Paths and rivers : Sa'dan Toraja society in transformation

Resource Information

The work Paths and rivers : Sa'dan Toraja society in transformation represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Liverpool. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Paths and rivers : Sa'dan Toraja society in transformation

Title remainder

Sa'dan Toraja society in transformation

Statement of responsibility

Roxana Waterson

Creator

• Waterson, Roxana

Author

• Waterson, Roxana

Subject

• Celebesie
• Christendom
• Christianization
• Cultural identity
• Culturele identiteit
• Ethnology -- Indonesia | Tana Toraja
• Field work
• Gender relations
• Geschiedenis
• History
• Indonesia
• Indonesie
• Modernisatie
• Modernization
• Mythologie
• Mythology
• Religion
• Rituals
• Rituelen
• Sa'adan Toraja
• Sekse relatie
• Social anthropology
• Social change
• Social evolution
• Social structure
• Sociale antropologie
• Sociale structuur
• Sociale verandering
• Sulawesi Tengah
• Toraja (Indonesian people) -- Rites and ceremonies
• Toraja (Indonesian people) -- Social life and customs
• Veldwerk
• Celebesian

Language

eng

Summary

Fieldwork extending over a thirty-year period provided materials for this book. Paths and Rivers offers an unusually deep and broad picture of the Sa'dan Toraja as a society in dynamic transition over the course of the past century. The Toraja inhabit the mountainous highlands of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and are well known for their dramatic architecture, their unusual cliff burials, and their flamboyant ceremonial life, which places extraordinary economic demands on individuals and families. The analysis is informed, firstly, by a comparative perspective which sets Toraja social structure in the context of the Austronesian world. Secondly, the author delves deeply into Toraja social memory to show how people think about the past. She examines the usefulness of history and myth in the present as a source of identity, a template for action, or a resource by means of which to claim precedence. The book gives a clear picture of the structure and ethos of the indigenous Toraja religion, the Aluk To Dolo or 'Way of the Ancestors', with its complex cycle of rituals. The book concludes with an analysis of the ceremonial economy, which draws upon both domestic subsistence production and the global market economy. Paths and Rivers draws together a fascinating picture of one society's journey into modernity. Roxana Waterson is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore. She is also the author of The living house: an anthropology of architecture in Southeast Asia (3rd ed., Thames and Hudson, 1997) and Southeast Asian lives: Personal narratives and historical experience (Singapore University Press/Ohio University Press, 2007)

Member of

• Free online access: JSTOR
• Online access with subscription: Proquest Ebook Central
• Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 253

Cataloging source

CaPaEBR

Illustrations

• illustrations
• maps
• portraits

Index

index present

LC call number

DS632.T7

LC item number

W377 2009eb

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

• standards specifications
• bibliography

Series statement

Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde

Series volume

253