Land earth sun moon and the father of generations: An historiography of words for god in Sara Sikka

Abstract

The common word in Sara Sikka for the Christian god is amapu, a compound noun meaning 'father of generations'. There is reason to believe that the word came into use after conversions to Roman Catholicism began on Flores in the early sixteenth century but the origin of the word is obscure. An examination of writing about Sikka and its language by early Jesuits and later SVD missionaries on Flores reveals, if not the origin of the word amapu, much about its meaning in relation to the values and cosmology of pre-Christian Sikkanese society, culture and thought. The historiographic evidence also points to how elements of classical Sikkanese traditions have survived in the Christian culture of Sikka. © 2013 E.D. Lewis.