Wehali: The Female Land

Front matter

WEHALI: THE FEMALE LAND

TRADITIONS OF A TIMORESE RITUAL CENTRE

WEHALI: THE FEMALE LAND

Preface to the 2023 Edition Foreword

Summary

Opening Remarks Earlier Writings Theoretical Orientation Book Outline

A Brief Account of the Regency of Belu The District (Kecamatan) of Malaka Tengah The Language

Introduction An Historical Account of Wehali's Hegemony The Decline of Wehali Power

The Centrality of Wehali as Revealed in Oral Tradition

. Social Relations: Giving Away the Centre to the Periphery

Introduction Ideological Construction of Centre-Periphery Centre-Periphery in Inter-Domain Relationship

Centre-Periphery at the Village and Hamlet Levels

Introduction Marriage Stages Idiom and Mediation

The Perpetuation of Alliance Giving Back Seed and Returning the Banana Head Marriage and Politics Concluding Remarks 6. Paths and Borders: Relations of Origin, Consanguinity and Affinity Introduction Relations of Origin Relationship Terms Consanguineal Relations Affinal Relations Concluding Remarks

7. Ancestral Path in the Wehali House Introduction Types of House The House of Earth-Sky Orientation of Houses The Four-Corner House Ritual Posts Inner House and Platform Social Boundary Concluding Remarks

8. Life-giving Rituals Introduction Myth, Ritual and Polity Ritual of Avoidance Rituals Concerning Mother and Baby Agricultural Rites Concluding Remarks

9. Conclusion Dawan as Seen from South Tetun Major Features of Wehali

Language Texts Reference Text 1 Reference Text 2 Reference Text 3 Reference Text 4 Reference Text 5 Reference Text 6 Reference Text 7 Reference Text 8

Ritual Language Pairs

Acknowledgements

130 134 143 149

List of Figures

Figure 2.1: Rainfall data recorded in Besikama and Atapupu 34 Figure 4.1: Timor as seen from Wehali 80 Figure 4.2: The four hamlets related as a single origin group

in Kamanasa 99 Figure 4.3: The origin group of Fatisin 102 Figure 4.4: The origin group of the Liurai of Kamanasa 104 Figure 4.5: Named houses in the hamlet of Laran 108 Figure 4.6: Spatial orientation of the inner Wehali—the "four-corner

land’ 112 Figure 5.1: Genealogy of the house of Leko (tafatik Leko) 132 Figure 5.2: Marriage alliance (Leko and Makbalin) 133 Figure 5.3: Path of brother 134 Figure 5.4: Giving back seed and returning the banana head 135 Figure 5.5: Genealogy of the house of Marii Lia 139 Figure 5.6: Valid and invalid marriage 145 Figure 5.7: Genealogy of the house of Liurai 151 Figure 7.1: House orientation 194 Figure 7.2: House posts 200 Figure 7.3: Sacrificial pillars 202 Figure 7.4: Male and female wall mats 206 Figure 7.5: Cross-beams of a house 209 Figure 7.6: Social division 212 viii

Figure 7.7: Order of precedence Figure 8.1: Pig liver divination

Figure 8.2: Order of precedence in the passing of rope of announcement

Figure 9.1: Conceptual structure of the Wesei Wehali polity

213 250

258 273

List of Maps

Map 1: Indonesia Map 2: Languages spoken in Timor Map 3: Swapraja of Belu, after a Dutch map dated 1911

Map 4: Districts (kecamatan) in the regency of Belu

18 21 23 30

List of Photographs

Photograph 1: Agustinus Klau.

Photograph 2: Luis Sanaka Teiseran holds the position of male ruler, Liurai mane.

Photograph 3: The woman known as the Ferik Lulik, the ‘Forbidden Old Lady’, who until her death in 1993 served as the guardian of the Ai Lotuk, the most sacred house in Wehali.

Photograph 4: Dato Tolus Loro Tolus, the head of the Dirma clan, sits on stones arranged around the great banyan tree in the headhunting compound in Dirma.

Photograph 5: Men of the hamlet of Leklaran erect a named house. Photograph 6: Ai Lotuk, the Origin House of Wehali.

Photograph 7: These two women are the official guardians of the Origin House, Ai Lotuk. Men are not permitted to enter this house.

Photograph 8: During the maize harvest ceremony people bring offerings of betel-nut and cobs of corn from the new harvest to the burial ground of their immediate families.

Photograph 9: Eating ‘dark food’ during the maize harvest ritual. Photograph 10: Offering betel-nut at a rain ceremony. Photograph 11: Piet Tahu Nahak, Gabriel Bria and Ferdy Seran.

Photograph 12: Piet Tahu Nahak, Wehali Adat Historian, of the Trunk House of Makaer Lulik.

156 157 158

159 159 160 161 xi

List of Tables

Table 2.1: Swapraja of Belu in 1904

Table 2.2: Composition of the swapraja of Belu Tasifeto in 1916 Table 2.3: Composition of the swapraja of Malaka in 1916 Table 2.4: Village size and population

Table 2.5: Hamlets in Wehali

Table 2.6: Agricultural cycle

Table 2.7: Root crops

Table 2.8: The conversion of natural forest

Table 2.9: Names of dry rice varieties

Table 2.10: Varieties of sorghum

Table 2.11: Types of oral language

Table 2.12: Taboo wording

Table 3.1: Domains under Wehali as listed in Paravicini's contract Table 4.1: Wehali's periphery as cultivation space

Table 4.2: Flow of life and flow of wealth

Table 4.3: Basic oppositional categories

Table 4.4: Assembly of the four ferik, four katuas

Table 5.1: The stages in the marriage process in Wehali

Table 6.1: Birth order terms

Table 6.2: South Tetun kin terms

Table 8.1: Vicarious death of Liurai Brehi Table 8.2: Liver omen categories

Table 8.3: Distribution of fukun named houses

223 252 259

Preface to the 2023 Edition

Tom Theriks Wehali: The Female Land is an ethnography essential to an understanding of the cultural history of Timor. Wehali, on the south-central coast of Timor, is a ritual centre and an origin source acknowledged by societies in both West and East Timor. This study is the most detailed, historically focused ethnography of Wehali and its traditions.

This book was originally published by the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies Pandanus Books, but that edition is now out of print. This republication by ANU Press, as a volume in the Comparative Austronesian series, makes it readily available to an international audience.

In Timor’s traditions, Wehali is the immobile female source of vitality. Symbolically, it is the empty silent centre— the enveloping sheath'—that has dispensed its vitality to the rest of Timor. It is the female land opposed to the male lands to its east and west.

My foreword to the original publication of Wehali sets forth Wehali’s historical significance and cultural importance within Timor. Wehali is a Tetun-speaking centre and its influence extended eastward as far as the once historically important domain of Luca in East Timor, but its influence also extended westward to the Atoni-speaking domains under the authority of Sonbai. As an outward-oriented centre, Wehali is also, internally, a complex social formation: Wesei Wehali, a union of ‘Heaven and ‘Earth. This volume examines Wehali's complex internal social organisation as well as its all-important historical and ritual traditions.

Since the initial publication of this volume, its author, Tom Therik, has died. He was a skilled ethnographer, a fluent speaker of Tetun and a sympathetic investigator of Wehali's rich oral traditions. Memories of his gentle, always interested, caring, careful approach to ethnographic research

XV are still fresh in the minds of those who knew him. His contribution to our understanding of Timor is immense. His work is a landmark in the study of Timor.

It is important to note that fieldwork for this study was carried out in the early 1990s when East Timor was part of Indonesia. For Tom Therik, Wehali provided a crucial bridge between the two halves of the island. Tom's premature and unexpected death precluded any updating of his original manuscript to acknowledge the creation of Timor-Leste. Regrettably several photographs in the earlier edition of Wehali have gone missing and are not therefore included. As an addition to this new edition, however, two new photographs have been added: one a photograph of three of Tom's closest Tetun supporters: Piet Tahu Nahak, Gabriel Bria and Ferdy Seran; and the other, a separate photograph of Piet Tahu Nahak who was one of Toms chief collaborators.

James J. Fox 17 January 2023