Accumulation of heads, distribution of food; The image of power in Nias

Abstract

Nias is an island located approximately 112 km off the west coast of Sumatra. As Feldman remarks, this island 'has been the subject of a great deal of literature' (19775); sources (reports'written largely by travellers, Dutch colonial officials, and German Lutheran missionaries) include many monographs and hundreds of articles covering a wide range of topics. The most important sources are Chatelin 1881, Thomas 1892 and Sunder- mann 1905 on religion, and Schröder 19 17 on history and ethnograhpy, while Modigliani's book (1 890) is also quite interesting. Several works focused on Nias architecture are de Boer 1920, Feldman 1977, 1979, and 1984, and Viaro 1980. Information about Centra1 Nias is available in Hammerle 1982 and 1984, and about South Nias in De Vet 1964, La'ija 1975, Marschall 1976, and Scarduelli 1982, 1985, 1986a, 1986b, and 1987. Extensive bibliographies on Nias are to be found in Suzuki 1958, Feldman 1977, Roth 1985, Scarduelli 1986a. In spite of the impressive number of old texts available on the ethno- graphy of Nias, the descriptions which they include are often inaccurate and defective and, what is more, present a mix of data from different parts of the island, although the linguistic and cultural differences are consider- able. Indeed, different dialects are spoken in North, Centra1 and South Nias; there are also differences in the lay-out of villages, the structure of houses, political organization and rituals. The available literature - as Feldman (1977:6) points out - 'very often presents a picture of Nias culture as a single unified system', while the ethnographic information derives from the north, where missions and administrative centres were located. The result is that only a very smal1 proportion of the facts presented in the sources concerns the southern districts. Consequently, as the present ar- ticle deals with South Nias, I had to base my findings exclusively on the data which I myself collected during fieldwork in Nias in 1979, 1982 and 1985. Information was collected through interviews with elderly natives in