Signs of Recognition : Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society

This book is a study of representational practices in Anakalang, a society on the island of Sumba, in eastern Indonesia. Its purpose is to examine the nature of representation as both action and objectification. To do so, it treats verbal and material representations as embodied forms that occur in encounters between persons. But these forms, and the understandings that Anakalangese bring to them, are also deeply implicated in powers, identities, and sources of authority that lie far beyond the concrete "here and now" and the living individuals who put them into play. In the tensions between their immediacy and their imputed transcendence, representational practices introduce important dilemmas and sources of dynamism into the heart of Anakalangese social, religious, and political life. In particular, I argue, there is an intrinsic but seldom obvious relationship between the formal display of cultural or cosmological order and the risks of social interaction. Although the specific configurations these dilemmas take are, of course, peculiarly Anakalangese and located at a particular historical juncture, I suggest that they also inflect certain endemic features of representation insofar as it is a component of action in a world full of other people. In the process of approaching representations as both action and objectification, and as both concretely present and transcendent of their context, this book also seeks to challenge some of the ways in which contemporary studies of the symbolic and material dimensions of social life often talk past one another. It examines the verbal and material representations, especially poetic speech and exchange valuables, whose Xlll Preface XVll that looks quite like what they had expected, a definitive compilation of custom or a permanent record of clan histories. But the task of Sumbanese self-portrayal belongs to others, and is well under way (see, e.g., Kapita 1976aKapita , 1976bKapita , 1979Kapita , 1987;;Sabarua 1976). I hope that those Anakalangese who read this book will, at least, not find the portrait to be alien or unfair. I hope as well that it will make evident something that lay behind my choice of Anakalang, that poetic speech and ceremonial exchange are extraordinarily vital parts of contemporary life, not idealized customs recollected in tranquility. For most of my time in Sumba in the 1980s and in 1993,1 lived in the large household (containing at times as many as twenty-two people) of Pak Tinas Sabarua and his wife, Ibu Mariana R. Kahi Kawurung. Ama Yati and Ina Yati, as I knew them, provided a comfortable base for my forays, although these often ranged more widely in both geographic and social terms than made them feel comfortable. Far from "traditional," their household was a contemporary melange. Ama Yati had been to university in Kupang, the provincial capital, on Timor, one brother was a schoolteacher off on the east coast (and author of Sabarua 1976), two others were studying in Kupang. After a brief stint in government work, Ama Yati was reshaping himself as master of an estate, a figure in the local politics of exchange, a modernizer, and a leader in the local church. In 1993 he was elected head of the Desa Anajiaka. His wife, an elementary schoolteacher, was the daughter of an important local power broker and a strong, assertive, and often intimidating figure in her own right. Within the household, we negotiated for me a somewhat complex, never fully stable, position, part younger brother (thus son, uncle, and affine as well), part distinguished visitor, part student. Much of my practical sense of Anakalangese life begins with our collective push and tug among the demands of kinship, hospitality, and research. With a base in this household, I began in earnest the slow business of studying the language of Anakalang, relieved many afternoons by visits to acquaintances. By the end of my first year, I had become a regular visitor in a number of villages within a four-kilometer circuit of Anajiaka, especially within the Desa of Wai Rasa, Anakalang, Malinjak, and Umbu Mamiyuk. Many individuals also invited me to accompany them to the events in which they participated (and in which I was occasionally subjected to the demand for brief, embarrassing, public performances). I established especially close ties in two other places, Kaboduku (Desa Makatakeri) and Peru (Desa Umbu Pabal), and much of my xviii Preface perspective on Anakalang comes from the intersecting lines of sight from these very different sources. People in Kaboduku tend to consider themselves to be both keepers of true Anakalangese culture and more cosmopolitan than others. The village, which had been the base of the Dutch-appointed rulers of Anakalang, is still linked to many of the most powerful people in West Sumba and is currently the gateway to the sacred village of Lai Tarung, and an occasional tourist destination. Peru can be used as the collective name for a small cluster of villages on the eastern border of Anakalang, in Parewatana. By dialect somewhat distinct, Parewatana is closely linked to Anakalang proper by geographic proximity and ties of marriage, economics, and ritual (in this book, at the few points where there are significant distinctions between them, I will always refer to Anakalang). In contrast to Kaboduku, Deru is at the margins, relatively poor, obscure, and more difficult to get to. Outsiders who know about these villages often fear them, acknowledging them to be an active center of ancestral ritual and, in particular, to house the powers of lightning. Because of Peru's distance from Anajiaka, I often stayed there for several days on end (which allowed me to experience households very different from my own). Through a complex mix of accident, affinity, and negotiation, three elderly ratus (Umbu Pada Buli Yora in Kaboduku, Umbu Kana Dapa Namung and Umbu Dewa Damaraka in Deru) ended up taking particular responsibility for me, and developed into teachers, each with quite distinct styles and perspectives but all sharing a love of ritual speech. At the same time, I made a constant effort not to be confined to the company of guardians of tradition and counted as companions a number of cattle thieves, cynics, gospel teachers, ministers, petty traders, former slaves, schoolteachers, a high official or two, a good number of rogues (including some of the most talented ritual speakers I know), and at least one reputed witch. Within my household I found the warmth, wisecracks, gossip, and worries of a mother and several sisters and sisters-in-law. Elsewhere I attracted the pitying and protective attention of several self-appointed mothers and grandmothers. Nonetheless, a good part of my conversations tended to be dominated by men, since outside of my own household those were the people with whom it was proper for me to be alone. This has certainly inflected the perspective from which I write. An important part of my work in Anakalang consisted of the effort to take part attentively in ordinary life. I did not want my interest in formal events to cause me to lose sight of the ongoing flow of daily work and the other activities out of which they arise. I spent a great Preface xxi fundamental units. It would be an injustice to deny the sphere of reference within which Anakalangese themselves situate so many of their most strenuous endeavors. To recognize that practices are situated is to recognize that not all dimensions of all practices are appropriately understood at the same level. Much of this book is about debt, the burdens and pleasures of which, as the people of Anakalang have taught me, are inseparable, inescapable, and, ultimately, unending. The thanks recorded here are only the shadow of what remains unreciprocated. Webb Keane argues that by looking at representations as concrete practices we may find them to be thoroughly entangled in the tensions and hazards of social existence. This book explores the performances and transactions that lie at the heart of public events in contemporary Anakalang, on the Indonesian island of Sumba. Weaving together sharply observed narrative, close analysis of poetic speech and valuable objects, and far-reaching theoretical discussion, Signs of Recognition explores the risks endemic in representational practices. An awareness of risk is embedded in the very forms of ritual speech and exchange. The possibilities for failure and slippage reveal people's mutual vulnerabilities and give words and things part of their power. Keane shows how the dilemmas posed by the effort to use and control language and objects are implicated with general problems of power, authority, and agency. He persuades us to look differently at ideas of voice and value. Integrating the analysis of words and things, this book contributes to a wide range of fields, including linguistic anthropology, cultural studies, social theory, and the studies of material culture, art, and political economy.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1997.Webb Keane argues that by looking at representations as concrete practices we may find them to be thoroughly entangled in the tensions and hazards of social existence. This book explores the performances and transactions that lie at the heart of public ev