Ritual and reflexes of lost sovereignty in Sikka, a regency of Flores in eastern Indonesia - Brill
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E.D. Lewis
Ritual and reflexes of lost sovereignty
in Sikka, a regency of Flores in eastern
Indonesia
In 1993 some among the Sikkanese population of the town of Maumere on
the north coast of Flores in eastern Indonesia attended a ritual to reconcile the
members of two branches of the family of the rajas of Sikka, a dynasty that
had once ruled the district. The two branches had fallen out over differences
in opinion about the last succession to the office of raja a few years before the
end of the rajadom in the late 1950s. A description of the ritual, which was
conducted in an urban rather than a village setting, and an analysis of the
performance demonstrate much about the persistence of elements of the old
Sikkanese religion in modern Sikkanese society. The contemporary Sikkanese
are Christians and the regency of Sikka is part of the modern Indonesian
nation-state. Thus the performance of a ritual of the old Sikkanese religion in
urban Maumere is sufficiently interesting to merit attention. But when seen
in relation to events that unfolded during the final years of the rajadom of
Sikka, the ritual reveals the continuing importance of ideas about Sikka’s past
sovereignty in contemporary Sikkanese affairs and suggests that conceptions
of polity, rulership, and the idea of Sikkanese sovereignty are still in force
two generations after the era of Sikkanese political sovereignty ended.
This essay was conceived while I was a visitor at the Institutt for Sosialantropologi of the
University of Bergen, Norway, from 15 January to 15 July 2004, and was completed in draft during
a season of fieldwork on Flores in January–February 2005. During my visit to Bergen, Professor
Bruce Kapferer and his colleagues were launching an ongoing anthropological study of the state.
Their work led me to precipitate a long interest in the transition of Sikka from a semi-autonomous
rajadom to a district in modern Indonesia and to the realization that the questions of the origin
and conception of local sovereignty are significant problems in eastern Indonesian ethnology. My
thanks also to Professor Edvard Hviding, Dr Olaf Smedal, and the research students of the Ber-
gen department, all of whom helped ensure that my visit was productive and anthropologically
stimulating. On Flores, Mr Oscar P. Mandalangi helped clarify some points about the accession of
Raja Sentis, and Dr John M. Prior SVD read and suggested emendations to the draft.
E.D. Lewis is a senior lecturer in Anthropology at The University of Melbourne and obtained his
PhD from The Australian National University. Specializing in the ethnology of eastern Indonesia
he is the author of People of the source; The social and ceremonial order of Tana Wai Brama on Flores,
Leiden: KITLV Press, 1988. Dr Lewis may be contacted at edlewis@bigpond.com.
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The historical precursors of an event
Until 1954, kerajaan Sikka – the rajadom of Sikka – on the island of Flores was
one of a number of local states in what is now the province of Nusa Tenggara
Timur (NTT) in the southeastern archipelago of the Republic of Indonesia
(RI). The people of the rajadom trace eighteen rajas who ruled Sikka through
sixteen generations. Records of the colonial government of the Netherlands
East Indies and the government of the rajadom provide some historical
documentation of the last three rajas and the last seventy years of their rule.
In addition to these scant historical documents, the mythic history of the
Sikkanese ruling house preserved a memory not only of Sikka’s eighteen
rajas but of a succession of sixteen generations of lawgivers and big men who
were genealogical ascendants of the first raja. The origin myth of the ruling
house thus establishes a time depth of some 34 generations and recounts the
rajadom’s origin at an undated time much earlier than 1513, the beginning
of the Portuguese era in eastern Indonesia. The story of Sikka’s rulers began,
according to the myth, when people from South Asia were shipwrecked on
the island’s south coast near the present-day village of Sikka. When they
found they could not repair their ship, these strangers intermarried with the
autochthonous people of the region and eventually established Lepo Geté
(SS the Great House). In time, the descendants of the marriages between
newcomers and autochthons became Lepo Geté and the region’s rulers.
On 18 May 1954, Don Josephus Thomas Ximenes da Silva, a late son of
Lepo Geté and the penultimate ruler of the rajadom of Sikka, died at the age
of 59 while on a visit to the town of Ende on the south-central coast of Flores.
Raja Don Thomas, as he was known, was the eighteenth in the line of rulers of
the rajadom of Sikka. His death complicated the transition of the rajadom from
semi-autonomous state in the Netherlands East Indies to its status as a kabupat-
en (regency; the next level below the administrative level of the province) of
the new Indonesian province of NTT. Raja Thomas’s unexpected death came
NTT includes the Lesser Sunda Islands of Sumba, Savu, Roti (Rote), Adonara, Solor, Lembata
(Lomblen), Pantar, Flores, and the western half of the island of Timor.
I use SS to mean Sara Sikka, the language of Sikka, and BI to mean Bahasa Indonesia.
The mythic history of Lepo Geté, the Sikkanese ruling house, was preserved by oral trans-
mission well into the twentieth century. While it is no longer known as a corpus of orally trans-
mitted myth among contemporary Sikkanese, two closely congruent versions of the myth were
written down in the first half of the twentieth century by two men who were among the first
literate generation of Sikkanese. See Lewis (forthcoming) for a detailed account of the mythic
histories of the rulers of Sikka.
Born 13 July 1895. The people of the village of Sikka, from which the district takes its name,
acquired Portuguese names during the early years of the Portuguese period in eastern Indone-
sia.
Or fifteenth or seventeenth, depending on how they are counted; there are a small number of
different versions of the genealogy of the rajas of Sikka.
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before the resolution of twelve years of turmoil in Indonesia and Sikka, and
before the civil administration of the new nation was fully in place in the north
coastal town of Maumere, the seat of government of the rajadom of Sikka.
The Japanese army occupied Flores in 1942 and interned the Dutch civil
administrators and European priests and missionaries of the Catholic church
they captured on the island. When the Japanese arrived in Flores, they pre-
served the existing patchwork of the island’s rajadoms, with themselves replac-
ing the Dutch as colonial rulers. Thus it was that the rule of Raja Don Thomas
da Silva, whose reign in Sikka had begun in 1920 under the Dutch, continued
under the Japanese and then well into the first decade of the post-war years.
For eighty years before the momentous arrival of the Japanese in Maumere,
Sikka was one of many local states in what the Dutch called the Groote Oost,
the ‘Great East’. These states were governed by ruling houses whose sov-
ereignty the Dutch recognized by treaties under their policy of zelfbestuur,
or self-rule. In the Lesser Sunda Islands, many of these treaties confirmed
the sovereignty of ruling houses that predated the Dutch acquisition of the
islands by treaty with Portugal in 1859. The rajadom of Sikka, which had
been ruled from its beginning by the dynasty of the Da Silva family, who
made up Lepo Geté, was one such semi-autonomous state.
The Dutch did not return to Flores after the war and, in 1945, profound
events began unfolding in Java, far to the west of Flores. On 17 August
1945, after the capitulation of the Japanese army in Indonesia and building
on a decades-long history of Muslim, nationalist, and Communist agitation
against the Dutch, Sukarno and Indonesian nationalists proclaimed the
independence of Indonesia as a nation. British troops arriving in Java from
South Asia after the Japanese surrender found that island in chaos, but with
a strong nationalist movement ready to take power and construct a govern-
ment. However, the Dutch, who had lost their East Indies when the Japanese
invaded in 1942, expected they would return to Indonesia and resume as
the archipelago’s colonial overlords. While negotiating with the Indonesian
nationalists for the formation of a United States of Indonesia (USI), the Dutch
launched a series of military operations in Java and Sumatra aimed, if not at
regaining their lost colony, then at weakening the nationalists’ hold on the
population, thereby helping to ensure that the new USI would be a partner
in a new Netherlands–Indonesia union, with the queen of the Netherlands
at its head. This, the Dutch thought, would preserve as much Dutch influ-
ence in Indonesia as possible and would ensure that the Netherlands ben-
efited as much as possible from a close association with the populous and
resource-rich archipelago.
As they departed from Indonesia in defeat, the Japanese had granted Indonesia its inde-
pendence, a declaration which the Dutch and the Allies and, indeed, the Javanese nationalists,
ignored. The Japanese surrender in Java was received by British troops.
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The Indonesian republicans had other ideas and, with weapons captured
from the departing Japanese, vigorously resisted the Dutch military incur-
sions in Java. Negotiations and warfare with the Dutch continued and, in
their wake, came internal political difficulties for the republicans. From 1945
until well into the 1950s, the nationalists were preoccupied, first with resist-
ance against the Dutch, and then with the establishment of a civil adminis-
tration in Java, Indonesia’s most populous island. Thus the creation of a new
government in Indonesia dragged on in the post-war years.
The Dutch insisted that an independent and self-governing Indonesia
would be a federation of four states. These were to be Java, Sumatra,
Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), and the Groote Oost, the Great East or
Timur Besar (BI). The Dutch encouraged the establishment of Timur Besar as
Negara Indonesia Timur (NIT), the State of Eastern Indonesia. In July 1946,
Raja Thomas of Sikka and Raja Bapa Kaya of Adonara went to Makassar,
South Sulawesi, as delegates of the rajas of Flores to attend the Malino
Conference, whose participants included officials from the pre-war Dutch
colonial government and representatives of the various local states of eastern
Indonesia and Kalimantan. The conference was organized by Dutch offi-
cials, who had just returned from exile in Australia, and was led by H.J. van
Mook, lieutenant-governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. The aim of the
conference was to build support among the outer island states for a federal
government for Indonesia in opposition to the plans of the nationalists for a
centralized republic. Despite opposition from the republicans in Java, who
sent political operatives to the outer islands in an effort to undermine the
Dutch-sponsored states, and with Flores as one of its districts, the Malino
Conference led to the creation of Negara Timur Besar (State of the Great
East), which came into being on 24 December 1946. A year later the state’s
name was changed to Negara Indonesia Timur (State of Eastern Indonesia).
In 1949, two years after its formation and after the Dutch and Indonesian
nationalists reached agreement about the future republic, NIT entered the
Republic of Indonesia, but it was not abolished until 17 August 1950, when
the federal structure of the new republic was replaced by a centralized gov-
ernmental structure and Indonesia became a unitary state.
While negotiations and warfare dragged on in Java, Flores continued to
go its own way while awaiting the outcome of the Dutch and republicans’
struggle to define an independent Indonesian state. In 1948 Raja Thomas was
elected head of the Dewan Raja-Raja Flores (Council of Rajas of Flores), the
interim government of Flores, and after that became head of the District of
For a summary of the Malino Conference see Yong Mun Cheong 1982:86-90.
Officials of the government of the Dutch East Indies returning from Australia established
their headquarters in Makassar on the island of Sulawesi.
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Flores. From 1948 until his retirement, Raja Thomas spent much of his time in
Ende, the capital of the District of Flores in the NIT. When he became head of
the District of Flores, Thomas designated his younger brother, Paulus Sentis
(or Centis) da Silva, as vice-raja (BI wakil raja) for Sikka, charged with the
administration of the old rajadom. Once the NIT adopted a democratic and
republican governmental structure, Thomas was elected as Ketua Dewan
Swapraja10 (head of the Swapraja Council), the NIT’s representative council
(Pareira 1992).
While the victory of the republicans in Java and Sumatra ended any pros-
pect that the NIT would remain independent, even a minimal presence of
the republican government on Flores was still a few years in the future. And
so, as he had done for twenty years before and during the Japanese occupa-
tion, Raja Thomas da Silva continued to rule his rajadom, with his brother as
vice-raja in the last years. In 1953, because of illness, he stepped down from
his office in the Council of Rajas, which had continued its activities after the
NIT was absorbed by the new republic, and returned to Maumere and retire-
ment.11 By 1954 the Republic’s authority was beginning to be felt and the new
Indonesian government was beginning to assert its presence in the Moluccas
and Lesser Sundas, and on Flores.12
This, in brief summary, was Sikka’s situation when Luis Manteiro, succes-
sor to the headship of the District of Flores in the NIT and a colleague of Raja
Thomas on the Council, invited Raja Thomas to Ende to receive President
Soekarno when the president visited the town in 1954.
Death, succession and schism
Before the war, the Dutch twice arrested Soekarno for political agitation. In
1933, after his second arrest, he was exiled to Ende, the district to the west of
Sikka. In 1954, he visited the town of Ende on the south coast of Flores, for
whose people he professed affection and fond memories. Although he had
retired from government, Raja Thomas accompanied his younger brother,
the regent of Sikka, Sentis da Silva, to Ende to meet Soekarno. To date, no
records of what transpired at that meeting have come to light, but the future
of Flores and its relation to the RI must have entered the discussion. After the
meeting with Soekarno, Thomas visited friends in Ende. He then returned to
10 Swapraja was a term used under the Dutch regime for an autonomous and self-governing
district.
11 One Sikkanese informant dated Thomas’s retirement in 1952.
12 Exactly how the new Republic of Indonesia extended its authority to Flores and incorporated
the new and short-lived NIT and the old rajadoms of the region into the larger nation are neither
well documented nor well understood. Indeed, this gap in the history of Nusa Tenggara Timur
would be a good subject for historical research.
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room number 5 in the Hotel Flores, where he suffered a massive heart attack
and died without presage at three o’clock in the afternoon.13
From the point of view of the government in Jakarta, by 1954 Flores and the
rest of Nusa Tenggara Timur were, on paper, part of the Republic. However,
Jakarta had a minimal presence on Flores at the time of Raja Thomas’s death.
Sentis had served as vice-raja while Raja Thomas was engaged with govern-
mental affairs in Ende and carried on as regent following Thomas’s retire-
ment, but the circumstances of the succession and whether or not the title of
raja devolved to him are unclear.
In the course of fieldwork in Sikka since 1977 I have heard the Sikkanese
refer to the succession and the uncertainty surrounding it in different ways.
What is clear is that no formal transfer of sovereignty or rule over the district
from the royal house of Sikka to the government of the RI ever occurred. The
rajas of eastern Indonesia served at the pleasure of the Dutch colonial gov-
ernment under its policy of zelfbestuur (self-rule). Since the republican rebels
had successfully removed the Dutch from power, it likely never occurred to
them that a formal transfer of sovereignty from the rajas to the Republic was
required. I have found neither documentary nor oral evidence that anyone in
Sikka agitated for a formal transfer of power over the regency.
By one view, that of at least some of the Sikkanese people, Sentis was the
nineteenth raja of their rajadom. By another view (certainly that of Jakarta,
whose officials could not be trusted to know where Flores was and who had
likely never heard of the rajadom of Sikka), Sentis was, at most, a caretaker
until a civil administration could be established in Maumere by the republi-
can government. Some in the district have described Sentis’s succession as de
facto in the absence of a regent (or bupati, the executive officer of a kabupaten)
appointed by Jakarta in the new governmental system. Some have told me
that Raja Thomas never formally relinquished his office, and that Sentis acted
as an assistant or vice-raja on behalf of Raja Thomas, who, while preoccupied
with the government of Flores and the NIT in Ende, nevertheless retained his
office as raja of Sikka. Others have suggested that, in the absence of a bupati,
Sentis held proper title to his office and full rights in it.
Notwithstanding the confusion over the succession, in the 28 years in
which I have carried out fieldwork in Kabupaten Sikka, people with whom
I have spoken have, without exception, referred to Sentis as ‘Raja Sentis’.
Indeed, the main commercial thoroughfare in the town of Maumere is named
Jalan Raja Centis (Raja Centis Street).
13 Documents and sources on the history of Sikka in the years 1945–1955 are scarce. This ac-
count of Raja Thomas’s death is drawn from a book-length manuscript on the history of Sikka
by D.D.P. Kondi, a kapitang (district officer) in Raja Thomas’s government (Lewis forthcoming),
Pareira (1992), and da Gomez and Mandalangi (2003).
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In a massive unpublished compilation of the genealogies of the people
of Sikka, M. Mandalangi Pareira (n.d.) provides a ‘Susunan Raja-Raja Sikka’
(‘Sequence [or Succession] of the Rajas of Sikka’). Pareira lists Paulus Sentis as
Sikka’s last raja (the eighteenth, by his count) and identifies him parentheti-
cally as ‘Ketua Dewan’ (‘Head of the Council’).14 Pareira also gives the dates of
Raja Sentis’s service in office as ‘1954–1960’. Sentis thus served as the executive
officer of the rajadom as it made the transition from semi-autonomous state
under the old colonial regime to administrative district in the new Republic.
Two things, however, are certain. Firstly, Paul Samador da Cunha, the first
bupati of Sikka appointed by the government of the RI, took office in 1959 and
served through 1969.
Secondly, Raja Thomas had two adult sons: Daniel, by his first wife Du’a
Eba, and Hendrikus (or Hendrik)15 by his second wife Du’a Bese. Daniel was
the elder of the two and was a child by a first marriage. He would thus have
had the stronger claim to the title of raja. Because Raja Thomas had sons, not
all in Sikka, nor in the da Silva family, were happy with his brother Sentis
acting as raja. Indeed, coming at a time of rapid social and political change,
Thomas’s death led to a schism in Lepo Geté, the royal house of Sikka, and in
the da Silva family, a rift which would last forty years, until 1993.
The schism in Lepo Geté had a straightforward origin. When Raja Thomas
died, his brother, Sentis da Silva, was acting as raja rather than his son,
Don Josephus Luis Daniel Ximenes da Silva (see Figure 1). It is not clear on
present evidence how the appointment of Sentis was made and whether Raja
Thomas had formally designated Sentis as vice-raja when Thomas took up
his duties in Ende. He had, however, named his eldest son, Daniel da Silva,
as heir to the rajadom and the title of raja. The succession as set out by Raja
Don Thomas was fully in accord with precedent and with Sikkanese hadat.16
The various genealogies of the rajas of Sikka show a clear preference for the
lineal succession of the office from father to son, although on three occasions,
siblings of a raja inherited the office.17 Where the succession was from father
to son, the preference was for the eldest son of a raja’s first wife to become
raja, the office thereby passing to the eldest son.18
14 That is, the Dewan Pemerintahan Setempat (DPS), the local councils of the swapraja in the
system of government of the NIT.
15 Hendrikus da Silva emigrated to the Netherlands in the 1950s and lived with his family in
Utrecht, where he died in 2001. Although I visited the Netherlands frequently in the years before
his death, I never had an opportunity to interview Hendrikus.
16 Hadat (SS; BI adat) is custom, tradition, habit, practice; customary law, propriety. In Sikkanese
usage, the term encompasses all ceremonies and rituals other than those of the Catholic church.
17 Two of the sibling successions, both among the early rajas of Sikka, were from brother to
sister; see Lewis 1996:162 .
18 By this preference, Hendrikus da Silva would not have been a likely candidate to inherit his
father’s position, even had he not emigrated.
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Even if Thomas had not nominated his successor and the choice of the
new raja had fallen to others, on the basis of genealogical proximity to Raja
Thomas, the strongest claimants would have been the brother who had been
acting in the office for two years, and the eldest son, whose claim would have
had the backing of precedent and tradition.
When Daniel married at Hada Béwa on 26 July 1944, Guru19 Mandalangi
Pareira composed a song for the event that included the following lines for
a solo singer:
Don Luis da Silva, Don Luis da Silva,
Raja Muda Sikka, The crown prince of Sikka,
Putera mahkota, The crowned [that is, designated] prince,
Tanah Maumere Of the land of Maumere.
The designation of Daniel da Silva as raja muda (BI crown prince) was known
publicly in Sikka and the people of the rajadom expected Daniel to become
raja following the death of Don Thomas. This did not happen. Why remains
unclear to this day. Whatever the reason, given political developments in
Indonesia, the question of the succession in the rajadom of Sikka would soon
become, at least from the point of view of governmental affairs, irrelevant.
Thus, by hadat, Don Josephus (Yosef) Daniel da Silva, Thomas’s oldest son
by his first wife Du’a Eba (see Figure 1), should have inherited the position
of raja. Instead, Thomas’s younger brother, Paulus Sentis da Silva, was left
holding the title. By whom this appointment was made is not clear, but it is
possible that representatives of the new RI may have had a hand in it. If so,
one factor in their thinking may have been that it would be better to appoint
an older man rather than a younger one, since the young man might press
his claims to rule for many more years than the older man, thus lengthening
and perhaps complicating Sikka’s transition from rajadom to administrative
regency in the new government structure. Certainly, by 1954 the sovereignty
of Lepo Geté and the Da Silvas was coming to an end in the train of post-war
political developments in Indonesia. All that could have been at issue for
claimants to the title of raja would have been the residual honorific status of
recognition as heir, had the rajadom not been dissolved.
Notwithstanding the complexities of the succession when Thomas’s
brother continued acting as raja following Thomas’s death, Daniel da Silva
maintained throughout his life that he had been designated raja muda (BI
prince, heir to the title) by his father before his death. Daniel argued that
Sentis was never properly inaugurated and that the hadat ceremony of instal-
lation, whereby the new raja is proclaimed and then carried in procession
through the rajadom, was never performed. Furthermore, the regalia of the
19 Guru is the honorific for schoolteachers. Guru Mandalangi was Guru Edmundus Pareira’s
elder brother (see p. 316).
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via free accessRaja Mbo Didinong
Raja Andréas
Raja Mbako II Tareja Diding
Jati
Raja Raja Nong
Eba Raja Don Thomas Bésé Andréas Sélong Alésu
Paulus Méak da Silva
Sentis
Don Yosephus Luis Hendrikus
Rosalia Martina Piet Mikael Eduardus
Daniel Ximenes da Silva da Silva
Yosef W.R. (Dedi) Don Thomas
da Silva Gres da Silva
Descendants of Raja Thomas Descendants of Raja Sentis
Figure 1. Genealogy showing the two lineages of Lepo Geté (the Da Silva family) between whom the rift occurred (extracted from
Pareira n.d. and other sources). Those attending the hu’er héréng and other principals mentioned in the text are in bold.
via free access
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office of raja, which passes from raja to raja rather than from father to son as
the estate of a family, was alienated from Raja Don Thomas’s branch of the
family, contrary to his wishes.20 Therein lay the source of the schism that split
the da Silva family for forty years.
In the end, Sentis was a transitional figure as the government of the RI
began establishing its authority in Maumere in the middle 1950s. If my sur-
mise from informants’ allusions to the matter is correct, Don Yosef Daniel
never reconciled himself to this arrangement and abetted, and perhaps insti-
gated and fuelled, an enmity between the two branches of the family which
were closest to the line of rajas. With Daniel’s death in 1993, the alienation of
his branch of the family from the larger number of da Silvas could be put to
rest. Thus, by 1954, sovereignty had vanished, but not the importance of the
title, nor, indeed, the hadat and hierarchies that underpinned it.
The hu’er héréng
If, as Lévi-Strauss (1962:242) once remarked, ‘archives are the embodied
essence of the event’, it is also the case that the close analysis of events in the
life of a community can reveal the mentally archived culture of the people
acting in them. This is the assumption underlying this analysis of the cer-
emony in Maumere in 1993.
Don Yosef Daniel da Silva died a few weeks before 17 July 1993, when a ritu-
al to repair the rift in the Da Silva family was held, and was buried in his house-
yard. Indeed, the death was the event that precipitated the ritual. Reconciliation
of the two branches of the family would have been impossible while Don Yosef
Daniel lived because he never reconciled himself to not being raja. He was thus
the main antagonist in the rift between the two branches of the Da Silva family
and in Lepo Geté. The rite was performed at his house in Maumere.
The participants spoke of the ritual as a hu’er héréng (SS). Hu’er means ‘to
measure’ (BI: mengukur; hu’er lalang blong apa ha, to measure the length of a
road). Héréng is any rite, ritual, or ceremony and, as a verb, means to minister
or pass judgment. The phrase hu’er héréng can refer to rituals done for many
purposes, but most particularly those that include a ritual or ceremonial
feast. A hu’er héréng is the equivalent of a kenduri (BI a ritual feast, usually
accompanied by the exchange of prestations, given on a special occasion in
someone’s honour) elsewhere in Indonesia. In Sikkanese ritual speech one
hears the phrase:
20 The raja’s regalia include a golden helmet dating to the Portuguese era in eastern Indonesia
which carries the date ‘1607’, a gold-headed walking-stick, golden necklaces and bracelets, and
various other paraphernalia. Raja Thomas is attired in the regalia of office in most of the few
formal photographs which survive on Flores and in Dutch archives.
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Niang hu’er tana héréng measured land, consecrated earth (that is,
ground sanctified either by the deity or spirits,
or by ritual specialists for the performance of
sacrificial rites).
The rite of reconciliation of the branches of Lepo Geté involved the sacrifice
of coconuts and a pig, a meal shared between the two parties, and focused
on representatives of the two branches of the house. People attending the rite
spoke obliquely and euphemistically of the matter the rite addressed as a
perselisihan (BI dispute, quarrel, disagreement).
Edmundus Pareira, a retired schoolteacher from Sikka Natar, came to
Maumere to act as tua adat (BI leader of the ritual) for the hu’er héréng.21
Sikka Natar is the village of Sikka on the south coast of the district from
which the old rajadom and the contemporary regency of Sikka take their
names. Although the apparatus of the raja’s government moved to Maumere
in the 1910s, the Sikkanese still consider Sikka Natar to be the cultural and
historical capital of the district. Edmundus Pareira is the younger brother of
M. Mandalangi Pareira. Until Mandalangi’s death in 2001, the two brothers,
the elder living in Maumere and the younger in Sikka Natar, were renowned
throughout the district as experts on Sikkanese history and hadat. Guru
Mundus retains that reputation today.
Guru Mundus had prepared a three-page typescript, a script of the hu’er
héréng he would conduct, in duplicate (I obtained a copy) and worked from it
as he proceeded with the rites. He was assisted by Gondolphus Pareira, one
of his nephews and former students, who read the part of the komentar (BI
commentary). Guru Mundus spoke the core of the ritual in Sikkanese ritual
speech, and Gondolphus’s role was to explain the proceedings in Indonesian
to the crowd of onlookers. The commentator’s role was also scripted by Guru
Mundus.
Guru Mundus structured the hu’er héréng as seven rites, each introduced
by a commentary. Each commentary was read from the text that Guru
Mundus prepared and was followed by a brief recitation in Sikkanese ritual
speech performed by Guru Mundus.
The ceremony and feast that followed were attended by about 300 people.
The audience included members of the da Silva family, high-ranking digni-
taries including officials of the kabupaten government, invited guests, others
who were welcomed without a formal invitation, and more than a few people
who apparently wandered in off the street. The guests were seated formally
on folding chairs in the houseyard. Many members of the Da Silva family sat
21 Guru Mundus, as he is known, is now in his eighties and was my language teacher in Sikka
Natar when I arrived there to begin ethnographic fieldwork in Sikka by studying the local lan-
guage.
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with their guests, while older men and women of the Da Silva family and the
principals sat on the verandah of the house overlooking the yard.
The core of the ceremony was a Sikkanese rite of sacrificial cooling. Such
rituals require the sacrifice of a pig, whose blood is sprinkled and smeared on
the thing or person to be cooled. After the animal is sacrificed, the ritualist cuts
open a coconut with a bush knife and dips leaves from forest vines or other
forest plants into the open coconut. The things or persons to be cooled are then
sprinkled with the coconut water by shaking the wet leaves over them. In the
hu’er héréng for the Da Silva family, a pig was killed and Guru Mundus daubed
its blood on the hands and foreheads of people from both groups of the family
for whom the ritual was performed. Blood was also spilled and smeared at the
first step of the stairs leading from the houseyard to the verandah of the house.
Additional coconuts (kabor mbali bura SS ‘white [cleansing, purifying] Balinese
coconut’, the term designating any coconut used in a rite of cooling) were cut
open and their water sprinkled on everyone in attendance and on the front
steps and around the verandah of the house.22
Following the hadat rites performed by Guru Mundus and the commen-
tator, a prayer service was led by two young frater (seminarians) from the
Catholic seminary at Ledalero in central Sikka. The seminarians had not
been well briefed and appeared somewhat startled when they arrived to
find preparations in train for a hadat ritual in the centre of Maumere. Their
amazement was perhaps justified. While performances of rituals founded in
the old, pre-Christian ceremonial system of Sikka occur occasionally in the
town of Maumere and frequently in some of the villages of central Sikka
and in Tana ‘Ai, those in town tend to be smaller in scale and are carried out
more circumspectly than those in the villages. The seminarians managed to
get Don Daniel’s name wrong, to the quiet amusement of some present. The
seminarians’ homily was on the theme of knowing oneself and choosing the
path leading to heaven, that is, the Catholic path.
The newly appointed bupati (regent) of Kabupaten Sikka arrived for the
prayer service and the feast that followed; I sat with him and Ignas da Cunha,
a member of the family with whom I am most closely associated in Sikka
Natar, on the leading row in the seating plan. The feast, served to perhaps
more than 300 people, was well prepared and quite good. Tuak (SS a strong
gin made from the juice of the Borassus palm) flowed copiously, as is proper
on occasions of high ceremony in Sikka.
22 The ritual actions of animal sacrifice and the manipulation of the blood of sacrificed animals
and coconut water for ritual cooling are known generally throughout east-central Flores. Indeed,
taking into account variable ritual practice, they are widespread in Indonesian ritual and cer-
emonial systems and are practically universal in the local religions of eastern Indonesian societ-
ies. For a good general survey of sacrifice in eastern Indonesia see Howell (1996), especially her
introduction and, for Flores, the papers in ‘I. Flores and Lembata’.
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The following is a transcript of the tape recording I made of the ritual on
17 July 1993, excepting parts of the rite at Don Daniel’s grave. The perform-
ance followed closely, though not word for word, the script prepared by
Guru Mundus. The version below is a transcript of the tape recording organ-
ized here into sections as in Guru Mundus’s typed programme and script.
Transcript of the ritual
Hu’er Héréng Sara Sikka The ceremony in Sara Sikka
Tena Puli Papa Blirang Blatang Tebo to balance the sides and cool the corpse
Acara (BI agenda item) 1
Komentar: Commentary:
Ina ama wué wari mogan sawé, lu’ur Mothers, fathers, and siblings, cousins close
dolor dading, é’i Lepo Geté é’i and distant here at the Great House of the
keluarga da Silva Lepo Geté wi da Silva family, whom we honour and
hormat molé tabé mora.23 respect.
Lero é’i tanggal tujuhbelas Juli é’i Today on the seventeenth of July at this
Lepo Geté té’i diadakan satu acara Great House we celebrate the first of seven
awal sebelum acara semana pitu wi weeks of ceremonies for our deceased
mateng wué ama ‘itang, pulamé brother and father, our mother’s brother,
‘itang, Mo’ang mateng Don Yos Luis the honoured dead, Don Yos Luis Daniel
Daniel Ximenes da Silva. Ximenes da Silva.
Maka atas kesepakatan keluarga, Thus with the agreement of the family, and
terlebih dahulu diawali dengan as formerly with a ritual, an hadat ritual, or
upacara, upacara hadat, atau hu’er hu’er héréng in Sara Sikka, to resolve an
héréng Sara Sikka é’i acara eba go’is, evil matter, to embrace the feet and kiss the
apu wa’ing piru limang, blirang blatang hands, to cool the dead, to be received truly
tebo tena himo tiong té’ar bélang. and received properly (to be done joyfully).
Upacara ini bertujuan: memulihkan This rite is intended to remedy the
kembali paju paong ayah anda terhadap calamity24 of your father which faces his
anak anda putera sulungnya first-born son Don Y.W.R. da Silva, Dedi,
Don Y.W.R. da Silva, Dedi sekeluarga. and the family.
Dengan mendahulukan acara ini, kiranya Allowing this ceremony to be done first,
Almarhum, almarhum ayah anda sudah may your deceased fathers abundantly
melimpahkan ampun dan maaf atas salah forgive and pardon the son’s wrong steps
langkah putera yang mungkin menyayati which perhaps cut him, cut his heart, sliced
beliau, menyaiyat kalbu, mengiris hati. his liver.
23 The commentary accompanying the ritual was spoken in a mixture of Sara Sikka and Indo-
nesian. Phrases in Sara Sikka are rendered in italics in this transcription.
24 Paju: curse, bane; paong: calamity, bad luck, misfortune (brought on by a curse or misbehav-
iour toward one’s parents or others).
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Dengan demikian yang kusut selesai yang And with it, that complicated matter will be
keliru terpulih kembali. Serta semenjak put to rest, and that which was an error will
hari ini segala sesuatu diluruskan kembali, be repaired. With what we do today all things
lapang jalan, lurus tujuan, hidup untung, will be straightened out again, the road
muruh rezeki, jiwa raga sehat sentosa. widened, the intentions straightened, life
prosperous, requirements of life fulfilled,
body and soul will be healthy and serene.
Mari kita bersama mengikuti sapaan adat Let us together speak an adat greeting to
kepada leluhur agar sudi mendengarkan the ancestors in order to be willing to hear
dan menerima seruan keluarga Bapak and receive the appeal of Bapak Edmundus
Edmundus Pareira sebagai tua adat kami Pareira as our adat leader; we prepare
bersiap. ourselves.
Edmundus:
Oh, ina ama nian tana wawa,25 Oh, mother father land and earth below,
Ama lero wulan réta, Father sun and moon above,
Ina koparae raja, The greatest of mothers who rule us,
Ratu gita bang tara, The ruler who sees and answers,
5 Oh topo ora ina nitu pitu, Oh, summon the mother of the seven
ancestral spirits,
Ama noang mulang walu, And eight paternal spirits of the house’s
central post,
Nitu deri wali ulu, The spirits sitting in the house’s centre,
Noang gera wali higung, The spirits standing in the house’s corners,
Nitu miu ina buang, The maternal spirits who bore you,
10 Noang miu ama ga’e, The paternal spirits who cradled you,
Nitu ina maté nulu, The spirits of the mothers who died long ago,
Noang ama potat wa’a, The spirits of the lost fathers who preceded
you,
Gléke ba’a ‘ami ulu benu, You who are all arrayed and fill the interior
of our house,
Golé mogat tédang norang, You who encircle our sitting platform,
15 Naha mai mogat tédeng gléke, You must come in rows and ranks,
Mai mogat turang ‘ara, Come facing all directions,
Kamang lopa héing a’u pépang ‘au, So that I am not separated from you,
Beweng a’u jong au, Nor chased away and kept apart from you,
Odi a’u a hi’it ‘ang lé Lio, Nor exiled to eat my meals in Lio,
20 Hitang ‘ang réta Jawa Nor banished to eat far away in Larantuka,26
25 This couplet is usually rendered as ina niang tana wawa, ama lero wulang réta, ‘mother land
and earth below, father sun and moon above’. Mother Land and Earth, Father Sun and Moon are,
together, the deity of the old Sikkanese religion.
26 Lio (line 19) is the ethnolinguistic region to the west of Sikka. Speakers of the Lionese lan-
guage live in western Kabupaten Sikka and eastern Kabupaten Ende. In Sara Sikka, jawa (lines 20,
28, and 56) means the island of Java (properly, Jawa wawa, where wawa means ‘distant, far away,
toward or into the wind’). It is also the word for Larantuka (line 20) (both the district and the
town), which is properly Jawa réta, ‘Jawa above’ or ‘upward’. The word jawa appears three times
as a term in pairs of terms in Guru Mundus’s text: Lio // Jawa (Lio and Larantuka) in lines 19-20,
Sogé // Jawa (Ende and Larantuka) in lines 27-28, and Sina // Jawa (China and Java) in lines 55-56.
The name Larantuka refers to Kota Larantuka, the capital of Kabupaten East Flores but is also
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A’u huk lekuk nera ‘waler, I think deeply about the past,
Huk uneng mata na’ing, I contemplate the traces of former times,
Mai ‘apu Amang wa’ing, Come embrace the father’s feet,
Mai piru Inang limang. Come kiss the mother’s hands.
Acara 2
Komentar: Commentary:
Kita meningkat ke acara berikut, acara We reach the ceremony which follows, the
eba go’is. Tujuannya ialah agar paju paong, ceremony for an evil matter. Its purpose is to
dibatalkan dienyahkan jauh jauh dengan nullify and expel the calamity and misfortune
mengembalikan berkat sertalah restu far away so blessing will return along with the
leluhur baginya. Dedi dan ibu dan anak ... good wishes of the ancestors. For Dedi and
mother [his wife] and [his] children ...
Edmundus:
25 Hélé hélé ga blawir, Retreat into the distance,
Epa epa ‘a éwang, Step aside and go to the farthest end,
Ma Sogé mang Pagang mang, Retreat to Ende and to Paga,
Jawa mang Muhang mang, To Larantuka and to Muhang,
Lau ina naga natar, Down to the mother who watches over the
naga’s fields,27
30 Lau Kéi tana timu Down to Kéi and to the eastern islands,
Tibong deri nora lepo, So youths living in the house,
Doit gera nora woga, So the children living in the pavilion,
‘Liting naha gi’it, Can live strongly [intimately] with this land,
‘Lér naha mangang. And dwell with strength as natives of this
earth.
Acara 3
Komentar: Commentary:
Kita meningkat ke acara berikut, We have reached the ceremony which follows,
riwa likat, waeng méang mata mi’ak. the riwa likat (repair of errors with material
sacrifice), the shamed face and dirty eyes.
used generally to mean the whole of the Florenese mainland in Kabupaten East Flores, which en-
compasses islands to the east of Flores. Ende is Kabupaten Ende, to the west of Kabupaten Sikka,
whose capital is the town of Ende. Sogé (line 27) is the Sara Sikka word for Ende. Paga (Pagang,
line 27) is a large village in western Sikka on the border of the Sikkanese and Lionese regions of
Kabupaten Ende; Muhang (line 28; ‘islanders’, that is, people from Larantuka and the islands
east of Flores) is the region of Lamaholot-speaking people in the far northeastern corner of Ka-
bupaten Sikka near the border with Kabupaten Flores Timur (East Flores). Sina means China and
Chinese in Sara Sikka and other Indonesian languages.
27 Naga: reticulated python, a sacred snake on Flores.
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Tujuannya, ialah memulihkan kesalahan Its purpose is to repair errors and wrong
atau kekeliruan dengan menyerahkan doings with the surrender of sarongs, shirts,
oung patang, ‘utang labu, lipa lensu kepada and head cloths to the dead, which will then
almarhum yang nanti diletakkan keatas be placed on top of the grave and then given
pusara dan sesudah itu diserahkan to the church. Adat leader [addressing Guru
kepada Gereja. Tua adat kami silahkan. Edmundus], if you please. Let us all
Mari kita semua menghantar ke kuburan. accompany him to the grave.
[All present proceed to grave in the houseyard, where Edmundus speaks the following:]
Edmundus:
35 O nitu ina buang, Oh, spirit of the ancestral mother who bore us,
Noang ama ga’e, Spirit of the ancestral father who cradled us,
A’u mai hugu buluk, I come bowing low in submission,
A’u mai kongong jura, I come hunched over with reverence,
Buluk a’u ata blutuk, I am submissive as a small child,
40 Doik au niu nurak, As a small child just cutting teeth,
Héléng loa lopa tobang, Do not banish me and make me fall,
Béweng ‘lo’a lopa jong, Do not chase me away and keep me apart
from you,
Rudu lopa ilur meti, Do not curse me until my saliva dries up.
Reweng lopa mang marak, Nor cause my tongue to dry,
45 Moro lopa meti uneng, Do not bear anger toward me,
Harang lopa na’i wateng, Do not keep fury at me in your heart,
Hu’u lé’u réta uwung krus, I honour that which is up on the cross,
Hama lé’u wawa wa’ing mi’ak. And that with muddy feet below,
A’u neni nere soba, I ask for water flowing from the roof,
50 Plawi du puli papa, And beg also for balance on both sides,
Himo lé’u oung patang, Receive all of these sarongs,
‘Ami diat ‘ami dokang, Which we give as gifts for you,
Ma dena sapu blatang, Go with these blankets against the cold,
Sa’e wi’ing wali napeng. In which to wrap yourselves.
Komentar: Commentary:
Sang putera memohon, agar almarhum The son prays that the dead will be willing to
sudi memaafkan kebapa menghilangkan forgive and set aside his anger and fury, and
amarah serta murka, dengan belas kasih. will give compassion.
Ditandai dengan sarung baju, lipa lensu, This is signalled with the sarong, blouse, and
menjadi selimut, penyegar tubuh di alam head cloth, which will become blankets to
baka. ... Mari kita pulang keatas. refresh the body in the eternal world. ... Let us
return to the house.
[People return to the verandah of the house].
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Acara 4
Komentar: Commentary:
Ina ama wué wari mogang sawé, ‘ita Mothers, fathers, and siblings, we have
meningkat acara berikut, tena méing reached the following ceremony, the sacrifice
molé blirang blatang. of blood and the cooling.
Sebagai pemenuhan pemulihan, ditandai The completion of the restoration [of the
lagi dengan penyembelihan hewan, serta families’ original and amicable relationship]
pengolesan darah pada tangga dan telepak will be signalled again by the gift of an animal
tangan Pak Dedi, ibu, dan anak sekeluarga. along with smearing its blood on the hands
Tujuannya, mengembalikan berkat dan of Pak28 Dedi, his wife, and the children of
restu leluhur, ibarat darah suci sang ayah their family. The aim is to restore the blessings
kembali mengedari sekujur tubuh, sendi and good wishes of the ancestors, a symbol of
anggota. Olehnya keluarga ini merasa lega the sacred blood of the father returned to the
serta lapang lapang dada, sehat segar lahir whole body and all its joints. By means of this
batin, hidup aman sentosa. the family will feel relieved, healthy and
refreshed, outwardly and in spirit, and their
lives will be safe and serene.
[Sacrifice of pig and tena méing, ‘doing [or giving] of blood’.]
Edmundus:
55 Kamang liko beli méing Sina, Guard this gift of the blood of China,
Lepe beli ‘etang Jawa, Keep this gift of the flesh of Java,
Dena méing ba lopa ganu wair, Ensure the blood does not flow away like
water,
‘Etang gogo lopa ganu watu. Nor the flesh roll away downhill like stones.
[This quatrain repeated three times, once for each of the family members to enter the house;
recited while Edmundus daubed the pig’s blood on the forehead of each person.]
Acara 5
Komentar: Commentary:
Ibu bapak, saudara saudari, kita Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, we
meningkat acara berikut, ‘wewar huler wair. have reached the rite which follows, ‘wewar
huler wair (SS breaking the forest’s
undergrowth and the water).
28 Pak, bapak (BI father): honorific for a middle-aged or older man.
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Sebelum direstui dengan air kelapa adat Before being blessed with water of the adat
serta daun huler penyegar, tua adat berdoa coconut and refreshing leaves from plants of
kepada leluhur, agar alam dapat merahimi the forest, the adat leader prays to the
dan sudi mengulurkan tangan; ulangi lagi: ancestors, so that the world will be
agar almarhum dapat merahimi dan sudi compassionate and so they will be willing
mengulurkan tangan mengayom kembali to extend their hands and once again protect
putera puterinya supaya kembali kedalam their son so that he can re-enter the house
rumah keluarga. Sebelum memberikan of his family. Before giving the blessing along
restu serta melimpahkan berkat with extending and ensuring good will, and
selanjutnya, dengan kasih mesra, rukun with giving intimacy, and harmonious
damai sebagai sedekala. Bapa tua adat agreement as in past times, our father, the
kami: ritual leader:
Edmundus:
Kasing ‘ora mé buang, Sympathy for all the children,
60 Ganu puhung a’ung wuang, All like blossoms I have borne,
Pu a’ung lu’ur, My sisters’ children closely related,
Ganu waté a’ung karé, As my heart has been tapped,
Kasing ‘ora tibong, Sympathy for all the youths,
Regang werung sagang sareng, Meeting anew their beautiful forms and faces,
65 Tibong léma é’i mai, Let the youths arise and come hither,
‘Lameng rawit ébawo, And the men climb the house ladder from
below,
Deri dena ‘liting gi’it, Sitting and resting here strongly as natives,
Gera dena ‘lér mangang, Standing and leaning sturdily as indigenes,
Lepo ha Lepo Geté, In this house, the Great House,
70 Woga ha dang gahar, And this pavilion with its high house ladder,
Blapu raé blapu raja, Into the great hall of the raja,
Lepo Gete blapu Sina, In the Great House with its Chinese gallery,
Mai papang é’i papang, Come the two sides together,
Mai dolang é’i limang, Held in the lap and in the arms [of the family],
75 Pa’a é’i du’e blatang, No longer to live in the cold,
Hu’er a du’é dolo, Measure life’s harvest,
Mai beleng wa’ing bajong limang, Come stepping with arms swinging,
Wa’ing naha, Their legs must [not] be,
Plonang ganu gurung ganu tali, Tangled like threads and cord,
80 Ganu ata wéhé tahi pano lalang, Although paddling a canoe on the sea and
travelling a road,
Naha tali lopa kaet alang,29 The cord must not break again,
Ma béhé tahi bano lalang, As you paddle on the sea and travel on the
road,
‘Léwé lé bano wawa, As you come and go,
Gou naha lau lemang, Trading far and wide to make a living,
85 Bata naha réta marang, As waves must climb the shore,
Pléur naha ngé, So traders return home,
Baler naha sawé, Their prices and costs calculated,
29 This line collapses a complete couplet of ritual language:
Naha karang lopa kaet alang, Small thorny tree branches shall not catch in your hair,
Tali lopa dagir wa’ing. Forest vines shall not entangle your feet.
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Ma bihing waing ma bekat meng, You come to shelter the women and bless their
children,
Ma bihing wawi ma pening manu, You return to shelter the pigs and feed the
chickens,
90 Hokot uma naha ihing, The cleared gardens which must yield
harvests,
Karé tua naha dolo, The tapped lontar palms whose juice must
flow copiously,
Ihit naha pi pitu, The harvests must reach seven layers,
Dolo naha lapé walu. The flow of lontar juice reach eight levels,
Neni kamang, This we pray,
95 ‘Ulit lopa beti, That the skin does not become sick,
‘Ama lopa blara, That the flesh does not become diseased,
‘Oha naha memek, That the sleeping mat remains soft,
Halar naha blatang, That the bamboo floor remains cool,
Deri naha tilung blatang, That you live with cool ears [i.e., feeling secure
and untroubled by gossip],
100 Blino poi mahak poi, In shade and peace,
Mi poi memek poi, With gentleness and softness,
Bura poi ‘epang poi, Well and in agreement,
Mora wué wari, Among elder and younger siblings,
Dolor dading sawé. And all more distant kin.
Acara 6
Komentar: Commentary:
Pemberkatan dengan air kelapa serta The blessing with the water of the coconut and
daun penyegar. Pertama oleh tua adat, the refreshing leaves. First by the adat leader,
kemudian oleh wakil keluarga Lepo Geté then by a representative of the family of Lepo
yang akan diwakili oleh Bapak Eduardus Geté, Bapak Eduardus da Silva. Pak Edu,
da Silva. Bapak Edu, kami butang untuk we call on you to open the ceremony.30
buka upacara.
[Sprinkling of coconut water.]
Edmundus:
105 Blatang oring sai ganu wair, Cool this house so it will be as cool as water,
Wair sina réta napung, As the Chinese water at the source of the
valley,
Blirang naha ganu kabor mbali, Fresh as the water of the coconut of Bali,
Kabor mbali wali wolong. The Balinese coconut of the hills.
Mari kita bersama serukan Lovado Let us together recite the Praise for the
Bénsang de Deos.31 Blessing of God.
All: Lovado Bénsang de Deos. Praise for the Blessing of God.
30 Eduardus da Silva and Piet da Silva (who is mentioned below) are from branches of the da
Silva family not directly involved in the rift between Sentis da Silva’s children and the family of
Daniel da Silva (see genealogy, Figure 1).
31 Lovado bénsang de Deos is from Portuguese.
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Acara 7
Komentar: Commentary
Ina ama wué wari mogang sawé, acara Mothers and fathers, and all brothers and
terakhir, léma lepo rawit woga, yaini, sisters, the last ritual is léma lepo rawit woga, to
acara memasuki rumah, dibimbang go up the house ladder and into the house, to
kepala keluarga, tua adat. climb up into the pavilion, that is, the rite of
entering the house, which is led by the head of
the household and the adat leader.
Dan sesudah itu, acara jabat tangan And following that, the ceremony of shaking
keluarga. Bapak Piet da Silva kami ... hands among the family. Bapak Piet da Silva
untuk ... we ... [Applause at hand shaking.]
Remarks on the performance
Guru Mundus demarcated seven acara (BI agenda item), that is, seven com-
ponent rites in the ritual, each consisting of an introductory and explanatory
komentar (BI commentary) spoken by Gondolphus Pareira and followed by
Guru Mundus’s reading of Sikkanese ritual language. Guru Mundus and the
commentator read from an original typescript and carbon copy prepared by
Guru Mundus. The komentar were in mixed Sara Sikka and Indonesian.
The acara and some of the principal motifs found in them were as fol-
lows.
Acara 1
The commentator announced to the audience that the purpose of the hu’er
héréng was to resolve the ‘evil matter’ that had afflicted Lepo Geté and to ‘cool
the dead,’ Don Daniel da Silva, who had been buried in the side yard of the
house a few weeks before.32 Many rites of the religion of Sikka aimed at bla-
tang blirang (SS cooling and refreshing) things or persons who grew hot (gahu
rou SS hot and feverish) through neglect, erroneous action, or the malevolent
intent of living persons or spirits. Things that have become hot can be cooled
and refreshed by the agency of human action in ritual. Gahu rou is dangerous
and disruptive to persons and human affairs and must be controlled.
In the system of dual symbolic classifications revealed in the ritual and ritual
language of the Tana ‘Ai domains of eastern Kabupaten Sikka, men and things
of the forest are classified as hot, whereas women and things of the domestic
realm are inherently cool. To be safely used in the domestic realm, things and
materials such as timber and bamboo used for house construction are cooled
ritually, since they derive from the forest. So, too, men themselves are cooled
32 Lepo Geté is ‘Great House’. It is not a physical edifice, but the kin and alliance group of the
rulers of Sikka whose members use the family name da Silva.
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