The Divination: A Journey into the Past
A funeral divination has much of the suspense of a detective story, as a whole array of spirit "suspects" are summoned down to the mat where rice is scattered, then sequentially interrogated as to their possible motives for withdrawing protection from the dead man. The real killer might be an ancestor, a guardian deity of the village or garden hamlet, or a wild spirit-companion who has been inadequately compensated for her gifts of wealth.
A week after Ra Honggoro's funeral, two diviners came to the house of mourning to begin a several-hour-long investigation of the causes of his death. The older one, Rangga Pinja, was a blind orator from a neighboring village who scattered rice and spoke the invocations to each of the spirit suspects. His younger assistant, Rendi Banda Lora, held the divination spear outstretched in his arms—the handle grasped by the left hand, the right arm traveling the length of the spear with the right thumb extended beyond the point. As the diviner presented questions to the marapu , his assistant lunged toward the wall of the sacred right front corner (mata marapu ) where the spirits were believed to come down. When his thumb touched the wall, the spirit's answer was positive, and he murmured his assent; when it fell short, the answer was negative, and he called back "Aree!" to his companion, a signal that the interrogation must continue.
The first spirit summoned was the spirit of the divination spear—mone haghu, mone urato ("the Savunese man, the divining man"), a magical object imported to Sumba from the small island of Savu and used as an intermediary to contact the other marapu . The spear probes the anger of the invisible ones, its sharpened tip cutting through their reluctance to reveal the truth or falsity of the diviner's speculative scenarios. As soon as the spear holder had confirmed that the spear's invisible spirit was present, the diviner began to "bring down the monkeys"—that is, to call on all the marapu who may have had reason to be upset:
From your throats and your livers | Wali kyoko wali y'ate |
From your backs and your bellies | Wali kabendo wali kyambu |
We bring you our language and | Mai dukinggumi paneghe patera |
To ask you about a person | Tana pa kalirongo a toyo |
Who was entered by death | Na tamaka a mate |
Whose disappearance arrived | Na dukingo a heda |
What was the anger and the | Ngge nikya a mbani a mbuha |
Which caused his death? | Na pa orongo a mate? |
Was there something skipped like a | Ba nei jo kingo a katadi hambule la |
Was there something missed like a | Ba nei jo kingo pa letengo la boki |
Metaphors for the vulnerability of the person use the idiom of the vulnerability of the house, which was so weakened by the intrusion of death that the final divination is described as a rite "to mend the walls and close the gap in the bamboo slats" (wolo handa, todi byoki ) where danger first came in.
The diviner's search moved through space, from the house and ancestral village where the funeral was held, to the various smaller settlements where the people of Malandi cultivated their gardens and the pasturelands for Ra Honggoro's extensive herds and unfinished stone house. Early hints suggested that the scene of the crime lay in distant garden lands, where one of Ra Honggoro's direct predecessors had made a promise to the marapu which was not fulfilled. A positive response was obtained for this first, exploratory suggestion of the reasons for his death:
Great was the wrongdoing of Raya | Bokolo pa ngandi Ryaya |
That he didn't heed the speech of the | Nja la tanihyada ha paneghe ndewa |
Short was the life of Raya | Pandako pa deke Raya |
That he didn't set aside the words of | Nja awa ta bandalango liyo ndewa |
The questioning now returned to the genealogical line, since the spirits of Ra Honggoro's father, Tonggo Radu, and grandfather, Maha Rehi, seemed most directly involved. Both, however, refused to come down when summoned. The diviner protested this recalcitrance by reporting it to the higher deities:
Stepping with their feet | Pangga ha witti |
They wouldn't step with their feet | Nja pangga ha witti |
So a dam came to block our speech | Pa kawata kori lyoko a paneghe |
Raising their buttocks | Kede ha kere |
They wouldn't raise their buttocks | Njaha kede ha kere |
The flow of water stopped for our | Pa hanamba nimbia weiyo a patera |
They won't cross their legs on the | Njana mbara mbica witti la nopo |
They won't fold their hands by the | Njana hangga hara limya la wiha |
Exasperated that his spirit intermediaries did not produce the needed witnesses, the diviner himself stepped back and allowed his assistant to begin a new series of questions, insisting again on the distress of the living and their need to establish an answer.
The younger man threw himself into the fray with great speed and vigor, invoking the deities that oversee divination within the house and can constrain reluctant ancestors to appear:
The loincloth must be unfolded, I say | Pa kawakaho kalambo wenggu |
The basket must be opened, I say | Pa bunggero kapepe wenggu |
I speak from the trunk of mother | Yayo wali pola inya da |
No more chasing lost horses | Tana ambu kandaba ndara mbunga |
I speak from the building of father | Yayo wall dari bapa |
No more straining the throat in vain | Tana ambu koko wei kaweda |
Something made the throat close in | Nengyo diyo pa wolo hudu koko |
Something made the liver tight with | Nengyo diyo pa rawi reka ate |
A reason the pig fell in the hunter's | Uru pa nengyo pokato wawi kalola |
A reason the horse tripped on the | Uru pa nengyo ndara nduka nambi |
Finally he succeeded in contacting the spirits of two resentful ancestors who agreed to come down to answer the questions of the older diviner. He then stepped back and allowed his superior to continue the questioning.
Rangga Pinja established that the trouble came from Lolo Peka, Ra Honggoro's pasturelands in the distant region of Balaghar, where he had made a pact with a wild spirit that was not fulfilled. Once he verified the role of the wild spirit (the one "close as the pouches of a betel bag, the folds of the waist cloth" ndepeto kaleku, hanguto kalambo ), he broke out of the ritualized dialogue with the spirits to ask his human audience to supply some of the missing details. "Who was this secret spirit-wife of Ra Honggoro's?" he asked them. "Has anyone seen her? Is she the same as his grandfather's secret consort?"
Relatives from the pasturelands in Balaghar remembered that they had heard stories of a tall beauty from the sea who had formed a pact with one of Ra Honggoro's ancestors. Others said they had seen her from a distance near his buffalo, or wandering off into the forest with him. She could take the form of a megapode, a wild forest hen with long legs who lays very large eggs. The megapode is a prodigal of fertility and productivity, but she is a bad mother: she builds elaborate mud nests for her eggs, regulating the temperature for incubation by means of elaborate tunnels, but then leaves her young to hatch on their own. Megapode fledglings are born as orphans, deserted by their mother, and forced to make their lives on their own.
The megapode bird represents reproduction without nurturance, fertility without feeling, and is associated with the rapid growth of wealth and descendants but improper care. In the same way, a wild spirit-wife may give riches, but in return she saps the life of her human consorts, or demands sacrifices of them and their children. Ra Honggoro had earlier promised to offer a long-tusked pig and a buffalo with elbow-length horns to the wild spirit when he gave a feast in the gardens, a vow he had neglected to carry out. As a consequence, his spirit consort began to weaken him until he agreed to comply with her wishes.
She broke apart the bridge leading | Na mbata nikya a lara lende loko |
She extinguished the flames of the | Na mbada nikya a api hulu mara |
She shortened his life using the same magical power that had earlier increased the fertility of his herds and added to the splendor of his feasts. Through the image of the neglected wild bird-woman, Ra Honggoro was presented as a victim of his own careless pride.
The divination revealed, however, that the wild spirit did not do her work alone. She had accomplices among the guardian spirits of the hamlet, who also felt that a debt to them had not been repaid. To probe the reasons for this discontent, Rangga Pinja once again opened up the floor to the human audience, who told him stories of illnesses and deaths in the garden hamlets that they suspected were part of the same complex of guilt.
Because no one knew why the spirits wanted them to feel guilty, the diviner asked for two chickens to use in intermediate offerings. The first. was dedicated to the spirit of the divination spear, to confirm that they were still moving in the right direction ("toward the tail of the bay horse, toward the base of the knife's sheath"). The second was dedicated to the
Lord of the Land, the angry garden spirit, who was promised a sacrifice for renewed fertility once the mystery of the death was solved.
The signs in the chickens' entrails were positive, so the questioning continued. The diviner traced the locus of discontent to the settlement at Homba Rica, where the problem seemed to concern rice spirits that had been displaced without ever having been properly restored. "Did rice fields burn in this area? Were there ceremonies to call back their souls?" he asked his audience.
Yes, he was told, paddy had once burned on the stalk—some fifty years ago—and the souls had been called back by Maha Rehi, Ra Honggoro's grandfather. But one old man remembered that once the spirits had been called back, the villagers should have held a singing ceremony (yaigho ) before planting to bring the lost rice souls inside the gates of the hamlet—and that ceremony had never taken place. The burnt rice was left outside, unable to enter the hamlet and growing increasingly impatient.
As soon as this negligence was established, Rangga Pinja called on all those present to commit themselves to holding the long-delayed ceremony. They agreed to try to hold it within a year, a promise the diviner repeated to the angry spirit:
This is why monkeys fell in the dark | Mono a pena ba koki mandi myete |
Cockatoos flew in disarray | Kaka walla nggole |
The trunk of the horse post | Oro kapunge pola ndara |
Traveled on the road of our words | Helu wallu lara a paneghe ma |
The great source of water | Oro mata wei kalada |
Sailed on the current of our speech | Tana tena wallu teko a patera ma |
So 1 say to you now | Mono ba hei wyali ba henene |
When the waters start to flow anew | Ba helu kendu a weiyo |
Go to wait at the edge of the planting | Tana kadanga waingo rema ela tilu |
For the rice of the sea worms | A ngagha nale |
When the rains begin to fall | Ba helu mburu aura |
Be patient by the seed platform | Kamodo waingo mangga ela londo wu |
For the rice of prohibitions | A ngagha padu |
Brought to the garden hamlet | Tana tama waingo witti ela bondo |
At the feet of Mother of the Land | Tane waindi witti a inya mangu tana |
Carried to the corn granary | Tana duki waingo limya ela |
In the hands of Father of the Rivers | Ghughu waingo limya ela bapa |
Once the rainy season began, he affirmed, the proper sacrifices would be carried out to bring the lost rice souls back into the hamlet and formally place them under the guardianship of the Lord of the Land.
Rangga Pinja rested after finally getting to the core of the marapu's distress ("the trunk of the horse post, the great source of water"). His assistant continued the interrogation, asking if there was any other unfinished business in Lolo Peka, Ra Honggoro's pasturelands. The spear indicated that something remained which could threaten the health of the livestock:
There is leftover speech | Nengyo oro paneghe |
Where you built the hen's perch | Ela pandou pa woloni keka manu |
There are traces of words | Nengyo oro patera |
Where you made the pig's trough | Ela pandou pa rawini rabba wawi |
Making the tails entangled | Ba wolongoka kiku na pa tane |
Making the snouts bite | Rawingoka ngora na pa katti |
Slipping into the hunter's net | Pa nobongo waingo a duki rembio |
Struck as they cross the forest | Pa ghena waingo pagheghu la |
The local spirits, it seemed, were upset because when preparations were made to build the stone house, a feast should have been held to announce these intentions to the marapu of the region. In the rush of assembling all the necessary materials, however, this stage had been omitted; those involved did not even sacrifice a chicken in the house to tell their own ancestors. The diviner recommended an immediate apology, with the modest sacrifice of a small pig to persuade the local spirits to wait until the stone house was finished to receive their full share.
The last offense discovered was a minor one: the Elder Spirit of the clan was annoyed because people had planted tobacco beside one of the houses in the ancestral village. This violated the division of space between the productive centers in the gardens and the centers of worship in the ancestral villages, the "land of sea worms and prohibitions" (tana nale, tana padu ). A chicken was offered to ask forgiveness ("stroke the liver, caress the belly," ami y'ate, ghoha kambu ) and assure the Elder Spirit it would not happen again.