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2. The renewal of creation The sexually oriented design of the god symbols in western Maluku Tenggara was partly reflected in the great fertility festival, known as porka. This ritual was performed if a disaster had occurred, for example, a failed harvest or a great village fire, but was also carried out at regular intervals. The object was the renewal of creation; a line was drawn under a (bad) period and people aimed towards a bright new future with many children, large numbers of cattle and abundant harvests. Sexual union The way in which people tried to achieve this objective was closely related to the idea of how life was originally put on earth through the cosmic marriage between the heavenly deity and the earth goddess. During the porka ritual the celebration of the marriage was repeated, as it were. The wooden symbol of the heavenly deity was renewed and stuck into the ground next to the stone or shell that represented the earth goddess. In terms of the boat symbolism used on the islands: the helmsman came on board and sealed the drainage hole. In this way, through the depicted sexual union of the two cosmic powers, creation once again came back 'on course'. Headhunting The idea that a man must have killed in order to create new life was also visible during the porka festival. The 'celebration' of the cosmic marriage, namely, went hand in hand with a headhunt carried out in the name of the deity. If successful, as a great hunter he could marry. Heads captured by the warriors were ceremonially brought into the community and these hunting trophies were represented as the source of new life. On Luang, for example, during this festival a woman pressed the heads to her breast as if they were babies. Flags of death As a sign that the headhunt was to be carried out, on many islands a special flag was raised in the village ritual centre. The character of the festival could be seen from the flag. In the Babar archipelago this was a pennant, about one and a half metres in length, in the form of a phallus. More to the west, on Sermata, Luang, Leti and Kisar, for example, the flag was in the form of a male figure with an erect penis. The top part of this type of flag was usually wood, the bottom part was fabric. Often only the wooden parts of these 'flags of death' have survived (RMV 1476-17 and 19). New Year's celebration The hunting of heads gave both the colonial government and the missionaries an excellent excuse to oppose the performing of this ritual. In the course of the twentieth century this opposition was increasingly successful. On many islands the western New Year celebration has taken the place of the porka ritual. Only a few dances, which were traditionally performed during the old fertility festival, still recall the 'good old days'. | |
