Grandchildren of the Ga’e Ancestors: Social organization and cosmology

Grandchildren of the Gaíe Ancestors focuses on the social organization, cosmology and ritual system of Hoga Sara society on the island of Flores. The first anthropological account of this eastern Indonesian people, this study challenges the classical models of descent and alliance by demonstrating the limitations of these analytical abstractions for understanding the social system of the Hoga Sara. The intricacies of social organization and the formation of social identities of groups and individuals are disentangled by utilizing the concepts of ‘house society’, ‘origin structures’ and ‘orders of precedence’. Aspects focused on include the pivotal role of the first-born, historical development of the society, sacrificial practices, and the instrumental role of the ritual system in the continuing exchanges among people and with their ancestors.