Alterity and Autochthony: Austronesian Cosmographies of the Marvellous

Abstract

. ALTERITY AND AuTOCHTHONY On stranger-kings in general 3Stranger-kings or stranger-chiefs ruled indigenous peoples throughout much of the Austronesian world, from the Malay Peninsula to Hawai'i.James Fox (1995a, 1995b, 2006) has made a careful analysis of the variant forms of these dualistic polities in Timor, Roti, Palembang (Sumatra), Gayo, Fiji, Bali and the Trobriands (cf.van Wouden 1968).In addition to the classic ethnographies of Firth, Malinowski, Goodenough and Hocart, Jukka Siikala has studied the like in the Cook Islands, Engseng Ho in Malaya, Janet Hoskins in Sumba, Glenn Petersen in Ponape, John Bowen in Gayo (Sumatra), Schulte Nordholt in Atoni (Timor), Josselin de Jong in Negri Sembilan (Malaya), Danilyn Rutherford in Biak, Thomas Gibson in South Sulawesi, R.H. Barnes in Lembata (Lesser Sundas), and Catarina Krizancic in the Society Islands, among others; while historians such as Anthony Reid, Jeyamalar Kathirithamby-Wells, Leonard Andaya, B. Schrieke, J.H. Walker, and O.W. Wolters have documented such polities in various Indonesian locations.I will not rehearse these findings in detail here.(Besides, I left out a lot of people.)Rather, I call attention to the larger planetary distribution of stranger-kingships in premodern societies, with a view toward a general description of their constitution and some reflections on the dynamics of their formation.

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