INVENTORY OF THE SCHOLARLY WRITINGS OF SIBBELE HYLKEMA OFM
By Anton Ploeg
On his death in February 1998 Sibbele Hylkema left behind a voluminous corpus of unpublished ethnographic and linguistic manuscripts. He had collected the data during his work as a missionary in the Highlands of Irian Jaya, from 1961 to 1969 among the Nalum, or the Ngalum, close to the border with Papua New Guinea, and from 1969 to 1994 in several locations among the Ekagi, in the Paniai area. Part of his Nalum data were published in 1974 in a lengthy monograph, Mannen in het Draagnet (Men in the Carrying Bag), Hylkema's only scholarly publication. After his death the manuscripts and his very modest library were brought to the Dutch office of the Franciscan order, in Utrecht. They are stored there provisionally and have not been catalogued so far. In the inventory below I use the term Ekagi, although especially Giay, himself an Ekagi, prefers the term 'Me'. Here, however, it seems admissible to retain Hylkema's own usage.
In a letter to the Centre of Pacific Studies dated the 17th October 1994, Hylkema listed a number of manuscripts which he had prepared and which he would like to have seen published. His list follows below. I have translated the Dutch titles into English and mention the subtitles in English only since the separate volumes can be identified by their Dutch titles.
| 1. | Ekagi texts, myths. Ekagi texts, with English translations by W. Wolke. 1988. 186 pages, index, map. |
| 2. | Ekagi teksten, volksverhalen (Ekagi texts, folk tales). Ekagi texts, with Dutch translations. 3 vols. 1990. lvi+500 pages, index, summaries. |
About these two manuscripts Hylkema writes in his letter that he considered them ready for publication. His letter mentions also:
| 3. | De Bruidsprijs bij de Ekagi. Bridewealth among the Ekagi. An investigation into the system, the practice and the significance of bridewealth in the life of the Ekagi around lake Tage. 1974. 116 pages. |
| 4. | De Partnerkeuze bij de Ekagi. Marriage Partner Choice among the Ekagi. An investigation into traditional conceptions and norms as tested by actual behaviour. 1974. 114 pages. |
| 5. | Het grote varkensfeest. The Great Pig Feast. Juwo praxis investigated as for its existential significance in Ekagi society. 1974. 128 pages. |
| 6. | De huwelijksverhouding bij de Ekagi. Marriage among the Ekagi. Part 1, The Sexual Relationship. Sexual ideas and practices, as they occur in marriage, clarified by reference to the social position of men and women among the Ekagi around lake Tage. 1975. 508 pages. |
| 7. | De huwelijksverhouding bij de Ekagi. Marriage among the Ekagi. Part 2, The Economic Relationship. Production and consumption of the basic food items in the context of the various forms of the marriage relationship. 1974. 395 pages. |
| 8. | Het Varken. The Pig. An investigation into the social function and significance of the pig among the Ekagi. 1977. 257 pages. |
| 9. | Het individu in de groep. The Individual in the Group. An investigation into social conditions in the context of group activities among the Ekagi. 1976. 609 pages. |
| 10. | Oorsprong en leven. Origin and Life. The longing for eternal life in the light of the occasions on which the Ekagi hark back to their origin. N.d. 268 pages. |
| 11. | De dood in het leven van de Ekagi. Death in the Life of the Ekagi. 1977. 227 pages. |
| 12. | Dansliederen van de Ekagi. Dance Songs of the Ekagi. With an introduction. Ekagi texts with Dutch translations. 1978. 217 pages. |
| 13. | Mythe en realiteit. Myth and Reality. 1982. 294 pages. |
| 14. | Mapia-studiën. Mapia Studies. 17 draft essays about the Ekagi in the western part of their territories. 1971-72. 293 pages. |
| 15. | Ekagi preken. Ekagi sermons, by Ekagi catechists. 1977-9. The sermons were recorded as delivered, transcribed by I. Tetege, an Ekagi, and translated into Dutch by Hylkema. |
| 16. | Tata Bahasa Ekagi. Ekagi Grammar. In Ekagi and Indonesian, with a separate word list. 1994. 152+16 pages. |
| 17. | Ekagi Woordenboek. Ekagi-Dutch-Indonesian dictionary. 940 pages. |
But for no 17, the works listed above are all present among the items now held in the provincial office. But in addition there are numerous other works.
| 8. | Nalum Weng A; Nalum woordenboek. Nalum - Dutch - Indonesian dictionary. 1996. 149 pages. |
| 9. | Spraakkunst van het Nalum’s. Nalum Grammar. 1996. 176 pages. |
| 20. | Volksverhalen van de Nalum. Nalum Folk Tales. 18 stories in Nalum and Dutch. Index, summaries. N.d. 191 pages. |
| 21. | Mee-mana. Kamus bahasa Ekagi- Belanda - Indonesia. Ekagi- Dutch- Indonesian dictionary, with introduction, also in Indonesian. 1996. 662 pages. I presume that this work is a renewed version of item 17. This later version is printed from disk which may account for the reduction in the number of pages. |
The items 18-21 seem completed works with copies of the linguistic ones bound in hard cover.
Next I mention two manuscripts which Hylkema was in the process of writing during his last years but which have remained unfinished. One was to become an analysis of the institution of bride wealth, the other concerns wealth items, especially cowry shells. Of the bride wealth manuscript Hylkema drafted five chapters, of the wealth items one fifteen. These manuscripts are especially interesting since they represent the stage in Hylkema's writing when his range of data was widest and he could reconsider his earlier analyses. Moreover, he addresses the writings of other authors on the Ekagi such as Pospisil, de Bruijn and van der Hoeven, whereas in a monograph such as Men in the Carrying Bag references to other authors are absent.
Then there are a number of shorter papers on a wide range of topics.
| 1. | Het verschijnsel verrotten. The phenomenon of putrefaction. N.d. 17 pages. |
| 2. | Analyse van maa en aanverwante begrippen. Analysis of maa and related concepts. N.d. 41 pages. Maa is a polysemous Ekagi word. It can be used as a prefix and then means 'cross'. Other meanings are: 'what kind?', 'excellent', 'true'. |
| 3. | Zegening van het brood. Blessing the bread. A consideration on account of a sermon. 1983. 13 pages. |
| 4. | Cargo cult. In Indonesian. Presented at a seminar of the GKI, the Gereja Kristen Injili, 1981. 10 pages. |
| 5. | Marriage lessons. In Indonesian. N.d. 57 pages. |
| 6. | Various drafts of the paper presented at the Mek conference in Seewiesen, Bavaria, in 1990. The conference paper was entitled Transaction of the ownership of land with the Ekagi around the Wissel-lakes. |
| 7. | Aiyai en koge. N.d. Handwritten glosses to a list of botanical species in the Paniai area by the Dutch botanists Versteegh & Vink. Aiyai is a tree species (Myrtacea Eugenia) with edible, white flowers; koge: a shrub (Ericacea Vaccinium), also with edible flowers, in this case white or red. |
| 8. | Menstruatie. Menstruation. 1980. 14 pages. |
| 9. | Vloeiingen (natale). Amniotic flows. 1980. 9 pages. |
| 10. | Vruchtbaarheid en initiatie. Fertility and initiation. N.d. 24 pages. |
| 11. | De Do mythe. The Do myth. Myth of origin of the Do clan. In Ekagi with Dutch translation. Two sketch maps. N.d. 7+130 pages. |
| 12. | Mythe. Myth. 1981. Draft introduction to a projected monograph. Pp. 1-25. |
| 13. | Mythische, empirische en spirituele bestaanswijze. Mythical, empirical and spiritual modes of existence. Draft chapter 1 of same monograph. Pp. 260-3. |
| 14. | Scheiding van water en land. Separation of water and land. Draft chapter 3. Pp. 43-70. |
| 15. | De dubbele persoonlijkheid van de man. The double personality of men. Draft chapter 4. Pp. 91-130. |
| 16. | Short essay on the concept keluarga. |
| 17. | Liederen Simon Tekege Oneepa. Some, if not all, Christian songs. In Ekagi, with translations in Indonesian. N.d. No page numbers. |
| 18. | Kamu tai – pota tai. 15 pages. The two expressions refer to the uttering of exorcising formulas. |
| 19. | Notes on the concepts utiya, teege and madou. N.d. No page numbering. The three terms refer all to a natural phenomenon and also to a demon or a deity. |
| 20. | A volume with four sets of documents:
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| 21. | Two collections of sermons. One dated 1983, the other without date. |
| 22. | Three folders with materials for a study of Ekagi myths, together running into several hundreds of pages. Among other documents they contain:
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Among the documents are, further, working drafts for some of the papers and monographs listed. And other documents contain hand written, type written and printed additions, in some cases as written glosses in the margins, in others on separate bits of paper. Finally, there are several folders with notes, often handwritten. Hence, the neat appearance of the numbered lists above is overlaid by the results of Hylkema’s continuing ethnographic endeavours.