Oral Literature, Gender, and Precedence in East Timor

This book is a masterful study by a writer who draws upon 50 years of research on Timorese metaphysical thought and oral literature.My own background in Timor Studies, with a focus on the Woirata people on Kisar Island and Fataluku people in Los Palos, ensured a sustained interest and curiosity to read it in detail.Yet this task proved lengthier than I had expected.The book is certainly interesting, but the body of research it conveys is so deep that it takes time to digest everything.I can only imagine how much work has been conducted, for many decades, for this book to take shape.Of course, the book's density of information is understandable given the author's rich experience.The book focuses on East Timor, where decades of war, social upheaval, and political change have not lessened in any way the enduring interest of its peoples in their oral traditions.These stories constitute a material embodiment of the customs (lisan or adat) of the country's peoples, and at the same time, potentially, a unifying symbol of East Timor's future as a nation-state (p. 1).Although new forms of expression are emerging, the corpus of East Timorese oral narratives largely retains its underlying metaphysical unity and continues to express indigenous notions about gender and precedence, two topics that form the mainstay of this book.The author discusses, first, how the Timorese people perceive their oral narratives.In terms of the country's linguistic landscape, he explains that there are two main language families spoken in East Timor: Austronesian and non-Austronesian.Tetum is the dominant language in the area, since it is the national language and, as such, is spoken by the majority of the population.The book is divided into eight chapters.Hicks first introduces the traditional communities (ema lisan) who observe "the words of ancestors" (p.5).The second chapter discusses the notion of lulik ("sacred", "forbidden").On a personal note, I am familiar with this concept as tei in Fataluku.In the Woirata language, which has a strong relationship with Fataluku despite being situated outside East Timor, tei designates "taboo" or "forbidden".Here, Hicks draws from the insights of Trindade (2020), who describes lulik-as also used in the construction uma lulik (the house of lulik); a ritual house-as "the spiritual cosmos that contains the divine creator, the spirits of the ancestor, and the spiritual roots of life including sacred rules and regulations that dictate relationships between people and people and nature " (p.14).With this in mind, the chapter illustrates the socio-cultural embedding of the narratives and the society and culture from which they emerged.Again following

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