A. Ottino Origin myths, hierarchical order, and the negotiation of ...

Status in the Balinese Village ofTrunyan 483
presentation of the ethnographic data that Danandjaja was very much
aware of the pervasiveness of hierarchical notions and the complex competition
for supremacy of status and power among the various origin
groups in the village. Danandjaja recognized that no group holds absolute
supremacy in the hierarchical order; instead, ranking is contextual and is
connected with the values and prerogatives at stake in a given context
(see also Fox 1990a and 1990b for similar ideas with regard to eastern
Indonesia). In particular, the question of the relation between the first
settlers and village rulers has never been resolved. While the descendants
of the village rulers maintain their superiority in the political arena - mainly
through the imposition of a caste-like division between insiders (political
rulers) and outsiders (village population) - the descendants of the first
settlers retain their supremacy in the ritual domain. This is legitimated by
reference to complex ideas of origin. In the case of Trunyan, these ideas
are institutionalized in myths formulating the integration of newcomers in
terms of nyéburin, the Balinese form of reversed marriage whereby a man
moves to his wife's residential area, joins her ancestral group, and becomes
integrated into her descent line. In other words, since descent is reckoned
patrilineally in Bali, the nyéburin husband becomes subordinated to his
wife' s patriline. The origin of Trunyan is articulated around the three key
figures in the nyéburin marriage: the in-coming husband, who becomes the
founder and first king of Trunyan; his wife, the tutelary goddess of the
lake; and her hermaphrodite elder brother, who is supreme ruler of the
whole pantheon as the originator of the ancestral customs and traditions.
The in-coming husband represents the genitor line and the hermaphrodite
elder brother the progenitor line. The relations between these deities
reflect and determine the nature of the social relations between origin
groups within the village.
I am using the terms 'progenitors' and 'genitors' rather than the more
usual 'wife-givers' and 'wife-takers' here, because they are better suited
to the configuration of the relations considered here. The terms were first
proposed by Fox in a paper on lines of origin in eastern Indonesia (Fox
1990b). According to him, a feature of eastern Indonesian societies is that
'all origin groups give precedence to a progenitor line', that is, a line
which stands as the origin of life for another line, that of the genitors (Fox
1990b:4). The terms 'progenitors' and 'genitors' thus refer to a dyadic relation
organized asymmetrically by reference to the flow of life symbolically
identified with the woman. The circulation of women between wifegivers
and wife-takers is one aspect of this relation, but it is not exhausted
simply by alliance. On the contrary, alliance is a practical expression of a
more fundamental hierarchical order in which precedence is given to those
and do not address issues of anthropological relevance; in particular they do not
relate the rituals to the broader political and social context in the manner in which this
is done in the thesis, mainly because of the sheer breadth of the ethnographic data.