The Village That May Not Be Sold

A rule, not a story

Agustinus Ndiken, head of Baad village, began his account with a rule. The rule is that the culture of a village belongs to that village, and cannot be passed on to another.

"This village has its own, only its own," he said. "What belongs to this village cannot be channelled elsewhere. Each village has its own culture."

That rule applies to him as a narrator too. Asked about matters outside Baad village, he returned the question to those with the authority. "I cannot discuss what belongs to other villages," he said, "only Baad."

It is from within that boundary that he speaks.

What is most abundant is prohibition

At Baad, he said, what is most abundant is not stories but prohibitions. There is sacred land, there are ritual places, there are places of offering to the ancestors, and there are resting places of the ancestors. They are many and not merely one.

The one most often named is the old village.

The old village

The old village is where the Malind once lived, and the manner of living there differed from now. Formerly each clan had its own village. The Ndiken clan in one place, the Mahuze clan in another, separate from one another. So too the sago groves. And people moved about following those places.

In the age of headhunting, he said, matters were different again. In headhunting all the clans joined at once, in a single body, for instance in the contest for land.

The old village is the place that holds both conditions, the condition of separation by clan and the condition of union in time of war.

The treatment of such places is firm and simple. They may not be cleared and may not be sold. What may be done is to fence them.

Why houses were built near the swamp

Near an old village there is almost always a sago grove, and the reason is thoroughly practical. Sago is the staple food, and sago grows in swampy ground. If people live too far from the sago grove, life becomes hard. So dwellings were made close to that grove.

Sago groves, he said, come partly from the ancestors and are partly planted.

Asked whether a sago grove can be exhausted so that people must move again, his answer explains both the nature of the plant and the nature of its ownership. A sago grove is not exhausted unless it burns. If it does not burn, it keeps sending up shoots. One palm may yield up to ten harvests, but harvesting is slow, five years, even seven.

"Sago is always there," he said, "because each clan has its own."

Daily labour, not ceremony

Working sago is not a ceremony. It is daily labour. There is no special time, he said, because sago is everyday food. What is prepared is the equipment, and the equipment comes entirely from the land, among it the sago frond and the trough that catches the flour.

Knowledge that passes without teaching

The most striking part of his account is how the knowledge passes. There is no teaching. There is presence.

The children, he said, often come along, indeed come along every day. While the parents work the sago, the child begins to steal a turn at it.

"Little by little he can do it himself," he said. "So that is what we call local wisdom. It comes down through the generations."

Asked whether there is a festival for sago working in his area, his answer was honest and at the same time marked the limit of his own authority. There has never been one, he said, and if there is, that must be asked of the customary head.