self and self‐conduct among the Javanese priyayi elite

Most students of Javanese culture and society have used a few crucial native terms and concepts to analyze aspects of traditional etiquette, statecraft, and mysticism. A unitary approach to priyayi ethics, aesthetics, and power is developed here by synthesizing themes common to earlier treatments. Several points of disagreement with Geertz's (1960, 1973) descriptions are discussed in conclusion as a way of drawing out lexicographic aspects of the methodology of interpretive anthropology . [Java, statecraft, etiquette, language in culture, native philosophy]