This book is written in French. The islands of Kei in the Moluccan archipelago are little known. This is a study of one of them, Tanebar-Evav, a small isolated island of fewer than 1000 inhabitants, situated at the south-west end of the archipelago. Cecile Barraud has carried out an intensive study of this small community and has made a detailed analysis of its social organisation. Here, as in other parts of Indonesia, the fundamental social unit is the house, which is the agent and focal point of all social relations. The houses are partners of exchange in all social events: marriages, funerals, seasonal rituals and others. The houses are thus the concrete units of an immediate and lasting social order, according to which the society persists, maintaining a the same time a strong sense of its own identity and an ancient and deep awareness of the outside world and history. This book will be of interest to anthropologists and to specialists in South-east Asian studies.
