The collective, encompassing structure of the calendar provides a form of repeated, reversible time in which human lives can be inscribed. But it is given a local meaning that makes the naming of the months and the "New Year" festival of the sea worms into the mark of a distinctly Kodi identity. His task, together with the implements associated with its performance, is seen as partially imported from a distant island to the west. The yearly cycle, apprehended in days, months, and seasons, is synchronized by a calendrical priest, the Rato Nale or "Lord of the Year," who coordinates agricultural activities and their ritual stages. I begin with the collective construction of the past through the model of the calendar. This book is an ethnography of the cultural perception and organization of time in an Eastern Indonesian society. The cultural value placed on time begins with the shared significance of our own mortality. The measurement of time derives its poignance from the inevitable end to each biographical cycle. The shortness of human lives is a fact of time and of each person's experience.
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