A Comparative Study of “Unmarried” Female Chiefs in Central Flores, Indonesia: An Austronesian Perspective

Abstract

This paper is a comparative study of indigenous polities and their origin myths in the Lionese-speaking area of central Flores, eastern Indonesia, to explore the Austronesian context in which an “unmarried” sister of the supreme chief assumes the status of female chief in Lise Tana Telu, the largest Lionese chiefdom. Although not all chiefdoms have such a female chief, it is widely recognized that the primordial cross-sex sibling bond in mythical, ritual and other forms functions is the source of life at the level of indigenous polity. On the other hand, in the domain of kinship, the same kind of source is posited not in the bond of cross-sex siblings but in that of the maternal and patrilineal progenitors. The primordial cross-sex siblingship at the polity level takes multiple and divergent forms in the Lionese-speaking area. By comparing these, it is concluded that the relationship between the female chief and the supreme chief in Lise Tana Telu is one of the realization forms. This paper is the first part of a comparative study, and its sequel extends the scope to encompass Austronesian peoples in Formosa, the central part of insular Southeast Asia, western Polynesia and elsewhere in order to refine the typologies developed concerning primordial siblingship in this paper.