An institutional analysis of sasi laut in Maluku, Indonesia

7.4 Written Rules, Sanctions and Ceremonies

The sasi institution can be seen as what North (1990 cited in Berkes et al. 1998) calls “humanly
devised constraints that structure human interaction. They are made up of formal constraints
(rules, laws, constitutions), informal constraints (norms of behavior, conventions and self-
imposed codes of conduct), and their enforcement characteristics.” The rules and regulations
operate on three levels (Ostrom 1990). The operational rules govern and regulate the resource
and affect the day-to-day decisions made by the fishers. Operational rules concern boundaries,
allocation decisions, the scope of fishing etc. The collective-choice rules are the institutional
arrangements to adjudicate conflicts, enforce decisions, formulate and change operational rules
etc. Essentially these rules define how the fishery should be managed. Finally, constitutional-
choice rules affect the rules on the lower level by determining who is eligible to participate in the
system and by establishing the process to design the rules. Constitutional-choice rules define
the sea as belonging to the state and thus place the fishery under the national law. In Maluku,
however, constitutional rules also connote to adat, i.e., the traditional village structure including
a belief system and practices. It is adat that defines the resource management system.

7.4.1 Sasi rules and regulations

Written rules are found in all types of sasi villages regardless of population size, island or
religion (Table 7.10). However, the distribution of rules does vary significantly (chi square
test, p=0.04) with the type of sasi (Table 7.11). Written rules are most commonly found where
adat and church sasi co-exist and in Muslim villages with “other” sasi, and are least prevalent
in villages having only church sasi. Written rules, the application of sanctions and performance
of ceremonies tend to go together (i.e., all correlation coefficients are highly significant).

People who break sasi rules are punished, but the punishment may be divine, psychological,
physical or financial. Physical punishment and financial fines are used most often in Muslim
villages, in size Class 3 communities (population 2,001-3,000) and on the islands of Haruku
and Seram (Table 7.10). Physical sanctions include labor such as moving rocks and sand and
cleaning streets. Offenders may be detected by kewang members or reported by ordinary
villagers. Sanctions are imposed by kewang or the village head man unless the crime is such
that the offender can be turned over to the police.

Table 7.10. Occurrence of various attributes in 43 sasi villages, and relationship to village religion
(Muslim or Christian), population size class (n=4) and island (n=5). Where occurrence of an attribute is
shown by a chi square test to vary significantly among categories of a factor, the probability is indicated
(**=p<0.01; ***=p<0.001); ns=no significant difference among categories.

Result of The Inventory of Sasi 75

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