house on Dawera/Dawelor
A Doors
B Main post
C Right pilot's room
D Fireplaces
E Left pilot's room
F Right helmsman's room
G left helmsman's room
The superiority of the right helmsman's room was symbolically expressed in the construction of the house. The main pole, the post which is erected the first during the building of a house, was situated in this room and was called mekamulol, "the one who holds the helm" (see Figure 3.1). Furthermore, the sacred heirlooms of the house community were kept in the right helmsman's room. These goods, called pusaka in Moluccan Malay, mainly consisted of gold ornaments and so-called basta, imported cloths, decorated with motifs obtained by means of block-printing (see also Chapters VII and VIII).
New Villages, an Old Course
Until what time the cones of rock served as a place of settlement for the small "republics," cast in. a nautical mould, is not known. For reasons that can only be guessed at, the continuity of the descent groups must, however, have been exposed to danger in a distant past (probably centuries ago). A majority of the groups broke away from their isolated existence and began to live together on larger mountain plateaus. Here villages arose consisting of three or four originally isolated house communities, societies that again shaped themselves into a symbolic boat, once more sailing westwards.
Instead of the four living rooms a number of "great houses" situated together now formed the boat, so that the placing of each descent group's "great house" showed the symbolic role within the larger whole. The groups living to the east functioned as helmsmen, those to the west as pilots and in addition the function of "bailer boy" was created for the benefit of the descent groups living at the centre of the village (see Figure 3.2).
These new settlements were also acquainted with the function of "lord of the village." The ritual leader was supplied by the descent group who had settled first on the plateau and could be considered as founder of the new settlement. The leader of this group therefore came to have a double role: he was the symbolic helmsman of both his group and the newly formed community.
The symbolic role of the "lord of the (new) village" was reflected in the layout of the village. The "great house" of his descent group was usually located at the eastern edge: his group functioned within the larger whole as a symbolic helmsman. By this means, the traditional pattern of ordering of the house community remained: at the level of the larger villages there was a symbolic ship's crew led by a symbolic helmsman.
To the Coast
Today, however, this situation also belongs to the past. Despite the fact that the "eyries" had been abandoned, waging war remained part of the normal way of life and for that reason the villages on the mountain plateaus were also supplied with impressive fortifications. In 1890 the Dutch Government official Van Hoëvell wrote about this: "The native villages on the various islands forming the Babar group, have all, with the exception of the principal village of Tepa and a few native villages on Wetang, been constructed on steep heights and provided with heavy walls, which is a necessity in view of the incessant state of war. Nowhere, however, did I see such thick and high walls as on the islands of Dawera and Dawelor. The native village of Angkoeki, among others, has walls three metres thick and six metres high, entirely built of stacked blocks of sandstone and fitted out with doors."1
Photograph 3.2. Shutter of the "great house" depicted in Photograph 3.6, decorated with the motif of the hunter and his prey. Height/width 26 cm (RJM).
The situation was a thorn in the flesh of the Dutch colonial government and around the turn of the century the islands were pacified. All settlements located on the mountain plateaus were evacuated and the present-day villages arose along the coast at places that could be controlled well (see Chapter II). The commonly used boat model served as a guideline for the layout: the hilltop settlements were simply copied on the beach. In some cases during the forced removals, a few villages were merged. However, also in the larger existing communities thus formed, the familiar boat figuration was retained: the villages were then constructed as two or three "ships sailing together."
During the process of scaling-up—from the isolated house community to the villages on the beach—the endogamous marriage principle was given up, although the tendency to marry a "member of the house" has continued to exist. Influenced by the missionaries, the construction of the house itself altered as well in the course of the 20th century. Besides reducing the horizontal measurements, the poles became shorter, while at the same time the floor and the roof were separated from each other by increasingly higher bamboo walls. The final result can be seen in the houses that have been built recently: the earth has become the living-room floor and the roof is carried on walls for the height of a man.
The members of a descent group now live in single-family houses around their strongly diminished "great house," which is deprived of its original interior. It is commonly inhabited by the members of merely one descent line, that of the right helmsman. As in former days, they guard the ancestral heirlooms here; the members of the eldest line will not readily neglect this task.
Photographs 3.3 and 3.4. Two combs from the island of Babar. length 21.5 cm (3.3) and 12.5 on (3.4) (RJM/MLV).
The "lord of the village" has come under the influence of Christianity during the past decades. Ever increasingly a Protestant vicar serves as the symbolic helmsman of a settlement. Only during the celebration of the western New Year's feast, based on the former porka ritual, does the old tuan tanah still figure predominantly in some villages.
In the above text the dominant role of boat symbolism on Dawera and Dawelor has been presented in a nutshell. It appears that the islanders have been making use of the image of a boat and crew to order their world for centuries. both the layout of the house and of the village are traditionally inspired by this.
However, the role of boat symbolism on Dawera and Dawelor has only been partially described above. Apart from the application as a model of order, the image of the boat also functions in an entirely different way in the culture of the island: as a means of expression it conveys an important message.
With the help of nautical symbolism a dependency relationship is expressed on several levels. It will be endeavoured to clarify what this entails below. Subsequently the following levels will be discussed: man, the family and society, and the all-embracing cosmos.
Man: Vital Force and Identity
Strongly simplified, it can be stated that a person on Dawera and Dawelor is considered to be a body in which two components have merged: mormorsol, a kind of vital force which exclusively reveals itself in a physical form and is expressed in man in the growth and the movements of the body, and dmeir, a component which is less bound to the body and which is related to the identity of a person. Although much can be told about both elements, we will limit ourselves to some general remarks here, sufficient to come to an understanding of the role of boat symbolism.
The presence of mormorsol in man is especially expressed in the beating of the heart and in breathing. In daily life the term for breath (arol) is sometimes used as a synonym for vital force. Moreover, mormorsol is strongly associated with
