INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES SPRING 2016
Kapunduku inhabiting the highlands of East Sumba . The village is only occupied during the dry season and for certain ceremonies ( Adams 1974 , pp . 328 ). The migration pattern , which may also be a case of transhumance , reflects the concentric dualism because uma live in their private dwellings for most of year but return to the social world in the form of the ritual capital each year to perform their specific functions for communal ceremonies .
The ritual village layout is that of an oval ( the middle sketch in figure 3 from Adams 1974 ) divided lengthwise into three sections named corresponding to the terms used to describe the sections of a ship ( ibid , pp . 332 ). The symbolic sides of the village are given the same name as they are in the ship and “ warrior ” uma live at the edges with the “ priest ” uma stay in the center . This creates a trinity , dualism and symmetry within the village ( see the middle of figure 3 ). The large wooden poles , depending on the specific ceremony , are referred to as either masts of a ship or branches of a tree ( ibid , pp . 333 ). Dualism exists within the unit of the ship-tree-village . Houses line two sides of the courtyard facing one another creating another form of symmetry . The two lines of houses are conceptualized as houses of the morning side and houses of the afternoon side and they have complementary and opposing ritual functions ( ibid , pp . 327 ). Offerings are also divided into the categories of natural and man-made which can either be defined as cooked and raw or natural fruit and constructed images of fruit that are associated with the ultimate duality of male and female ( Friedberg 1980 ). Typically food offerings are hung from the symbolic tree 18 or forked pole at the center of the village . Offerings of man-made objects themselves are further divided between masculine and feminine in metal and cloth respectively and placed at the village altar associated with the rudder of a ship ( Adams 1974 , pp . 333 ).
Ritual exchange
Though Lévi-Strauss , Fox , van Wouden , Adams and Errington contend that concentric dualism places exchange within an overarching cosmic flow where exchange has a less vivid hold on the ordering of the world , exchange still exists if only momentarily in the context of the whole system . Women , things and animals are exchanged in marriage ceremonies and men and marapu ( spirits / ancestors ) exchange the same things for blessings . The exchange between men and spirits sometimes takes place during wedding ceremonies while at other times concurrently with crop harvests or sowing . Webb Keane uses the dualism pattern of Eastern Indonesia to explain ceremonial and sacrificial offerings and blessings between men and spirits ( Keane 1994 ). Keane extended the duality from within similar substances such as women / men , sunset / sunrise or natural / manmade , to between what are generally considered different substances such as words and things . Whether or not this is keeping
18
In West Sumba these trees often were the places were skulls taken from captives were hung . The term “ skull tree ” is used to describe the dead tree or collection of branches pointing toward the sky that are found in villages throughout Sumba . However their association with skulls should likely be limited to West Sumba though it is applied throughout Sumba .
64 | P a g e