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SIGNS OF RECOGNITION: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society. By Webb Keane. 1997. xxix, 297 pp. (Figures, illus., B&'W photos.) US$50.00/40.00, cloth, ISBN$520-20474-3; US$20.00/ L.15.95, paper ISBN 0-520-20475-1.
THE ISLANDS OF EASTERN INDONESIA are particularly noted for their elaborate traditions of parallelistic ritual speech. The present work concerns the variant found in Anakalangu, a domain situated in the western administrative division of the island of Sumba. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the 1980s, the author, a linguistic anthropologist, focuses on pragmatic aspects of ritual speaking. As earlier studies have shown, Sumbanese ritual speech performances always accompany an exchange or transfer of goods, between affines or between humans and spiritual beings. Keane's objective is to explore "the space between" (p. 20) material exchange and formal speaking. This means how the two shape, affect and connect with one another, yet often do so imperfectly. He further endeavours to demonstrate how, in spite of its canonical and formulaic character, exchanges of ritual speech are always...