Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T00:38:56.761Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Reorganizing the Cosmology: The Reinterpretation of Deities and Religious Practice by Protestants in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2011

Lorraine V. Aragon
Affiliation:
East Carolina University

Abstract

Converted by Salvation Army missionaries in the 1920s, Tobaku people in western Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, have made Protestantism indigenous by re-classifying deities and interpreting biblical texts and teachings to support local political, moral, and spiritual expectations. This article discusses twentieth-century changes in deity concepts and ritual practice among the Tobaku.

Type
Symposium: Protestants and Tradition in Southeast Asia
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 On the Weberian concept of religious rationalization, see Geertz, Clifford, ‘“Internal Conversion’ in Contemporary Bali”, in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), pp. 170–89Google Scholar. For a discussion of “incomplete conversion” among missionized Sumbanese, see Hoskins, Janet, “Entering the Bitter House: Spirit Worship and Conversion in West Sumba”, in Indonesian Religions in Transition, ed. Kipp, Rita Smith and Rodgers, Susan (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987), pp. 136–60Google Scholar. For an analogous case of Burmese strategies for elaborating incompletely specified Buddhist doctrines, see Lehman, F.K., “Burmese Religion”, in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Eliade, M. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1987), pp. 574–80Google Scholar.

2 See Atkinson, Jane M., “Religions in Dialogue: The Construction of an Indonesian Minority Religion”, American Ethnologist 10,4 (1983): 684–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hoskins, “Entering the Bitter House”, pp. 136–60; Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, “A Rhetoric of Centers in a Religion of the Periphery”, in Indonesian Religions in Transition, pp. 187–210; Joseph A. Weinstock, “Kaharingan: Life and Death in Southern Borneo”, in Indonesian Religions in Transition, pp. 71–97.

3 Rita Kipp analyses the intersection of ethnic, religious, and class identities of North Sumatra Karo people in Dissociated Identities: Ethnicity, Religion, and Class in an Indonesian Society (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993)Google Scholar. See also Tsing's, Anna LowenhauptIn the Realm of the Diamond Queen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993)Google Scholar on how the Meratus of South Kalimantan meld local and national rhetoric to construct an identity of ethnic marginality.

4 See also Aragon, Lorraine, “Revised Rituals in Central Sulawesi: The Maintenance of Traditional Cosmological Concepts in the Face of Allegiance to World Religion”, Anthropological Forum 6,3 (19911992): 371–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Acciaioli, Gregory, “Introducing Central Sulawesi”, in Sulawesi: The Celebes, ed. Volkman, Toby A. and Caldwell, Ian (Berkeley and Singapore: Periplus Editions, 1990), p. 155Google Scholar.

6 On Uma dialects and territories, see Martens, Michael P., “Dialects of Uma” (Unpublished manuscript in the files of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1985)Google Scholar.

7 See Barr, Donald, Barr, Sharon G. and Salombe, C., Languages of Central Sulawesi: Checklist, Preliminary Classification, Language Maps, Wordlists (Ujung Pandang: Hasanuddin University Press, 1979)Google Scholar or Noorduyn, J., A Critical Survey of Studies on the Languages of Sulawesi (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1991)Google Scholar for the most complete classifications of Central Sulawesi languages.

8 For comparative ethnographic descriptions of the region's ethnic groups and cosmologies, see Kruyt, A.C., Het Animisme in Den Indischen Archipel ('s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1906)Google Scholar and De West Toradja's op Midden-Celebes, 4 vols. (Amsterdam: Uitgave van de N.V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1938)Google Scholar. Further background on the varied ethnic classifications of Central Sulawesi groups by the Dutch, South Sulawesi coastal groups, and the indigenes themselves can be found in Aragon, Lorraine, “Divine Justice: Cosmology, Ritual, and Protestant Missionization in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1992), pp. 3238Google Scholar.

9 On the ecological distinctions between “outer” and “inner” islands in Indonesia, see Geertz, Clifford, Agricultural Involution: The Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963)Google Scholar. As many subsequent writers have pointed out, coastal Sumatra and South Sulawesi are exceptions to the inner versus outer islands pattern to the extent that their inhabitants already were Muslim and practised wet-rice agriculture by the early colonial era.

10 For background on the Dutch Ethical Policy, see Niel, Robert van, The Emergence of the Modern Indonesian Elite (The Hague: W. van Hoeve, 1960)Google Scholar, passim.

11 Carpenter, Minnie L., William Booth: Founder of the Salvation Army (London: Wyvern Books, 1957)Google Scholar and Neal, Harry E., The Hallelujah Army (Philadelphia: Chilton Company, 1961), pp. 67Google Scholar.

12 Army, Salvation, “Salvationist Doctrines”, in The Salvation Army Yearbook 1976 (London: Salvationist Publishing and Supplies, 1976), p. 240Google Scholar.

13 Carpenter, William Booth, p. 47.

14 Robert Sandall, “From Mission to Army”, Salvation Army Yearbook 1948, pp. 17–18.

15 Salvation Army, “What is The Salvation Army?”, The Salvation Army Yearbook 1976, p. 35.

16 Melattie Brouwer, “Tanah Toradja: Tour of Reconnaissance”, The War Cry (17 Nov. 1973): 4, 8.

17 Ibid., p. 4.

18 Salvation Army, “A Modern Queen Esther”, All the World (Apr. 1924): 55–58; “The First Training Garrison in Celebes”, All the World (May 1925): 176–77; Kenyon, Albert, Leonard Goes East (London: Salvationist Publishing and Supplies, 1952)Google Scholar.

19 See Aragon, Lorraine, “Twisting the Gift: Translating Precolonial into Colonial Exchanges in Central Sulawesi”, American Ethnologist 23,1 (1996): 4360CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Salvation Army, All the World (May 1925), p. 177.

21 Salvation Army, “Chats with Missionary Officers”, The Officer (Jan. 1925): 39–88.

22 Salvation Army, The Officer (Jan. 1925): 42; Kenyon, Leonard Goes East, p. 49.

23 M. Hatcher, “Soul-hunting among Head-hunters”, Salvation Army Yearbook 1932, p. 24.

24 Mulder, Niels, Mysticism and Everyday Life in Contemporary Java (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1978), p. 6Google Scholar.

25 Weber, H.R., The Communication of the Gospel to Illiterates Based on a Missionary Experience in Indonesia (London: SCM Press, 1957), p. 14Google Scholar.

26 Kipp, Dissociated Identities.

27 For background on the Da'a people, see Acciaioli, Gregory, “Culture as Art: From Practice to Spectacle in Indonesia”, Canberra Anthropology 8,1–2 (1985CrossRefGoogle Scholar; special volume on Minorities and the State): 148–72; and Barr, Sharon, “Da'a Kinship and Marriage”, in Papers in Western Austronesian Linguistics No. 4, ed. Steinhauer, Hein (Canberra: Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, 1988), pp. 5175Google Scholar. On the Wana people, see Atkinson, Jane, “Paths of Spirit Familiars: A Study of Wana Shamanism” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1979)Google Scholar, “Religions in Dialogue”, and The Art and Politics of Wana Shamanship (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989)Google Scholar. On the Lauje people, see Nourse, Jennifer, “We Are the Womb of the World: Birth Spirits and the Lauje of Central Sulawesi” (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1989)Google Scholar.

28 Lehman, F.K., “Who Are the Karen, and If So, Why? Karen Ethnohistory and a Formal Theory of Ethnicity”, in Ethnic Adaptation and Identity, ed. Keyes, C.F. (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1979), pp. 215–53Google Scholar; Kammerer, Cornelia, “Customs and Christian Conversion Among Akha Highlanders of Burma and Thailand”, American Ethnologist 17,2 (1990): 277–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Herbert Whittier, “Changing Concepts of Adat and Cosmology among the Kenyah Dayak of Borneo: The Shaman as a Structural Mechanic”. Paper presented at the 26th Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, 14–15 Oct. 1977, DeKalb, Illinois; Whittier, Herbert, “Concepts of Adat and Cosmology among the Kenyah Dayak of Borneo: Coping with the Changing Socio-cultural Milieu”, Sarawak Museum Journal 26, no. 47 (n.s.) (1978): 103113Google Scholar.

29 Kruyt, A.C., De West Toradja's op Midden-Celebes, 4 vols. (Amsterdam: Uitgave van de N.V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1938)Google Scholar.

30 Sperber, Dan, Rethinking Symbolism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 18Google Scholar. For a parallel classification of spirits for northern Thai ethnic groups, see Stanlaw, James and Yoddumnern, Bencha, “Thai Spirits: A Problem in the Study of Folk Classification”, in Directions in Cognitive Anthropology, ed. Dougherty, J. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), pp. 141–59Google Scholar.

31 Barr, “Da'a Kinship”.

32 See Molnar, Andrea, “Nitu: A Symbolic Analysis of An Austronesian Spirit Category” (M.A. thesis, University of Alberta, 1990)Google Scholar.

33 Wolff, John U., A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), p. 47Google Scholar.

34 For Maloh, see Jay Bernstein, “Symptoms and the Reinterpretation of Illness in Taman Ethnomedicine” (Paper presented at the Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, 19 Nov. 1989), p. 2; for Timor, see Nordholt, H.G. Schulte, The Political System of the Atoni of Timor (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), p. 503CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for Tanimbar, see McKinnon, Susan, “Flags and HalfMoons: Tanimbarese Textiles in an ‘Engendered’ System of Valuables”, in To Speak With Cloth, ed. Gittinger, M. (Los Angeles: UCLA Museum, 1989), p. 39Google Scholar or McKinnon, Susan, From a Shattered Sun (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), p. 298Google Scholar and passim.

35 See Geertz, Clifford, Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 4445Google Scholar.

36 See Adriani, Nicolaus and Kruyt, Albertus C., De Bare'e-Sprekende Toradja's van Midden Celebes, 3 vols., 2nd ed. (Amsterdam: N.V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1950[1912])Google Scholar, vol. 1, on Central Sulawesi highland-lowland tribute relations, Kruyt De West Toradja's, vol. 1, on the Islamicization of the Palu Valley Kaili at the beginning of the twentieth century, and Andaya, Leonard Y., The Heritage ofArung Palakka: A History of South Sulawesi (Celebes) in the Seventeenth Century (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981)Google Scholar on the history of the South Sulawesi kingdoms and their contact with Islam during the seventeenth century.

37 Kruyt, , De West Toradja's, vol. 2, pp. 269, 274Google Scholar.

38 Such malevolent wandering spirits appear in much of Southeast Asia. See Sell, Hans J., Der Schlimme Tod bei den Volkern Indonesiens ('s-Gravenhage: Mouton, 1955)Google Scholar on such spirits in Indonesia, and Lehman, “Burmese Religion”, in The Encyclopedia of Religion, p. 577 on a similar group of wandering spirits in Burma.

39 Lukas pai' Suro Pue' Yesus, trans. Martens, Michael (South Holland, Ill.: World Home Bible League, 1987)Google Scholar.

40 See Lienhardt, R. Godfrey, “The Dinka on Catholicism”, in Religious Organization and Religious Experience, ed. Davis, J. (London: Academic Press, 1982), p. 90Google Scholar for a discussion of how very similar Dinka concepts were used by Catholic missionaries in the Sudan to translate the Christian idea of “soul”.

41 See Adriani, and Kruyt, , De Bare'e Toradja's, vol. 2Google Scholar, ch. 12, and Weinstock, “Kaharingan”, p. 78.

42 For example, Kruyt, , De West Toradja 's, vol. 2Google Scholar, chs. 8, 9. See also Hoskins, “Entering the Bitter House”, p. 151 on the missionaries' blanket categorization of supernatural beings and ancestors as setan in Sumba.

43 Bourdieu, Pierre, “The Social Space and the Genesis of Groups”, Theory and Society 14 (1985): 731–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Lienhardt, “The Dinka and Catholicism”, pp. 90–94.

45 See Aragon, “Revised Rituals”, for further discussion about both Protestant and Muslim substitutes for precolonial rituals.

47 See Toren, Christina, “Making the Present, Revealing the Past: The Mutability and Continuity of Tradition as Process”, Man 23,4 (1988): 696717CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a parallel situation where local traditions of feasting with chiefs primed certain groups on Fiji to accept particular religious images, such as the Last Supper, when they were introduced by foreign Protestant missionaries.

48 Evans-Pritchard, E.E., Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937), pp. 6970Google Scholar.

49 See Kruyt, Het Animisme.

50 For example, William Orr, Setan, Ada atau Tidak? [translation of Are Demons for Real? 1970, Scripture Press Publications], trans. M. Inggriani (Bandung: Penerbit Kalam Hidup, 1977).

51 Kruyt, , De West Toradja's, vol. 2, p. 451Google Scholar.

52 See Kruyt, , De West Toradja's, vol. 4, pp. 5762Google Scholar on the Central Sulawesi lunar calendar.

53 Comaroff, Jean, Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 5Google Scholar.

54 See Geertz, “Internal Conversion”, pp. 171–75; Hoskins, “Entering the Bitter House”, pp. 159–60.

55 Comaroff, Body of Power, Taussig, Michael, Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lambek, Michael, “Rationalization or Resistance? Examples from Rural Africa”, Paper presented at the Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., 17 Nov. 1989Google Scholar.

56 Bourdieu, Pierre, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Nice, Richard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sahlins, Marshall, Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roff, William, “Islam Obscured? Some Reflections on Studies of Islam and Society in Southeast Asia”, Archipel 29,1 (1985): 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bowen, John R., Muslims through Discourse (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

57 See also Russell, Susan, “Ritual Persistence and the Ancestral Cult among the Ibaloi of the Luzon Highlands”, in Changing Lives, Changing Rites: Ritual and Social Dynamics in Philippine and Indonesian Uplands, ed. Russell, Susan D. and Cunningham, Clark E. (Michigan Studies of South and Southeast Asia No. 1, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 17Google Scholar.

58 See Lehman, “Burmese Religion”; Toren, “Making the Present”; Watanabe, John, “From Saints to Shibboleths: Image, Structure, and Identity in Maya Religious Syncretism”, American Ethnologist 17,1 (1990): 131–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kammerer, “Customs and Christian Conversion”; Bowen, Muslims Through Discourse; Comaroff, Jean and Comaroff, John, Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kipp, Rita Smith, “Conversion by Affiliation: the History of the Karo Batak Protestant Church”, American Ethnologist 22,4 (1995): 868–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 Davis, J., “Introduction”, in Religious Organization and Religious Experience, ed. Davis, J. (London: Academic Press, 1982), p. 5Google Scholar.

60 See Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Peel, J.D.Y., “Making History: The Past in the Ijesha Present”, Man 19,1 (1984): 111–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Toren, “Making the Present”, p. 713.

61 See Hefner, Robert (ed.), Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barker, John (ed.), Christianity in Oceania: Ethnographic Perspectives (Association for Anthropology in Oceania Monograph no. 12, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990)Google Scholar; Keyes, Charles, “Christianity as an Indigenous Religion”, Social Compass 38,2 (1991): 177–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Woodward, Mark, Islam in Java: Normative Piety and Mysticism in the Sultanate of Yogyakarta (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Bowen, Muslims Through Discourse.