1 introduction

2 On Ende

The aim of this paper is to present two contrasting ways of transmission of knowledge among the Ende people of central Flores, (eastern Indonesia) and analyze the social significance of them.

2.1 About Ende

First, let me introduce the Ende people and their culture.

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

I started field work among the Endenese people in 1979 and since then have been to Ende, on and off, until now. There are lots of changes since then In this presentation, I will use the period around 1990s as my focal points.

3 Vertical inheritance and kinship

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They subsisted on slash and burn agriculture (also known as shifting cultivation) .

Even though the influence of market economy was significant, the economy of the Ende people can be said to have been subsistence economy.

4 Legitimate Knowledge

One can discern two ways of transmission of knowledge in Ende. One is a vertical one (transmission across the generations), and the other is a horizontal one (transmission within a generation). First, in this section, I will deal with the vertical transmission of knowledge. Vertical transmission is spoken of in the idioms of the Ende’s kinship system. So, I’ll start my discussion of this section by focusing on kinship.

4.1 Patrilineaity

In Ende, descent is counted 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 for subsistence

Land is inherited from (paternal) ancestors. And it should be utilized only for subsistence. Thus, it is strictly forbidden to sell a parcel of land.

4.2 Agriculture and rituals

Land is owned by a patrilineal group. So one can safely say that kinship, or more particularly, patrilineal descent system, is the basis of agriculture, the subsistence economy in Ende.

4.2.1 Landtenure

This does not mean that one parcel of land is inhabited only by members of the owning clan members. Actually there are a considerable number of outsiders (non-agnates) living in the region. Those outsiders are allowed to work on the land in far as (1) they pay a small tribute to the land-owning group and (2) they follow the ways of ritual of the land-owning group. The first of them, that is, tribute, is just nominal — one chicken, one container full of moke (palm wine) and a container full of rice (manu se Eko, mokE se taso and are se wati) The important condition is the second one, following the ritual of the land-owning group.

4.2.2 Slash and Burn

Now let me proceed to the ways of ritual in Ende. A friend of mine, an agriculture scientist, once told me that he had found that slash and burn agriculture consists in performing rituals as well as pragmatic activities. It is also the case with the Endenese agriculture.

Roughly speaking, the practical activities of agriculture in Ende are as follows: Aug to Sep: clearing the forest (ghagha) Sep: Burning the field (jengi) Dec: Planting the field (tendo) Apr to May: Harvesting of maize and rice (keti)

All those activities are accompanied by various rituals (nggua) Aug to Sep: kaki — Tell the spirits (nitu) that we are going to open the forest (ghagha) Sep: dhEra — make offerings to the ancestors before jengi. Dec: Make an offering to the spirits with prayers dhEra. Dec: Make shrines (mata ngia) for planting. These are the rituals performed separately in each field. They are followed by two important communal rituals at the end of the agricultural cycle. In Apr to May, they hold rituals of maize and rice (pesa uta and nete piso) which are performed by one 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 region of their ritual domain called Tana Rhorho.

Kaki, dhEra etc are held by each household. Pesa uta (for maize) and netE piso (for rice) are held by each clan. and finally, the ritual of tuber crops (kaa uwi) are 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.

Rituals and kin groups

The rituals have been transmitted from generation to generation (patrilineally). They serve to enhance the solidarity of patrilineal groups (from household to the ritual doman).

Now, Let us turn back to the transmission of knowledge. What is transmitted is a legitimate kind of knowledge (in the sense that it is regarded authentic to the society) — pieces of knowledge such as what kind of plant should be used for a particular part of the shrine (mata ngia) or wordings of the ritual chants (soasorha) to be recited on occasions for dhEra (offerings to ancestors). Let me quote the almost formulaic opening of Ende’s Ritual Song.

Ritual chant for dhEra

Rituals are transmitted from father to son and then one after another. It is passed on from one generation to the next. 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.

5 Illegitimate Knowledge

Now we proceed to the next section.

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

Legitimate knowledge has been transmitted from father to son (vertically), while illegitimate kind of 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 of legitimacy.

Horizontal transmission vs Vertical inheritance

5.1 Market economy

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

“Buying” and “selling” are to be performed between non-kin (between strangers). Buying and selling is a kind of transaction to be found, typically, in weekly bazaars (Ind. “pasar”).

At a bazaar, one sees strangers (non-kins), which is a rare occasion among the Endenese, whose social world consists of relatives, mostly. At a bazaar, one buys and/or sells things with the strangers. In these transactions, the participant’s purpose is obvious, to gain individual profits. They are so selfish that they sometimes cheat and tell lies.

5.2 Witches

Now let us turn to what is transmitted in the horizontal mode of transmission In Ende, the idea of legitimacy (socially approved values) revolves around the kinship ideology (patrilineality) while that of illegitimacy (not-socially-approved values) revolves around the idea of witchcraft. This sub-section deals with the Endenese idea of witches (ata porho) and a related idea of “brave ones” (tekE ruku)

(Nakagawa 2020)

A witch (ata porho) is, one could say, a prototype of the evil, the anti-social being in Ende. A witch is imagined to have a humanly appearance but have a substance called wera (instead of an ordinary soul), which leaves the witch’s body and visits and does harm to somebody else. A witch in this way “attacks” (tau) someone, because of, people say, jealousy (rhenE), greed and such personal and 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). One is a witch whether one wants to be or not. But, There is, in Ende, a category of human beings (or quasi-human beings) similar to “witches”, defined not in physical terms but defined in terms of knowledge. A person called tekE ruku is described in similar terms to those used for witches. A tekE ruku has power to attack people so as to cause misfortunes to the victims. The difference is that one becomes tekE ruku willingly.

5.3 Mothers

In this subsection, I will deal with the kind of knowledge (orho mbE’o) which is supposed to give power (orho negi) to both witches and “brave ones” (tekE ruku). Here, I pick up one such type of knowledge called “the mothers” (inE) and explain it in some details.

In the Ende cosmology, every thing or phenomenon is said to have a “mother” (inE). If one knows the name of the mother of a certain thing, they say, then one can have a full control over that thing. Thus, if one knows, for example, the name of the mother of maize, you are sure to have a good harvest of maize. Furthermore, you can command maize in someone else’s field to flee from there so that the owner of the field will get bad harvest.

Diseases have their own “mothers” (inE) too. If one comes to know the name of the mother of a disease, say tooth ache (ngesu), then one can cure ngesu type of tooth ache. Of course, that means that he can, possibly, cause it too.

There is only one way of acquiring this kind of knowledge in Ende. That is, one has to buy (mbeta) knowledge. A scenario of acquiring this kind of knowledge goes like this. First, he who wants to have a certain piece of secrete knowledge (let us call him “the buyer”) visits, secretly, a person who is believed to have the knowledge (“the seller”). The seller, in most of narratives, is said to live in a remote village in the west (“west” is a kind of evil direction).

At night, continues the story, the buyer of the knowledge sits in a specially obedient way (called jou) in front of the seller and hands him money. The seller then whispers the content of the knowledge to the buyer. People like to talk about this kind of scenario of buying knowledge, but never put any more details than the one I recited above. For, it should be apparent, if one knows details of the way, then it might mean that he himself did the “buying” of illegitimate knowledge (and thus, is a witch).

6 Conclusion

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

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

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

Vertical transmission vs Horizontal

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 the good and the bad

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 the good and the bad

7 References