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Feasts Eakalea / kaleak baba In 1973 Kähler published a description of what he called the eakalea feast [34]. It is the story of the harvest feast as told by an informant. The preparation for the eakalea began with the tidying of the graves of important people. The organisers of the feast gathered at a chief's grave to discuss the procedure. One of them split a coconut and ceremonially cleaned the graves, saying: Now, do I pray to the graves of all of you, now, and I have cleansed them so that all your resting-places may be clean. But now I say: open them so that all your resting places may be clean. But now I say: open my eyes for me here, do not obscure the earth before me! Wherever I may go, send me good fortune. Whatever I may seek in times to come, let me not meet with evil in my going about in times to come ! Thus do I speak. Send now all that I desire to achieve fulfilment. Thus do I speak now at the completion of the cleansing of your graves at this time. [35] The chief was now ready to organise a large feast. A female chief also had to perform a ceremony to secure the 'going forth of her nephews and of her younger brothers'. Next, the yam tubers, the products of the gardens, were collected. The people attached them to carrying poles, fifteen poles for a female chief and ten for a male chief, and brought the food to the village the next day. The following activity was a fishing expedition. For three nights the people went down to the sea, and when they saw that the catch was abundant, they returned to their houses. It is stressed that the chief then exclaimed: Go into your houses! When you are come into your houses, give the contents of your hands to your wives [36]. Just as with the harvest from the gardens, the catch was brought home. After having 'prayed' for a successful hunt, the men went into the forest to hunt for wild pig. The game was caught and divided among the houses according to a strict system. The heart, the spleen, the fillet and the belly meat were removed before the pig was roasted over the flames of a fire. The hunters then took the whole catch to the slaughtering place in the village, also referred to as the 'place where his head is cut off'. They then brought the pig's head into the house of a female chief. The trip to the forest to catch pigs was repeated in the trip to the gardens, this time to gather bananas. Finally they went down to the sea again, and stayed there for two days. The women, who stayed home, roasted the yams. Coming back after the fishing expedition the men again went to the house of a female chief, saying: 'It is finished. We have brought everything to completion; everything we sought is now complete. … Tomorrow we will go and fetch forked branches.' [37] The forked branches and bamboo poles collected in the forest served as installations on which the food was displayed. Ripe, sprouting coconuts also hung together with the food, to be used at the end of the feast.
Then, young coconuts were also taken down. These were said to supplement the ripe, sprouting coconuts. The assembly for the feast, in which several villages were involved, could not take place at the dark of the moon, although the invitations went out when the moon was waning. The invitations were sent to the other villages involved. In the meantime the people installed the food on the forked branches in the organisers' village. It is said that the community was divided into four, and that four installations of food were being made. While waiting for the guests the coconuts, yams, bananas, fish and pork hung on poles. Kähler not only gave a description of the rituals during the festivities. He also informs us about the ornaments used by the people of the village organizing the feast. Here, it is sufficient to cite Kähler's remarks [38] on the women's ornaments, remarks resembling those made nearly a hundred years before by Helfrich [39].
"… they wear aprons made of Buginese glass beads when they take part in an eakalea feast, and they wear ear-ornaments made from the tail feathers of the ekiu'i bird and from the tail feathers of the parrots… they wore necklaces of e'odoko shells…There was also another ornament for women called a 'hair cylinder'. In this they put their ornaments, which were called eit'ia'a. This was the ornament of the women who organised a great eakalea feast, for we might not use this for purposes of ornamentation at small gatherings, but only at those for which thorough preparations were made." In the meantime the invited visitors also decorated themselves (differently) and also collected food to bring to the feast. When the visitors arrived in the village where the feast was being given, the leader of the village invited everyone to go a place in the forest where they have camped before. It is not stipulated which place this was. People took spears and bush knives. Then they rejoiced and cried out as they came (back to the village). Near the village they formed a circle and stamped with their feet on the earth. The earth roared from their actions. Finally, the chief who was in charge of the feast said: 'Enough! You are satisfied, and so also am I'. Apparently, it concerned a leader of the visiting groups, for he also said: 'you have invited me and I have come in order to beautify our gathering. And thus we are both satisfied, for we have arranged to ease our hearts with sport'. Then people sang and danced. Those who organised the feast sang something else, and the songs did not mingle." After the dancing the chief of the feast givers took a yam, which represented a dead person, and wrapped it in a piece of cloth. The cloth apparently came from Tuan Frantjis (Mr. Francis) who spent some time on Enggano in the 1860s. The chief held the yam and the cloth and said: This is the end of my thoughts at the place where my dead grandchildren and my dead younger brothers and sisters died, for I have called all of us together. All of us here are well. Let us hear my leave-taking from them. They are going towards their village, for I am now satisfied'. At this point the description becomes unclear. The image of a dead person and the shadow (image) of a dead grandchild are mentioned, but it is not clear who said what. At the end, Kähler's narrator explains that when visiting an eakalea feast 'we must not bring any feelings of hatred with us to the place of the gathering, for otherwise the chief is angry with us for bringing killing there'. Although the feast drew to an end now, the last night of the ritual the visitors went back to the organisers' village of to 'frighten' them. Again according to Kähler's informant, they performed several dances and sang beautiful songs. Several scenes were also acted out, but these are not described in detail. | |
