Flores

Gregory Forth

The island of Flores is inhabited by several ethno-linguistic groups, all of which are known by individual names. Some names currently used as ethnonyms are in effect names of units of colonial administration (e.g. Manggarai, Ngada, Ende, Sikka, now administrative regions, or "regencies," of Indonesia) and appear not to have been in use before the twentieth century.

"Flores" ("flower" in Portuguese) derives from Tanjung Bunga, "Flower Cape," a Malay name for a promontory at the eastern end of the island. It has been claimed that an indigenous name for the island as a whole is Nusa Nipa, or "Snake Island." Flores is now part of the Indonesian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (East Nusa Tenggara). It is located from 119°48' to 123°1'30" E and from 8°04' to 8°57' S, and has an area of approximately 15,500 square kilometers.

Population in the 2010 census was 1,831,472. Although the large majority of inhabitants are indigenous Florenese, the total figure includes undetermined numbers of people belonging to several minorities, including Savunese, Buginese, Bajau, and Chinese.

Flores languages belong to the Central Malayo-Polynesian group of Austronesian languages. They form two groupings: (1) the languages of Manggarai (western Flores) and a "Ngadha-Lio" group spoken in the island’s central regions; (2) languages belonging to the "Flores-Lembata" subgroup within a "Timor area" group, all spoken in eastern regions.

Flores is the 2003 discovery site of a small-bodied and physically primitive hominin designated Homo floresiensis that lived on the island at least until the late Pleistocene. The earliest date for Homo sapiens so far recorded is 11,000 years ago, thus much later than dates for large, nearby islands (notably Timor). Austronesian speakers reached Flores some 4,000 years ago. Groups in Manggarai (western Flores), Nage, Keo and Ende (central Flores), and Lio (eastern central Flores) have traditions of deriving from Sumatra or Java. Before the arrival of the Portuguese, the Javanese used Flores as a port of call, especially in the export of sandalwood from Timor. In the early sixteenth century, the Portuguese established themselves in far eastern Flores, notably Larantuka, and in south-central Flores on the Isle of Ende, where they built forts and founded Catholic missions. During this time, and in the following century, the Portuguese competed with Muslim influence emanating largely from south Sulawesi. The seventeenth century also saw the creation of a rajadom (or kingdom) by a Portuguese-supported Catholic convert in the Sikka region on Flores’ southeast coast; about the same time an Islamic rajadom developed further west in the Ende region. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Portuguese were gradually replaced by the Dutch as the predominant European power. Also in the eighteenth century, Bimanese (from the island of Sumbawa, to the east of Flores) became dominant in coastal areas of Manggarai; after losing power in 1815 following the eruption of the Tambora volcano, Bimanese regained control in 1851, finally yielding completely to the Dutch in 1929. The Dutch government concluded a contract with the raja of Ende in 1839. However, the Dutch did not gain administrative control of most parts of Flores until after a military invasion launched in 1907. The Dutch remained until the Japanese invasion of 1942. After World War II, Flores was included in the Dutch-created State of East Indonesia, which was dissolved in 1950 and later became part of the Republic of Indonesia. Catholic missionary activity did not begin in most parts of Flores until the early twentieth century.

The Manggarai region is exceptional in several respects. Traditional villages were circular in form, with residential buildings arranged around a central ceremonial house and banyan tree. Moreover, Manggarai villages at one time consisted of a single, large, conical house occupied by members of a totemic, exogamous, patrilineal clan, and were associated with large, circular fields divided into triangular segments.

Except for coastal areas, villages are typically located on elevated sites more easily defended against enemy attack. Villages are generally rectangular and comprise two rows of rectangular houses facing one another across a central plaza. Houses can number from a few to two dozen or more. A tendency to found "double settlements”—two villages located end to end, or at least in close proximity—is seen in Keo and other parts of central Flores. Major villages also include special ritual buildings, and the central plaza is typically the site of wooden posts, stone pillars, or similar objects (e.g. forked posts in Nage and Keo, stone columns in Sikka and Lio) that serve as sites of sacrificial ritual. Traditional Endenese and Sikkanese villages included a men’s house that served as a dormitory for boys and unmarried men; Endenese villages also contained special buildings in which the bones of ancestors were stored.

In many regions, some people reside temporarily or even permanently outside of villages, either in lone-standing dwellings or small clusters of field huts located near agricultural lands. Something similar is the norm in Tana ‘Ai, in the eastern part of Sikka, where people live scattered in compounds comprising a single house occupied by a single family, surrounded by agricultural fields.

During the twentieth century, residential houses throughout Flores have become smaller, accommodating fewer inhabitants, and entire settlements have moved to lower elevations closer to modern roads. Since the 1970s, many people have begun replacing older dwellings of wood, bamboo, and thatch with houses that have concrete foundations and walls, and metal roofs, erected on roadside plots outside of earlier village sites.

Swidden and other forms of dry field horticulture are practiced in all regions. Crops include rice, maize, millet and other cereals, tubers, and vegetables. Before the twentieth century, maize was the major crop, but maize and other cereals have largely been replaced by irrigated rice. Irrigation was introduced during the Dutch colonial period—in the 1920s in Manggarai and Ngadha, in the 1930s in Nage, and as recently as 1947 in the Ende and Lio regions. Rice is traditionally required as a ceremonial or festive food. Also consumed on ritual occasions is palm wine (toddy) or gin, derived from either Arenga or Lontar palms, which are tapped throughout Flores.

Domestic animals include water buffalo (more common in western and central Flores than in the east), horses, pigs, goats, dogs, cats, domestic fowl and, in drier areas, sheep. Cattle were introduced by the Dutch early in the twentieth century. Employing spears, bows, blowpipes and, in some places, harpoons with detachable metal points, men hunt wild pig, deer, feral livestock, and smaller animals. Game is also caught with a variety of snares, traps, and nets. Sea fishing is practiced in coastal communities. Using lines, traps, and weirs—and nowadays devices that produce electric shocks—highlanders engage in freshwater fishing; however, the freshwater fauna of Flores has become increasingly impoverished.

Grown in inland areas with higher rainfall, cash crops include coffee, cloves, candlenut, vanilla, and cacao. The Dutch encouraged the planting of coconut palms for copra production in coastal regions. Nowadays, rice surpluses are sold through village cooperatives, from which local people can also purchase rice. There is some commercial fishing, but this is conducted principally by outsiders (Butonese, Makassarese, and Chinese). In some parts of central Flores, livestock are raised partly for export. Since the late twentieth century, tourism has become important in some places, including Labuan Bajo—a transit point for Komodo Island, which is home to Komodo dragons, the giant lizards also found in western and north coastal Flores.

In most areas women produce decorated cotton textiles, mainly for local use. The Mbai region, on the north central coast (Nagekeo regency), is particularly famous for brocaded men’s cloths. Some communities (Riung, Tonggo) traditionally specialized in the making of earthenware. Other industrial arts, some exclusive to particular regions or communities, include smithing in iron and gold, and the production of mats and baskets, vessels for eating and drinking, and traditional weapons.

Coastal dwellers and highlanders exchange salt, lime, betel, and other coastal products for surplus crops. Nowadays, all these items are regularly sold in local weekly markets, as are fresh and dried fish, mostly smaller livestock (pigs, dogs, goats, and fowl), various fruits and vegetables, locally-woven textiles, and a variety of imported consumer goods. In many places, consumer goods are also available from small shops and kiosks. In some interior locations, fresh fish can be purchased daily from men who travel, usually by motorcycle, to coastal locations where they purchase fish from marine fishermen. Before the Dutch colonial period, a regular export trade in slaves was conducted in a few coastal locations, and slaves were also exchanged locally. At Ma’u Mbawa on the south central coast, Buginese and Goanese traders obtained slaves in exchange for gold, porcelain, gunpowder, and other products.

Hunting and palm-wine tapping are everywhere an exclusively male activity. In some places women participate in certain types of freshwater and marine fishing. Men are charged with heavier tasks in cultivation (clearing forest for new fields, building fences, etc.) and tend larger livestock, build dwellings (and boats in coastal areas), and make tools and weapons. Women provide most of the labor in planting, weeding and harvesting, and are further engaged in weaving, basketry and making mats, and they care for poultry, pigs and sometimes other small livestock. Childcare is mainly a women’s activity, although men participate as well, and women are at least as active as men as buyers and sellers in local markets.

Rights to land are held corporately by clans, segments of clans, or, in some places, larger groupings of clans claiming descent from common ancestors. Where clan segments hold separate territories or parcels of land, permission of more inclusive groups may be required to alienate land; in Ngadha land can be freely transferred between houses belonging to the same sub-lineage. Individual rights are also recognized, and land can be alienated—for example in the payment of fines or as part of a wife-giver’s counter-gift (in Nage, Keo, and Ngadha). In Sikka the main landowning unit is the household, although rights to unclaimed land reside either with the raja or a figure named the "lord of the earth." In most places temporary rights to cultivate land (usufruct) can be accorded to outsiders in return for a small payment. Land tenure is generally in the hands of men and male clan or lineage leaders, except among the matrilineal Tana ‘Ai. In addition to cultivation rights, rights to hunt, fish, and collect forest products are vested in corporate groups, but permission to engage in these activities is usually freely given to others.

Most ethno-linguistic groups reveal a division into named patrilineal descent groups, or clans, in some places localized at the village level but usually split among several villages. In central Flores, both the Ngadha and Nage have been characterized as "ambilineal," or practicing cognatic descent, with a preference for matrilineal affiliation in the first case and patrilineal affiliation in the second. Endenese clans have been described by different authors as patrilineal or ambilineal, while in patrilineal Sikka a mother’s natal group yet retains ritual rights and obligations in relation to her children. Where groups are organized ambilineally, membership is mostly determined by whether or not bridewealth is paid; when it is not, a woman’s children are affiliated to her group. In some parts of the Nage region a man can claim and maintain simultaneous membership in two or even more clans. A system of matrilineal descent is reported only from Tana ‘Ai. Although generally described as patrilineal, some parts of the Lio region reveal what has been described a system of double descent, with distinct patrilineal and matrilineal clans. In nearly all regions, clans are totemic, recognizing specific taboos on the killing or consumption of certain animals or plants.

With the exception of Ngadha, where parents are terminologically distinguished from parents’ siblings and FB=MB and MZ=FZ, terminology is generally "bifurcate merging" (e.g. F=FB=/=MB, M=MZ=/=FZ). Another widespread pattern is the men’s terminological equation of Z, FBD, MZD, and FZD and the use of a separate term for MBD—a classification in accordance with a system of asymmetric affinal alliance, where a man should marry a woman from an established "wife-giving" group, or at least should not take a wife from a group that has in the past given wives to one’s own. At the same time, many terminologies also reveal symmetric features, for example by equating WB and ZH, MBS and FZS, or MB and FZH. Terminological equations positively indicative of asymmetric prescriptive alliance (e.g. MB=WF, MBS=WB, FZ=HM, MBD=W) also occur, although they are not found everywhere this form of marriage alliance is practiced. Relatives in alternate generations are often equated so that, for example, PP=CC and PPP=CCC. Among the Nage, Keo, and Lio this is done up to the fifth ascending and descending generations.

A rule of descent group (clan) exogamy is general except among the Ngadha, who prefer endogamy, even within minimal lineages. Their Nage neighbors to the east allow marriage between distantly related members of the same clan, but most marriages involve different clans. In Sikka, village endogamy is preferred, at least among commoners. Traditionally, the MBD was a man’s prescribed or preferred spouse. In Manggarai such a marriage was widespread only among the nobility, and then was obligatory only for the eldest of several sons. Marriage is prohibited with Z, FBD, and FZD; in some places MZD is permitted, provided the union does not breach rules of descent group exogamy. The Ngadha allow marriages between parallel as well as cross-cousins. Since the early twentieth century, marriage of all first cousins has been banned by the Catholic Church, as has polygyny, which was previously practiced by wealthy and higher-ranking men in most parts of Flores. Marriage everywhere involves the payment of bridewealth, generally consisting of buffalo, horses or other livestock, metal goods (including weapons and metal coins or jewelry) and, in Ende, Lio, Sikka and points east, elephant tusks. (Formerly, bridewealth among people of high rank might also have included one or more slaves.) The woman’s group then reciprocates with a counter-gift largely comprising decorated textiles; among the Nage, Keo, and Sikkanese, wife-givers also give pigs. Among the Keo and Nage, additional payments by the husband’s group are required upon the husband’s and wife’s death. Only the matrilineal Tana ‘Ai do not employ bridewealth.

A practice of contracting temporary unions for purely sexual purposes, formally distinguished from marriage but requiring a payment similar to bridewealth, appears to be peculiar to the Nage and Keo—although an exchange of gifts for women’s sexual favors has also been reported for the Endenese.

Postmarital residence is patrilocal/virilocal when bridewealth is paid. When bridewealth is not paid, or is not paid in full, all or some of a couple’s children are affiliated to the mother’s group, and postmarital residence is usually matrilocal/uxorilocal. In Manggarai, Nage, and Keo, a husband owes bride-service to his wife’s parents, and can be required to reside with them until the bridewealth is completely discharged.

Houses are mostly occupied by a single extended family (at least during some point in the domestic cycle), although until the early twentieth century much larger groups—numbering as many as two hundred people in Manggarai—could share a single dwelling. For Sikka, "royal houses" accommodating up to fifty people have been recorded. At one time, slaves as well as family members could occupy a single house.

Inheritance of both land and moveable property is generally patrilineal. (An exception is matrilineal Tana ‘Ai.) Property is usually divided among a group of sons, with the eldest sometimes inheriting the parental house. Among the Ngadha, the house goes to the first married child or the oldest one remaining in the house. Although women generally do not inherit land, at marriage they may be given a plot by their fathers in Ngadha, Nage, and Keo, and this can be passed on to their children. In addition, in parts of Keo and Nage widows can be recognized as heirs until their sons become adults. In the same regions, when a group becomes extinct the children and descendants of out-married women have a claim to the estate. Where they exist, hereditary positions are mostly passed from father to son.

Care of small children is largely in the hands of mothers, other adult women, and elder sisters, although fathers and male siblings also participate in a child’s upbringing. In some places, fosterage by parents’ kin is a regular practice. Attainment of adult status is marked by initiation ceremonies, involving circumcision for youths and teeth-filing for girls. At present, the majority of children attend at least primary school—either state or Catholic schools. In most, perhaps all, regions children are treated with great indulgence and are rarely subject to physical punishment.

Throughout Flores one finds a division into hereditary and endogamous ranks, usually three, often glossed as "nobles," "commoners," and "slaves." In Nage and Keo, a class of commoners is hardly apparent as a distinct category, but there too clan and village leaders are described as composing a "nobility." In Ngadha, rank is determined by that of a person’s mother. Slaves, more accurately described as "hereditary servants," descend from war captives and people acquired through purchase; in the past, debt slavery was also a possibility. Slavery was abolished in the Dutch colonial period, yet hereditary distinctions of rank continue to be recognized. With the exception of specialization in ritual and curing, social positions acquired through achievement are mostly a modern phenomenon.

Small, archaic states led by indigenous rulers (or "rajas") in Sikka, Ende, and Larantuka (on the extreme eastern tip of Flores) survived until the Dutch colonial or national periods. Political unities larger than single villages also existed in Manggarai, where there were thirty-nine principalities (dalu), each incorporating a number of subdivisions that, in turn, comprised several villages. Each Manggarai principality was headed by a noble lineage. In other places, political leadership above the clan or single village was absent, although ties of marriage and common clanship provided the basis of political and military alliances. A pattern of "diarchy," admitting complementary secular and ritual or religious leaders, is found in several parts of Flores, but is not clearly evident in all. In many places, a functionary or group whose title translates as "lord of the land" (or "earth") holds largely religious authority in matters relating to land and is distinct from the political leadership.

Rajas and other rulers, where present, would adjudicate in disputes. Elsewhere, this function was served by descent group headmen or village leaders—or two or more of these acting in concert where a matter concerned parties belonging to different villages or clans. Punishment could consist of fines or the provision of sacrificial animals (to be slaughtered to appease spiritual entities angered by an offense), as specified by the adjudicating authority.

Throughout Flores, land continues to be the main cause of conflict between individuals and local groups. In the past, conflict over territory between political domains or ethno-linguistic groups regularly resulted in military action. In some parts of the island, traditional warfare involved the taking of enemy heads (or "head-hunting"). War captives, including women and children, became slaves. An external demand for slaves, exchanged for precious metals and other goods (including firearms), appears to have exacerbated interregional wars in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

All ethno-linguistic groups recognize a diffuse and otiose divinity associated with creation. In several instances this figure combines complementary male and female components or aspects. In Sikka, for example, Lero Wulang translates as "Sun (and) Moon," and is complemented by the feminine Nian Tana, whose name refers to the surface of the earth. Generally more important as objects of ritual offerings, however, are ancestors and a variety of free spirits. The spirit category nitu (comparable to Manggarai darat) is recognized throughout central and eastern Flores, where it is applied to a class of forest or "nature" spirits or spirits of the dead. In Manggarai, Nage, and Sikka, spirits called naga are identified as guardians of houses, settlements, and the earth. A belief in witches—people who possess a maleficent spirit or spiritual force absent in moral humans and who thereby inflict death or illness on other people—occurs throughout Flores. Such traditional beliefs and associated rituals survive, even though by the second half of the twentieth century a large majority of Florenese had converted to Catholicism or Islam.

Functionaries include people who are skilled in a special ritual language and are thereby able to address and make offerings to ancestors and other spiritual beings, as well as witch-finders, magicians, and other mystical practitioners. These positions are typically achieved on the basis of individual ability and inclination, and often a single individual will engage in several sorts of practice. Religious practitioners are mostly men, but the extent of women’s involvement in religious and magical practices varies among ethnic groups, and in some places is quite considerable. In matrilineal Tana ‘Ai, men hold authority in ceremonial matters while women are concerned with secular leadership within descent groups. In many places, a male "lord of the land," typically a member of the group longest established in a territory, serves as a general authority in spiritual and ritual matters relating to the earth and agriculture.

Major ceremonies include harvest festivals and annual hunting ceremonies. Collective sacrifices of water buffalo, conducted in a single village just once every several years or decades, are common in central Flores. In Nage and Keo, buffalo sacrifices are important in proclaiming and thereby affirming (and sometimes revising) rights to land and group membership. Funerals, especially of higher-ranking individuals—as well as other life cycle rituals like initiations and marriages—can be elaborate and involve significant expenditure, especially in the form of animals for sacrifice.

The major form of graphic art is decorated textiles produced by women. Men carve largely geometrical designs on house-posts and sacrificial posts, and produce wooden statuary of ceremonial significance. Instrumental music—featuring gongs, drums and, in some places, bamboo flutes—forms part of major rituals, as do song and dance performed by both men and women.

Illness is usually regarded as having spiritual causes, including mystical attack by witches, or as resulting from sorcery. Curing combines the administration of physical (mostly plant) medicines, massage and bodily manipulation, along with rituals incorporating offerings to spiritual agencies. Medical practice is generally an achieved status. Throughout Flores, people recognize powers called ru’u (or by some cognate term, e.g. uru), invoked to protect fruit-bearing trees or crops. The term refers simultaneously to: physical signs of prohibition; punitive power; kinds of illnesses or conditions that manifest this power and are believed to result from breaches of the prohibition; and the ability to cure such illness possessed by human owners of the power. Modern medicines and treatments from clinics and hospitals became quite widely available during the late twentieth century, and are often employed in combination with indigenous healing.

Like illness, death is regularly considered to result from spiritual malevolence, the breach of a prohibition, or a failure to meet some customary obligation. Corpses are usually buried. In the Ende and Lio regions, secondary treatment of the dead was practiced for high-ranking persons. Funerals typically involve the sacrifice of animals and, in some places, payments to the deceased’s affines; however, mortuary rites can vary considerably in their degree of elaboration and prolongation. Special procedures are required for people who suffer a violent (or "bad") death. Most ethno-linguistic groups recognize a "land of the dead" or afterworld, associated with an uninhabited location (e.g. a mountain top). Variants of an origin of death myth are found throughout the island, usually featuring a competition between two birds.

The culture summary was written by Gregory Forth in January, 2015.

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