The Play of Time: Kodi Perspectives on Calendars, History, and Exchange by Janet Hoskins - Book Report/Review Example

The Play Of Time: Kodi Perspectives on Calendars, History, and Exchange by Janet Hoskins Abstract The book review highlights the conflict between conventional modern concepts of Kodi people regarding the time measurement technique, calendar maintenance and the impact of it on the nation. The central idea of this book is to elaborate the unique tradition, culture and mythologies regarding the concept of ‘time’ and calendar maintenance by the Kodi people. Introduction The anthropologist and author of the book “The Play Of Time: Kodi Perspectives on Calendars, History, and Exchange”, Janet Hoskins, has portrayed the life of fifty thousand Kodi people from an island called Sumba, within Kodi district situated in Eastern Indonesia. The book won the Benda Prize in 1996 in Southeast Asian Studies. The Content of the Book The writer has done an ethnographic research of the formulation of time measurement such as day, night, month seasons, calendar maintenance and all other concepts related to time period. The formulation of time measurement such as day, night month and seasons is different from the modern world. The author has done collective construction of the past with the use of the model of their calendar. A calendrical priest or "Lord of the Year," whom they call the Rato Nale, synchronises the yearly cycle, two seasons dry season and wet season, months and day. He coordinates the agricultural activities and stages of rituals. It was considered that the task implementation and performance of Rato Nale was imported from an island in the west. But local meanings and name was given for the Kodi people. For instance, the festival of sea worms in New Year gives it a Kodi identity. The unique part is that, the calendar the time is related to the rhythm of human lives in the natural world. It also takes into account the order of the cosmos and the movement of celestial bodies. The author has also given theoretical concepts and arguments practiced in the modern world as alternative theory. The conflict between conventional modern concepts is also highlighted this addition and analysis made it more content rich. Main Arguments The three section of the book has made three distinct arguments. The first part has discussed the complexity of the past. The narratives, objects and actions were represented in different ways. These representations were collective heritage as a whole. It was an indigenous calendar but was not absolute in its authority. It reflected the flexibility, diversity and openness to multiple interpretations. Interestingly, they think that the past was not only the residue of earlier days but the "history turned into nature. Purposely, the past was involved in the present and offered another model of potentialities to be understood. In the second part, the cases were discussed where time was constitutive of value through an accumulation of biographical experience about animals, places events and objects. Though human beings are mortal, but something of what they stood for is allowed to live even after their death. However nowadays, their concepts are being challenged by the influence of the external world. Other standards of measurement such as clocks and schedules are a few other factors. The third part of the book has discussed the conflict between continuous tradition and heritage with the modern concepts. The local concepts were being judged against the global perspective. They developed complex relations to the outside forces. There was a growing feeling about losing autonomy as well. Moreover, the author discusses how the regional voices were increasingly silenced in front of the opened world. Three distinct approaches were discussed in the book. First was totalizing approach, that is time was considered as a dimension of a more encompassing classification system. The origin of the theory was social. The second was practice theory. In this case, time was considered as a strategic resource, manipulated by particular actors in specific contexts. The last one was "historicist" approach. It emphasised how time has changed relative to the different values accorded to past, present and future. Findings of the Book The writer concluded the book with the argument that the key sequence of the social life in the earlier days of Kodi was an indigenous ritual calendar. As no centralized polity was present, it was the "Priest of the Year’s" responsibility to control the main hierarchical function. He also used to focus on cultural unity. During the post colonial period, the Christian Church replaced the indigenous calendar. The local culture was not isolated and immune from the world influence, but thirty years after independence, the outside influence on the culture was more powerful. In earlier days, rituals was considered as the voice of Kodi society and tried to transform it to present and future. The book invites readers to look and identify how past and present go hand in hand in a single cultural backdrop, and can influence some historical perception. She further highlighted the relativity and flexibility of the concept of local time in relation to generally practiced theories about time and calendar. Also, according to the author, the complex ancestral heritage, old stories, concepts and symbols of the national unity of the Kodi people has been changed in the contemporary context. Background Research of the Book The book is based on Kodi which is a quite large island of 11,500 km2 , 200 km long and 36 to 75 km wide, covered by wide grasslands. When the author was researching her subject, the Kodi people and entire Indonesia was going through colonialism and post colonialism phase. The unrest, the slavery system, poor economic situation and the beliefs in their culture was reflected in her research. Hunger was a common phenomenon and the long period in the dry season from October to January was called the hungry season. About the Author Undoubtedly, the author is highly capable to write on and do justice to unconventional topics. Janet Hopkins is a PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University. She is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. She has received several research fellowships and scholarships including Fulbright scholarship. Even after that, she became the student of local Kodi people like Maru Daku, a famous bard and respected elder, Hermanus Rangga Horo, the last Dutch-appointed raja of Kodi and also the head of island government for a period after independence and Markos Rangga Ede, a priest and singer to learn their culture. From the minute detailing of the book, one can easily understand the effort she put to research and to write. It was her first book and she took the trouble to stay three long years with the Kodi families to do the research. Maybe she was the first white woman who went there to learn their language as she wrote in the book. Conclusion It is a well researched and interestingly written book. One can find both substance and clarity of expression. As she has written the book in first person and the mode of writing is storytelling, the readability is better. Despite it being a research based content rich book, it was not merely an academic book. Most readers would definitely enjoy going through the book. References Hoskins, Janet (1997). The Play of Time: Kodi Perspectives on Calendars, History and Exchange. Berkeley: University of California Press Read More