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CONSTRUCTION SACRIFICE AND HEAD‐HUNTING RUMOURS IN CENTRAL FLORES (EASTERN INDONESIA): A COMPARATIVE NOTE
Author(s) -
Forth Gregory
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1834-4461
pISSN - 0029-8077
DOI - 10.1002/j.1834-4461.1991.tb01598.x
Subject(s) - sacrifice , indigenous , head (geology) , bridge (graph theory) , variety (cybernetics) , colonialism , human sacrifice , state (computer science) , ethnology , history , sociology , geography , archaeology , ecology , geomorphology , medicine , algorithm , artificial intelligence , computer science , biology , geology
In a recent contribution to Oceania (59:269–79, 1989), R.A. Drake analyses a kidnapping rumour that has regularly appeared in Borneo during the last 90 or more years. According to the rumour, agents of the state require a human sacrifice, and especially a human head, to place beneath the foundation of a bridge or other modern structure that is being erected, in order to lend it durability. This rumour, Drake argues, draws crucially upon the widespread notion or practice of construction sacrifice, in combination with a tradition of head‐hunting as an aspect of inter‐ethnic relations which was prevalent in Borneo before the colonial era. The present paper questions aspects of Drake's thesis by discussing the occurrence of precisely the same rumour among the Nage of central Flores, a people who do not know head‐hunting of the Bornean variety and who have no tradition of human sacrifice in connection with indigenous construction.