The small island of Savu and its tiny neighbor, Raijua, are located just off the southwest coast of Timor in the Indonesian archipelago. Together they form the Savu-Raijua Regency, which, according to the 2010 census, has a population of 75,000 inhabitants. Geneviève Duggan is an anthropologist and Hans Hägerdal a historian, and this splendid work of scholarship bears ample proof of what fruitful results can emerge when a pair of exceptionally knowledgeable scholars from these two disciplines collaborate.

Anthropologists classify the Savunese kinship system as bilineal. Every individual belongs to a male clan (udu) and to an exogamous female moiety (hubi), one of which is called “Greater Blossom” and the other “Lesser Blossom.” Over time, each moiety developed subgroups (wini), and a man is expected to marry into his mother's wini or at least hubi, but is free to marry within or outside of his clan or lineage. These moieties and wini play significant roles in the rites of passage of baptism, marriage, and death. The clans are divided into lineages (kerogo), and both categories of descent group are localized, land-owning corporations in contrast to the moieties and wini, which are dispersed entities scattered all over Savu and Raijua. As a study in history, Savu: History and Oral Tradition on an Island of Indonesia takes us on a sociological, political, and economic journey from precolonial times through the era of Portuguese and Dutch colonialism and into the present.

In a large series of interviews with individuals, Duggan and Hägerdal tap into what they refer to as the “detailed genealogical memory” or “collective memory” of Savunese society. The impressive oral material they have garnered for their reconstruction of how its institutions developed over centuries is complemented by more contemporary ethnographic observations as well as Dutch East India Company reports and other archival sources.

By these methods, Savu's past is reconstructed. And it is a past in which Savunese genealogies (of men and women) order human and cosmic spheres. The Savunese genealogical model finds figurative expression in the image of a building being constructed, a process that entails continuous expansion. Central to their analysis of these genealogies is the notion of precedence, the seminal concept James J. Fox, who contributes a thoughtful foreword, has developed to exemplary effect as a tool for understanding Austronesian societies. The principal metaphor for precedence is botanical—the image of a plant growing out from its roots to the tips of its branches, the lower leaves being cast as the older and the upper leaves the younger. However, the authors find no evidence on Savu for another well-established idea in the region, that of the stranger-king, which Douglas Lewis, Brigitte Clamagirand, and other ethnographers have discovered elsewhere in the Lesser Sunda Islands.

Ethnographers often wish we understood how the institutions we study came into existence and evolved, but because the societies we study very often lack written records we are left in the dark about their pasts. The methods put to the test in this study show how oral narratives, combined with documentary evidence, can make authentic knowledge of the past accessible, at least among people who celebrate their genealogies and have reliable collective memories. Integrating oral tradition with documentary evidence has enabled Duggan and Hägerdal to prove, among other sociological issues, that the two moieties had their origins in “ancient times” and later segmented into wini, that no more clans were created during Portuguese and Dutch East India Company times, and that the clans continued dividing into lineages.

An impressive work of scholarship—copious in oral and archival data, meticulous in analysis, and informed by earlier writings on the region—Savu: History and Oral Tradition on an Island of Indonesia is essential reading for all scholars studying Austronesian societies. It is no less essential for those interested in methodological matters concerning how the procedures of ethnography—interviewing, observing, and participating—and those of history—the close scrutiny of documents—can complement each other in retrieving a past that, to all intents and purposes, may seem inaccessible.

Already regarded as distinguished experts on eastern Indonesian cultures, the authors’ reputations can only be further enhanced by a definitive work of scholarship that is likely to enjoy a prominent place in the published literature on Savu. They have been well served by the National University of Singapore Press, which has produced a physically imposing and pleasing volume worthy of the scholarship it houses. It provides a wealth of clear maps of the Savu-Raijua regency, a list of its villages since 1832, easily digestible genealogical charts, a lengthy list of rajas and fettors (executive regents), a plenitude of illustrations (many in gorgeous colors), six appendices (one containing narratives that support its text), and a helpful glossary of key Savunese words.