This paper studies value production of the Mentawaians before and after the arrival of the Indonesian state on Siberut Island, West Sumatra. Traditionally, the Mentawaians have coordinated all their creative energy and actions to generate the value of egalitarianism and prevent any augmentation of a person above others. Either mundane activities such as eating and gardening or a grand event such as a religious ceremony is organized against the emergence of social hierarchy and inequality. The incorporation of the Mentawaians to Indonesian state has made them a target of development agenda and given legitimacy to the Minangkabau, their powerful ethnic neighbour, to implement a series of civilization projects. This creates a hierarchy of social relations in ethnic discourses at a provincial level as well as in administrative practices and the regional economy. The decentralization era, then, intensifies developmentalism, requiring and selecting certain Mentawaians subject to be a new political force and to have opportunity to develop links to particular state institutions and establish themselves as representatives of the state that provide them power and authority over other. This paper argues that instead of producing equality for its citizen, Indonesian’s state has generated social hierarchy, given more advantage for certain subjects, and altered the production of egalitarianism value among the Mentawaians.

Key Words: value, egalitarianism, mentawaian, state, hierarchy