1 Introduction

This paper aims to present two contrasting modes of transmission of knowledge among the Ende people of central Flores, eastern Indonesia, and to analyse their social significance.

Let me begin with little reminiscences. Many years ago, when I was struggling with my Ph.D. thesis, my supervisor, Professor James J. Fox (Pak Jim), shared with me a remark attributed to E. E. Evans-Pritchard (EP). EP, Pak Jim said, once offered this advice for his students on how to write ethnography — “Before everything else, one must find the grain of a culture.” ¹ At the time, I did not fully grasp what this rather cryptic remark meant. Only now, after so many years, do I think I understand it.

Pak Jim has shown us many such “grains” to be found in Austronesian societies, especially in eastern Indonesia: such as “botanical metaphors” (Fox 1971), the “flow of life” (Fox (ed) 1980), “origin” (Fox and Sather (eds) 1996) (Fox 2006), “place and landscape” (Fox (ed) 1997) (Fox 1997), “precedence” (Fox 2009) and many others.

A few recurrent strands can be discerned within these motifs; “knowledge” is one of them. Knowledge of genealogy is central to kinship-related matters such as precedence and ancestry; knowledge of topogeny is essential to location, landscape and place.

Let us now return to the grain of the Endenese culture. The grain of the Endenese culture is, I think, knowledge. The Ende are fond of talking about knowledge (orho mbé’o). Yet there is one respect in which what they talk about is distinctive: it is not knowledge of the “authentic” or “orthodox” kind, the kind that recounts, for instance, the origin of human beings, or the migrations of particular clans. What the Ende are anxious to talk about, rather, is a kind of “inauthentic” knowledge — heretical, or anti-social, in character. It is the knowledge which witches (ata porho), the anti-social beings of Ende cosmology, are believed to possess. Throughout the paper, I want to call this type of knowledge, “esoteric knowledge”.

In this paper, I would like to present the Endenese conceptualization of two types of knowledge. The esoteric knowledge is different from the orthodox knowledge, not only in its contents, but also in its ways of acquisition. While the orthodox knowledge is handed down from one generation to the next generation, the esoteric knowledge is handed from one person to another. I would like to

1.1 About Ende

This section introduces the Ende people of Flores island and their culture.

The Endenese live in the central part of the island of Flores, eastern Indonesia. They number around 50,000 to 70,000. (The Regency population was 273,553 in 2023.)

I began fieldwork among the Endenese people in 1979 and since then I have visited Ende, on and off, up to the present. I have lived in a village called Rhepadori (a pseudonym), in a ritual domanin called Tana Rhorho (to be discussed fully later). Much has changed since then. In this paper, I focus on the period around the 1990s, that is, the ethnographical present in this paper refers to the 1990s.

The organizing kinship principle in Ende is patrilineality in the sense that properties, especially land, are owned by patrilineally realted people. Indeed, you could discern clans, lineages and households in a village, but the borders of those kinship groups are blurred and ambigious. Kinship membership is more a “doing” than a “being” in Ende. “Doing” delineates the ambiguity of membership.

I will delve into this theme of “being”/“doing” as the argument progresses. Here I will give one example for “being”/“doing” in Ende culture, that is, ritual exchange (wai rhaki).

In Ende, there are only two possilbe relationships between any two kins: one is a relationship between own groups (OG/OG) and the other is one between wife-giver and wife-taker (WG/WT). Accordingly, there are two kinds of exchanges between kins: sharing (bagi) between OG/OG and giving and receiving (pati and simo) between WG/WT.

This is being — those being in such and such relation do such and such exchange. Kinship ordains that people who are in the relation of OG/OG should share and that those of WG/WT should give and receive. In Ende, sometimes doing, that is sharing, or giving and receiving, makes being, relation of OG/OG or WG/WT. Marshall Sahlins succintly recaptulate the situation, thus: “If friends make gifts, gifts make friends” (Sahlins 1972: 186)

All those things, relationships of OG/OG and WG/WT, and Sahlins’s dictum, comprise what should be called “kinship/exchange” (wai rhaki) in Ende. And this is the orthodox sphere of the Ende social field.

They subsist on slash-and-burn agriculture (also known as shifting cultivation). Even though the influence of the market economy is significant, the economy of the Ende people can be said to be fundamentally a subsistence economy.

2 Legitimate Knowledge

In this chapter, I will deal with the orthodox type of knowlege, which has to do with

Two ways of transmitting knowledge can be discerned in Ende. One is a vertical mode (transmission across the generations), and the other is a horizontal mode (transmission within a generation). This section deals with vertical transmission of knowledge. Vertical transmission is spoken of in the idiom of the Ende kinship system.

2.1 Patrilineality

In Ende, descent is reckoned patrilineally — that is, those who are agnatically related are counted as belonging to one and the same group.

Ende society is a patrilineal society, in the sense that inheritance is patrilineal. Land, on which they depended for subsistence, is inherited patrilineally such that a parcel of land is shared among the members of one patrilineal group.

About land, people say:

Land is inherited from (patrilineal) ancestors. And it is to be used only for subsistence. Thus, it is strictly forbidden to sell a parcel of land. People say:

2.2 Agriculture and rituals

Land is owned by a patrilineal group. It can therefore safely be said that kinship, or more particularly, the patrilineal descent system, is the basis of agriculture, the subsistence economy of Ende.

This does not mean that a parcel of land is inhabited only by members of the owning clan. In fact, a considerable number of outsiders (non-agnates) live in the region. These outsiders are permitted to work the land in so far as (1) they pay a small tribute to the land-owning group and (2) they follow the ritual practices of the land-owning group. The first of these, that is, tribute, is purely nominal — one chicken, one container of moke (palm wine), and a container of rice (manu se Eko, mokE se taso and are se wati). The more important condition is the second one, following the rituals of the land-owning group.

Let me now turn to the ways of ritual in Ende. A friend of mine, an agricultural scientist, once told me that he had found that slash-and-burn agriculture consists in performing rituals as well as practical activities. This is also the case with Endenese agriculture.

Roughly speaking, the practical activities of slash-and-burn agriculture in Ende are as follows: From August to September: they clear the forest (ghagha) In September: they burn the forest and turn it into a field (jengi) In December: they plant the field (tendo) From April to May: they harvest maize and rice and other crops (keti)

All these activities are accompanied by various ‘rituals of land and rocks’ (nggua tana watu) From August to September: before opening the forest, they perform a ritual called kaki to tell the resident spirits (nitu) that they are about to open the forest. And numerous smaller rituals are performed in the fields. These are the rituals performed separately in each field by one household or one lineage. They are followed by two important communal rituals at the end of the agricultural cycle. From April to May, they hold rituals of maize and rice (pesa uta and netE piso) which are performed by each clan. And finally, in July, they hold rituals of tubers (kaa uwi) marking the closing of the year. This is the greatest ritual and marks the extent of their ritual domain called Tana Rhorho.

Kaki, dhEra and other rituals are held by each household (a lineage) pesa uta (for maize) and netE piso (for rice) are held by each clan and finally, the ritual of tuber crops (kaa uwi) is held by members of the whole ritual domain of Tana Rhorho. These rituals are performed to enhance the solidarity of patrilineal groups (at various levels) See the table below.

2.3 The Land of Rhorho

Kaa uwi (“Eating yam” rituals are held to stress the solidarity of the ritual domain. The village where I stay during my fieldwork is called Rhepadori, and it belongs to a ritual domain called Tana Rhorho (Rhorho’s land). Tana Rhorho was created, people claim, as the land of Kepi was dissolved into two parts. Now let me recite the history of Tana Rhorho.

The origin story is known under the tile, “Ngemi Nggenda // Jera Kepi”, “Stupid is Nggenda // dumb is Kepi”. It is set in the time of the Portuguese living in Flores. ² They lived in a coastal village called Numba ³. And we lived in a village Kepi, up in the mountain. The chief of Kepi made friends with the Portugues. One day, the Portuguese complained that the water (coming from the mountain) smelled bad (aE wau raE). implying that the people living upstream (people of Kepi) were dirty. The people of Kepi was offended and decided to raise a war againt the Portuguese people. The chief (name of Tegu Demu), being friendly with the Portugues people, would not join the warring party. The party was led by two sisters’ sons of Kepi, Rhorho and Rhéa.

People of Kepi defeated the Portuguese and drove them away form Numba. The people gathered in a place called Raka Tupa and celebrated their victory over the Portuguese. They sent for Kepi, asking him to come down from the mountain and join the feast. The chief of Kepi (Tegu Demu) would not reply.
They had sent messengers for seven days and seven nights.
And then, finally he said:

On hearing this reply, Rhorho and Rhea said:

They arranged the division of the former land of Kepi between the two of them. They went so far as to arrange also the system of land tenure in each domain. Rhorho said:

Rhea said:

Thus the original land of Kepi was divided by his sisters’ sons, Rhéa and Rhorho. The land of Rhéa lies to the west, where the social structure is more feudal (kowé); and the land of Rhorho lies to the east, where the social structure is more egalitarian (iwa kowé).

2.4 Knowledge

Let me summarise the kind of knowledge dealt with in this section.

These rituals have been transmitted from generation to generation (patrilineally). They serve to enhance the solidarity of patrilineal groups (from household to clan, to the ritual domain).

Let us now return to the transmission of knowledge. What is transmitted is a legitimate kind of knowledge (in the sense that it is regarded as central, authentic to the society) — such knowledge as the wording of ritual chants (soasorha) recited on occasions for dhéra (offerings to ancestors). Let me quote the almost formulaic opening of an Ende ritual chant.

Let me summarise vertical transmission. Rituals are transmitted from father to son, accompanied by legitimate knowledge
of rituals This transmission is an inheritance of knowledge. Vertical transmission is, so to speak, the transmission of legitimacy within the kinship system. The sole purpose of the rituals is to enhance the solidarity of patrilineal groups.

3 Illegitimate Knowledge

Let us now proceed to the next section.

The second section deals with the other mode of transmission of knowledge. It is horizontal transmission. It is quite different from vertical transmission in several respects. The most striking contrast is to be found in the nature of the knowledge concerned — vertical transmission/inheritance has to do with legitimate knowledge, whereas the horizontal transmission dealt with in this section has to do with illegitimate knowledge, a socially unapproved kind of knowledge.

Legitimate knowledge has been transmitted from father to son (vertically), while illegitimate knowledge is transmitted horizontally, from seller to buyer. Horizontal transmission of knowledge is spoken of in the idioms of non-kinship, in the idioms of buying and selling (not inheritance or sharing). Whereas vertical inheritance is group-oriented, horizontal transmission is individual-oriented. One behaves selfishly in horizontal transmission. Horizontal transmission is, in a word, transmission outside legitimacy.

Horizontal transmission of knowledge is spoken of in the idioms of non-kinship, in the idioms of buying and selling (not inheritance or sharing). Legitimate knowledge is transmitted vertically (from father to son), while illegitimate knowledge is transmitted horizontally (from seller to buyer).

Whereas vertical inheritance is group-oriented, horizontal transmission is individual-oriented. One behaves selfishly in horizontal transmission. Horizontal transmission is, in short, transmission outside legitimacy.

3.1 Market economy

This kind of transaction, that is, ‘buying’ and ‘selling’, does not occur in the legitimate sphere of Endenese culture, that is, the sphere of kinship.

‘Buying’ and ‘selling’ are performed between non-kin (between strangers). Buying and selling are transactions typically found, in weekly bazaars (Ind. pasar).

At a bazaar, one encounters strangers (non-kin), At a bazaar, one buys and/or sells things with the strangers. In these transactions, the participants’ purpose is obvious, to gain individual profit. They are so selfish that they sometimes cheat and tell lies.

3.2 Witches

Let us now turn to what is transmitted in the horizontal mode of transmission. In Ende, the idea of legitimacy (socially approved values) revolves around kinship ideology (patrilineality), while that of illegitimacy (socially unapproved values) revolves around the idea of witchcraft. This subsection deals with the Endenese idea of witches (ata porho) and the related idea of ‘brave ones’ (tekE ruku).

A witch (ata porho) is the prototype of the evil, the anti-social being in Ende. A witch is imagined to have a human appearance but to possess a substance called wera (in place of an ordinary soul), The wera leaves the witch’s body and visits a victim and does harm to him. A witch in this way ‘attacks’ (tau) someone, because, it is said, of jealousy (rhenE), greed and such personal anti-social feelings. The victim then suffers misfortunes, diseases and, sometimes, death.

A witch (ata porho), described above, is, as it were, defined in physical terms (wera and others). In this way, one is a witch whether one wants to be one or not. There is, however, in Ende, a category of human beings (or quasi-human beings) similar to ‘witches’, defined not in physical terms but in terms of knowledge. A person called tekE ruku is described in similar terms to those used for witches. A tekE ruku has the power to attack people so as to cause misfortune to the victim. The difference is that one becomes tekE ruku willingly.

3.3 Mothers

In this subsection, I deal with the kind of knowledge which is supposed to give power to both witches and ‘brave ones’ (tekE ruku). Here, I take up one such type of knowledge called ‘the mothers’ (inE) and discuss it in some detail.

In Ende cosmology, everything, or every phenomenon, is said to have a ‘mother’. If one knows the name of the mother of a certain thing, it is said, then one can have full control over that thing.

Diseases have their own ‘mothers’ too. If one comes to know the name of the mother of a disease, then one can cure the disease. Of course, that also means that he can, possibly, cause the disease too.

There is only one way of acquiring this kind of knowledge in Ende. That is, one has to buy (mbeta) knowledge. There is a culturally scripted scenario for acquiring this kind of knowledge. I will not go into the details of the procedure. The point is that there is a culturally defined scenario for buying such knowledge as mothers First, he who wants to have a certain piece of secret knowledge (let us call him ‘the buyer’) visits, secretly, a person who is believed to have the knowledge (‘the seller’). The seller, in most narratives, is said to live in a remote village in the west (‘west’ being a kind of evil direction). At night, the story continues, the buyer of the knowledge sits in a specially deferential way (called jou) in front of the seller and hands him money. The seller then whispers the content of the knowledge to the buyer.

To acquire illegitimate knowledge (such as mothers), there is only one way That is, to buy it The purpose is to increase one’s wealth. In this way, he is selfish; he is an anti-social being; he does not care about the groups to which he belongs.

4 Conclusion

Let us summarise this paper in a slightly different way, using the idea of wealth.

In Ende, there are two ways of being wealthy. One way is a socially approved way, and the aim is ‘to be satisfied/full’ via agriculture supported by ‘rituals of land and rocks’. Thus knowledge of ritual is essential to this type of wealth.

The other is a socially unapproved method, and the aim is described as to be rich via esoteric/illegitimate knowledge.

An Ende person is always standing, as it were, at a crossroads between legitimacy and illegitimacy. In this way, one can say that the theme of the culture of Ende is a struggle between good and bad.

One can say that the theme of the culture of Ende is a struggle between good and bad Thus, an Ende person is always standing, as it were, at a crossroads between legitimacy and illegitimacy.

At the end of the paper on topogeny (listing place names sequentially), Pak Jim said that there are only two ways of establising succession, that is, in time or in space (Fox 1997a: 101). The former (succession in time) is genalogy, relying on personal names, while the latter (succession in space) is topogeny, relying on place names (Fox 1997a: 101).

Here in this paper, I suggest there is another pair for ways of succession: on in time and the other in space, just like the genealogy and topogeny pair. This pair

References