Paper short abstract:

Concerning an eastern Indonesian society, the paper discusses the continuing importance of bridewealth and connections by ‘blood’ in maintaining asymmetric affinal alliance in the face of changes entailed in increasing integration into a modern economy and conversion to Catholicism

Paper long abstract:

The Nage of the eastern Indonesian island of Flores traditionally practised a form of asymmetric affinal alliance, with the mother's brother's daughter as a man's preferred spouse. According to some criteria, they still do so. Despite various social and economic changes, not least of which is conversion to Catholicism and a consequent prohibition of first cousin marriage, Nage still retain bridewealth and the complementary wife-giver's 'counter-gift' and, unlike people in some other parts of Indonesia, they require that bridewealth and counter-gift be fulfilled with livestock and other traditional valuables. In accordance with the asymmetric prescription, Nage maintain the prohibition on marriages which reverse the direction of bridewealth exchange, thus resulting in an illicit symmetric or direct exchange of spouses and goods between two affinally related 'houses'. At the same time, in counting membership of houses and more inclusive kin groups, Nage value what they conceive as ties of 'blood', or physical kinship, which can run contrary to relations based on previous bridewealth exchange. Focusing on a particular marriage, the paper thus also shows how blood and bridewealth concern separate values in Nage society, relating respectively to internal and external relations maintained within or by Nage kin groups.