Nuaulu Ritual

Frequency and Periodcity in Nuaulu Ritual Reproduction, Eastern Indonesia

Principal Investigator: Roy Ellen

Project dates: 2001-2007
Funding: ESRC, CSAC

This project is currently in the writing-up stage. The following is an extract from the final ESRC report.

Aims and objectives: The project sought to bring to completion a major and long-term study of the religious practices of the Nuaulu, and through it develop a general theory of the relationship between the frequency and periodicity of ritual and the way in which religious systems are reproduced. By frequency was understood the total number of events of a particular kind, by periodicity the time lapses between rituals.

In particular the project aimed to:

1.Extract and analyze data on Nuaulu ritual events collected between 1970 and 1996 (cumulatively, approximately 29 months of fieldwork).

2.Conduct new fieldwork in order to supplement and extend currently available data.

3.Compare different categories of ritual event in terms of their frequency and periodicity, determine the factors influencing the temporal distribution of such events and the consequences of such for the effective ritual reproduction of traditional Nuaulu life.

4.To develop a theory of ritual reproduction which adequately treats the themes of frequency and periodicity.

5.To complete a major study of Nuaulu religious practices focusing on the themes elaborated in points 3 and 4.

Objectives 1, and 3-4 have been wholly achieved. Objective 2 was substantially achieved, though political events meant that only one month of new fieldwork was possible.

Objective 5 has been met with the production of the draft of a 285 word monograph.

Significant achievements:

Data on Nuaulu ritual events collected between 1970 and 2003 and patterns arising from the frequency and periodicity of rituals in different categories were demonstrated. The most frequent rituals were for birth and the most infrequent events were those linked to the village ceremonial houses, the cycle of which takes between 15 and 30 years.

It was demonstrated that the more frequent ritual events would be most effectively transmitted in terms of content and that their frequency would inform the interpretation of less frequent types of ritual.

It was demonstrated that because of the necessity of rituals to follow in particular sequences, those further down the line were more at risk of delay, modification and erosion.

Although the general trend of the analysis showed that ritual occurrence is heavily constrained by material factors and impinging outside events, certain categories of ritual were impervious to such rescheduling, either because they were forced by biology (birth, first menstruation) or because of their salient cultural value.
Contrary to what might be expected, the frequency of male initiation rituals did not decline during the period of the severe community conflict in Maluku between 1999 and 2003, but remained stable.

Publications:

Ellen, R. 2012. Nuaulu religious practices: the frequency and reproduction of rituals in a Moluccan society [Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 283] Leiden: KITLV Press. 356 pp.

Other recent output from the project includes:

Ellen, R. 2002: Nuaulu head-taking: negotiating the twin dangers of presentist and essentialist reconstructions. Social Anthropology 10 (3), 281-301.

Ellen, R. 2004: Escalating socio-environmental stress and the preconditions for political instability in south Seram: the very special case of the Nuaulu. Cakalele: Maluku Research Journal 11, 41-64.

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