Cultural History In Focus | “On Losing and Getting a Head: Warfare, Exchange, and Alliance in a Changing Sumba, 1888-1988” by Janet Alison Hoskins

On Losing and Getting a Head

Warfare, Exchange, and Alliance
in a Changing Sumba, 1888 — 1988

by Janet Alison Hoskins

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This article is generously provided by Janet Alison Hoskins.

Woman’s Ceremonial Sarong | Lau Pahudu © Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen — Woman’s Ceremonial Sarong | *Lau Pahudu*
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Spinning Wheel © Asian Civilisations Museum — Spinning Wheel
© Asian Civilisations Museum

Stone Memorial Figure © musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac — Stone Memorial Figure
© musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac

Stone Memorial | Penji © Dallas Museum of Art — Stone Memorial | *Penji*
© Dallas Museum of Art

Woman’s Ceremonial Skirt | Lau Hada © Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen — Woman’s Ceremonial Skirt | *Lau Hada*
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Woman’s Gold Earring | Mamuli © Metropolitan Museum of Art — Woman’s Gold Earring | *Mamuli*
© Metropolitan Museum of Art

Woman’s Gold Earring | Mamuli © Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen — Woman’s Gold Earring | *Mamuli*
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Woman’s Ceremonial Skirt | Lau Pahudu © Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen — Woman’s Ceremonial Skirt | *Lau Pahudu*
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Woman’s Ceremonial Skirt | Lau Pahudu © Dallas Museum of Art — Woman’s Ceremonial Skirt | *Lau Pahudu*
© Dallas Museum of Art

Beaded Women’s Pectoral Dancing Ornament © Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen — Beaded Women’s Pectoral Dancing Ornament
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Stone Memorial | Penji © Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen — Stone Memorial | *Penji*
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Man’s Blanket | Hinggi © Metropolitan Museum of Art — Man’s Blanket | *Hinggi*
© Metropolitan Museum of Art

Man’s Blanket | Hinggi © Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen — Man’s Blanket | *Hinggi*
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Janet Alison Hoskins

Janet Alison Hoskins is Professor of Anthropology and Religion at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Her books include The Divine Eye and the Diaspora: Vietnamese Syncretism Becomes Transpacific Caodaism (2015, University of Hawaii Press), The Play of Time: Kodi Perspectives on History, Calendars and Exchange (1996 Benda Prize in Southeast Asian Studies, Association of Asian Scholars), and Biographical Objects: How Things Tell the Stories of People’s Lives (1998). She is the contributing editor of four books: Transpacific Studies: Framing an Emerging Field (with Viet Thanh Nguyen, University of Hawaii 2014), Headhunting and the Social Imagination in Southeast Asia (1996), A Space Between Oneself and Oneself: Anthropology as a Search for the Subject (1999) and Fragments from Forests and Libraries (2001).

She served as President of the Society for the Anthropology of Religion from 2011-13, and has produced three ethnographic documentaries, including “The Left Eye of God: Caodaism Travels from Vietnam to California”, as well as two which deal with ritual life on Sumba: “Feast in Dream Village” and “Horses of Life and Death”.

Watch previews of “Feast in Dream Village” and “Horses of Life and Death”.

Colophon

Author | Janet Alison Hoskins
Publication | American Ethnologist: Journal of the American Ethnological Society
Issue | Volume 16, Issue 3 — pgs. 419 - 440
Date | August 1989

Cultural History In Focus | “On Losing and Getting a Head: Warfare, Exchange, and Alliance in a Changing Sumba, 1888-1988” by Janet Alison Hoskins

On Losing and Getting a Head

Warfare, Exchange, and Alliancein a Changing Sumba, 1888 — 1988

by Janet Alison Hoskins

Janet Alison Hoskins

Art of the Ancestors

Warfare, Exchange, and Alliance
in a Changing Sumba, 1888 — 1988