Art is Trash!

Artists working on West Island turn trash into art

Anthropology is the study of social and cultural aspects of human life. Although making tools is an aspect we share with other species (various primate species, for example, use sticks and stones), the variety and complexity of our tools, and our ability to make tool-making tools seems to distinguish us. 

For tool making, gratitude seems due to our predecessor, Homo habilis, “handy man” of 2.6-1.7 million years ago. Archaeology is constantly being revised but currently, Homo habilis is famous for making the first tools.It's possible even earlier hominids made tools; but whoever was responsible someone didn't just use what he or she found, but actually transformed the object so it could be used. We think the earliest example of this is the Oldowan pebble choppers made by homo habilis. Now extremely valuable, these were random rocks till archaeologists 'discovered' them and put them in a museum.

Factory

 Since these ancestors, tools and the things we have created through them, often develop a life of their own, almost literally. For example, we give our boats names such as “The Queen Mary” and mourn them when they sink.Yet the Industrial Revolution allowed us exponentially, the ability to create tools and objects. Factories can makes loads of things, quickly. Mechanical reproduction, a guy name Benjamin observed, meant that original works of arts obtained a different significance. Now in the electronic age, a musical track is produced as a binary sequence which is exactly and infinitely reproducible.

But what gives these objects their value? If they have an allotted time, how do we treat the objects when they reach them.

Watts Towers

Watts Towers

Simon Rodia made me, and many others, reconsider how we use 'things' when we have finished with them. From the 1920s to the 1950s, this Italian migrant living in Los Angeles collected trash and transformed it into beautiful, surreal monuments. In the late 50s the local government decided to destroy his towers as they were called, against much local opposition. According to the story, the towers stood up against the crane attempting to pull them down. And today they still stand, a fantasy of curly designs, pastel colors, and mirrors. Discarded objects now have been transformed into art and heritage, which is the theme of this blog.

Art Adrift

Rubber sandals collected
by Emma 

We tend to associate coral atolls like the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, part of Australia's Indian Ocean Territories, with pristine white sands and and overhanging palms. Yet strewn above the high water mark of most of the ocean beaches, particularly those facing Australia and Southeast Asia are, along with coconut shells, lines of plastic bottles, plastic sandals (called "thongs" in Australian English), nets, ropes, and other human detritus. Shampoo containers from Indonesia, plastic toys and cutlery, toothbrushes.  This debris appears to have floated down the streams, rivers and other waterways of Southeast Asia and Australia, across the north-east Indian Ocean over the coral reefs that surround this out of and onto the calm sandy white peaches of the islands. Some artists in particular have sought to transform this maritime refuse into another category--art. In this blog I focus on 3 artists, Emma Washer, Cara Ratajczak and my aunt, Sandy McKendrick, who have, over the years, created stunning pieces by collecting and juxtaposing items salvaged from the beaches of Cocos.

"Rubbish on the beach is a supermarket for artists," Sandy McKendrick explains. She :

walks kilometers along the coast looking for things that catch my eye whether it is things that are shades of green or bits of furniture. It might also be wood that has paint on it; bamboo that has been carved; big thick mooring ropes wash up in massive bundles.When you unravel these have really vibrant cores.  What I really love is when we find thongs (i.e. flip-flops, plastic sandals) that have a name carved into them.  I don't find a new thong all that satisfying. The ones I love are the old ones. Those thongs have traveled thousands of kilometers. With the next high tide that might get picked up and taken away. The toothbrushes have identity. When you collect them put them together they are like people with different hair styles. They become more beautiful as they disintegrate, like old sculptures. The chance of finding that particular thing at that particular time, that particular piece of rope that happens to be washed up. 

The barge, Biar Selamat, now transformed into a small art gallery.

Emma Washer, an artist who has lived on West Island since she was a child, has realized what might seem like a fantastic dream. She has built an art gallery on West Island, using the barge that used to transport people between Home and West Island. She took an old barge, which was used to ferry residents across the lagoon, and fitted out interior areas with lights and air-conditioning. The barge had been in a forlorn state, I'm told, before it was rescued and transformed. Now her Big Barge art gallery, exhibits works from local and other artists, some of them utilizing similarly salvaged materials.  The third artist, Cara, I have not met yet, but am hoping to one day.

In 2009, the Big Barge gallery was opened with an exhibition called Art Adrift,which exhibited boats made out of beach debris. As Sandy explained:

This was a 6 week project of the 3 artists working with Cocos Malay traditional boat builders and local community to explore maritime history of islands and create vessels of fantasy from flotsam, melding traditional skills and contemporary arts practice.

Then Art Afloat was the next stage, that was floating art works at Direction Island and Christmas Island. On Home Island, the Cocos Malay school children, the elders like Nek Neng (see blog The Bird that Returns Home) and the local doctor, among others, all participated in creating the exhibition. 

Finally, the two projects were combined in the harbor town of Fremantle, Australia, for the 2013 Fremantle Festival. Part of this festival was the work of art below created by Asylum Seekers on Christmas Island and then displayed in Fremantle harbor.

Identities of things

Emma explained to me that: "Lots of the rubber sandals that come adrift are repaired, if the plugs have come out they’ll resew the thongs. Often they’ve been fixed a number of times. In our society we just chuck them out". The difference in the way the rubber sandals are treated came out when the artists were working with asylum seekers on Christmas Islands. Emma reflected:

 When we use rubber sandals for art the first thing we did was cut of the straps. We gave them ropes. Then the first the thing they did was remake them into rubber sandals. They all started fixing [the straps even though we had cut them]. In the picture they’ve all been remade into thongs. They said “oh we can fix these” because it’s so easy to make them wearable.

In other words, the asylum seekers wanted to make the rubber sandals wearable as well as beautiful. 

Emma's art (ABC)

So , a rubber sandal may have had the most extraordinary biography. Rubber synthesized from chemicals is transformed in a Chinese factory, where the worker is compensated with money for creating a pair of sandals. The two sandals are then transported as cargo on a boat taken to the Surabaya port in East Java, Indonesia. Perhaps a bribe to the harbormaster helps facilitate the container the sandals are resting in to move quickly onto the docks. From here, it is distributed through Chinese and Muslim merchants to a  market in a small town. There, a man spends half his daily wage on them and carves his initials. Now when he goes to the mosque for Friday prayers and removes them, he knows that he can find them on the way out, and no-one else can claim them. No-one, that is, until his poor cousin asks for them, and the man is too embarrassed to refuse.  The poor cousin can only afford a hut by the river. Then when the river embankments collapse in the next monsoon, the pair of rubber sandals gets separated forever with one washing downstream and floating in the ocean. For months the human world is oblivious to its existence bobbing under the sun. Possibly fish and birds nibble at it. It gets washed up on Christmas Island, where an artist collects it and other artists, asylum seekers transform it into a sculpture. It is exhibited in Fremantle Harbor. Then it features in this blog! Then, maybe, it is again washed away to Africa perhaps, where it is seen as trash, or used for something else, and then the possibility of its use is endless. On the one hand, it is an inanimate piece of rubber, on the other, humans invest radically different meanings into it, all of which, bring the thing to life. 

A good example of this is the commodity--things we buy and sell. Our common sense tells us that a diamond has more value than a diamante or glass. But our common sense partly misleads us. You might get two tables equally useful for eating on, yet one with the right label (a famous designer) or the right history (a famous movie star sat on it) is more valuable. This value is an exercise of imagination. To borrow Marx's idea, it is as real or fanciful as if the table had started crawling around and talking to us: 

The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by making a table out of it. Yet, for all that, the table continues to be that common, every­day thing, wood. But, so soon as it steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque ideas...

The commodity value of a table appears natural or inherent, but it is cultural and extrinsic to the table.

Emma's art materials

The same object has different meanings and values attached to it in different cultural contexts. It is a commodity to be bought and sold. Depending on the theory of value, initially in the factory its value is determined by the price of the materials and the labor or the class relationship between the person who owns the factory and the person who works in the factory. Then as it is transported the cost increases. As a gift, the value has to be determined with reference to the relationship between giver and the receiver--whether it is a patron and client; and whether they reciprocate in a general or specific manner. Once the rubber sandal is separated it has almost no commodity value. Then as art it might acquire an aesthetic value as well as a commodity value. The thing itself, the rubber sandal, steadily deteriorates, but the values attached to it change. All of these values or meanings are deeply and intricately connected to human relations and meaning. 

The way the rubber sandal moved across the ocean, pushed and pulled by currents, swells, and winds, seems a good metaphor for the way it moves into different spheres of meaning.  As Kopytoff (83) writes:

when the commodity is effectively out of the commodity sphere, its status is inevitably ambiguous and open to the push and pull of events and desires, as it shuffled about in the flux of social life.

If correct, this provides an easy first step to answering a whole range of difficult philosophical questions, such as "what is art?", and to a lesser extent, "what is a commodity?", "what is a gift?" and so on. In the first place, it is a meaning  and use that humans have invested in objects.

Inside the art gallery, the lower deck of the barge. Foregrounded is the inside of the barge's hull. In the background prints, painting etc. The bright tropical sun has whited out the windows in this photo.

References

The concepts I have used here come mostly from Igor Kopytoff, "The Cultural Biography of Things". I have also drawn on Marshall Sahlins' Stone Age Economics. The analysis here is primarily enabled by Karl Marx, "The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof".

2016 Update

I wrote the above in 2014. Two years later, the life of these objects has been further enriched as they now feature on Australian stamps 

Stamps themselves have a fascinating extension from use value (to post letters with) and fetish value (as commodities to be bought and sold for profit). The plastic trash that floats up on the Cocos Islands continues to evolve.

To give, to receive, to reciprocate

When Cocos Malays give presents, it probably makes closer and better relations between them.

Gift-giving forms a major part of social life on Home Island. In this blog, I outline some forms of gift-giving and discuss how an anthropologist might approach gift-giving.

 Gifts for Travel 

Giving selawat and an embrace

When Home Islanders travel to Perth and onwards, they give and receive presents. The travellers take also take presents of fish and other fruits of the sea that they have gathered in an 'esky' (Australian English for styrofoam box).  Inside the box is fish, gong gong, and other goodies.

At Perth airport with Fi and Fitriah. The latter is standing in front of an "esky" sent by Nek Sofia with the anthropologist family from Home Island to Perth. 

People often give envelopes (selawat) in which cash is stored to the travelers. On the ferry from Home Island to West Island for a Friday flight, I saw one woman receive four envelopes. She apparently had another four or five in her possession.

These lucky children received selawat with $5 inside!

 These seemed to have been collected on the way to the ferry. When they return the travelers bring gifts. I've only heard about it, but I've been told that the traveler also receives gifts upon return. For example, Nek Sofia's neighbors, friends and family cooked her dishes to eat after her return from a one week trip to Perth.

Gifts in Rituals

Gifts hanging from the climbing pole

Gifts often feature in rituals. Fundamentally, rituals are actions with meaning. Rituals can also  incorporate chanting and music, dancing, feats, costumes, eating, drinking and so on. Thus, the circumcision ritual I attended had mengarak, silat,  climbing the poll, special clothes for the boy, a large feast, and (in former times apparently) drinking and much else besides.

 Gift-giving can often be apparent in all the above attributes.  The men provided the chanting also did this as a gift, but this is implicit.

Gift-giving can also be explicit. Sometimes the meaningful action is a presentation of a gift  (like when I get a birthday present wrapped in paper and with a card).

Gifts of Food

Perhaps the most common kind of gift is food. A big catch is normally shared between neighbors.

Wives dividing up a haul of fish

Neighboring women give each other little titbits in the course of everyday life. Examples of this include main courses of meals, desert treats, seafood (especially delicacies like gong gong), bought chocolates, et cetera. I have heard of staples like rice and cooking oil being given in this way but I haven't seen it yet. So I think it tends to be delicacies that either take time to prepare, or cost  money to buy. 

Another form of food gift occurs in 'food gatherings' (jemput makan). This is a term that some, but not all, people I have spoken with used to describe gatherings for eating. 'Food gatherings' can take various forms. 

Food gathering 1: Typically on Friday or Saturday nights a group of four or five married couples will bring plates to 1 of the group's house and eat and chat until late in the evening. The group visits the house of alternating members. The group is sometimes called a "klab makan" (eating club). I'm told this is a recent innovation.One does not really have a name, but I have heard the term  'eating club' (klab makan) used to refer to it. Sometimes "geng"

 (gang) is also used.

A klab makan. Four couples, all grandparents, attended and me.

Food gathering 2: Gatherings for eating also form an important part of rituals. I have discussed this in relation to circumcisions and funerals. I'm told that more extensive gatherings for eating also occur at weddings. Thus, we could say that in the gift economy, food is an important currency.

Dishes prepared by different women. The men always eat first.

Thus food is exchanged in ritual and non-ritual settings.

Gifts in almost everything

In fact, in many aspects of Cocos Malay life that I have written about gifts feature. When men get together to lay the foundations of a house they are providing a gift. So are the wives who prepare food for the men. When home Island residents allow us as anthropologists to take part in their lives they are also giving us something. In getting together to help prepare food for a wedding, people provide gifts. So far, I have considered some basic elements of the "who" (family, neighbors, and friends), "when" (travel and ritual) and "what" (food and money) of gift-giving.

This widespread nature of giving not specific to Cocos Malay society. Anthropologists are accustomed to see it in many cultures. We tend to attach much significance to it. To understand why we need to look at how anthropologists approach economics.

Payment and Present

My elementary education in economics provided me with a simple overview of economics. Humans started off bartering, then they invented money, and then you got Wall Street. Anthropologists look at economy differently. They reject this idea of economic history and see economy as incorporating much more than barter and buying.

Let's start by saying that humans exchange 'goods' and 'services' among themselves in different ways. If, for example, I clean your windows, I might do it as a present or for payment. Anthropologists have, for the most part, focused on these two forms: present and payment.  

If it's for payment, my labor cleaning your windows is (what I want to call) a service commodity. I clean your windows for an agreed value, based on what I can get for cleaning windows on the market. After you pay me, you do not expect me to stick around for dinner; and nor do I expect a wrapped present. This form of exchange is based maximizing profit, it is based on the market, and one form it takes is capitalism.

Laying concrete as part of road building for the shire. While not entirely devoid of gift-giving elements, this work is, for the most part, the provision of a service on the market.

If it's as a favor, my labor cleaning your windows is a gift. When you do another person a favor or when you give a present, you are engaged in gift-giving. A birthday present, a Valentine's chocolate, a Christmas hamper, a retirement send-off, a graduation gift; these are all examples of gifts. Humans tend to idealize such presents as done simply as a favor, out of love, without expectation of anything in return.

The two forms of exchange often overlap in ways that can be complicating. For example, you invite your boss for dinner, but next month you're the only person who misses out on promotion.

Analysis: Giving, receiving, reciprocating

Stock photo...may not resemble actual Christmas

Plenty of people have provided searing analyses of market-based exchange; Marx probably stands highest among them. As for gift exchange, it was Mauss who spoiled the party. Even though he like gifts, he really ruined Christmas for me with his book The Gift. As he observed, there is no such thing as a 'true gift' as we like to conceive of it. Rather, gift-giving is based on three principles; to give, to receive, to give-back (that is 'to reciprocate').  











 If you come to my wedding and give me a toaster, I should receive it. I should not say "sorry, I already got three toasters, I don't want this!". Also, you would be entitled to expect me to give you a wedding present when you (or if not you, your children) get married.






You should give, I should receive, and I should reciprocate. Aside from pointing out the principles of giving, receiving, and reciprocating, Mauss made an even more significant observation.

Gift-giving ties people together. For example, when I was a young adult, my friends were people who came to my birthday parties and/or gave me presents. My family were people who I might celebrate Christmas and swap presents with. My sweetheart was a person whom I was obliged to provide Valentines' presents too. Exchanging gifts would make these relationships closer; not exchanging these gifts would make the relationships more distant.

In summary,  Mauss made three huge theoretical insights in The Gift: 
1. Giving gifts is an obligation among humans; 
2. Giving, receiving, and reciprocating characterizes gift-giving; 
3. Gifts bring people (and things) together.


Of course, gift-giving does not necessarily build stronger communities. For, not giving gifts (for example ignoring the birthday of your cousin with whom you have lately been arguing) can pull you apart. But if you give a present to someone, this does tend to form a bond.

Final thoughts

Giving gifts forms a large part of social life among the Cocos Malays. It can be explicit or implicit and can occur during and outside rituals. And in this, Cocos Malay culture is similar to every other culture I have read about.

Further reading

Mauss, M. The Gift. Forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies

Polanyi K. 2001 [1944]. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Times. Boston MA: Beacon

Sahlins, M. 1972. Stone Age Economics.

Homes in History

One interesting and yet mundane aspect of life on Home Island is the living arrangements. Throughout living memory Cocos Malays have lived in and modified homes built to exactly the same plan. 

Houses built 1985-1992 (Nicholas Herriman)

Since settling on this remote atoll, the majority of Cocos Malays have lived on Home Island. Although at various times, some have lived on other islands in the atoll. For instance in 1941, of the 1450 residents of Cocos Islands, some lived on Horsburgh Island (Gibson Hill 178).  My concern in this blog use with the living arrangements on Home Island. What were they like in the past and how have they changed? What I would really like to know however is whether the past provides insight into the way Cocos Malays currently use their homes. 

Darwin's 1836 visit

In April 1836, Charles Darwin and the crew of the HMS Beagle visited the Cocos Islands. Darwin's assistant, Syms Covington, made the following sketch of what appears to be a two-story, thatched-roof structure. 

http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/covingto/gifs/keeling.jpg

Unfortunately, I can't find any commentary in Covington's journal on this structure. It may not, for example, have functioned as a home. But the illustration does match well with Darwin's April 3 diary entry notes, 

"Capt Ross & Mr Liesk live in a large barn-like house open at both ends & lined with mats made of the woven bark: the houses of the Malays are arranged along the shore of the lagoon". 

 Syms Covington's sketch seems to match the "large barn-like house".

This is corroborated by the captain of HMS Beagle who notes that Ross and Liesk:

had wives (English) and children, the whole party residing together in a large house of Malay build—just such a structure as one sees represented upon old japanned work.

Belcher's 1846 visit

An English explorer, Edward Belcher, visited in 1846, and wrote: 

“I certainly expected to find the residence of Capt Ross after the lapse of twenty years – in a decent condition. It presented however – nothing more than such a House as could be rapidly raised from the timbers saved from a wrecked vessel – and gloomy beyond conception – being completely overshadowed by coconut trees and as a natural consequence swarming with mosquitos. The Malay village was infinitely more inviting (Belcher, Narrative of the Voyage, 1848, p. 194)."

This angered Clunies-Ross. Clunies-Ross reacted by saying that Belcher's expectations were too high ("Preface" pp. 159-160).

Late 1800s: Two residential areas

In the late 19th century, there were two residential areas or kampong. In one the descendants of the original settlers resided. They were called "Orang Cape" (Cape People), as the original settlers had lived in the Cape of Good Hope before moving to the Cocos Islands. In the other kampong resided Orang Banten (Bantamese). These were convicts who had been sent out from from West Java, to serve part of their terms as indentured laborers on the Cocos Islands.

Houses have changed markedly in the living memory of Cocos Malays. This change came in three stages, discussed in the following three sections respectively. A cyclone (hurricane) had destroyed most of the Home Island residences in 1909. 

1920s-1950s Rumah Atap

With great effort, it appears, new homes for all the residents were built in the 1920s and used into the 1950s. We could call these the 'Thatch Roof' (Rumah Atap) homes. 

 These “243 houses", Gibson Hill (176) writes, were "all identical in size and outward appearance, arranged regularly in straight, parallel rows”:

They were plain, rectangular buildings, about eighteen feet wide and twenty-six feet long. In most cases the interior was divided by partitions to form two small rooms, which were used for sleeping, and a large room which was used for the reception of visitors. There was a door in the centre of each end, and usually one half way along one of the sides.

A diagramatic representation of a house in the kampong on Home Island, with part of the wall and roof removed to show the internal structure. The supporting beams have been labelled with their local Malay names. (Gibson Hill 178)

Layout of the Home Island village in 1941 (Gibson Hill 176). Note the neat rows of houses.

Pauline Bunce (92) note that these new houses:

constructed with local building materials. They were built off the ground on top of short stumps. The walls are made from a kind of cane, obtained from the spine of the palm frond, the frame was made from local hardwood and the roof from layers of woven palm fronds (Bunce 92).

So what was life like in these homes? I showed Nek Su (Remni Mochta, June 6, 1942). the following photo and this is what he recalled:

This is what we call Kampong Atas; it's close to the beach. It wasn't all that comfortable. We used oil lamps so we couldn't really see [inside the house]. Many rats lived in the coconut leaves. The rats and people lived together. There were six in my family while I was young. I often stayed with my grand[mother], [Nek] Daniel 

(Gibson Hill, Plate 3) Nek Su recalled:  This is the kampong that is close to the mosque--Kampong Tengah. These houses had one dining room with two bedrooms (like the subsequent "Stone Houses"). They were made from coconut tree and had walls of "plepa". In those days there wasn't any asbestos. As time went on some people took the thatch off and replaced it with corrugated iron.

John Hunt (1989, 26) describes the rumah atap as follows:

The houses were 20 feet (6.15m.) wide and 26 feet (8m.) long, standing in gardens about 115 feet (35m.) long and 30 feet (9.20m.) wide, bounded by wooden fence.  A kitchen/store-room and a bath house stood behind each- home. All buildings were made from local materials. The roofs were made of thick "atap" (coconut thatch). Every house was numbered, with the owner's name written above the front door. The sign was sometimes decorated to the owner's taste with a picture of a bird, a star or a crescent moon.

1950s-1980s Rumah Batu (Stone Houses)

 1950s-1980s people lived in "Stone Houses" (Rumah Batu). These were also laid out in rows according to a single model plan. The material differed, the walls being made form rocks quarried from the beach. They were built in the 1950s in the  the context of a post-war huge emigration (the majority of Home Islanders had emigrated to Malaysia after the war) and the rule of new King, John Cecil Clunies-Ross. The houses':

walls were cast in such huge moulds and the design was similar to the earlier atap model. Wooden kitchens, storage sheds and wash houses were built separately at the back, as before. Water for household use was drawn by hand from backyard wells right up until the 1980s (Bunce 92)

The 1950s style of house.
http://photos.naa.gov.au/photo/Default.aspx?id=11487349

Nek Su recalled:

We called these "Rumah Batu" (Stone Houses). The kitchen was on the outside there wasn't a kitchen inside. There were two bedrooms and a lounge room. There must have been built in the 1960s. My father, Mochta Salip, built these because he was the chief carpenter. We got the concrete from the back of the island. The parts were numbered 1, 2, 3 and then put together. The rocks were from here. 

The plans for the next style of home, the New Houses, depict and "Existing Ablution Block". It thus appears that the ablution blocks which are still used today were built at some point while the Stone Houses were used. 

Rumah Baru (New Houses) 1980s-now

From 1980s till now, Home Islanders have resided in the 96 "New Houses" (Rumah Baru). As part of the Home Island Development Plan, these were built to the same plan. One aspect that was flexible was the number of bedrooms out the back— houses with more bedrooms were built for larger families.

New House (left) and Stone House (right) (Bunce 92)

I contacted the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development about the Home Island Development Plan. Steve Clay and his associates were incredibly helpful, sending information in an email that I have paraphrased and added to in the following paragraphs.


The decision to build new houses was reached in 1983. The program was called "the Home Island Development Plan", or "HIDP" for short. According to the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Annual Report 1983-84 "in December 1983 the Government announced its commitment to a development plan for Home Island...the community has chosen the house design to be constructed under the Development Plan... Construction by the Cocos Co-Operative and Department of Housing and Construction will commence early in the 1984-85 financial year.

The design appears to have been democratic. Writing in the 1980s, Bunce (92) notes "The current housing design was developed from the results of extensive surveys of family living patterns and expressions of community desires". 

 The first houses were finished in 1985. The 1986-87 Annual Report states that "the first home completed under the plan was opened...on 1 May 1985" . The email continues that "the first home completed under the plan was opened...As of the 30 June 1985, four houses had been completed and four more were under construction."

One recurring theme is the use of outdoor kitchen. It appears in all the home designs, Cocos Malays cooked out the back. Even though the latest plan was equipped with a kitchen inside, people have preferred to cook outside.

Now, I think, the kampong is, informally divided into 3 Kampong Baru (on the West by the lagoon); Kampong Tengah (in the middle and incorporating the mosque); and Kampong Kangkung (on the East).

Summary

At each of these three stages, the old houses were entirely replaced. Instead of every house being built to an individual’s own design, all houses were built to the same design, around the same time. Thanks to the hard work of Cocos Malay builders, in effect three entirely new villages have been built, each replacing the earlier one! 

Thank you to our new hosts Ayesha and Nek Su for their hospitality and their help with this blog!

Stages of Life

Every culture has a different sense of the periods or divisions constitute a life-span.

How do we go about living our lives? At what stages do we 'grow up', get married, have kids? At various periods in their lives, people enjoy certain privileges, are burdened by other responsibilities, and must behave differently. We could think of these stages “stages of life” or “life stages” or as part of the “lifecycle”. Some of these are based around certain biological 'realities', such as birth, puberty, bearing children, and death. Other stages are not so clear.

Humoring baby on the ferry.

Residents of Home Island conceive of their lives and, indeed, live different lives to people on the Australian mainland.

Nek Sumila cradles a baby, to the delight of  some fans.

Birth

Nek Sofia recalled that, in the past, a baby's placenta had been taken in a jukung and thrown overboard from a jukung. The further out the the jukung went, the more outgoing or adventurous the child would grow up to be. (I have the impression that being outgoing or adventurous is not an especially valued trait, as it may lead to the child eventually moving away from the Cocos Islands--an undesirable result). Apparently this and other birth ritual have been interrupted by the requirement for expecting mothers to deliver in Perth. Home Islanders I spoke with regretted this. Monika said she had spoken with someone who felt that having not been born on the Cocos Islands, the new generations would never be truly Cocos in the way of preceding generations. 

Newborn

Early on in life, youngsters go through several stages quickly. The first could be called, in the absence of any specific local term that I’m aware of, “newborn”. This lasts from birth to 40 days old. The main priority in this period seems to be that mother and newborn should rest at home.

Childhood

At 40 days old a new lifestage, I'll call "childhood", is initiated through a hair cutting ritual. I have written on this in my blog "First Haircut".

Anthropologists call hair cutting rituals “tonsure”. I first came across the term in relation to the Thai prince. For Thai people, the ritual cutting of a tuft of a male's hair (around the age of 12-14)  is cut his a deeply meaningful event, and initiates the boy into adulthood. On Home Island, tonsure occurs earlier in life.

Men chanting for a child's 40th day celebration.In the immediate foreground is a man's white hat. In the middle were three dishes of yellow rice and whole chicken with a white towel on top. Next to these were blue bowls with rice porridge. The porridge, red and white in color, has a special name in Java--here it is simply "porridge" (bubur).

Over the next decade or so, the child will begin school, commence afternoon classes in Koranic Arabic (ngaji), start high school, and possibly continue high school on the mainland. If the child is a boy, he will be circumcised as well.

At school, reading a English book.

I’m also unsure about how to characterize these years in terms of life stages. One person told me that initially the term anak (young child) is used, then budak (child around primary school), and then anak muda (around high school age). However, anthropologists can not just go by what local people tell us. We need to understand what people say and also observe and participate in what they do. So I'll have to postpone commenting on this.

Parenthood

Marriage is the biggest ritual on Home Island. However, it only changes on status from single to married. This is (along with being sick or healthy, present or away, a pilgrim or not pilgrim) a different ritual status, but I don’t think we could identify it as a stage of life. Instead, marriage allows one to produce a legitimate child. Having a legitimate child allows one to progress to the next life stage: parenthood. The life stage I’m calling parenthood occurs only if one begins nurturing a child. There is no change with subsequent children: the main thing is that you have at least one child.  Infertile couples often adopt from a sibling or a cousin who has more than child. 

Death

The final life stage is death. Death rituals are quite involved, with ritual meals being repeated in the first week after death and then at 40 days one year and 1000 days. This appropriately changes one’s ritual status from being alive to being dead. The gravestone marks this ritual status.

Nek Suma's grave stands alone, outside the cemetery. He is affectionately referred to as "baldy".

Visiting in 1836, Darwin made note of a death ritual, in very deprecating terms:

After dinner we staid to see a half superstitious scene, acted by the Malay women. They dress a large wooden spoon in garments — carry it to the grave of a dead man — & then at the full of the moon they pretend it becomes inspired & will dance & jump about. After the proper preparations the spoon held by two women became convulsed & danced in good time to the song of the surrounding children & women. It was a most foolish spectacle, but Mr Liesk maintained that many of the Malays believed in its spiritual movements. The dance did not commence till the moon had risen & it was well worth remaining to behold her bright globe so quietly shining through the long arms of the Cocoa nuts, as they waved in the evening breeze

Nevertheless, it seems the "spoon" may refer to the shape of the grave marker. Death rituals are very different currently, as I have described in "Ritual Meals on Home Island".

Mourners gathered at house of bereaved

One part of the death rituals (i.e. funeral) is the transporting of the corpse from the home of the bereaved the cemetery are, which is called "Swan Island" (Pulu Gangsa). In fact, Swan Island is no longer an island as it has merged with Home Island.

At Swan Island

Life stage and name change

The terms one uses when talking about someone (term of reference) or talking with someone (term of address) reflect these stages. 

Mak Mia, Mia, and Pak Mia

Parenthood is marked by a name change. For example, a married couple have a daughter named Mia. Mia’s father is now called "Pak Mia" and her mother is called "Mak Mia". If a child named “Abdul” is adopted by an infertile couple, and if the arrangement works, the adoptive father will become known as Pak Abdul and his wife will be Mak Abdul. I have written about this naming practice, teknonymy, as anthropologists call it, in another blog. A person who never has a legitimate child either through birth or adoption is apparently not entitled to be called Pak or Mak. 

The teknonyms on Home Island are absolute, not relative. Where I did fieldwork in East Java (2000-2002) you typically only use the term “Pak” (father) to someone who is of your father’s generation. By contrast, on Home Island it does not matter if the man you are talking to is older or younger than you, you still call him “Pak” (father), provided he has children. Similarly, in Indonesian, the term “adik” (younger brother/sister) is sometimes used to refer to someone a little younger. In Cocos Malay, the cognate “adek” is absolute. I heard, for example, today a mother address her pre-schooler son as “adek”. 

The absolute nature of these titles seems so important that it carries through into English usage on Home Island. When Anglo-Australians greet each other on West Island they might say “G’day mate”; the term “mate” indicates an equality between two men. By contrast on Home Island, the fatherhood is respected and honored. So even when talking in English, I am sometimes greeted with “G’day Pak” or "How's it goin' Pak" .

Becoming a grandparents marks the next stage of life. There is also a specific teknonym of grandparents being “Nek”. More formally, the grandfather might be addressed Nek [D]atok (the bracketed bit is mostly dropped, with people just saying "Atok") and the grandmother, Nek [Peremp]uan. 

Being a great-grandparent possibly marks a further life stage after being a grandparent, and that is. I’ve heard very old grandparents or a people who have cecet (great-grandchildren). I think a formal term of address is "Nek [B]uyut" or sometimes they are also called 'Nek Atok' or 'Nek Wan'.  

Progression through life stages

The idea of life stages seems quite simple and natural: childhood, adulthood, old age, etc. However, this is deceptive. So progression through life stages can be initiated suddenly through a biological event (birth) and through ritual (40 days’ tonsure). It can also be a combination of both (death).

In different cultures, for example, adulthood occurs when you turn 18 or 21 or earlier or later. Some cultures don’t even recognize “adulthood” but might have various other stages.

The onset of what is conceived of as a life stage can occur slowly, such as what is called "middle aged" in the West, currently. In some cultures, without a ritual you cannot progress. For example, you might have stopped breathing among the Berawan, but you cannot make the progression from living to spirit world of the dead without ritualized treatments. Or, in central Australian societies, you might be fifty years old, but if you haven't been circumcised you are still a boy, cannot socialize with men as equals, and cannot receive the knowledge that men posses. Traditionally, in the West, you could not be married unless you went through the marriage ritual known as "wedding". 

Thus, progression through life stages is not necessarily a natural, biological occurrence. 

Age set and age grade

Related to "life stage" are the concepts of "age set" and "age grade/age class". An "age set" is like the "Class of 1969"--once you are part of it you stay in that group forever--really, forever, in some cultures. 

Class of 1969--an Age Set

An "age grade" or "age class" is like being a "first-year", "Freshman", or "rookie"; you and others  or your age go through it the same time and the leave that grade for another e.g. "second-year", "sophomore", "senior player".

Age groups (Nadel calls them "age classes"). Korongo and Meskain pass through these, from Nadel "Witchcraft in Four Societies"

As Nadel notes, the Korongo of Africa recognize 6 age classes for males aged 12-50+. These are associated with different wrestling duties and places of residence. The Mesakin, by contrast, recognize only 3 throughout a similar chronological period.

In summary, you progress through an age grade, while you stay in an age set forever.

Life stages and anthropology

Life stages, sets, groups, or classes are not things cultures intrinsically possess. Rather, we should think of these as imperfect concepts that anthropologists apply to cultures. So, when we see distinct rights, responsibilities, and behaviors associated with a period of life, we might label that a "stage of life", or a "age set", or an "age group". But we must remember that, in many cases, one could interpret and debate what constitutes a stage of life in any culture. 

For more on life stages please listen to my short podcast entitled “Lifecycle” : https://itunes.apple.com/au/itunes-u/the-audible-anthropologist/id574638820?mt=10