Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface: The Dead, the State, and the People in Timor-Leste
- Introduction: Martyrs, Ancestors and Heroes: The Multiple Lives of Dead Bodies in Independent Timor-Leste
- Part I Ancestors, Martyrs and Heroes
- Part II The Dead in Everyday Life
- PART III The Dead and the Nation-State
- Index
1 - Ancestors and Martyrs in Timor-Leste
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 April 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface: The Dead, the State, and the People in Timor-Leste
- Introduction: Martyrs, Ancestors and Heroes: The Multiple Lives of Dead Bodies in Independent Timor-Leste
- Part I Ancestors, Martyrs and Heroes
- Part II The Dead in Everyday Life
- PART III The Dead and the Nation-State
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This chapter reflects on the subject of ancestors: what are they in Timor-Leste? Assuming a comparative perspective, I argue that ancestors are inscribed in unilineal kinship dynamics implying mutuality of being. The category of martyrs emerges in the historical process of resistance against Indonesian occupation and should be understood as part of the lived experience of ancestorship and cosmic circularity (lulik circle). Contrasting constrained forms of honouring the dead imposed by colonial authorities after the Japanese invasion during World War II with the liveliness of the programmes destined to support reburials and pay tribute to martyrs in post-independence Timor-Leste, I argue that more than war heroes, martyrs inscribe the homage to the deceased in the conquest of freedom and self-determination.
Keywords: ancestorship, anthropological comparison, mutuality of being, martyrs
The debate on ancestor worship was initiated in anthropology back in the nineteenth century in order to address the history of religion preceding Christianity, Buddhism, or Hinduism. In present day anthropology, a consensus has emerged to reject the expression ‘worship’, as it presumes an evolutionary view of religions (cf. Bloch 2008 [1986], 320). Couderc and Sillander have suggested replacing it with the expression ‘ancestorship’ (2012, 6). Their proposal provides a good introduction to the Timorese case. Their suggestion is that the semantic core of the term ancestorship consists of ‘the relationship of the living with the ancestors, and the latter encompass both presently existing spirit agencies (ancestor spirits) and formerly existing people of the past’ (Couderc and Sillander, 2012, 6). In this light, the comparison between sociocultural contexts in which ancestorship is central and others where it structures social life to a lesser extent is a primary consideration.
Taking as his starting point a historical and contemporary comparative panorama, Maurice Bloch (2002) highlights a particular contrast between, on the one hand, certain African and Asian (including Southeast Asian) contexts where ancestorship takes a central place, and on the other hand the Amerindians of Lowland South America, where this issue is residual. In the latter contexts, we frequently find that, instead of complex forms destined to create or maintain the presence of dead kinsfolk in the lives of their descendants, oblivion and the transformation of dead relatives into alternative categories of relatedness are produced (Bloch 2002, 66).
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- Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020