Processes of Memory on the Island of Savu, Eastern Indonesia

Abstract

AbstractThe thesis examines mnemonic means of transmission of knowledge on the island of Savu, eastern Indonesia, which had until recently no written traditions. Fieldwork based on multi-local research and multi-vocal sources reveals that not only the genealogies of former rulers are remembered, but of every individual as well. The comparison between local memories and written colonial documents (VOC) for the last 300 years confirms the accuracy of oral records. Moreover the genealogical model offers an essential matrix for memory processes. It has been extended in a rather unique way to apply to a number of other important heritable aspects of material culture, from the migratory path of the ancestors (topogenies) to the houses they occupied successively (domogenies) and the textiles they created one after another (textilogenies). This conveys not only a sense of chronology, but of history and is in blatant contradiction to common assertions about oral societies.