Publisher's Synopsis
The Alas people are an ethnic group who live in the Alas Valley of Northern Sumatra, Indonesia. They first came into contact with the Western world in 1904, when the Dutch army occupied Alasland. Since then, however, there has been no systematic field research on the Alas, and their social organization has remained obscure.;This study is therefore the first intensive ethnography of the Alas. It offers an accurate and detailed analysis of their social organization, focusing on behaviour, rules and categories, and gives a full account of Alas history, village structure, family composition, descent systems, relationship terminology and marriage rules. It concludes with a comparison of seven relationship terminologies, through which Akifumi Iwabuchi attempts to explain the distinctive features of the Alas people.;Dr Iwabuchi's study gives context and depth to Alas social forms by demonstrating past connections with surrounding peoples, in particular, the Karo Batak. The book makes a contribution to the knowledge of the migrations and assimilations which have led to the present distribution of cultures and types of social system in Northern Sumatra.;The book should be of interest to social anthropologists, particularly those specializing in kinship study and South-East Asia, and historians and social scientists with an interest in South-East Asia.
