„Dem Berg entstiegen, vom Meer gesandt“

Konfigurationen des Eigenen und des Fremden in den Gründungsmythen und der Opfersymbolik eines ostindonesischen Königtums

Abstract

With the arrival of the first Portuguese and Dutch merchant ships in the sixteenth century to trade with the Spice Islands and Timor began the rise of the Flores coastal town of Larantuka to become one of the most powerful domains in the region. This was due not only to its favourable geographical location, but also to the politics of the town’s reigning rajahs, converts to Christianity who allowed Portuguese merchants to settle down and marry local wives. The diversity of the resulting population is reflected in the origin myth of the rajah’s house. The article shows how this special version of the widespread myth of the stranger-king is strongly connected to the belief system and to the traditional sacrificial rituals of East Flores Lamaholot culture, as well as to the complex division of political offices between the heads of the leading ‘aristocratic’ clans of each village. All these cultural and social phenomena seem to be structured by a thinking in terms of complementary oppositions that shows a high degree of flexibility in coping with foreign influences, as well as the astonishing resilience of the traditional social order and way of life.