Paths and Rivers

Sa'dan Toraja Society in Transformation

Bibliographic Data

ID19935969
AuthorsRoxana Waterson, Rosana Waterson (corresponding author)
Year2009
Pages510
Publication date2009-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenuePaths and Rivers; Sa’dan Toraja Society in Transformation (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/9789004253858
OpenAlexW3106553559
Open LibraryOL31367081M
ISBN9789004253858
LanguageEN
Citations received22

Fieldwork extending over a thirty-year period provided materials for this book. Paths and Rivers offers an unusually deep and broad picture of the Sa'dan Toraja as a society in dynamic transition over the course of the past century. The Toraja inhabit the mountainous highlands of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and are well known for their dramatic architecture, their unusual cliff burials, and their flamboyant ceremonial life, which places extraordinary economic demands on individuals and families. The analysis is informed, firstly, by a comparative perspective which sets Toraja social structure in the context of the Austronesian world. Secondly, the author delves deeply into Toraja social memory to show how people think about the past. She examines the usefulness of history and myth in the present as a source of identity, a template for action, or a resource by means of which to claim precedence. The book gives a clear picture of the structure and ethos of the indigenous Toraja religion, the Aluk To Dolo or "Way of the Ancestors", with its complex cycle of rituals. The book concludes with an analysis of the ceremonial economy, which draws upon both domestic subsistence production and the global market economy. Paths and Rivers draws together a fascinating picture of one society's journey into modernity

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology) · Dynamism · Economy · Ethnology · Ethos · Geography · Identity (music) · Indigenous · Modernity · Mythology · Period (music) · Political science · Resource (disambiguation) · Sociology · Subsistence agriculture · Asian Studies and History · Ecology · History · Law · Society & social sciences

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