‘May Blessings Come, May Mischiefs Go!’ Living Kinds as Agents of Transitions and Transformation in an Eastern Indonesian Setting

On the third day of the elaborate nine-day annual pre-planting ceremonies performed by the northern Lio on the island of Flores in Indonesia, the priest-leaders of the ceremonial houses of a core village initiate one sequence to be completed on the following day. Several anthropologists have recently argued that it is analytically illegitimate to search for commonalities in perceptions and values about the world. Bloch has argued recently that much religious symbolism is concerned with passages between living kinds and artefacts. He suggests that this process may be a replication of processes of cognitive development. In other words, the suggestion is that there is a human proclivity to use living kinds symbolically. Betel and palm wine represent good examples of the transformation of living kinds into human artefacts, which, moreover, become vehicles for a multiplicity of symbolic activities. Rice is the most prestigious staple, but it is not abundant, and its regular procurement requires co-operation with spirits and ancestors.

Biology · Indonesian · Linguistics · Transformation (genetics) · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies