Studies in Irian Languages

Whereas the languages of the western and eastern parts of the Bird's Head have rather simple
morphologies, Inanwatan has a relatively complex morphology. Verbs are inflected for subject person
and number, object person and number, tense, mood, aspect, negation and gender. Subject and object are
cross-referenced by verbal prefixes (s-o-v), with the exception of counterfactual and third person future
forms which have subject suffixes. There is an exclusive/inclusive distinction both in first person plural

pronouns and verb forms.

Gender is a pervasive feature of the morphology, affecting all major word classes. Gender in nouns
seems to be determined by the last vowel, with as a general rule, nouns ending in a front vowel [/if, /e/)
being masculine and the remaining nouns (ending in /o/ and /a/) feminine. For example:

(1) Tegi-sai me-tara-rita-bi iraroi -biyai

sun-this.SM 3SUBJ-shine-DUR-SM quick-very

me-rawO'ritQ'bi-re mS-i-rita-bi

3SUBJ-come.up-DUR-SM-and 3SUBJ-descend-DUR-SM

When the sun shone, it rose and set very quickly.

The name Inanwatan originates from a Patipi expression meaning 'sago only' or 'it is all sago' [inan 'sago 1
and sewatan 'one'). Patipi (or Sekar) is an Austronesian language spoken in Kokas and Patipi, villages
across the Gulf on the Bomberai peninsula. The Inanwatan people call their language either Inanwatan
or the Irarowataro language, an adaptation of this Patipi expression to the sound patterns of the
Inanwatan language. Neither final consonants nor consonant clusters are allowed. In loan words vowels
are added to maintain the licit pattern (Inanwatan >Inanowatano). Also, the nasal phonemes /m/ and /n/
have [w] and [r] as their respective intervocalic oral allophones resulting in the pronunciation [irdrowata-
ro].

The Patipi name Inanwatan reflects both the landscape and the political history of the Inanwatan
area. The Inanwatan landscape is dominated by immense sago swamps which inspired Patipi colonists to
call the area Inanwatan ("it is all sago"). As far as the political history is concerned, the North-Moluccan
Sultans of Tidore had their 'middle men 1 in the Onin area of the Bomberai peninsula who established
trade monopolies across the Gulf on the Bird's Head south coast, especially where major rivers watered
into the MacCluer Gulf and the Seram Sea. These 'middle men' had the Malay title raja 'king'. There
were raja's in the Onin villages of Rumbati, Patipi, Ati-Ati and Fatagar and each raja had his own section
of the Bird's Head south coast where he had some influence through representatives who settled near
river mouths (see Vink 1932: 41). The raja of Patipi sent representatives to the Siganoi river mouth
where they engaged in slave trade with the Inanwatan people. To get slaves, the Inanwatan raided the
interior but also neigbouring coastal peoples like the Yahadian. In exchange for the slaves, they received
cloths, iron tools and weapons and guns from the Patipi 'middle men'. Although these raja's of Patipi
never established a regular government in the Inanwatan area, the Patipi colonists in Inanwatan married
local women and Patipi words were borrowed by the Inanwatan language.

The relationship with Onin and Patipi is strongly reflected in the oral tradition of the Inanwatan
people. The Inanwatan text given below tells about Nawora, the first raja of Inanwatan who came from
Patipi. He became the father of the Inanwatan clan Nawora. This clan name also occurs in the Onin area,
in the village Puar, and the Inanwatan Nawora people and the Onin Namora people regard each other as
kinsmen. According to this text, Nawora settled on a small island in the Siganoi headwater opposite the
mouth of the Solowat river, married local women, introduced iron weapons and instruments to the
Inanwatan, engaged in slave trade with them and was finally killed by the Inanwatan people because he
demanded too many girls to be given to him in marriage.

The Nawora story was told to me by B. Mitogai, a former Kepala Desa of Inanwatan (born in
Inanwatan around 1930) in March 1994 in his house in Inanwatan. In the first line the story is
announced as belonging to the tugarido genre. Every clan in the Inanwatan community possesses its own
oral tradition. An important genre within these clan-owned oral traditions is the sew tugarido, stories

about the origin of the clan, about relations with other clans and tribes, and so on. The word s6ro means
'word, story, quarrel, argument, problem'. The word tugarido means heritage and is also used for
inherited objects such as antique guns and plates.

The glottal stop phoneme is written as q, the /$/ as /and the 1)1 as y in the text. The oral intervocalic
allophones [r] of Inl and [w] of /m/ are written as r and w at the request of Inanwatan speakers who felt
that the Indonesian letters w and r should be used to represent these sounds. Words of Malay origin are
in bold.

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ISSN 0126 -2874

NUSA

LINGUISTIC STUDIES OF INDONESIAN
AND OTHER LANGUAGES IN INDONESIA

VOLUME 47, 2000

STUDIES IN IRIAN LANGUAGES

PART II

Edited by
GER P. REESINK