ppt - 13-ICAL - Academia Sinica

LEGENDARY PLACE NAMES:
COASTAL MICRO-TOPONOMASTICS
IN ALOR
THROUGH THE LENS
OF AN ABUI MYTH
Dr Francesco PERONO CACCIAFOCO, PhD,
Nanyang Technological University (NTU),
College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (COHASS),
School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS),
Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies (LMS),
Singapore
[email protected]
13 ICAL (International Conference on Austronesian Languages),
Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, July 18-23, 2015
Topic
• Coastal toponymy and micro-toponomastics in Alor Island
* Reconstructed
– through an Abui (Trans-New Guinea family language, Alor-Pantar subgroup, Alor Archipelago, South-Eastern Indonesia) legend
* Analyzed
– in diachrony, with focus on the different versions of the mythical tale
– in language description, with focus on Abui language and toponymy
Legendary Place Names
Coastal Micro-Toponomastics in Alor
Through the Lens of an Abui Myth
The Alor-Pantar languages
are a family of clearly related Papuan languages spoken on
islands of the Alor archipelago (South-Eastern Indonesia)
Abui is an Alor-Pantar language
(Trans-New Guinea family)
spoken approximately by 16,000 speakers
in the central part of the Alor Island
Native name of the language =
Abui tangà,
literally ‘mountain language’
Language Codes
ISO 639-3
abz
Glottolog
abui1241
Contents
• Preliminary reconstruction of an Abui legend involving
Abui toponymy and micro-toponomastics
• Anthropological-linguistic analysis of different stages
in the Abui mythical tale
• Collection, from the Abui story, of place names and
micro-toponyms still attested and known by speakers
• Conclusions (‘meta-history’ before the properly
called history in Abui toponymy and myth)
The Abui Lamòling Story
•
•
•
•
shows complex diachronic levels and stages in the
making of the plot
is chronologically developed according to different
cultural systems and influences
is characterized by the presence of real Abui place
names still existing and attested in Alor
allows to investigate the deep perception of their own
‘micro-history’, origins, culture, traditions, and
spirituality by Abui people
When, Where, and Who?
• NTU Language Documentation Fieldwork (June 01, 2015 - June 10,
2015) led by Asst Prof. František Kratochvíl (NTU Research Project
Toponymy and Language Shift: Aspects of Language Change in SouthEast Asia, led by Assoc. Prof. Francesco P. Cavallaro)
• Alor Island (South-East Indonesia, Timor area), Abui villages
Takalelàng and Takpàla (coastal area)
• Abui native-speakers: Mr Markus Lema and Mr Darius Delpada
• Abui-English translator: Mr Anselm Delpada
• Two ritual and ceremonial houses in
Takpàla,
Kolwàt (‘dark’) and Kanurwàt (‘white’)
• They represent two different stages in
Abui ‘micro-history’ (‘the darkness of
the past’ and the ‘light of current times’)
•
The offer of rice to three symbolic and ritual stones
located in front of the two houses
- the two Abui gods, Lamòling and Lahatàla
- the name of the ritual: karilìk hè hàk, ‘offer to the
big old stones’
- the name of the place: Karilìk (external part of the
Takpàla village)
- there Lamòling was used to meet Abui people
•
Abui people, eating that rice, established direct connections and
good relationships with the two gods
Lamòling: ancient (plausibly original) Abui god, friend of humankind, living with
humans, having anthropomorphous appearance and supporting them
Probably existing, in the Abui culture, before Lahatàla
He is also, as a primordial deity, a terrible punisher and trickster
He becomes, over time, a demon and, with the ‘arrival’ of Christianity in Alor, the
devil
Lahatàla: probably ‘younger’ Abui god, ‘pure spirit’, good and merciful, able to
enter human bodies in order to talk with people
His name derives from the Muslim God’s name, Allah
He is opposed to Lamòling in a symbolic dichotomy
He becomes, over time, the ‘alternative’ god to Lamòling and, with the ‘arrival’
of Christianity, the ‘only and true Christian God’
•
Lamòling = original god, god of freedom from
inhibitions and dogmas, god of nature, pròtos euretès of
technological discoveries offered by him to the humans.
Also terrible instinctual punisher and trickster.
Comparable to Dionysus, Loki, and Kokopelli
respectively in Greek, Norse, and native-American
mythologies
•
Lahatàla = less ancient god symbol of order and
spirituality.
Comparable with Apollo in Greek mythology and
subsequently associated with the Christian God
•
Original and ancestral friendship between
Lamòling and Abui people. Meetings in Karilìk.
Lamòling lives with the humans. He introduces to
them technology. He is helpful and benevolent
•
The ‘arrival’ of Lahatàla as a ‘new god’ (more
spiritual, metaphysical, ‘remote’, austere, and
trascendental than Lamòling) originates the
jealousy of Lamòling.
Lahatàla outstrips Lamòling in the faith of Abui
people and wants to be their only god
The ‘Party Affair’ and the Original Offense
1) During a party to celebrate the friendship among Abui people and
the two gods, Lahatàla enters the body of an Abui woman, Fikàr,
telling the humans they have to break their relationship with
Lamòling, a ‘non-good god’, and to keep him as the ‘only and true
god’
2) Abui people seem to follow willingly the ‘order’ by Lahatàla
3) Despite of his attendance to the party, Lamòling behaves normally,
pretending to ignore the offense
4) After the end of the party an Abui child disappears, kidnapped
5) No one knows the author of the crime and Abui people start to
look for the child
The Search for the Missing Child
1) Abui people looked for the child in Takalelàng and Takpàla, then
they decided to go to look for him at the seashore and at the sea
2) Descending towards the sea from the hill, they passed at Lamòling
Bèaka, an intermediate place between the two villages and the sea
3) They did not find the child, but, on the way back, they met the
servants (demons) of Lamòling at Lamòling Bèaka
4) They offered Abui people a dinner of meat
5) The dishes were the body parts and the head of the kidnapped child
6) Abui people did not eat and asked to bring the body of the child to
the village (Takpàla) to bury him. The demons allowed them to do
that
The Place Name Lamòling Bèaka
1) The place of the horrible dinner had not yet a name
2) The name Lamòling Bèaka has been given to the place by Abui
people after that terrible event and means ‘Bad Lamòling’,
‘Lamòling the evil’
3) Abui speakers still know and recognize the place Lamòling
Bèaka and are able to indicate its exact position
4) It is located on the Takpàla and Takalelàng hill, lower than the
two villages, towards the seashore and the sea
5) The place had its name from this Abui legend
The Abui People’s Revenge
1) Abui people organized a party, inviting Lamòling and his servants (demons)
2) The chosen place was in the Takpàla area, but close to Lù Melàng, an ancient
upper village currently abandoned (in Abui lù = ‘river’, melàng = ‘village’)
3) The demons came with Lamòling, Abui people gave them a lot of food and made
them dance for days, restless
4) When Lamòling and his servants were tired, Abui people offered them to sleep in
a house they had prepared for them
5) When all the demons and also Lamòling (apparently) were sleeping, Abui people
burned down the house
6) All the demons died
7) But Lamòling had already realized the deception and, changing himself into a
pregnant woman, was able to escape in the fire’s confusion
The God’s Perpetual Exile
1) The escaping Lamòling went to the territory of Kabola, a
neighboring population (North of the Abui area), in order to
save himself and/or in order to abandon Abui people without
going too far from them
2) The place in which Lamòling ‘retracted’ is called Pakulàng
Hièng, meaning (non-literally and extensively) ‘bad place’
3) It currently exists, is uninhabited, and is considered both by
Kabola and Abui people as a ‘sinister place’
4) Kabola people were not ‘friends’ of Lamòling
5) The choice of the place by the god could be due, perhaps, to the
will of Lamòling to closely threaten Abui people
The ‘Christian Version’ and Lahatàla
1) After the expulsion of Lamòling, Abui people started to worship Lahatàla as
the ‘only and true god’
2) After the ‘arrival’ of the Christianity in Alor the story of the escape of
Lamòling has been changed
3) By now considered as the Christian God, Lahatàla would have punished
Lamòling (the devil) sinking him in the rocks of Pakulàng Hièng from the
sky
4) The devil Lamòling would have been imprisoned in the rocks of that place
5) It is evident the similarity with the Christian story of Lucifer, the most
beautiful angel of the Heaven, rebel against God and sunk by Him at the
bottom of the Hell
6) From the dichotomy Lamòling - Lahatàla as Dionysus and Apollo the
Christian version of the story evolved in the dichotomy Lamòling vs
Lahatàla = God vs devil
The Stratigraphy of Myth
1) The Lamòling story shows different diachronic layers and
stages, requiring a ‘stratigraphy’ of the mythical tale
2) In the most ancient version Lamòling appears as a Dionysiac
deity, able to be the closest god for/to the humans and, at the
same time, a terrible and instinctual punisher
3) In the most recent (Christian) version, Lamòling is represented as
the fierce enemy of God (Lahatàla), the devil of the medieval
Christian tradition
4) It is not a case that the Abui generic (and general) name for ‘God’
(the Christian God) is Lahatàla
The Paths of the Gods’ Names
Lamòling
↓
Original, primordial, ancestral, atavistic, and archetypal god, with anthropomorphous
appearance, very close to humans
↓
Demon
↓
Devil
Lahatàla
↓
Originally a pure spiritual and trascendental god living in the sky,
talking to humankind and approaching humans entering the bodies of people
↓
Good spiritual god opposed (in dichotomy) to the ‘demon’ Lamòling
↓
God (the ‘only and true Christian God’)
Abui Belief
and Anthropological Archetypes
Abui people and speakers think the Lamòling story is true and they consider it as a
historical event. According to them, Lamòling is real and still exists
↓
The told and handed down events
happened a little bit before the arrival of the Dutch colonizers (with Christianity)
Some mythological archetypes and parallels
↓
The ‘child dinner’
↓
the Greek myth of Atreus and Thyestes
and some aboriginal Australian and New Zealand myths
* Lamòling story → cultural meaning and possible diachronic comparison with
other mythologies and religions → ‘cultural archaeology’
The Place Names from the Lamòling Story
Eight Abui place names from the Lamòling story
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
↓
Abui place names and micro-toponyms all with etymological explanation
Still existing and attested
Integral part of the Alor landscape and of the ideal map of Abui world
All known and recognized by Abui speakers
Linked to Abui traditions and culture
The eight Abui place names:
↓








Takalelàng
Takpàla
Kolwàt
Kanurwàt
Karilìk
Lamòling Bèaka
Lù Melàng
Pakulàng Hièng
Conclusions
 The Lamòling story is relevant not only for its cultural meaning and for the
possible diachronic comparison with other mythologies and religions (cultural
archaeology), but also for the presence and description of the places that are the
‘theatre’ of those legendary events. Those places (place names and microtoponyms) are still existing, documented, attested, recognized, and known by the
local (Abui) people and linked to Abui traditions and culture
 The study of these place names allows to link Abui toponyms to the history of
Abui people. This is not only the evenemential ‘real’ history, but also the
‘history of the soul’ of Abui people, their deep perception of their own ‘microhistory’, origins, culture, traditions, and spirituality
 Abui place names and micro-toponyms are connected with the cultural roots
of this population of the Alor Island and are part of the preservation and
transmission, by the same Abui people, of their stories and identity
 These toponymy and micro-toponomastics have their roots in the most original
and ancestral age of Abui people, producing ‘meta-history’ before the
properly called history
References
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