Harbouring Traditions in East Timor - Secretaria de Estado da Arte e ...

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1118 ANDREW McWILLIAMThe achievement of national independence and the withdrawal ofthe Indonesian security apparatus have also permitted the residentsof Com, as elsewhere in Lautem and across East Timor, to re-vitalizeand re-engage many of the ceremonial exchange networks and ritualobservances that were restricted under Indonesian military rule.Marriage and funerary rites, ancestral sacrifices, ritual invocationsof clan identity and traditional house (le ia valu) constructionand consecration among a complex variety of interactive exchangerelationships now absorb considerable amounts of the time andresources of the Com community. 3In this newly liberated social environment, the ability to engagein elaborate ritual and symbolic activity has also encouraged the reemergenceof a range of customary practices previously subsumed anddenied under Indonesian rule. These practices include a revitalisedfocus on ancestral religion, the emergence of traditional classdistinctions, and a renewed interest in customary land tenures andassertions of landed authority at a time when formal systems of landadministration in East Timor are yet to be promulgated throughlegislation.While all residents of Com participate in these processes to varyingdegrees, I focus on one key group in Com, the clan Konu Ratu, whosecollective assertions of an age-old and continuous political seniority inCom provide an entry point for understanding something of the socialhistory and dynamics of this port settlement. I am conscious that thisapproach privileges a particular narrative interpretation, one thatis both partial and inevitably contested in its detail and emphasis.However, the intimate and lasting association of Konu Ratu in Comis widely acknowledged and, on this basis at least, deserves attentionas a case study of situated customary claim and attachment.Konu Ratu and the Ancestral Domain: Ritual and PoliticalControl of ComAcross Fataluku society of far-eastern East Timor, 4 the concept ofthe Ratu represents a key social institution. The term may be glossed3 This is not to say that such activities were absent during 24 years of Indonesianoccupation, but opportunities for their public expression were severely constrained byinternal security restrictions on mobility and social gatherings.4 There are some 35,000 Fataluku language speakers in the East Timorese districtof Lautem (Los Palos). A Papuan language (Trans New Guinea Phylum) in origin,http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 19 Feb 2009 IP address: 130.56.65.24
HARBOURING TRADITIONS IN EAST TIMOR 1119as a dispersed patrifilial clan with membership typically consisting ofmale kinsmen, their in-married spouses and children. The unity of theRatu is characteristically articulated through affiliation with commonmale ancestors 5 and myths of origin, shared spiritual and ritualobligations with access to inherited common property and land inclearly defined localities. Social and personal identities of individualsare intimately connected and reproduced through the discursiveframes of Ratu ritual practices and relation. These markers ofaffiliation and differentiation are expressed through inherited names,ritual knowledge and commensality, 6 as well as food proscriptionsand textile designs (McWilliam 2004). Normative social relationshipsbeyond closely related households are formulated around continuingand complex systems of exchange and marriage alliance betweenexogamous kin groups. All Fataluku settlements in Lautem representcomposite patterned segments of inter-marrying Ratu. 7 There aredozens of named Ratu groups in Fataluku-speaking areas. Theirfrequently contested histories of segmentation, dispute and dispersalacross the landscape provide the narrative basis for varying degrees ofalliance and cooperation.The Konu Ratu group and their emplaced focus in Com representone expression of Ratu diversity within Fataluku society, arguably acomparatively unusual one, given their assertions of uninterruptedsettlement within a narrowly defined domain surrounding the portof Com and the coastal waters. In exploring the significance ofthe Konu Ratu origin group in Com, I seek here to highlight twoFataluku is related to the neighbouring non-Austonesian languages of Macassae(Baucau) and Macalero (Illiomar, Lautem), although they are mutually unintelligible.In the Portuguese literature, the language is often described as Dagada. This term,however, is probably an exonym from Macassae referring to speakers of the Sokoloridialect in western Lautem.5 Female ancestors of the Ratu may be significant in the oral histories of the groupbut the general emphasis remains on the continuity of male progeny and the Ratuname.6 A central and common marker of affiliation to named Ratu is the practice ofkinsmen sharing sacrificial meat and offal known as the leura te’i (sacred meat). Thisis served separately in all sanctioned ceremonial events of the relational group andsymbolizes common agnation.7 This general statement glosses a rather more complex social context in whichhistorically defined status differences have produced three sets of inherited socialclasses, castes, or what Lameiras Campagnolo and Campagnolo have termed, ensemblesendogames (1984:84), represented by the terms Ratu, Paca and Akanu (slaves). Althoughthese have significant social implications in terms of inter-group relations, for thepurposes of my argument, the generic form of the Ratu remains an appropriatedescription and serves as the principal social category of identification for most people.http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 19 Feb 2009 IP address: 130.56.65.24
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