Cultural History In Focus | “The Menstrual Hut and the Witch's Lair in Two Eastern Indonesian Societies” by Janet Alison Hoskins

 

Ceram
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

 
 
 

The Menstrual Hut and the Witch's Lair in Two Eastern Indonesian Societies

 
 

by Janet Alison Hoskins

 
 

This article is generously provided by Janet Alison Hoskins.

 

Ceremonial Flag | Ceram
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Gold Crown Ornament | Lamba | Sumba
© The Dallas Museum of Art

Man’s Blanket | Hanggi | West Sumba © Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Man’s Blanket | Hanggi | West Sumba
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Ancestor Figure | Southwestern Moluccas
© Nusantara Museum Delft | Arend Velsink

Woman’s Golden Earring from West Sumba | Mamuli
© The Dallas Museum of Art

Warrior’s Belt | Cidako | Ceram
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Figurative Comb | Ceram
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Warrior’s Belt | Cidako | Ceram
© de Young FAMSF

Gold Ornament | Mendaka
© The Dallas Museum of Art

Dance Shield | Salawaku | Ceram
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Dance Shield | Salawaku | Ceram
© Yale University Art Gallery

Dance Shield | Salawaku | Ceram
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Dance Shield | Salawaku | Ceram
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

 

West Sumba
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Anakalang - West Sumba
© S.G. Alpert

Ceram
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Desa Huaulu | Ceram
© Creative Commons

Alfuru Woman | Ceram
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Ceram © Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

Ceram
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

 

Janet Alison Hoskins

Courtesy of Subject

Courtesy of Subject

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 | University of Pittsburgh — Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
Issue | Ethnology, Vol. 41, No. 4, Special Issue: Blood Mysteries: Beyond Menstruation as Pollution, pp. 317-333
Year of Publication | 2002