Abstract
We have been able to discover the Aton’s classificatory system from data which have come to light in our analysis of agriculture and the social and political structures and their connected rites and myths. We have not devoted a separate chapter to it, but it emerged from data collected for other purposes. Now that we have become acquainted with the categories it is clear that the political community of the Atoni is indeed his “polis” or his world. It now becomes clear also what the frameworks are in which he sees his world, by means of which categories he arranges it and by means of what structural principles he gives it shape: we see how he accommodates everything in a “totalitarian” system. This system is not a closed one — just as the structural principles of the kinship system tend partly in different directions, this is also the case with the categories of his classificatory system. The Atoni is confronted daily with this all-embracing system of life (though not a closed one) in its most static form in the house in which he lives, and in the lopo in the centre of his village. He hears it anew each year in the rites of the agricultural cycle when he plants and harvests “Liurai-Sonba’i”. He experiences it in a more dynamic way in his kinship relationships, which, though they may change, nonetheless follow a set course.
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References
Cunningham, 1964, pp. 34–68. It is so much the more difficult for archaeologists to discover the symbolic significance of the palaces which they excavate, however.
In a report written as late as 1917 the houses are simply described as being round.
In any case this is so in Beboki, Insana and Miomafo, and according to Middelkoop it is true for the whole of the area, including Amarasi.
It is perhaps not quite as worth noting that in addition to the dichotomy of inside — outside (nanan — mone), he further distinguishes that of these two combined as against everything not included by these, calling the latter kotin. But the meaning of kotin is “rear” and it is generally opposed to matan, “front”.
P. 207 above.
There are four in photograph 27. This is often the case with ordinary-houses.
The door faces the south, so that the masculine right-hand side is that on the western side, i.e. if one stands inside the house with one’s face to the door; and the feminine left-hand side is the eastern side. Hence this does not correspond with the general classification, and is therefore never mentioned.
See photographs no 26, 32 and 33.
P. 91 above.
P. 95 above.
P. 199, C. 69–72, above.
P. 187 above.
Pp. 222, 317 above.
P. 276 above.
Pp. 292, 250, 251 above.
P. 188 above.
Durkheim. Transi. Needham, 1963, p. 82.
Needham, 1963, XXXVII.
18a See p. 120 above.
Granet, 1934.
Cf. Van Baal, 1966, p. 948.
P. 188 above.
P. 30 above.
22a See p. 195 above, B. 14 and 15.
P. 198 above, C65.
P. 191 above, A. 4.
Grijzen, 1904, p. 21, communication Middelkoop, and communication Us Senak of Bikomi respectively.
P. 294 and p. 322 above.
P. 263 above.
Cunningham, 1962, p. 78.
When eventually the Dutch gained supremacy their Administration was also addressed as aina ama Kompani.
Pp. 268, 269 above. Middelkoop, 1949.
Middelkoop, 1960, p. 42.
Needham, 1960, pp. 20–33.
Coomeraswamy, 1942.
Middelkoop, 1938, p. 405.
Communication Onvlee.
P. 140 above.
P. 392 above.
Locher, 1956, p. 169. P. 298 above.
P. 317 above.
Pp. 248, 256 above.
Cf. Löwitt, 1953, pp. 55 ff., who describes this process of finding a meaning in history in the reverse order, starting with Burckhardt, Marx and Hegel and going right back to their biblical sources. Original English edition: Meaning in History, 1949.
41a Cf. note II, p. 153 above.
Lévi-Strauss, 1956.
Op. cit., p. 162 of the English translation.
Middelkoop, 1938a, p. 509, for example, furnishes a genealogy which goes back six generations. Report by Weidner, 1932.
P. 309 above.
Biermann, 1924, p. 39. Document os Sarzedas no. 4 in De Castro, 1867, p. 186.
P. 182 above.
P. 181 above.
Cf. Document os Sarzedas no. 8, in De Castro 1867, p. 188. Biermann, 1924, p. 41. There was only one cleric left in Portuguese Timor in 1811. According to Piscaty-Ribéra, 1963, p. 9, there were three.
Port, igreja, Ind. geredja.
M aus sufa — tame flower. For the meaning of maus see p. 190 above.
Kosat — metathetieal form of Costa. Kosat now is the name of some side-branches of the Da Costa lineage which settled in Noimuti as early as the 17th century. In the 19th century another Da Costa came from Oikusi to live in Noimuti, so that now both the names Kosat and Da Costa occur in Noimuti.
The same line which supplied a guardian of the church.
Port. Sargento-mor.
Port, cabo — head, sergeant.
MS. Visscher, 28th and 29th October, 1730.
Pp. 209 ff. above.
P. 316 above.
Cf. p. 262 above. There is probably some biblical influence here, therefore.
Golden Body.
The lour usif of Bikomi, p. 292.
Dutch East Indies Statute Book, 1917, No. 6, Heijman, 1895. Sentence Arbitrale, 1914.
De Costa and De Hornay.
The spot at which Liurai came ashore; cf. p. 64.
Kose — strange, foreign; sobe — hat; metan — black; cf. p. 165, note 25, above.
Java — ?, Buginese — Macassarese.
Port, fiar — to entrust to, act as guarantor for, borrow from ; fiador — guarantee.
P. 164 above.
Communication Middelkoop.
E.N.I. IV, p. 320.
P. 175 above.
Heymering 1847, p. 152. He distinguishes between Black and White Portuguese, the latter being real Portuguese.
Cf. Middelkoop 1968, pp. 99 ff. Middelkoop is also puzzled about the Black Portuguese. He tends to think of negro influence and also mentions that Forbes (1885, p. 418) saw some Africans in Duly; but this doet not offer any explanation for the use of the term “Black Portuguese” in the 18th century There is no reason to suppose that De Hornay and Da Costa defeated tht Macassarese with the aid of African soldiers. Against the background of Timorese symbolism the opposition in clear enough. In my opinion the Kase Metan are not Africans but the Topasses.
They had been christened by the priest of Oikusi, who used to visit here occasionally.
Memorandum De Rooy, Archives Netherlands Department of Internal Affairs.
Hau — tree, wood; sufa — flower. These data derive from Gramberg’s Report, 1913, Archives of the Department of Internal Affairs.
Netherlands East Indies rule in Timor, outside of Kupang, was indirect. The self-ruling princedoms concluded treaties with the Netherlands Elast Indies Government, collectively termed the Short Declaration, in which the rulers pledged their submission to the rules of the Netherlands East Indies Government. Cf. Haar, 1939, p. 297.
See p. 311 above. The crown-prince was also married to a cNiti Bani.
A koko is a mythical animal; see p. 191, note 11.
Hoff was transferred and promoted to the rank of captain.
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Nordholt, H.G.S. (1971). Totality, Unity and Adaptability of the System. In: The Political System of the Atoni of Timor. Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, vol 60. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1013-4_14
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