The House of Our Ancestors : Precedence and Dualism in Highland Balinese Society / Thomas Reuter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Reuter, Thomas, author.

Series:

Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde ; 198.

Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde ; 198

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bali Aga (Indonesian people)--Rites and ceremonies.

Bali Aga (Indonesian people).

Manners and customs.

mountain villages.

Bali Island (Indonesia)--Social life and customs.

Bali Island (Indonesia).

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Precedence and Dualism in Highland Balinese Society

Place of Publication:

Leiden; Boston : BRILL, 2002.

Summary:

The House of Our Ancestors is a study of the Mountain Balinese or Bali Aga, an ethnic group with a distinct history and culture who are thought to be the indigenous people of Bali, Indonesia. In popular ideas of Balinese identity, the highland people feature as the conceptual counterpart to the royal houses established in the southern lowlands of the island. Hidden in shadow of this courtly culture, the world of the highland Balinese has been largely ignored even though Bali counts among the most researched localities in the world. This book explores their social organization and status economy from the perspective of an innovative theory of ‘precedence’. Regional domains, villages and origin houses among the Bali Aga are all conceived and ranked in reference to the basic ideas of a sacred origin in the past, and of an order of precedence connecting the past with the present. The analysis of precedence ranking, evident at all levels of Bali Aga social organization, leads to the development of a new theory of status for Austronesian societies that departs radically from the notion of hierarchy as proposed by Louis Dumont in his classic study of the Indian caste system.

Contents:

Intro

Title Page

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

List of maps, figures and tables

Acknowledgements

I The people of Highland Bali

Introduction

Historical and socio-political background

A passage into the mountains

Content and significance of this study

Outline of a theory of precedence

A note on the nature and scope of anthropological theories

PART 1 Desa Ulu Apad, the ceremonial order of Bali Aga villages Precedence and dualism in a council of elders

II Local communities and regional perspectives

Banua: regional domains

The interface between domains and villages

III Sukawana: a village at the centre of a domain

Unity and differentiation

The ulu apad of Sukawana: a council of elders

Life as a passage through the desa adat

Women's position in the desa adat

Lunar meetings: sangkepan tilem and purnama

IV Batukaang: a village at the periphery of a domain

Between social stratification and participation

The desa ulu apad and other local organizations in Batukaang

Sangkepan

A comparison

V Variations in the regular distribution of resources

Culturally modulated fields of possibility

Stratification in the desa: weighing the costs and benefits of social participation

Recent modification to the principles of ranking

A summary of currently realized possibilities

VI The ulu apad: rank and dual organization in Bali Aga communities

Dualism and the dialectic of symbolic representation and social organization

Precedence and rank: the dualism of the vertical axis

Ceremonial moieties: the dualism of the lateral axis

Dualism reconsidered

Beneath and beyond the desa

PART 2 Sanggah, ancestral houses of origin Domestic design and family life among highland Balinese

VII Umah and kuren: the house we dwell in and the hearth we share.

Domestic relations as a model of local social theory

Umah: the house as a social and symbolic space

Kuren: the household or 'hearth'

VIII The sanggah: an ancestral origin group and its temple

The sanggah of paternal ancestors

In terms of ancestry

Generational levels: predecessors and successors

Intragenerational relations: between sameness and birth order rank

Marriage, alliance and the sanggah of sisters

In terms of alliance

Strategies of alliance and insulation

IX Ancestral origins beyond the sanggah

The sanggah in the wider context of desa and banua

Bali Aga notions of ancestral origin and the Pasek movement

X Umah - sanggah - pura: a society of houses?

The house as a recurrent theme in Bali Aga society

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

90-04-45452-7

OCLC:

655228175

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004454521 DOI