Voyage of the Ancestors

What is it about?

The people of the subsistence whale-hunting village of Lamalera in Eastern Indonesia continue to hunt whales according to the traditions of the ancestors, and through this ritual practice the memory of the ancestors is brought to life. Similarly, in the retelling of the myth of the heroic origin voyage the ancestors are reawakened. This paper engages in a rereading of texts that seek to trace the Lamaleran origin myth back to its beginning. It suggests that even as we write about myths we are simultaneously originating our own stories through them. Thus, as academics journey via these myths back through the islands of the eastern archipelagos in search of origins – from Lamalera on the island of Lembata, to the land of Lepan Batan, through the province of Maluku and back to Sulawesi – the structure of this story acts to originate their own discourses. All such origin stories are involved in intricate relations of becoming through the very myths they desire to uncover.

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