Songs of Travel, Stories of Place

This book explores the narratives of people who trace their origin to Banda, the famous Nutmeg Islands of Eastern Indonesia. They were displaced from their ancient homeland by the Dutch colonization of Banda in 1621 and carry on their language and traditions in the village described in this study. The Bandanese continue travelling to distant places in pursuit of recognition by their ancestral allies. They bring their past into life through rituals and verbal arts which commemorate absent travelers and anticipate their return. This book argues that ethno-history can be a source of exemplary acts which inform collective responses to new circumstances. The folk poetry of the Bandanese places real, historical events in several chronotopic frameworks in which they are relived as memory and given a total meaning as history.