The Articulation of Tradition in Timor-Leste

by James J. Fox

Introduction

When The Flow of Life was published in 1980, it was intended to identify some of the distinctive features of eastern Indonesia and to shift perspectives on how the region was viewed. In that volume, Timor figured prominently. Six out of 14 comparative essays—seven, if one counts Rote within this area—were focused on Timor. Previous comparative efforts had been limited and were largely confined to the influential study by the Dutch anthropologist F. A. E. van Wouden. His work, Sociale Structuurtypen in de Groote Oost, in 1935—translated as Types of Social Structure in Eastern Indonesiain 1968—was based largely on fragmentary materials reported by travellers, missionaries and government officers. While certainly perceptive in many of its particular analyses, the work advanced a single formal model that purported to provide the original underlying basis for societies in eastern Indonesia.

The Flow of Life challenged this model by presenting a diversity of social forms in eastern Indonesia and by convincingly representing the diverse conceptual bases of societies of the region. The Flow of Life was the first study of its kind to be based on substantial fieldwork. As the book claimed, it shifted focus from the study of models to the study of metaphors—the often highly poetic articulation of metaphors of life.

This book, Life and Land in Timor-Leste, follows a trajectory set out in The Flow of Life. Like The Flow of Life, all the papers in this volume are based on considerable fieldwork. This work is, however, more specifically focused and critically formulated to consider local polities in Timor-Leste and the way in which they have survived and adapted to the Indonesian occupation, the United Nations’ presence and the present-day national development demands of an independent Timor-Leste.

Despite the great attention given to Timor-Leste over the past decade, few studies have sought to examine traditional social life as framed within particular traditional polities and in different rural areas. This book should therefore have a double impact—both theoretical and practical. It opens a new window on what is occurring in Timor-Leste. The initial question to ask of this volume is what comparative insights it provides and where do these insights lead.

Traditional Timorese Discourse

On Timor, traditions go deep. They are bound to the land—to specific places and to particular origins. Thus, the common comparative framework for all of the essays in this volume is their examination of Timorese traditional relations to the land and the significance of these relations. These relations—somewhat bewildering at times—are in fact the substance of life.

Struggling Geographies: Rethinking livelihood and locality in Timor-Leste

by Sandra Pannell

A Geography which Struggles I: Introduction

The island of Timor could be regarded—to borrow Edward Said’s expression—as a ‘geography which struggles’ (1993:6). Our understanding of this geography is dominated by a discourse of destruction and degradation. Writings about the island and its people commonly talk about the ‘Timor tragedy’ or the ‘Timor problem’. As James Dunn’s account reveals, the tragedy of Timor (see Dunn 1983:xi) is a story of gross injustice and local suffering, linked to the dismal failure of the international community to respond to Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor in 1974. Since independence in 2002, it seems that ‘poverty and unemployment’ are contributing to a ‘new tragedy’ in one of the world’s latest nation-states (BBC n.d.).

Timor’s ‘problem’, on the other hand, is said to be an island-wide ecological crisis, caused by swidden agricultural systems and population pressure.1 While the notion that local shifting cultivation systems in the ‘Outer Islands’ were inherently fragile and maladaptive to increasing population was first identified by F. J. Ormeling in 1956, it was Clifford Geertz’s study of ecological change in Indonesia that popularised the idea (Geertz 1963). While not intended as such, Geertz’s conclusions about swidden agriculture appeared to reinforce existing and overly negative European perceptions of these systems as primarily ‘attended by serious deforestation and soil erosion’ (Geertz 1963:15–16).

The characterisation of local subsistence systems as ‘voracious slash-and-burn agricultural regime[s]’, with ‘low agrarian production’ (McWilliam 2002:1), responsible for Timor’s environmental ‘problem’, has prompted a significant national and international development effort aimed at changing local land-use practices and improving the country’s economic circumstances. Yet, as delegates attending Timor-Leste’s first conference on ‘Sustainable Development and the Environment’, held in Dili in 2001, identified, ‘400 years of colonization by Portugal, and 25 years of occupation by Indonesia’ (Anderson and Deutsch 2001:11; see also McWilliam 2003:308) have also contributed to the process of ecological degradation and resulted in substantial changes to local subsistence practices. For example, Fox (2000:24) reports that during the latter part of the Portuguese colonial period, the Government initiated a series of agricultural extension programs in an attempt to ‘induce a shift of population’ to the least-populated southern coast of Timor. While the ecological and population density variability found across Timor-Leste was perhaps not an intended consequence of such social displacements, colonial resettlement schemes have, in part, contributed to the situation wherein the Lautem district in the far east of the country has one of the lowest population densities and some of the more extensive forested and coastal resources of all the regions in Timor-Leste. In the period of Indonesian occupation, as Soares (2001:20) points out, napalm bombing and forced resettlement practices by the military ‘saw a mass destruction of the environment’ and resulted in widespread famine. Dunn (1983:338) also comments upon the ‘rapacious exploitation’ of sandalwood and other forest-based resources, which the Timorese traditionally depended on for their livelihood, during this period. Speaking of livelihoods, both Soares and Fox report that traditional identities, constructed around particular modes of livelihood, have been severely eroded over the past 25 years as a result of population movements and a greater emphasis upon rice and commercial crops, such as coffee (Fox 2000:25; Soares 2001:19–20). Indeed, Shepard Forman (1981:87) goes so far as to conclude that for the Makassae of Timor-Leste, with the loss of their means of livelihood during the period of occupation, ‘the cycle of production and exchange which reproduces life has been broken’.

Finding Bunaq: The homeland and expansion of the Bunaq in central Timor

by Antoinette Schapper

Introduction

The Bunaq people occupy a large area of central Timor, straddling both sides of the modern border. Whilst the Bunaq of Lamaknen in West Timor have been the focus of detailed ethnographic research by Louis Berthe and Claudine Friedberg, there is no broader work on the Bunaq in other parts of East and West Timor. This chapter aims to contribute to a better understanding of the region of central Timor by exploring the history of the Bunaq-speaking area as a whole.

The Bunaq are linguistically and socially isolated in central Timor. Bunaq is a Papuan or non-Austronesian language, spoken by approximately 80 000 people. They are surrounded on all sides by Austronesian languages: Kemak to the north, Mambai to the east and Tetun to the south and west. The other Papuan languages of Timor—Fataluku, Makasai and Makalero—are located in a contiguous coastal area on the island’s eastern tip.1 The Bunaq language is widely recognised by the Bunaq and their Austronesian neighbours as ‘different’, and, while Bunaq is rarely learnt by non-Bunaq, almost all Bunaq are fluent in at least one Austronesian language.

In addition, the Bunaq are typically regarded by their neighbours with disdain, frequently being characterised as a coarse and aggressive people. This view has ensured that the Bunaq have remained somewhat apart from them. What is more, this external perception of their nature has fed into the Bunaq’s own traditions, such as the concluding moral of the folk story of two brothers, Asa Paran and Mau Paran: En Emaq g-epal legul. En Bunaq g-epal gol (‘The Kemak people have long ears. The Bunaq people have small ears.’) The metaphor of short versus long ears refers to the contrasting temperaments of the Bunaq (short-tempered and impatient) and the Kemak (quiet and uncomplaining).

These factors of linguistic non-conformity and social isolation have set them apart to some degree. But they have also led to an inclusive cultural attitude on the part of the Bunaq, involving widespread borrowing and adaptation from Austronesian language and society, such that Berthe (1963) was compelled to describe the Bunaq as having a mixed Austronesian–Papuan descent.

This chapter documents the processes of Bunaq expansion, using evidence from oral histories, placenames and data from the dialects of the Bunaq language. A subsidiary aim of this chapter is to illustrate how linguistic materials can be used to supplement and improve the picture of the past presented in oral histories. The data discussed here were collected during field trips in 2006, 2007 and 2009 surveying the Bunaq area.

After a brief outline of the basic principles of dialectology and how they apply to Bunaq in section two, I explore the history of the individual Bunaq areas in section three, showing where and how the Bunaq have expanded into new areas, mingled and partly taken over from groups of Austronesian speakers. Finally, in section four, I discuss the position of the Bunaq in central Timor in light of the traditional Papuan–Austronesian dichotomy. I suggest that, whilst the Bunaq have taken over Austronesian lands, they did not arrive after the Austronesians, but have incorporated many Austronesian features through sustained contact—a form of cultural ‘metatypy’ (Ross 2006).

Bunaq Geography and Dialectology

Today the Bunaq-speaking area (Map 8.1) extends in the north from Maliana down to portions of the southern coast of Timor-Leste; it stretches east from the eastern edges of southern Belu regency in West Timor into the western edge of Manufahi subdistrict in Timor-Leste.

Across the wide geographical area in which Bunaq is spoken, there are several different dialects. Dialects are geographical variants of a single language and dialectology is the study of this variation. Dialects are distinguished from one another by the distinct phonological (sounds) and lexical (words) features they display. Features varying between dialects are treated as instances of diachronic divergence from a common ancestor. That is, dialect differences arise when a population of speakers of a single variation-free language in one area replaces an original feature, X, with innovative feature Y, while speakers in another area innovate feature Z for feature X, while those in still another area retain feature X as X, and so on.

Map 8.1 The extent of the Bunaq language area

Darlau: Origins and their significance for Atsabe Kemak identity

by Andrea K. Molnar

Introduction

Membership in the former Atsabe domain is not separate from Atsabe Kemak identity. But in order to understand this identity relation, it is important to appreciate the Atsabe Kemak’s relation to land and particularly to places of origin. Darlau Mountain is one such focus, one origin place, and the question of who is a ‘true’ Kemak with a legitimate Kemak identity is enmeshed with this particular place of origin. In this chapter, I discuss the centrality of the great mountain of Darlau in Atsabe Kemak discourse on Kemak origins and identity.

Within the former Atsabe domain, Darlau is the tallest mountain (about 2400 m). Atsabe Kemak represent Darlau as the cosmic origin place where sky and earth were connected in the beginning of time when differentiation had not yet taken place. Darlau Mountain, as a place of origin, is often paired with or discussed in opposition to Atsabe Lau or Ramelau Mountain. Kemak people associate Ramelau with the dead, with funerary rites and the invisible villages of the ancestors, while they associate Darlau with living human descendants.1

According to myth, Darlau is the mountain where the origin village, Lemia, was founded by the first Kemak ancestors. Even the later invader who subjugated local related chiefdoms and amalgamated them into the larger Atsabe domain is legitimised through a connection to Darlau and the origin village there. The dispersal of settlements and the former small chiefdoms that emerged from these settlements, and thus made up the Atsabe domain, are elaborated upon by the Atsabe Kemak in relation to Darlau.

Darlau is also claimed as the site of origin for all sacred trees that, ordinarily, were not allowed to be cut down. In the ceremonial context of building origin houses, however, these trees are specifically utilised: ua, ora, taha buci and gorutrees. In the myth of the origin of fire, the ancestor brings fire from the top of Darlau with a taha branch. Identification with Darlau is thus a significant aspect of Atsabe Kemak identity and a means by which they distinguish themselves in relation to other groups. Old origin villages that made up the Lemia chiefdom were located on Darlau and are still visited once a year by descendants to clean the graves of the ancestors and to place offerings. Through origin stories, I will highlight each of these significant elements of Darlau for the Atsabe Kemak, particularly in relation to notions of authority, precedence and subordination (cf. Fox 1995, 1999). The argument reinforces Reuter’s (2006a:13) point that ‘in a traditional cultural context, Austronesian-speaking societies have constructed their sense of identity and legitimised their territorial claims to land and other resources by reference to local and sometimes regional origin narratives’.

Various ANU-based anthropologists have developed the concept of precedence for the comparative study of Austronesian societies.2 This group of anthropologists has suggested that a fruitful comparative study of Austronesian societies needs to focus on indigenous conceptions of origins. Fox (1988:15, 1995:214–28) labelled the different configurations in which this preoccupation appears as ‘origin structures’. He proposed that the studies of ‘origin structures’ and of the systems of precedence they generate are useful forms of comparison across Austronesian societies.3 Two major issues in the study of precedence concern ‘what validates precedence and what it confirms’. The study of origins in these societies sheds light on what precedence confirms, since it is only in relation to the past that precedence is justified (Fox 1994:106). Furthermore, ‘it is necessary for participants in systems of precedence to be able to trace relations to prior events, structures and persons’ (Fox 1994:106). ‘Context is paramount in the application of precedence…It is multivalued…[and] precedence can be used to create hierarchies, to dispute them, or simply undermine their creation’ (Fox 1994:106). Relations of precedence among the smaller chiefdoms encompassed by the former Atsabe domain are expressed in origin myths in relation to specific places of origin and the dissemination of settlements from such places of earlier origin. One way the Kemak define their cultural identity is through their relation to the Darlau, particularly to the first origin village, Lemia, and the first chiefdom that coalesced there. Origin stories are significant among the Atsabe Kemak in narrating the past in relation to the local topography and landscape, and indeed in connection with the ordering of social relations within the former Atsabe domain in relation to specific places within their locality (cf. Fox 1997). The origin village and Darlau Mountain serve as significant metaphors for ‘Kemakness’. While origin houses serve as the pivotal nexus of all marriage alliances that weave together the larger social fabric of a former domain, hierarchical relations among the component chiefdoms (the current main villages) are expressed in relation to origins from Lemia and Darlau. A relation to this mountain and to other significant places in the landscape is central in the narratives and local discourse on identity and intra-group relations and thus social reproduction. Various previous studies (for example, Fox 1997; Reuter 2006b) have highlighted the ways Austronesian cultures relate to place and the landscape in encoding their memories of place as an ‘origin’ structure, a ‘metaphor for living’ (cf. Fox 1980a:333).

Before proceeding to a background discussion on the Kemak of Atsabe, I wish to clarify the ways I will use the terms domain, and chiefdom and domain. Chiefdom and domain refer to a hierarchical, centralised political organisation of varying size with a formal leader: a chief or ruler. Domain refers to the extent of the territory over which a ruler or chief had authority. The heads of these various domains had different titles. The ruler of the Atsabe domain held the title ofkoronel bote; other lesser domains were headed by figures that held the ranked titles of nai, dato and rati.

While kin relations were recognised among the various chiefdoms that derived from the original Lemia chiefdom on Darlau, they were completely autonomous in their authority over their chiefdoms’ territorial domains and internal affairs. Once these chiefdoms coalesced into the Atsabe domain, the degree of autonomy of each chiefdom was affected—the authority of that chief had to be legitimised and confirmed by the rulers and the chiefs had to fulfil various obligations towards the ruler and the domain. Furthermore, the individual chiefdoms ceased to be territorially expansionist. The Atsabe domain, however, engaged in the expansion of its territorial domain that brought under its authority other groups, some of which were not Kemak. I shall elaborate further on the hierarchical organisation of the Atsabe domain in a later part of this chapter.

The Kemak of Atsabe

Kemak

A language of East Timor

ISO 639-3

kem

Alternate Names

Ema

Population

62,000 in East Timor (2010 census). Population total all countries: 72,000.

Location

North central Timor island border between East Timor and West Timor, mostly east. Also in Indonesia.

Language Maps

Indonesia, Nusa Tenggara and Southwestern Maluku

East Timor

Language Status

6a (Vigorous).

Classification

Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Timor-Babar, Nuclear Timor

Dialects

Kemak, Nogo (Nogo-Nogo). Most closely related to Mambae [mgm] and Tukudede [tkd].

Typology

SVO

Language Resources

OLAC resources in and about Kemak

Writing

Latin script.

Other Comments

Traditional religion, Christian.

Suku Bangsa Kemak (NTT)

Kemak adalah suku bangsa yang sebagian berdiam di daerah utara Pulau Timur, di dalam wilayah Provinsi Nusa Tenggara Timur, sebagian lagi di wilayah negara Timor Leste. Wilayah asal orang Kemak sekarang merupakan wilayah Kecamatan Tasifeto Barat dan Kecamatan Tasifeto Timur, yang termasuk wilayah Kabupaten Belu. Orang yang berdiam di kota Kupang menyebut orang Kemak dan dua suku bangsa di sekitarnya, yaitu orang Tetun dan orang Merae, dengan satu nama, yaitu orang Belu. Namun, ketiga kelompok ini sesungguhnya mempunyai bahasa sendiri.

Orang Kemak menggunakan bahasa Kemak, dengan ciri-ciri yang berbeda dengan dialek bahasa lain di sekitarnya. Pada tahun 1984, jumlah orang Kemak sekitar 35.000 jiwa, yang sebagian besar berdiam di Kecamatan Tasifeto Barat dan selebihnya di Kecamatan Tasifeto Timur dan Kecamatan Lamaknen. Ciri-ciri fisik orang Kemak terlihat dari bentuk kepala delichosephal, kulit cokelat kehitam-hitaman, rambut keriting, dan tubuh lebih tinggi dari rata-rata suku bangsa lain di Pulau Timor.

Mata pencaharian pokoknya bercocok tanam di ladang dan beternak. Tanaman utama di ladang adalah padi dan jagung, yang sekaligus menjadi makanan pokok. Mereka juga menanam keladi, ubi kayu, labu, sayur-sayuran. Hewan peliharaan yang terpenting adalah sapi, kerbau, kuda, dan kambing. Ternak perliharaan itu digunakan untuk konsumsi sendiri, kepentingan upacara, dan keperluan mempertahankan gengsi. Mata pencaharian tambahan adalah berburu, bertenun, dan membuat anyaman. Berburu dilakukan pada waktu senggang sesuah pasa panen.

Struktur pemerintahan menurut adat yang pernah berlaku pada masyarakat Kemak, seperti halnya pada suku bangsa lainnya di Pulau Timor, dikuasai oleh kelompok kerabat tertentu. Kelompok kerabat ini menganggap dirinya sebagai keturunan pembuka pertama daerah yang didudukinya. Mitologi mereka menggambarkan golongan itu sebagai keturunan dewa yang turun dari langit dan kemudian mendirikan kerajaan. Penguasa adat yang tertinggi adalah loro (raja). Stratifikasi sosial dalam masyarakat didasarkan pada dekat atau jauhnya hubungan darah dengan raja, yaitu keturunan raja, kaum bangsawan, golongan tua-tua adat, dan rakyat biasa.

Sumber:
Melalatoa, J. 1995. Ensiklopedi Sukubangsa di Indonesia. Jilid A--K. Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan.

DAFTAR DATA DAN INFORMASI TENTANG SUKU BANGSA BUNAQ

Pe. Beny Mali, SVD

Dalam bagian ini, penulis memaparkan tema-tema penting tentang kebudayaan Suku Bangsa Bunaq. Suku bangsa Bunaq mengungkapkan diri dalam budayanya. Kebudayaannya yang tersistematisasi kemudian membentuk pola lakunya. Sejauhmana kebudayaan mendukung kehidupan kemanusiaan manusia Bunaq, dapat mengetahuinya melalui kebudayaannya sebagaimana tercetus di dalam seluruh penguraian berikut.

1. Kebudayaan Suku Bunaq

Setiap manusia berbudaya. Manusia menciptakan budaya, dan kebudayaan hasil ciptaannya itu kemudian tersistematisasikan lantas sistem itu sebagai ketertaan yang menata keterarahan kehidupannya. Selanjutnya pada gilirannya manusia memperbaharui sistem kebudayaannya demi menghadirkan perikemanusiaan kepermukaan sistem kebudayaan dan kemanusiaan itu menjadi jantung sistem budaya yang mengatur tata kehidupan bersama. Ketika menusia menciptakan budaya, posisi manusia sebagai subyek atas budayanya. Sebaliknya ketika kebudayaannya membentuk Suku bangsa Bunaq, posisi kebudayaannya sebagai subyek. Hubungan dialektika antara kebudayaan dan manusia terarah pada kehidupan yang manusiawi. Dengan demikian budaya yang menjamin kehidupan yang manusiawi terpelihara dan dilestarikan, dan yang tidak baik dalam arti tidak manusiawi lagi ditransformasi untuk menjadikan budaya yang semakin insani. Artinya budaya menjamin bagi tindakan yang manusiawi, bukan mendungukan manusia dan tertindas oleh budayanya. 

Manusia Bunaq adalah bagian dari manusia di dunia yang berbudaya. Suku Bangsa Bunaq menciptakan dan tercipta oleh budayanya. Paparan berikut adalah penyelaman ke dalam budaya suku Bunaq dengan tujuan untuk lebih mengenalnya dan sejauh mana kepedulian budaya suku bunaq akan nilai-nilai kemanusiaan yang bersifat universal.

2. Arti kata “Bunaq” dan Asal-Usul Suku Bunaq