Commensality and Food Prohibition
Mnemotechniques on the island of Savu, eastern Indonesia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 18985283 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Geneviève Duggan (0000-0002-4676-3148, Shree Guru Gobind Singh Tricentenary University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 113 |
| Pages | 103-122 |
| Publication date | 2011-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Indonesia and the Malay World (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1363-9811 • E-ISSN: 1469-8382 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13639811.2011.547732 |
| OpenAlex | W2287062028 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 23 |
Until recently, Savu island in eastern Indonesia had no written traditions, and kinship ties were recalled through a variety of mnemonic devices some of which were neither oral nor auditory. This article deals with a set of ceremonies involving commensality and food prohibition. The second ceremony called ‘The matter of the chicken's head’ (manu kètu lai), takes place once in the life of a woman when her marriage no longer produces children and is one of the mechanisms used in Savu for building social memory across generations as well as within one generational level. The article analyses the ceremonial practices leading to processes of knowledge and memory transmission of these particular ceremonies. No special ritual text is uttered and messages are conveyed in other ways. The precedence among the generations as well as at one generational level is visually demonstrated. The ceremonial food shared at each meeting, an essentially incorporating practice, also contributes to recollecting the events. In addition, the gift exchange allows the switch in gendered positions between the respective parties. Finally, this article exposes how the ultimate purpose of ‘the matter of the chicken's head’ reaches beyond memorising genealogical links
Aesthetics · Art · Ceremony · Cognitive psychology · Ethnography · Gossip · Kinship · Manu · Mnemonic · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Asian Studies and History · Computer Science · History · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
The ritual process
How Societies Remember
The Remembering Self
The living house
How We Think They Think
The Order and Significance of the Savunese House
Outline of a Theory of Practice
Origins, Ancestry and Alliance
Memory in Mind and Culture
À la recherche du temps perdu
Kinship and Food in Southeast Asia
The Flow of Life
The Ritual Process
Husband/wife or brother/sister as the key relationship in Lio Kinship and Sociosymbolic relations
Types of Social Structure in Eastern Indonesia
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,25 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2022 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |