'This book was originally published in one volume in 1944 by the University of Minnesota Press and is reprin-
ted by arrangement. The original publication was aided by grants made by the American Council of Learned
Societies, from a fund provided by the Carnegie Corporation, and by the Coolidge Foundation'.

'Alor is onderdeel van de Kleine Soenda-eilanden van Indonesië en vormt samen met het eiland Pantar en een aantal kleinere eilanden de Alor-archipel'. Bron: Wikipedia.

Iets van inleidende informatie inz. de hier geboden anthropologische studie.
'PREFACE
(...).
In looking for an area in which to pursue such studies, I searched fr one in which gross pathologies were re-
ported to be present, since it seemed to me at the time that by the very grossness of its manifestations
pathology could be more clearly understood than normality.
Sibea, with its Arctic hysteria, and the East Indies, with Lata and amok, suggested themselves.
Linguistically, climatically, and politically the Indies seemed more practical than Siberia.
Consultation with Dr. Kennedy at Yale en Dr. Josselin de Jong at the University of Leyden led me to select the island of Alor for field work. Actually, Alor provided neither of the Indonesian pathologies which I had
anticipated, but the culture was immediately so interesting and challenging, so little affected by European contacts, that my preoccupations were fortunately swept aside.
When the choice of field fell upon the Netherlands Indies, I began studying Dutch and then, via Dutch, which is the "lingua franca" of the area. Neither language went very fast until I reached Alor in 1938. There I was forces to use what passed for Dutch with the seven or eight Netherlands officials on the island.
Ali, the Javanese boy I had brought from Batavia, understood only Malay. For better or for worse both langu-
ages had to be used and in them I developed fluency if not elegance. (...).
Cora Du Bois'.
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass.
June, 1960