maggoty faces,
presently falling, ku ku ku,
look out, enemies have come with maggoty faces,
ku ku ku (2007: 483)!
The response was a counterattack. If a headhunter was killed, everyone "participated in hewing
the corpse to pieces until it had been ground into the dust (pasibubu)" (2007: 483). If the
headhunters were successful, clan members brought the decapitated body of the victim back to
the uma "where it was buried in an especially miserable ritual designed to incite the anger of the
victim's soul (simagere) and to engage it to help in later attempts to exact revenge" (2007: 483).
Meanwhile, after severing the head and sometimes the arms and legs, the headhunters returned
home. The trophies were called manai, flowers. The headhunters were welcomed as heroes.
The actual killer was the most revered, followed by the second, third, and fourth men who had
struck the victim. These were called simagege, the strong ones. The tudukat was played in
triumph. The victim's identity would eventually be known, and sometimes it would turn out that
the victim was distantly related to the headhunters. According to Schefold, this was not
particularly important because territorial ties were "stronger than old genealogical ties" (2007:
483). The wife of the rimata received the headhunters and "carried out magical 'cooling' acts,
designed to protect the headhunters from the wrath of their enemies" (2007: 483). Schefold
observes that this is a common feature of headhunting in Southeast Asia: life-taking headhunters
are received by life-giving women. That evening, there was a great ceremony in which the
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trophies, the flowers, were hung in the uma between the posts of the communal hearth or
between two poles (sirigugu) erected in front of the posts.
24
There was singing and dancing,
which taunted the trophies and boasted of the hunters' and clan's prestige. If the reason for the
raid was the consecration of a new uma, the roof in the front and back was crowned crosswise
with pairs of decorated rattan leaves (buluk bebeget), called leilei, the tail feathers of a cock
(2007: 485). Then, fearful of the wrath of the victim's soul, the trophies were removed from the
uma and taken to the tree on the riverbank in the forest, where the soul was ritually appeased.
The headhunters returned home again and started the closing ritual called the mulepa, which
lasted several weeks. The mulepa cleansed the participants of dangerous influences and
reintegrated them into the protective sphere of the ancestors. A windmill-like structure (totopoi)
was fastened high up in a tree by the killer, who sang in praise of himself:
Here is my totopoi made from gite wood;
with its concave propellers.
Come and try yourself on its stem made from manggea' bamboo,
manggea' from the Rourogat River,
come, come you motherly west wind,
and you come, motherly wind from northeast,
here is something for you to blow at,
something to try yourself on,
here is my totopoi, under the shoulders of heaven,
which suits me,
me, the daring one, me, the head of the settlements (2007: 485).
He exhorted the totopoi to frighten the souls of his adversaries, to turn them away with its
squealing propellers. Another part of the mulepa was tattooing. As Schefold says, "In Mentawai,
tattooing in itself is not connected with any particular ritual or specialist activity. It can be
regarded as a cultural contribution to the natural process of growing up of an adolescent male or
female body" (2007: 485). But specific patterns were connected with headhunting: the killer was
entitled to a frog-like figure on the belly as "a symbol for his victim," as well as spiral patterns on
the forehead and shoulders; all members of the headhunters' group were entitled to cuff-like rings
around the forearms (pumumurat) and calves (biti), which may be related to the trophies. Then
24
The skulls of animals killed in the hunt are hung in the interior of the house, in front of the hearth. The
jaraik, the sago palm flower symbol, adorns the wall behind the hearth. In the rite of passage for a newborn,
a pig is hung between two poles in front of the hearth, and the newborn is carried beneath it.
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Schefold says, "the newly tattooed were magically treated with a black chicken as a means of
ensuring that the dark blue design would always remain clearly visible" (2007: 485). The rear
wall of the verandah was painted with depictions of the headhunt and with "ornamental designs
recalling tattoo patterns and female breasts" (2007: 485). Effigies of the victim were made
(usually by the killer) and mounted on the tie-beam in the front part of the interior next to the
skulls of animals and other carvings. Schefold could not find these effigies. He could only find
shields, which were preserved because the hands of dead relatives were engraved on them.
Then he says that he found some figures in an old and decaying uma in Taileleu. "There, for
every slain victim a figure (simoinang) was cut out on a thick wooden plank in relief," on the rear
wall of the first interior room (2007: 485-486). The figures indicated the origin, but not the specific
identity, of the victim: "people feared that otherwise the similarity of a figure to the victim might
induce its soul to settle in the effigy, instead of following the head to the skull-tree in the forest"
(2007: 486). The effigy, Schefold says, was proof of the uma's courage and vigor. Finally, the
souls of prospective victims were summoned to the landing place of the canoes on the river bank.
A hole was dug in the ground, into which offerings of meat, ornaments, and gaud were placed. A
pole made from the hard wood of the lakopa tree was then thrust into the hole, "accompanied by
triumphant yodeling and yelling, designed to nail down the souls, as it were" (2007: 486). The
pole was left there as a memorial and to guarantee success in future raids - and perhaps to give
pause to the enemy clan, who would surely come in revenge.
Raids were rare, occurring no more than four or five times in a person's lifetime.
Schefold argues that this is consistent with the ease with which headhunting was abandoned. In
the first years after it was abandoned, "an interesting transitional substitute emerged" (2007:
486). With the completion of a new uma, the men of the group "went out to the territory of their
former enemies in festive attire and asked for ritual hospitality" (2007: 486-487). Violence
became exchange. "Eventually plans were made for a peace festival (abad) which would create
a fraternal bond between the groups involved" (2007: 487). Back home, the concluding mulepa
ceremony followed, "shorn of its aggressive components" (2007: 487). People received the same
85
tattoos. Schefold argues, "The entire transformation reveals a shift in emphasis from the religious
motivations of head-hunting towards an aspect that has been prominent in interpretations of the
practice within the Leiden structural anthropological tradition, and which stressed the element of
social competition between two parties" (2007: 487). These ritual sorties no longer occur. But
the final phase of the puliaijat does. Schefold says, "The game animals killed, mostly monkeys,
are offered to the spirits in the forest, but they are not consumed there" (2007: 487). They are
consumed at home, concluding the puliaijat. Schefold asks, "Is there a symbolic relationship
between these three ways of ritual conclusion: the head-hunting raids, the friendly journeys to
other groups on the island; and the hunting of game animals" (2007: 487)? The answer,
according to Schefold, is that they all occur in regions beyond the domain of the participants - in
enemy territory or the forest. In Siberut, there are three sources of ritual blessings: ancestor
spirits, wife-givers, and "the autochthonous powers of the wilderness surrounding the human
domain (tai ka leleu) " (2007: 487). From each, blessings are obtained in exchange: sacrifices
are give to the ancestor spirits, bridewealth is given to wife-givers - and hunted heads are given
to the autochthonous spirits. Headhunting is thus a sacrifice to the spirits that are not ancestors.
Schefold argues that this specific motivation for headhunting helps to explain why it is
associated throughout Southeast Asia with the construction of a new community house. He
recounts the myth of the orphan boy and the crocodile spirit, who instructed the boy "in the
ceremonies which were to strengthen both the building in progress and the people, including the
culminating ritual headhunt" (2007: 490). The boy now lives in the post hole of the house,
causing earthquakes and taking care of the tree fruit season. He always receives a sacrifice.
The orphan boy is associated with the autochthonous powers of the wilderness.
25
Another myth
combines this one with the myth of the left ear: two brothers go out to sea to shoot fish with
arrows, but lose all of their harpoon heads; they dive into the water to look for them and discover
25
This is the myth of Maligai described in Chapter 2, but in Schefold's version (i.e. in the Sakkudei's
version), the crocodile spirit replaces Pagetta Sabbau. This substitution is not insignificant. As Schefold
says, the crocodile spirit is one of the autochthonous powers of the wilderness, while Pagetta Sabbau is not
only an ancestor, but the first ancestor. Both versions also include elements of the myth of the
housebuilder.
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the house of the spirits of the interior (tai ka baga); they learn that the fish are the chickens of the
spirits; they are given the seeds of durian fruit, which the spirits are eating, and instructions on the
taboos and sacrifices for durian planting and harvesting. Another indication of the association of
the earthquake spirit and the autochthonous spirits of the forest appears in the song sung when
carrying a deer home (muaile). Korojiji, a name for the earthquake spirit, is mentioned. A
difference between the earthquake spirit and the autochthonous spirits is that the earthquake
spirit was killed. He and his companions were separated from the forebears of today's human
population. Schefold then recounts the myth of the origin of spirits, which tells of "a primordial
unity of forest spirits and humans before a 'historical' ritual event led to their definitive separation"
(2007: 490). The orphan boy is the connection between forest spirits and humans. He was
murdered with a post and now lives in the post hole of the house. This resembles the sacrifice of
a human head at the base of a communal building common in Southeast Asia. As Schefold
argues, "the hero of the story, the orphan boy, could be regarded as impersonating both the
sacrifice and the supernatural recipient of it" (2007: 490). All of his informants insisted that a
head was never buried at the base of the uma and never explicitly connected a head with the
earthquake spirit. In Nias, however, the head at the base of a building was dedicated to the
spirits of the underworld, and in Siberut, there is a similarity in the planting of the lakopa pole.
Moreover, after a new uma is built, a hole is dug in the ground on the right side of the building,
and seedlings of gaud are placed inside. The seedlings will grow, "evoking a blooming life for the
new uma. A decorated pole (kinumbu) is set in the hole and the autochthonous spirits, the true
owners of the spot, receive sacrifices and are invoked to give their permission and their blessing
to settle on their land. Explicitly named in this 'appeasing' context is again the earthquake spirit"
(2007: 490-491). Therefore, headhunting is sacrificial and associated with autochthonous spirits.
In conclusion, Schefold argues that there is no need to resort to alternative causal logics:
"the favorable disposition of the autochthonous spirits...is at the origin of the blessings of a head-
hunting raid" (2007: 491). The blessings of ancestor spirits may or may not be sought, and when
they are, they are only supplementary. In Siberut and throughout Southeast Asia, the
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autochthonous spirits give headhunting "a specific position in the streams of blessings tapped by
Indonesian rituals. And it might be assumed that the autochthonous favors were also appealed to
when going on a head-hunting expedition for reasons other than the consecration of a house"
(2007: 492). Schefold returns to the question of why people in Siberut gave up headhunting so
easily. It secured the blessings of the autochthonous spirits in addition to the ancestor spirits,
representing "an expansion in space and a dramatic intensification" compared to the hunting of
animals (2007: 492). It provided personal honor and artistic inspiration. But, Schefold says,
religious life was possible without it. Due to an unhealthy climate and a high mortality rate,
Siberut was sparsely populated. Its soil, however, was fertile. The problem was producers, not
production. "In order to reduce dangerous tensions, harmonious relationships are stressed
everywhere at all times" (2007: 492). There was no need for heads to insure fertility. There was
a need for people to produce. Schefold concludes, "In this sense, institutional aggression such
as is implied in head-hunting contradicts the general local tendency. The traditional religious
embeddings of the practice and the obligation to retaliate prevented people from dropping head-
hunting altogether. But, in contrast to most other traditional Southeast Asian societies, the
trophies were not stored at home, let alone buried in the foundations of a building, but disposed of
far away in the jungle. And once external governmental pressure was imposed on the
Mentawaians, they welcomed the occasion to concentrate on the ritual alternatives available"
(2007: 492).
Schefold's explanation for the cessation of headhunting in Siberut is tied to his
explanation for the motivation of headhunting throughout Southeast Asia. Both are problematic.
All Schefold is really saying is that in Siberut at least, headhunting was for the forest spirits, even
though people did not think of it that way, and they had other, less counterproductive ways - like
the puliaijat - of securing the blessings of both the forest spirits and the ancestor spirits. With a
lack of producers, not to mention the fear of reprisal, people gave up headhunting and began to
rely solely on the others ways. Schefold offers no explanation for why this realization should
have been made during the colonial period. As I argue in the next chapter, the Dutch not only
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actively suppressed headhunting, they also played the role of third-party mediator in disputes
between clans. More importantly, they made goods available to be exchanged in the peace that
followed. It would be wrong, however, to overemphasize the role of the Dutch. Schefold is
correct that headhunting in Siberut was abandoned without much ado. However, the reason why
headhunting was abandoned in favor of the other ways of securing blessings is not that
headhunting reduces the number of producers while the other ways do not, but that headhunting
does not solve the problem of mimetic conflict while the other ways do. Headhunting only
perpetuates the conflict. It is negative reciprocity and uncontrolled mimesis in its purest form. In
contrast, hunting resolves mimetic conflict because the exchange indicates a difference, a
difference of perspective, the origin of which is described in the myth of the origin of spirits and
elaborated in the myth of the left ear. Animals are a substitute for heads. The animals killed in
the hunt after a puliaijat are a substitute for the people killed in the headhunting raid after the
building of a new uma. Hunting persists and headhunting does not because hunting solves the
problem - mimetic conflict - that headhunting does not. The myth of the founding of Simatalu and
the origin of clans, which I discuss below, describes a mimetic crisis and the near-sacrifice of a
scapegoat. This near-sacrifice gives rise to a new cultural order - it leads to the founding of
Simatalu - but because the scapegoat was not killed, the mimetic conflict is not resolved. The
new cultural order is thus plagued by continued mimetic conflict, giving rise to the origin of clans
and the headhunting between them. Only after the orphan boy Maligai is sacrificed is the mimetic
conflict finally resolved. The pigs, which Maligai gave to the people, are his substitute. Pigs
substitute for heads, and the negative circularity of headhunting becomes the positive circularity
of exchange. Schefold's informants did not see headhunting as sacrifice because it was not
sacrifice. It was failed exchange. If they tried to offer it to the autochthonous spirits, what they
were hoping for in exchange was freedom from mimetic conflict.
26
26
If exchange resolves the mimetic conflict that gives rise to headhunting, why did headhunting persist until
the early 21st century? The answer is that not even exchange resolves mimetic conflict entirely. The
occasional headhunt was a way to deflect the violence that persisted even after Maligai, pigs, and the
puliaijat. Then the Dutch arrived.
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The people of Sakaliou generally say that the mimetic crisis which led to the founding of
Simatalu occurred in Nias. The myth explicitly states that the founders of Simatalu were forest
workers in contrast to metal workers. The younger, forest-working brother nearly kills his older,
metal-working brother and flees to the island of Siberut. In Simatalu, there is another conflict
between brothers. The clan fissions, and new territory is occupied. The process repeats itself
until the entire island is settled, but each time a clan fissions and new territory is occupied, there
is no sacrifice, no scapegoat. There is only a flight from the mimetic conflict into uninhabited
space. After the entire island is settled, however, there is no more uninhabited space. The
mimetic conflict continues. All of the clans are now others to each other, but the only one that is
other to all of them is Simatalu. Unable to move on, the scapegoat is now sought in the other, in
Simatalu. This creates the headhunting complex, the cycle of revenge, and the mimetic conflict
continues. Headhunting is thus after the settling, but before the separation with spirits. It does
not work, so the separation occurs, a human sacrifice, followed by appropriate exchange. The
myths, in fact, recall this time. There are too many people and too much hunger, and then the
ghost of Pagetta Sabbau instructs his orphan son Maligai to build an uma and make pigs fall from
the sky and to become the first shaman.
Shamanism
If headhunting is uncontrolled mimesis, mimetic conflict in its purest form, shamanism is
its antithesis, not the absence of mimesis, but mimesis controlled. Consider the important role of
Pagetta Sabbau or Maligai, and more generally, outside of shamanism, because mimesis is
controlled through exchange, consider the importance of exchange and sacrifice in shamanism
as well. The task of the shaman, when he is not performing on behalf of the community in the
puliaijat, is to heal an individual who is sick. Sickness is always caused by soul loss. Although
the simagere is never inside the body, and rarely even near it, if the simagere wanders too far
away from the body, it will fall ill and eventually die. Death occurs when the simagere takes up
residence with the ancestor spirits, the saukkui, in the forest. Illness is thus a kind of mimetic
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crisis. The soul may simply wander off, or in its wanderings, encounter a sanitu and bajou. It
may break a taboo, which causes it to wander off. It may be the victim of sorcery. For any of
these reasons, the soul becomes distant from the body that makes it human. It enters the
domain of ancestor spirits and begins to act more like an ancestor spirit than a human. The body
begins to suffer, and if the soul is not returned to its place among humans, it will take up
residence with the saukkui, and the body will die. The task of the shaman is to intervene before
the soul takes up residence with the saukkui and return it to the body of his patient, grounding the
patient in the human world, making him or her human rather than spirit. The shaman's carries out
the task of healing in the two stages of the puliaijat - sikataik and simaeruk. In the sikataik stage,
negative influences, such as bajou, are removed. The body is purified, making it a suitable place
for the soul. In the simaeruk stage, positive influences are attracted, strengthening the relation
between body and soul and reiterating the separation between humans and ancestor spirits. The
shaman is able to carry out the task of healing because he can perceive the perspectives of both
his patient and the ancestor spirits. He acquires this unique ability through apprenticeship and
initiation. He perfects it in his performance, in which he himself imitates the spirits. He acts out
what he wants to happen, so the spirits act it out, too. In short, the shaman's task is to end a
mimetic crisis with the organized control of mimesis.
Shamanism is a complicated issue, especially in Siberut, where the kerei has been the
focus of missionary, colonial, and state efforts to eradicate the indigenous religion. Here I focus
only on the shaman's calling, training, and initiation, during which he acquires the ability to
perceive both perspectives. Loeb writes that the vision in which the kerei acquires "magical
power" may be voluntary or involuntary (1929: 66). Among the kerei of Sakaliou, it tended to be
voluntary. Most of the kerei in Sakaliou were not called by an illness or out-of-the-ordinary event.
Most simply decided to become kerei. Aman Boroiogok said that he had the right patuat, or
thoughts/feelings, for it. These thoughts/feelings were more than just an intuition, however. They
were a sense not only that he should become a shaman, but also that he would be able to
become a shaman because he could perceive both perspectives. He could sense the presence
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of spirits in a way that an ordinary person could not. This is true for all kerei. When the vision is
involuntary, the sense is more concrete. The spirits make their presence known. Loeb recounts
a particularly revealing story:
A man is sitting, for example, by his field hut. Suddenly someone comes and sits
down beside him. They begin to talk, and the owner of the hut asks where the
stranger comes from, and who he is. The stranger replies that he belongs to the
place. The stranger offers the other man his tobacco, so that the latter may roll a
cigarette. But the man notices that the tobacco of the stranger never grows less
as one cigarette after another is made from it. The two start to go back to the
village together, when suddenly the stranger vanishes. The man decides that the
visitor cannot be a human being. When the stranger comes a second time to the
field hut, he offers the man tobacco from a bamboo container. The container
keeps rolling towards the man of its own volition. Then the man again decides
that the stranger must be a spirit. The man talks the matter over with his father,
and they decide to ask the stranger to dinner. The guest arrives, but he is visible
to the clairvoyant alone. The stranger eats, but his dish never becomes empty.
From this time on the man has the powers of a seer. He then proceeds to take
instruction from his fellow practitioners (1929: 66).
Loeb does not analyze this incident, but it is very revealing, especially in its emphasis on objects.
The phrase "he belongs to the place" indicates that the stranger is a local spirit or perhaps an
ancestor spirit. They exchange tobacco, as strangers do (with the stranger making initial the
offer), but the stranger's tobacco never grows less. Then the stranger vanishes. Next, the man
sees the container rolling of its own volition. At dinner, only the man can see the stranger - and
only the man can see the stranger eating. To others, his plate remains full. Later, when the man
serves as kerei, he will make visible the stranger's plate. The perspectives of human and spirit
converge in the bodies and objects of the shaman.
After being called, a man who has decided to become a kerei must apprentice with an
experienced shaman, who supervises his training and initiation. The instructor is usually from a
different clan. He may have several apprentices at the same time, in which case they would be
trained and initiated together. The instructor is compensated for his services, but as usual, the
proceeds must be distributed. Certain parts of the training and initiation are shrouded in secrecy.
The following description is based on Loeb (1929) and Schefold (1992), as well as discussions I
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had with the kerei in Sakaliou. I begin with Loeb's account from the 1920s.
27
Loeb sees the
training and initiation of the shaman as the means by which the "temporary insanity" of the calling
is overcome. The instructor first makes a "talisman" for the apprentice, a bundle of gaud, and
sings, "We will make many sacrifices for you, spirits of the talisman, so that by your magic he [the
pupil] will have clear eyes, will have changed eyes. Soon he will see with his eyes our fathers
and our mothers, the spirits of the lower heavens" (1929: 67). Then he washes the hair of the
apprentice, and the two go into the forest to search for the plants that will give the apprentice
seeing eyes. The instructor sings, "Spirits of the talisman, reveal yourselves. Make clear the
eyes of the boy that he may see the spirits" (1929: 67). The talisman replies to the instructor,
"Here is your magic power. If you wish to make clear the eyes of the boy, take this and that
plant" (1929: 69). Back at the house of the instructor, he and his apprentice ring their bells. The
instructor sings, "Let your eyes be clear, let our eyes be clear, so that we may see our fathers
and mothers of the lower heaven" (1929: 69). Then the he rubs the herbs that they have
collected onto the eyes of the apprentice. Sitting opposite each other, they sing for three days
and nights, without sleep. Then they go into the forest again and obtain more plants, which they
place in a coconut. Loeb writes, "The purpose of the herbs is to make the bodies of the spirits
shiny and beautiful, so that they will not be ashamed to reveal themselves to the boy" (1929: 69).
Sitting opposite each other with the coconut in between them, the instructor sings, "Here, make
yourself shine for your father, my children [the wood spirits]. Wood spirits, you are the owner.
Shine in his eyes, so that your bodies are visible to him, do not conceal your bodies from him"
(1929: 69). The singing continues for seven days, after which, if the apprentice has not yet seen
the bodies of the spirits, the whole ceremony is repeated again.
After the apprentice has seen the bodies of the spirits, he makes his outfit. It cannot be
purchased, nor can a kerei practice without it - or wear it when he is not practicing. Loeb says
27
Loeb's account was one of the many decontextualized accounts used by Eliade in Shamanism: Archaic
Techniques of Ecstasy (2004). In contrast to Eliade, Loeb argues that the Mentawai kerei should be called a
seer rather than a shaman because the kerei is not possessed by spirits. Loeb also argues that the shaman
is more "advanced" than the seer.
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that first is a hair ornament worn over the left ear made of chicken feathers, bark twine, and
beads, with an outer covering of red cloth. Next is the breast band made of brass spangles
decorated with beads woven on coconut ribs and chicken feathers. Next is brass arm bands.
Then black and red rattan decorated with beads and "wrapped around the candidate as a breech
band. Three strings of beads are used as head-bands (kirit). The head-bands serve as
telephone wires between the altar and the seer. It is through these that the seer talks to the
spirits of the altar" (1929: 70). In addition, bamboo carriers containing oil, brass arm and wrist
bands, and two bells with handles wrapped in red cloth are made. All of this takes nine days.
Then the instructor asks the apprentice, "Are your eyes clear now, so that you can see your
fathers, your elder and younger brothers [the spirits]" (1929: 70). The apprentice replies, "Yes, I
see them clearly" (1929: 70). The instructor sings, " Boy! I am here when you are in need, for I
made you. You will not be able to give medicine to the people of Mentawai with cold hands. You
will now have seeing eyes to see the wood spirits, hearing ears to hear the words of the spirits to
whom we sacrifice at the altar. May your magic power secure you long life, may it enable you to
visit continually the villages of men and to cure the sick" (1929: 70). The instructor places the
headdress on the apprentice, who sings,
I take this headdress as decoration so that I have magic power, that I have power
in the villages of the strangers. The people of the village will look on, the people
of the villages I visit will look on, the wood spirits will look on, the spirits of
heaven will look on, the spirits of the sea will look on, the spirits under the ground
of the village will look on, the poles (kera) of the village will look on, all the
children of the uma (division of the village) will look on. May I derive magic
power from the seers of the other villages, so that I may question the altars of
other villages, that I may question the spirits of other villages, that I may join my
singing with that of other seers who are also powerful. May my spirits rule over
other villages, so that when I use my headdress as a means of knowing what to
do I will be proficient in curing. I charm myself so that I be strong in body, that
my magic power be enduring, that I have long life. Amen (bulatnia, may it be
correct)" (1929: 70-71).
The instructor places the breast band, arm bands, and a leaf tail on the apprentice The outfit is
complete. The instructor applies ginger juice to the eyes of apprentice, who cannot see for two or
three days. Loeb writes, "This is done so that the people will also be blind when the seer plays
his tricks on them" (1929: 71). The instructor sings, "Red laiga flower, make clear his eyes, may
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the faces of the spirits shine that he may see them. May the eyes of the people be blinded by this
charm" (1929: 71). With a bamboo container, he blows into the ears of the apprentice and sings,
"I blow into your ears, my child, so that you will be able to hear the words of the wood spirits, and
the speech of the altar. I cause you to have hearing ears, seeing eyes, and cold hands. I cause
you to have magic power. I enable you to visit as a seer" (1929: 71). After this, when the
instructor is summoned to treat an illness, the apprentice is put to the test. If he is successful, the
instructor says to the apprentice, "Boy, I am satisfied with you, for you have questioned the altar,
for you have spoken with our fathers the wood spirits. There yet remains small things [the tricks
and legerdemain of the profession] which you do not know. If you sing as I do to the altar, then
you will do it correctly. As for the other matters, you have but to listen to the advice of the other
seers, and presently you will know everything" (1929: 73).
Schefold's account is more detailed. He frames shamanism and the continual care for
the soul in terms of the prevalence of disease (which explains the low population density on
Siberut). He reiterates that the ideal of "peaceful coexistence" is in constant tension with the
competition for prestige: "The continuity of everyday life is always endangered by the inner
contradiction between the wish for harmonious relationships and the competitive urge for greater
prestige, and by the consequent conflicts within the uma and between the groups. It is the model
of these conflicts that the Mentawaians use to explain phenomena that threaten them physically
every day: sickness and disease" (1992: 107-108).
According to Schefold, the pukereijat initiation ceremony lasts several months. Two or
three apprentices may train at once with a single master, a paumat, who is usually from a
neighboring uma and, as usual, is compensated for his services. The ritual begins with a
communal ceremony in the uma. The apprentices and their wives begin observing the taboos.
The apprentices build a small house (pulaeat) in the jungle, which is consecrated in the presence
of the master and the apprentices' closest relatives. The ancestors are informed, and their help is
requested. "The master dances next to the sacrifice, sings a few verses from a kerei song, and
calls to the ancestors: 'Look at us, soon your grandchildren will be doing this'" (1992: 116)! For
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the next four or five months, the apprentices are secluded in the pulaeat. "They live frugally,
wear no decorations, and may not be deloused" (1992: 116). They raise chickens and pigs for
the coming ceremony and plant flowers for the decorations. The father of the apprentice calls
helpers from his and other uma to make preparations. "The exit from the pulaeat is accompanied
by a communal ceremony of all the uma members and the helpers" (1992: 116). This marks the
end of the period of seclusion. Back in the uma, the master begins his instruction. He teaches
the apprentices the songs and melodies. "Observers are permitted to be present throughout the
instruction" (1992: 116). The helpers make the shaman's outfit: "a hair decoration of feathers and
the ribs of palm leaves, a necklace of ochre-colored cylindrical glass beads, a dancing apron
fashioned from pieces of cloths of diverse hues, a headband, and woven upper-arm rings
studded with beads. As containers for these attributes, wooden cases are made and decorated
with carvings" (1992: 116). Pigs are slaughtered. Bamboo poles are erected. Schefold writes:
Finally each novice receives 'seeing' eyes. He goes with the master to a hidden
location in the jungle, where he must swear never to reveal the secret. How
exactly this secret is formulated, I have never precisely heard. Old shamans tell
that the novice is summoned to massage a little illness stone from a spear that
has been taken along; this stone has been placed in the spear by the ancestors
as a test. Because the novice is unsuccessful, the master shows him how it is
done. After that the novice gets a splash of pungent ginger juice in his eyes from
a little bottle and in this way comes to be 'seeing.' The master asks him what he
sees. If he sees a young boy, he will soon die. It is in keeping with the
instruction, however, for him to see an old man, but at first in a blur; only after the
novice has turned away and looked at him behind his back in a mirror can he
perceive him clearly" (1992: 116).
Several days later, the high point of the initiation, alup, occurs. Decorations are laid out on the
veranda at night, and the ancestors are invited to take as many as they like. "Every novice has
by now learned to see the ancestors" (1992: 116). He dances with his hands on his hips,
watching them intently. "If they do not pay attention for a moment, he charges forward to the
edge of the veranda and returns with an amulet that he has grabbed from them in his hands.
Later the kerei's necklace will be hung with these amulets" (1992: 116). When the ancestors are
not paying attention, the apprentice steals an amulet. Shamans from a neighboring uma are in
attendance. With them, the apprentices perform the trance dance lajo. The master dances with
96
a small model canoe. "The dance is accompanied by a song that describes how the shamans
travel to a great mythical kerei by the name of Pagetta Sabbau in order to gain some of his
strength. Then everything becomes quiet" (1992: 116). The novices perform a bird dance
silently, then squat in front of the master, who now plays the role of Pagetta Sabbau. He asks the
novices:
'Who are you, who is dancing here?'
'I, a kerei from a long time past,' the novice answers, testing Pagetta Sabbau,
and dances anew.
'No, you are a new kerei.'
'Yes, old one, I am a new kerei.'
'I, nephew, I am an old kerei.'
'Then I come for your strength, I come for your honor!'
The novices dance again. The spirit of Pagetta Sabbau "hovers" above them. Each reaches up
and takes an amulet from the spirit, then falls to the floor in trance. "Then trance-inducing dances
are danced all night, and for the first time the novices dare to step through the fire" (1992: 116).
The next morning begins a long transitional period leading to the resumption of everyday
life. The new kerei and his wife, along with the master and his wife, visit shamans in neighboring
uma. The new kerei is at the height of his powers, and "the inviting shamans initially hide in mock
terror when their guests arrive" (1992: 116). The guests dance alone to show their maturity.
Then they dance with the hosts, who sing "the triumphant exaltation of a new kerei:
You are the blossom for me, white tebba flower,
With prickly fruit, with sweet-smelling fragrance, leoi,
Aptly you adorn the head of my friend,
My friend, the youth, who bears you, oi,
On the back of the dance floor, blossoms of equal size,
Equal are his steps in dancing,
Rhythmically he stamps on the boards, leoi.
You, too, I mix among my blossoms, flower of the ikug bush,
The short-stemmed, that grew of itself, leoi,
In the new clearing, in the new garden on the riverbank.
Aptly you adorn the head of my friend, leoi,
My friend, the kerei, the new kerei,
Equal are his steps in dancing,
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Rhythmically he stamps on the boards, leoi (1992: 106).
Pagetta Sabbau is significant here. His spirit is never invoked except on this occasion.
He is the original shaman and, according to myth, the originator of the Mentawai cultural order.
He provides the uma, the pigs, the chickens, the founding taboos and ceremonies, and almost
everything else, until humans take over and test things empirically. Schefold's version of events
is slightly different from Loeb's, but the point is the same: the apprentice must acquire the ability
to see and hear the spirits, which can be of any class, but in South Siberut, usually include the
ancestors. This ability is acquired through the whole of the initiation process, but it is specially
acquired through (the outfit and then) the failure of a test, the application of herbs to the eyes, the
revelation of the secret, and the clarity of seeing behind in a mirror. In the ceremony that follows,
the novice then tests Pagetta Sabbau! All of this suggests that the kerei is learning to create,
conceal, and reveal secrets, which is what mimesis is - or rather, what controlled mimesis is. The
public secret is that most kerei do not actually see and hear spirits. But some of them must.
Consider Loeb's master who says to his apprentice that even after he has seen the bodies of the
spirits, he will still need to learn the "small things," the tricks of the trade, by observing other
shamans. Then he will know "everything."
The same mimesis that underlies headhunting and everything else is made conscious to
the kerei. Imitation becomes intentional. And intentional imitation may be manipulated. The
sorcerer controls mimesis to harm.
28
The shaman controls mimesis to heal. He uses mimesis to
prevent his patients from succumbing to the compulsion to become other. He prevents them from
becoming an ancestor spirit, at least for the time being. He approaches the ancestor spirits so
that his patients do not. Like a gift, the shaman is a substitute. He substitutes himself for his
patients. He comes dangerously close to the fire of the sacred, but his training and initiation have
given him control over mimesis. From the spirits and from other shamans, he has learned "the
skilled revelation of skilled concealment" (Taussig 1998: 222), which he uses in his performance
to defer the violence that would occur in its absence. If gift exchange defers violence by way of
28
In certain rare circumstances, sorcery may be used as kind of justified punishment.
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the object, shamanism defers violence by way of the body. Shamanism is the organized control
of mimesis. In this sense, shamanism is less the antithesis of sorcery, which is also the
organized control of mimesis, and more the antithesis of headhunting, which is mimesis
uncontrolled. In the negative reciprocity of headhunting, the object of exchange is heads, and the
exchange does not nothing to control mimetic conflict. Generalized and balanced reciprocity
substitute objects for heads, mitigating mimetic conflict and deferring violence. Sacrifice is also
essential to shamanism, but it is the substitution of the shaman's body rather than an object that
really does the trick. For objects to defer violence, they must indicate a difference of perspective.
For the shaman to defer violence, he must hold both perspectives at the same time and embody
them, and then, for the benefit of his patient, differentiate them again. It is no coincidence that
when colonial officials and missionaries arrived in Siberut, followed by the Indonesian state, they
all targeted the shaman. The state also depends on the organized control of mimesis. The
shaman was a competitor - a rival.
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Chapter 5: Colonialism
In the preceding chapters, I have argued that social life in Sakaliou and South Siberut is
characterized by mimetic rivalry, which is both generated and mitigated by various forms of
exchange. Within the clan, generalized reciprocity creates a mimetic rivalry between individuals,
but the constant movement of things from hand to hand usually prevents the competition from
becoming a conflict. When the rivalry becomes a conflict, the clan fissions. Between nearby
clans and between a clan and its ancestor spirits, balanced reciprocity generates a mimetic rivalry
that always threatens to become a conflict, but can be, and usually is, mitigated by equal and
infrequent exchanges. When there is no exchange between nearby clans, there is either no
social relation at all or the relation is one of constant rivalry, pako, which may escalate into
violence and precipitate exchange. This conversion of violence into exchange is commemorated
in the puliaijat, the exchange between a clan and its ancestor spirits, which dispels mimetic rivalry
because the saukkui are an other that cannot be imitated. It is difference rather than similarity
that resolves conflict. Between more distant clans, negative reciprocity generates, but does not
mitigate mimetic rivalry. Headhunting is uncontrolled mimesis. Shamanism is the organized
control of mimesis, the use of similarity to reestablish the difference between humans and spirits.
The kerei substitutes himself (rather than chickens and pigs, as in the puliaijat) for the soul of the
patient, but remains human. The positive circularity of exchange always threatens to become
negative - exchange always threatens to become violence again - but social relations are
carefully managed to prevent this from happening. Exchange must be paroman. When it is not,
there is either no social relation, an alternative afforded by the distances that separate clans, or a
relation of conflict and violence, which may persist when the clans are socially and spatially
distant from each other, but usually precipitates an exchange that converts the negative circularity
into a positive one. To remain positive, subsequent exchanges must be equal and infrequent - or
generalized. No social relation at all is preferable to a mimetic crisis.
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Sakaliou engages in social relations with others through reciprocity in this sense. Self
and other are known through exchange. In everyday life, the vast majority of others are already
known to some extent. They are other individuals in the clan, other clans, both nearby and
distant, and spirits, both nearby and distant as well. But there are - and always have been - other
others on the horizon, and especially since Indonesian independence, the horizon has been
drawing closer. A century ago, the Dutch occupied Siberut. A half-century ago, the Indonesian
state occupied it. A quarter-century ago, foreign tourists and environmentalists arrived and began
their own occupation. The people of Sakaliou and South Siberut have had to contend with these
others, who at first remained distant, but in the last century have moved closer and closer (and
now literally live in the same house). The main argument of this dissertation is that Sakaliou has
contended with these other others the same way they engage in social relations with more
familiar others in everyday life: through reciprocity and exchange. This is not to say that Sakaliou
simply shares things with everyone they meet, far from it. Just as they do not simply share things
with other clans, but instead carefully manage their exchanges with other clans so as to avoid
mimetic conflict, so they do not simply share things with less familiar others. Instead, they
carefully manage their exchanges with these other others so as to avoid mimetic conflict. The
paradox is that mimetic conflict arises from a similarity between self and other. Paradoxically, in
other words, Sakaliou engages in social relations with these other others because they are
similar, not because they are different, an approach that could not be more different from that of
the other others with whom they engage in social relations. The Dutch, the Indonesian state, as
well as tourists and environmentalists see Sakaliou and the people of South Siberut ("the
Mentawai") as fundamentally different from themselves. These other others, especially the Dutch
and tourists, who come and go, are structurally analogous to the spirits, the saukkui, with whom
Sakaliou engages in social relations through an exchange that indicates a difference. Again, this
is not to say that Sakaliou simply treated the Dutch and continue to treat tourists as if they are
spirits (although they did initially see both literally as spirits). Rather, it is to say that Sakaliou
engaged in exchange with the Dutch and continue to engage in exchange with tourists the same
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way they engage in exchange with spirits: they present a gift that they expect to be followed by a
return gift of equal value, a paroman exchange that indicates a different perspective. They are
sometimes frustrated by the failure of exchange with tourists. They are almost always frustrated
with the Indonesian state, which they also initially engaged in exchange, but soon realized that
separation, distance, and difference would not follow. Tourists are preferable to the state
because sometimes exchange with tourists works.
From the earliest accounts through the colonial and ethnographic records, and especially
in the reports and promotional materials of tourists, the Mentawai have been seen as isolated,
uncontacted, and therefore timeless, outside of history.
29
Schefold (e.g. 1999) has argued
repeatedly and somewhat emphatically that the Mentawai are the best example of the Neolithic
Austronesian peoples who first arrived in island Southeast Asia around 2500 years ago. Critical
of Schefold, Reeves (2001) argues that the Mentawai Islands and the people who inhabit them
have never been isolated, even before the colonial period. The "dynamic interaction with the
wider world, an interaction not limited to the European presence, had been occurring for some
time. The islands have experienced a degree of interconnection with other areas of insular
Southeast Asia, both localized and more distant. Nevertheless, the colonial presence set in place
the context for change which rapidly accelerated following the establishment of the independent
Indonesian nation-state" (Reeves 2001). He then describes the colonial presence in the islands.
John Crisp, a civilian employee in the service of the English East India Company, visited the
Pagai ("Poggy") islands in August 1792, providing one of the first accounts of its people, an
account to which I will return in a moment. To his credit, Crisp realized that there were similarities
between the inhabitants of the Pagai islands and other people in Southeast Asia and the Pacific,
the ethnolinguistic group now referred to Austronesian. Crisp also mentions that 40 or 50 years
prior to his visit, an attempt was made by the English to establish a settlement and cultivate
pepper and that there were Malays living on the island. In 1801, a settlement was established on
29
It is this view of the Mentawai that has justified the Indonesian state's modernization policies and
programs, which are addressed in the next chapter.
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the Sikakap Strait between North and South Pagai, but the appointed Resident left the settlement
in the hands of a Malay who abandoned it the following year. Other English merchants, some
granted rights by the Netherlands East Indies Resident for Sumatra, visited the islands in the
early 19th century, but no settlement was established. Following the Treaty of London in 1824,
which clarified the British and Dutch spheres of influence, the British withdrew from Bengkulu,
and the islands off the west coast of Sumatra - Nias, Batu, the Mentawai Islands, and Enggano -
were declared to be under Dutch sovereignty. However, the Dutch were preoccupied elsewhere
in the Netherlands East Indies until 1857, when their attention shifted back to Aceh in northern
Sumatra, which was producing half of the world's supply of pepper. Moving southward, the Dutch
were consolidating their authority - and meeting resistance among the Batak people of northern
and central Sumatra. Thus, on July 10, 1864, according to H.A. Mess, the Assistant Resident for
the Pesisir Selatan-Painan area just south of Padang, the islands off the west coast of Sumatra,
including the Mentawai Islands, were officially brought under Dutch authority. Troops were sent
to the islands to stop the plundering of trading vessels, and a military post was established in
Sikakap. In 1893, a military post was established in Sipora, but like the British settlement earlier,
it was left in the hands of a Malay who eventually abandoned it. Thus, although the Dutch made
an effort to bring the islands under their authority in the 19th century, they did not establish a
significant presence. Reeves writes, "colonial involvement in the islands was minimal" (2001).
It was not until the beginning of the 20th century, with the implementation of the Ethical
Policy by the Netherlands East Indies, that colonial involvement in the islands increased. In
1904, a military post was established on Siberut, and a district commandant assumed control,
charged mainly with stopping the plundering of trading vessels. In Sikakap, on the request of
colonial authorities, the German Royal Missionary Society established a mission station, and the
first missionary, August Lett, took up residence in 1901. He was killed eight years later in a
confrontation between colonial troops and the inhabitants of a village in North Pagai. The troops
were attempting to register the inhabitants of the village, a procedure that frequently provoked
skirmishes between colonial authorities and the people they wanted to administer. The first
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conversion to Christianity did not occur until 1915. The following year, efforts were extended to
Sipora and Siberut, but a mission station was not established on Siberut, in Maileppet, until 1932.
After World War II, on the request of the new Indonesian administration, Catholic Italian
missionaries established a mission station in Muara Siberut. Reeves concludes, "Apart from
colonial contacts it is clear that there have been on-going interactions between local populations
and seafaring others. Francis (1839) reports the existence of trade between the inhabitants of
the Mentawai islands and Chinese and Malays from Sumatra, trade that no doubt predates the
coming of Europeans" (2001). My own conclusion is that the Dutch had little interest in the
islands except for the plundering of trading vessels. These vessels indeed predate the Dutch.
Reeves continues, "compared with other parts of the Indo-Malay archipelago where cultural and
linguistic exchange has been occurring amongst groups over long periods of time, the various
groups located across the Mentawai islands have had minimal contact with societies and cultures
beyond their shores. However, contact during the colonial and post-colonial periods and its
concomitant consequences accelerated processes of change that have affected different regions
to greater or lesser degrees. To hold, therefore, that the contemporary inhabitants of the
Mentawai Islands are somehow 'primitive' relics of a bygone era that have only recently, or are
only now, opening up to the rest of the world and beginning to change is a position not well
supported by the available evidence. Current events are but a continuation of a gently
accelerating modern historical trajectory" (2001). But the available evidence that Reeves
presents does suggest that the inhabitants of the Mentawai Islands have been relatively isolated,
at least until the 20th century. What evidence would suggest otherwise? The answer is much
more obvious than Schefold's Dongson cultural elements, and it lies in the two most ubiquitous
objects of everyday life: the machete (tegge) and tobacco (ube).
30
Both play an important role in
Crisp's account. Moreover, even if the inhabitants of the Mentawai Islands were relatively
isolated until the 20th century, they certainly are not isolated anymore.
30
Cooking pots, cloth, gongs, and the Dutch plate used in the puliaijat are not, and never were, locally
produced. They are acquired in exchange along with the machete and tobacco.
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The machete and tobacco were provided by the Malay and Chinese trading vessels that
predated the Dutch. Bakker (1999) argues that these vessels were the main link between the
Mentawai Islands, Sumatra, and the rest of the world. Disputes between the indigenous
inhabitants of the Mentawai Islands and the Malay and Chinese traders were common and
sometimes "resulted in bloody skirmishes and deaths...on both sides. The Mentawaians quickly
gained a fierce and warlike reputation among the population of West Sumatra, whereas they
themselves considered the traders to be untrustworthy and bloodthirsty" (1999). Prior to 1864,
contact with Dutch colonial officials was limited to navy patrols and "punitive expeditions after the
pillaging of a trading vessel or the killing of a merchant. Structural governmental rule on Siberut
was non-existent at the time" (1999). In 1864, the Dutch established a presence in the islands,
and at the end of the 19th century, colonial officials requested the help of missionaries to civilize
the population. In the beginning of the 20th century, the Dutch and Christian presence was
fortified first in the islands to the south of Siberut. Then, in 1911, a small military garrison was
established Muara Siberut. Bakker writes, "The post's commanders did not have a concrete
program to change daily life on the island, although they succeeded in abolishing traditional
headhunting. In practice, a policy of non-interference was followed regarding religious and
cultural matters, as long as these did not interfere with law and order" (1999). There were seven
policy goals:
- Continued suppression of headhunting.
- Establishing local rule by appointing village chiefs.
- Restricting traditional legal systems.
- Constructing roads and footpaths by means of compulsory labor.
- Stimulating missionary work and education.
- Protecting Chinese and Minangkabau traders.
- Moving the pigs out of the villages (1999)
At the same time, a penal colony was established in Muara Siberut. The location was ideal, with
a raging sea on one side and "fearful savages" on the other. In 1930, the penal colony had about
250 convicts, all of them from elsewhere in Indonesia, especially Java . They worked on the
construction of roads and harbor quays, guarded by a garrison of 45 soldiers. There was also a
doctor, a military and civil manager, and an administrator, as well as Minangkabau, Chinese, and
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Sumatran fishermen, farmers, and traders. However, Bakker argues, "Contact between the
Mentawaians and the settlement at Muara Siberut was limited. Most Mentawaians only saw
soldiers when they were visited by patrols or when they came to Muara Siberut to trade. Few
attempts were made to establish a more frequent or intense contact" (1999). According to
Bakker, older Mentawaians still recall "'the good old days' when they got good prices while
trading with the Chinese and Minangkabau traders, and when the Dutch doctors took good care
of them when they needed help" (1999). They did not think so fondly of the Dutch tax system, "a
vital link in trading" (1999). Taxes were paid in jungle products. Any surplus was traded for
goods, which were brought back to the jungle. Bakker writes, "Dutch rule was remembered as
rather free, traditional clothing, tattoos, kerei and arat sabulungan were all allowed" (1999).
People appreciated the Dutch prohibition of "war, killing and headhunting" (1999). One man told
Bakker:
In the old days there were many people from outside; every uma controlled its
own territory and if you went out of it you ran a big chance of being shot by other
uma because they didn't know you....Sometimes traders got shot, but traders
killed many Mentawaians as well. There often was a war between us
Mentawaians and the traders. Dutch soldiers were shot by accident as well, but
the Dutch never held vengeance-raids. They would use their justice system and
only punish the people who shot the soldiers. If we were attacked by another
uma we would go to the Dutch soldiers and they would punish that uma. After
the Dutch came everybody could sleep at night without being afraid and we could
travel around the island if we liked without being killed (1999).
People were clearly ready to give up headhunting. The Dutch punished individuals rather than
clans. They interrupted the negative circularity. Even when a trader or soldier was killed, the
individual was punished. In many respects, the cessation of "war" led to exchange.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Siberut was connected to Sumatra by a monthly
boat with mail and supplies - and the occasional tourist. In general, the island and its inhabitants
were feared by outsiders. But in 1912, an English woman named Violet Clifton, travelling with her
husband, wrote:
A Fateful map spurred Talbot's desires towards the group of Mentawai Islands.
The captain of the steamer, which once a month takes mails to the Military
Comptroller, said, 'You should not go; no traveler ever lands there, for the islands
are under martial law. I have only taken there the Dutch Military Comptroller,
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Javanese soldiers, and Javanese convicts to cut down the jungle, and three
German missionaries, of whom one died of blackwater fever, another was
murdered by the men of Mentawai, and the third has not been there long.
Lawless savages might kill you! You will be covered with sores!' Thus he
admonished us (cited in Baker 1999).
Ms. Clifton and her husband made the voyage, as did a few other tourists prior to the outbreak of
World War II.
31
According to Bakker, the reports of these travelers began to change the
perception of the indigenous inhabitants from bloodthirsty savages to a peace-loving, gentle
people. Photographs were (and still are) sold in Padang. Violet Clifton continues:
Talbot and I walked down a track in the jungle. He suddenly felt ill, sick in fact,
and asked me to go on alone for a little way. Presently I had a sensation of
someone behind me, and turning round I found myself looking in the dark eyes of
a Mentawai savage. He carried a knife wherewith to cut the roots of herbs he
needed, and he was naked except for a loin cloth. He was tattooed with blue
fantastic lines that ran from his body up over his face, and in his long hair he
wore flowers and black strings, with here and there some beads tied round his
head. Up and down my spine I felt a curious irritation, because I had seen the
knife in his hand. I walked on some way muttering to myself the historical 'tu
trembles carcasse,' and then sat down by the wayside to let the Mentawaian
pass. As he did so we exchanged a frank stare and a faltering smile (cited in
Bakker 1999).
First she notices the knife, then the stare and the smile. As for missionaries, they only saw the
knife. Bakker writes, "Much to their frustration, interest and gusto were low among the
population" (1999). The indigenous inhabitants seemed incapable of realizing the superiority of
the civilization they were being offered. Long periods of leisure and puliaijat earned them a
reputation as "lazy, underdeveloped and stupid" - as one missionary said, "the distress of a poor
people trapped in terror of evil" (1999). But the government maintained a policy of non-
interference, so the missionaries were left to fend for themselves.
With World War II imminent, Muara Siberut was evacuated by the Dutch colonial army.
The Japanese army maintained a small garrison, but rarely ventured into the interior and largely
relied on a local intermediary, previously in the employ of the Dutch. No taxes were required, and
the indigenous people in the interior visited Muara Siberut less frequently. But headhunting and
31
Bakker (1999) cites the example of a military doctor in Muara Siberut named Van Beukering who wrote
that he was visited by a group of Americans sailing through the archipelago. One was a doctor, who came
ashore to have a look around. The others stayed on the ship and studied the island with binoculars.
107
internal war did not recur. The Japanese trained the indigenous people around Muara Siberut as
police and compensated them. They also recruited indigenous people to do the work the convicts
had done. One man told Bakker, "We did not feel this was fair. They said they came to liberate
us but they forced us to work for them. We got paid for it, but not much and everything became
more expensive. Also, they told us that if the Dutch returned we would fight them together, only
the Dutch and Japanese had guns but we did not! We asked them to give us guns as well, but
they did not. If the Dutch had returned we would all have run into the jungle instead of fight"
(1999). Another man told Bakker that one day, he went down to Muara Siberut to trade, but he
was forced to work. He continues, "We went back to the jungle and never went to Muara Siberut
again as long as the Japanese were staying there. One time a group of Japanese soldiers came
walking through the jungle. We shot at them and we killed one, the rest ran away. We cut off the
head of the soldier we killed. We are still famous for that" (1999)! The jungle became a place of
refuge during the Japanese occupation. Then, suddenly and without much fanfare, the Japanese
left. Bakker writes, "The Japanese period has not really had any permanent influence on life in
Siberut, neither at Muara Siberut nor in the interior. The lack of control over the interior would
have allowed for a return of forbidden customs, but this did not happen. Mostly it was a transition
from colonial rule to life in an independent Indonesian republic" (1999).
With the surrender of the Japanese, English soldiers arrived in Sumatra, but were soon
replaced by Dutch troops. Sukarno declared independence on August 17, 1945. Dutch and
Indonesian troops fought in Padang and West Sumatra until July 1947, when the Dutch finally
regained control. The fighting prevented ships from leaving for the Mentawai Islands "and so the
islands remained isolated" (Bakker 1999). The Dutch never returned to the islands, and with
Indonesian independence in 1949-50, the Mentawai Islands became part of the new republic.
Bakker argues that during this time, "the isolation of the islands was so complete that nothing was
known about what was happening in the rest of Indonesia, neither did any supplies reach the
island. In the Rereiket area the people differed in opinion about what would happen next. They
speculated that either the Dutch would return, or indeed the Japanese, or that Indonesia's
108
independence would finally take place. When the ships started to arrive again they heard of the
war going on. They did not really feel involved, neither did they feel themselves part of Indonesia.
They just continued their life, now and again hearing news about the war. What happened next
one informant explained thus: 'Indonesia became independent and the Mentawai religion,
clothing and tattoos became forbidden. It was like 'Tabe Tuan!'...became 'Indonesia
Merdeka!'...All of Indonesia became free, but Mentawai was forgotten'" (1999).
Life in Siberut would change dramatically with the arrival of the state after Indonesian
independence, but the first half of the 20th century has to be considered as relatively free of the
entanglements and complications that usually accompanied the Dutch. The presence of the
Dutch in the Mentawai Islands was minimal. It was more minimal in Siberut than in the islands to
the south. It was almost nonexistent in the interior. From my own reading of the colonial record, I
agree with Bakker that the Dutch had no real program for colonizing the island. There were the
seven policy objectives, formulated initially for the smaller southern islands and put into effect
with some success there, but these objectives proved to be more difficult to put into effect on
Siberut, especially in the interior. Headhunting was indeed suppressed, and colonial officials
continued to serve as a third party that interrupted the cycle of negative reciprocity. There was no
effort, however, to appoint local chiefs, and in fact, there was a general tendency to leave
"cultural and religious matters" to the indigenous inhabitants. For the same reason, although
there was an effort to restrict the traditional legal system of tulo, it grew out of the third-party role
that the Dutch came to play in resolving disputes, not out of an insistence on the Dutch rule of
law. The Dutch seem to have recognized their vulnerable position in relation to the indigenous
inhabitants. Thus, taxes were paid only by those individuals who wanted to enter into social
relations with the Dutch, and compulsory labor was so uncompulsory that the Dutch were forced
to recruit convicts from Java instead to build the infrastructure of modernity. In Siberut, they
offered little material support to the missionaries that they had invited. They offered
encouragement and protection, but only in the vicinity of Muara Siberut (and Muara Sikabaluan in
the north). The same is true for the Minangkabau traders, known as sareu (literally those who
109
come from afar), who lived in Muara Siberut or supplied the settlement with goods. As with the
lack of will to impose the Dutch rule of law, this seems to have been motivated less out of the
benefits of trade for the civilizing process than out of the necessity of receiving some goods for
themselves. For years prior to the establishment of the Dutch settlement in Muara Siberut, sareu
traders had complained to colonial officials in Padang that their ships were being pillaged by the
inhabitants of Siberut. The colonial officials sent out the occasional patrol, but made no
concerted effort to bring the problem of pillaging under control until a presence was established
on the island. According to Persoon (1997), it was only then that sareu traders started to live on
Siberut. They benefitted from their position as middleman (i.e. they complained, but were happy
to have them remain "savages"). The only place that pigs were moved out of the villages was in
Muara Siberut itself. It is not an exaggeration to say, then, that the colonial period had little effect
on the people of the interior. The Dutch helped end headhunting and created a space for
exchange with the other others beginning to visit and live on the island. The legacy of the Dutch
was the jail and other infrastructure, the introduction of Christianity, and most importantly, the
unfulfilled policy goals that were suddenly put into programmatic effect by the newly formed
Indonesian state.
The oldest members of Sakaliou, who were children at the end of the Dutch colonial
period and during the Japanese occupation, have no distinct memory of this time. It was
relatively uneventful. What they remember most was the cessation of headhunting and the
occasional excursion downriver to trade in Muara Siberut, which usually ended in a satisfactory, if
not paroman, exchange of forest products for machetes, cooking pots, and cloth. Almost no other
goods were acquired. Almost none were sought. Their life was upriver in the forest, and it did
not necessitate the many interesting, but ultimately useless things the Dutch and sareu traders
had to offer. There was one important exception, however, and that was a particular kind of blue
and white ceramic plate, which came to substitute for one of the lulag platters in the puliaijat. The
Dutch plate must have become an ancestral heirloom at this time. Needless to say, this plate
was not sought for its superior craftsmanship or because it fulfilled some function better than the
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wooden lulag, which is still used in the puliaijat along with the plate and, in many cases, in the
absence of it. It was sought mainly because of its association with the Dutch. The plate, and the
exchanges with the Dutch and sareu traders in which it was acquired, raise several important
issues. First, why and how would the people of the interior engage in exchange with the Dutch
and sareu traders at all? If they rarely returned with anything other than what they already had or
could acquire from nearby clans through the normal forms of exchange, why would they go to the
trouble - and risk - of travelling downriver to acquire the goods? Second, given the delicate
nature of exchange in Siberut, how were the exchanges with Dutch and sareu traders negotiated
and interpreted? Were they a fundamentally different form of exchange, or where they the same
form of exchange with different people, with other others? Third, of all the interesting objects that
could have been acquired, why was the Dutch plate the only one that came to be considered
essential other than the obviously essential objects, such as machetes, cooking pots, and cloth?
There are, as far as I know, few colonial records describing the exchanges between the
European and sareu traders and the inhabitants of the Mentawai Islands, especially those of the
interior of Siberut.
32
Almost all of the records, however, mention pillaging, so there is no doubt
that there were exchanges and that while many of them must have ended satisfactorily for both
sides, some also ended unsatisfactorily for the European and sareu traders. It is also probably
safe to assume that some exchanges ended unsatisfactorily for the indigenous inhabitants. The
oldest members of Sakaliou and other clans in South Siberut remember the exchanges as
frequently paroman and often credit the Dutch with insuring that the sareu traders engaged in fair
exchange. In other words, the colonial records tend to emphasize the exchanges that ended
unsatisfactorily for the European and sareu traders. There is one document, however, that does
emphasize the strange way that objects mediated between the indigenous habitants and the
European and sareu traders who began to ply the waters off the Mentawai Islands with increasing
frequency at the end of the 19th century. That document happens to be one of the earliest
32
These may be discovered in the archive.
111
records of contact.
33
It also happens to be the record of a voyage of discovery rather than a
voyage of conquest or trade.
In 1792, John Crisp, Esq., a civilian in the employ of the English East India Company,
travelled from the British-controlled port of Bengkulu on the island of Sumatra to the Sikakap
Strait in the southern Mentawai Islands. He was motivated - his curiosity was excited, he says -
by the fact that the indigenous inhabitants of the islands are so different from the people of
Sumatra: "From the proximity of these islands to Sumatra, which, in respect to them, may be
considered a continent, we should naturally expect to find their inhabitants to be a set of people
originally derived from the Sumatra stock, and look for some affinity in their language and
manners; but, to our no small surprise, we find a race of men, whose language is totally different,
and whose customs and habits of life indicate a very difficult origin, and bear a striking
resemblance to those of the inhabitants of the late discovered islands of the great pacifick ocean"
(1799: 77). He mentions that 40 to 50 years prior, an attempt had been made to establish a
settlement and cultivate pepper, but it failed because of the "improper conduct" of the man in
charge, whose account of the people was also "imperfect." Crisp then describes the geography
of the strait and the surrounding islands, suggesting their similarity to Sumatra (about which he
was wrong) and noting the "excellent timber," including the trees from which the masts of ships
are made. He stayed for about a month. He says that the plants are also similar to the plants on
Sumatra, with sago, coconuts, and bamboo "in great plenty," as well as a variety of fruits. He
then begins to detect differences: "The woods in their present state are impervious to man: the
species of wild animals which inhabit them are but few; the large red deer, some hogs, and
several kinds of monkey are to be found here, but neither buffaloes, nor goats; nor are these
forests infested, like those of Sumatra, with tigers or any other beasts of prey" (1799: 79). The
common fowl, pork, and fish are "the favorite animal food of the natives." He makes an
interesting observation about a species of cockle that may absorb the rock around it. He notes
33
Contact with Europeans occurred prior to the 18th century. Siberut was named the Isle of Good Fortune
by shipwrecked sailors by the 16 century.
112
that there are few houses inhabited by Malay boat-builders (cf. Persoon), one of whom had lived
there for two years and spoke the language of the natives. He brought another interpreter from
Bengkulu and found "one native, who had resided some time in Padang, a Dutch settlement on
the West Coast of Sumatra" (1799: 80). With three interpreters, he "was at no loss for
communication with the natives."
The story proper begins: "After having been two days at an anchor, the natives began to
come down from their villages in their canoes, bringing fruit of various kinds, and on invitation
they readily came aboard. The chief of See Cockup, a village in the straits, was among them, but
not distinguished from the rest by dress, or dignity of demeanor. On coming aboard the vessel
they did not show any signs of apprehension or embarrassment, but expressed a strong degree
of curiosity, and a desire to examine everything minutely" (1799: 81). Crisp was wrong about the
chief, but he was probably right about the lack of apprehension after they had been invited to
board the ship. Even today, when strangers pass by a house, they do not enter unless they are
invited, but once they are, they enter with confidence. What seems more peculiar to me is the
desire to examine everything minutely. This happens with tourists. It probably happened to Crisp
for the same reason: one comes to know an other by pressing close to him or her and the objects
they have. Perhaps because the natives brought fruit, Crisps offers them "plates of boiled rice,
which they would not touch till it had been previously tasted by one of our own people; after which
they eat it to the last grain" (1799: 81). He suggests that this indicates "the use of poison among
them," but it was probably more out respect than fear. Crisp continues, "They behaved while on
board with much decorum, and did not show the least disposition for pilfering, but freely asked for
what they saw and wished to possess; not expressing however any ill will, when they met with
denial" (1799: 81). Crisp offers them gifts. He says he "made presents of beads, small looking
glasses, Birmingham japanned snuff boxes, &c. all which were very acceptable, as was also
tobacco, of which they appear to be very fond; they use it by smoking. They appear to live in
great friendship and harmony with each other, and voluntarily divided among their companions
what was given to them" (1799: 81).
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The scene is clearly not First Contact. The natives seem to know the drill. It is Crisp who
is discovering them for the first time, and by offering them gifts, which they distribute among
themselves, he virtually insures that they will be back for more. Probably unbeknownst to Crisp,
the tobacco he offers is a token of sociality. Even today, the thing that is exchanged most often,
among the natives themselves and between the natives and the foreigners who come to visit
them, is tobacco, an import. When it arrived in the Mentawai Islands is unknown, but it has
become - and probably already was by the time of Crisp's voyage of discovery - the object around
which social relations revolve, much like betel nut elsewhere in the Indonesian archipelago.
34
Tobacco, like other objects, puts people in the same time and place and enables them to explore
the similarities and differences of their perspectives. Among the natives, when strangers smoke
together, they look for commonalities of descent, marriage, or other recognizable social relations.
They may conclude that they are more different than similar. The sharing of tobacco is not, as
Reeves (2001) suggests, a quid pro quo. Although it may be in some situations, it is more often
an exploration of the other, and the self in relation to this other. Today, tourists are confounded
and frustrated by the frequent request for cigarettes. They do not understand that to refuse a
request is to refuse a social relation. Crisp, perhaps unintentionally, did not have this problem.
He reports that after the first day, the ship was "daily visited by many of their canoes, bringing
fruit, a few fowls, &c." - and eventually women, who were apprehensive at first and only boarded
with the encouragement of the "their men." It is unclear whether Crisp is referring to the women
only or to both men and women when he writes, "Among them we observed some of a very
pleasant countenance, with fine expressive eyes" (1799: 82). Either way, it is after the arrival of
the women that one Mr. Best, "a military gentlemen of the establishment," decided to return with
the natives to one of their villages, along with a Malay interpreter and a Malay servant. Two days
later, Mr. Best reported to Crisp, "He was received with great cordiality and civility....Many of the
people had never before seen an European, and with much curiosity examined his dress,
34
It is a mystery why the people of the Mentawai Islands do not use betel nut. It now grows abundantly on
the island. It may not have grown abundantly before, but I suspect that it was simply replaced as a kind of
ethnic marker that tapped the power of the foreign, the same way that the plate replaced the lulag.
114
particularly his shoes" (1799: 82). Mr. Best has to be considered one of the first tourists. What is
it about his shoes? There is no better way to be in the same time and place as an unknown other
than to literally stand in his or her shoes. It is the next best thing to tobacco.
Much of the rest of the report details Crisp's observations of the natives' "manners and
customs." He notes the low population density (even in Pagai) and suggests that because of "the
mildness of the climate, the ease with which the inhabitants procure wholesome nutritive food,
and the little restraint laid on the communication between the sexes, this paucity of inhabitants
seems to indicate that the period when their residence in these islands commenced, cannot be
very remote" (1799: 83). His logic, of course, is flawed: given time and adequate resources, it is
not necessarily true that populations will grow or that societies will become more complex.
However, he is probably right that the Mentawai Islands were relatively recently settled. Schefold
(1976) argues that it was only a few centuries prior that the first people reached Pagai. Crisp's
admiration for certain aspects of native life is tempered by the belief that they are filthy savages, a
polarity that continues through the colonial period right up the present. He writes, "Their
knowledge of metals is entirely derived from their communication with the inhabitants of Sumatra
[a fact that Schefold frequently points out]. They are still strangers to the use of coin of any kind,
and a metal coat button would be of equal value in their esteem with a piece of gold or silver coin,
either of which would immediately be hung about the neck as an ornament. A sort of iron hatchet
or hand-bill, called machete, is in much esteem with them, and serves as a standard for the value
of various commodities, such as cocoanuts, coolit coys, poultry, &c." (1799: 85). This passage
indicates that there was a fair amount of exchange with sareu traders prior to the colonial period.
The machete is the thing - the metal product - in the myth of the foundation of the cultural order.
Like tobacco, it is an import. Unlike tobacco, it is not a token of sociality. The machete is a
standard of exchange in the absence of social relations. To a certain extent, the minute
examinations of Crisp's objects were to determine whether they would be like tobacco or the
machete.
115
Probably coincidentally, it is at this point in the account that Crisp mentions the warfare
between the people of the Poggy islands and "those of some island to the northward, whom they
call Sybee," referring to Siberut. He is frankly surprised to hear this, given the "friendly footing
upon which they appeared to live with one another." He then turns to the matter of religion: "The
religion of this people, if it can be said that they have any, may truly be called the religion of
nature. A belief of the existence of some powers more than human cannot fail to be excited
among the most uncultivated of mankind, from the observations of various striking natural
phenomena, such as the diurnal revolution of the sun and moon; thunder and lightning;
earthquakes, &c. &c. nor will there ever be wanting among them, some of superior talents and
cunning who will acquire an influence over weak minds, by assuming themselves an interest with,
or a power of controlling these superhuman agents; and such notions constitute the religion of the
inhabitants of the Poggys" (1799: 85-86; emphasis added). Here is the first mention of the
shaman, and it is not a flattering one. He is of superior talents, but he is also cunning. He uses
his talents to influence weak minds, which associate powers more than human with striking
natural phenomena. Crisp observes that chickens and pigs are sacrificed "to avert sickness; to
appease the wrath of the offended power, or to render it propitious to some projected enterprise."
Mr. Best adds that omens are read in "the entrails of the victim." "But," Crisp says, "they have no
form of religious worship" (1799: 86). After describing the funeral, he writes, "Among a people
whose manners are so simple, whose wants are so easily supplied, and whose possessions are
so circumscribed, we are not to look for any complex system of jurisprudence: indeed their code
of laws may be comprised in a few lines" (1799: 86). Their chiefs hold no authority. Disputes are
settled by a meeting of the whole village. Theft without restitution is punishable by death. Murder
is punishable by retaliation. Crime is rare. So is divorce. Slavery is unknown. Crisp then turns
to tattooing, which he associates with age and war: "it is probable enough that this custom may
originally have been intended as a mark of military distinction, but such original intention cannot
at present have a place, as the marks are common to every individual, and wars scarce occur
once in a generation" (1799: 88). A brass wire on a stick is used to make them. He describes
116
the process in great detail, adding, "Mr. Best submitted to the operation on his leg, and found it
attended some pain" (1799: 88).
Crisp concludes the account by suggesting that the customs and manners of the natives
of the Poggy islands are so different from those of the natives of Sumatra that they must be of a
different origin, which may be impossible - or not of enough "importance" - to trace. According to
Crisp, the natives themselves do not know. He does report, however, that they told Mr. Best they
came from the sun, which he takes to mean from the east. Crisp appends "a pretty copious
specimen of the language," because it may be the best evidence of their origin. He also suggests
that the tattoos could be significant: "if any people should be discovered among whom this
custom prevails, and whose bodies tattooed, generally, with figures of the same kind, it would
afford no slight presumption of a common origin" (1799: 89). He includes a sketch of a tattooed
man and woman, and the instruments used to make the tattoos. So concerned with origins, Crisp
links language and tattooing - and the instruments of tattooing. But although he had paid close
attention to their objects, he deems them unimportant for his purposes. This could not be further
from the understanding of the natives, who deem Crisp's objects of the utmost importance for
figuring the other who has come to visit them. Mr. Best seems to have an intuitive sense of this.
He goes into the village, he nearly loses his shoes, he is tattooed. Crisp's last line is: "I had
intended to examine the whole chain of islands which lie off Sumatra, and which are inhabited by
very different sets of people, but a number of cross and untoward accidents prevented the
accomplishment of my original design" (1799: 89).
This encounter should be viewed as a scene of exchange, a way of coming to know the
other and the self in relation to other by way of mediating objects. Tobacco does this on a daily
basis. Tobacco did it for Crisp, too. Although it was not the intention of Crisp, nor necessarily the
intention of the natives, to exchange one thing for another, it was almost certainly their intention
to know just who the other was and who they were in relation to it. Of all the players, Mr. Best
seems to be the one most keenly aware of the power of bodies and objects to create
understanding. In the absence of a common language, and sometimes in the presence of one,
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bodies and objects provide a way of coming to know the other. For the natives, the exchange of
objects is what occurs instead of violence. When exchange failed, the result was pillaging, the
common complaint of the sareu traders throughout the colonial period. Tobacco is replaced by
the machete. It is no coincidence that headhunting ends when trade begins. Negative reciprocity
becomes barter when there is no social relation between the people involved in the exchange.
The traders were other others. They provided tobacco and metal goods, not only the machete,
but also cooking pots, as well as cloth. The metal goods and the cloth became objects of
exchange between the natives themselves. As Crisp observes, the machete became a standard.
Again, this is not a coincidence. Although it is used daily and is in high demand, it is the only
trade good that is personalized. It signifies both the conversion of violence into a new kind of
exchange and the indigenization of the other. Tobacco was also indigenized. But both the
machete and tobacco do not figure in ceremonial exchange, especially in the puliaijat. There are
no war dances. Tobacco is never offered to the spirits. While cooking pots and cloth do figure in
ceremonial exchange, it is only the Dutch plate that is never exchanged and that figures in the
puliaijat. It has to be a considered an indigenization of the other through the object of the
communal meal. The natives engaged in exchange with the Dutch and the sareu traders not
because they needed objects, but because it was a way to understand them. They were
understood as analogous to the ancestor spirits. The exchanges indicated a difference of
perspective. The Dutch and the sareu traders were others whose perspective could be known
through exchange, but not completely. A distinction was made, however, between the Dutch and
the sareu traders. The Dutch sometimes acted as a third party. The sareu traders did not.
Exchange reverted to violence.
The ethnographic encounter is a two-way street. Just as Crisp is trying to make sense of
the natives by way of their customs and manners, tattoos and origins, so the natives are trying to
make sense of Crisp, the Europeans, and the sareu, who appear first as traders, then as
translators, and then again as traders under the protection of the Dutch. The encounter gives
way to mimesis, especially in the figure of Mr. Best. For the natives, however, it is the objects
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that Crisp possesses and especially those he offers in exchange that they hope will reveal
something of his perspective. The strange thing about them is that they do not. And perhaps
even more strangely, it is this absence of perspective that ends up being Crisp's perspective.
The objects reveal nothing - or almost nothing. In this sense, the exchanges with Crisp are most
like the exchanges with spirits. They are paroman, but they do not indicate a similarity of
perspective, which might generate a mimetic rivalry. The perspective of spirits is revealed in the
return gift, the animal killed in the hunt that concludes the puliaijat. With Crisp, there is a return
gift, but nothing is revealed. With the sareu traders, when the exchange is not paroman, instead
of additional sacrifices, the return gift is simply taken. They are similar to the most distant clans,
with whom heads were exchange in negative reciprocity. The Dutch intervene, just as they did in
headhunting. It is therefore the otherness of the Dutch that enables them engage in exchange
with the natives, an otherness even more spirit-like than the spirits, for the exchanges reveal
nothing of their perspective.
The power of the foreign is that it escapes reciprocity, which makes it all the more
surprising that some things should be incorporated so completely into the social life of the
natives. I am thinking here of tobacco, the machete, and the Dutch plate. The machete is the
standard for exchange with the sareu. Tobacco is the standard of sociality. The Dutch plate is
used in the puliaijat because the Dutch are akin to spirits. The lulag platter it replaced is one of
the ancestral heirlooms. The sacrifices to the spirits are presented on it, the ancestor's dish. All
of these things were indigenized in one way or another precisely because contact and colonialism
did not fundamentally alter the social life of the natives. Mimetic rivalry continued. In fact, I would
argue that not only did it continue, it grew. The goods extracted from the forest were of little value
to the natives. These were exchanged for goods that were already of value. There was an influx
of goods, a kind of inflation that intensified mimetic rivalry and therefore intensified the exchanges
that mitigate it, especially the puliaijat. Although the colonial records do not indicate it, there was
almost certainly an amplification of tradition, a growth without change. There was cultural
involution.
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The complex relation between the indigenous people of Siberut, the sareu, and the Dutch
is described in one of the most well-known myths in Sakaliou. It was recounted to Bakker in 1996
by the master storyteller Terason, who recounted it to me in almost exactly the same form in
2004. I defer to Bakker's translation:
Long ago, Pagetta Sabbau had two sons. One was called Malapapui and the
other Betuogbuk. Malapapui worked in the jungle all day using rattan, bananas,
durian and sago. Betuogbuk worked in the house, he made things out of iron;
knives, axes, chain saws, nails and the like.
One day Malapapui returned home from the jungle exhausted. He wanted to
sleep, but that was impossible because Betuogbuk was chopping iron, making a
lot of noise. Malapapui became very angry, he took the iron and threw it away,
out of the house where it could not be found again. Betuogbuk became angry as
well and they started to fight. Pagetta Sabbau heard the noise and separated his
sons. From that time on they lived in three houses. Pagetta Sabbau and his wife
continued to live in the old house, but each of his sons had to build himself a
house of his own. Before they left they both had to make a promise. Malapapui
had to sell jungle products to Betuogbuk and Betuogbuk had to sell iron products
to Malapapui.
They lived on in this way, father and mother died. What happened to Betuogbuk
is unknown, but he became the ancestor of the Western people, probably some
of them know what happened him.
Malapapui had two sons. One was the ancestor of all the Indonesian peoples,
the other was the ancestor of the Mentawaians. The ancestor of the
Mentawaians was called Butekleleu and the ancestor of the Indonesian peoples
Tuan Allah.
One day Butekleleu was eating pork, his brother was not home and so
Butekleleu set a dish of meat apart for his brother in a cupboard. When Tuan
Allah arrived home he saw that Butekleleu had been eating pork and he asked if
there was any left for him. Butekleleu told him that his share was in the
cupboard. But the pork had gone bad. Tuan Allah became very angry and while
he cut in two a piece of rattan he spoke a magical formula, saying: "If ever I eat
pork again, I will die from it!" Pork became a taboo for him and he became
Muslim.
Butekleleu was enraged over all this and he heated the pointed end of an axe
blade in the fire and trusted it in Tuan Allah’s arse when he was praying. They
fought ferociously and decided to split up. Their parents had been dead for a
long time already. At the time they were living on Sumatra, and they decided that
Tuan Allah would stay there while Butekleleu left for Siberut.
Meanwhile the children of Betuogbuk had become rich. They had industry,
planes, and lots of knowledge. The children of Tuan Allah maintained contact
with them because they liked to buy things from the children of Betuogbuk. One
day they quarreled about the ownership of a mountain. In the following fight the
children of Betuogbuk were victorious. The children of Tuan Allah wanted to
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become just as strong and powerful and rich as the children of Betuogbuk were
and wanted to go and study at their schools, but the children of Betuogbuk did
not allow them to. One child of Tuan Allah continued his pleas so long that he
was admitted. At the schools he learned everything about industry, about
bombs, doctors and operations. He also became a kerei while staying in that rich
country. When he had learned everything there was to learn he wanted to return
to his own country, but he was forbidden to leave because he had all the
knowledge of the children of Betuogbuk and they did not want his country to
become as rich and powerful as their own.
The child of Tuan Allah made a plan and said: "If I die before I have returned to
my own country, your country will be destroyed". Then he ate all of his study
books and he died. He was returned to his country very quickly and there he
returned to life again. He could do so because he was a kerei and had magical
powers. He learned his people how to operate and they operated on him and
obtained the study books. He became a teacher at the new schools and soon
his country was as rich and developed as the country of the children of
Betuogbuk. When they were that far developed a war between the two countries
broke out. The children of Tuan Allah wanted the people of the Mentawai islands
to aid them in the fight but the Mentawaians refused, they did not want to get
involved in the war. Since that time there frequently have been wars between
the children of Tuan Allah and those of Betuogbuk and both groups have
forgotten sabulungan. One group became Muslim and the other became
Christians. Only the Mentawaians still know what sabulungan is. Perhaps that is
the reason why so many Western tourists visit Siberut; they want to learn again
about sabulungan (1999).
According to the myth, Butekleleu is the younger brother who flees to Simatalu after he spears his
older brother Tuan Allah in the arse. Their father Malapapui was already dead. Malapapui's
brother Betuogbuk was the ancestor of the Western people. Malapapui and Betuogbuk's father is
Pagetta Sabbau, who in another myth, is the father of Maligai, the founder of the cultural order, is
here the father of all people. The conflict between Butekleleu and Tuan Allah is therefore
between cousins. Instead of fighting over iron - Pagetta Sabbau separates his sons and makes
them promise to exchange - Butekleleu and Tuan Allah fight over pork. This is what drives
Butekleleu to Simatalu. Tuan Allah maintains contact with Betuogbuk through the exchange of
iron, which is passed on to Butekleleu, who stays out of the conflict between the children of Tuan
Allah and the children of Betuogbuk. The secret knowledge of the children of Betuogbuk is
contained in books, which the child of Tuan Allah eats. He does not eat pork, which distinguishes
him from Butekleleu, but he does eat books that contain secret knowledge. This knowledge,
however, is incomplete. The child of Tuan Allah becomes a kerei who does not know arat
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sabulungan. The wars continue precisely because the children of Tuan Allah and Betuogbuk do
not known arat sabulungan. But the children of Betuogbuk want to know it again. And they eat
pork. If nothing else, the myth shows that although they are distantly related, the Dutch and
tourists are quintessentially different from the Mentawai. They possess some secret knowledge
contained in books, but this knowledge is destructive, in contrast to arat sabulungan, which is not.
The Muslims and the Mentawai are more closely related. They are both descendants of
Malapapui, who lived in the forest on Sumatra. They are distinguished from each other by the
eating of pork and by location (Sumatra vs. Simatalu and Siberut), and by their relationship to the
Dutch and tourists. Whereas the Mentawai continued to live in the forest and eat pork, the
Muslims did not. They maintained contact with the Dutch and tourists, and their iron and secret
knowledge, which led to the great conflict. They forgot arat sabulungan, and they have no desire
to learn it again. They have inherited the destructive power of the secret knowledge of the Dutch
and tourists. The myth shows that the colonial period had little impact on Siberut - except that it
led to the unleashing of the destructive power of the state.
Contrary to Schefold and Persoon, I am suggesting that there was a kind of cultural
efflorescence among the upriver peoples during the colonial period. Headhunting had come to an
end, and exchange with the Dutch and the sareu traders had required little expenditure of natural
resources. Rattan, coconuts, copra, and resin were plentiful, and the Mentawai themselves had
little use for them. In exchange, they received goods that were valuable - the machete and
tobacco in everyday life, cooking pots and cloth in exchange - but the circulation of these goods
was still subject the requirements of reciprocity. The violence of headhunting was transformed
into the uneasy peace of exchange between distant clans. In addition, these goods could be
used in paroman exchanges that enabled individuals to provide chickens and pigs for increasingly
elaborate puliaijat and increasingly frequent pabete. However, while the puliaijat dispelled
mimetic conflict within the clan, it also exacerbated mimetic conflict with other clans, which could
only respond with more elaborate puliaijat. The increase in conflict was attributed to rival clans
and to the spirits, both of which were addressed through the increasingly prominent role of the
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shaman, who was compensated with the same chickens and pigs acquired in paroman
exchanges. There was no change. No one in the interior sided with the Dutch or the sareu
traders. There was only an elaboration, an efflorescence. Mimetic conflict continued, but with
more goods to both mitigate it and generate it anew. In this condition of cultural involution, the
state arrived with the goal of changing things completely.
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Chapter 6: The State
When the Dutch departed, there was a cultural efflorescence in the interior of Siberut,
what I have called cultural involution, an intensification of mimetic rivalry and exchange.
"Tradition" had not yet come into being, but what would become "tradition" was in the process of
being elaborated, and it probably would have continued to be elaborated if the state had not
arrived and intervened in the process. The state sought to dismantle the construction, to interrupt
the mimetic conflict by taking control of mimesis, to substitute the imagined community of the
nation for the embodied imagination of perspectivism.
At independence in 1945, there was no official policy at any level of government for
dealing with the most remote people in the newly-formed republic. The state would later identify
them as suku terasing, the most isolated people, and design and implement policies to bring them
into the fold of the Indonesian nation. In West Sumatra, however, it was already understood that
certain elements of traditional culture hampered development, and a provincial policy to do away
with these was developed. The policy goals included:
- Founding larger villages while undoing the closed uma structure.
- Abolishing the traditional religion, together with all its customs and associated
objects.
- Changing the traditional systems of justice and brideprice payment.
- Raising the level of development by among others the introduction of rice
cultivation.
- Prohibiting 'primitive heathen customs': pointing one's teeth, wearing loincloths
or leafskirts, having tattoos made or men growing long hair (Bakker 1999).
A police force of over 60 officers was stationed in Muara Siberut to enforce these policies. All
uma were ordered to leave their ancestral land and join a newly-founded village. In South
Siberut, roughly 300 uma were combined into roughly 30 villages. If an uma refused to move, its
longhouse and sapo were demolished. In the villages, the police attempted to enforce the
policies, but villagers had to be allowed to visit their ancestral land (and their houses if they were
not demolished) in order to feed themselves. As Bakker suggests, "In practice this control left
much to be desired. At locations all over the island the traditional way of life was continued up to
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varying extents. Some groups even returned to their old uma permanently, but these were few"
(1999). In addition to relocating people in centralized villages, arat sabulungan was banned.
Both the government and government-endorsed missionaries identified the indigenous religion as
"the essence of the traditional way of life and therefore...the key to change" (1999). The kerei in
particular were persecuted because they were the closest thing to a leader in an otherwise
leaderless society. They were accused of keeping the population "ignorant, scared and non-
productive while enriching themselves through the fees they received for their services" (1999).
Arat sabulungan was officially prohibited in 1954 at a sham meeting of representatives of the
three religions in Siberut, Islam, Protestantism, and arat sabulungan. After the meeting, the
indigenous people had three months to choose either Islam or Protestantism, and any object
related to arat sabulungan had to be destroyed. Because of the importance of pigs, many people
nominally converted to Protestantism, but few destroyed religious objects, and most continued to
practice arat sabulungan in secret. Ceremonies were held in uma on ancestral land. Officials
made an effort to stop this, too. Religious objects were destroyed, and anyone caught practicing
arat sabulungan was punished. Many people finally relented to the pressure and converted to
Protestantism, but others still continued to practice arat sabulungan in the secrecy of the uma on
their ancestral land.
In the 1960s, the Indonesian government developed a nationwide policy to modernize the
suku terasing, the most isolated people. The suku terasing or masyarakat terasing are
"communities that are isolated with limited capacities of communication with other communities
that are more developed, the nature of which is that they are [not progressing] economically,
politically, psychologically, culturally, religiously, and ideologically" (Bakker 1999). They are
groups that live on the margins of the nation. They tend to be self-sufficient and independent.
They may or may not be geographically isolated. Although they live in jungles and mountains or
even the sea, they are in frequent contact with others. They are only isolated from the
Indonesian nation - they are not on the cultural map - and according to the government, they only
maintain their independence because they do not know better. To determine whether a group is
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among the suku terasing, the government considers the criteria of food, clothing, housing, health,
education, and religion. The Department of Social Affairs is charged with incorporating these
groups into Indonesian society. Most programs emphasize resettlement, "a fixed mode of
existence, productive labor and the introduction of the market system," and "government within
the context of one people and one state" (1999). In the 1960s, when the indigenous people of
the Mentawai Islands were identified as among the suku terasing, the policy had the following
goals:
- Permanent settlements in sufficiently large social units.
- Increase in production capacity.
- Expansion of social life outside the family group.
- Enhancement of rational and dynamic mental capacities.
- Uprooting of the tribal world view and way of life.
- Development of norms similar to the rest of the country.
- Increased consciousness of state and nation.
- Development of a monotheistic religious life (1999).
The Department of Social Affairs was responsible for implementing the policy in a succession of
five year plans. In Siberut, the key was the resettlement villages. The resettlement project
villages founded by the Department of Social Affairs were known as PKMT villages. After the
villages were built and occupied, government officials would do the rest. On Siberut, the PKMT
projects started in 1971. "Villages were constructed by workers from Sumatra and consisted of
one or two straight roads with uniform houses on either side at a set distance, a church, a
mosque, a school, and a market building" (1999). Each nuclear family was provided with
agricultural implements, seedlings, and some medicine. The project had limited success. Many
people continued to live on their ancestral land. As Bakker writes, "The situation was possible
because the official local control intended was virtually non-existent. The officials left in charge of
the villages lived in a difficult situation, being Muslims and non-Mentawaian they were socially
isolated in the villages. Many of the officials spent as little time as possible in their villages,
preferring to stay in Muara Siberut or Padang" (1999). According to policy, however, only after
the program reached its goal would responsibility be left to the local and regional government.
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Meanwhile, extensive logging had begun. In 1973, the entire island of Siberut was
divided into concessions. The vast majority of loggers were not from Siberut. Another
development organization, the OPKM, was started by the governor of West Sumatra in 1970.
"This organization was deemed necessary for multiple reasons: the development of the
population still needed much work, the progress of the logging needed to be secured and the
military strategic position of the islands required swift modernization" (Bakker 1999). Funds from
logging were used to build additional resettlement villages, but most of the proceeds ended up in
the office of the governor. The OPKM was abolished in 1981, but the logging operations had
already attracted international attention to Siberut. The island became known for its endemic
primate species, including King Kong (see Bakker 1999: note 22). Siberut's "unique nature and
culture" made conservation desirable. In 1976, a small nature reserve of 6500 hectares was
established. In 1980, a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) project proposal called "Saving Siberut: A
Conservation Master Plan" aimed to conserve nature and culture with alternative means of socio-
economic development.
35
One alternative identified in the proposal was tourism. In 1981, the
WWF sponsored a symposium in Padang, and in the same year, the United Nations Educational,
Cultural, and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) declared Siberut a Man and Biosphere Reserve.
In 1982, the nature reserve was extended to 132,000 hectares. With this success, however,
international involvement declined, and the Indonesian Department of Nature Conservation was
"incapable of coping with the powerful logging companies" (1999). Logging resumed with little
respect for the boundaries of the nature reserve, and new government plans in other departments
promoted transmigration and oil palm plantations.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, few tourists visited Siberut. Bakker says that Siberut
was "devoid of Western travelers, apart from some missionaries, several primatologists, and a
single anthropologist" (1999). He cites a retired police officer who acknowledged that tourists
would have interfered with the development program, "since it would be just these aspects of
Mentawaian culture that the government wanted to do away with that attracted tourists. Nor was
35
Schefold and his student at the time Gerard Persoon were instrumental in developing this proposal.
127
he certain how the Mentawaian population would react to tourists, since in the past pillaging and
murdering of foreigners was common practice" (1999). Permits had to be obtained from several
offices in Padang. Some tourists succeeded, but a police escort was required "for their own
protection." Photographs of people wearing traditional clothing or practicing traditional
ceremonies were prohibited. The tourist was responsible for all costs. An older man explained to
Bakker,
As soon as we heard a speedboat coming on the river we ran into the jungle.
The only people coming to us then were police officers who burned our things
and beat up people that wore loincloths. Sometimes tourists came with them.
That was entertaining, the officers would shout at us not to be afraid, for they
would want the tourist to have a good impression of them. They would give
cigarettes to the people. The funny thing is that they did not like it at all in the
jungle so what they would do is cook huge amounts of their rice for us to eat.
When their food was finished they had to return to Muara Siberut. We like the
free rice a lot and we did not want them to stay with us so we always ate
everything. It was better when they went away again quickly (1999).
Clearly, the encounter was not a one-way street of government control. It was quickly realized
that tourists made the police behave in uncharacteristic ways. One day the same man asked a
policeman why he always came with the tourists. Why not just send them with a guide? "Then
he told me that they had to protect us from those tourists. Perhaps they were spies, planning for
their country to take possession of Siberut, or maybe they came bringing hidden bombs. Now I
do not believe that anymore, but at that time there were problems between Indonesian and
Portugal so I did not know what to think of these tourists" (1999). He was referring to the
annexation of East Timor in 1975. He is clearly not isolated. And he is clearly less worried than
the policeman about the intentions of the tourist. Bakker concludes by saying that first came the
Minangkabau and Chinese traders, who "were considered a cunning people who did not mind to
swindle the Mentawaians. Incidental raids and the ensuing avenging by the survivors gave rise to
even more distrust" (1999). Next came the Dutch, whose penal colony was "appreciated." The
island was pacified. Then came the Japanese and the Indonesians - and conflict. Last came the
tourists, Western people, "'outsiders' that did not demand cultural changes from Siberut's
population but instead admired the traditions of Mentawaian culture. It made them allies against
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the 'intruding' Indonesian government. They were also considered to be generous with money
and gifts, in contrast to the Indonesians. A positive attitude towards Western tourists was the
result. These attitudes lie at the base of the way in which today's inter-group relations are
defined" (1999).
Things began to change again in the late 1980s. Although tourism had been identified by
the WWF as a means of socio-economic development, it had been hampered by the lack of
transportation to Siberut, the bureaucratic formalities, and the heavy-handed presence of the
government, which prevented tourists from experiencing "traditional culture." This changed
around 1987, when regular ferry service between Padang and Siberut began, and young
Minangkabau entrepreneurs seized the opportunity to work as guides. Government rules were
relaxed. Permits could be obtained in Muara Siberut rather than Padang, and the requirement of
a police escort was eliminated. As Bakker writes, "Even though tourism developed mainly
outside of government control - notwithstanding the extensive planning that took place - financial
benefits and the international positive appreciation this policy earned the local government
appeared sufficient to allow the situation to continue" (1999). Then, in 1992, Suharto surprised
the world by withdrawing the logging concessions and declaring about half the island a national
park. Other sources of revenue were to replace the logging, including improved agroforestry and
agriculture, improved animal husbandry, ecotourism, and handicraft production. In the same year
(and probably not coincidentally), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) made a large loan
available for biodiversity conservation in Indonesia. The Department of Forestry began one of
two pilot projects on Siberut. In 1994, consultants developed an integrated management plan
based on the Integrated Protected Area approach, linking conservation aims with local
development needs through a process of participatory planning. Like the WWF's proposal, the
plan suggested that tourism could accomplish both aims. Tourism, however, would need to be
regulated by training local guides, improving facilities, providing information, and establishing a
conservation and development fund to insure that the entire population would benefit. In 1995,
the project was implemented. Bakker writes, "An extensive complex of buildings in Maileppet
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make up the project centre. However, during my fieldwork in 1996, I did not notice any impact
from the project" (1999). My experience, almost a decade later, was similar.
There is no adequate explanation for how a relatively small military and police force,
afraid of the jungle and probably uncommitted to the mission, could round up perhaps thousands
of people spread out in the forest and force them to live in the government-built villages.
36
Certainly the threat of force later helped, but there must be have been a fair amount of ideological
- and political - work done in conjunction with it. This work, however, is not remembered by the
people of Sakaliou or of any other clan. They remember what has to be called the shock and
awe tactics of the government. One day they were not there. The next day they were. Perhaps
the cultural involution created by the colonial period - plus the fact that there were skirmishes with
the sareu traders, who had remained distant up to that point - had exacerbated the mimetic rivalry
between the clans to the point that, as with headhunting, they were essentially ready to do
something else. It is probably the latter: after centuries of remaining in their enclaves along the
coast, and unlike the Dutch, antagonistic, they suddenly came upriver with the secret knowledge
of bombs. It was the threat of a secret destructive knowledge. If the Dutch were placed in the
spirit slot, the sareu traders had been placed in the negative reciprocity slot. Only later did it
dawn on the members of Sakaliou and other clans that they vastly outnumbered their oppressor.
The government officials responsible for implementing the development programs tend to
be Minangkabau. Many only come to Siberut to work. The merchants who supply and operate
the trade stores also tend to be Minangkabau, and like the civil servants, they often only come to
Siberut to work. Some of the merchants, however, are descendants of the sareu traders from
before and during the colonial period. They are permanent (or semi-permanent) residents. In
terms of population, the Minangkabau people in Siberut are clearly a minority. In terms of
influence, they are not. The people who implement the government development programs
designed for the indigenous inhabitants are not themselves indigenous. They are Minangkabau.
According to Persoon (1997), the Minangkabau community in Siberut had a difficult time during
36
Persoon (1997) estimates that around 7000 people have been relocated.
130
the PRRI (Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia) rebellion at the end of the
1950s. There were no ships from Padang. The Minangkabau community became completely
self-sufficient. After the suppression of the revolt in 1961, the ships finally returned, but the
Minangkabau remained relatively isolated from their homeland across the Mentawai Strait. In the
villages upriver, they "live a rather isolated life: they do not participate in the daily routine of the
Mentawaians. They look after their shop and travel up and down to the coast to export rattan,
copra and other products and to get new supplies. They remain ethnic strangers even though
some of them have spent more than twenty years amongst the Mentawaians" (1997). They see
the people around them as stubbornly primitive. "Jealously between the uma within a village,
based on the old rivalry between the groups, frustrates many development activities....The
Minangkabau cannot understand why the Mentawaians refuse to imitate them or why they do not
want to learn from them. For most of the Minangkabau, Siberut is a 'wild' place inhabited by 'wild'
people who do not want to become modern (maju) " (1997). Persoon argues that it is this view -
the Minangkabau view of the Mentawai people - that guides the development programs.
Although programs are initiated and financed in Jakarta, provincial departments play a crucial
role. Classification begins at the provincial level. The provincial Department of Social Affairs
initiates the program with field surveys, determines the targets, and implements the policies.
"Proposals for projects are forwarded to Jakarta for agreement and financing." (1997). The
program is run from the provincial office. After a project is terminated, the settlement is handed
over to the provincial administration. "To some extent one could say that it’s the provincial and in
this case Minangkabau version of the centrally designed development policies which is of crucial
importance for the Mentawaians on Siberut" (1997).
As for the Mentawai view of the Minangkabau people, Persoon suggests that while some
indigenous people do equate modern with Minangkabau, most do not aspire to be like them, and
many feel exploited. "But in spite of that," Persoon writes, "they have not been able to get
themselves organized in order to avoid the Minangkabau traders and shopkeepers. I feel that
this is because of the general absence of specialization and the lack of socio-political
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organization above the level of the patrilineal groups among the Mentawaians. There is also a
lack of experience, and willingness to gain such experience, in dealing with outside traders and in
handling large sums of money. They are unfamiliar with dealing with fellow Mentawaians in pure
economic terms. Besides the rules of reciprocity and distribution of material wealth within the
patrilineal group structure, there are also strong feelings of jealously (masisi bacha) between
those groups. For all these reasons, they continue to make use of the Minangkabau in spite of
this feeling of being exploited and unfair treatment. The Minangkabau civil servants are
sometimes being accused by the Mentawaians of 'eating money' (mukom bulagat) meant for
development activities in all villages on Siberut. Rightly or wrongly this is a favorite issue for
discussion among Mentawaians in talking about Minangkabau officials" (1997).
Madobag is the government-built village closest to Sakaliou's ancestral land. In fact,
Madobag and Sakaliou share a common border. This location is essential to understanding
Sakaliou's reaction to the incursion of the state. Reeves conducted fieldwork in Madobag in the
1990s. At the time, Madobag was one of three dusun in southeastern Siberut. The other two
were Ugai and Rogdog. Together they constituted the desa of Madobag, one of ten in the
kecamatan of South Siberut, one of four kecamatan in the Mentawai Islands. The four
kecamatan were within the kabupaten of Padang-Pariaman.
37
The seat of government in South
Siberut was Muara Siberut. Roughly 13% of the population of South Siberut lived in the desa of
Madobag (Madobag, Ugai, Rogdog), the fourth largest in the kecamatan. Reeves writes, "As with
all the dusun along the Rereiket, and generally for all dusun on Siberut, Madobag is not purely
the outcome of an indigenous initiative" (2001). He then refers to Schefold's description of the
"traditional situation" in which uma were dispersed in different river valleys. He continues, "Since
the early 1960s, however, there has been on Siberut an ongoing government initiated and
administered effort to bring these groups together into settlements, largely on or as near to the
coast as possible. These contain many uma in order to facilitate the achievement of development
37
The four kecamatan in the Mentawai Islands were North Siberut, South Siberut, Sipora, and North and
South Pagai. In 1999, the Mentawai Islands became a separate kabupaten, and the internal administrative
units were changed, an issue I address in the next chapter.
132
goals which are broadly directed at the 'advancement' (kemajuan) of the local people who the
authorities perceive as 'primitive' or 'backward', although this is glossed as 'isolated' in the
program's official title: Isolated People's Prosperity Development Project (Proyek PKMT). The
aim is to foster education and, through this, strengthen mainstream religious and national
consciousness. In a perfect world this would mean both the relinquishing of the 'traditional
religion' which has come to be constructed as Sabulungan, and the exclusive adherence to
Catholicism or Islam. It would also mean proficiency in the Indonesian national language as well
as people's increased awareness of themselves as 'orang Indonesia' first and 'orang Mentawai'
second" (2001). This is almost the sum total of what Reeves says about the history underlying
Madobag. It is not enough. To suggest that Madobag is not purely the outcome of an indigenous
initiative is an understatement. Although there were clans in the area of Madobag, there was no
village there prior to state intervention. The founding of the village was not an indigenous
initiative at all.
Madobag was originally established in 1961-62 near the Madobag creek and later moved
about a half-kilometer downstream. As Reeves writes, "The move from the original location was
precipitated by an altercation between a resident of Madobag and a visitor from Ugai in which the
latter was struck down with a machete and subsequently died" (2001). The victim became a
tinigeilat, "the most malignant and dangerous of the many varieties of 'ghost' (sanitu) that are
considered to inhabit the area. Since sanitu of any kind are conduits of death manifesting itself in
the living in the form of disease, let alone a tinigeilat which is the embodied essence of bad
relations between people (magoluk baga - 'anger' which has led to conflict between people and
the death of one), the decision was made to abandon the site" (2001). When the village was
moved, the name should have been changed, but "it has been administratively more convenient
to leave the name as it is" (2001). During Reeves' fieldwork, there were 15 uma (which Reeves
calls suku) represented in Madobag, including Sakaliou.
According to Reeves, Madobag was originally on the ancestral land (pulaggajat) of the
suku Salolosit. It now straddles the ancestral land of three suku, Sakukuret, Sabagalet, and
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Sakaliou. "In 1990 the PKMT (Isolated People's Prosperity Development) project administered by
the Social Affairs Department swung into full operation in Madobag, setting up an office staffed by
a permanent official representative to coordinate the establishment of dozens of new huts (sapo)
in order to accommodate the many 'KK' (family groups) who might otherwise dwell outside the
dusun on their share of their suku's land. In early 1993 the second phase of this project swung
into operation in which 50 more huts were to be constructed. Materials are paid for by the Social
Affairs Department, whilst labor is supplied by the people who will occupy the dwelling. These
new sapo were built around the existing dusun structure, structured roughly into 'ward'-like
groupings according to suku" (2001). Officially, Madobag is a dusun. Locals refer to it as a
barasi, from the Minangkabau word for "clean," or cleared of vegetation. This is in contrast to the
mone, or garden, where vegetation is cleared, but left to rot and fertilize the soil. The barasi is
"situated in relation to two sociospatial vectors: pulaggajat and leleu" (2001). Pulaggajat refers to
ancestral land. A clan's pulaggajat can be near or far from Madobag. Because the government
prohibits pigs in the village, whether a clan's ancestral land is near or far, people must travel to it
frequently. Reeves writes, "Formerly, in the time prior to residence in the dusun, pigs wallowed
beneath a suku's uma which were at the time located upon their respective pulaggajat, a time
looked upon with great fondness. This is often cited by people whose pigs are some distance
away from the dusun as a reason for frequent visits to them....People often spend a week or
longer at these sapo. Some households have established a fully-fledged uma in place of a sapo,
and in the case of one suku [Sakaliou], most of its constituent households live in and around
separate uma distributed about their pulaggajat just across the river to the east, in defiance of
government wishes that they reside in the dusun proper. In token deference to government
policy they have preserved a nominal presence in the dusun in the shape of several sapo and an
uma where they may spend a few days at a time, thus going against the norm of largely dusun
residence, with short visits to pigs and chickens out at the pulaggajat" (2001). By the time of my
fieldwork, the "norm" was slightly different. With the exception of the few clan members who lived
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permanently in Madobag, the people of Sakaliou never spent a few days in village. They visited,
sometimes daily, but they almost always returned to their land to sleep.
Reeves says that "older married people" say the main reason for living in the dusun is the
sense of community, of "many people" (maigi sirimanua). "This is offset however by the heat
(maka) of conflict that is an inevitable part of collective living, which, along with the great
contentment to be experienced on one's pulaggajat observing the comings and goings of one's
pigs and chickens, makes residence on the pulaggajat very attractive" (2001). He cites one
elderly resident:
Where I lived before I came to the barasi we had pigs and chickens. Maigi
sibabara [lit. "lots of occurrences"]. Now, here in the barasi, it is not so. At the
uma it was not clean and there were not many people. But there were lots of
pigs and chickens. There were lots of things from the past (ancestral objects).
We would often eat monkey and deer. If someone came from another pulaggajat
then there were lots of pigs, lots of meat. It was better before. Now I have a
clean uma and there are lots of people. If someone dies, there are people to
help. But there are few chickens...and no pigs. We don't often eat monkey.
There are pigs and chickens on the mone but no people - it's a sad situation
(magoak bagata). If we fall ill there is no one to help us and we die (2001).
Another informant said that the work to keep the barasi clean is "unproductive": "Here in the
barasi it is hot and we sit around with no work to do. Do the tourists stay here in the barasi? No.
They go out and stay in the leleu [forest]. And because we are not out with our pigs and chickens
in the leleu, they get stolen or taken by snakes. When this uma falls down we will build a new
one out in the leleu on the pulaggajat. If the government were not so insistent we live in the
barasi, we would be living out in the leleu" (2001). Reeves concludes, "Despite the expressed
benefit of living in a large community such as the barasi, informants talk about its lack of
reciprocity, the lack of genuine sociality that they are able to experience living on the pulaggajat"
(2001). While this sentiment varies according to age, with young people preferring the communal
atmosphere of the village and older people preferring to be close to their chickens and pigs on
their ancestral land, as young people become old, they tend to prefer the pulaggajat. Yet most
people in Madobag do not move back to their ancestral land. They are fearful of the government.
Sakaliou was not, but the location of their ancestral land made this possible. What people in
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Madobag bemoan Sakaliou simply avoids by heading back across the river at the end of the day.
As Reeves notes, this has not escaped the attention of the government, which has made several
attempts to re-relocate Sakaliou in Madobag. The problem that the government has faced is that
there are tourists in Sakaliou.
Reeves distinguishes between the pulaggajat, a clan's ancestral land, and the leleu, the
forest surrounding a clan's ancestral land, arguing that the pulaggajat is a socialized space, in
contrast to the unsocialized space of the leleu. The leleu is dangerous, but it also provides meat.
He does not contrast the pulaggajat and the barasi, which are both socialized spaces, but could
not be more different. He simply suggests that the rhythm of daily life takes people away from the
barasi to the pulaggajat and back again. In Madobag, there are three trade stores, one owned
and operated by a Minangkabau trader, the other two by traders from Nias. The stores make it
unnecessary to go downriver. "Through its administering of the PKMT housing project, the Social
Affairs Department helps to reinforce the position of the trading stores in its capacity as an
employer of local people, to carry out maintenance and development projects including path
widening and bridge construction. Wages are often paid directly to shop owners, employees
taking goods to the value of wages earned as they require them. Similarly the church-cum-
meeting hall (Balai Desa) houses the Sunday Mass congregations as well as providing a venue
for meetings convened to discuss matters of government policy affecting the dusun
administration, or domestic disputes requiring the mediation of desa officials" (2001). The
church, however, was in a state of disrepair. It had begun to decay. A shaman told Reeves that
the church should be burned down because it had become an abode for sanitu, but he was well
aware of "the problems that this would provoke with the authorities." Madobag is officially
Christian, but there are a few individuals who are officially Muslim. In 1992, a full-time Islamic
teacher was installed, and a four-room sapo was built with funds from the Department of Social
Affairs to serve as his living quarters and a teaching center. In 1993, a small mosque was built.
Reeves writes, "The Islamic teacher is closely allied with the suku Sakaliou and Sabulau who had
some 20 years earlier officially accepted Islam, and in whose section of the dusun the mosque
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and the centre are located. This conversion, as is the case with contemporary conversions,
represents a largely nominal adherence to Islamic doctrines and practices. As one young man
put to me in explanation for his non-adherence to the prohibition on eating pork: 'Our bodies are
Muslim but our stomachs are not'" (2001). There is also an elementary school in Madobag. The
permanent teacher conducts the Sunday Mass.
For someone who is so concerned with colonial discourse and postmodern theory,
Reeves underestimates the effects of the presence of the state. Madobag is his starting point,
and history is irrelevant. But Madobag is, in fact, a creation of the state. Unlike the Dutch, it
turned the world upside down. It brought geographically dispersed clans, who often had no
interaction with each other, and when they did, carefully negotiated mimetic conflict and rivalry
through exchange, into not only frequent interaction with each other, but placed them next to
each other in the barasi. It replaced the crowds of spirits with crowds of people who, perhaps not
surprisingly, did not get along. It upset the exchange that minimized conflict by condensing the
space between clans and making it difficult (after prohibition failed) to hold the puliaijat that
dispelled mimetic conflict. It promised much, but delivered little. The question is, how did this
happen? Why would people move into the barasi at all? Sakaliou is unique. They are
unanimously acknowledged, by themselves and others, including the state, to be the only clan
that refuses to live in the barasi. In part, it is a fortunate accident of geography - their ancestral
land is close enough to the barasi - but there are others who are almost as close. How did
Sakaliou come to be in this position? Are they simply stubborn? Did a political consciousness
develop? Certainly tourism had something to do with it, an issue that I will address in the next
chapter, but even before tourism - or rather, what enabled tourism to have something to do with it
- Sakaliou was rejecting the barasi in favor of their ancestral land. So Sakaliou's initial
acquiescence may help to explain how the state accomplished this monumental feat. And
Sakaliou's rejection may help to explain why other clans have not followed suit.
First, it cannot be stressed enough that for the first half of the 20th century, the sareu
traders had remained in their enclave along the coast, protected by the Dutch. After
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Independence, the Dutch suddenly left, but the sareu initially remained along the coast and
issued orders from there, including the order to abandon arat sabulungan. Then, suddenly - and
literally - they came marching upriver, possessing the secret knowledge of bombs (which they
had stolen from the Dutch). Among the upriver clans, there was a certain amount of fear. The
reputation of the sareu preceded them. At the same time, there was a certain amount of
optimism that had arisen during the colonial period. Headhunting had ended, trade was fair, and
as I have argued, there was a kind of cultural efflorescence. At the intersection of this fear and
optimism was the awareness that third-party mediators could abate the negative circularity of
mimetic conflict. Perhaps having a third-party close at hand would be beneficial. (There is no
evidence at all that the upriver clans were enthusiastic about the nation.) There would have to be
a paroman exchange. And indeed, complicity in the state's development project was understood
to be an exchange: in exchange for congregating in the barasi, people would be given homes,
healthcare, education, and religion. The idea of having a home away from home was not entirely
unusual. The sapo itself is like this. It was only after the village had been built that the state
required people to live in it. The whole of state policy is now focused not on building the villages,
but on keeping people in them. Pigs could not be tolerated, however. This helped to diminish the
importance of arat sabulungan. And it is here that the sareu's secret knowledge could finally be
revealed with some effect. A small contingent of police rounding up single households was
possible. Once people were in the village, the rest would follow: the dismantling of arat
sabulungan; compulsory education, national language and identity; market exchange; recognition
of the state's authority, beginning with the appointed village heads; all of which worked in tandem.
Producing goods for the market, now easily accessible in the trade stores, meant less time for
producing the goods necessary for exchange and ceremony. For this reason, keeping people on
the barasi was essential to the success of the program.
Like every other clan, Sakaliou initially complied and built sapo in Madobag at the
government's expense. But they were just that: sapo, not the uma, which remained on their
nearby ancestral land, along with their functioning sapo, where, as even Reeves notes, they
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spent the vast majority of their time. Life in the barasi was miserable. The promises were
unfulfilled. The exchange was not paroman. Because of this, government officials with a police
escort frequently paid them a visit, insisting that they return to the barasi. They complied and
then drifted back to the pulaggajat. The pivotal moment, when they decided as a clan that they
would reject the state, came during one of these frequent visits (i.e. it began like any other), when
Terason, one of the older kerei in the clan, was confronted by the village head (kepala desa) and
a few armed police. They ordered him to return to the barasi - and at gunpoint, ordered him to
remove his shaman's paraphernalia, including his red and white loincloth. He refused. They
pinned him to the ground and did it for him, leaving him naked. Humiliated and incensed, he
grabbed a piece of wood and struck the police officers. In the chaos, he escaped and ran back to
the uma, where luckily, other adult males were sitting. He quickly explained to them what had
happened, and although there was no discussion, there was a consensus that the kepala desa
and his henchmen had gone too far. They grabbed spears and bows and arrows and pursued
the attackers, who, perhaps sensing their vulnerability, had already headed back downriver.
They shot at their canoe and taunted them, challenging them to come back. That was the last
that Sakaliou has seen of the police. They have an uneasy relation with the kepala desa and
Madobag. A few clan members live there. The other clans see Sakaliou as arrogant upstarts.
This is hardly different from the pre-state mimetic rivalry between clans, only now the grounds of
the rivalry have changed. It is hard for the clans in Madobag to claim superiority without
reference to the state. To Sakaliou, however, the state is not the reference point. For better or
worse, they have become the bearers of "tradition" in South Siberut, if not the Mentawai Islands
or perhaps even the world. Unintentionally, their rejection of the state and their success in the
tourism industry have weakened the government's authority in general. Throughout the island,
people are beginning to return to their ancestral land, and several NGO development plans focus
on repatriation.
Reeves' argument is that the uma, with its ancestral heirlooms and the practices that
revolve around them, is a space of life cleared of the forces of death, which dwell in the leleu,
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surround the uma, and constantly threaten it. Normally, traditionally, both the uma and the leleu
are located on the pulaggajat, the suku's ancestral land. By focusing on objects and practices,
Reeves is able to argue that there is no difference between the uma on the pulaggajat and the
uma in the barasi. In both cases, in both places, the uma is a cleared, socialized space, safe for
human habitation. The problem with this argument is that first, the objects may have become
more important precisely because of the move to the barasi. Socialized space must come to
surround the ancestral heirlooms and the uma in which they are contained because the rest of
the space no longer exists. This idea is very much like the cone of power - an idea to which the
Indonesian nation-state would not be opposed. I have argued instead that the ancestral
heirlooms are less important than the objects that are exchanged, that move through space from
one hand to another. Second, the space of the barasi is fundamentally different from the space
of the pulaggajat. Traditionally, clans would be separated by vast distances of forest, the leleu, in
which both saukkui and sanitu dwell. The objects of exchange travel through the leleu from one
clan to another, creating a similarity between clans (and between a clan and its ancestor spirits)
that must be carefully managed so as to avoid mimetic conflict. The space itself helps to mitigate
the conflict because the similarity is limited. When the conflict is not mitigated, the space
prevents pako from erupting into violence. In the barasi, even though there is still a pulaggajat
and a leleu, there is no longer any space in between clans. They literally live side by side.
Occupying the same space, they become similar, creating a conflict that can no longer be
mitigated by space or exchange. When Reeves informants' bemoaned the lack of reciprocity,
they were saying that such similarity demands reciprocity in order to dispel the mimetic conflict.
In the barasi, mimetic conflict is rampant and unresolvable except by recourse to the state, which
is indeed a function that the state is glad to fulfill. The state's authority, like that of the Dutch
before them, is primarily as a third-party mediator. Third, by separating people from their pigs
and chickens and placing them next to a trade store, making it unnecessary to travel downriver,
the barasi shifted "productive work" from the production and exchange of goods between clans to
the production and exchange of goods with the traders. As pigs and chickens dwindled from lack
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of attention, marketable forest products increased, but unlike the system of exchange under the
Dutch, the trade stores in the barasi simply gave people credit to be used in the trade store,
insuring that the forest products would not be converted into local valuables. Instead of trading
rattan for machetes, for example, people traded rattan for boxes of Indomie noodles. Machetes
could be exchanged with other clans. Indomie could not. In short, by bringing clans together,
there should have been greater reciprocity in order to mitigate mimetic conflict. Instead, there
was indentured servitude. Reciprocity within the clan was undermined by the single-family
dwellings, the permanently-occupied sapo, along the gridded streets of the barasi. Education
became the key to success. In the school, kids learned the national language - and religion. And
when they graduated, they left.
What Reeves informants liked about the barasi was the fact that there were so many
people. Traditionally, lots of people was characteristic of ceremony and festivity. But as Aman
Boroiogok pointed out to me, the people were like ghosts. All of the unused and decaying sapo
and uma on the pulaggajat were providing a place for sanitu to dwell, making it less likely that
people would return. This was one of the reasons that he went back. Moreover, when people
like him did spend more time in the pulaggajat than in the barasi, the sapo and uma in the barasi
were also providing a place for the sanitu. Recall that Madobag was moved because of an
incident, a murder, which produced the worst kind of ghost. This incident, never far from the
minds of people, could be viewed as a kind of failed founding sacrifice: the current Madobag was
founded because of the murder, but it did not establish a new cultural order, and the name
betrays this failure. Recall Reeve's informant who said that the old church needed to be burned
down. Recall all of the empty buildings, both in the barasi and on the pulaggajat. The state's
authority has been founded on the creation of ghosts. For this reason, the old religion, arat
sabulungan, like reciprocity, should have been even more essential. Only the strongest of gaud
and most elaborate puliaijat could clear a space of life for people. But the old religion had been
banned, and those who knew its secrets, the kerei, were targeted by the state. If modernity is the
organized control of mimesis, then the shaman, who controls mimesis for the sake of healing, is
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the state's rival. When Terason and Sakaliou made the decision to confront the state, it was not
because they had a nascent political consciousness - it was not for the sake of resistance - but
because they saw the state as a rival like any other clan. And just as relations with another clan
are negotiated through exchange, so Sakaliou initially negotiated with the state through
exchange. They built sapo. They nominally converted to Islam. They imitated the state. When
the exchange failed, however, the mimetic conflict escalated into rivalry and violence, and
Sakaliou defended itself. In other words, because they could continue to live in the pulaggajat,
Sakaliou saw the encounter with the state as an encounter with another clan. They were not in a
relation of resistance to authority, but in a relation of pako. They announced their superiority.
They swaggered. The state, of course, did not see it this way. It desperately wanted Sakaliou to
imitate its vision of modernity. Instead, it imitated the "savagery" of the people they were trying to
modernize. It confronted Sakaliou with violence - and Sakaliou was obliged to imitate them.
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Chapter 7: Tourism
Sakaliou's claim to authenticity and their resulting prestige are tied not only to their
rejection of the state's vision of modernity, but also to the fact that of all the clans in South
Siberut, Sakaliou is the most heavily involved in tourism. Just as the location of their ancestral
land made their rejection of the state possible, so too did the location of their ancestral land make
their acceptance of tourists possible. Sakaliou's pulaggajat is upriver, but not too far upriver, and
everyone lives on it. Tourists are able to experience "tradition" without having to trek through the
jungle for days. Taking advantage of the tourists' disorientation, guides can avoid Madobag and
the other government-built villages if they want to (and sometimes they do not because it offers
an interesting contrast), yet remain relatively close to the coast. In this sense, the "tradition"
presented to tourists is a joint venture, a co-production, of Sakaliou and the guides. But Sakaliou
also insists that they are only continuing to live as they always have. After the tourists leave, the
proceeds are shared. The mimetic conflict continues. Tourism arose informally, almost beyond
state control, and has resisted attempts, by both the state and Sakaliou, to be formalized. It
should probably remain informal. It is not necessarily tied to conservation, although Persoon,
who co-authored the official management plan of the national park, has only seen it this way. My
experience of tourism is very different from his. I see it as inextricably tied to the state first and to
nature second.
In an influential essay, Persoon and Heuveling van Beek (1998) situate tourism in Siberut
in the context of debates about the role of eco-tourism and ethno-tourism in nature conservation.
The issues are complex. "In cases where reserves or national parks are established in areas
inhabited by tribal communities, these controversies occur in concrete form and sometimes they
merge together. Eco- and ethno-tourism are closely related in such cases" (1998: 319). In
Siberut, "provincial and local government, entrepreneurs and the local population are all engaged
in a process to develop structures to deal with tourism" (1998: 320). Tourism is one of the main
components in the official management plan of the national park. The essay focuses on "the
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tourist industry as well as the government attitude towards it. Specifically, we shall examine the
influence that tourism has on the indigenous population and on the environment with regard to
future developments" (1998: 320). Given his role in the development of the plan, it is perhaps not
surprising that Persoon links tourism and conservation. The people of Sakaliou, however,
separated the two issues and held contrasting views and opinions about each. Simply put, while
they were very concerned about tourism, they were not very concerned about conservation. In
my opinion, the plan and the emerging structures that Persoon describes are the current
manifestations of a colonial discourse that ties the primitive to nature (cf. Crisp).
In the essay, Persoon includes "a bird's eye view of the island," highlighting the absence
of annual crops like rice or corn. Indigenous agriculture is not slash-and-burn. Undergrowth is
cleared, and seeds and seedlings are planted. Then the large trees are felled. The cut
vegetation is left to rot. "After some decades a complete forest of fruit-trees, of which the durian
is by far the most important, will have replaced the natural forest" (1998: 322). Persoon also
says, "The Mentawaians have never been able to create substantial economic differences
because of the generally accepted norms for dividing and distributing possible benefits deriving
from these personal qualities" (1998: 322). He says that the island was "of little interest" to the
Dutch. Then he says, "Since Indonesian independence, many aspects of the traditional culture
have rapidly changed. The people were no longer allowed to live in isolated uma. New, larger
villages comprising several uma were set up along the coast or rivers. This process still
continues through a government-sponsored resettlement and development program. Many
traditional elements were condemned as primitive and pagan. The traditional religion,
sabulungan, was officially prohibited in the early 1950s and replaced by one of the five
recognized religions, Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, and Buddhism" (1998: 322).
This process had environmental effects, including an increase in population density in the
resettlement villages, an effort to replace sago with rice, the introduction of cash-crops, especially
cloves, an increase in coastal fishing and coconut production, and a decrease in hunting and
gathering. "Due to the strong suppression of the traditional religion, hunting also lost its religious
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meaning to some extent" (1998: 323). Large-scale commercial logging began in the 1970s, but
all concessions were terminated in 1992, and a large part of the island was declared a national
park.
From the colonial period to the present, "harmony, 'colorful' ceremonies and social
equality among men and women caught the attention of and appealed to members of Western
societies" (1998: 324). These features are not appealing to "the mainstream Indonesian
population," for whom the wilderness is "a dark and hostile environment full of dangerous
animals...a wild and untamed place of little value in itself....The same attitude holds with regard to
the forest-dwelling people, who are looked upon as being wild and too close to nature, or too far
from civilization" (1998: 324). Thus, the vast majority of tourists are Western, "with an
adventurous mind-set." Siberut's tourist potential was officially recognized in the World Wildlife
Fund's project proposal "Saving Siberut: A Conservation Master Plan." In the plan, tourism "can
expedite socio-economic development on the island, without threatening the culture and
environment" (1998: 324), and the largest attraction is "the traditional people in the rainforest"
(1998: 325). Persoon continues, "It is in this arena, however, that tourism to Siberut becomes
problematic. A large number of tourists descending upon small communities is likely to disrupt
local people and the consumer products which the tourists bring with them are likely to have a
strong impact on the local population, stimulating a desire for such goods. To keep such effects
to a minimum, tourism programs should, according to Saving Siberut, be of 'high quality, low
quantity', keeping in check the influence of curious visitors, but raising considerable income for
the Mentawaian. Tourism will be most beneficial when confined to a small area, and construction
of extensive facilities should be avoided" (1998: 325). The plan emphasizes "a cultural centre
with displays of artifacts and regular performances of dances." It estimates that 3000-5000
tourists would visit in 1985. It was discussed in detail at a symposium in Padang in 1981. A
management plan for 1983-88, written after the symposium, did not include any substantial
differences with regard to tourism, but no action was taken by the provincial tourism department.
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At the time, in the 1980s, guides from Bukittinggi led small groups of backpackers to
Siberut. "The only foreign-organized trip in the first half of the 1980s was conducted by an Italian
tour operator" (1998: 326). Tourists were often sent back to Padang because they did not have
the necessary permits. Those that did have the permits were escorted by police officers and
forbidden to photograph people in traditional dress or practicing traditional ceremonies. "Lack of
competition between guides [i.e. collusion] and the limited availability of boats" caused prices to
soar. Those that could pay were unprepared for "a continuing struggle against water, mud and
bugs, and slipping and sliding across tree-trunk bridges. For many tourists, trekking on Siberut
often became a struggle with previously undiscovered features of their own personality. The
encounter with 'Paradise Island' became a disappointment for many of them" (1998: 326).
Persoon goes on to say that many other tourists had "positive experiences." They avoided the
police escort and experienced traditional ceremonies. They "saw men, women, and children
wearing flowers and beads; witnessed exuberant dances and enchanting singing accompanied
by drums and bells continuing until early morning; experienced the sweet smell of medicinal
plants mixed with tobacco fumes and the ceremonial slaughter of pigs and chickens. These
ingredients of the traditional ceremonies could not but make a great impression on the
coincidental visitor; past frustrating experiences were easily forgotten after such encounters. As
one of the tourists who had witnessed a traditional ceremony remarked, 'What is a few hundred
dollars and some days of hardship for a lifetime experience'" (1998: 326)?
Tourism changed in 1987-88 when transport services to Siberut improved. Passenger
ships operated more frequently, and bureaucratic formalities could be processed on arrival in
Siberut instead of Padang. The Minangkabau entrepreneurs "recognized the business potential
of organized tourism to Siberut" (1998: 326). In Bukittinggi, the island was promoted as isolated
and mysterious, with magical Stone Age people. The cost of a tour ranged from $100 to $200.
"Each week Siberut received an influx of tourists, and the number of visitors keeps growing"
(1998: 327). Persoon says that there were and are different types of tourist: those that make their
way to Siberut on their own and hire a local guide; those that want to see the Sakkudei; those that
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stay close to Muara Siberut; those that visit on luxury cruises for one or two days; and those in
the groups from Bukittinggi. These groups of four to ten people led by a Minangkabau guide take
the overnight ferry from Padang to Muara Siberut and stay in a Minangkabau hotel. The guide
takes care of the formalities at the police station and the office of the camat. The group then
travels up the Rereiket in an outboard canoe. They visit Rogdog, Madobag, Ugai, and
Matotonan. "About 2,500 people live in these villages. Upon arrival, the group reports to the
village head, donates some money to the village if it wants, and finds accommodation with local
inhabitants. They usually stay in one of the uma, a community clan house. The more traditional
uma communities, who live away from the main villages, are particularly popular among the
tourist groups. There are also several modest shelters built especially for tourists by
Minangkabau and Nias traders. The group usually brings along its own food mainly consisting of
rice, cans of fish, coffee and sugar" (1998: 327). Contact between tourists and the local
population is mediated by the guide. The group stays in one house for no more than a few days.
They take day hikes into the forest and observe sago processing and fishing. "There is a lot to be
learned by tourists in observing the local people while interacting with the environment. Apart
from the fascinating physical skills of men and women in undertaking the different kinds of work,
the Mentawaian possess a wealth of environmental knowledge, which allows them to harvest
scores of medicinal plants, wild food products and selected timber species for house construction.
In addition, the forest provides the materials for basket-weaving and other forms of handicraft"
(1998: 329).
"It is interesting to see," Persoon writes, "how the Mentawai have transformed the
'wilderness' into a 'giving environment' by enriching its productivity" (1998: 329). The forest is not
just a storehouse of useful products. It belongs to the ancestors, and interaction requires specific
rules of conduct. Sacrifices are made, spells uttered, taboos observed. "Once tourists get a
sense of this kind of interaction between the Mentawaian and the environment, a walk in the
forest suddenly takes on a spiritual dimension as well" (1998: 329). However, for the tourists,
witnessing a religious ceremony requires some luck. "The timing of these activities is...hard to
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predict and the Mentawaian have not, up until now, staged ceremonies or elaborate dances
especially for tourists" (1998: 329).
38
Many tourists "go native: they have their picture taken in a
loincloth and dress up with glass beads and flowers, preferably side by side with a kerei. Some
try to shoot an arrow or move the canoe forward with a long bamboo pole while standing. Others
do not want to leave the island without a small tattoo on their arms or legs" (1998: 329). Persoon
estimates that 2000-3000 tourists visit Siberut annually, most during the peak months of June,
July, and August. Most are Dutch, British, German, and French, but there are also visitors from
Canada, Denmark, the United States, Australia, and Switzerland. Most are below age 30 and
male. Most are by themselves or in couples and so placed together in a mixed group.
Sometimes there are tensions and conflicts within the group, but usually there are not.
Because of the growing number of tourists, tourism became a major element in the
management plan for the national park. In 1992, the Department of Forestry and the Asian
Development Bank announced a multi-million dollar project for biodiversity conservation in
Indonesia. Two sites were selected for implementation: Siberut and Flores. Siberut was selected
because of its endemic primates and its unique population of humans. As a result, the logging
concessions in Siberut were cancelled, and over 190,000 hectares were declared a national park.
New sources of revenue needed to replace the revenues lost from the cancellation of logging.
Commercialization of non-timber forest products (rattan, sago, and gaharu), eco-tourism,
handicraft production, improved animal husbandry, and agroforestry were identified. In 1994,
consultants designed an integrated management plan. "At this moment the draft plan is being
discussed at various levels. After official approval by the central authorities, the plan (which is
based on the so-called Integrated Protected Area approach, linking biodiversity conservation
aims with local development needs through participatory planning) will be implemented" (1998:
330). Persoon says that this plan is "bound to have a much greater impact" on tourist activities.
It includes extensive training programs and facilities for larger numbers of wealthier tourists, with
38
At the time of Bakker's research in 1996 and my own research in 2003 and 2004, ceremonies were
staged. They were not, however, "fake," for reasons that I explain below.
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scuba diving, speed boat racing, and golf. In general, tourism will be improved: local guides will
be trained; a visitor centre near the national park headquarters will be built; information about the
island, including guidebooks, brochures, and videos, will be distributed; high-quality handicrafts
will be produced and sold in local shops; a sanitation system will be devised; and a fund to
distribute the proceeds equitably, including to those people who are not directly involved in
tourism, will be established.
Persoon begins to conclude the essay by asking about the environmental and cultural
impact of increased tourism in Siberut. "To begin with, we must recognize how remarkable it is
that this new development, started by adventurous Minangkabau entrepreneurs, has now been
recognized and supported by the provincial government and has become a major element in the
planning for the national park" (1998: 331).
39
Tourism was "at a standstill" until 1987-88. There
was no support from the provincial government, except for putting Siberut on the tourist map,
simplifying the bureaucratic formalities, and granting permission to build a hotel. Progress has
been made, but until the management plan is implemented, the provincial government's support
means little. Currently, Persoon says, there is no regulation or supervision of the tourism
industry. Village leaders are left on their own to deal with any problem. The Department of
Social Affairs has considered tourism as a means to help develop Siberut, but nothing has been
done. "Local authorities are very much aware that foreign tourists are visiting Siberut in order to
encounter the traditional Mentawaian culture. The government's past repressive attitude towards
expression of Mentawaian culture has been relaxed considerably. Kerei are being tolerated, and
on several occasions new kerei have been initiated. During official visits, they may now even
perform dances dressed in loincloths, whereas several years ago they would have certainly been
forced to wear shorts. On two occasions Mentawaian dancers were taken to Jakarta, the nation's
capital, to perform in the cultural centre Taman Izmail Marzuki. They were billed as Mentawaian
39
The real question - a story still waiting to be told - is why Suharto suddenly cancelled the concessions and
declared the island a national park. The development originated from the center, which presented the
provincial government with a problem as much as an opportunity. Shortly thereafter, the provincial
government was presented with another problem in the wake of regional autonomy.
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dancers from the Minangkabau heartland (pedalaman)" (1998: 331-332; emphasis added).
However, "acceptance of the material and superficial aspects of Mentawaian culture has not
influenced the official guidelines" (1998: 332). Arat sabulungan is still forbidden. "West Sumatra
officials have stated that they want to separate the Mentawaian culture from the religion" because
it conflicts with first principle of Pancasila.
40
Persoon suggests that "if there is a more relaxed
attitude toward cultural displays, it is at least partly to be attributed to the financial rewards of
tourism" (1998: 332). Tourism is a source of income for local officials. "The choice between an
active and laborious repression of the traditional culture and a financially more attractive laissez-
faire policy is easily made" (1998: 332).
If tourism is to develop, it must confront a major problem. "The interest in traditional
culture as the backbone of this industry, and the revival of traditional kerei, as well as the return to
the field houses away from the government-sponsored settlements, are considered as a 'disease
which spreads rapidly'" (1998: 332). The government, especially the Department of Social
Affairs, and missionaries have tried to bring civilization to Siberut by changing settlement patterns
and food production, increasing educational and healthcare facilities, and outlawing the traditional
religion and other "primitive" cultural traits. "The interest of tourists is in full opposition to these
developments" (1998: 332). As tourism grows, so will the conflict. "More important than the
influence tourism has on the government is the influence tourism exercises over the local
population. This influence is not unequivocal. In addition to economic considerations, some
socio-psychological aspects of the meetings of different cultures are to be considered" (1998:
332-333). The tourist trade is dominated by the Minangkabau. "Although it is indigenous culture
in which tourists are interested, indigenous people are practically outsiders in the tourist industry"
(1998: 333). They are the "objects of observation," but they receive little money in exchange. "At
one particular spot in the Rereiket area Mentawaian men and women flock together on the days
that the tourist boats arrive. They hope to be hired as porters for a few thousand rupiah per day.
40
This tactic is common throughout Indonesia. Custom (adat) is distinguished from religion (agama).
Traditional customs are to be preserved in the name of "Unity in Diversity," the national motto, while
traditional religions are to be eradicated in the name of progress. See Pemberton 1994.
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The bulk of the profit from tourism however is earned by the guides, the local administrators,
traders and motorboat owners" (1998: 333). Local NGOs have been founded, but they have not
had much success in changing this distribution. Moreover, "Mentawaian society is quite literally
an open society where hospitality is deeply rooted" (1998: 333). People can be observed going
about their daily lives for free. Money is requested only for an overnight stay in an uma, special
services such as cooking, and photographs. "The ever-present photo and video cameras have
convinced the Mentawaian that they can ask for something in return. They feel that something is
being taken from them and sometimes they believe that tourists can make a lot of money with
such photographs. The slogan 'no cigarette, no photo', which began a few years ago, has now
been replaced by 'no money, no photo'....with an assertive attitude of 'take it or leave it', they offer
the tourist the choice of paying or refraining from taking pictures. They are not interested in
extensive bargaining" (1998: 334). Persoon says that this "commercial attitude" is frustrating for
everyone, the Mentawai, the tourists, and the guides. Then he says, "A sense of pride in the
Mentawaian culture and way of life is being reinforced by tourist attention. This attention
constitutes a counterforce against the continuing pressure from the government, missionaries and
fellow Mentawaian to give up the old traditions and integrate within mainstream Indonesian
culture and society" (1998: 334). But the attention is also dangerous because it focuses on the
"visually attractive aspects" of indigenous culture - tattoos, beads, flowers, ceremonies, dances,
and longhouses. "These elements can be used for tourist 'show' purposes, where they become
detached from their original religious-cultural meaning. In other words, there threatens to be a
commercialization and folklorization of cultural features that are visually attractive and useful for
presentation to the outside world" (1998: 334). Persoon also argues that tourism has created
inequality in Siberut. Most tourists visit the Sakkudei or certain clans the Rereiket area, both in
the south of the island. The north is virtually ignored because it is more developed, and in the
south, the clans that live in government-built villages do not fare much better.
The direct impact of tourism on the environment is limited. Tourists bring trash,
especially plastic, and toilet paper. Longboats with outboard motors erode the riverbanks. In the
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forest, disturbance of wildlife is minimal. The tourist-motivated hunting expeditions are rarely
successful. The indirect impact is more important: tourists hold the promise of more tourists.
Persoon suggests that without the potential for tourism, the ADB might not have made Siberut a
priority in its conservation plan. In this way, tourists have been - and will be - essential to the
project of conserving the biodiversity of Siberut. However, only "the traditional culture located
within a functioning, tropical, forest ecosystem" will attract tourists. "In that respect tourism will be
more ethno- than eco-oriented" (1998: 336). Whether the tourism industry will grow depends on
three factors: "the attitude of the government...the nature of tourists' interests...and the kind and
degree of involvement of the Mentawaian" (1998: 337). First, there is likely to be conflict between
different government departments, such as the Departments of Forestry, Tourism, Social Affairs,
and Nature Conservation. Second, the interests of tourists will eventually have to shift from
culture (ethno-tourism) to nature (eco-tourism). Third, if indigenous people do not get involved,
the industry will collapse. "The Mentawaian displeasure with tourism will affect their behavior
towards tourists, who in turn can be disillusioned" (1998: 338). But the chances of breaking the
Minangkabau monopoly are slim. For centuries, "the Minangkabau have controlled the links to
the outside and rapidly modernizing world" (1998: 338). The indigenous people of Siberut have
not been able to compete with them because of a "lack of co-operation outside the patrilineal
kinship group, lack of experience in dealing with traders, as well as an unwillingness to make
changes....[and] because of jealousy and mutual distrusts among different clans" (1998: 338).
They accept no representative, they remain comparatively disorganized, and so they remain
weak in relation to the Minangkabau. Another problem according to Persoon is that the industry
is currently focused on the Rereiket, which will eventually reach a saturation point and become
known as a tourist trap - and "nobody...dislikes a tourist more than another tourist" (1998: 339).
Persoon concludes: "While the small size of traditional communities makes them attractive for
tourists, it is also a weakness: tourism in itself has become a significant component of the
modernization process. Hospitality is a basic feature of the traditional society. Uninvited guests
brazenly take advantage of this hospitality and give little in return. Not only is this hospitality
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being abused, but the local communities also become internally divided and tourism gives rise to
feelings of hostility towards these outsiders; this might in the long run lead to a situation in which
eco-/ethno-tourism on Siberut becomes self-defeating" (1998: 339). If the recommendations in
the management plan are not realized, "tourism will eventually turn out to have been yet another
phase in the history of Siberut of short-lived, outside interference bringing little lasting economic
benefit for the local people. The sense of local pride...might become a target for renewed
development and modernization activities. And finally, the expanding industry of eco-/ethno-
tourism will bypass Siberut in search of more adventurous and unspoiled sites" (1998: 338).
Persoon's essay is based on fieldwork he conducted in 1995. It was published in 1998.
As he predicted, the tourism industry collapsed, but not because the recommendations of the
management plan were not realized. It collapsed because of the Asian financial crisis and the fall
of Suharto, epidemics and fires, the Bali bomb and terrorism, as well as regional autonomy and
the shift to surfing. In the Rereiket, it had still not recovered during the time of my fieldwork in
2003 and 2004. Sakaliou mostly slipped back into the forest. However, they blamed the
Minangkabau guides and made an effort to bypass them. Rustam even made an effort to get in
on the surfing industry. Tourism had played an important role in Sakaliou's relation with the state.
It had also continued the process of cultural involution, a process that enabled them to slip back
into the forest when the industry collapsed. In contrast to the people in Madobag, the people of
Sakaliou did not consider themselves "poor" (miskin). When the tourism industry collapsed, there
was simply a kind of cultural deflation. Houses and ceremonies became smaller, but did not
change. Aman Jomanu sent his kids to school in Madobag, but did not live there. Aman
Boroiogok bought land outside of Sakaliou and started building a sapo.
Among the many interviews that Persoon's student Bakker (1999) conducted during the
boom years of the tourism industry, there is one with a member of Sakaliou. With the resources
from tourism, Salomo says, he built a new house. In the old house, many tourists came to visit.
His children are growing up with tourists around them, and they are not afraid. Tourists visit
almost every week, sometimes two or three groups. When they do, he and his wife sleep in the
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old house, where it is quiet. The new house was built with the money from tourism. It brings in
Rp20,000 per night (instead of Rp10,000). It is the biggest house in the area and can
accommodate many tourists, and it is "completely traditional." There are no skulls because he
has not had time to hunt. When fewer tourists come during the rainy season, he will have time.
The walls are decorated with "paintings and snakes to keep out the evil spirits." There are "four
hearths and a katsaila." However, he says, "We did not built the house like that for tourists....I
wanted to make sure my children would know Mentawaian customs." He is making a walking
bridge from the house to the river because the tourists are unable to walk in the jungle. There is
a garden next to the house to produce vegetables for the tourists. "Tourists do not like to eat
food without vegetables." He likes it when tourists come to visit. "Why they come I do not really
know. I think tourists come because they do not have something like Mentawai in Europe, they
think it is special. I do not know what they find so special about it but I do understand, I have
been to Bukittinggi several times and I enjoy going there because there is nothing like that on
Siberut. Maybe I am like a tourist as well." He likes talking to tourists because "they can tell me
about things I do not yet know about, other places, other customs." He makes money from the
house and from selling bows and arrows, tobacco boxes, and photographs of him fishing or
processing sago. "If they take pictures when I am not working they do not have to pay, because
then I do not have to do anything for it. It is normal to have them pay money for pictures or
services. After all, we did not invite them and we do not know them so they have to behave
politely." When they do not behave politely, they must leave. Once, when he told a guide to
leave, the guide threw a tantrum, but he later apologized and gave Salomo "many presents
among which a gong and now he can come and visit my house again." Some guides forbid their
tourists from giving him presents, but he has written on the table (literally) that he likes them.
"You must not think that without tourists the Mentawaian customs will be forgotten by the
Sakaliou, that we would become modern as happened in many other parts of the island. We
need to continue our customs, we need kerei; there is no doctor here and the hospital is far away,
who would heal the sick without kerei?"
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Bakker concludes his analysis of the social and ethnic impact of the tourism industry in
Siberut by asking whether the ethnic identity presented tourists is, simply put, phony. He
answers, "I believe not. Tourism was a welcome assistance to Mentawai tradition as it allowed
for the continuing of an otherwise disappearing culture. Whereas the culture was being replaced,
it had far from gone. Tourism merely was the instrument that allowed for its return. Ethnic
markers that make up tourists expectations are the same ethnic markers that Mentawaians use to
define their own ethnic identity....Ethnicity was not re-invented for tourism purposes" (1999). As
for performances and souvenirs, there are originals (which Bakker calls "true culture") and
replicas or copies. "Demonstrations and copies of ethnic utilities are an effective form of cultural
defense, although the grave situation of MacCannell's (1973) 'reconstructed ethnicity' is not yet
encountered on Siberut. Frontstage-backstage divisions can be distinguished" (1999). Then he
says, "Tourism also generated a new way of inter-uma rivalry of a kind not experienced before.
In the past, rivalry was mainly economic in nature. The heights of fines and bride prices gave
status to the receiving uma. Now the number of tourists that visit give status. The economic
nature is still there, but the ethnic implications are at least as important. Tourists are considered
to visit only those houses that show true Mentawaian identity, even after decades of
governmental attempts to do away with the expressions of this identity. Those uma that are
visited most often therefore consider themselves to be the 'real Mentawaians', as opposed to
other uma that did not succeed in maintaining those aspects of ethnic identity that are considered
vital" (1999). I am sympathetic with this conclusion. However, I would add that although tourism
is relatively recent, the processes that gave rise to "true Mentawaian identity" were at work before
the arrival of tourists and, indeed, before the arrival of the state. Mimetic rivalry and the deferral
of violence through exchange, in conjunction with the state and tourism, produced a sense of
authenticity, which was then subject to mimetic rivalry.
In mimetic rivalry, self and other are separated by distance. The collapse of this distance
leads to conflict, and conflict is materialized in bodies and objects. In other words, the coming
together of bodies and objects - or at least bodies - leads to conflict and the materialization of
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conflict. Objects maintain the distance between self and other, so they prevent conflict and its
materialization. However, with the exchange of objects, self and other remain similar, and the
potential for conflict remains. Only in the case of the puliaijat does the exchange of objects
indicate a difference that resolves mimetic conflict (at least temporarily). But the spirits are
brought into the house, bodies interpenetrate, and then they are sent back into the forest. The
state collapsed the distance between self and other - the distance between clans and also the
distance between the Mentawai and the sareu. The result was conflict. Tourism collapses the
distance between self and other - not between clans, but between the Mentawai and tourists.
The result, however, was not conflict. A kind of fundamental symbolic distance remained.
Tourists remained other even as the distance was collapsed and contact was made. Tourists are
the most spatially and temporally (i.e. genealogically) distant. In Terason's myth, tourists are the
most distant in both senses. The sareu are closer in both senses, but there is also the issue of
continued exchange - between the sareu and the Mentawai and between the sareu and tourists -
which simultaneously brings them closer to the Mentawai and closer to tourists.
Both the tourists and the guides who depend on them and the Mentawai for their
livelihoods do not want the Mentawai to become like them. They do not want the Mentawai to
change. (This sets up a new mimetic conflict between tourists and the state, with the guides
occupying a problematic position. The Mentawai become the mimetic objects over which tourists
and perhaps the guides and the state are in mimetic conflict. But that is a different argument.)
This avoids a mimetic conflict between the Mentawai and the tourists - they are different - and
paradoxically, mimesis can run free. All of the mimetic activity, the mimetic behaviors, which are
usually one-way, with tourists acting like the Mentawai, paradoxically are aimed at distinguishing
between the two groups, between self and other. Again, this is a lot like the puliaijat. The tourists
travel upriver, they trek through the jungle, they live in the uma, they press close to people, they
exchange (or give) small gifts, they watch and participate to a certain extent in everyday activities
and occasionally in ceremonies, real or not, and at the end of the trip, they dress up like the
Mentawai. Most of all, they take pictures, usually for a fee. And after all of this effort at being
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similar, both the tourists and the Mentawai recognize that they are not. The tourists leave
(usually - there are a few exceptions, including the anthropologist). The final interaction is almost
always the exchange of gifts: souvenirs for money. This more than anything else represents the
difference that has been reestablished. It is a pure economic transaction, an exchange of
commodities, not gifts. There is no social relation. The money means nothing, usually to both
parties. It is a small amount for the tourists, and for the Mentawai, it means nothing until it is
converted into something - some thing and a relation - that does have value. For Sakaliou, it
leads to cultural involution. For other clans, it may not. More than colonialism, more than the
trade store, more than anything else, the small exchanges of souvenirs for money has educated
the Mentawai, and Sakaliou in particular, about market exchange. It is possible, if difference can
be maintained, for transactions to mean nothing. The colonial encounter paved the way for this
realization to be made. The trade stores did not.
And this is why the pictures are so problematic. Photographs are midway between the
souvenir and the culture object, the objectification and commoditization of culture. As long as a
souvenir - or the object that will become a souvenir - is made by the person who would otherwise
use the object, even if he or she does not intend to use that object, it can become a gift or a
commodity. It is only a commodity in potential. Photographs, at the moment they are taken, are
already a commodity, because the subject has not produced it. Objects are personal, but
photographs are the person. There is no sense in Siberut that the photograph is connected to the
soul (although a flash is considered to be startling and thus dangerous to the soul. In other
words, it is not the photograph itself, but the flash that is problematic). For this reason, the
Mentawai expect to be compensated, especially, as Salomo said, when they have to do
something for the photograph. When they are doing something, it is almost like making an object
that will become a souvenir, but not quite, because it is already known that doing something will
become a photograph. Objects normally mitigate mimetic conflict. Photographs do not. They
are like bajou: they are the materialization of mimesis. With souvenirs, there is an exchange
between self and other that keeps them apart. With photographs, the exchange ties them
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together such that they cannot be separated except by recompense. With souvenirs, the object
moves between self and other. With photographs, the distance between self and other is
collapsed in the image and can only be reopened by a payment. It could be seen as reciprocity,
as one of the mimetic behaviors that ultimately reiterates a difference - one photo, one cigarette.
But it could also be seen as theft. The image is personal property. It is stolen because it has not
been voluntarily entered into exchange. The payment enters the image into exchange. Doing
something for the photograph is like making an object to be a souvenir, only the time between the
making of it and its determination as a commodity and not a gift is smaller. Interestingly, the
souvenirs are most often bows and arrows and tobacco boxes. A bow and arrow has a soul, like
almost every other object. It may be given away to someone with whom it is sympathetic. This
issue does not concern the souvenir seller much, not because the bow and arrow loses its soul,
but because it will be taken very far away, and if it has a problem with the owner, it will not affect
the seller. (There is also the question of how tourists make sense of souvenirs, but that too is a
different argument.) The Mentawai are concerned that the tourists make money off of the
photographs. This is another reason that they expect to be compensated. In general, there is the
issue of reciprocity, of equality. But in transactions between clans, there is no sense that the
giver has some claim to the proceeds that arise later from the gift. The giver expects something
in return, but not in perpetuity. The value of the more immediate return gift, however, does
depend on the value of the initial gift. A larger bridewealth, for example, requires a larger dowry.
The photograph incorporates its potential (and largely imagined) value. Films (whose value is not
imagined) are very expensive. Tattoos are souvenirs - souvenirs of mimesis inscribed on the
body. They are bought.
With the photograph, culture itself can become a commodity. It is not the image itself, but
the doing something for it that accomplishes this. If doing something for a photograph can be
entered into meaningless exchange, then doing something in the absence of a photograph can
also be entered into meaningless exchange. Needless to say, between clans, the practice of
everyday life has no value in its own right. The things produced and exchanged do. Between the
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Mentawai and tourists, however, everyday life has value. No object is required. Not sago and
fish, but making sago and fishing have value. This is a completely new idea to the Mentawai,
although not one without precedent - or antecedent - as they do not things that do not have value
in everyday life, in their social relations within the clan, between clans, and between humans and
spirits. Sago and fish have value within the clan. Hunting has value. All of the other things that
they do for tourists must have value in this sense. Otherwise, they do not do it, and they would
refuse if asked. They would not jump through hoops. Ceremonies are an interesting case in
point. Most tourists prefer to see ceremonies that would have occurred whether they were there
or not. They are considered to be more authentic. But some tourists (and their guides),
disappointed but understanding, request ceremonies, and the Mentawai are happy to oblige them
for a fee. The ceremonies are not fake. In other words, they do not perform the sacrifices and
dances assuming that the audience does not include spirits. They may take shortcuts, but they
do not, for example, violate taboos. A sacrifice is a sacrifice. A dance is a dance. Similarly, they
may tidy up the uma so as to make it presentable to tourists. On the surface, this looks like they
are performing the primitive - exchanging shorts for loincloths, for example - but Sakaliou at least
sees the activity as having a value separate from the exchange with tourists. Recall that Salomo
and nearly every other member of Sakaliou said repeatedly that they are not doing things for
tourists. They are doing them for their children, so that they know Mentawai culture. These
statements have to be taken at face value. Over two years of fieldwork, they did the same things
even in the absence of tourists. The presence of tourists merely provoked them to do them at a
time and place that they had not anticipated. But it is also important to note that the awareness
that everyday life has a value in the exchange with tourists is what they present to the state.
They know that the state sees no value in their everyday life. They tell the state that it must have
some value because tourists are willing to come and pay for it, but they tell themselves (and
tourists) that the tourists have nothing to do with it. This is another reason that they want the
tourists' payments to be high. To be clear, they are not imitating the tourists' image of them.
They are imitating the image of themselves which arises in exchange with others, including
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tourists. For Sakaliou, this image focuses on their prestige in relation to other clans, a prestige
buttressed and amplified by their exchanges with tourists. The proceeds from tourism have not
led to increased personal wealth, but to increased prestige for certain individuals and for the clan
as a whole, prestige that only arises from the conversion of economic capital into social capital
through the various forms of reciprocity.
The tourists themselves become a mimetic object over which clans and individuals within
the same clan compete. Before the collapse of the tourist industry, this led to cultural involution
among Sakaliou, which in turn led to fissioning. Houses and ceremonies got much bigger. It is
not that they were competing with each other to be the most authentic. They were competing
with each other for prestige. The proceeds from tourism were converted into larger houses and
ceremonies. The larger houses and ceremonies led to more tourists and more proceeds.
Sakaliou still considers itself to be one clan. The different factions still live on their ancestral land,
but there are now several different uma and varying degrees of cooperation between the factions.
There is no open hostility. This is almost normal for fissioning. Traditionally, a conflict would lead
to a formal separation, with one party moving onto unoccupied land and taking a new name.
Aman Boroiogok was beginning to move into another valley when I left, a valley vacated by the
state's resettlement program. The state has opened up space for the normal process of
fissioning to begin again. If the residents of the valley decide to return, however, Aman
Boroiogok might have a problem.
In all of this, there is a biased third party, the guides, of whom the vast majority are
Minangkabau. Like tourists, they do not want the Mentawai to change, but like the state and the
sareu traders before them (who also need the Mentawai to remain primitive), they do expect the
Mentawai to imitate them in certain respects. Most of all, they expect them to defer to their
supervision of the tourists. The guides are less socially distant from the Mentawai. Like their
tourists, they travel upriver and stay in the uma. They know the language and customs. They
engage in long-term relations of exchange. But they also remain sareu. They complain about
cleanliness and jealousy. They do not eat pork. They sometimes pray. And they are notoriously
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greedy. They do not compensate the Mentawai fairly. The exchanges are not paroman. The
problem, clearly, is that the Mentawai see them as an other with whom social relations should be
negotiated through paroman exchange. They are not the enclaved sareu traders. They are
different. But while some guides are genuinely fond of their Mentawai hosts, almost all of them
see the tours as a business, not as a negotiation of social relations through paroman exchange.
They carefully control the flow of gifts between the tourists and the Mentawai, fearing that too
many gifts will set a bad precedent. They pay as little as possible to their hosts, cooks, and
porters and are afraid when they speak English. They insist on being in the middle. When a
problem arises, or even before, they sever ties with one person or house or clan and move on to
another. The workforce is limitless and easily exploited. The Mentawai can understand that the
exchanges with tourists mean nothing. They cannot understand why this should be the case with
the guides, who return frequently and do not act like the traders or the state. Their recourse has
been to expel them or, more often, to tolerate them and work behind their backs to recruit tourists
directly, an ambition that has so far failed. Even more organized efforts have failed. This is not
due to inexperience or a lack of qualifications (many of them speak better English), but to the
accessibility of arriving tourists. Those that come directly to the island may find a Mentawai
guide. The vast majority go to Bukittinggi or Padang first. The Mentawai and the guides are now
in mimetic conflict over tourists. And the Mentawai have imitated the guides. The informality of
the system is key. Formalizing it will only create problems. This is why the incorporation of
tourism into the management plan and development programs is bound to fail. If the state or
even the local government takes over tourism, it will benefit only a few. Small, low quality,
disorganized tourism is the only sustainable kind of cultural tourism. As in Bali (Picard 1996), if
the flow of tourists is steady, culture will finally become touristic, and the people of Sakaliou will
start imitating an image of themselves that is not their own.
41
The state is trying to replicate the
touristification of Balinese culture in Siberut. It has succeeded to a limited extent for other clans,
41
See especially Picard 1996: 197. For his critique of McKean's theory of cultural involution, see Picard
1996: 110-113.
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but not for Sakaliou, at least not in Aman Boroiogok's generation, although this could change as
the local government, in the era of regional autonomy, takes control of the tourism industry.
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Chapter 8: Environmentalism and Regional Autonomy
In 1992, for reasons remaining to be discovered, now-fallen President Suharto suddenly
cancelled the logging concessions on Siberut and declared most of the island a national park.
This unexpected event probably came about as a result of back room negotiations, perhaps
involving international pressure. Several years earlier, UNESCO had declared the island a Man
and Biosphere Reserve, the World Wildlife Fund had focused its attention on the endemic primate
species, and critically, the Asian Development Bank guaranteed a multi-million dollar loan. But it
may also have had something to do with the visit of the kerei, who claim to have consulted with
the President. Although kerei are not known for their prophetic abilities, they do fit the mold - or fit
it well enough for the President to have considered them a mystical resource. In the years since,
due to the actions of environmentalists, both governmental and otherwise, a kind of
consciousness of conservation has arisen among many of the indigenous people of Siberut
themselves. They have a vague understanding of the value of trees. But it is very vague, and
unlike the environmentalists, who often assume that forest-dwelling people are natural
conservationists, it is not tied to the inherent worth of the forest, let alone biodiversity. It is, like
tourism, mainly an awareness that saving trees is not what the government wanted to do and so it
must be something worth doing. Ironically, then, the environmental movement on Siberut
represents a convergence of indigenous and government interests, especially national interests,
a convergence that is confusing to indigenous people like Sakaliou. For their part, Sakaliou had
little interest in the national park or in what other clans did with their land. They cut down trees as
they needed them. They never considered selling their land, although they did make a claim to
more distant land, which they were then happy to sell. They also struggled to make sense of the
frequent meetings in Madobag about this issue. And it soon became apparent to them, as often
occurs with the state, that all was not what it seemed. Tourism was to be tied to the national
park. The environmentalists were the state attempting to co-opt the one thing that had given
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them some leverage: tourists. In this way, and perhaps unexpectedly, Sakaliou came to oppose
the environmentalists.
In the early 1970s, almost the entire island, except for a small reserve in the middle, was
divided among four big logging companies. The workforce was nonlocal, and the timber was
exported, first to the West, and then, beginning in the early 1980s, to sawmills in Padang and
Sibolga, Nias. The operations were costly, so the companies focused on the most valuable
timber. There were occasional conflicts between the companies and local populations, but they
were easily resolved with money and the police. Persoon argues that in 20 years of logging,
serious damage has been done to the environment (2003: 256). Although the companies paid a
tax to the central government for reforestation, the money was never used for that purpose. A
side effect, according to Persoon, was the implementation of a development program for shifting
agriculturalists. Funded by the taxes paid by the logging companies, the program aimed "to
reduce the use of good forest by shifting cultivators, turning the local people into permanent
agriculturalists, cultivating rice and leading 'regular' village lives" (2003: 256). There was never
any small-scale illegal logging. There was no market for it.
In 1980, the WWF made an effort to expand the small reserve on the island, focusing on
the four endemic primate species. The protected area was expanded from 5600 hectares to
56,000 hectares. A traditional use zone would surround the core area. In 1982, the WWF
terminated its involvement in Siberut, leaving conservation to the Indonesian Department of
Nature Conservation. Other organizations had been fighting to "save Siberut" from
transmigration and oil palm plantations. Then, "quite unexpectedly in 1993 when renewal of
logging concessions was being discussed in Jakarta, the President signed an agreement that all
logging concessions on the island were to be terminated and that about half of Siberut (190,000
hectares) was to become a National Park" (Persoon 2003: 256). Logging, transmigration, oil
palm plantations, and other serious land-use transitions adjacent to the National Park were
banned. The ADB agreed to fund a multi-million dollar management plan that included a range of
development activities for the indigenous people. The Siberut Project was an important part of
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the bank's Indonesia Biodiversity Program. "An important chapter in the ecological history of the
island was closed, at least temporarily" (Persoon 2003: 257).
42
The ADB project lasted from 1994 to early 2000, when it was terminated due to "a variety
of reasons," including the mismanagement of funds and "disappointing levels of income
generated from various kinds of alternative sources of income suggested by the project
(ecotourism, agroforestry, animal husbandry)" (Persoon 2003: 257). The fires in 1997-98
reduced tourists arrivals dramatically. Suharto stepped down in May 1998, the country was
struck by an economic and monetary crisis, and "a massive process of regional autonomy started
in the country under the banner of reformasi" (Persoon 2003: 257). Resource-rich provinces
wanted political autonomy, resource-rich districts wanted province status, and parts of resource-
rich districts wanted district status. "Often these claims were combined with expressions of ethnic
identity: in particular less powerful ethnic groups were claiming more autonomy from the centre
and from the dominant groups within the province" (Persoon 2003: 257). This was the case in
the Mentawai Archipelago. The Mentawai Islands became a kabupaten (district) in 1999. This
"implied" that the bupati, the head of the district, could grant logging concessions to cooperatives
"once these had obtained legal status." The district needed to generate income from its own
resources. Jakarta could not be depended on for funding. "For a forest-rich area like the
Mentawai Archipelago and for Siberut in particular with a national park which hardly generates
any money for the local government, the choice was easy" (Persoon 2003: 257). In March 1999,
the Department of Cooperation granted cooperative status to the Koperasi Andalas Mandani
(KAM) of the Padang-based Universitas Andalas. A month later, the Department of Forestry
granted a Land Grant College (LGC) to the university for "research and education in the field of
42
Perhaps because of his involvement in other programs, Persoon is somewhat critical of UNESCO. He
writes, "already in 1981 Siberut was officially declared a Man-and-Biosphere (MAB) reserve. This status
should be looked upon as a kind of legal instrument to combine local people's interests with nature
conservation. In many other cases of MAB reserves local people enjoy special rights compared to migrants.
This declaration has not had a great impact on the island however. It was only towards the end of the ADB
project in 1998/1999 that UNESCO started to take an active interest in Siberut and tried to revive the notion
of the Siberut Man-and-Biosphere reserve" (2003: 263). In my own experience in Sakaliou, UNESCO was
much more active - more active, in fact, than any of the other programs. As I describe below, UNESCO built
and operated an alternative elementary school on Sakaliou's land.
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timber and non-timber forest products." The area was initially 83,300 hectares. It was later
reduced to 50,000 hectares. There were formal requirements - an environmental impact
assessment, the contracting of a logging company, an agreement between business partners - all
of which had to be met in the chaotic days of reformasi, with rapidly changing presidents and
ministers and new laws, including news laws on forestry and regional autonomy. The contracted
logging company would receive 54% of the profits, the cooperative KAM 26%, and the university
20%. Operations would commence in early 2001. Equipment arrived on the island. Protests
were held at the university campus and at the offices of the agencies involved. The newly built
KAM base camp was burned down. Ten people were arrested. The conflict was covered by the
media. The main grievance was that after two decades of commercial logging and a decade of
top-down conservation planning, local people were being left out again. Most importantly, they
would not share in the profits. The resistance was broken with the help of the police and the
support of the bupati, and operations commenced. Currently, 7000 cubic meters of timber is
exported monthly, a figure that is likely to increase.
Local NGOs and UNESCO have made it clear that people are now aware of and do not
accept that "timber is taken from the land that they have always considered their home" (Persoon
2003: 258). In June 2002, a large meeting in Tuapejat aimed at discussing the "democratization
of the management of the area's natural resources." The recommendations agreed upon at the
end of the meeting included "the cancelling of all logging concessions, including the Land Grant
College, a review of the current land-use plans, respect for traditional land rights, and in general
much more involvement of the local population in the process of decision-making and program
implementation" (Persoon 2003: 258). Conservation International (CI) has expressed interest in
conserving the remaining rainforest on the island through a lease contract. Previously, the ADB
had prevented this from happening. CI will compensate the district government for income lost
and improve infrastructure such as schools and health clinics. The bupati is hesitant to revoke
the LGC "since the concessions generate more benefits than formal tax incomes" (Persoon 2003:
258). The decision has been postponed. In August 2002, the Minister of Forestry wanted to
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consult with the local communities. According to Persoon, these events led to an explosion of
NGOs with an interest in protecting Siberut. The NGOs are not only international, but national,
regional, and local as well. There is a growing indigenous rights movement, but the real problem
is the internal conflicts exacerbated by the recent changes in policy. Persoon writes, "Land that
used to be considered common property is now being sold or logged without consent of all uma
members. It is predicted that there will be 'war' on Siberut" (2003: 262; emphasis added).
43
The policy of regional autonomy was officially implemented in Indonesia in 2001, shifting
power from Jakarta to regional governments, roughly 25 in number. Under regional autonomy,
the kabupaten (regency) and its capitol city (kotamadya or kota), became the locus of
government authority. The kabupaten suddenly became responsible for trade and industry,
investment, health, education, labor, tourism, agriculture, transport, forestry, and maritime affairs.
According to Reeves (2001), there was no longer a hierarchical relationship between the province
and the kabupaten. Power was "decentralized" from Jakarta straight to the kabupaten and
"deconcentrated" at the provincial level, where the governor took over powers no longer
administered by the center, but was still subject to central jurisdiction. In effect, the provinces will
lose money from Jakarta. Another fear is that the bupati will set themselves up as petty kings,
since they are autonomous not only from the center, but also from the provinces. "What these
changes amount to overall, then, is the decentralization of executive, legislative and financial
power from the centre mainly to the Kabupaten/Kota. A significant consequence is that it sets up
an area in which a struggle for resources is virtually guaranteed" (Reeves 2001). In October
1999, the Mentawai Islands became a kabupaten in their own right, with the kota in Tuapejat -
just in time for regional autonomy. "With the official devolution of power to the Kabupaten level in
2001, the issue of the composition of the People's Regional Representative Assembly moved to
43
Persoon (2003) also describes the surfing industry in the Mentawai Islands, which has proven to be
extremely lucrative for everyone but the indigenous people who live next to the waves. Traditionally, unlike
land, sea and waves were never owned. The taxes received from surfing operators "account for about half
of the kabupaten's local tax income. No wonder surfing was described as a 'gift' for the newly founded
district" (2003: 259). However, beyond the activities of SurfAid, "the surfing industry brings little to the island
in terms of development opportunities, improvement of living conditions or material infrastructure" (2003:
259). See also Pointing 2001.
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the fore of local politics" (Reeves 2001). Conflict ensued, and the inauguration of the assembly
was postponed. Reeves argues that the people of the Mentawai Islands were unprepared to be
part of the political process. In the chaos, many of the fears of regional autonomy were realized.
The Land Grant College was only one example of a local bupati out of control. Meanwhile, the
push toward decentralization also led to the first free national elections. Sakaliou's reaction to
these events is revealing.
One day, Bai Asa Iba came running into the longhouse, screaming that people should
gather up their kids. There were headhunters nearby, and they were looking for a construction
sacrifice. If headhunting commemorates the founding of a new cultural order through the
victimage mechanism, what does it means that development projects require heads? It means
that it is feared that development will create a new cultural order, one that will be unlike the
previous ones, in which exchange - like the exchange of heads - does nothing to control mimetic
rivalry, conflict, and violence. Development is negative reciprocity. What is interesting about this
conception is that in negative reciprocity, self and other are similar, not different, because it is
similarity that creates conflict. In this new cultural order, the new New Order, everyone is
Indonesian first, some other ethnicity second, and some other clan third. Everyone is similar, and
they are all competing for the same things, the things that indicate participation in the new
community, the nation, founded by violence and sacrifice. The fear of heads being taken for
construction sacrifice is nothing other than the fear of dissolution, of self becoming other - the fear
that drives mimetic rivalry and, in the case of Sakaliou, the constant exchange of objects. In
order for the state or any other organization to build a bridge, a head is needed, and a local head
will do. Here it seems appropriate to invoke another theorist of mimesis, Caillois (2003), who
argued wrongly that mimesis is a kind of drive, but rightly that mimesis can be the sense of
becoming similar, not similar to something, just similar. The fear of construction sacrifice is the
fear of anonymity, of losing oneself, one's identity, which is normally produced in relations with
others. When the other is unknown, so is the self. In this sense, the fear of construction sacrifice
is the fear of the end of reciprocity and the beginning of a time when exchange means nothing.
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Just as desire is mimetic, so is fear. The state and NGOs do nothing but fail - there is a
constant fear of failure - and each failure brings about a new project, a new need for a head on
which to found success. This is headhunting and negative reciprocity. Self and other imitate the
desire to avoid failure at all costs, the fear of failure, the desire for avoidance. The Mentawai
thought that they had escaped this negative circularity during the colonial period. Instead, with
the state, it has made a resurgence. And the problem with the state, unlike headhunting and
pillaging, is that there is no recourse, no opportunity for revenge. With the acceptance that a
head cannot be taken in exchange - who would they take it from? - Sakaliou has been
incorporated into the nation-state. But this process is only just beginning. For now, the concerns
are more immediate.
Money is the mirror image of the taken head. For Sakaliou, money (or at least the money
from tourists and development programs) still means nothing until it is converted into some thing
and a social relation that does. This is one reason that the objects they sometimes receive in
exchange from tourists (or an anthropologist) or into which they convert money - chainsaws and
outboard motors - are still considered to have a soul, like a bow and arrow, a canoe, or anything
else that they themselves produce. Chainsaws and outboard motors may produce money, but
they are social activities in themselves, and they produce things that enter into exchange. The
chainsaw especially produces the wood for a house. The outboard motor is more complicated. It
clearly has a friend (alei), the boat, which definitely has a soul, and it is often used for the benefit
of the group, but it may also be used to make money, which can be accumulated. For this
reason, more than the chainsaw, its soul is cared for constantly, like the boat's. And it is the
source of endless conflict about ownership and use. For Sakaliou, prestige is lost not when
something is owned, but when it is not shared. If the proceeds from the outboard motor are
distributed, then its ownership is unquestioned. When they are not, it is. This is obviously
relevant to development, in which the issues of ownership and distribution are a constant problem
for the state and NGOs. They cannot understand why, for example, after compensating a clan for
their land, the clan seems to forget. They cannot understand that it is the distribution of the
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proceeds, not ownership, that is the more important issue. Unlike the tourists, who take their
photographs and leave, the state says that they are all one people. If that is the case, the
proceeds must be distributed. If the state says that they are not one people, then the question is
ownership. The problem with development is that it depends on commonality, a common
nationality in the case of the state, a common humanity in the case of NGOs. The Dutch were
and the tourists are able to negotiate with Sakaliou because they did recognize them as similar,
nor did they expect Sakaliou to recognize them as similar. In contrast, the state and NGOs first
put forth the proposition that everyone is similar. Conflict ensues, and the only appropriate
resolution is exchange.
Throughout Indonesia, corruption, both large and small, is euphemistically referred to as
makan uang, eating money. In Siberut, the phrase is especially appropriate, because the
communal meal represents equality and paroman exchange. The phrase never means that there
is a communal meal of money. It refers to an individual eating the money, the food, that should
be shared. Sakaliou often complains that various government officials makan uang. They expect
nothing less from the Minangkabau - consider Terason's myth, in which the ancestor of the
Minangkabau eats books. But with regional autonomy, they began to apply the same phrase to
the bupati and the local government, which was supposed to consist of people like themselves, of
Mentawai. To say that a Mentawai person eats money, eats alone, is tantamount to cursing him,
because in Siberut, eating alone is not just asocial, but a breach of taboo punishable by sickness
and death. The bupati eats money. The phrase conjures up an image of an ex-primitive sitting in
his office eating money alone. He consumes, by himself, the paper that means nothing. The
object internalized, must be externalized, by operation if necessary, and shared. Even the
ancestor of the Minangkabau knew this. The kerei (and recall that Terason said that the ancestor
of the Minangkabau was one) still do. They know that illness accrues from the internalization in
the body, the embodiment, of failed social relations. They know that healing occurs when this
materialization is removed. Its externalization, its extraction from the body and materialization in
an object, converts it into the possibility of successful social relations, if it can be given to an other
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who accepts it as such. The tourists are the descendants of people who forgot this lesson and
are trying to rediscover it concealed in the people of the forest. The development officials have
taken the knowledge concealed in the body of their ancestor, but have used it only to consume
more. No wonder they fail. No wonder they need heads.
Consider the case of the UNESCO school. As Persoon suggests, UNESCO was among
the first international organizations to make an effort in Siberut. It was largely eclipsed by other
organizations and backroom deals, like the ABD, but headed by a single stalwart employee
named Koen and a small local staff, it made another effort in 2000. One of the efforts was the
establishment of a parallel education system for the clans that refused to live in the government-
built villages, the same clans that were most involved in the tourism industry. In Sakaliou,
Attabai, and Buttui, it established three small schools, something like a country schoolhouse, for
all of the children in the clans in those areas, and staffed it with a teacher. There was quite a bit
of excitement. Refusing to live in Madobag had made it difficult for people to send their children
to school, which is something they wanted to do. They also knew that the village school
indoctrinated the national ideology and forced kids to leave the village (and eventually the island)
to pursue an education. UNESCO was aware of this, too, and to Koen's credit, the idea with the
schools was to provide access to education that was largely designed by the people themselves,
and upon graduation, they could then decide what they wanted to do. It was not difficult, then, to
persuade Sakaliou and the clans in the other areas to provide the labor for building the schools,
which they did. UNESCO consulted closely with the clans to find a teacher, but upon my arrival,
the schoolhouse was empty and attracting ghosts. Although he was paid by UNESCO, the
teacher had been dismissed. Soon, another teacher arrived, conflict ensued, and he was
dismissed as well. Interclan conflict could not be overcome, and most importantly, Sakaliou could
not understand why the teacher should receive so much money. If there was any project that
stood a chance of succeeding, it was this one. It was small-scale, focused only on one clan,
developed with the clan, and benefitted that clan only. Yet it still did not succeed because the
teacher came from a different clan and was compensated by UNESCO. Koen desperately
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wanted Sakaliou to pay the teacher themselves, and he was right. But Sakaliou refused.
Instead, Aman Jomanu sent his kids to school in Madobag.
In contrast, the building of bigger houses was a sure way of avoiding the perils of
accumulation. Building a house spreads the wealth and brings prestige not only to the individual,
but to the clan as well. Aman Lau Lau, a kerei on the tourist circuit who had become famous as a
result of a coffee table book (Lindsay 1992), did not build a bigger house. He was thought to
have saved the money. And this grates more than anything else. Aman Lau Lau was now ill, and
it was probably because of sorcery. Other clan always said that it was someone in his own clan.
With a wink, they said that it could be other envious clans. But no one, except perhaps Aman
Lau Lau, disapproved of the sorcery. It was widely know that Aman Lau Lau had become rich
from his coffee table book and all the tourists it brought and that he had not spread the wealth.
Sorcery was a normal part of mimetic rivalry. But it is used nowadays mainly in regard to the
accumulation of money. It is a kind of human-induced bajou: if the spirits will not do it, humans
will. With a decrease in spirits, sorcery, paradoxically, can be expected to increase. One
accumulated object, money, will be substituted with another, tae. Such a substitution is the
precursor to healing. A person can eat alone, or they can eat with others. Note that the whole
thing started with a photograph.
Development will never work until mimetic rivalry is abolished, until the market reigns,
and a new cultural order, founded on a sacrifice from the old, arises. Does this mean that all
development should cease? Ideally, yes, but only if everyone who does not wish to participate in
the competition leaves. It is a utopian vision, but one that is indigenous. In the myths, the wrong
party is simply left behind. This utopia would require the opposite to happen: the wrong party
would have to move on, which it will not do for the foreseeable future.
When I asked Sakaliou what they wanted, I was usually met with a blank stare. They
knew what they wanted: pigs and peace. They were confused by the intent of my question
because the question is almost never asked, and when it is, it is asked in the context of a known
transaction: what do you want for those pigs, for that peace? Nevertheless, due to their long
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experience with others like myself and to persistent questioning, I then received responses that
were almost always concrete in nature: running water, which was already in the works; a gun;
medicine. They did not say that they wanted the state to leave them alone. They certainly did
not want the government-built village. Only a few people hinted at the persistence of tradition.
The horizon was simply too close. But this in itself is revealing. It says that the future, like
everything else, is imagined through objects in exchange. With the exception of rattan, nilam,
and some souvenirs, objects are rarely produced for the sole purpose of exchange. In the case
of rattan and nilam, the purpose is market exchange. In the case of some souvenirs, the purpose
is a bit different, not exactly market exchange, but not exactly gift exchange either. For
everything else, if the objects enter into exchange, the purpose is reciprocity of one kind or
another. If the objects enter into exchange: the fact of the matter is that although most objects do
eventually enter into exchange, at the time of their production, their future is unknown. A man
raises pigs because some day they will be used in exchange. This is Sakaliou's conception of
the future, and in this sense, the horizon is awfully close, the lifetime of a pig. Sakaliou does not
think about a more distant future - thus the blank stare in response to the question about what
they wanted. They live in a spatialized present, in which the present is considered to be a
reiteration of the past, and the future will be similar.
This revelation, this perspective, helps to explain why development is bound to fail. It is
also helps to explain the fetishism of objects that are not commodities. They all have a soul.
They all eventually enter into exchange. The body produces the objects, and the objects are a
substitute for the body. In the same way that the soul is always out wandering, objects go out
and wander, too. But whereas the soul should not wander too far away from the body, objects
should and must, for that is their purpose, but not on their own. They are the way that people
engage with other people, other entities. They are a substitute for bodily engagement, in which
similarity, rather than difference, would be recognized, and similarity would lead to conflict and
violence. The objects deflect this violence. They are a scapegoat, a substitute for a scapegoat, a
substitute for a substitute. They are objectified in this sense. They are objects because they are
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not people, whose sacrifice would be worse. Objects are hated and loved, reviled and revered,
like the scapegoat, whose sacrifice founded the cultural order. Just as the puliaijat is a
commemoration of the founding violence, so is exchange a commemoration, a misrecognized
reiteration. If violence is at the heart of the sacred, it is also at the heart of exchange. The
common property of religion and economy is violence. No wonder the commodity is fetishized.
No wonder the market has an invisible hand. No wonder capitalism has a spirit.
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Chapter 9: Conclusion
The proposal for the research on which this dissertation is based originally focused on
the issues of cultural tourism and relations with the state. A similar project had been conducted
by Bakker over six months in 1996 (with additional material from Persoon). At the time that I was
developing the project, I thought that a longer, more sustained ethnographic inquiry would reveal
additional insights, and I was convinced, prior to conducting the research (I first went to Siberut in
the 1990s, when the tourism industry was at its peak), that Mentawai cultural identity as an
indigenous people on the margins of the Indonesian nation-state had been formed by their
interaction with tourists and guides. This local identity, I hypothesized, was a product of nonlocal
discourses and practices. When I arrived in Siberut, however, I realized almost immediately that
the project would have to take a different course. First and foremost, as I have described, the
tourism industry had collapsed in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, the fall of Suharto, the
Bali bomb, the shift to surfing, and regional autonomy, as well as a relaxation of government
policy. There were simply not as many tourists visiting Sakaliou as I had anticipated. Sakaliou
spent most of their days, even during the peak season months of June, July, and August, without
tourists, and everyday life seemed perfectly able to proceed without them. This in itself did not
foreclose the hypothesis that Mentawai identity had been formed in the interaction of local people,
the state, and tourists. It was still possible that everyday life during the period of research had
been profoundly shaped by the events in the decades prior to it. In fact, I assumed that it had.
What became clear as the research progressed, however, is that Sakaliou conceived of everyday
life as the persistence of a tradition, a tradition that had withstood the external pressures of the
state, helped by, but not dependent on, the support of tourists. And it would have been
irresponsible to assume that they were wrong about their own history. So I began to look for the
characteristics of tradition that would have led to its persistence - or at least to the conception of it
as persistent.
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Among Sakaliou, there was and was not a Mentawai cultural identity.
44
In their
encounters with tourists, they often - and vociferously - claimed to be the only authentically
Mentawai people, but in their interaction with other clans, even those that were committed to
living in the government-built village, the claim was rarely made. Authenticity did not confer
prestige. It did attract tourists, which could confer prestige, but in the absence of tourists, it
meant little. Interestingly, Sakaliou also rarely made the claim to authenticity in their interaction
with the state. They understood that the more they claimed to be authentic, the more the state
might pressure them to become otherwise, to become modern. In other words, they understood
that making the claim to authenticity was counterproductive and that living authentically, without
announcing it (except in the presence of tourists), was usually the best response. Everyday life
thus became a refuge from the pressures of the state. It sometimes included tourists. It always
included other clans, with whom Sakaliou was engaged in a constant state of rivalry. The rivalry
did not explicitly take the form of traditional vs. modern except in the context of tourism, in which
the claim to authenticity did confer prestige. Tourists were like pigs. They were a kind of
economic capital that could be converted into social capital. The danger for Sakaliou was that the
accumulation of tourists would violate the expectation of reciprocity. Just as a man is reluctantly
respected for having many pigs, so Sakaliou was reluctantly respected for having many tourists.
But just as a man who has many pigs and does not share them would be hated, so Sakaliou
would be hated if they did not convert the accumulation of tourists into the social capital of
prestige. Their response was cultural involution: larger houses and ceremonies, the beginning of
a cycle, a feedback loop, that was only interrupted by the collapse of the tourism industry. They
remained authentically Mentawai.
One characteristic that I did not have to look hard to find is what I have called mimetic
rivalry. Nearly every ethnographer, nearly every government official and development planner,
nearly everyone, including the Mentawai themselves, who has dealt with Sakaliou and the other
44
Frustrated by this most basic of questions, I wrote in the initial field report to Fulbright that it was a crazy
idea.
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clans of South Siberut has noticed the constant tension and jealousy among them. It is almost
impossible not to notice (although Raffles and many others deemed them the happiest people on
earth). It has caused ethnographers to look for, but not find, institutions that hold people together
in spite of it. It has caused grief for government officials and development planners who depend
on a modest amount of cooperation. It has caused violence in the past and continues to cause
violence today. As Persoon says, "War is predicted on Siberut." But mimetic rivalry also has the
opposite effect (which may explain Raffles). It is not difficult to see. It is so fundamental to the
sense of self and social relations that I began to wonder if it was the way they engaged the state
and tourists, and if it was, what happened to it when they did. The dissertation presents the
results, which can be summarized as follows:
Exchange transforms violence into manageable mimetic rivalry. The absence of
exchange leads to uncontrolled mimetic rivalry. In the context of modernization, exchange is
normally replaced by the market, God, and the nation. Inroads, literally (geography), have been
made, but they have not gone far, have not penetrated into the interior. In the government-built
villages, there is constant conflict. This is one of the reasons that Sakaliou returned to its
ancestral land. But because exchange is not only generalized reciprocity, but also balanced and
negative, Sakaliou has experienced an increase in mimetic rivalry as well. They have fissioned,
and the factions have nowhere to go.
The danger of this argument is that it may seem like a throwback to the anthropology of
the mid-20th century, before the postmodern turn and all that has come afterwards emphasizing
the highly complex, postcolonial, global world in which people like Sakaliou live. In a way, it is,
but this is not to dismiss the theoretical advances of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Sakaliou is probably unique, an exception, but they are the exception that proves the rule.
Moreover, I have drawn on a social theorist, Rene Girard, whose theory has been criticized for
being a throwback to positivistic social science as well. What I have tried to do, however, is show
that the explanatory power of Girard's theory can be usefully applied to specific cases. I have
made an argument less in favor of Girard and more in favor of ethnography, which always needs
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some theoretical purchase to organize the details. I had never intended to put Girard centerstage
(or even onstage at all). I was deeply influenced by the concept of mimesis, especially Taussig
(and Benjamin and Adorno). It was only after I began to analyze the data from two years of
fieldwork that I realized I could no longer simply acknowledge Girard. Much of what he said
seemed to be right. What I have added to Girard is the issue of objects and economy, an issue
that the Dumouchel et al have taken up, but not in ethnographic detail.
Mimetic rivalry is not just the competition between two individuals or groups who imitate
each others' desire for an object. It is also the condition in which the competition comes to define
the competitors. It defines self and other, and self in relation to other. The object is external to
them. Yet in Siberut, the object does not remain external. It becomes an other with whom the
competitors must engage in mimetic rivalry as well. It is a person - a person in different form.
The distance of the object endows it with a different perspective. In this crowded, highly complex
world of humans and spirits, bodies and objects, there is a constant threat of violence, which in
the history of Siberut has often been realized. The cultural order that arises from the sacrifice of
the victim relies not only on the sacred (myth, ritual, and taboo), but also on the exchange of
objects to prevent it from happening again. The situation is tense and precarious. It is not
surprising that mimetic rivalry is characteristic of the cultural order on Siberut, as it is probably
characteristic of the human condition. What is surprising, from a Girardian perspective, is the
centrality of the object and exchange. There are a few conditions on Siberut that have enabled
this to develop.
First, the geography of the island and space are critical. Siberut is sparsely populated.
Even after state intervention, there are vast stretches of forest separating the already-small
settlements, whether uma or government-built village. Although there has been an increase in
population density in certain places, especially along the coast, the effect has been to clear the
forest of people. It is, of course, densely occupied by spirits. According to both myth and history,
Siberut and the other Mentawai Islands were completely unoccupied until relatively recently.
Space enables clans to compete with each other without the threat of violence. Space insures
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that the competition is usually conducted from afar, as in pako with tudukat. But space must be
overcome from time to time, sometimes accidentally, sometimes intentionally. Most importantly,
space must be traversed in order for a man to find a wife. This marks the conversion of
generalized reciprocity into balanced reciprocity. Further afield, balanced reciprocity becomes
negative. In other words, the vast distances between people on Siberut enable social distance
and the corresponding forms of reciprocity. This spatial distribution is probably critical to mimetic
rivalry on Siberut, although Girard and others argue that the same can be enabled strictly by
social distance as well. It is clear in Siberut, however, that the closer people are in space, the
more intense the rivalry between them is.
Girard also says that rivals can be separated by time. In Siberut, time is mapped onto
space and subsumed within it. There are (or were) no calendars. There are no seasons. Time is
marked by generations and events, especially the exchange of gifts. The paths of settlement in
space are historical and genealogical. The people in a single river valley trace their descent to a
common ancestor, and in neighboring river valleys to another common ancestor, extending back
a dozen or so generations to the original settlement at Simatalu. The spatial distribution reflects a
genealogical distribution, which is also mythical and historical. But genealogy and history are
subsumed in space. Time on this scale is irrelevant.
The Mentawai Islands were settled from north to south through a process of mimetic
rivalry and clan fissioning. Space enabled clans to fission. According to myth, the process began
even before the first people arrived in Simatalu. According to Sakaliou, it began in Nias or
somewhere else in Sumatra. These events are described in myth and commemorated in ritual.
In this sense, Girard is correct: myth is history. The stories always begin with a conflict between
two brothers. The conflict that led to the founding of Simatalu involved a spear in the ass. All the
rest involved inconsequential objects, like mangoes. The point is that the stories indicate (in
slightly misrecognized form) that there was a mimetic crisis followed by the sacrifice of a
scapegoat who is both reviled for causing the conflict and revered for bringing peace. The iron-
making brother lives on in metal objects. The originary scene is the one in Nias; it gives rise to
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the Mentawai cultural order, distinguishing it from its progenitor. The other stories continue the
trope of two brothers in mimetic conflict, but they are always unresolved; they produce new clans,
but not an entirely new cultural order because there is no scapegoat. In this way, all of the
islands were settled, but all of the clans remain fundamentally similar. The originary scene
erased distinctions of hierarchy, which were not replaced, and now mimetic rivalry continues.
There is no new originary scene because space affords flight from conflict. Another possibility is
that the people of Siberut conceive of themselves as the scapegoat. The state certainly does.
The myths of settlement are a reenactment of the flight after the original sacrifice, but without the
sacrifice. There is also a flight from the uma at the end of the puliaijat and then, in contrast, a
return to it. A separate set of myths describes the substitution. The cultural order only and finally
comes into being after the islands have been settled, after they are full of people and there is
nowhere else to go. There is the one classically mimetic myth about the origin of spirits with the
conjuring of the black chicken, but most importantly, there is the myth of Maligai, who is special.
He is the scapegoat who delivers culture to the Mentawai, and he - and by way of him, his father
Pagetta Sabbau - is revered (and no longer reviled). His father teaches him everything that
people need to know. Pagetta Sabbau links the two sets of myths. It is no coincidence that
Pagetta Sabbau is the patron saint of shamans. It is also no coincidence that in other myths,
Maligai is killed because of his expertise. Maligai provides chickens and pigs, and they are to be
sacrificed. They are a substitute for Maligai himself.
The analysis of the puliaijat shows that it reenacts the sacrificial crisis and creates
distinctions, the erasure of which had led to the originary scene. Other clans are excluded, and
the objects that drive mimetic rivalry within the clan are offered to the spirits. The danger of
mimetic rivalry with spirits is mitigated because humans and spirits have different perspectives.
As Girard says, the whole purpose of religion is to keep the sacred at bay. The pigs are a
substitute for Maligai who was a substitute for the original scapegoat. There is a collapse of
distinctions between human and spirit, the sacrifice of pigs, and the sending off of the spirits. But
as Girard also says, the peace only lasts for so long. The hunting expedition at the end of the
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puliaijat is a repetition of the flight after the sacrifice of the scapegoat and the eventual discovery,
through the revelation of Maligai, of the cultural order. The clan goes into the forest to retrieve
the return gift from the ancestors, which indicates the distinction that is necessary to end
(temporarily) the mimetic conflict. The elaborate system of taboos, which applies mainly to the
relations between humans and spirits rather than the relations between humans, are intended to
maintain this distinction for as long as possible. Omens simultaneously indicate a communication
and a difference of perspective. Paradoxically, the return gift from the ancestors also marks the
lifting of the ceremonial taboos and the return of the clan to human affairs, to relations with other
clans rather than with their own ancestors. The puliaijat therefore commemorates the sacrificial
crisis that founded the cultural order, one in which mimetic rivalry between clans between was not
resolved since it came after the originary event.
In the exchange between humans and spirits in the puliaijat, the objects that drive
mimetic rivalry (pigs) within the clan are a substitute for the scapegoat. They are a substitute for
a substitute. They are sacrificed and offered to the spirits, and consumed in a communal meal,
producing a temporary peace. The same objects are exchanged with other clans, with whom
there is a similar mimetic rivalry (although it may be mitigated by distance). However, they do not
guarantee even a temporary peace because in contrast to the spirits, they indicate a similarity of
perspective, a similarity that only intensifies the rivalry. There is no communal meal between
clans. Paroman exchange means that the rivalry has not been intensified. All exchanges are
fraught with danger in this sense: the objects indicate the threat of increased rivalry and violence.
There are numerous examples of exchanges that erupted in violence. Conversely, exchange
may be used to resolve a mimetic rivalry that has already escalated into violence. A temporary
peace is possible because having stolen something or killed someone from another clan, the
rivalry cannot escalate except through retaliation, which did occur in headhunting. The objects
are, as in the puliaijat, a substitute for the scapegoat. In one case, the exchange is always one
thing for another, a wife for brideprice, fruit trees for a stolen pig. In the other case, the exchange
is always one thing for the same thing later. In one case, the objects are a substitute. In the
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other, they are not, and they turn the potentially positive circularity of exchange into the negative
circularity of mimetic rivalry.
Headhunting is negative reciprocity, yet it is too easy to dismiss it as uncontrolled
mimesis, which indeed it is. Headhunting is the trace of the originary event, in which distinctions
within the cultural order were not established. Heads are exchanged between the most distant
clans. Yet this distance reveals a similarity, as well as an attempted reiteration of the originary
event that should have brought peace. It has nothing to do with spirits, as Schefold says. It is a
strictly human affair. It is a random act of violence, like the violence perpetrated on the
scapegoat, which fails to establish a new cultural order, to bring about peace, because, far from
ending the mimetic rivalry, it intensifies it. Perhaps its most important aspect is that it occurs with
the completion of an uma. Maligai was killed for his expertise. In order to shore up the cultural
order, to mitigate the mimetic conflict within the clan, a random victim is chosen. But the murder
is not spontaneous enough to constitute the victim as a scapegoat. And he is barely an outsider.
Headhunting is an attempt to reiterate the originary event, but it does not work. The victim is
barely an outsider, and sometimes he or she is not an outsider at all. It is unlike headhunting
elsewhere in Indonesia, which tends to occur between very different groups. The Mentawai gave
up headhunting because they realized that it was not working to dispel mimetic conflict.
The value of the objects exchanged between people derives not from their scarcity or
their necessity for survival, nor even from mimetic rivalry and the imitation of desire, but from their
association with spirits: objects should indicate a difference. The exchange with spirits produces
peace because of this. The exchange with humans does not (or does not always) because the
objects indicate a similarity. By giving one thing and receiving another - which is the same thing
from a different perspective - the mimetic crisis is resolved. This process can be called
differentiation through exchange. It depends on perspectivism, and it is the only process that
resolves mimetic crisis (and even then, it is only temporary). The same process is extend to
other humans, other clans. One thing is given, and another is received, but because both parties
are human and not spirit, and perspectivism does not apply (they both have human bodies), there
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is no differentiation. Instead of the objects, gift and return gift, as the same thing from a different
perspective, they are different things from the same perspective. Time and space are critical
here. But the two parties are not competing for the same objects. This underscored by the fact
that exchanges, especially large ones, bring the two parties into the same time and space. The
objects are endowed with value because each party wants the other party's possessions. This is
basically a repetition of the mimetic conflict in the puliaijat, when human and spirits interpenetrate
in a mimetic frenzy. The exchange could result in violence, or it could result in something else,
something like the differentiation at the end of the puliaijat. One party has come into the uma like
spirits, and it will leave, taking the objects offered to it. The other will stay, keeping the objects
that have been brought by the other party. This is different from the puliaijat because in the
ceremony, the spirits come, but they do not bring gifts. They will deliver the return gift in the
future. Some exchanges are more like the puliaijat than others. The trick is to substitute one
thing for another.
Schefold points out that after the cessation of headhunting, enemies exchanged gifts
instead of heads. Anspach also argues that with the substitution of exchange for violence,
mimetic reciprocity becomes positive. But it cannot be as simple as this. And the reason lies in
the similarity of perspective that exchange can create. As a commemoration of the original
sacrifice, objects are a substitute for the body. Objects deflect the violence of mimetic conflict, or
rather, the violence is deflected onto them. The trick is that both parties must be willing to part
with their objects (something they cannot do with their bodies), which is to say that both parties
must acknowledge the substitution of objects for bodies. This is the definition of paroman
exchange: violence is avoided through the exchange of objects. And in this sense, exchange is
not the repetition of sacrifice and the puliaijat, but simply its deferral. Exchange buys time.
The exchange of labor for food is particularly indicative of the way that exchange defers
violence through the substitution of objects for bodies, because in the exchange of labor for food,
one party is giving its body, while the other is returning an object, food, which goes back into the
body. This can be represented schematically:
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body/labor - pig sacrificed - consumed as food - body
In the exchange of bridewealth, a whole body and all of its potential labor is exchanged for a
whole bunch of objects, including pigs, which then must be returned when the body is delivered.
Schematically:
body/wife - whole bunch of objects - some objects - body/wife
In the exchange of tulo, an object (or in some cases prestige) is taken without consent, and the
violence that could be perpetrated on the thief is instead deflected by the receipt of objects:
object taken without consent - body threatened - objects received
In the exchange of paabad, a previously violent conflict is resolved through the equal exchange of
objects:
bodies exchanged - objects exchanged
Such was the case after the cessation of headhunting. It ended not because the Dutch
suppressed it, but because of the increased availability of objects
If the sacrificial origin of exchange is visible in the puliaijat, balanced, and negative
reciprocity, it is more opaque in generalized reciprocity, both among humans and between
humans and spirits. As the myths indicate, the greatest potential for mimetic conflict is within the
clan itself because there is no differentiation whatsoever. Everyone is equal, and everyone is
competing with each other for prestige. The puliaijat dispels the mimetic conflict by
commemorating the original sacrifice in the exchange with the saukkui. But peace is maintained
in between puliaijat (by taboos and omens and) by generalized reciprocity, the constant
movement from hand to hand of the objects over which people are competing. The daily
communal meal is most indicative. Each family contributes whatever they are capable of
contributing. The objects that threaten to drive them apart are consumed in the body. A portion
is also offered to the ancestors. What defines the clan, then, is not only generalized reciprocity,
typified by the communal meal, but also the fact that the objects of exchange are always
converted back into the body. In other words, whereas exchange between clans defers the
violent exchange of bodies into the peaceful exchange of objects, exchange within the clan defers
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the violent exchange of bodies (fissioning) into the peaceful exchange of objects and then
immediately, without any time passing, into the consumption of these objects into the body. This
is similar to labor for food and bridewealth. The difference is that it occurs daily. There is no time
lag, and people eat together. Labor for food is the closest to generalized reciprocity, but it is
distinguished by the frequency of its occurrence. It occurs continuously only within the clan.
Such cooperation is necessary for the perpetuation of the clan. This is reflected in the portion for
the ancestors. When it does not work - when there are too many hands - the clan fissions, and
as the myths indicate, they do so without violence, which would be unthinkable (until time passes)
precisely because of the communal meal and generalized reciprocity.
The respect for objects derives from the fact that they are substitutes for the body, that
they are nonhuman persons, that they are associated with sacrifice and the sacred, and most
importantly, because they deflect violence, they are also capable of unleashing it. People depend
on objects to mitigate mimetic conflict. Their misuse, especially when they are not used to
mitigate mimetic conflict, can result in violence, in illness and death. But here again, as in
relations between people and clans, objects are offered in exchange. Gaud is a gift to the spirits
of objects. Bajou is the materialization of their displeasure. Violence becomes embodied,
objectified. Perhaps the clearest indication of this is the cleansing of the house during the
puliaijat or of a human body during the pabete. In both cases, bajou is removed and sent away,
and the soul is placated with gifts of gaud, the ultimate gift in this mimetic world. The spirit of the
gaud contacts the displeased spirit of the object. It is unknown how this works because of the
alterity of spirits, but it is assumed that just as relations among people are deflected through the
exchange of objects, so are the relations of spirits, who see their objects, themselves, differently
than humans do. The exchange between humans and spirits therefore bears the same trace of
the sacred and perspectivism, of differentiation through exchange. People want the spirits of
objects to see themselves differently because this indicates a difference that mitigates mimetic
conflict - as Bateson says, "a difference that makes a difference." When it fails, when objects
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begin to see themselves as human (or vice versa), then there is trouble. The task is to
distinguish the perspectives again, and this is done through gaud.
In the last instance, it is done by the shaman, the kerei, who is the human master of this
mimetic world. He alone (although he is not alone - there are many of them) is capable of
adopting the perspective of the spirits and, as Viveiros de Castro says, "returning to tell the tale."
The encounter with spirits in general - whether it is a woman startled by a ghost or a shaman
performing - is a collapse of distinction. They are everywhere, but they are different. It is when
they become similar that there is a problem. Contrast this with the belief among Westerners and
others that people like the Mentawai coexist peacefully with their spirits, that they enjoy their
company; they do not; like the scapegoat, spirits are both revered and reviled. Not knowing,
skepticism, undecidability is fundamental to the sacred. The shaman assumes the burden, the
danger, of knowing. The first shaman was Maligai himself. All subsequent shamans take on the
burden of Maligai the scapegoat, who could also see both perspectives and was killed because of
it. The taboos of the shaman are meant to prevent his death. The shaman operates through the
revelation of concealment and the concealment of revelation, through the conversion of objects
into bodies and bodies into objects. If violence results from the collapse of perspectives, in the
relation between humans and spirits as in the relation between humans, the shaman internalizes
both. They are collapsed in his body, which he then externalizes in his performance and in the
offering of sacrifices. He removes bajou, the materialization, and calls the soul of his patient, the
spiritualization, back to the body, all with the help of his own body-object and the body-objects of
the sacrifices. His task to accept the collapse of distinction and then perform differentiation
through exchange, to objectify the violence. The omens he reads in the entrails of the sacrifices
are objectified violence, violence made into an object, which resolves the mimetic conflict. This is
similar to the mimetic frenzy during the puliaijat, the interpenetration of the bodies of humans and
spirits, but instead of the ancestors, who leave and promise a return gift, it is the illness-causing
spirit and all of the mediators. The shaman lives with the knowledge that the distinction between
perspectives is fragile.
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Death is the failure of the shaman and exchange to prevent the body itself from becoming
an object. Even a good death is an implicit acknowledgment that the mimetic rivalry between
humans and spirits for souls has resulted in violence, and humans have lost. Death is anguishing
because there is no recourse, no retribution, no vengeance for the living. The spirits cannot be
punished. The soul is the mimetic object over which human and spirits compete. But the spirits
are rarely blamed. It is the failure of humans that causes death, the failure to live in a way that is
attractive to the soul. The funeral is relatively uneventful. It is mainly about teaching the soul of
the dead to accept its new perspective. Death by human violence is a different story. Because
vengeance is possible, and it can only be deflected by the exchange of objects.
It is no coincidence that what people remember about the Dutch colonial period was not
their brutality, but the cessation of headhunting and paroman exchange. The two are connected.
By all accounts, with the exception of a few incidents in the southern islands, usually involving
missionaries, the Dutch had a very light presence on Siberut. The invasion was a bust. It was
not an onslaught. Instead, they established a small outpost, yet somehow managed to abolish
headhunting - or at least to come to the conclusion that they did. The main issue for the natives,
not unique to Siberut, was who these people were (a question that the Dutch were also asking
themselves). As Crisp's account shows, the natives attempted to answer this question by
engaging them in exchange, an exchange that brought both parties into the same time and
space, an intermingling of bodies, and the movement of objects from hand to hand. The natives
realized that the visitors were human, but they seemed to be of a different sort. Their slightly
different bodies indicated a slightly different perspective. Moreover, they seemed to accept the
offering of gifts as a deferral of violence, and they did not penetrate into the forest. In short, there
was no mimetic conflict because there was a difference, a difference similar to, but not identical
with, the difference between humans and spirits. People travelled downriver to exchange forest
products for machetes and beads. Critically, the products the Dutch were interested in were not
the same products that the natives were interested in, another indication of difference. The influx
of objects, however, probably enabled the cessation of headhunting more than Dutch authority
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did. Mimetic conflict was exhausting. An increase in objects paved the way for an increase in
exchanges and the deferral of violence through the substitution of objects for bodies. The Dutch
did not abolish headhunting so much as hasten its demise.
The sareu traders, whom the Dutch protected, were different. They needed protection
because prior to the arrival of the Dutch and then throughout the colonial period, there were
occasional incidents of pillaging. And the Dutch could not allow pillaging. The reason that there
was pillaging among the sareu traders and not among the Dutch is twofold. First, the sareu
traders were not as different. Their bodies were more similar, and so their perspectives were
more similar. With the collapse of distinction, there was a greater potential for mimetic conflict.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, according to myth, the sareu were more closely related.
The sareu traders, who provided the iron products on which the natives had come to depend,
bore the trace of the original sacrifice that led to the settling of the islands. They were the
descendants of the brother who made iron and whose speared ass eventually, after Maligai, gave
rise to the cultural order. They were the descendants of the failed scapegoat. In other words, the
relation between the natives and the sareu traders was founded on violence and exchange.
Thus, the potential for mimetic conflict in which violence could be not deflected by objects was
greater, and indeed, the incidents of pillaging should be read as exchange that was not paroman,
exchange in which violence prevailed. Because of this propensity, the sareu traders remained
enclaved along the coast throughout the colonial period. They were interested in the same
objects as the Dutch, yet there was pillaging - nonparoman exchange - because they were more
similar to the natives. The difference that makes a difference is critical from the native's
perspective. They remember the exchange with the Dutch as paroman and the exchanges with
the sareu as nonparoman, and if I am right, paroman means the avoidance of mimetic violence.
After World War II, with the departure of the Dutch and then the Japanese, Indonesian
independence brought a strange new breed of other to Siberut. Neither Dutch official nor sareu
trader, the onslaught was led by sareu officials. If the sareu traders were similar enough to cause
conflict, but remained enclaved along the coast, the sareu officials were similar enough to cause
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conflict and bold enough (even more similar) to bring it into the forest, into the domain of the
natives. Yet when they arrived, they immediately asserted a fundamental difference, and began
to rearrange things accordingly. In a process that occurred over three decades, culminating in
the 1970s, they banned arat sabulungan and identified other aspects of tradition that were
incompatible with and thus obstacles to national unity, modernization, and progress. In particular,
isolation in the forest had to be overcome. The first step toward modernization would be the
establishment of government-built villages, with single-family dwellings along simple gridded
streets, a trading post, a church and mosque, a school, and a clinic. The ideological work of
nationalism would be located in the church, mosque, and school. The practical work would be
located in the single-family dwellings and the trading post. The clinic was a bust from the
beginning, although the awareness of modern medicine did lure people downriver to the hospital
in Muara Siberut, the ultimate aim of the modernization programs. With pigs banned from the
village, people would soon favor forest products that could be exchanged in the trading post. It
could be argued that this was the most fundamental plank of the programs: the cessation of pig
farming. Not only was it incompatible with Islam (which was not obligatory, but preferable), the
sareu officials were well-aware that pigs were the backbone of the local cultural economy. They
were the thing that made the puliaijat and shamanism possible, as well as bridewealth and other
exchanges between clans. Although they may not have known this, pigs were also the thing that
both generated and mitigated mimetic conflict. What they probably knew is that it generated
conflict, but they could not see that it also, in combination with arat sabulungan, mitigated it. The
combined effect of single-family dwellings and the cessation of pig farming would undermine clan
unity and pave the way for inclusion in the nation. The kind of cultural editing that would fill in the
blank on the cultural map of Indonesia would have to occur later. The first step was extending
the borders of the map into the interior of Siberut, to put the island on the map.
From the native's point of view, living away from the uma was not unthinkable, nor was
the exchange of labor for something else, usually food. Participation in the building of the village
was understood loosely in these terms. Instead of a sapo on the pulaggajat, there would be a
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sapo in the barasi. Instead of exchanging labor for food, there would be an exchange of labor for
the sapo. But just as a sapo on the pulaggajat was a temporary residence in relation to the uma,
so would the sapo in the barasi be a temporary residence (the uma would remain the foundation),
and just as the exchange of labor for food was a transaction that reflected nonviolent social
relations, so would the exchange of labor for sapo be a transaction that reflected nonviolent social
relations. In other words, the state was treated as a new clan (or an old one that had returned),
the uma of sareu officials, of Indonesians, and they were engaged as such. And just as another
clan could be ignored (with sufficient distance, either geographic/spatial or in terms of prestige) or
engaged in mimetic rivalry, either violent or nonviolent (deferred through exchange), with pako in
between violent and deferred, so the state would determine the future of the relation by its
actions. After a few years, the course was set. The state did not fulfill its end of the bargain: the
sapo was not a sapo without pigs, and there were many other problems. Then, when people
began to abandon the barasi and return to their respective pulaggajat - the first option of ignoring
a clan - the state became violent. Had the same occurred between two clans, the violence would
have escalated or been resolved with exchange. The state had already failed in exchange, so
the violence should have escalated, but the time spent in the barasi had served its purpose and
fractured the clan identity necessary for vengeance. Such was the case with most clans - except
Sakaliou. When the police confronted every other clan, they returned to the barasi. When the
police confronted Sakaliou, they retaliated. Clan identity had not been fractured mainly because
their land was adjacent to Madobag - and because they had begun to host tourists.
From the state's point of view, people were being stubbornly traditional, backward, and
indeed, by treating the state as a new/old clan, they were. But by using its secret knowledge and
confronting the savages with the very violence they attributed to them, the state guaranteed a
confrontation. Most of the clans acquiesced. Sakaliou did not. The state could not understand
why people would not accept what they had to offer. It could not understand that there was no
precedent for people coming together. The entire history of the islands was marked by people
growing apart and carefully maintaining relations by deferring violence through exchange. The
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state wanted people to imitate their model, but in Siberut, imitation of an other results in violence,
a fact confirmed by the actions of the state. In this sense, as Adorno, Taussig, and many others
say, the modern nation-state, and especially the modernizing one, is the organized control of
mimesis for the purpose of collapsing the distinction between self and other. In modernization,
the state is the other, and it wants the self to imitate it. This is guaranteed to create conflict, but
normally, the authority of the state, enforced with violence, and the deferral of violence through
religion and the market, stabilizes the rivalry. The state provides God and commodities for all.
But in the case of Siberut, despite its best efforts, it did not provide God or commodities for
everyone, and it thus enabled the mimetic conflict that results from the collapse of distinction to
continue. When the sareu traders remained along the coast, there was less conflict. When they
came into the interior, conflict was guaranteed, but the state's authority was too weak to defer the
violence that it produced.
It is in this situation of escalating mimetic conflict between Sakaliou and the state, as well
as Sakaliou and other clans, that tourists began to arrive in larger numbers. And again, it was the
location of their pulaggajat that made everything possible. Sakaliou only needed to remain where
they were and to continue doing what they were doing. The guides, whose initial importance
cannot be overstated, were neither sareu trader nor sareu official. They came into the forest,
onto the pulaggajat, into the uma, but they did not ask people to change, to become other, to
become like them. If anything, they were sareu traders who ventured out of the enclave, and they
offered something different in exchange for a kind of forest product, "tradition." They were
another subset of sareu, but unlike the others (traders and officials), later they always came with
tourists, the descendants of the Dutch. If there is a continuum of otherness defined by contact, it
can be represented schematically:
Mentawai - sareu guide - sareu official - sareu trader - tourist - Dutch
The tourists remained other, but the sareu guide was similar enough to be engaged through
exchange. Later, Sakaliou would enter into mimetic conflict with the guides over the tourists, but
this just shows how Sakaliou conceived of the guides as similar. The guides made "tradition" -
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the performance of everyday life - an object of exchange. In other words, violence between
Sakaliou and the guides was deferred through the exchange of tradition for money and other
objects. So long as the exchanges were paroman (as with the Dutch and sareu traders before
them), the relation of deferred violence continued.
If the state wanted people to become similar, the guides wanted people to remain
different. In this way, the guides reclaimed the difference that was necessary for peaceful
exchange and the mitigation of mimetic rivalry. (They entered into mimetic conflict with the state,
with the natives as object, but that is a different story.) Thus, the intersection of the state's
assertion of similarity and the guide's assertion of difference produced a consciousness of
tradition. "Tradition" was what the state did not want them to do and what the guides did want
them to do. On the one hand, it was violence. On the other, it was peaceful exchange. And so it
was a repetition: the tourism industry enabled the substitution of exchange for violence again, and
this was tradition. And as usual, the situation was precarious. The guides could not sustain the
paroman-ness of the exchanges, and they favored some clans, like Sakaliou, over others.
Indeed, they favored some individuals and families within Sakaliou (and within the other clans on
the tourist circuit) over others, creating rivalry among all, including between the clans and the
guides. If tourists were initially the other that enabled the guides to reclaim difference, they soon
became the object of rivalry.
Sakaliou began to compete with the guides for tourists. Initially, the competition was not
over who would serve as guide, but over who could get something out of the tourists in the form
of gifts. The guides had already indicated that everyday life was a valuable object that could be
exchanged, but they did not want it to be exchanged with the tourists. This is like three clans
agreeing that a pig is valuable, but the second clan asserting that it cannot be exchanged with the
third. In this hypothetical scenario (because it would not happen), the second clan asserts a
similarity and a difference, a superiority over the other clans, which would almost certainly lead to
the first and third clans exchanging in order to diminish the second. Sakaliou is the first clan, the
guides are the second, and the tourists are the third. And indeed, this is what happened. Having
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been told by the guides that tradition was valuable, Sakaliou attempted to exchange it with
tourists, whom - quite critically - they saw, like the Dutch (and spirits), as so different that mimetic
conflict could be avoided. This frustrated the guides, who threatened to take the tourists
elsewhere, which in a way, is what they did. The tourism industry collapsed. There was also the
problem that they did not have many places to go. The state had changed a lot of people, and
among those it had not changed, the same mimetic rivalry was developing. Then the industry
collapsed, but not before tradition was born. This split between object and subject is
fundamentally modern. It came about not as a result of modernization programs, nor as a result
of tourism per se, but as a result of the mimetic conflict between people and guides. Sakaliou is
both subject and object. This is most clearly represented in the photograph, for which something
must be done for it to enter into exchange.
Sakaliou engaged in small-scale exchange with tourists. The objects included
photographs, souvenirs, and a few other things. I have argued that these exchanges were more
like the exchanges with Mr. Crisp and the Dutch, a way of getting to know the other and deferring
violence through the recognition of difference. And this is more like the exchanges with spirits -
except the tourists go away and do not come back. The return gift is immediate. But the small-
scale exchanges with tourists must also be understood in the context of mimetic rivalry with the
state and with the guides. The objects are not forest products that have no value to the people
except in the exchange (rattan, etc.). By definition, because they are being traditional, the objects
must have value to the people. They are "doing something for a photograph" and bows and
arrows and tobacco boxes in exchange for money or knives or watches or shirts and shoes.
These things do indicate a difference from tourists, but they also cause mimetic rivalry with the
state, the guides, and especially other clans. The state saw Sakaliou's engagement with tourists
as a stubborn refusal to become modern. The guides saw it as a kind of theft within the rules of
the market. And other clans saw it as arrogance bordering on a violation of reciprocity. The state
could not use violence because of the presence of tourists, and the guides could do not anything
other than go elsewhere (in part because they had to acknowledge that it was within the rules).
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Other clans, however, could resort to rumor, gossip, and sorcery. So the more they continued
being themselves, the more open they were to attack, which was not out of the ordinary for
tradition. The only way to avoid it was to become more traditional. The only was to avoid was
through cultural involution.
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If Sakaliou and other clans in the Rereiket initially engaged the state as a kind of rival
clan, Sakaliou (if not other clans) now recognizes the state as something else, neither rival clan
nor, as much as the state (and anthropologists) would like to imagine, state. They sense the
state's authority in its permanent presence - they do not imagine a future without it - and in the
transformation of the other clans into something that is no longer traditional, no longer like them.
They are authentically traditional, and the other clans are not, yet they continue to engage the
other clans because they are similar enough, traditional enough. They also continue to engage
the state in order to figure out what it is. They do not imitate it, nor do they hate it. In this sense,
mimesis is an alternative to both acquiescence and resistance. Sakaliou is subaltern in its
mimesis. But as a result of the encounter with tourists - and especially the mimetic machine of
the photograph - they are becoming conscious of everyday life, of being traditional, as something
that they are and others, both other clans and the state, are not. They themselves have been
objectified. Before the state and tourism, objects were substituted for bodies in order to defer
violence. After the state and tourism, the traditional body is an object that defers violence. The
subject has been objectified - thus the image of the noble savage. Before, it was the encounter of
similar bodies (and perspectives) that produced the violence that was deferred through exchange.
After, it was the encounter of different bodies (and different perspectives) that produced the
violence that could not be deferred through exchange and could only be deferred by authority,
God, and market. By asserting difference from the state (as in the puliaijat), Sakaliou has
deferred violence without the exchange of objects, or rather, the difference itself is the object.
45
The state could have clamped down, but just as this was happening, the New Order was collapsing, and
Suharto was declaring the island a national park.
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By remaining traditional, they are trying to maintain a different perspective, so that the exchange
of things can defer violence. The state, of course, does not see it this way. It sees it as
stubbornness or resistance, a refusal to inhabit the same body, the same perspective, the same
world. Now the state recognizes the benefit of some difference: there is a pool of scapegoats.
Just as Maligai delivered pigs as a pool of sacrifices, so the state, acting as environmentalist,
reserves a pool of human sacrifices in the name of progress.
Might the encounter with the state and tourists be an attempt to obtain some of their
magic? Almost certainly it is, but to a very limited extent, because this would be to acknowledge
that the state and tourists, these other others, have a more powerful magic than their own.
Sakaliou says that tourists are powerful, but they have lost the knowledge of magic, and they are
trying to recover it from the Mentawai. Sakaliou also acknowledges the power of the state, which
they got from the Dutch/tourists, but there have been few attempts to obtain it through mimesis.
As hard as I looked, as much as I wanted to find it, I could not. There were no images of state
authorities, no idols. There was only the myth and the watches and Western tattoos. Sakaliou
may acknowledge the state's magic/authority, but it considers it to be less powerful than its own.
Consider the possibility that Suharto declared the island a national park because of the visit of the
kerei. The state and tourists held up a mirror in which the people of Siberut could see
themselves. In the government-built villages, people saw a primitive who needed to be
modernized. On the pulaggajat and in the forest, they simply saw themselves - self and not self
simultaneously, like a clan in relation to its ancestors, the dead, or a clan in relation to another
one, with violence deferred through the exchange of objects. Like the newly initiated shaman
who at first fails to see the spirits in front of him, then turns around and, through a mirror, sees
them behind him, rendered harmless because they are behind him, Sakaliou turned their backs
and put the state and possibly tourists behind them, rendering it harmless, but keeping an eye on
it - keeping it in reserve for when the time was right - through the mirror of mimesis. The tourists
were the mirror.
195
The environmental movement on Siberut, a strange convergence of local or quasi-local,
regional, national, and global interests, tied, or attempted to tie, the conservation of nature to the
conservation of culture, or at least certain aspects of it. The idea was that local people knew how
to manage their resources - they were in tune with nature - but if business interests were
prohibited, regulations would have to insure that local people did not act solely in their own
interests. It was easy to eliminate the logging concessions. It was more difficult to identify other
ways that resources could be used to drive even a modest amount of economic growth. This was
especially problematic with regional autonomy. Of course, economic growth was not a truly local
concern. It was certainly not for Sakaliou, because any growth had to be offset through
reciprocity. In any case, given the assumption that economic growth would have to occur, the
management plans all identified other sources of revenue, foremost among them, and most
relevant for Sakaliou, a regulated tourism industry. The environmental movement could thus
been seen as an attempt by the state to take control of the one thing that had proven difficult to
control. If Sakaliou could not be regulated, the forest could, and if people were tied to the forest,
then people could. The tourism industry collapsed, rendering the plans irrelevant, but they do
show that the process of putting Siberut on the cultural map of Indonesia had begun. The kerei
were invited to Jakarta and billed as from the Minangkabau heartland. The Mentawai were
among the ancient ancestors of modern Indonesians. Their way of life could be preserved in the
museum of the forest.
With the fall of Suharto, regional autonomy created a new challenge for economic growth.
A Mentawai government could not be expected to preserve its people in a state of nature. The
Land Grant was created. There were protests. The bupati was eating money. Sakaliou had little
to say about most of this. Much to my surprise, they made a claim to and then sold the land.
They also voted in the first free national elections. Aman Boroiogok moved. Rustam was looking
toward surfing. The environmental movement completes the process of objectification that was
begun with the tourism industry. UNESCO and now Conservation International wants to
empower people, but there is no sense that the state - national, regional, or local - does not have
196
the last word. As fast as Suharto can declare the island a national park, the bupati can grant a
concession. Sakaliou is therefore uninterested. It will continue to do what it has always done,
keeping one eye on the mirror.
Aman Boroiogok was a friend of and competitor with Aman Lau Lau, the kerei in Buttui
with whom Charles Lindsay made the coffee table book, Mentawai Shaman: Keeper of the Rain
Forest (to which Schefold contributed). The photographs are spectacular. But there is more to
them than meets the eye, because at the time of fieldwork, Aman Lau Lau was dying. He was
the victim of sorcery, a victim of his own fame. Lindsay had compensated him, as was to be
expected for "doing something," but people said that Aman Lau Lau had received too much and,
more importantly, that he had not distributed enough. He had become too wealthy. But the
problems did not stop there, as the photographs came back to haunt him. Tourists would arrive
with the book in hand and ask for him and increase his wealth still more. It was almost as if there
was no way he could distribute enough. It was normal for tourists to take pictures and leave,
perhaps using the photographs for their own gain. It was not normal for them to reappear. The
objectified self returned again and again. No one considered the possibility that Aman Lau Lau
was sick, not from wealth, but from seeing himself so often in the frozen form of the image. He
could not possibly be that man. But he was. He was haunted, which is what sorcery is in any
case. If shamanism collapses distinctions only to separate them again, sorcery simply collapses
them, brining object into body, deferring the deferral of violence by inserting the object into the
body. The photograph comes close. One is confronted with the object image of the self. It a
mirror in which the image does not respond, in which the image of the self is dead, the object
image. The state is sorcery by other means. It collapses distinctions, making bodies into objects,
like a museum in the forest. But if in sorcery, the object can be extracted, if the body is an object,
how can it be removed? The only alternative is death.
Aman Boroiogok was concerned about the same fate. He wanted the fame of Aman Lau
Lau without the sorcery. By hosting me, the anthropologist, who also offered things in exchange
for doing something, he ran the same risk, and in the intervening years, he may have succumbed
197
to it.
46
But as I have tried to show, Sakaliou was perhaps different, or different enough, from
Aman Lau Lau and the other clans. They were arrogant. They swaggered. But they carefully
continued to defer violence through exchange. Their arrogance was due less to hosting the
anthropologist, whom they guarded jealously, and more to the distribution of his stuff. The
ethnographic encounter is also mimetic. It recognizes that the self is defined in relation to an
other and that a different perspective mitigates mimetic rivalry. The anthropologist was the
mimetic object and the mirror, not the spirit who was put behind and rendered harmless. My
sense of self, however, was fundamentally changed by the encounter. By being one, I realized
the power of objects. Aman Boroiogok once said to a tourist that the souls he saw as a kerei
were like flies. Every time I see a fly now, I imagine what Aman Boroiogok is doing.
In the end, Girard and Taussig are reconcilable. The state attempted to render the
people of Sakaliou other, but the people of Sakaliou initially saw the state as similar, or similar
enough, and simply competed with it. Confronted with tourists and photographs, the people of
Sakaliou began to think of themselves as different from other clans, more authentic, but still
similar enough to compete with them. But as modernization progressed, the difference grew, and
with difference, exchange was no longer necessary, as there was no mimetic rivalry. So the
mimetic rivalry occurred primarily within the clan, which fissioned without fissioning. The whole
history of the island was compressed in Sakaliou. For objects to defer violence, there must be
space. With modernization, the state cleared the forest, opened up new spaces, then closed
them again with the environmental movement. There will be war. Someone will be sacrificed.
And a new cultural order, neither Mentawai nor Indonesian, will be born. An insider/outsider
awaits his fate.
46
Although I doubt it, I recently saw him on the internet.
198
Glossary
adat (BI): custom
agama (BI): religion
aggaret toitet: an event in the puliaijat ceremony in which a coconut is sacrificed
alei: friend
Aman: father of
arat: the Mentawai pronunciation of the BI word adat, custom
arat sabulungan: the indigenous religion of Siberut and the Mentawai Islands
Bai: mother of
bajou: the dangerous force or substance emanated by a startled or disoriented spirit
bakkat katsaila: the ancestral altar in the longhouse
barasi: the government-built village; literally "the cleared space," i.e. cleared of forest
batnuma: the back room of the longhouse
bilo: a kind of primate
bupati (BI): the head of the kabupaten or regency
camat (BI): the head of the kecamatan or district
desa (BI): village
dusun (BI): hamlet
gajeuma: drum
gaud: magical mediators, most often plants, between humans and spirits
gobok: trance
goukgouk: chicken
iba: meat
irik goukgouk: an event in the puliaijat ceremony in which a chicken and pigs are sacrificed
jaraik: the sago palm flower symbol that adorns some longhouses
joja: a kind of primate
199
ka leleu: toward the forest
ka monga: downriver
ka ulu: upriver
ka uma: toward the longhouse
kabupaten (BI): regency
katsaila: a kind of gaud made from the shoot of a young doro tree, from which bows are made
kecamatan (BI): district
keladi: taro
kepala desa (BI): the head of the desa or village
kepala dusun (BI): the head of the dusun or hamlet
kerei: sikerei, shaman
ketsat: an alternative term for simagere, especially the simagere of dead things
kokoman sikebbukat: an event in the puliaijat ceremony in which the head of household and his
wife eat parts of a sacrificed pig
laggai: pulaggajat, ancestral land or, occasionally, the village
laibok: the front room of the longhouse
lajo: fire dance
lalep: nuclear family; the residents of a sapo
lauru: the omen in the entrails of a sacrificed chicken
leleu: forest
lia: puliaijat, communal ceremony
lia goukgouk: an event in the puliaijat ceremony in which a chicken is presented to the ancestral
altar
lulag: platter, an ancestral heirloom
masyarakat terasing (BI): the most isolated and underdeveloped people
moili moili: slowly, slowly
mone: garden
200
mulia: to perform the puliaijat ceremony; to be in a state of lia
muntogat: a group of clans related by descent
orang hulu (BI): upriver, forest-dwelling people
otsai: share
paabad: institutionalized exchange between formerly rivalrous clans
pabete: healing ceremony
pako: institutionalized rivalry between clans
pamuri: the head of household's oldest son (in a puliaijat ceremony)
paroman: fair and equitable exchange
pasiripokat: institutionalized friendship
patuat: thoughts/feelings
paumat: an older, experienced shaman who trains and initiates a new shaman
pitto: ghost
pukereijat: the ceremony to initiate a new shaman
pulaggajat: ancestral land or, occasionally, the village
puliaijat: communal ceremony
pusikebbukat: the head of household's youngest son or grandson (in a puliaijat ceremony); an
event in the puliaijat ceremony in which the pusikebbukat eats parts of a sacrificed chicken
rakrak: a group of clans related by descent
rimata: head of household (in a puliaijat ceremony)
rusa: deer
sagu: sago
sainak: pig
saki: purchase price
salo: lauru, the omen in the entrails of a sacrificed chicken
sanitu: dangerous spirits, including other clan's ancestor spirits, ghosts, and demons
sapo: a small house, a single family dwelling, in contrast to the longhouse
201
saraina: relatives
sareu: a nonindigenous Indonesian person on Siberut, especially Minangkabau
saukkui: ancestor spirits
sikataik: bad, negative
sikerei: shaman
simaeruk: good, positive
simagere: soul or spirit
simakobuk: a kind of primate
siripok: pasiripokat, institutionalized friendship
sogi katsaila: an event in the puliaijat ceremony in which gaud is distributed
subbet: taro dumpling
suku (BI): clan or tribe
suku terasing (BI): the most isolated and underdeveloped people
tegge: machete
teinung: the omen in the heart of a sacrificed pig
tenganuma: the middle room of the longhouse
toitet: coconut
tudukat: large slit drums
tulo: fine or recompense
turi: a tourist; a Westerner, especially with a backpack and camera
ube: tobacco
uma: the exogamous, patrilineal, patrilocal clan; the longhouse, in contrast to the sapo
upa: reward
uroro: to hunt
202
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Abstract (if available)
Abstract
Based on two years of fieldwork, this dissertation is an ethnography of the Sakaliou clan, one of several dozen upriver, forest-dwelling clans in the Rereiket region of south Siberut, the largest of the Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Although it focuses on only one clan, it examines their social relations with other clans, with the spirits that live in the forest, and with the nonindigenous people who live on or come to visit the island, such as traders, government officials, and tourists. Its main argument is that the way Sakaliou engages in social relations within the clan, with other clans and spirits, and even with nonindigenous people is through various forms of reciprocity or gift exchange. Drawing on Rene Girard's theory of violence and the sacred, reciprocity is reconceptualized as a mimetic practice in which self is defined in relation to other through the exchange of an object that has no value outside of the relation it defines. By way of the object, reciprocity creates or recognizes a similarity between self and other that can mitigate mimetic rivalry or generate it, depending on the exchange. If mimetic rivalry can result in violence, then exchange can be seen as the deferral of violence, the exchange of objects instead of bodies or heads. This view of exchange is more or less explicit in the myth, ritual, and taboo of the indigenous religion, a blend of animism, ancestor worship, and shamanism, but it is so fundamental to Sakaliou's perspective that it not only shapes their relations with other clans, it also shapes their relations with nonindigenous people. Despite a century of colonialism and national modernization campaigns, Sakaliou continues to engage traders, government officials, and tourists on their own terms: defining self in relation to other, controlling mimetic rivalry, and deferring violence through the reciprocal exchange of objects. The dissertation is divided into two parts.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Hammons, Christian S.
(author)
Core Title
Sakaliou: reciprocity, mimesis, and the cultural economy of tradition in Siberut, Mentawai Islands, Indonesia
School
College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Program
Anthropology
Degree Conferral Date
2010-12
Publication Date
11/24/2010
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
cultural economy,Indonesia,Mentawai Islands,mimesis,OAI-PMH Harvest,reciprocity,Siberut,tradition
Place Name
Indonesia
(countries),
islands: Mentawai Islands
(geographic subject),
islands: Siberut
(geographic subject)
Language
English
Contributor
Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Hoskins, Janet (
committee chair
), Cooper, Eugene (
committee member
), Iwamura, Jane Naomi (
committee member
), Lutkehaus, Nancy (
committee member
), Mattingly, Cheryl (
committee member
)
Creator Email
hammons@fastmail.fm,hammons@usc.edu
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m3560
Unique identifier
UC1428218
Identifier
etd-Hammons-4137 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-424001 (legacy record id),usctheses-m3560 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
etd-Hammons-4137.pdf
Dmrecord
424001
Document Type
Dissertation
Rights
Hammons, Christian S.
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Repository Name
Libraries, University of Southern California
Repository Location
Los Angeles, California
Repository Email
cisadmin@lib.usc.edu
Tags
cultural economy
Mentawai Islands
mimesis
reciprocity
Siberut
tradition