SOME PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS ON MANEO MARRIAGE AND HISTORY

This paper examines the marriage payment system of the Maneo, a small population of hunter/foragers in the mountains and on the coast of central Seram. These exchanges are pivotal in determining the way principles of social organization are put into actual practice. Over the last thirty years, however, the quantity of payments—particularly of 16th- and 17th-century porcelain—has declined dramatically. Analysis of the effects of change sheds light on the meaning of marriage and payments. It also permits investigation of the role of marriage in shap-ing Maneo history. The Maneo are a sedentary population of hunters, foragers, and some-time horticulturalists living in the mountains and on the south coast of central Seram in central Maluku. Located to the east of the Maneo are Seti-speaking communities; Manusela-speaking communities (of which the Maneo are one) are scattered to the west. There are roughly 500 Ma-neo residing in one of four mountain villages and in scattered small dwellings in the forest, and another 500 divided between two recently established coastal villages. They are nominally organized into more or less exogamous corporate units I will refer to (uncritically) as clans. Clan members collectively own hunting and gardening territories; they also possess rights to certain myths and genealogies. Generally, persons are recruited patrilineally. However, each individual possesses limited rights to material and nonmaterial properties belonging to his or her maternal (or paternal) clan. In addition, offspring of same-sex parents who are siblings refer to each other categorically as siblings, regardless of their clan affiliation. The whole region—Maneo, Manusela, and Seti—is loosely organized by interlocking kinship and marriage ties, and by shared history, including formal alliances and enmities. I first travelled to the region for two months in 1989. Based on data gathered on that trip and from surveying the ethnographies of nearby { PAGE} CAKALELE, VOL.