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PEOPLE –
Hoga Sara
GEOGRAPHIC
LOCATION –
province of
Nusa Tenggara Timur, Flores island,
regency Ngada, district Golewa,
administrative village Sara Sedu
LOCAL CONDITIONS:
subsistence, traditional villages (nua)
and clans (woe), great houses (sa’o meze)
composition of clans; important ritual
objects that serve as symbols of group
identity (sa’o meze, bhaga, madhu, peo,
ture, nabe) ; madhu/peo – cosmological
significance, social structure, rights to
land
Religion:
traditional belief system and ritual
practices, indigenized form of
Catholicism; important rituals include:
rituals of installment and renewal of
symbols of group identity, rituals of the
annual agricultural calendar, life-cycle
rites
Creating
the Ancestors through ritual and sacrifice:
1.)
Ancestors of the inside, specific
forms of nitu: named, mainly benevolent
and protective ensuring fertility,
well-being, and continuity of group
through granting life-generative potential
ebu nusi / ebu kajo
believed to be embodied in the various
objects symbolizing group identity
2.)
Ancestors of the outside,
generalized ancestors, nitu: inhabit
invisible villages in the forest jungle;
specifically in lake/pond/river/stream
beds (i.e. water sources), large stones
and boulders, large trees of the Ficus
type – banyan trees and especially
hebu (Cassia fistula); these
are mainly potentially malevolent if their
place of habitation is breached by
improper human behavior but benevolent
when approached in the context of ritual;
beneath the earth – particularly as
guardians of the agricultural garden and
of the village;
» Both types of ancestors can be a source
of life-generative potential; will assume
similar forms—human, snake, buffalo, wild
pig
» Beliefs about human soul and village of
the dead: nature of the soul (mae), ritual
(regha mae) of chasing out the soul of
deceased from human spaces of the inside
to uninhabited spaces of the outside,
representations of the village of the
ancestors (nua nitu), the gate to the
village at the roots of the tamarind tree
(kabu nage)
» Ancestors of the outside are
periodically reclaimed and transformed
into specific ancestors of the inside
through rituals of renewal and
installation of symbolic objects of group
identity
» Ritual extraction and transport of large
stones for the construction of ture and
nabe; ritual extraction and transport of
hebu tree for madhu / peo, bhaga, sa’o
meze
» During this process in ritual chant and
song instruct the spirit to stay within
stones/trees as if it was their soul
» Dangerous time for humans until ritual
installation in village (ancestoral spirit
could abduct the human soul and cause
illness and death; or assume form of
ritual specialist and mate with his wife
killing her)
» During the ritual installation must
smear object with sacrificial blood and
while doing so must name with an ancestral
name; smearing is said to seal in the
ancestral spirit, to convert its nature --
potential harm into continuous generative
potential, to set up boundary between
humans and deceased (categories of living
and dead should not mix unless sanctioned
by ritual) |
