Oral Literature, Gender, and Precedence in East Timor: Metaphysics in Narrative

Decades of war, social upheaval and political change have not lessened the enduring interest of East Timorese in their oral traditions. Although new forms of expression are emerging, the corpus of Timorese oral narrative largely retains an underlying metaphysical unity, and continues to express indigenous notions about gender and precedence. Until now, Timorese oral narratives have not been subjected to rigorous scholarly analysis. In this masterly study, the veteran Timor scholar David Hicks draws upon over 50 years of fieldwork and publishing to discusses the tropes within Timorese metaphysical thought and literature. No other work has discussed these before nor indeed attempted to discern patterns of thought in Timorese narratives.