Lords of the Land, Lords of the Sea

Abstract

duced by stern Vasa kings to ensure sexual control.Such images, saved from oblivion by the scrupulous officials and underpaid scribes of the Dutch East India Company, have to be collated and contextualized in order to make real sense to us, however interesting they might seem in isolation.Slowly, a picture emerges of a world that is certainly different from the East Indonesian societies that face us today, but still has many links with current times.The political border and the different historical experiences of Indonesian Timor and Timor Leste; the dissemination of maize as the principal food crop; the spread of weapon technology and metal utensils; the spread of Christianity to the detriment of Islam: these are all features that have their roots in the period we are studying.The organization and location of the villages has been changed in the twentieth century, but much of the traditional agricultural and livestock economy persists.The traditional 'animist' beliefs have been replaced by Protestant and Catholic precepts over the last half a century, but the former rituals and perceptions of the supernatural surface from time to time.The old forms of raja rule have been abrogated through bureaucratic centralization and republican sentiments, but revivalism and the preservation of hierarchical concepts have lived on.Hopefully a study of the early forms of interaction between indigenous polities and colonial groups, and of the resulting forms of hybridity, can help us understand the dynamics of history in the Timor area -an area that was geographically isolated but also subjected to external influences from a rather early stage.A large number of people have helped me in this endeavour by providing information or commenting upon my ideas on the subject.

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