Ovasa; Feasts of merit in Nias
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2912666 |
|---|---|
| Authors | A Beatty (0000-0003-4386-7264, Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1991 |
| Volume | 147 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 216-235 |
| Publication date | 1991-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Bijdragen tot de taal- land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0006-2294 • E-ISSN: 2213-4379 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/22134379-90003187 |
| OpenAlex | W2074110054 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 1 |
Feasts of merit have been described in many areas of Southeast Asia (see Kirsch 1973 for a useful survey), but detailed accounts are rare. In pursuit of the wider significance of festive exchanges it is tempting to pass quickly over the particularities; but it is frequently in the thick of debate over quantities, techniques, and principles that the significance of a transaction is to be found. The present essay, on the ovasa feast of central Nias, is not intended to be a rounded description of what is a complex and multifaceted institution, but a presentation in detail of one of its elements: the system of prestige exchange. I hope thereby to answer certain questions left obscure in the ethnographic literature on Nias and recalcitrant to a purely symbolist approach. For example: how does power translate into status (or vice versa) in practice? Does gift credit necessarily imply political ascend ancy? Does feasting establish a rank order, and is the highest-ranking man by definition the leader? These matters are important in any analysis of prestige exchange, but how often are they seriously considered?1
Database transaction · Economics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Institution · Linguistics · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Power (physics · Presentation (obstetrics · Prestige · Rank (graph theory · Ranking (information retrieval · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Asian Studies and History · Computer Science · History · Law · Mathematics · Philippine History and Culture · Philosophy · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |