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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 3(2) 2002:6-32 The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, v3(2) 6-32 2003 TIMORESE SEASCAPES Perspectives on customary marine tenures in East Timor Andrew McWilliam INTRODUCTION A surprising feature of the island territory of Timor in the eastern extremity of the Indonesian archipelago is the near absence of literature on indigenous perceptions and practices in relation to their coastal waters and surrounding seas. 1 Most of the references to customary marine practice in Timorese waters are related to the remarkable fishing and sailing exploits of ethnic communities originating from other islands in Indonesia. Bugis, Butonese, Makassarese, Madurese and Bajau sailing groups have long plied the waters of Timor and eastern Indonesia, exploiting trade and fishing opportunities. Their long-range networks extend across transient and semi-permanent coastal settlements throughout the islands of the region. Historically, they have been the dominant and most visible fishing communities in the region (for example, Fox 1977, 1996, 2000b; Southon 1995; Stacey 1999; Dwyer 2001). The lack of a Timorese profile in discussions of fishing and marine tenures in part reflects perceptions of a widespread Timorese disinterested orientation towards the sea. 2 As Schulte Nordholt, writing of the main language community of West Timor, notes: ‘[T]he sea is not mentioned in Atoni myths, nor is the perahu or anything else having to do with sea fishing’ (1980:238). Their orientation by and large is directed towards the land and the mountainous interior of the island. Traube, writing of the Mambai language community of central East Timor records a similar cultural disposition. She states that: ‘[T]o Mambai, the sea is a distant, mysterious realm, governed by laws of its own. Many people never see it in their lifetimes, and most profess an ignorance concerning its nature’ (1986:234). Notwithstanding the significant disruption to social life over the decades since these comments were made, it remains the case that most Timorese populations have tended to maintain an inward, land-based orientation. Travel and movement beyond the highlands and mountains has been circumscribed and it follows that there are no cultural traditions of merantau or long-range seafaring on Timor, unlike many other island societies across Indonesia. This is despite the

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The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 3(2) 2002:6-32

The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, v3(2) 6-32 2003 TIMORESE SEASCAPES Perspectives on customary marine tenures in East Timor

Andrew McWilliam

INTRODUCTION

A surprising feature of the island territory of Timor in the eastern extremity of the Indonesian archipelago is the near absence of literature on indigenous perceptions and practices in relation to their coastal waters and surrounding seas.1 Most of the references to customary marine practice in Timorese waters are related to the remarkable fishing and sailing exploits of ethnic communities originating from other islands in Indonesia. Bugis, Butonese, Makassarese, Madurese and Bajau sailing groups have long plied the waters of Timor and eastern Indonesia, exploiting trade and fishing opportunities. Their long-range networks extend across transient and semi-permanent coastal settlements throughout the islands of the region. Historically, they have been the dominant and most visible fishing communities in the region (for example, Fox 1977, 1996, 2000b; Southon 1995; Stacey 1999; Dwyer 2001).

The lack of a Timorese profile in discussions of fishing and marine tenures in part reflects perceptions of a widespread Timorese disinterested orientation towards the sea.2 As Schulte Nordholt, writing of the main language community of West Timor, notes: ‘[T]he sea is not mentioned in Atoni myths, nor is the perahu or anything else having to do with sea fishing’ (1980:238). Their orientation by and large is directed towards the land and the mountainous interior of the island.

Traube, writing of the Mambai language community of central East Timor records a similar cultural disposition. She states that: ‘[T]o Mambai, the sea is a distant, mysterious realm, governed by laws of its own. Many people never see it in their lifetimes, and most profess an ignorance concerning its nature’ (1986:234). Notwithstanding the significant disruption to social life over the decades since these comments were made, it remains the case that most Timorese populations have tended to maintain an inward, land-based orientation. Travel and movement beyond the highlands and mountains has been circumscribed and it follows that there are no cultural traditions of merantau or long-range seafaring on Timor, unlike many other island societies across Indonesia. This is despite the

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historical fact that all contemporary Timorese language communities have their migratory origins overseas and undoubtedly settled the island using now considerably weakened sailing traditions.

While it might be said that, comparatively and culturally speaking, most Timorese turn their back to the sea, this is not to suggest that the marine environment and particularly coastal beach zones are of little or no significance. Most of the historically resident Timorese settlements that lie scattered along the littoral margins of the island have maintained a long-term engagement with their coastal waters, albeit one that has attracted little interest from researchers and governments alike. For them, the sea represents a bounteous resource, both practically in the foodstuffs and marine products that are extracted and gleaned from low technology, inshore fishing and collecting activities, and in the symbolic spaces and mythical properties that seascapes are accorded. Over generations of association the diverse linguistic coastal communities of Timor have also developed specialised relationships to the coastal waters and beachfronts over which they maintain informal and largely invisible management responsibilities. Historically ignored and subsumed within formal state regulatory control over inshore waters and beach reserves, the ideas and practices that inform indigenous Timorese relationships with their coastal waters nevertheless persist and continue to be enacted through ritual performances and diverse local practical action.

This is not to view customary marine practices as some form of relic preservation. Rather, they need to be seen as dynamic and adaptive systems which have responded over centuries to a range of historical engagements with external trading interests and colonial state paternalism (for example, Zerner 1994; Pannell and von Benda Beckman 1998). Their contemporary enactment therefore represents consciously applied collective patterns of re-inscribing attachment and relation to specific coastal thresholds between land and sea. To the extent that coastal and customary marine tenures persist around the coast of East Timor, they have done so in the context of official state indifference and legal marginalisation. Li’s recent characterisation of the marginalisation of upland communities in Indonesia also applies to many coastal settlements despite their ‘lowland’ location. To paraphrase Li (1999:2): ‘the cultural, economic and political projects of people living and working ... [on the coastal margins] are constituted in relation to various hegemonic agendas but never are they simple reflections of them.’ This paper seeks to highlight aspects of Timorese conceptions and ritual practices towards coastal waters, and considers the prospects and pitfalls of increased formal recognition of ‘customary marine tenures’ within the context of state-based property regimes and resource management policy.

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These issues apply to both East and West Timor in different ways, but I seek here to focus on issues and prospects relating primarily to East Timor and its recent emergence as a newly independent nation. In this part of Timor, a recently elected national government faces the challenge of implementing completely new systems of formal land tenure where indigenous customary law might be expected to form an important constitutional component of the state administration of lands. In these circumstances, it is appropriate that consideration be given to assessing and evaluating the practical significance of local customary marine tenures as part of a broader evaluation of the role of indigenous tenures across the country.

FISHING AND MARINE RESOURCES IN EAST TIMOR

By way of overview, it might be said that coastal and fishing communities in East Timor reflect many of the general characteristics of Timorese rural livelihoods. They are socially and linguistically diverse, geographically dispersed around East Timor’s 725 km coastline, and poorly connected to larger administrative and market centres. During the militia violence across the territory in 1999, fishing and coastal communities were also among the most seriously affected. The impact of the violence can be inferred in recent surveys conducted which estimated the present number of seaworthy fishing craft to be around 800, largely unmotorised dugout canoes3 (Sanyu Consultants 2001:3-42). This compares to the number recorded during late Indonesian times of 2027 canoes, and up to 160 motorised vessels (Kantor Statistik 1997).

These figures also highlight something of the scale of Timorese fishing activity and its comparatively modest contribution to rural livelihoods on the island.4 Firstly, as small-scale artisanal fishers they are comparatively impoverished with limited means to undertake much more than low-technology inshore fishing with subsistence reef gleaning on exposed tidal platforms. In practical terms, this involves the use of handlines and gill net techniques to catch demersal species such as snapper, croaker and bream, and pelagics like tuna, mackerel, scad and sardines (see Fisheries and Marine Environment Service Report 2000). Prawns, crabs, lobsters, bivalves and cephalopods are also frequently caught. Women fishers tend to focus their activities in the inter-tidal zone collecting molluscs, crabs, small fish, varieties of seaweed and other edible plants (Sandlund et al. 2001:19). Plaited fish traps and stone enclosures utilising tidal action are also used extensively. Much of this activity is a semi-subsistence form of production.

The collapse of marketing infrastructure following the violence of 1999, particularly ice-making and transport facilities, has continued to severely constrain the sale of fresh fish beyond limited, very local demand. Recent technical

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assistance, particularly from China which reportedly contributed some 300 15 hp outboard motors and 1500 gill nets (JDIM 2001:7) has helped ameliorate some of the acute constraints on Timorese fishing practices but the immediate prospects for a revitalised and prosperous local community-based fishing sector remain poor. This assessment also acknowledges the natural ecological conditions of East Timor where steep coastal topography limits the areas of shallow waters and the growth of coral reefs (Sanyu Consultants 2001). Current evaluations indicate that the more likely areas for fisheries development lie in offshore reef and deepwater fishing, particularly the marine resource rich Sahul banks some 140 km to the south of East Timor 5 (JDIM 2001:13). However, the economic resources required to exploit such areas are well beyond most coastal Timorese fishing households and their prospects for future participation in such activities is probably very limited.

A second feature of the data on East Timorese fishing boats is that the substantial decline in the estimated total number of boats since 1997 includes a proportion of non-Timorese fisher groups who relocated to other settlements in Indonesia during 1999 and have not returned. Therefore, even discounting the destruction of fishing vessels during 1999, the number of Timorese families fully involved in fishing and marine-based activities is comparatively small. Just how small can be gauged from a recent Japanese-funded survey (JICA) which gathered data on 44 coastal villages (42 per cent of total villages with a sea border) in East Timor. Of those surveyed, 31 villages reported full-time or part-time fishers (70.4 per cent) and 2012 individuals in total. Based on these figures and adjusting for distributional effects, the survey estimates that there are presently up to 5500 active fishers in the country (Sanyu Consultants 2001:3-41). It is not clear from the reporting whether these figures include families of fishermen who tend to be also closely involved in fishing and related activities and certainly benefit economically from sectoral activities. But the authors do note that their data demonstrate that just 14 per cent of households in the coastal villages contain self-identifying ‘fishermen’, and that this points to a high degree of dependency on agriculture and the absence of what might be termed ‘fishing villages’ (2001:3-41). Such observations reinforce the anecdotal evidence of a limited and small-scale Timorese cultural and economic engagement with their coastal waters and marine resources. They also highlight the likelihood that the extent and elaboration of customary marine tenures will be culturally variable and probably weakly articulated in terms of defined property rights and obligations, given the dispersed geography of coastal settlements and the low pressure on fishing resources in the contemporary environment.6

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SEASCAPES AND TIMORESE MYTHS

Among the traditions of the diverse language communities of Timor7 the surrounding seas hold a significant place in the cultural geography even if only perceived as a distant and mysterious realm. Conventionally the symbolic orientation of Timor is ordered along two axes. The first and dominant east-west alignment follows the path of the sun. Hence, in the main lingua franca of East Timor, Tetum, the terms are lorosae and loromunu, east and west respectively. Mambai equivalents are lelo sain (rising day) and lelo dun (setting day), while Meto populations in Oe Cussi (the East Timor enclave in West Timor) express the same concept with the words neonsaet and neontes. Conversely, the common designation for north and south, may be associated with the seas (tasi) which border the northern and southern coastlines. Here Timorese utilise a gender distinction whereby the northern Savu sea and Wetar Straits are typically referred to as the female sea (tasi feto), and the Timor sea to the south is the tasi mane, the male sea.8 A common view of this distinction is that it refers to the calm or ‘tame’ qualities of the northern seas in contrast to the rough, ‘wild’ nature of the seas to the south (Traube 1986:29). The designations, however, have semantic resonance and can also be explained in terms of a generalised Timorese classificatory schema which associates the directions east and south with symbolic male properties such as right-handedness, sunlight, life, whiteness and the sky, in contrast to the symbolically female directions of west and north, with their intimations of left-handedness, night, darkness, death and the earth (see also Schulte Nordholt 1980:238-9). These framing metaphors of sun and sea serve to centre and fix the earth of Timor and its inhabitants within an abiding symbolic orientation. The enactment of rituals and mythic representation are often ordered in terms of these directional coordinates.

A complementary alternative mode of representation for Timor is one which describes the island as a half-submerged crocodile, wary and waiting (Fox 2000a:1) with its head to the east and tail to the west. The crocodile in its various manifestations appears as both origin ancestor for local Timorese rulers and the creator of the island itself, as well as a powerful spirit deity figure providing bounty, fertility and wealth in return for sacrifice and worship (Boyce 1995:117-21; King 1965:116-7). Van Wouden (1968:45) for example, records a myth from the small ‘kingdom’ of Djenilu on the north coast of Timor where: ‘of the four brothers who comprised the dasi (nobility) ... the eldest became the supreme ruler, ... the second his right hand, and the third the commander-in-chief. The youngest brother was thrown into the sea during a war with Balibo (East Timor) in order to bring about victory, and he changed into a crocodile.’ Among Helong speakers in the far west of Timor it was apparently common practice on the occasion of the

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accession of the new king to sacrifice a young girl (a virgin), adorned in flowers and ‘as much finery as possible’, to the saltwater crocodile (Pilon 1773, cited in Schulte Norholt 1971:323). In something of a variant on the theme of sacrifice, other versions of the myth present the crocodile in the guise of a radiant stranger prince who emerges to marry the beautiful daughter of a prominent local landholder. In return, the woman’s father receives a herd of fine water buffalo, but never sees his daughter again. In the multiple versions of this ritualised exchange elaborated upon across Timor, is the persistent cultural theme of the ‘stranger king’ (Sahlins 1985:73-103), or the returning ‘younger brother’ (Traube 1986). This theme embodies the notion that political benefits and riches may be secured from realms beyond the land through the creation of exchange alliances with outsiders and the spirit world. Schulte Nordholt notes in this regard that ‘it is the crocodile which gave the Timorese the buffalo, the most important sacrificial animal on Timor’ (1971:324).

Map 1. Location and linguistic map of Timor

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While typically manifested in the form of a ‘saltwater’ crocodile, beneficial spirit beings are also incarnated as other aquatic creatures such as sharks, dolphins, turtles and eels (Hicks 1999:98; Boyce 1995:126; King 1965). In multiple variations on this recurrent theme, they too are thought to be related ancestrally to particular human origin groups9 and their wealth and power accessible through ritual knowledge and sacrifice. Like human ancestral spirits in Timorese indigenous religious belief, sea-based spirit beings may be held in somewhat ambivalent regard. Their power is potentially bounteous but equally dangerous and malevolent if approached in a reckless or imprudent fashion. Typically, Timorese represent this sphere of belief by the term lulic (‘sacred’ in Tetum); a condition which evokes the power of the spirit world and one that, necessarily, is negotiated through appropriate ritual action (McWilliam 2001).10

PERSPECTIVES ON CUSTOMARY MARINE TENURES IN EAST TIMOR

The identification and elaboration of what has become known as customary marine tenure11 has developed significantly around the world only in the last few decades (McCay 1978; Ruddle and Akimichi 1984; Cordell 1989). Among the reasons posited for this increased attention to indigenous coastal practices and beliefs are the widespread failure of commercial fisheries management regimes, the emergence of indigenous identity politics, and assertions of rights and claims to coastal margins and inshore waters (McGoodwin 1990; Peterson and Rigsby 1998; Johannes and Riepen 1995). As research findings on customary marine practice have proliferated, particularly in the Pacific and more recently in Aboriginal Australia with the legal opportunities presented by native title provisions, so too have definitions of what might be included under the rubric of customary marine tenure. Some have argued that the phrase is now so inclusive of a range of related and disparate practices that it loses explanatory force and becomes implicated in the production of the very categories and practices that it seeks to understand (see Pannell 1998). For the purposes of this preliminary discussion, however, and without attempting an all-embracing definition, I take the view that the notion of customary marine tenure may well include a range of locally based marine practices and cultural beliefs that are shared by a self-identifying and largely co-resident grouping affiliated through common kinship. The key issue, however, is the extent to which marine practices may be said to reflect, and be ultimately constitutive of, an inherited common property interest in the littoral and inshore waters of their local domain. In other words there needs to be a sense of privileged territorial ownership or custodianship and the related corollary that access is regulated or based upon notions of permission or consent. As a working definition at least, this approach provides a framework for

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considering the nature and qualities of customary marine practices and their prospects for asserting forms of proprietary recognition. That said, it should be acknowledged that the very limited ethnographic or associated survey materials on contemporary practices in East Timor precludes drawing any hasty conclusions on the matter.

A common view, particularly among UNTAET fisheries officers who have been consulting widely with representatives of coastal and fishing communities, is that former ‘traditional customs’, to the extent that they operated, have become ineffective as a result of political conflicts and confusion in authority structures (Maunsey pers. comm. 2001). This perspective finds some support in the recent JICA12 report which purports to show that nearly half (46 per cent) of the 44 coastal locations surveyed reported no ‘traditional rules for controlling fishing’. Similarly, only a small minority reported any customary rules for control over fishing grounds (6 per cent) and fishing seasons (13 per cent) (Sanyu Consultants 2001:3A-38).

In many respects this situation is hardly surprising given the nature of former Indonesian government policy which provided little or no recognition nor jurisdictional space for the expression of indigenous or local assertions of tenure and control of resources. Where they were asserted or found to conflict with official regulation or territorial interests they tended to be subsumed, appropriated or simply ignored in the process; lying as they did on ‘the watery margins of legal indifference’ to adopt Pannell’s felicitous phrasing (2000:377). Subsequently their ‘illegibility’ to the state apparatus meant that in practice the authority of custom and ‘traditional law’ remained, for the most part, diffuse and obscured under the weight of state regulatory control (Scott 1998). This was made explicit in the case of East Timor, where a former provincial government decreed that a zone of 200 m around Timor’s coastline formed a protected zone under spatial planning regulations (Rencana Tata Ruang Propinsi Timor Timur 1996), and precluded any official recognition of customary authority.

The widely reported and largely uncontrolled fishing practice of reef-bombing along Timor’s coasts over the previous decade, apart from highlighting the ineptitude of government coastal ‘management’, also reflected the lack of official support and recognition accorded customary authority. Little wonder that any re-emergent expression and practice associated with assertions of customary jurisdiction has been tentative and constrained by the present continuing political uncertainty. It follows that any renewed strength and expression of customary marine tenures is also to a significant degree dependent on the extent to which the new nation-state of Timor Leste is committed to recognising and supporting them.13

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Despite these generally negative views towards the existence and or persistence of customary marine tenure within East Timor — and the regulatory context which encouraged the erasure of customary practice — it would be premature to suggest that customary authority and practice have no contemporary force or significance, recent surveys and anecdotal evidence notwithstanding. This perspective is based on the logical presumption that, historically speaking, all coastal Timorese settlements of significant generational depth,14 maintained some form of customary proprietorship of their coastal waters and inter-tidal zones. While knowledge loss may well be a consequence of colonial history, it is also a fundamental feature of indigenous ritual practice that the distribution of social knowledge about customary tenures may well be restricted through cultural conventions of transmission, secrecy and ambiguity, particularly in relation to people external to the ritual community (see Wassman 2001:67). Seen from this perspective, contemporary adherence to the practical enactment of what I am terming customary marine tenures is likely to vary from place to place, both in terms of its content and efficacy. But its existence and significance at a local level is likely to persist as a vital orientation for interaction with coastal waters.

Central to this notion are two widespread and related features of customary practice found around the island, which at first may not appear to constitute a tenurial relationship. Primarily this refers to the general significance of spiritual attachment and ritual enactment as the practical basis for customary claims, rather than any simple promulgation of codified rules or explicit sanctions based on territorial occupation. Sanctions and rules may well pertain to customary practice in specific places but they are contingent upon and subsequent to a primary emotional attachment to particular places constituted in myth and local histories of intimate association. In this respect ritual management is often more a matter of strategic improvisation rather than simply one of following the ‘traditional’ rules.

The second co-related feature is that territoriality of coastal customary claims tends to be closely tied to the limits of ritual authority among the relevant communities. This is evident, for example, in the convention that land boundaries between coastal domains tend to be fixed and well defined while sea boundaries are absent or ill defined. Land boundaries are frequently constituted around prominent rocky outcrops or unusual topographic features along the coast. However, the cultural construction of sea boundaries notionally extend seaward from these limits to an indeterminate point and are typically only articulated or asserted when transgressed by outsiders (see Thorburn 2001:155-6 for similar construction in the Kei Islands, Maluku).

The notion of spiritual attachment finds diverse expression in coastal Timor communities. One core feature is the common concern with acknowledging the

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precedence or pre-eminent rights of particular ‘origin groups’ and their representatives. It is they who claim and assert inherited rights of mediation between the bounty and unseen forces of the seas on the one hand, and the protection and safety of the resident populations within their jurisdictions on the other. Typically, mediation is expressed through ritual sacrifice, prayer and ceremonial enactment.

‘Origin groups’ in this context represent members of particular Timorese clans, perhaps appropriately referred to as ‘house groups’ (uma lulik: sacred house) which, on the basis of myth and clan history, assert and sustain prior authority in relation to a coastal domain. The specific names of these groups vary across the diverse languages of East Timor, but their customary precedence in relation to specific coastal sites and areas are similarly constituted.15 For example, in the Fataluku-speaking community of Tutuala in far eastern East Timor, the founding houses (ratu) of the settlement recognise a range of places around the coast including the low-lying offshore island, Jaco, as part of the sacred (te’i) sphere. In their mythic-histories Jaco Island is one of the ‘origin places’ where Fataluku ancestors beached their boats on first landing in Timor (Sandlund et al. 2001; Campagnolo 1979:31). In customary terms the island is a protected reserve where agriculture and hunting are prohibited. Periodic ceremonies to recount their ‘paths of origin’ (nololo) linking contemporary members of the ratu with their earliest ancestors are conducted accompanied by sacrificial offerings and commensality (Lameiras-Campagnolo 1975:71-6). Tutuala is also one of the few settlements of East Timor which participates in the ceremonial harvest of sea worms (meci) which appear annually in large numbers in the shallow coastal waters of Lautem district during March.16 The ritual prayers and chanting which accompany the ceremony mark the beginning of the new agricultural calendar (Campagnolo 1979:31) and in their excessive numbers symbolise fecundity and abundance (see Geirnaert-Martin 1992:287-8 for comparative conceptions in West Sumba). These specific mediated attachments to defined places repeatedly enacted by ritual communities like Tutuala arguably reflect an abiding territorial and tenurial relationship with their coastal waters.

The idea of indigenous management on the basis of spiritual attachment finds similar expression in many other areas of Timor. While detailed information on the contemporary extent of ritual practice in relation to coastal waters is lacking, the following examples nevertheless hint at its continuing vitality. The inshore waters surrounding Atauro Island off the northern coast of East Timor are traditionally divided among the four senior landholding clans, Biloi, Makili, Bikili and Makadadi. Marker points designate the coastal boundaries and customary restrictions applying to the harvesting and hunting of a range of aquatic species

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including trepang (beche de mer), lobster, shellfish, trochus shell (lola and laga) and octopus among others. Unlike mobile fish populations, which are not subject to catch limits, these species are recognised to have more localised habitats and for that reason attract customary harvesting restrictions. While these proscriptions are reported to still have some local efficacy, they were widely ignored during Indonesian times, especially by non-Timorese fishing boats which operated in and plundered Atauro waters with comparative impunity.

Elsewhere Rio has reported the continuing application of traditional restrictions on the use and exploitation of coastal mangroves, including places like Doloc Oan (Dili district). Here fishing in mangroves is restricted to certain times of the year and they remain under a permanent ban on cutting because of their recognised properties as fish-spawning habitats and marine nutrient sources (2001:16). Similar practices of indigenous management through temporary prohibitions are also reported from coastal communities in Bobonaro and the enclave of Oe-Cussi where estuaries and lagoons may be subject to seasonal bans and constrained opportunities to harvest fish and shrimp (Sandlund et al. 2001:20). The use of ritual prohibitions (tara bandu in Tetum),17 is a commonly employed technique throughout East Timor to manage the exploitation or harvesting of resources. Its efficacy lies in the threat of spiritual sanctions against transgressors, of illness, misfortune or loss, and on present indications, the practice continues to be widely supported by local communities across Timor. These periodic ritual harvesting prohibitions would appear to share aspects of the more widely known sasi18 complex found throughout the Moluccan islands which has gained considerable renown in relation to debates over customary marine tenures (Thorburn 2001; Zerner 1994). Recognition of a similar complex in East Timor, however, requires further empirical evaluation.

Recent field studies in the small coastal communities of Biakou (Bobonaro district) and Dayirr, west of Maubara (Liquica), provide further detailed insights into the ritual basis of community coastal tenures. These communities maintain a sacrificial ritual tradition based around the ceremonial hunting and capture of large mantarays, known as kelembeli. This tradition extends from Tocodede-speaking settlements in Liquica to the Kemak-speaking border lands of West Timor (Palaka, coastal Bobonaro). Some variation in the cultural practices and symbolic properties of ritualised mantaray hunting is apparent, but the objectives and motivations share much in common.

In Dayirr, a hamlet of twenty-seven households along with the nearby small settlements of Klespu and Morae, the ritual knowledge, songs and praxis associated with the hunting of kelembeli form the ‘high’ tradition of the three communities. The practice intimately establishes their rightful historical claims

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and prosperity to this narrow localised portion of Timor’s coast. While the rituals have not been enacted for some years, and I have personally not witnessed the practice, local participants enthusiastically recounted aspects of the ceremony.

Dayirr people regard the sea as luli, a Tocodede term associated with the realm of the sacred, unseen spirit and ancestral forms and sources of power. For these reasons activities associated with the sea require various forms of ritual management and protection. They include the use of auguries, the consecration of new fishing canoes, fashioned and dragged to the coast from the mountains behind, and sacrificial prayers conducted when fishing yields are poor to ‘attract’ fish into their waters. Open access and utilisation of close, inshore waters is also limited to the local custodial community of Dayirr.

Kelembeli are said to appear off the coast during the wet season,19 the season of flowering (kai vetvai), and are heralded in the dreams of the ritual leader of the community from the origin house, Vavikinea. The hunt itself opens the community to the dangerous and unpredictable realm of the sacred (paluli) and the spirits, and consequently its ritual enactment is circumscribed with numerous attendant proscriptions requiring proper action and proper speech. Ritual songs calling the kelembeli to its sacrificial fate accompany all stages of the hunt.20 Purposely built and consecrated canoes (protaka) are used in the hunt and manned by young men of the settlement who employ special detachable iron harpoons (beskau) fixed with rope to bamboo spears (lora) to strike the prey and haul them in noisy celebration to the beach. They are greeted by women of the community assembled on the beach, who have waited dressed in ceremonial black, silent, and restrained.

The captured kelembeli are laid out for ritual incorporation at the edge of the beach. Here some aspects are worth highlighting. The mantaray itself is referred to as the malae,21 the ‘foreigner’ who is inducted from the outside. The kelembeli are greeted and ritually ‘fed’ betel nut, before their heads are sliced off and placed on a special permanent pile of sacrificial altar stones, the home of the ‘fish’ (ikaomo), along with the ‘black’ cloth (tais) of Vavikinea. A key ritual participant in the process is a young girl who ‘receives’ the outsider and is referred to as the malae vine, the ‘wife of the malae’. The sacrificial incorporation of the kelembeli is completed with general commensality as the meat is carved and distributed appropriately among the participants

Even this schematic description highlights the rich symbolism of the kelembeli ritual hunt which can be seen to reflect many of the broader traditions of ritual sacrifice across East Timor and indeed the wider region of eastern Indonesia. The ceremony brings together the communities in the social celebration of life and death and the reciprocal and dualistically structured exchanges on

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which it is intimately based (Traube 1986). Sacrificial death is seen to be the prerequisite for the promotion and continuation of life (Howell 1996; King 1965). In this case, the ubiquitous generative Austronesian theme of the union between ‘stranger king’ and ‘autochthonous’ woman is played out in one littoral corner of East Timor.

One of the implications of spiritual attachment as a central expression of customary coastal tenures is that the capacity of Timorese coastal populations to assert territoriality against outsiders has generally been weak. Members of the Dayirr community report ‘chasing off’ unwanted incursions by outsider fishing boats, but their capacity to do so is severely constrained by their limited seafaring technology. To the extent that sanctions exist and are effective against transgression or improper practice, they tend to be made tangible in terms of the fortunes of fishing activity, in the non-appearance of fish and food resources or in the damage to and sinking of boats and the drowning or illness of transgressors. In the past the potentially adverse effects of these sanctions have, at times, encouraged outsiders to acknowledge customary authority. Reportedly, the ritual leader for the coastal domain of Uatu Boro in the district of Liquica, for example, upon request, regularly conducted sacrificial prayers for Bugis fishermen operating at the mouth of the Lois River. In return for gifts of fish and money, Besoro, the ritual leader for the origin house (uma luli) Sabulao, would conduct a ceremony to pray for their safety and protection during the season. Although undertaken on a purely informal basis, arguably the exchange demonstrated a clear acknowledgment and recognition of a locally based system of customary tenure. It is also in these terms that the failure of a government-supported prawn/shrimp farm on the coast of Uatu Boro is couched. Constructed, but never apparently made operational, the abandoned facility represents to the community of Uatu Boro at least, a testament to the folly of ignoring the customary authority of the ‘sacred house’ of Sabulao, and the spiritual sanctions which it alone can mediate within the domain.

These brief observations of customary marine practices in East Timor barely scratch the surface of what is likely to be a far richer complex of protocols and perceptions around indigenous attachment to coastal waters than has hitherto been recognised or identified.22 It highlights the opportunities and requirements in the emerging systems of governance in East Timor, to undertake a more engaged ethnography of local coastal practices and claims as part of a broader consultative process on the future of common or joint property regimes and associated coastal management regulatory frameworks.

PROPERTY RELATIONS AND REGULATORY MANAGEMENT

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As East Timor moves to consolidate its formal independence as a new nation, the question of land tenure and associated land management practices represent a pressing, and as yet, largely unresolved issue. Formal recognition of property titles and tenurial relations to land is a vexed issue in East Timor, involving as it does, a complex layering of historical Portuguese, Indonesian and customary land titles (see Fitzpatrick 2001). Land is a highly political issue in East Timor and the process of reaching an agreeable accommodation among the various factional and economic interest groups continues to be a protracted one.

Notwithstanding this uncertainty, some indication of the likely direction to be adopted by the national government of East Timor can be seen in the ratification of the new constitution. Importantly the constitution does not explicitly mention the status of customary land or indigenous marine tenures for that matter. However the following articles have direct bearing on the issue in as much as they probably constrain the possibilities and prospects for future formal recognition and codification of ‘traditional’ rights and customary practice.

Section 54 (Rights to Private Property)

Requisitioning and expropriation of property for public purposes shall only take place in accordance with the law following payment of adequate compensation.

Section 61 (2) (Environment)

The state shall recognise the need to preserve and rationalise natural resources.

Section 139 Article (1) (Natural Resources)

The resources of the soil, sub-soil, territorial waters, the continental shelf and exclusive economic zones which are essential to the economy shall be owned by the State and shall be used in a fair and equitable manner for the benefit of the nation.

Section 141 (Land)

Ownership and use of land as one of the factors for economic production shall be regulated by law (source: Draft Constitution of East Timor (official English version as at 9 February 2002).

At this time the enabling legislation to give effect to the provisions of the new constitution has yet to be implemented. However it is apparent from these

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articles of the constitution that customary tenures, and particularly asserted common property regimes under which indigenous marine connections to their coastal waters are typically expressed, are likely to be closely circumscribed by the state. In part this is related to the practical difficulties of establishing a clear set of guidelines, agreements and legal understandings about the nature of customary law, and therefore defining the extent and character of commonly held customary tenures. In this respect, the diverse expressions of customary marine tenures in East Timor appear to reflect many of the characteristic qualities of ‘indigenous knowledge’ found more widely. They include, among other features, the unique and locally constituted nature of indigenous tenures; their reproduction through dynamic and contingent processes of oral transmission; the differential social knowledge and claims to customary rights and authority and, what Ellen and Harris describe as ‘its embeddedness in the non-verbally articulated interstices of everyday technical practice and memory’ (2000:4). This combination of elements, while not precluding the possibility of codification or some proximate form of legal recognition, makes it difficult to assimilate customary claims within the pre-defined and largely Western-based legal regimes of private and public property that are likely to form the central codes of future legislation.

A second important aspect of future land law in East Timor inferred in the constitutional framework is the evident centralist desire to assert state sovereignty over its land and waters and to enact a common national framework for legal recognition of land titles. In this respect the national assembly is reflecting that common feature of nation-states to claim territorial authority. As Vandergeest and Peluso note: ‘all modern states divide their territories into complex and overlapping political and economic zones, rearrange people and resources within these units and create regulations delineating how and by whom these areas can be used’ (1995:387). East Timor is likely to be no different in this context. The issue at stake is the extent to which customary tenures are afforded legal space and force under a future system of property titles and cadastral mapping. Given the history of resistance to Portuguese colonialism and Indonesian rule, and the fact that the current ruling party Fretilin has its origins in Marxist-inspired struggles for land reform during the period of Portuguese rule, there is a clear reluctance among the political elite to reinstate what are perceived to be the inequities and inherited privileges of traditionalist systems of authority and power. Moreover, this sentiment may include wider sections of the population opposed to any formal recognition of indigenous traditional rulers who are known to have collaborated with the Indonesian government and armed forces to the detriment of the common citizenry.

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The issue of traditional elites, however, forms only a part of what can be identified as customary law. The practical reality is that for the great majority of Timorese people, especially those long resident on ancestral lands, systems of customary practice and inherited patterns of land tenure represent the only viable and legitimate local mechanisms for maintaining and reproducing the social order. They have provided an enduring and consistent basis for social life in the turbulent, destructive climate of recent decades, and to the extent that ancestral religious ideas inform social practice, custom remains a vital orientation for rural communities.23 Furthermore, financial limitations, as much as any other reason, will inevitably constrain the administrative reach of government, and therefore it is likely that a variety of customary systems will persist and continue to inform social relations, with or without government sanction or approval.

From another perspective, it is also clear that customary tenures across East Timor were suppressed and marginalised under Indonesian rule, and are therefore likely to have been substantially weakened, modified or otherwise transformed. However, it is by no means inevitable that they will continue to have a reduced or insignificant impact in the liberated political context of East Timor. As has been evident elsewhere in the wider region, particularly across neighbouring Indonesia, the segmentary politics of cultural identity, of local self-determination and customary attachment to land provide potent ideas around which assertions of indigenous rights can emerge. While still muted in the East Timorese context, calls for recognising customary tenures may yet be directed towards claiming a share of the benefits of independence. Rumsey’s observation in a recent paper discussing a number of communities in Melanesia, and Australian Aboriginal communities seeking recognition of their ‘native title’ to ancestral lands are cases in point. He notes that ‘there is emerging an increasingly self-conscious focus among indigenous people themselves on the grounding of cosmology and social identity in landscape’ (2001:20). This objectification of social identity in the landscape, the sense of belonging to land through spiritual and mythical connections, provides a recognisable and politically potent basis for asserting claims to particular areas of land (Rumsey 2001:38; see also Ellen and Harris 2000:23; Peterson and Rigsby 1998). By inference this objectification also extends to coastal and inshore waters.

Whether Timorese coastal communities participate in the kinds of ‘intense scripting, reinterpretation and political deployment’ that have characterised sasi coastal marine systems of the Moluccas islands (Zerner 1994:1111), will very much depend on the extent to which local claims and tenures become focal points of contestation between governments and communities. This, in turn, is dependent in practice on the extent to which government seeks to regulate or appropriate

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customarily held lands and coastal waters in the interests of national economic development. Current indications suggest that nationalist assertions of sovereignty, especially over the control and utilisation of natural resources, will leave little space for acknowledging or extending legal protection to customarily held jurisdictions, at least in the form of concrete property rights. This position reflects a commonly held view of many governments that the priorities of national economic and resource development should be assessed in terms of benefit for all citizens and not dictated by the perceived narrow and opportunistic interests of local tradition. Even where in practice these policies have also led directly and historically to the marginalisation and impoverishment of these same customary communities, they tend to have persuasive appeal within centres of power and policy-making.

A more likely alternative avenue for at least a degree of recognition of customary marine tenure resides in the issue of coastal management policy and practice in East Timor. In the various attempts to quantify and characterise the activities and prospects of local Timorese coastal communities, especially during the recent interim administration of the territory by the United Nations (UNTAET — United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor), the question of rights and the future role of resident communities in coastal management are frequently considered. To date and to the extent that UNTAET made constructive initiatives in this area, it can be found in Regulation 19/2000, which legislates for the protection of specified natural places across East Timor including islands and coral reef areas. Specifically in relation to coastal waters, the regulation prohibits the harvesting or hunting of ‘endangered’ species such as marine mammals, crocodiles and sea turtles, as well as any damage to coral reefs or habitats of endangered species. The regulation does allow for what it describes as ‘traditional’ activities consistent with the intent of the law and to this extent offers tacit recognition of existing, if poorly understood, customary attachments and practices enjoyed by coastal Timorese communities. However, as I have argued elsewhere (McWilliam 2001), there is a marked lack of definition as to what constitutes ‘tradition’ under the regulation and an absence of supporting enabling legislation to ensure effective enforcement or participatory involvement by customary law communities in the management process. Moreover, the legislation does not represent any coherent attempt to formulate a management policy, nor does it articulate any mechanisms for respecting the attendant and underlying rights and privileges of ‘traditional’ communities in asserting their self-determination over local coastal waters.

Calls for stronger community involvement in land and coastal management, however, reflect the economic reality that future management and protection of

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coastal resources by government is highly dependent on the willingness of local communities to cooperate. Coastal communities, with their intimate understandings and customary constraints over defined local waters and estuaries, are thought to be well placed to play an active management and supervisory role over fishing and marine resource related activities. As one report stated it, ‘[E]nactment of marine protected areas along East Timor’s coasts ... would be most effective if the process is carried out in a participatory manner, assuring compatibility with the interests, customs and aspirations of local people and incorporating their traditional laws and knowledge’ (Sandlund et al. 2001:23). In a similar vein, the recent Joint Agricultural Donors Interim Mission to East Timor recommended a series of key development initiatives for urgent attention. They included the need to enact a National Fisheries Law for regulating fisheries in both territorial and offshore waters, and a suggestion to implement a consultation process with ‘local fishing communities’ with a view to permitting them to enact local ‘by-laws’ compatible with the national fisheries law (2001:26).

These and similar statements reflect a widespread recognition of the logical benefits of promoting local responsibilities and knowledge in the management of local areas. However, there is no consensus as to how these arrangements might be given practical effect. Most of the current focus on coastal and offshore waters is associated with promoting and establishing a regulated fishing industry. For example, in the draft Fisheries Strategy for East Timor, developed under the auspices of UNTAET, one of the many proposals suggested is the creation of what are termed ‘Territorial Users Fishing Rights’ (TURF) [2000]. Membership is determined by those ‘traditionally’ involved in the fishery and living in the ‘immediate proximity’ and may exclude or limit larger scale operators from exploiting resources within defined reserves (Fisheries and Marine Environment Service 2000:10). This would seem to be a constructive approach,24 which, in terms of the argument promoted in this paper, has the potential of combining local customary marine tenures and attachments with more secular or co-management administrative arrangements. While it presupposes a much more detailed understanding of indigenous customary practice than is currently the case, as well as a certain untested faith in the practical coherence and integrity of ‘custom’, it offers the potential for legitimating customary authority under a national legislative or policy framework. Whether such a development would be welcomed by influential ‘modernist’ interests in the new national government of East Timor remains unclear. In practical terms it would seem almost inevitable that attempts to devolve management responsibility to defined local and coastal jurisdictions will need to engage issues of customary rights and ritual knowledge for development initiatives to succeed.

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A complementary area of support and recognition might also be pursued under the proposed constitutional principle that ‘Everyone has the right to cultural enjoyment and creativity and the duty to preserve, protect and value cultural heritage’ (Draft Constitution of East Timor: Section 59). Arguably the persistence and practice of customary marine tenures and the ritual enactment of spiritual attachment that characterise their legitimating authority, represent a clearly definable form of cultural heritage which could be protected under supporting legislation. While this approach represents a diluted form of legal tenure or ownership to defined coastal jurisdictions, it does provide a point of negotiation and consultation over a defined set of cultural rights that may not be summarily subsumed or appropriated without due compensation and common agreement.

These various possibilities for recognising the specific locally defined character and rights of historical coastal communities all remain potential prospects for further elaboration. On the basis of the evidence at hand what is clear is that attempts to ignore or marginalise customary aspirations and assertions of historically or traditionally constituted rights are likely to undermine the prospects for developing effective local management and responsibility. In a somewhat finger-wagging but informed comment, Sandlund has observed that: ‘[B]ureaucratic, technocratic, top down approaches to coastal environmental issues and peoples that are reminiscent of Portuguese colonialism and Indonesian occupation are iniquitous, undemocratic and unlikely to be effective’ (2001:23). I would add that they also inevitably deny the role of culturally constituted inscriptions of local places and in so doing would find few enthusiastic supporters among resident coastal communities.

CONCLUSION

Coastal and customary marine tenures in East Timor represent a much under-valued and poorly understood arena of indigenous cultural practice. Long ignored and subsumed by the Indonesian government during its twenty-four-year administration of the then province, and by the Portuguese colonial administration before them, customary marine practices (and by inference the broader expressions of indigenous tenures they reflect in East Timor) have nevertheless persisted over the generations within the interstices of hegemonic state regulatory management. This paper has sought to highlight something of the variation and character of customary practice by which communities have abided and enacted through the rhythms of ritual conduct and spiritual beliefs. Although highly diverse in their multiple expressions of custodial management of the seas and coastal waters, East Timorese customary marine tenures are seen to be founded upon a common concern with acknowledging the rights of particular ritual or

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custodial communities that claim and assert commonly inherited rights of mediation between the bounty of the seas and the sustenance and protection of resident populations within their jurisdiction. To the extent that these relationships reflect territorially based assertions of control and knowledge, they represent locally constituted forms of tenure and ownership over variously defined littoral margins and their marine resources.

Moving beyond these general perspectives and in seeking to define the scope and potential of customary marine tenures in more detail, there is a need for much more ethnographically informed research among the constituent coastal communities of East Timor. Unless and until a greater degree of identification and clarification of the diverse expressions and values of customary marine tenures in East Timor are made explicit, they are likely to remain invisible and subsumed within legal and regulatory frameworks which deny their existence and marginalise their practitioners. The present supportive political climate for conducting sustained and informed ethnographic enquiry in East Timor provides a unique opportunity to contribute to emerging legal and policy initiatives in this area. Furthermore, as this paper has tried to indicate, researchers are now able to draw upon a substantial body of detailed ethnographic research and understanding from the wider field of eastern Indonesia which offers useful comparative perspectives for interpreting East Timorese cultural practice and informing policy decisions.

At the same time, in the process of articulating and defining the ‘rights’ and tenurial relationships within customary marine tenures, manifest or otherwise, there lies the risk of their reification and artificial construction of coherence or capacity to manage collectively the conservation and sustainable utilisation of coastal resources. Marginalised coastal communities are typically poorly equipped to control or manage their local resources from more powerful external interests in the absence of government support (Bailey and Zerner 1992). The process of incorporating customary marine tenures within the contemporary legal and regulatory systems of East Timorese coastal management is therefore one that requires an appropriate balance. It means upholding and supporting the diverse interests and ritual attachments of impoverished coastal communities on the one hand, and acknowledging the aspirations and developmental needs of the wider national community on the other. The logical solution to this challenge lies in appropriate and productive arrangements of joint- or co-management of resource areas; of integrating the technologies and financial assistance of external agencies with the intimate knowledge and long experience of local custodians (see Bailey and Zerner 1992).

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As East Timor struggles towards an independent future, one of the many challenges facing the nation is the effective incorporation of its remarkable cultural and linguistic diversity and the acknowledgment of difference within a common national unity. Customary marine tenures represent one expression of that difference and an enduring source of continuity with Timor’s ancient heritage and cultural identity. The extent to which they play a formal part in its future is what remains at stake.

NOTES

Research for this paper was sponsored by the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University. Thanks to Kathy Robinson, Jim Fox and Merrilyn Wasson for helpful comments and suggestions. 1 There are a few notable exceptions including a short article by King (1965) on fishing rites at the estuary Be-Malai, and Almeida’s observations on hunting and fishing (1957) and food taboos (1945). 2 I note here that the issue of customary marine tenures as a popular subject for anthropological enquiry is of relatively recent origin (see Peterson and Rigsby 1998). Opportunities for independent research were extremely constrained during Indonesian rule in East Timor 1975-99, which has probably contributed to the comparatively scarce literature on East Timorese coastal practices. 3 Dugout canoes with plank gunwhales to lift freeboard are a typical modification on simpler designs. 4 Saldanha notes that, by 1990, the fisheries subsector in East Timor contributed just 1 per cent of an already low gross domestic product (1994:225). 5 The Sahul Banks or shoals form a series of marine rich shallow waters on the outer edge of the Sahul shelf in the Timor Sea. Long used by Macassan and Bajau traditional fisher communities, since 1992 Indonesian and Taiwanese vessels using long-line technologies have been actively exploiting the fishery under Indonesian authorisation. The area is also the focus for Timor Sea oil exploration (see Heyward et al. 1997). 6 In this respect anecdotal evidence suggests that inshore fish stocks appear to have increased in the two years since the withdrawal of most of the Indonesian fishing operations from the territory (UNTAET Fisheries Officer pers. comm. 2001). 7 Timor island has more than twenty distinct indigenous language communities, the majority of which lie in East Timor and include both Austronesian and non-Austronesian linguistic forms (see Map 1). 8 Mambai equivalents, tais hinan, tasi manen; Meto populations use the terms, tasi feto, tasi mone. 9 Van Wouden also mentions the Timorese clan group Nomleni (Amanatun, West Timor) which is ‘descended from two dogs who came out of the seas ... while the clan Neno Li’u are descended from a cat which likewise emerged from the seas and they therefore show special respect to cats’ (1968:60). 10 The ritual burial of dolphins (roinu) as ancestors in Kon (Lautem) is a case in point.

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11 I use the term ‘marine’ here in the sense of referring to a direct connection with the sea. An alternative term, ‘maritime’, may be equally pertinent in the sense of ‘encompassing things that are marginal to or associated with the sea, but not necessarily of, on or in it’ (Anderson 2000:13). 12 Japanese International Cooperation Agency. 13 The example of recent widespread revaluation and revitalisation of Aboriginal customary law in Australia and its acknowledged legitimacy as a foundation for indigenous land claims and native title is a comparative case in point 14 Here I do not include the numerous coastal settlements that were relocated from the hinterland during Indonesian rule for internal security reasons and consequently have a superficial attachment to their coastal lands. 15 In this respect Timorese coastal marine tenures reflect more widespread beliefs found across the region. Zerner, for example identifies across Maluku, ‘a complex landscape of relationships between human communities and a marine world believed to be populated or controlled by a responsive community of invisible ancestral spirits’ (1994:1106). 16 The annual rhythm of Seaworms (Eunice virides) is the focus for ceremonial festivals and mass harvesting in a variety of locations across the eastern islands of Indonesia, including Lombok, Sumba, Savu and Roti. Biologically, the terminal reproductive segments of the annelids detach and float in large numbers in shallow, inshore waters where they are collected and consumed in raw or cooked form. 17 Lupure in the Fataluku language of Lautem; bunuk among Meto speakers in West Timor. 18 Sasi, a set of indigenous marine and coastal management practices. 19 Tocodede recognise four main types of kelembeli in an area of high species diversity (see Barnes 1996:280-7 for discussions on comparative aspects of mantaray hunting in Lamalera (Lembata Is.)). 20 Wai lo (Tocodede) and O’Bailo (Kemak). 21 The term ‘malae’ is the conventional term applied to foreigners, or non-Timorese. However, historically the term has also been incorporated into Timorese political culture through association with Portuguese rule and may contain symbolic attributes of executive authority. In Lautem, for example, the executive ruler of indigenous political domains takes the customary title of Malae. 22 Information on indigenous coastal practices on the southern coast of East Timor, including the districts of Covalima, Manufahi and Viqueque are not included in this assessment but are likely to reveal significant cultural values and attachments consistent with the above analysis. 23 An Indonesian study undertaken in 1994 makes a similar assessment noting that: ‘... in daily social life, adat [traditional] leaders have greater influence than government appointed officials’ (Sumardjono et al. 1994/95). 24 A similar idea is the concept of ‘extractive reserves’ (Begossi 1995:402) which are designed to acknowledge indigenous rights and claims while promoting conservationist approaches.

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