Filsafat-Budaya - Protestan Central Sulawesi

Department of History, National University of Singapore
Reorganizing the Cosmology: The Reinterpretation of Deities and Religious Practice by Protestants in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia Author(s): Lorraine V. Aragon Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Sep., 1996), pp. 350-373 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of Department of History, National University of Singapore Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20062747 . Accessed: 28/02/2013 05:23
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Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 27, 2 (September 1996): 350-373 ? 1996 by National University of Singapore
the Cosmology: The Reinterpretation of Reorganizing Deities and Religious Practice by Protestants in Central
Sulawesi, Indonesia
LORRAINE V. ARAGON East Carolina University Central Sulawesi highlanders have reorganized their precolonial religious ideas throughout the twentieth century to accommodate a new Christian affiliation. Their Protestant concepts of God, Jesus, Satan, and divine justice, however, also incorporate pre-Christian notions about ancestral spirits, local deities, and theodicy. This indigenization of Protestant doctrine
and practice continues as an active process of negotiation between pre-Christian precedents
and postcolonial teachings or political experiences which privilege world religion over indigenous religion. In this article, I delineate the background of western Central Sulawesi and analyze how highlanders in the Tobaku region have made Salvation missionization Protestantism Army compatible with their own deity constructs, moral imperatives, and modern ethnic identity. Central Sulawesi Protestantism is viewed here not as a syncretic as a of and Christians viable novice but Southeast Asian sect of a religion peripheral global Christianity which is continually modified to support both the spiritual and political needs of its congregations. Central Sulawesi highlanders such as the Tobaku (see map) have transposed and re labelled their pre-Christian categories of deities and ancestor spirits to conform to categories such as God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost, and Satan. To contend missionary-supplied with local social problems that are not directly solved by missionary doctrines, they multi-faceted
extrapolate from pre-Christian ethics and cosmology. Their particular Christian practices,
unorthodox
"rationalization"
from the viewpoints

or incomplete
of Western missionaries,
conversion. Rather, they
need not be viewed

can be seen as active
as deficient
theological
interpretations that fill in open or unresolved aspects of Christian biblical canon.1 Since the 1960s, anthropological writings on religious transition in Indonesia have in response to the described minority peoples' reassessments of their own cosmologies The fieldwork upon which this essay is based was carried out in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1993.
I am grateful in Palu Studies wish to the National Science Foundation additional Foundation and the Fulbright-Hays by Program for predoctoral for Asian 1994. I also and and
research grants in 1986 and 1987, the Indonesian Institute for Science (LIPI) and Tadulako University
for research in 1993 and to thank Important permits. the Wenner-Gren Sulawesi funding was granted for Anthropological whose Lehman, the Association Research discussions Clark in
the Central
I am indebted here. interpreted comments Mahir Saul for their critical
people to Cornelia on
and missionaries F.K. Kammerer, an early draft.
are presented E. Cunningham
see Clifford '"Internal Conversion' of religious *On the Weberian rationalization, Geertz, concept in The Interpretation in Contemporary Books, Bali", 1973), pp. 170 (New York: Basic of Cultures see Janet Hoskins, conversion" of "incomplete 89. For a discussion Sumbanese, among missionized in Indonesian inWest and Conversion the Bitter House: Sumba", Religions Spirit Worship "Entering of Arizona and Susan Rodgers in Transition, ed. Rita Smith Kipp Press, 1987), (Tucson: University case of Burmese for elaborating For an analogous strategies incompletely specified pp. 136-60. see F.K. Lehman, ed. M. "Burmese in The Encyclopedia Buddhist doctrines, of Religion, Religion", Eliade Co., 1987), pp. 574-80. (New York: Macmillan Publishing
350
Reorganizing
the Cosmology
351
Tobaku
Highlands,
Sulawesi
Indonesian government's active promotion of world religions (agama in Indonesian). These discussions demonstrate that Indonesian ethnic minorities often evaluate the extent to which aspects of their ancestral traditions parallel features of Christianity or Islam, and then draw on rhetoric from the world religions to justify and expand their own cosmological
ideas.2
By contrast, Tobaku highlanders of Central Sulawesi do not generally discuss or reevaluate their pre-Christian cosmology. Having experienced Salvation Army missions and schools in their region since 1918, Tobaku people assume that their religious practices are identical, at least ideally, to the practices of Western Protestants. In other words, one
in Dialogue: The Construction of an Indonesian 2See Jane M. Atkinson, "Religions Minority American the Bitter House", 10,4 (1983): 684-96; Hoskins, pp. Religion", Ethnologist "Entering Anna "A Rhetoric of Centers in a Religion of the Periphery", in 136-60; Lowenhaupt Tsing, in Transition, Indonesian Life and 187-210; pp. Religions Joseph A. Weinstock, "Kaharingan: in Southern in Indonesian in Transition, Death Borneo", pp. 71-97. Religions
352
Lorraine
V. Aragon
difference between the contemporary Tobaku situation and those reported in some other missionized regions of Indonesia is the degree to which the Tobaku have come to identify their beliefs with those of foreign Christian missionaries. Their affiliation with Christianity also entails strategic ethnic and political identifications through which Central Sulawesi highlanders negotiate their status with respect to the nation's Muslim majority.3 The extent of Tobaku identification with Western Protestantism was illustrated when a troubled indigenous minister asked why he had not been invited to the three-day and The Central seven-day mortuary rites for a recently deceased American missionary. Sulawesi minister and his wife were puzzled when they heard that Americans do not hold
three-day, seven-day, or any other extended series of mortuary ceremonies. Not only have
Tobaku customs been reinterpreted to become acceptable to missionary doctrines, but the degree to which foreign Christian concepts and practices are assumed to match Tobaku are ancestral traditions is extensive. Tobaku reinterpretations of precolonial cosmology based on the premise that Christianity operates similarly to their pre-Christian religion, unless explicitly stated otherwise by foreign missionaries. Although they have largely renounced their pre-Christian rituals, Tobaku individuals maintain much of the pre-Christian moral logic associated with earlier ritual ceremonies. The term "moral logic" here refers to the principles of necessary outcome of divinely regulated events. Although the names and categories of pre-Christian supernatural beings have been adjusted to suit Salvation Army doctrines, in general the anticipated actions and reactions of supernatural beings have not been altered. Tobaku people account for
uncommon events such as severe illnesses, accidental deaths, or exceptional harvests
according to a set of moral criteria that are drawn from the pre-Christian cosmology and to both missionary canon of ethics. Within a discourse of unquestioned obedience and occurs of monotheism, by renaming government reinterpretation religious goals a set of standardized Protestant rites onto the supernatural forces, and superimposing
indigenous ritual calendar.4
Regional
and Ethnographic
Background
is based was carried out primarily among the The fieldwork on which this discussion Tobaku people who reside in the southwestern section of the Kulawi district (kecamatan) of Central Sulawesi. Central Sulawesi is the largest of Sulawesi's four provinces with an area of 68,033 square kilometres. The provincial capital is Palu, a coastal port located its 3.5 per cent growth rate, due in part to government deep within Palu Bay. Despite move islands to more sparsely that programs people from overpopulated transmigration populated ones, the province's population averages only 22 persons per square kilometre. because almost 90 per cent of the is misleading This demographic figure, moreover, interior much more lightly the mountainous the dwells coasts, leaving along population
Karo
of North Sumatra identities and class religious, in an Indonesian and Class (Ann Society Religion, In the Realm See also Anna of Michigan Arbor: Press, 1993). of Tsing's Lowenhaupt University of South the Meratus Princeton the Diamond Press, 1993) on how (Princeton: Queen University an identity to construct of ethnic marginality. rhetoric local and national meld Kalimantan 3Rita Kipp people analyses in Dissociated the intersection of ethnie, Identities: Ethnicity, 4See also Lorraine Cosmological The Maintenance in Central Sulawesi: "Revised Rituals Aragon, to World Face the of in Anthropological Allegiance Religion", Concepts of Traditional Forum 6,3
(1991-92): 371-84.
Reorganizing
the Cosmology
353
populated. Approximately of the province's income The majority

rice, corn, tubers, and
64 per cent of the land is still forested, and over 95 per cent is earned from timber, principally ebony, exports.5 of Central Sulawesi highlanders are swidden horticulturalists who cultivate
other vegetables on steep mountain spurs near inland headwaters.
These with with
foods are supplemented by forest game, river fish, and occasional supplies bought income from cash crops such as coffee and cacao. Kinship is reckoned bilaterally a preference for uxorilocal residence. Usufruct land rights to swidden fields and
village houses usually are inherited by women, generally through female lines. In contrast to the coastal Central Sulawesi populations who adopted Islam through contacts with South Sulawesi Dutch following among isolated interior peoples. The Tobaku speak a dialect of Uma, an Austronesian language used by over 15,000 are whose territories ancestral located the along people highland tributaries of the Lariang River.6 Much of this discussion about Tobaku Protestantism applies equally to other as of such the and who reside adjacent to the Tole'e, groups Uma-speakers, Pipikoro Tobaku in the southern portion of the Kulawi district. All these groups commonly refer to themselves as "those who use Uma language" (topo'uma). This analysis of religious change also pertains more generally to highland Christians of the other Kaili-Pamona
language groups.7
traders, Central Sulawesi highland and post-Independence government
groups affiliated with Christianity efforts to establish world religion
The closest neighbours of the Tobaku people are the Moma-speaking Kulawi people related peoples shared living farther north in the Kulawi district. These linguistically many patterns of subsistence, material culture, and cosmology even before their common conversion by European Protestant missionaries in the early twentieth century. Although these small-scale, segmentary highland populations are referred to in the colonial era literature asWest Toraja (or Toradja), the highlanders of Central Sulawesi are linguistically and culturally distinct from the Toraja of South Sulawesi, as Toraja people.8 and they do not view themselves
In general outline, the pre-Christian cosmology of the Tobaku people shared many features with cosmologies of other Indonesian outer island regions before their conversion to world religions. The concept of outer islands in Indonesia was devised by Dutch
Acciaioli, "Introducing 5Gregory Volkman and Ian Caldwell (Berkeley
Central and
Sulawesi",
in Sulawesi: Editions, "Dialects 1985).
The
Celebes,
ed. Toby 155. (Unpublished
A.
dialects and territories, 6On Uma in the files of the Summer manuscript 7See Donald Barr, Sharon G. Barr and C. Preliminary Press, KITLV 1979) Classification, or J. Noorduyn,
Singapore: Periplus see Michael P. Martens, Institute of Linguistics,
1990), p. of Uma"
Press, 1991) 8For comparative A.C. Kruyt, Het Animisme De West Toradja's
Sulawesi: Salombe, Checklist, Languages of Central Wordlists Hasanuddin Language Maps, (Ujung Pandang: University on the Languages A Critical Survey of Studies (Leiden: of Sulawesi for the most classifications of Central Sulawesi complete languages. of the region's see ethnic groups and cosmologies, ethnographic descriptions
in Den Indischen Martinus Archipel 1906) and fs-Gravenhage: Nijhoff, 4 vols. van de N.V. Noord-Hollandsche op Midden-Celebes, (Amsterdam: Uitgave on the varied ethnic of Central classifications 1938). Further Uitgevers-Maatschappij, background Sulawesi South Sulawesi coastal and the indigenes can themselves groups by the Dutch, groups, be found in Lorraine "Divine Justice: Cosmology, and Protestant Missionization in Ritual, Aragon, Central Indonesia" of Illinois, Sulawesi, diss., University (Ph.D. 1992), pp. Urbana-Champaign, 32-38.
354
colonial
Islam.9
lorraine
V. Aragon
officials to refer to islands other than Bali, Java, and Madura ? the heavily as locations where first residents world such Hinduism and religions populated adopted In outer island cosmologies, the cultural and natural universes, as well as the living and the dead, are in a delicate interdependent balance. Crops, weather, livestock fertility, or adversely by the ritual and moral and other facets of nature are affected beneficially actions of humans. Like nature spirits and higher deities, ancestors are capable of contacting living humans and either harming them or intervening positively on their behalf. Respectful
behaviour, the assistance observance of of taboos, and and deities. routine sacrificial offerings are necessary to obtain ancestors
Salvation
Army Missionization
in Central
Sulawesi
The Dutch colonial regime interfered little in Central Sulawesi until 1905 when the government's new "Ethical Policy" resulted in troops being sent to control or "pacify" the region.10 Groups in the Kulawi highlands eluded conquest until 1908 when a lowlander led Dutch troops up a little known mountain pass to attack and defeat the startled entered highlanders. Once the Dutch army established sovereignty, European missionaries the region to seek Christian converts and promote economic development and cooperation for divided with Dutch authorities. The Dutch government regional responsibility the locals among various interested European churches. Western Central missionizing Sulawesi, including the Kulawi district, was turned over to the Salvation Army because more prominent Dutch churches such as theHervormde and Gereformeerde were occupied with areas to the east and south that had been controlled earlier. The Salvation Army was begun as the East London Christian Revival Society in 1865 to the Booth took his message when a Wesleyan Methodist preacher named William street people of East London. Booth quickly discovered that these lower class individuals, in established English churches. When often alcoholics or scofflaws, were unwelcome churches in London, Booth Booth's roving street evangelism was spurned by Methodist own sect. that this prospective and his wife Catherine founded their They recognized was not to churches and organ of conventional the staid atmosphere attracted audience a tents so in of thrown environment circus-like music up public squares with they created
vivacious music played on guitars, banjos, trumpets, and bass drums.11 In this context,
William Booth and his wife Catherine preached their message of eternal salvation through Christian faith and discipline to individuals who were considered the most sinful members of British society. Booth remained doctrinally faithful toWesleyan principles: belief in both Old and New Testament scriptures, belief in the Trinity, belief in Original Sin and the atonement
see Clifford in Indonesia, islands and "inner" between "outer" distinctions the ecological in Indonesia The Processes Involution: (Berkeley: of Ecological Change Agricultural have pointed Sumatra writers of California out, coastal Press, 1963). As many subsequent University to the extent outer are exceptions that their to the inner versus islands pattern and South Sulawesi era. wet-rice and practised inhabitants by the early colonial agriculture already were Muslim 90n Geertz, on 10For background Elite Modern Indonesian 1 L. Carpenter, Minnie see Robert van Niel, The Emergence Ethical Policy, van Hoeve, 1960), passim. (The Hague: W. Booth: Founder William (London: Wyvern Army of the Salvation the Dutch of the
Books,
1957) and Harry E. Neal, The Hallelujah Army (Philadelphia: Chilton Company, 1961), pp. 6-7.
A Tobaku Salvation Army Officer, Captain Upe, delivering a sermon at a mountaintop planting
ceremony, traditional admonishes animist villagers rituals. to worship the Christian God exclusively and not perform any
A portrayal
of
the first Salvation
Army
missionaries
sent
to the Pipkoro
region
of Central
Sulawesi,
which was published in the Salvation Army's War Cry newspaper issued 19 April 1924.
356
Lorraine
V. Aragon
to of Jesus Christ, belief in the possibility of salvation through faith in and obedience a in and belief final where the will Jesus Christ, receive eternal judgement righteous happiness and the wicked eternal punishment.12 It was less a matter of doctrine than Booth's constituency and approach that made the Salvation Army a distinctive sect. Since many of his original followers were alcoholics, Booth eliminated the sacraments, which he saw as tempting his followers with sips of wine. Salvation Army members were and are forbidden the consumption of alcohol and tobacco in order to purify their physical and spiritual selves from sinful habits. Booth encouraged, yet disciplined, the charismatic of faith to expression of penitence among his followers by restricting their confessions in the church service when those in attendance were called upon to particular moments volunteer their "witness" to the greatness of the Lord.13 Upon the preacher's request, one or more Sunday congregation members are asked to stand up and relate a testimonial to of God's role in his or her daily life. the magnificence The East London Revival Society changed its name to The Christian Mission and then in 1878 the founder conceived of the current name, The Salvation Army. The organization's emblematic processional hymn was "Onward, Christian Soldiers!" and Booth found military that references in the Bible evocative for the kind of energetic and disciplined movement he envisioned.14 Once the new name was chosen, the way to structure and clothe the organization's members became clear to "General" Booth who began to assign military into a distinctive ranks and adopt used British Army uniforms that later were developed Salvation Army uniform style. or "corps" were opened in By the end of the 1880s, Salvation Army congregations other parts of the British empire and European continent. Given the organization's early statement that "The Salvation Army makes religion where there was no religion before", in Europe's overseas colonies was a natural step for Salvation Army missionization
expansion.15
of the East Indies contacted In 1909, Alexander W.F. Idenberg, the Governor-General and the newly Gerrit Govaars, the first Dutch Salvation Army officer ever commissioned assigned Salvation Army Indonesian territorial commander. Govaars was sent from an established Salvation Army headquarters in Semarang, Java to assess the possibility of among the "pagan Toradjas" of Central Sulawesi. Govaars reported in opening missions a 1970s interview that once he arrived in the Palu Valley he met a German named Zuppinger who had married a "native" woman. Zuppinger, who could speak a local central meeting place and language, accompanied Govaars on a journey to Kulawi's temple where Govaars became "the first Christian to preach the gospel his continued travels into the interior farther south, Govaars said:
From heads to place we place of the tribes. One hired of carriers, listened and so traversed to what the country. We I told him
in Kulawi".16 Of
them
interestedly
to the spoke about Christ,
12Salvation
Army,
"Salvationist
Doctrines",
in The
Salvation
Army
Yearbook
1976
(London:
Salvationist Publishing and Supplies, 1976), p. 240.

Booth, p. 47. 13Carpenter, William to Army", "From Mission 14Robert Sandall, is The Salvation "What 15Salvation Army, p. 4, 35. 16Melattie 8. Brouwer, "Tanah Toradja: Tour of Reconnaissance", The War Cry (17 Nov. 1973): Salvation Army?", Army The Yearbook Salvation 1948, Army pp. 17-18. Yearbook
1976,
Reorganizing
the Cosmology
and not doing he said: bad things. Then he asked: "Are we allowed to eat
357
the Lord serving meat?" pig's Upon my so we ought to be
affirmative
"Oh well,
that
is all right. Wild
pigs
eat our harvest,
allowed
to eat pigs."17
familiar ones to all the pioneering missionaries in Sulawesi, comments, one of the primary objections that highlanders had to Islam. By initial the Christian religion seemed less of a dietary hardship. In 1912, a Dutch comparison, Salvation Army missionary to gain some couple was stationed in Kulawi, and managed These encapsulate facility in the local language called Moma. Woodward was sent to the Uma-speaking Then, village in 1917, a British officer named Leonard of Kantewu, a centre in the Pipikoro
region three days further into the interior. to Salvation Army documents, Woodward and the Moma-speaking Dutch According Salvation Army officer walked to Kantewu and asked the headman for an audience with often have some facility in the Moma language, the village elders. Since Uma-speakers Salvation Army officers and their Kulawi assistants were able to convey Woodward's request for land upon which to build a school and a personal residence. The headman, although sceptical, agreed, reportedly fearing that the white men might be associated with powerful spirits. The next morning before they returned to Kulawi, the European ministers treated the sick and wounded of the village, adding to the local people's impression of their extraordinary abilities.18 his wife Maggie, and their Indonesian staff During the next two decades, Woodward, to convert the Kantewu and nearby village populations worked into Salvation Army They distributed previously unknown goods such as European cloth, white sugar, beads, candy, soap, matches, and medicines supplied by the Dutch government.19 an also established school They system in which the Malay elementary language was as biblical was illustrations instructive devices. the taught using Malay language favoured among the archipelago's coastal traders, and it was utilized by the Dutch government and missions for administration even prior to its selection as the Indonesian national language. With the exception of a few long-distance traders, Pipikoro and Tobaku people did not
know Malay, but Woodward introduced it with the help of teachers trained in other areas.
Christians.
Missionaries introduced colonial money by giving Dutch coins to children for small tasks and then requesting them back as donations in church.20 Many Tobaku adults still recall how officer Woodward, known colloquially as "Mr. Beard" (Juan Janggo), threw Dutch coins of low denominations into the rivers to entice children to bathe. Once the children had seized their rewards and emerged from the water, Woodward began religious instruction with pictures. School students, provided with a half hour of religious teaching prior to each day's then trained the most promising lessons, were the most quickly converted.21 Woodward
17Ibid., p. 4. "A Modern 18Salvation Army, All the World Esther", Queen in Celebes", Garrison All the World 176-77; Training 1925): (May
East (London: Salvationist Publishing and Supplies, 1952).

I9See Lorraine Central Sulawesi", the Gift: Translating Precolonial Aragon, "Twisting American 43-60. 23,1 (1996): Ethnologist "Chats with Missionary Officers", The
"The First 55-58; 1924): (Apr. Albert Leonard Goes Kenyon, into Colonial in
Exchanges
20Salvation Army, All the World (May 1925), p. 177.

21Salvation Army, Officer (Jan. 1925): 39-88.
358
Lorraine
V Aragon
graduates of his school as teachers and sent them to open more schools in adjacent Uma speaking regions such as Tobaku. Through solicitations and gifts of imported goods, the European missionaries gradually sought and gained influence over local aristocrats who were well aware of the mission's political support from the Dutch colonial government. it took Woodward four years to gain his first official convert, by 1931 the Although Salvation Army had fifty officers ? both Europeans and locally trained Indonesians ? working in Central Sulawesi.22 Church meetings were held at 71 locations, and 18 schools were in operation teaching some 1,300 pupils.23 gained independence from Dutch rule after World War II, the first as one of the established monotheism (Ketuhanan yang Mahaesa) president, five moral principles (Pancasila) for the newly-formed Indonesian nation. His formulation was a compromise solution aimed to placate both the Muslim majority, some of whom advocated an Islamic state, and important minority populations such as the Balinese and Sukarno, Chinese who maintained other religious traditions. Towards the end of his presidency, Sukarno declared that Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Protestantism, and Catholicism were to be the officially sanctioned religions.24 Following the 1965 coup that brought Suharto to the presidency, a few indigenous religious sects have been registered as legitimate When Indonesia
religions under the aegis of Hinduism. Nevertheless, most Indonesian people are encouraged by government schools, officials, and bureaucratic application forms to affiliate, at least nominally, with one of the world religions. To some degree, government support for missions and churches in Central Sulawesi continues
economic
to the present.
development,
Foreign
missionaries
and educational
enter
the country
as well
under
as for
the rubric of
overt church
medical,
programs,
leadership and development. By the late 1980s, only a few European Salvation Army and administrative positions) yet officers remained in Indonesia (primarily in medical numerous Western families representing the Summer Institute of Linguistics, New Tribes and various Mission, Overseas Missionary Fellowship, Missionary Aviation Fellowship, independent churches from the United States, Australia, Canada, and The Netherlands had been working in highland Central Sulawesi for ten to fifteen years. Salvation Army are allowed to distribute birth and marriage officers, now virtually all Indonesian-born, certificates for the government, and they continue to operate schools and clinics under government in some remote highland regions. guidelines of one or Virtually all of Central Sulawesi's highland groups were active members another Protestant sect by the 1980s. The Tobaku people, in fact, were so enthusiastic in their allegiance to the Salvation Army Church that many described themselves cheerfully as "fanatic Christians" Often in the period "before religion" (belum agama, people view that the pre-Christian with Indonesian) apparent shame, accepting the missionaries' era was a "dark" (gelap, Indonesian) period, marred by "evil" (jahat, Indonesian) actions such as headhunting, polygyny, and human sacrifices. (Kristen fanatik), talked about their beliefs in contrast with devout Muslim fundamentalists.
22Salvation 23M. Hatcher, 24Niels University
Army,
The
Officer
"Soul-hunting Mysticism 1978), p. 6.
Mulder, Press,
Leonard Goes East, (Jan. 1925): 42; Kenyon, p. 49. Yearbook Salvation 1932, among Head-hunters", p. 24. Army in Contemporary Java and Everyday Singapore Life (Singapore:
Reorganizing Christianity
the Cosmology and Ethnic Identity
359
Christianity integral to the ethnic identities of Central Sulawesi highlanders as their contact with coastal and foreign groups has increased. In an effort to develop the Palu Valley region during the early decades of the twentieth century, Bugis merchants and farmers from South Sulawesi were awarded positions as middlemen by the Dutch colonial into local noble families and government. Many of these Muslim migrants married influenced the indigenous Kaili people religiously as well as politically. Members of the has become highland Central Sulawesi groups regard themselves as weak minorities when compared with immigrant South Sulawesi groups and coastal residents who have more influence at the national level. Therefore, Salvation Army affiliation provides the Tobaku and other highlanders with a useful religious status in the contemporary Central Sulawesi political context. It proclaims their distinctive ethnic differences from the Muslim coastal groups, and their relatively minor differences from the other indigenous highland populations that belong to different Protestant churches. themselves from Muslims Central Sulawesi Christians distinguish primarily on the basis of ritual practices. A Tobaku Salvation Army officer said his child once returned from school Muslims hold and repeated the statement that Islam is superior to Christianity because their services in "God's language" (bahasa Tuhan) while Christians use that is, Indonesian. as the supernatural The Tobaku minister
language of the Lord. Protestant highlanders often make similar judgements that Christianity is Nevertheless, to or because endorses for because Islam, monogamy superior example, Christianity pigs are preferable to goats. These kinds of religious prejudices signify a mild rivalry between highland and coastal ethnic groups, yet one that is rarely channelled into overtly hostile
actions.
only "human language" (bahasa manusia), see Arabic found it humorous that Muslims
As noted by many early missionaries in eastern Indonesia, interior highlanders usually favour Christianity over Islam because it does not require them to renounce their favourite feast food, pork.25 Dietary customs are important symbolic issues in regional assessments
of religious differences groups relying that are associated with local such economic as the Kaili, strategies. Coastal were Central more Sulawesi on marine resources, apparently
ready to conform toMuslim dietary restrictions in return for the material benefits gained traders and sailors as close allies and kin. Benefiting less from coastal by having Muslim resources and trade, highlanders had few incentives to adopt Islam. Palu sects besides the Salvation Army now are numerous in the coastal capital of and highland regions of Central Sulawesi. Most of these denominations were introduced during the last half century by Indonesian migrants from other regions who preferred to establish branches of their own ethnically identifiable churches (started by Christian
in other districts) rather than join local Salvation Army congregations. foreign missions Some Western missionaries note with disapproval that most of the Central Sulawesi Christian denominations are ethnically segregated. They say that this essentially preserves and cosmology the old "ethnic religions" (agama suku), merely retaining pre-Christian community identity in a Christian guise. In this respect, Central Sulawesi highlanders have
The Communication 25H.R. Weber, in Indonesia SCM Press, (London:
1957),
of the Gospel p. 14.
to Illiterates
Based
on a Missionary
Experience
360
Lorraine
V Aragon
not developed the "dissociated" identities of religious, ethnic, and class affiliation described by Rita Kipp for the Karo of North Sumatra.26 the Tobaku people's relatively long affiliation with a world religion Nevertheless, them from prevents being included in the Indonesian government's category of "isolated or estranged ethnic minorities" (suku terasing) although this category primarily includes the farmers like Tobaku. The suku terasing label is applied to largely swidden highland unconverted highland Central Sulawesi groups such as the Da'a, Wana, and Lauje.27 These minority groups in particular, and highlanders in general, are sometimes targets for programs that relocate isolated highland popular derision and aggressive development to more accessible, yet hotter and less fertile, lowland areas. communities of The Tobaku people's proud and vocal association with religious organizations to and North America counterbalance their in nations helps Europe, Australia, powerful minority self-image as isolated, impoverished, and technically "backward" (terbelakang) in Indonesia mountain farmers. The adoption of Christianity provides highland minorities with a legitimate and rival religious status vis-?-vis the Muslim majority. This situation in Burma and parallels the adoption of Christianity among highland ethnic minorities as and Akha who the such Thailand Karen, Chin, Hmong thereby distinguish their status respect to the Buddhist ethnic majorities of their nations. As has been noted among mainland Southeast Asian groups and among missionized Dayak groups of Borneo, a can serve as focus for political unity among small-scale segmentary Christianity already thereby aiding them in their negotiation with national majorities populations, with affiliated with other world Pantheon religions.28
The Pre-Christian
Like most areas of Central Sulawesi, the district of Kulawi has no villages that refuse affiliation with a world religion. Therefore, information about the pre-Christian cosmology research and from the writings of the region is available primarily from ethnohistorical a Central Sulawesi beliefs who describes Reformed Dutch of Albertus Kruyt, missionary
Identities. 26Kipp, Dissociated on the Da'a 27For background Canberra in Indonesia", Spectacle and Sharon Barr, 148-72; State): No. Linguistics Pacific Studies, Jane Atkinson, University, University of Womb
people,
Anthropology "Da'a Kinship
see the Wana On 1988), pp. 51-75. people, University, Stanford A Study of Wana Shamanism" diss., (Ph.D. Spirit Familiars: and The Art and Politics in Dialogue", of Wana Shamanship (Berkeley: 1979), "Religions see Jennifer "We Are the the Lauje of California Nourse, Press, 1989). On people, of of Central Sulawesi" and the Birth the World: diss., (Ph.D. University Lauje Spirits "Paths of
Steinhauer 4, ed. Hein National The Australian
as Art: From Practice to see Gregory "Culture Acciaioli, on Minorities and the 8,1-2 (1985; special volume in Papers in Western Austronesian and Marriage", of Research School of Linguistics, (Canberra: Department
Charlottesville, 1989). Virginia, and a Formal Theory Karen Ethnohistory and If So, Why? the Karen, "Who Are 28F.K. Lehman, for the Institute ed. C.F. Keyes and Identity, in Ethnic of Ethnicity", (Philadelphia: Adaptation Christian Conversion and "Customs Cornelia of Human Kammerer, 215-53; Issues, 1979), pp. Study American and Thailand", of Burma Akha Highlanders 277-91; 17,2 (1990): Ethnologist Among Herbert The Shaman Whittier, "Changing as a Structural 14-15 Oct. 1977, the Kenyah Dayak Journal 26, no. of Borneo: the Kenyah and Cosmology among Dayak on Asian at the 26th Midwest Conference Paper presented of and Adat Herbert Whittier, Illinois; DeKalb, Cosmology "Concepts Sarawak Socio-cultural the Changing with of Borneo: Milieu", Coping Concepts Mechanic". of Adat 47 (n.s.) (1978): 103-113.
Affairs, among Museum
Reorganizing
the Cosmology
361
and practices as he saw them in the first decades of European contact.29 Kruyt names deities and spirits in a kind of laundry list fashion, noting that some are tied to the earth,
water, however, another. or skies, never and some are more the important of than one others set of for certain ethnic spirits, elucidates relationship deities, and groups. Kruyt, to ancestors
Tobaku pre-Christian deities and spirits, however, can be divided into three major types that vary according to the extent of their domain of control. The Tobaku themselves do not present this kind of exegesis because they are not accustomed to describing their
pre-Christian cosmology to outsiders ? or even to insiders given the ascendance of
as Dan Sperber notes, symbolic systems can operate very Christianity. Nevertheless, "without effectively being accompanied by any exegetic commentary".30 The categories are on grouping the reported characteristics of each type of pre here based presented in some cases drawing on comparative and linguistic Christian deity or spirit mentioned, data from other Southeast Asian or Austronesian ethnographies. For the Tobaku people, the three major groups of pre-Christian supernatural beings are the "owner" spirits or pue\ the deified ancestor spirits or anitu, and a group of wandering fearsome beings who now are identified as seta. These last spirits often are unnamed as individuals, but include trickster spirits of the forest (tau lew), angry souls of women who died in childbirth (pontiana'), demons sent by sorcerers (tope'ule'), nocturnal flying that eat human livers (popo'), and invisible forest monsters (tope'tilinga). type of pre-Christian spirits with the largest spheres of authority are the pue \ literally meaning "owner", but like the Indonesian word tuan interpreted also as "master" or "lord". This Uma term is used to designate spirits with particular spheres of control, creatures The
such as Pue' Kasu, "Owner of Trees"; Pue' Pae, "Owner of Rice"; and Pue' Ue', "Owner
ofWaters
(Rivers)". These nature spirits are titled only according to their domain, possibly in part because the use of personal names for high status individuals is considered In Central Sulawesi, positional titles rather than personal impertinent and dangerous.
also are used to address or refer to parents-in-law, elders, or ancestors.
names
In the Da'a Kaili language spoken in the mountains around Palu Valley, pue' is not only a spirit title but also the kinship term for grandparents.31 The use of the term pue' for grandparents also is found as an old term in theWinatu dialect of Uma, reflecting the
regional view that one's grandparents were ? and perhaps still are ? the true owners
of the world passed on to the present generation. The regional use o?pue' as a kinship term suggests that pue' spirits, like the deified ancestor spirits (anitu), may derive from
ancestor or founder cults.
Anitu
unusual
spirits have claims

case because there
on people
is now some
rather than physical

variation among
domains
and constitute
of them
an
the descriptions
given
by Tobaku people. Some people say they are ancestor spirits, while others deny that idea. Some assign them to the "evil spirit" category of seta, while others say they are good
29A.C. Kruyt, Noord-Hollandsche 30Dan For
De
West
Toradja's
op Midden-Celebes, 1938).
4 vols.
(Amsterdam:
Uitgave Press, Stanlaw
van
de N.V.
Uitgevers-Maatschappij,
Symbolism Sperber, Rethinking (Cambridge: Cambridge University a parallel classification see James of spirits for northern Thai ethnic groups, "Thai A Problem in the Study of Folk Classification", Yoddumnern, Spirits: ed. J. Dougherty Cognitive Anthropology, 31 "Da'a Kinship". Barr, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1984), p. 18. and Bencha in
in Directions 1985), pp. 141-59.
362
Lorraine
V. Aragon
because they can help in times of family illness. My conclusion that anitu are deified ancestor spirits of powerful people is based partly on field narratives and partly on the
pervasiveness of the term's cognates in other Austronesian-speaking regions.32 For example,
the term anitu itself is used in the Philippine Cebuano Visayan language, glossed as a term antu and the beneficial supernatural being.33 Cognates, such as the Borneo Maloh Timor Atoni and Moluccan Tanimbar terms nitu, refer to ancestor spirits, or sometimes literally to corpses.34 The Malay or Indonesian term hantu, usually translated into English as "ghost", may share this common history of meaning. For the Tobaku, anitu appear to be deified ancestors who are important to particular households, bilateral kindreds, or
hamlets.
Some Tobaku people may deny that anitu means "ancestor spirits" (arwah orang tua dulu in Indonesian) because anitu are a very special type of ancestral manifestation, that term for is, the deified kind. Tobaku people do not have an overarching Uma-language "ancestor spirit" that includes all possible transformations of human essence following
death. Rather, they Besides have several these categories include referring kao', which to the can remains refer or transformations dead person's of the deceased. anitu, to a newly
spirit; and kiu or rate, corpses or non-deified ancestor spirits that, like anitu, may do harm if they come into direct contact with the living. Apparently, most ancestors (to owi, "those long ago") never become anitu or deified ancestors. Spirits of ordinary individuals simply travel to an afterworld (sirowi), which resembles their present village "shadow" life, and they may reappear in their natal villages occasionally during the life crises of their living relatives. Anitu, by contrast, are described by some Tobaku as spirits of very "powerful people" in ritual feasts. The (to baraka) who have been honoured lavishly by their descendants
term to baraka from comes Arabic, from meaning "to", referring "divine to a person blessing" or in all "supernatural Sulawesi languages, As and spirits "baraka" power".35
' of charismatic and powerful people, anitu become deified companions of the pue spirits, in community affairs. able to intervene positively or negatively The third type of pre-Christian Tobaku spirits, the ones with no legitimate physical or
human domain, are the seta. This term derives from the Arabic word "shaitan", meaning
the Devil, language. Tobaku people also use an Uma adopted long ago into Malay or word jinn jinni, which refers to the supernatural spirits of cognate (ji 1) of the Arabic the majority of to harmful Muslim folklore, spirits or seta. Although designate particular no contact Islam until the early direct with have had Central Sulawesi highlanders may
of An Austronesian "Nitu: A Symbolic 32See Andrea Molnar, Analysis of Alberta, thesis, University 1990). A Dictionary 33John U. Wolff, (Ithaca: Cornell Visayan of Cebuano p. 47. 34For Maloh, Ethnomedicine"
Spirit University
Category" Press,
(MA. 1972),
in Taman see Jay Bernstein, of Illness and the Reinterpretation "Symptoms 19 at the Meetings of the American Association, Anthropological (Paper presented see H.G. The Political Schulte Nordholt, Nov. System of Timor of the Atoni 1989), p. 2; for Timor, see Susan McKinnon, "Flags and Half 1971), p. 503; for Tanimbar, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, in To Speak With Cloth, of Valuables", in an 'Engendered' Textiles Moons: Tanimbarese System From a Shattered UCLA Museum, ed. M. Gittinger 1989), p. 39 or Susan McKinnon, (Los Angeles: Sun of Wisconsin The University (Madison: Islam Observed: 35See Clifford Geertz, University of Chicago Press, Press, Religious 1968), pp. 1991), p. 298 and Development 44-45. passim. in Morocco and Indonesia
(Chicago:
Reorganizing
the Cosmology
363
twentieth century, they clearly traded with peoples who did. Dutch reports indicate that by the nineteenth century, Kulawi peoples were well established in a trade and tributary relationship with the lowland kingdom of Sigi, which became Muslim through its centuries old tributary relations with the Luwu kingdom of South Sulawesi.36
According to Kruyt's ethnography, seta are harmful "lower nature-ghosts".37 Early
reports do not indicate how generic or specific

missionaries entered the region. There is even
the terms seta and j? 7 were before Christian

some question whether the seta spirits were
identified collectively before the arrival of the Islamic term. Present-day narratives suggest some of the various harmful spirits called seta were that in the pre-Christian cosmology vassals of more powerful spirits such as pue' and anitu, while others wandered unattached as either named forest demons or unhappy souls of people who died unnatural deaths.38 ' To summarize, the regional gods called pue own specific natural resources such as land, rivers, gold, or rice, and, like the anitu, they help or harm depending on human moral and ritual actions concerning those resources. The anitu, deified spirits of important ancestors, may be considered the owners or leaders of the family kindreds. They help or
harm on the basis of their approval of human actions relating to ancestral mores, as will
be discussed below. The various harmful spirits called seta own nothing themselves, and hence desire to take from the living. These three major types of Tobaku pre-Christian supernatural beings thus can be viewed on a continuum in terms of their domain or rights of ownership. Missionary Influence on the Pantheon
The Salvation Army holds church and home services in Indonesian, even when the majority of listeners have a poor grasp of the language, in order to promote a unified Indonesian religious community. They do, however, allow the inclusion of some prayer recitations and biblical exegesis in local Central Sulawesi languages such as Uma. Summer to translate segments of the New Institute of Linguistics missionaries have worked Testament
has been
into the Pipikoro

completed.39 owner
dialect of Uma. A translation of the gospels
of Luke and Acts
The title Pue

God as the
' was chosen by the first missionaries

or lord of the universe. Jesus also
to speak in Uma about the Christian '

is referred to as Pue Yesus, "Lord
Jesus" or "Owner Jesus". The Uma word for "breath/life force" (inoha') was selected by to discuss the Christian concept of an immortal human soul with a early missionaries
van Midden and Albertus C. Kruyt, De Bare'e-Sprekende Adriani 36See Nicolaus Toradja's 3 vols., 2nd ed. (Amsterdam: N.V. Noord-Hollandsche Celebes, 1950[1912]), Uitgevers Maatschappij, vol. Sulawesi tribute relations, vol. 1, on Central 1, on highland-lowland Kruyt De West Toradja's, at the beginning the Islamicization of the Palu Valley Kaili of the twentieth and Leonard century, Y. Andaya, their contact The Heritage with Islam ofArung during Palakka: the vol. A History of South Sulawesi (Celebes) in the Seventeenth
Century (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,

37Kruyt, De West 38Such malevolent Tod bei Toradja's, den wandering V?lkern
1981) on the history of the South Sulawesi kingdoms and

269, century. 274.
seventeenth 2, pp.
Schlimme
in much of Southeast Asia. See Hans J. Sell, Der spirits appear on such Indonesiens in Mouton, 1955) ('s-Gravenhage: spirits and Lehman, "Burmese in The Encyclopedia Indonesia, p. 577 on a similar Religion", of Religion, in Burma. group of wandering spirits 39Lukas paV Sum Pue' Yesus, trans. Michael Martens (South Holland, 111.:World Home Bible 1987).
League,
364
Lorraine
V. Aragon
personal relationship to God.40 The Holy Ghost is called "Breath/Spirit who is Clean/ the Bible is called "The Book that is Clean/ Smooth" (Inoha' Tomoroli'). Likewise, ' Smooth" (Buku Tomoroli'). By contrast, almost all the pre-Christian pue or owner spirits are categorized by themissionaries as seta, that is, demons. There is only one terminological exception. The name of the pre-Christian "Owner of the Skies" (Pue' Ijxngi'), is accepted as a local Uma synonym for the Christian God, perhaps because he also is called Lord in European languages. of the Heavens An Arabic-derived term, Alatala, is also used as an Uma gloss of the Indonesian word for the Christian God (Tuhan). Alatala is from the Arabic, Allah Ta'ala, meaning "God the Great One".41 The use of this term, which even prior to Christian missionization influences in the referred to a distant creator god, again indicates the presence of Muslim to of the arrival missionaries. The fact that Christian missionaries Christian highlands prior in local verbal concepts and did not eliminate the term suggests that it was ensconced they may have recognized its value in conveying the image of a high god. The Indonesian cognate, Allah, often is used in the conglomerate phrase that begins many Salvation Army prayers in the Uma-speaking highlands: "Allah, Bapak kami, Tuhan yang Maha Esa..." or "God, our Father, God the Great One". in Central Sulawesi during recent and those working Both colonial era missionaries decades have portrayed the deified ancestor spirits (anitu) and the domain-owning gods frequent categorization of anitu as devils may (pue') merely as demons.42 Missionaries' to dissociate this term from their own revered ancestors. have led some highlanders vision of extent deities Colonial era missionaries were able to impose their cosmological of deity labels did the shift forces. all Nevertheless, by re-naming possible supernatural not ensure the elimination of associated concepts of deity behaviours. These were readily applied to the Christian God, and, indeed, in many cases they were supported by interpretations of biblical verses. and influence in reassigning the positions of beneficial The foreign missionaries' destructive forces in the universe, plus the present confusion about particular pre-Christian spirit categories, can be considered in light of Bourdieu's proposition that themanagement of names is one of the symbolic struggles that takes place between more and less powerful segments of a society.43 With the introduction of the colonial government, mission schools in Central Sulawesi, the Salvation Army became and locally-trained indigenous ministers the strongest religious authority within Tobaku society. At the same time, local terms and missionary meanings appear to be mutually defining, and itmay require many generations in the newly introduced concepts are of consistent external pressure before ambiguities of the in favour resolved, only possibly foreign interpretations.44
on Catholicism", in Religious and Religious "The Dinka 40See R. Godfrey Lienhardt, Organization of how Academic ed. J. Davis Press, very 1982), p. 90 for a discussion (London: Experience, to were translate in the Sudan the Christian used Catholic missionaries similar Dinka concepts by idea of "soul". 41 vol. 2, ch. 12, and Weinstock, and Kruyt, De Bare'e See Adriani p. 78. "Kaharingan", Toradja's, the Bitter vol. 2, chs. 8, 9. See also Hoskins, 42For example, "Entering Kruyt, De West Toradja's, House", p. 151 on setan in Sumba. 43Pierre Bourdieu, "The the missionaries' "The Dinka Social blanket categorization and the Genesis 90-94. of supernatural of Groups", beings Theory and and ancestors as
Space
Society
14
(1985): 731-35.
^Lienhardt, and Catholicism", pp.
Reorganizing Cosmological
the Cosmology Reinterpretation in Rituals
365
The reinterpretation of Tobaku deities' and ancestors' roles can be observed in contexts of ritual practice and in local rationales that explain which good and bad events signify the need for Protestant rituals. In pre-Christian times, Tobaku shamans called toballa as to such illness. rituals end misfortunes The similar Uma verb root bali' performed
means "to change, to alter", and indeed the shaman's task was to undergo a personal
transformation during the ritual and speak in a supernaturally controlled voice. During these rituals, shamans called upon the anitu ancestor spirits to enter their bodies and cures of their patients' the causes and potential sicknesses. By contrast, divulge elders and other members themselves contemporary family community speculate on the sources or of other misfortunes. failures, illness, death, crop cosmological They then a to to their officer the and Salvation Christian sponsor present propose Army problem
ritual.
Salvation Army officers also are called toballa in Uma, since they lead the agricultural, life cycle, and curing ceremonies that would have been handled formerly by the pre-Christian shamans. In light of Christian conversion, major violations of moral behaviour that once would have been punished by the owner gods or deified ancestor spirits are said to be punished by the Christian God. These transgressions include such Local customary crimes as land border violations, inadequate mortuary ritual contributions, heirloom thefts, acts of sorcery, the breaking of oaths, and adultery. Contemporary Tobaku people may atone for these sins through standardized Christian "thanksgiving" rituals, known in Indonesian as pengucapan syukur ("utterance of thanks"), accompanied by customary fines of slaughtered animals.45 Prior to colonial intervention, animal and human in highland Central Sulawesi by repeatedly stabbing they died or fainted. The victims' heads were cut off to a chief or honoured elder relative. Reportedly, sacrifices (tinuwu ')were carried out victims with spears or machetes until by a chosen individual and presented in at least some ceremonies, women
would attend with babies (presumedly only male although the report leaves this unspecified) whose hands were placed on the weapons so that they would become brave warriors like their fathers and uncles.46 The firstWestern missionaries insisted that these practices stop, and currently even livestock are slaughtered by minimal stabbing in the torso, rapid decapitation, and butchering. The term "sacrifice", however, still appears appropriate to the situation both because of continuity in linguistic usage and because livestock are only slaughtered for ritual occasions, never to obtain daily food. The Uma term for "sacrifice" (tinuwu ') is still used to mean the cutting of animals for ritual feasts, especially when the ceremony is held for a third party's benefit. The only socially sanctioned, non-ritual sources of meat are from however, a ceremonial occasion may be arranged trapping and hunting. Occasionally, when a family has a compelling practical reason to eat meat, for example, when someone is ill and weak. In some highland regions such as Kulawi proper, Salvation Army officers complain about the large number of livestock animals killed for life cycle ceremonies. the churches have not eliminated the association of specially-cooked meat Nevertheless,
45See substitutes
"Revised Rituals", Aragon, for precolonial rituals. "Soul-hunting", p. 25.
for
further
discussion
about
both
Protestant
and Muslim
46Hatcher,
366
and rice
Protestant
Lorraine
V. Aragon
feasts with
auspices.
the major
agricultural,
life cycle,
and curing
rituals held under
The following three case studies illustrate how Protestant rituals and biblical passages are employed to expiate pre-Christian moral transgressions. In the first case, the parents a Salvation Army of an infant afflicted symptoms by pneumonia-like organized a thanksgiving ritual including the sacrifice of pig for the ritual meal. The biblical passage read by the Salvation Army officers referred to God's anger against those who take the the Protestant service and ritual meal held for the sick baby, in the village that the parents of the ill child recently had moved their swidden border markers, thereby effectively stealing land from the wife's siblings who worked the adjacent plot. Such Christian ceremonies are held to expiate pre-Christian crimes that are thought to cause misfortunes. In Tobaku moral doctrine, the surreptitious alteration of hereditary it was mentioned is among the most heinous of offenses, one said to cause an within months and most certainly within a year. The pre-Christian death unexpected family land of ancestral borders who is responsible for punishing such crimes is the guardian Owner of Land (Pue' Tana'). Since the Christian God is now claimed to be the owner swidden land borders of the universe, people expect him to punish land rights violators in the same manner as the pre-Christian deity. The indigenous Salvation Army officer reported that the mother of the sick child confessed to the land transgression as soon as her baby became severely ill. Hence the officer's selection of a biblical passage concerning God's anger about a land theft within a family to illuminate the punishment of an ancestral Tobaku sin in
Christian terms.
land of their brothers. After
On a second occasion, a severely ill Tobaku man who had migrated to another region was carried on a stretcher for three days back to his home village in order to make a Protestant ritual of thanksgiving. The man's nearest kin helped him sponsor the renovation
of his parent's grave, which was accompanied by an additional Protestant prayer service
at the graveyard. His family believed that his illness was retribution by the ancestors for the sick man's meagre participation at the funeral of one of his parents, which was held some years earlier. After the grave was re-cemented and a large pig purchased at the sick man's expense, the local Salvation Army officer read a Bible passage about the necessity
of honouring one's mother and father. The anger of the ancestors over the sick man's
failure to perform pre-Christian ritual duties to his parent was reinterpreted as the anger of the Christian God. In a third case, a Tobaku village headman requested that the Salvation Army officer hold a Protestant thanksgiving ritual to cure his gravely ill adult daughter. Beforehand, a sizable pig and a chicken destined for slaughter were tied up for display outside the introduced by prayers and a reading in Indonesian The of Matthew 8:14-17, describing Jesus' healing of the sick and demon-possessed. officer then prayed for Jesus to descend into the midst of the present gathering and heal the ailing woman. In this case, the pre-Christian curing role of the anitu ancestor spirits headman's house. The ritual meal was
was reinterpreted as akin to the miracles of Jesus as healer.
the wrath of the pre-Christian is reinterpreted as the wrath of the Christian God, and the aid granted by the pre-Christian deities is reinterpreted as the grace of God or Jesus. Feasts that were promised formerly to pre-Christian spirits on the
The cases described above follow a pattern in which spirits and ancestors concerning Tobaku moral violations
traditionally
dressed
Tobaku
woman,
Tina Meida,
sits among
the church
congregation
holding a large cucumber that she has brought for a thanksgiving offering to God.
368
grounds of good fortune such as births, financial windfalls, and so to the Christian God. Similarly, periodic planting and harvest included sacrifices to the Owner of Land are now reinterpreted thanksgiving rituals. When men have success in panning for gold,
Lorraine
V. Aragon
forth also are redirected feasts that would have as necessary Christian they make a household
thanksgiving ceremony directed to the Christian God instead of sacrificing to the pre Christian Owner of Gold (Pue' Bulawa). Curative intervention, formerly requested from deified ancestor spirits (anitu) through shamans (tobalia), is now requested from God and Jesus through Salvation Army officers. In short, the theodicy of the pre-Christian deities has been revealed as the moral hand of God.
Processes
of Reinterpretation
Tobaku reformulations of deities are not so much changes in their expected behaviours, as in their titles and individuality. The Tobaku, like many Indonesian peoples, avoid using personal names and often employ evasive or replacement titles and taboo words, especially when addressing or referring to powerful spirits or endangered ones, such as newborn babies and scarce game animals. Thus, the Tobaku and other highland Central Sulawesi deity terminology through this peoples easily substituted Christian for pre-Christian was not the missionaries which necessarily recognized by European sociolinguistic process who promoted it.47 Highland Central Sulawesi groups routinely changed the uttered names of deities, ancestors, aged elders (who approach the status of ancestors), newborn babies (who are vulnerable to attacks by spirits), important animals, plants, and so forth. This was done to prevent eavesdropping spirits from harming the person or valuable possession named.
For example, an extensive replacement vocabulary was used during harvest season in
order to protect the rice crop. For some years, residents of one highland Kaili region never uttered the local word for coffee because an aristocratic village headman had a therefore should never be spoken. Central Sulawesi similar personal name, which to use new labels for their deities, were convinced thus by missionaries easily highlanders their whether or not they simultaneously prior concepts of those deities. changed Tobaku religious interpretation also involves extrapolation from elements of the pre into domains that are not specified in Christian concept and practice. Christian cosmology Local pre-Christian moral logic fills in many areas that are open or vague in Christian doctrine, assuming that the Christian God punishes and rewards humans for the same reasons as the indigenous spirits did, requires sacrificial feasts under the same circum
stances, and so forth.
consistent nor does it address and like all religions, is not completely Christianity, answer all issues regarding correct behaviour and suffering that concern small-scale groups such as the Tobaku. Therefore, Tobaku individuals resolve such questions on the basis of their pre-Christian religious doctrines which focus specifically on human difficulties as they are locally manifested. Like the Azande of east Africa described by Evans have the Tobaku Pritchard, customary rationales not only for why a granary building might collapse, but for why a certain person was sitting under it and was killed when
and Continuity local traditions images, such as
it
47See Christina of Tradition of feasting the Last Supper,
the Past: The Mutability the Present, Toren, Revealing "Making where for a parallel situation as Process", 696-717 Man 23,4 (1988): on Fiji to accept particular certain with chiefs primed religious groups when they were introduced by foreign Protestant missionaries.
Reorganizing
the Cosmology
369
fell.48 The moral behaviours resulting in good or bad fortune is a domain of discourse in which the Tobaku people extensively elaborate on their interpretation of Christianity. as In sum, there have been two major patterns of adjustment in Tobaku cosmology One of deities and their behaviour. is the influenced by missionary relabelling teachings. In missionary teachings, most owner spirits (pue'), deified ancestor spirits (anitu), and into the last category of seta, lower harmful spirits (seta) are collapsed semantically which is equated with the Christian devil. Secondly, the moral reasoning and punishing behaviours of the pre-Christian spirits are transferred to the Christian God. Tobaku reinterpret their own ritual practices to make them compatible with permissible Christian rites at the same time as they interpret Christian doctrines to suit their pre-Christian moral framework. Tobaku interpretations of Protestant canon, which are sometimes unorthodox teachings, Aspects and Indonesian ministers heavily influenced by foreign in the eyes of foreign missionaries over ritual practices. lead to disagreements occasionally of Misunderstanding and Conflict
Christian concepts held by Tobaku individuals and by Western missionaries diverge when Tobaku are faced with metaphysical problems not recognized by the missionaries. For example, the appearance of kao' spirits of the recently dead upset their living relatives. ' The term kao or "shadow" refers to a soul element or force that can be associated with a to pre-Christian conceptions, either a newly dead or a still living person. According dead person's kao' spirit remains in the village for some days before travelling to the afterworld (sirowi) following mourning rituals. In Uma-speaking areas, final mortuary rites usually are held nine days after death for a man and ten days after death for a woman. The local explanation for the difference is that women have one more rib bone than men, and so are honoured a day longer. Tobaku people say that this indigenous practice is corroborated by the Genesis story describing how a rib from Adam was given to create Eve. Currently, an additional Christian ritual may be held for prominent persons on the fortieth day after death. This innovation, reportedly introduced by Christian teachers from North Sulawesi, is based on the story of Jesus' ascension to heaven on the fortieth now Tobaku people complain of being bothered by day after his death. Consequently, kao' spirits for up to forty days following a relative's death.
According amounts of kao', to pre-Christian and some cosmology, human illnesses animals, are stones and even possess plants, varying a wandering caused This soul kao'.49 by
element could be called back by a pre-Christian shaman (tobalia), who caught it in a ceremonial barkcloth bag. The idea of kao' spirits is opposed by Western missionaries, yet their insistence that spirits of the dead leave the earth and go immediately to heaven or hell is contradicted by voices and glimpses of the recently dead perceived by Tobaku
families.
type of doctrinal conflict occurs when a cause of death according to Tobaku as the violation of food taboos or sorcery, cannot be accepted into the such witnesses, Western Protestant conceptual scheme. In these cases, the cosmological problems or are are that local them considered spirits people complain tormenting by Western to be fallacies of the pagan imagination, or worse, as devil worship. missionaries Another
48E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Press, 1937), pp. 69-70. 49See Kruyt, Het Animisme.
Oracles
and Magic
Among
the Azande
(Oxford:
Clarendon
370
Lorraine
V. Aragon
A myriad of Christian beliefs have been promoted by the various types of Protestant missionaries working during the past decades in Central Sulawesi, and the devil is one which missionaries about often disagree among themselves. There has been a topic of in the of evil among North American belief resurgence personification evangelicals and certain circulated this century, publications by the Salvation Army in Indonesia during explore the issue of the devil in daily life.50 On the other hand, some European Protestant talk about the devil incarnate, missionaries working in Central Sulawesi have minimized to for and evil within the human individual. In either and aimed good place responsibility seta acts local concepts about the of case, however, usually meet with disbelief or disapproval from foreign ministers of every persuasion. do not recognize the One source of these conflicts is that most Western missionaries to address and solve all metaphysical limitations of biblical Christianity questions concerning evil and suffering. Rather than considering Tobaku ideas and practices in terms of biblical doctrine per se, they tend to criticize Tobaku religious interpretations on the grounds of their difference from current Western concepts. For example, Western will state that ghosts do not exist, or that baking instead of boiling shrimp missionaries near the river mouth cannot cause death. Although they judge Tobaku "superstitions" according to criteria based on prevailing Western cosmology and science, the missionaries that they are applying Christian criteria. swidden To give another example, the Bible makes no mention of whether mixing rice in storage bins will produce sickness, but Tobaku pre grown rice and wet-field Christian tradition traces a certain illness precisely to violation of that taboo. Although that mixing science principles that convinces missionaries it is familiarity with Western two varieties of rice (or even their associated tools) cannot cause illness, they identify Tobaku concepts as poor Christianity rather than as poor science. On questions where the canons of science cannot be invoked, such as the difference between Tobaku ideas of travelling to the afterlife and Western concepts of passage to heaven and hell (neither of which can be deemed particularly scientific), Tobaku ideas also are judged by missionaries as deficient Christianity rather than as deficient in terms of Western cultural ideas. do not always agree about the source of an illness, they locals and missionaries While may reach concordance regarding a Christian cure. Interpretive unification, or at least parallelism, is sometimes achieved when both parties agree that Christian prayer or ritual that her will rectify an illness or misfortune. One elderly woman, who was convinced was a cured was said she of caused by the sorcery extended illness only jealous person, when her family played cassettes of Christian pop songs around the clock at her hospital claim bedside. These Christian pop songs are recorded inManado, North Sulawesi, the original home of many Christian teachers sent to Central Sulawesi. Although Western missionaries do not readily invoke sorcery as a cause of illness, they look favourably upon the use of Christian music and prayer in the face of adversity. They also support this religious view of curing when they warn patients at the Salvation Army clinic thatWestern medicines will not cure in the absence of faith and prayer to God. Some Tobaku people claim that punishments for moral violations still are carried out
by seta. For example, seta are said to cause sickness to a person who takes heirlooms to
Scripture
of Are Demons 50For example, William Orr, Setan, Ada atau Tidak? [translation for Kalam Penerbit trans. M. Press Publications], (Bandung: Hidup, Inggriani
Real? 1977).
1970,
Reorganizing
the Cosmology
371
which he is not entitled. The seta involved, however, are reinterpreted as vassals of the Christian God rather than of pre-Christian deities. Some locals argue that Salvation Army officers are mistaken in disparaging ancestral techniques of eradicating demons or spirits. They say that it is not a case of taking false gods above the Lord, but rather a matter of recognizing that the Lord makes the demons (seta) who torture us, and that the ancestors who lived long ago, heathen though they were, developed some effective methods for repelling these demons. In such instances, Tobaku people defend pre-Christian empirical solutions to cosmological problems, and their ritual practices may differ, privately at from those that the missionaries least, prescribe. the moral logic of Tobaku cosmology is largely intact, many pre-Christian Although rituals have been eradicated, such as those related to headhunting, female puberty, and certain aspects of mythology and cosmology teeth-filing. Moreover, reported in early
Dutch sources, such as the nine layers of the universe, now seem to be unknown.51
Similarly, precolonial nature taboos such as those restricting hunting or gardening activities during certain lunar phases apparently have been abandoned in favour of the churches' taboo against working or travelling on Sundays.52 Despite the elimination of many specific practices at the missionaries' urging, there continue to be both public and tacit negotiations over acceptable Christian behaviour.
Incomplete Conversion versus Active Interpretation
In the cosmology of contemporary Tobaku people there is a dichotomy between "ideology as explicit discourse and as lived experience".53 The explicit discourse is the Christian doctrines, which are assumed by Tobaku to be isomorphic foreign-introduced with their current religious practices. The lived experience is an evolving Tobaku interpretation and practice of one version of Western Christianity. Scholars studying the ethnic minorities have made various adoption of world religions by non-Western assessments of this type of dichotomy. Based on Weberian notions of religious types, some have viewed it as the result of a partial "rationalization" or incomplete conversion to world religion.54 Others have considered it as a manifestation of minority resistance in the face of an externally imposed religious ideology.55 Still others have attributed it to the inevitable historical and ongoing practice.56 tension and synthesis between temporally bound human ideals I argue that the first approach is logically problematic while the
vol. 51Kruyt, De West Toradja's, 52See Kruyt, De West Toradja's, 53Jean Comaroff, Body of Power, 1985), p. 5. 54See Geertz, 159-60. 55Comaroff, "Rationalization the American Body of Power, "Internal Conversion",
2, p. 451. vol. 4, pp. Spirit pp.
57-62
on
the Central (Chicago:
Sulawesi University
lunar
calendar. Press,
of Resistance 171-75;
of Chicago House",
Hoskins,
"Entering Colonialism,
the Bitter and
pp. A
Michael
Taussig,
Shamanism, Africa",
the Wild Man:
Study in Terror and Healing

or Resistance? Anthropological 56Pierre Bourdieu, Outline Press, 1977); Marshall in Southeast Princeton
(Chicago: University
Examples Association, of a Theory Sahlins, Asia", University from Rural Washington,
of Chicago Press, 1987); Michael
Lambek,
University of Islam
at the Meetings of Paper presented 17 Nov. 1989. D.C., trans. Richard Nice of Practice, (Cambridge: Cambridge Historical and Mythical Realities Metaphors (Ann Arbor: 29,1 (1985): Archipel Press, 1993). 8; John R. Bowen, Muslims
University of Michigan Press, 1981);William Roff, "Islam Obscured? Some Reflections on Studies
and Society (Princeton: through Discourse
372
second two are more economic and ethnic
schemes involved.57
Lorraine
V Aragon
if they include the examination of changing political, relationships as well as the competing conceptual and behavioral productive pressure
analysis
While
more
continued
an
by foreign missionaries
of their situation as merely
could make
incomplete
Tobaku
Christianity
is not
"Western",
conversion
supported by evidence history. Against whom
of Christian sects that have existed in regarding the multitude should the Tobaku be measured for orthodoxy in terms of either abstract religious formulations or concrete practice: a sample of current U.S. Methodists or nineteenth-century British Salvationists? What if they were compared to early biblical
Catholics, or modern Evangelical Protestants for whom the casting the ill would be nothing strange? In many instances the Tobaku to is far closer biblical than the modern Westerner's world. world experiences peasant's in Central Sulawesi once put the matter, "It is As an Evangelical American missionary a lot easier to believe in ghosts here than it was back in Leaven worth, Kansas". The Bible, like any document, is subject tomultiple interpretations, and Tobaku interpretations often only fall short when measured against some particular Western interpretations rather than against the biblical canon itself. Christians, Medieval out of satans from colonial history of missionization and the New Order Sulawesi's an for with world affiliation religions, interpretation of subordinate government's pressure discourse and resistance, albeit tacit, has merits. The Salvation Army enforces the use of Indonesian to promote pan-ethnic Christian and national identity yet highland groups spirits of the deceased, diseases that cling tenaciously to their local languages. Restless cannot be cured by Western medicines because they are brought on by ancestral crimes, spirits that require animal sacrifice rather than mere prayer to dispel them, all belie to official doctrine. These kinds of evidence make their Tobaku people's acquiescence enthusiastic fanaticism for Christianity seem not only an interesting spiritual position, but perhaps a protective and subtly assertive political one as well. A general hypothesis of tacit resistance, however, offers little specific illumination regarding which aspects of Tobaku cosmology have been perpetuated, or how the reinterpretation process is carried out by groups who are reorganizing religious ideas imposed from outside. outside of Many writings on the adoption of world religion by ethnic minorities Central Sulawesi have stressed the cognitive as well as practical political purposes of local interpretations of world religions. These interpretations are viewed by the writers neither as amorphous fusions of world religion and animism nor as unmalleable aspects of animism and ethnic identity erupting through a veneer of world religion.58 Rather, Given Central
57See Luzon and
also
Susan
Russell,
"Ritual
Persistence
and Rites:
the Ancestral Ritual and
Cult Social
among Dynamics
the
Ibaloi
of
the
in Changing Lives, Changing Highlands", ed. Susan D. Russell Indonesian Uplands,
and Clark
E. Cunningham
in Philippine of Studies (Michigan
South and Southeast Asia No.

Southeast
1, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Centre for South and
Asian Studies, 1989), p. 17. "From Saints John Watanabe, the Present"; "Burmese 58See Lehman, Toren, "Making Religion"; American inMaya to Shibboleths: and Identity Ethnologist Syncretism", Religious Image, Structure, Muslims and Christian "Customs Bowen, Conversion"; Kammerer, 131-50; 17,1 (1990): Through and Revolution: and John Comaroff, Jean Comaroff Discourse; Christianity, Of Revelation Colonialism, and American Consciousness in South Africa, 868-82. vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1991); Rita Smith Kipp, "Conversion by Affiliation:

Church", Ethnologist 22,4 (1995):
the History of the Karo Batak Protestant
Reorganizing
the Cosmology
373
are recognized as developing their own legitimate variant of world within the constraints of local conceptual, social, and and ideology religious practices contexts. political Just like Tobaku pre-Christian oral cosmology, most Protestant doctrines and sacred texts are "not precise prescriptions of practice or belief; they are richly redundant, ethnic minorities demanding interpretation".59 Therefore, much pre-Christian moral logic can be retained in conjunction with Tobaku peoples' renaming of deities and rituals, and their Christianity can approach metaphysical not fully addressed by Western and social problems Protestantism. Thus, Tobaku Christians may discern proximate causes of local problems differently than the foreign missionaries and local ministers with whom they identify for both historical and religiously political reasons. now recognize that "indigenous Ethnohistorians and anthropologists traditions" are sets of of their historic which, concepts despite proclamations changing immutability, are somewhat When it is that similar of variation apply flexible.60 accepted usually principles to world religious traditions, the common assumption that peripheral religious communities are apt to practise skewed or deficient versions of world religions can be laid to rest. Increasingly scholars from anthropology, history, religious studies, sociology, and theology are probing the negotiations and tensions between local and global aspects of world Universal religions necessarily take on new lives outside their time and region religions.61 of origin, and the future of both their legitimized doctrine and its interpretations resides as much or more on the youthful geographic and cultural peripheries as it does on shifting centres of orthodoxy.
potentially
Eric Hobsbawm The Invention (eds.), Ranger of Tradition (Cambridge: The Past in the Ijesha Present", Press, 1983); J.D.Y. Peel, Cambridge University "Making History: Man the Present", 19,1 (1984): 111-32; Toren, p. 713. "Making 61 to Christianity: See Robert Hefner Historical and Anthropological (ed.), Conversion Perspectives on a Great of California John Barker Press, Transformation 1993); (Berkeley: University (ed.), in Oceania: for Anthropology in Oceania Christianity (Association Ethnographic Perspectives no. 12, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Monograph 1990); Charles Keyes, "Christianity as an Indigenous Social Islam in Java: 38,2 (1991): 177-85; Mark Woodward, Religion", Compass Normative and Mysticism in the Sultanate of Arizona Piety (Tucson: of Yogyakarta University Press, 1989); Bowen, Muslims Through Discourse.
(London: 60See
59J. Davis, "Introduction", Academic Press,
in Religious 1982), p. 5. and Terence
Organization
and
Religious
Experience,
ed.
J. Davis

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Department of History, National University of Singapore

from the viewpoints

need not be viewed

I am indebted here. interpreted comments Mahir Saul for their critical

and missionaries F.K. Kammerer, an early draft.

are presented E. Cunningham

populated. Approximately of the province's income The majority

These with with

traders, Central Sulawesi highland and post-Independence government

groups affiliated with Christianity efforts to establish world religion

Acciaioli, "Introducing 5Gregory Volkman and Ian Caldwell (Berkeley

in Sulawesi: Editions, "Dialects 1985).

ed. Toby 155. (Unpublished

Singapore: Periplus see Michael P. Martens, Institute of Linguistics,

the first Salvation

to the spoke about Christ,

Salvationist Publishing and Supplies, 1976), p. 240.

the Lord serving meat?" pig's Upon my so we ought to be

is all right. Wild

eat our harvest,

East (London: Salvationist Publishing and Supplies, 1952).

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

22Salvation 23M. Hatcher, 24Niels University

"Soul-hunting Mysticism 1978), p. 6.

the Cosmology and Ethnic Identity

The Communication 25H.R. Weber, in Indonesia SCM Press, (London:

of the Gospel p. 14.

Anthropology "Da'a Kinship

Steinhauer 4, ed. Hein National The Australian

Affairs, among Museum

spirits have claims

rather than physical

29A.C. Kruyt, Noord-Hollandsche 30Dan For

Uitgave Press, Stanlaw

1984), p. 18. and Bencha in

in Directions 1985), pp. 141-59.

reports do not indicate how generic or specific

the terms seta and j? 7 were before Christian

into the Pipikoro

dialect of Uma. A translation of the gospels

of Luke and Acts

The title Pue

' was chosen by the first missionaries

to speak in Uma about the Christian '

Century (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,

1981) on the history of the South Sulawesi kingdoms and

the Cosmology Reinterpretation in Rituals

"Revised Rituals", Aragon, for precolonial rituals. "Soul-hunting", p. 25.

rituals held under

land of their brothers. After

47See Christina of Tradition of feasting the Last Supper,

2, p. 451. vol. 4, pp. Spirit pp.

the Central (Chicago:

the Bitter and

the Wild Man:

Study in Terror and Healing

of Chicago Press, 1987); Michael

supported by evidence history. Against whom

57See Luzon and

the Ancestral Ritual and

in Changing Lives, Changing Highlands", ed. Susan D. Russell Indonesian Uplands,

in Philippine of Studies (Michigan