Local Lineages in Kerinci, Sumatra

ABSTRACT

The district (kabupaten) of Kerinci lies on the western border of Jambi, neighbouring West Sumatra, and is now part of the province of Jambi. Previously it was incorporated into the Dutch colonial government’s province of Sumatra’s West Coast. Not knowing quite where to place Kerinci reflects an uncertainty as to which of its neighbours Kerinci, geographically isolated as it is, has the closest cultural and historical affinities. Among other puzzles thrown up by such a consideration is how to assess the structure and significance of lineages in Kerinci. Each Kerinci village has its own specific set of lineages. In north Kerinci, the area bordering West Sumatra, the lineages are matrilineal in terms of recruitment and seem to resemble their West Sumatran counterparts. However, the situation is complex. In order to provide a full ethnographic picture of the situation this article gives a detailed description of the lineage structure of one village, Pondok Tinggi, in central Kerinci. This description discusses the function and recruitment of office-holders within each lineage and their continuing significance in the political structuring of the community.

KEYWORDS:

• Kerinci
• lineages
• matriliny
• Sumatra
• kinship

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank my wife, Martina, for assistance with this article. Her specialist knowledge of Pondok Tinggi kinship was of enormous help and my article would have been much the poorer without her contributions. Any mistakes in the ethnographic detail are my own.

Note on contributor

C.W. Watson is an Adjunct Professor School of Business and Management, and Em. Professor, School of Anthropology, University of Kent, UK. Email address: [email protected]

Notes

1 Lineage theory, formerly the pride of British social anthropology in the years between 1940–1960, is now rarely invoked, for the very good reasons given by Kuper (1982), in his useful retrospective critical account. The attempts to distinguish between the domains of the family and the descent group, the distinction between territorial and kinship units, and the general attempt to make of the lineage a structural-functionalist concept for cross-cultural comparison have all foundered. However, the research and the ethnography of societies with lineage structures in Africa and, disputably, Oceania, have produced some valuable empirically based accounts of observed practice which if not contributing to the original theory, indeed in many cases undermining it, have at least drawn anthropological attention to phenomena which warrant attention, for example: lineage recruitment, folk models of lineages, the role of myth and ritual in characterising lineage identity, and lineage morphology, see Fortes (1953) for a summary, and his outstanding monograph on the Tallensi (1945) for a detailed exemplary account of the ‘dynamics of clanship’. My intention here is consequently not to use, or indeed to modify, any specific lineage model, far less provide a paradigmatic instance, but to add to our ethnographic understanding of lineages in Sumatra, occasionally using the vocabulary and insights derived from the description of African practice.

2 One reason for the absence of interest in the comparison of lineage functions between Africa and Indonesia is that, following the anthropological controversies of the 1950s and 1960s, the tendency has grown to characterise African societies as societies predicated on notions of descent and those of Southeast Asia as predicated on alliance (Kuper 1982: 87–89). This has led to the relative neglect of the study of the operations of lineage institutions in Southeast Asia which do not fall immediately into the realm of alliance. (Where alliance and lineage issues are closely linked, for example in relation to issues of bridewealth and brideservice, as in the case of the Batak, then lineage institutions have indeed been carefully scrutinised.) For a recent detailed discussion of the problems of understanding the significance of descent and alliance where they co-occur and lead observers to disagree sharply about the appropriate classification of principles of group membership – matrilineal? patrilineal? cognatic? house? – see Smedal’s analysis (2011) of the Ngadha in eastern Indonesia in which he takes issue with the conclusions of previous scholars.

3 The one notable exception here is the short article by Djojodigoeno (1968) in which, writing about the Minangkabau he makes a sharp distinction between kinship (bloedverwantschap) and clan membership (clangemeenschap). Djojodigoeno’s comments are insightful and provoking, and he shows himself aware of the African literature. However, in his determination to drive a wedge between kinship and clanship, and to show that the recognition of the range of kin is the same for the Javanese and the Minangkabau, he comes to what to my mind is the extraordinary conclusion that mamak and kemenakan (MB [Mother’s brother] and ZC [Sister’s children]) are not kin (bloedverwanten) – kemenakan en mama’ zijn blijkbaar geen aanduidigen van bloedverwantschap, maar termen, die thuis horen bij de clan-organisatie (1968: 265). The article is a good example it seems to me of the way in which the use of European terminology – and Djojodigoeno uses the terms familie, gezin and huishouding to further complicate matters – risks obscuring indigenous perceptions of the nature of links binding individuals.

4 cf. Biezeveld’s account (2010) of what has happened and is happening in West Sumatra and the conflicting conceptions of what a return to tradition means.

5 The significance of the role of individuals and the influence of serendipitous circumstances in relation to the stability of lineage structures and the esteem accorded to them need constantly to be borne in mind. Richards' observations on ‘the liability to change [of lineages] owing to historic factors’ in her review of Evans-Pritchard’s The Nuer drawn from her own experience in Africa as quoted by Kuper (1982: 81) are relevant here.

6 For a parallel description of local village government and its institutions see Watson (1987).

7 I deal with the subject at some length in my description of kinship in Pondok Tinggi (Watson 1992: 36–38).

8 Though Fortes notes (1953: 38) that intra-lineage marriage is often possible in African societies and when it does occur it is customary ritually to sever the intra-lineage connection between the spouses.

9 To complicate matters even further, in Semerap there are what appear to be extended cognatic kin groups, similar perhaps to Javanese trah, operating alongside matrilineal descent groups, and which allow all males who can claim cognatic descent from individuals who have held a specific title to lay claim to the title when it becomes vacant. It is precisely confusion of this kind, the finding of cognatic principles in a seemingly matrilineally organised society, which has led to the abandonment of the lineage theory model – the paradigm simply had too many anomalies to cope with.

10 The founder of the village is alleged to have been a certain Sutan Kamat who was of the Rio Sangaro lineage which consequently claims historical precedence in Pondok Tinggi.

11 The reference to the house here makes it tempting to suggest that the ethnographic data may benefit from an analysis using Lévi-Strauss’ concept sociétés de maison (house societies). I leave that for someone else to undertake, while I continue to mine the lineage lode.

12 There is clearly a similarity here with the Minangkabau institution of the anak semendo (semendo and mandéa are idiolect versions of the same word). There are differences in that as far as I can judge from the Minangkabau literature and occasional anecdotal information, the in-marrying husband is more distant from his in-laws than his Kerinci counterpart and never feels fully incorporated into his wife’s household, whereas the very term anak betino – unknown in Minangkabau – already suggests a full institutional incorporation into the lineage in ways described albeit with a status different from that of his brothers-in-law.

13 Although the importance of his contribution is recognised there is in Pondok Tinggi no question of his being granted an official lineage title. By contrast, in Hiang and in other villages of Kerinci, although the title belongs to the wife’s lineage, it can be bestowed on the husband, if he is considered suitably senior and responsible, for as long as the marriage lasts (Morison 1940).

14 This dual loyalty and how a man’s two statuses may potentially be in conflict is also mentioned as a significant issue in the analysis of lineage roles in Africa (Fortes 1953: 37)

15 The Depati and ninik-mamak as bodies make up two of the four constituent groups (empat jenis) which are said to be responsible for the traditional (adat) government of the village. The third group is the alim-ulama, the religious teachers, and the fourth is variously said to be the hulubalang (armed force), orang cerdik-pandai (intellectuals), and pemuda (youth) (Watson 1987).

16 It was intended that there should be a kenduri sko in Pondok Tinggi in June 2013, and preparations were well under way at the beginning of the year. Unfortunately, there was a devastating fire in the village which caused a lot of hardship and so plans for the kenduri sko were temporarily shelved. It was later held at the end of the year.

17 cf. what Biezefled writes (2010: 239–240) about the kepala adat pekan, the Minangkabau men who return from the rantau to their home villages with similar expectations.

18 Older ethnographic accounts from the 19th century – see for example the collected writings of G.A.Wilken (1912), who Frazer-like relied on these descriptions for his comparative ethnography and whose authority is cited by Djojodigoeno (1968) – are full of useful descriptions of such ceremonies, but they rarely constitute elements of the modern anthropological analysis of Sumatran societies.

19 That it should be dispute settlements that have preoccupied scholars of Sumatra is no coincidence, since the Dutch colonial government in trying to introduce uniform legal (Europo-centric) notions throughout the Indies which might facilitate (capitalist) economic development, fostered the study of indigenous legal practices especially in relation to property. For a good recent comprehensive account of the development of the concept of adat law and its influence on subsequent policy and scholarship, see von Benda-Beckmann and von Benda-Beckmann (2011). In their carefully documented article they successfully defend Cornelius van Vollenhoven against charges that he was the principal agent of the misinterpretation of adat and lay that charge squarely on administrators of the law and their mentors in Utrecht. They make it clear, however, that ‘Of course the whole enterprise of setting up a systematic study of the laws of the Indonesian archipelago was also influenced by pragmatic political considerations aimed at improving the functioning of the colonial administration of justice’ (2011: 176) For a long time in independent Indonesia, and as is still the case in some universities, anthropology was limited to the study of hukum adat (adat law), as it was known, and the teaching of the subject was located within law faculties.

20 Djojodigoeno (1968: 271) also comments on the changes in the functions of the lineage office-holders following the introduction of the national government administration since the establishment of the Republic. He notes the conflict between the authority vested in kinship-family relationships and that vested in the lineage (the adat-kemenakan of the buah perut as he terms it) predicting the imminent demise of the latter, despite the nostalgia attached to the institution. My own position, at least as regards Pondok Tinggi, is that the lineage will continue to have importance for many in relation to institutions of welfare and for all residing in the village with respect social rituals. The domain in which it may possibly lose some of its centrality is in property transactions. See similar conclusions from Biezefeld (2010: 243–244) on the position of penghulu – lineage elders – in West Sumatra.