Working Paper Series
Studies on Multicultural Societies No.18
Ancestors and Visions:
Reemergence of Traditional Religion
in a Catholic Village
in Flores, Eastern Indonesia
Eriko Aoki
Afrasian Research Centre, Ryukoku University
Phase 2
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Afrasian Research Centre, Ryukoku University
Ancestors and Visions:
Reemergence of Traditional Religion in a Catholic Village
in Flores, Eastern Indonesia
Eriko Aoki
Working Paper Series
Studies on Multicultural Societies No.18
2013
2013
978-4-904945-21-6
Ancestors and Visions:
Reemergence of Traditional Religion in a Catholic Village
in Flores, Eastern Indonesia
Eriko Aoki∗
Introduction
Flores is a beautiful, mountainous island in southeastern Indonesia. If you fly from Bali to
Ende, the capital of Ende regency, you can view the splendid landscape under the tropical sun,
like a precise diorama, with the shadow of your plane on it. If you sail into Ende port, you
can be amazed by Mt. Ia, with volcanic smoking points on its surface, and a small vibrant
town surrounded by other mountains. Traversing Flores by bus on the main road can satisfy
your exoticism with changing light, air and types of local houses and clothing. However, as
soon as you arrive at the airport, port or bus terminal, the tranquility of the self-satisfied
traveler is broken by the hustle and bustle, mostly by the bus, taxi or motorbike-taxi drivers
competing for passengers.
After being caught by one of them, I usually get to my ‘brother’s’ house in Ende and spend a
whole day and night celebrating our reunion. Then the day after, I depart for a village where
there is life different not only from the exotic diorama, but also from the hustle and bustle
spots in Ende. The life there, just like ours, is full of daily conflicts and reconciliation,
emotional attachment, influences from the outside world and specific cultural and historical
concerns of specific natures and textures, which are different from ours.
I have done anthropological fieldwork since 1979 in the Ende-speaking area and the
West-Lio-speaking area1 in Ende regency, central Flores. This article sheds light on religious
practices in the interlacing of the local, the Catholic and the nation-state cultures among the
Wolosoko2 people in the West-Lio-speaking area.
Wolosoko people live at the south foot of Mt Lepembusu. Their population numbers about
1,700 and they are all (registered as) Catholic. I would like to discuss the reemergence of
∗
1
2
Professor, Faculty of Sociology, Ryukoku University, Japan
I additionally did fieldwork in Nga’o-speaking to the west of Ende-speaking area.
I use pseudonyms for place and personal names.
1
‘traditional’ religion, which started around the year 2000, when Wolosoko become a 100
percent Catholic village following the death of a few elders who had chosen not to be
baptized. While about 90 percent of the Indonesian people are Muslim, about 90 percent of
the population of Flores is Catholic.
In the following, first I clarify my theoretical stance concerning the study of religions, with
which stance I write this article. The second part puts forward the historical, political and
cultural contexts, in order to render the events and occurrences understandable. The third part
describes events that are revitalizing their ‘tradition’ and an emergent healing séance. The
article ends with some concluding remarks. In doing this, I would like to explore how to
understand religion without rendering it to issues other than religion, while paying attention
to the sociocultural interlacing.
1. Theoretical Framework
Religion has been one of the hottest and most enduring issues in anthropology for more than
100 years. It is difficult to discuss religion without any fascination, enthusiasm, obsession or
seriousness. While anthropologists have taken it for granted that religious phenomena can
occur any time, any place, and that they are studying the same theme, they find it difficult to
define what religion is. Let me briefly sketch a history of anthropological studies of religion.
From the late 19th to the early 20th century, religions —especially magic or primitive
religions— were studied vis-a-vis scientific, rational and logical thinking, with evolutional
perspectives.
In the first half of the 20th century, under the strong influence of Durkheimian sociology,
primitive religions and their constituents, such as totems, myths and rituals, were dealt with
as social facts.
From the middle 20th century, symbols, signs and texts became the main topics of
anthropological studies. Religions were dealt with as one of the cultural issues, on the basis
of linguistics, semiotics and interpretation theories. The Linguistic Turn came to take shape
in anthropological studies, whose focus was on epistemology. Structuralism worked as one of
the most influential theoretical frameworks.
Since the 1970s, in which the second wave of feminism arose and Said published Orientalism,
the Linguistic Turn took shape in the social sciences as social constructionism and political
consciousness, which shed light on power relations in sociocultural and epistemological
issues. In this intellectual climate, anthropological researches, including those on religions,
were critically politicized and ‘historicized.’ In the difficult processes of coping with
modernization and globalization, or national integration and capitalization, phenomena of
2
re-enchantment, such as revitalization of religions, unique developments of local Christianity,
and violent religious collisions have been occurring. Recent anthropological studies tend to
postulate these issues as part of the local manifestation of geopolitical historical processes.
While I admit the significance of these anthropological studies of religion and their
viewpoints, this article differs from them in two points. The first point is that while these
studies deal with religions from viewpoints that reduce religions to other than religions —that
is, scientific, rational and logical thinking, social facts, cultural system, meanings, historical
processes and power relations— I would like to deal with religious issues as they are.
Geertz defined religion as a cultural system, rather intellectualistically, on the basis of his
conceptualization of culture and meaning. According to his well-known metaphorical
definition of culture, meaning and human beings, humans are animals that weave cobwebs of
meanings and live on them. He maintains that since religion is a cultural system, it can or
should be explained within a bounded system of meanings, which is made by humans as
subjects. The above-mentioned other types of studies also postulate that humans are subjects
that produce meanings. However, religious phenomena cannot be explained thoroughly by a
system of meanings; in other words, there is something remaining after such an explanation.
That is paradoxically why all these anthropological studies still agree that they are working
on the same theme called religion, although they reduce religions to different fields of
meaning.
It can be posited that religion is practice pointing to and working toward that something
remaining—that is, the outside of the cobweb of meanings. People in any society know the
limits of humans and have the conviction that the cobweb is supported by something. This
becomes clear, even in secularized societies, when people experience the death of those close
to them, disease and misfortune, or keenly long for good luck. Then they start to point to the
outside of the cobweb in some way or another, which might be twined around the cobweb
they are on.
In ‘Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough,’ Wittgenstein pointed out what ceremonial and
religious beings we are, just like the peoples whom Frazer had tried to explain. Wittgenstein
also pointed out that explaining religious practices is wrong because they are carried out
neither like scientific nor like any other practices.
Even the idea of trying to explain the practice —say the killing of the priest-king—
seems to me wrong-headed. All that Frazer does is to make this practice plausible
to people who think as he does. It is very queer that all these practices are finally
presented, so to speak, as stupid actions (Wittgenstein 1979: 1e).
3
Like ‘kissing the picture of a loved one (Wittgenstein 1979: 4e),’ ceremonial practices are
also embedded in our life. Our religious practices are not different in kind from those of
others (4e), while ours and theirs are realized differently from each other as St. Augustine and
Buddhist holy men practice differently (1e). Putting forward what others do as stupid, or
giving it the label of otherness, does not help us understand it (6e). What we can and should
do toward ceremonial and religious practices is to describe and say ‘human life is like that’ or
‘that is what took place here’ (Wittgenstein 1979: 3e).
Why in anthropology have religious practices been explained from the viewpoint of scientific
thinking, social activities, political relations, meanings, cultural systems and so on? I can
point out several intertwined reasons. In his book about the encounter between Protestant
missionaries and local people in Sumba, which is southeast of Flores, Keane points out that
the criticism by Protestants against the local religion converges with familiar ideas, such as
the Kantian claim that human freedom depends on moral autonomy, which became central to
later secular liberal institutions (Keane 2007: 7). I would like to argue that anthropology has
also been penetrated by the Kantian ideologies, so deeply that it has been taken for granted
that religion is dealt with in secular liberal ways. The constructionist influences on
anthropology after the Linguistic Turn has strengthened this tendency by making
anthropologists refrain from talking about the nature or the Thing Itself. As Taylor pointed
out, in modern societies academic arguments should be conducted in public spaces, where
‘the norms and principles we follow, the deliberations we engage in, generally don’t refer to
God or to any religious beliefs (Taylor 2007: 2).’ Notwithstanding those modern norms and
principles, religions have often become problematic in the modern history of colonization,
national integration and postcolonial situations. Especially since 9/11, ‘Religion has
definitely played an important role in public debates about violence in the West,’ and ‘Many
people feel that religion is a very important factor in the rise of violence, even at the level of
the local community (Borg and Henten 2010: 3).’ This political and social climate also seems
to influence anthropological studies of religions.
The theoretical frameworks for anthropological studies of religions have been historically and
politically oriented, and consequently have limited the possibility of study. I would like to
consider religious practices by describing them instead of reducing them to spheres other than
religion.
The second point that differentiates this article from the majority of studies is the focus of
description. When events are focused on in anthropology, they are often regarded as
problematic or tense, and are explained as changes caused by or against ‘the History’ such as
colonization, modernization, globalization and so forth. The events focused on here, which
are neither problematic nor tense, are not causally explained by or against ‘the History.’ A
‘Historical’ explanation of the events might be possible. As Wittgenstein maintains, however,
every explanation is a hypothesis and, compared with the impression made on us by what is
4
described here, the explanation is too uncertain (Wittgenstein 1979: 3e). Furthermore,
explanation through macrohistory leaves many subtle aspects of the events unexplained and
may blind us to the people’s reality. Wittgenstein suggests that religious events —not only in
primitive societies, but also in our societies— emerge as follows.
We can readily imagine that, say, in a given tribe, no one is allowed to see the king,
or again, that every man is obliged to see him. …. Think how after Schubert’s
death his brother cut certain of Schubert’s scores into small pieces and gave to his
favorite pupils these pieces of a few bars each. As a sign of piety, this action is just
comprehensible to us as the other one of keeping the scores undisturbed and
accessible to no one. And if Schubert’s brother had burned the scores, we could
still understand this as a sign of piety (Wittgenstein 1979: 5e).
After describing the historical and cultural milieu for current religious practices in Wolosoko,
where the nation-state and the Catholic practices have been woven into the daily life, this
article describes how the ‘traditional religion’ emerges and how people live it through the
events.
2. The Milieu Where the Events Occur
2.1. The modern states and the Catholic practices in Central Flores
The first contact of Flores Island with the Western powers was in the 16th century, through
the Portuguese and their Dominican Catholic missionaries. The name of the island, Flores,
derived from a Portuguese name, Cape of Flores, in the 16th century (Suchtelen 1921: 8).
From the 17th century, the Dutch and the Portuguese fought over Flores. In 1851 the Dutch
took over the area around eastern Flores, as guarantee, for a loan of florin 80,000 to the
Portuguese; in 1859, Flores and the smaller islands in the vicinity were taken over for an
additional payment of f 120,000 and for Catholic mission instead of Protestant mission.
Wolosoko people’s first contact with Europeans was in 1907, through the military expedition
by the Dutch colonial government, while before that, the Dutch government policy was one
of non-interference in native affairs, the population inland in the central Flores area never
drawing the attention of the Dutch government. It was reported that Floresians who were
killed on the ‘enemy side’ during the expedition from 1907 to 1909 numbered 413 (Suchtelen
1921); confiscated rifles numbered 5,385 (Vries 1910: 74-75).
According to several old Wolosoko men, during the period of the violent first contact one
Wolosoko man was killed and Wolosoko men killed a Dutch man in requital, burying his
head at the entrance of their village. They enthusiastically insisted that the Dutch army was
defeated, by recounting the following story.
5
Once upon a time there were seven villages on Mt Lepembusu3; the rest of the world was
covered by water. Goa people, Tidhu people, Buto people, Melaka people, Jawa people and
other peoples lived in their respective villages. When Buto people felled the buto tree, the
water withdrew. The people dispersed. In separating from each other at Watuwatawanda,
those seven peoples made an alliance-treaty (pore jaji) by slaughtering a tiny male buffalo
(kamba mosa panda) and a tiny male pig (wawi mosa fole). But the white people forgot the
alliance-treaty (pore jaji) and attacked us. When they first attacked us, we defeated them by
making the following war chant (kadha) against them.
nebu se leja ina, kita mera ghaa Lepembusu se papa kita sama sama
nea wi’a waa
miu ata bara de ghawa
kami de ghaa
miu tau too, aro loka ana
kami tau dhawe, uma bo’o gaga
miu de ghawa
kami de ghaa
bagi wi’a kita lau Watuwatawanda
taga no’o kamba eo mosa panda, jaji kita iwa papa langga
rore no’o wawi eo mosa fole, pore kita iwa papa ndore
nebu naa miu mo’o gae wola kami
iwa ale
iwa tanga
sae sa’o
sengga sara
beja kengu
beke gaa
gena gho ana
Once upon a time we lived together here on Mt Lepembusu at the same place
then we separated and divided
you white people overseas
we remained here
you made gunpowder, molded bullets
we cultivated the fields, cleared the forest to be replete
you overseas
we here
we separated from each other down at Watuwatawanda
3
Lepembusu is the highest mountain in that area. It is often told that Lepembusu is the origin place of all the
humans in the world.
6
cut a tiny male water buffalo, our alliance not to be broken
slaughtered a tiny male pig, our treaty not to be infringed
now, you are looking for us again
you do not ask
you do not reflect
take apart the houses
break the nest
our roaring makes you scared
our threatening makes you fearful
may the bullet hit you
The gun was fired after this war chant. While only one bullet was shot, it killed a Dutch
soldier and made all the Dutch flee with fear. Although the Dutch fired, the bullets never hit
us. For three years the Dutch could not invade us.
People tell very proudly that the Dutch finally withdrew because they had ignored the ‘truth’
that Wologai people were their own source people or because they ignored the alliance-treaty
(pore jaji). According to them, in a sense, they have never been colonized.
It was after the Dutch military expedition that the Catholic mission, under the Dutch colonial
policy, started in the mountainous area in central Flores, where Wolosoko village is located.
It seems that quite a few children of influential men were baptized in the 1930s in Wolosoko,
because they found that being Catholic would be advantageous in negotiating with the
colonial power. In 1910 the administrative division was applied to Flores, and was
reorganized several times. Wolosoko was located in Gemeente Wolosoko (gemeente:
administrative village, lowest administrative unit), whose head was a Wolosoko man called
Gheta. Gemeente Wolosoko was in Landschap Tana Kunu Lima (landschap: higher
administrative unit), which was combined with Landschap Ndona to form Landschap Lio in
1924 (Bruyne 1947: 9-11). Pius Rasi Wangge, who was baptized in 1909, was appointed
head of Landschap Tana Kunu Lima in 1914 and of Landschap Lio in 1924. He originated
from the East-Lio-speaking area, whereas Wolosoko is located in the West-Lio-speaking area.
Pius and Gheta became politically allied by Gheta’s marriage to Pius’s categorical sister.
Based on the kinship rule in his area, Pius regarded himself as wife-giver superior to Gheta,
who treated Pius only as an equal ally, based on the tradition in Gheta’s area.
The Dutch colonial government was incessantly annoyed by local conflicts in Landschap Lio
and could not get Pius under its control. It condemned him to exile in Kupang in Timor in
1941, and executed him in 1947 (Steenbrink 2007: 104-109, Sugishima 1990: 602-604,
Kennedy 1955).
7
In 1942 the Japanese army arrived in Kupang and occupied the area. The Japanese
government, another violent modern state, used the Dutch colonial administration system,
only changing the names of units and the titles of their heads. During the Japanese occupation,
Japanese Catholic priests replaced those of the European Allies, who were interned in
Makassar. Some Wolosoko men maintain that the Japanese invasion was naturally in vain
because they tried to harm their own source of life (ine ame) or the primordial alliance-treaty
(pore jaji). They recounted the ‘truth’ also by poetic speech.
In 1945 the Dutch government and the European priests returned to Flores, while in Java
Sukarno declared the Independence of Indonesia with the idea of a centralized nation-state,
based on the Javanese political philosophy (Kawamura 2002: 38-43). Five Fundamental
National Principles (Pancasila) and the Constitution were issued. The former prescribes
monotheistic belief as one of the national foundation stones; latter stipulates that any
Indonesian national must belong to one of five official religions (agama): Islam,
Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism. In December 1946 at the conference of
Denpasar, Negara Indonesia Timur (State of Eastern Indonesia), comprising present day Bali,
Nusa Tenggara Timur, Nusa Tenggara Barat, and Sulawesi, was established (Prior 1988: 22).
In December 1949, Indonesia’s independence was acknowledged by international treaty at
the Round Table Conference in the Hague. Around 1960, new administrative divisions were
introduced to Flores.
It seems that the new state, Indonesia, had only a vague impression on most people in central
Flores until 1965, when the anticommunist campaign and massacre led by Soeharto (the
second president) and the state military, broke out nationwide. In Wolosoko, one man was
killed as a communist suspect and several men disappeared. Most people were not only
terrified by the gory killings taking place in Ende town, but were also obsessed with fear of
being turned in by co-villagers. Consequently, as occurred in other parts of Indonesia, the
fear of being suspected of being a communist, which is to say atheist, pushed many people to
join one of the official religions —Catholicism, in Flores— around 1970.
Significant changes occurred in the West-Lio speaking area in the 1990s. In December 1992
a devastating earthquake hit Flores and islands in the vicinity. International and national aid
came into the area. In 1994 the Instruksi Presiden Desa Tertinggal (IDT: Presidential
Instruction on Left-Behind Villages) program began. The purpose of the program is to aid
some 26,500 desa (administrative villages) left behind in the process of development. A
budget of 20,000,000 rupiah per left-behind desa (Muramatsu 1996: 241) was allocated to
provide various aid from the central government. All administrative villages in the West-Lio
speaking area were officially recognized as ‘left-behind.’ One effect of the IDT programs was
that people began to consider that the Indonesian government might become beneficial to
them, although the program itself symbolically and officially peripheralized those left-behind
villages.
8
In 1998 the Soeharto regime ended and the administrative reformation began to promote
decentralization, local autonomy and democracy, which had the effect of enhancing
Wolosoko people’s confidence regarding their cultural practices. In 2004 a democratic
general election was held for the first time in the history of Indonesia. Yudoyono, who was
Javanese, a member of the military and supported by the middle class, was elected. In 2009
he was reelected. The cabinet is dominated by highly educated Javanese and Sumatrans; 60
percent of the parliament members of Yudoyno’s party, Partai Democrat, are from the
business world. In 2008 a democratic election for regent and vice regent was conducted for
the first time in Indonesian history. A Wolosoko man, Mr. Yan, became one of nine
candidates for the Ende regent, although ultimately he was not elected.
The Catholic missionaries and their relation to local people in central Flores have changed
since the first contact. They had to carry out their mission under the permission of the states,
and could not officially check state violence. Due to the governmental policy, the Catholic
missionaries, vis-a-vis other authorized religions, have monopolized the mountainous area in
central Flores in gaining members. Since the Dutch colonial expedition in 1907, the Society
of the Divine Word (SVD, after Societas Verbi Divini), which was founded in 1875, has been
the main missionary order in Flores. SVD holds it important to understand local cultures, as
is typically shown in the tradition of anthropology founded by Father Schmidt (Steenbrink
2007: 143-146). The tradition claims that remnants of the revelation of One God could still be
found in virtually all cultures, and that the missionary’s role is not so much to rescue souls,
but to reform pagan belief systems to original monotheism and enrich the teachings of
Christianity. Since the late 1990s, local myths or legends have been used for sermons in Mass.
The SVD emphasizes local welfare, that is, roads, better housing, better medical care and
especially the school system. It has also made efforts and been successful in publication
(Steenbrink 2007: 557-559). However, it has intervened in the local culture by banning
polygamy and restricting MBD marriage and the exchange of bridewealth (Steenbrink 2007:
147).
A local mission is influenced not only by the policy of the Catholic Church as a whole, but
also by that of the missionary in charge. The policy, philosophy and sociocultural background
of the priests and sisters in local congregations greatly influence relations with the local
people. In addition, the tradition of each congregation, formed over many decades seems to
shape those relations.
Since President Soeharto’s resignation in 1998, Wolosoko people have felt closer than before
not only to the Indonesian state, but also to Catholicism, which has been woven into their
life-world.
9
2.2. Knowledge and power in Wolosoko
I would like to elucidate, with the focus on knowledge and power, how Wolosoko people
have tried to retain their autonomy in the historical and political milieu. Three forms
—namely state, Catholic mission and local forms— of knowledge and power concern the
Wolosoko life-world. The states that Wolosoko people encountered peripheralized them
through violent and forceful centralized power. In the current neoliberal climate, the
nation-state, together with the mass media and market economy, definitely peripheralizes
Wolosoko, while the Catholic mission, especially SVD, plays a role against the nation-state,
in a sense, especially through school education and alternative media. At least for the past 30
years, in their entangled and changing relations with the Indonesian nation-state, the Catholic
Church and other villages, the Wolosoko people have created and recreated knowledge and
power that centralize themselves.
The traditional ritual political unit is referred to as nua in the West-Lio speaking area. I
translate nua simply as ‘village.’ Each village has its ritual center, also called nua, as a
physical construction like a two-layered wedding cake, about 50 meters in diameter. On the
higher level, there are standing stones (tubu musu) at the center of a ritual court-yard with a
shrine (keda) at its edge. On the lower level are two entrances to the village center, one called
the head (ulu) toward the mountain, the other called the tail (eko) toward the valley. There are
several named ritual houses (sa’o nggua) surrounding the higher part. Between the higher and
lower parts are many graves of prominent ancestors. In each village there are ritual leaders
who organize and play important roles in rituals for the village. The rituals are essential for
the prosperity and wellbeing of the village. The people often put forward various arguments
to demonstrate their village’s ontological superiority to other villages.
There is no traditional political organization overarching this area. The village is the largest
unit and is different from an administrative village (desa). Simple calculation based on my
fieldwork and van Suchtelen’s data suggests that the number of villages in central Flores is
about 180 (Suchtelen 1921). The population of a village ranges between several hundred to
approximately three thousand. Not only is there great sociocultural similarity among these
villages, there is also diversity. Wolosoko is one of these villages.
In order to insist that they are ontologically superior, Wolosoko people use diverse
expressions: ‘we are the navel of the world,’ ‘our standing stones are at the center of all the
standing stones (tubu musu) in the world,’ ‘our rituals and village consist of components that
cannot be found in other villages,’ ‘the ancestors of all the humans originated from Mt
Lepembusu. They slid down from there, stopped here and spread to the world.’ Mt.
Lepembusu is the highest mountain in the area. Many narratives recount that the first human
being lived on Mt. Lepembusu and humans spread from there.
10
Being ontologically superior is explained by the concepts incorporating the image of time,
precedence and generation such as ‘mother (ine),’ ‘source people (ine ame),’ ‘source (pu’u),’
‘stem-root (pu’u kamu),’ and ngee or ngee wa’u, which can be translated as expand, move,
generate, descend, develop etc. In their narratives, these images are interlaced with each other.
The world was born like a child, grew as buds unfold, flourished like vines, spread like
mountain ranges, and expanded like streams from a spring. These ontological images mingle
with those of power. There are various kinds of power as shown in the table below.
Table: List of Power Concepts
mule
negi
tego
bani
kobho
ngala
doga
waka
ria
mbe’o
able, responsible
physically persevering, strong, robust, socially responsible
vigorous, aggressive, offensive, virile, sexually potent, strongly erect
brave, bold, aggressive, fierce, furious, violent, angry, offensive
invincible, invulnerable, defensive, protective (especially power in a war)
possible, able, can, to win
(most commonly used to mean ‘being able to do’)
invulnerable to weapons, defensive
(topo doga; immune to attack by machete)
influential power implicitly
(interchangeable with waka ngangga)
(senggu waka; similar to but not interchangeable with ria);
politically influential
(describing a person as well as the nature of the power itself)
(similar to but not interchangeable with waka)
economically prosperous
(only describing a person whose political power is publicly recognized,
often in forms of official status, such as in the colonial or state government
to know, to be informed,
(if the object of mbe’o is not specified, it can mean ‘to have special
knowledge and power’ ata mbe’o; ‘person of healing power’ or ‘person of
clairvoyance’)
Among the concepts of power in the West-Lio speaking area, bhisa is the most important.
The other kinds of power in the list are overt in contrast with the covertness of bhisa, which
is the attribute of ‘mother (ine),’ ‘source people (ine ame),’ ‘source (pu’u)’ and ‘stem-root
(pu’u kamu).’ Nobody can be powerful or prosperous without his/her bhisa sources.
Everybody lives under the influence of his/her bhisa source. If we hurt our source, our life
will be endangered or vanish. That is why a child must treat its mother properly, descendants
must treat their ancestors properly and the villagers must treat their rituals, standing stones,
11
shrines and ritual houses properly. Outsiders must treat Wolosoko people properly, because
they originated from Wolosoko. In other words, they are returners. Since the Dutch and
Japanese did hurt their source, they were badly defeated.
As the village center and the rituals are essential for Wolosoko’s collective prosperity, so are
the ritual leaders. While in contexts concerning Wolosoko’s collective prosperity the ritual
leaders are differentiated from ordinary people, in other contexts we cannot find any
differentiation. Whether or not the individual is a ritual leader, any person can gain his/her
personal sources of power. One of these sources, which is most enthusiastically sought for by
many men, is ‘knowledge (ola mbe’o).’ It has ontological and cosmological themes and
poetic forms such as rhyming, metaphor and parallelism. Power, knowledge and their relation
in Wolosoko are different from what Foucault tried to postulate theoretically, and are not
confined to the secular sphere.
Since the 1990s, many changes have occurred in Wolosoko, as already mentioned. Life has
become to some extent detached from the land/earth and season, due to the introduction of
cash crops and labor migration. Since the end of the Soeharto regime, Indonesian officials
and military have rarely hurt their source. Catholic priests treat their source with respect.
Wolosoko has produced a regency-councilor, some local officials of high position, two
Catholic sisters and two priests. They have all grown from Wolosoko as their source. Local
autonomy and democracy have been encouraged. The Catholic inculturation policy began to
take concrete shape in the local congregation. Local people’s attitudes towards their own
cultures have apparently changed. Since the deaths of several unbaptized elderly persons, the
ratio of Catholic population in Wolosoko became 100 percent. In this changing milieu, the
traditional religion reemerged.
3. Reemerging Traditional Religion
3.1. Revitalization of the ‘tradition’
The earthquake of 1992 seriously damaged the village of Wolosoko. The buildings and
foundations of the village were only temporarily rebuilt soon after the earthquake. Mr. Yan,
who had been born in Wolosoko and was head of the Directorate for Highway Construction
and Maintenance (Bina Marga) of a regency in Flores, decided to organize a committee for
rebuilding sound and authentic buildings in the ritual-village. To raise funds he wrote a
proposal in Indonesian in December 1997. Copies were submitted not only to the heads of
various government offices —seven offices at the level of the regency, one at the level of the
district and four administrative villages— but also to ritual-leaders of six villages supposedly
in a ritual alliance with Wolosoko. The proposal comprised 32 pages, including eight pages
of tables of detailed calculations of expenses, five pages of photos and two larger pages of
plans. It was the first time that the buildings in the ritual-village were measured and drawn
12
into plans, expenses were calculated not only for materials but also for labor, and the
significance of the ritual center was explicated in Indonesian texts.
The proposal explains the importance of reconstructing the buildings in relation to the
Indonesian nation-state policies, by referring to National Guidelines (GBHN), Five
Fundamental Principles (Pancasila), National Principles for Development (Hakekat
Pembagunan Nasional), National Policy for the Unity and Cultural Diversity (Bhineka
Tunggal Ika), the constitution (Undang Undang Dasar) and so on. The tradition (tradisi)
represented by the buildings is valued as part of the national culture. The proposal asserts that
people’s participation in the reconstruction help them to develop not only modern values,
such as an industrious spirit, discipline and technology, but also ‘traditional’ values such as
respect for older people and ancestors, and knowledge about their own tradition.
Mr. Yan left Wolosoko for Kupang on Timor Island, the capital of the province, several years
after graduating from primary school. Leaving the original locality with no concrete plans or
goals is described as ‘straying away (mbana jolo).’ Mr. Yan’s wandering was described as
mbana jolo. His father also ‘strayed away’ from his village, called Moni. He wandered
around the West-Lio speaking area and married three women in different villages. Mr. Yan’s
mother, who was affiliated with the ritual house called Ata Rini (Rini People), was his second
wife. When Mr. Yan was a baby, his father strayed away again, leaving him and his mother
behind. Since she died soon thereafter, Mr. Yan was brought up by his mother’s sister. He
told me that he had never been taken care of by his father in any sense. In contrast, he
stressed how much he owed to his mother and her sister.
While straying away in Kupang, Mr. Yan did all sorts of odd jobs to survive, until by chance
he happened to meet a Javanese manager of a small firm who employed him and let him live
in his house. Mr. Yan worked at the firm during the day and did all sorts of housework for the
Javanese manager and his family after working hours. Then the Javanese manager allowed
him to go to senior high school in the evening. After finishing senior high school, he luckily
became a provincial official. He established a career even while pursuing higher education up
to the master course.
Mr. Yan is considered to be most successful among Wolosoko people. One day he said to me
confidently, ‘In order to be successful, we should not forget to ask our ancestors for their
support with spells, say, embu mamo, kuu kajo, tipo ji’e, pama pawe (great-grandparent and
grandparent, source and forbear, support well, sustain firmly) and so on so forth.’ Although
he spent most of the time in the environment of the Indonesian language, he thinks that the
‘traditional’ poetic knowledge (ola mbe’o) is effective for establishing social status even in
the ‘modern’ social world. He has tried to acquire traditional poetic knowledge as well as
modern sociocultural capital, such as a higher education, a high governmental position, social
networks with other officials, Catholic missionaries, Chinese merchants, and so on. In other
13
words, the significance of the traditional poetic knowledge has been recreated in newly
emerging contexts.
In the early 2000s rebuilding of the named ritual houses in Wolosoko began. In 2007 the
shrine was rebuilt. Since the 1950s, a small hut had stood for the shrine—nearly 50 years. All
the rebuilt houses and shrine are much bigger and more similar to each other in size and
shape than before. I was told that the way of building the ritual houses, and the shrine,
including size and shape, was ‘given by the ancestors.’ Reliefs on the beams, pillars and
doors of the houses and shrine were also ‘given by the ancestors.’ A carved life-size sculpture,
of a completely new type, set in a ritual house and reliefs of some phrases in alphabet were
also ‘given by the ancestors.’
‘Being given by the ancestors’ is different from the concept of ‘tradition’ in English. It is not
something that has existed for long time by copying what the previous generation did.
Although most Wolosoko people are literate, they have never written down their ‘tradition’ in
order to repeat it. Although they often argue about the performance before or after the
carrying out of rituals, they have never tried to agree in advance and write it down. Although
many people keenly seek the ‘knowledge,’ they do not write it down. The technique and
knowledge of building the houses and shrine are embedded in the body. The right way of
doing things —in Wolosoko terminology, the bhisa way— must be ‘given by ancestors’ each
time, in the very act of doing. It is also said that ‘that something’ must come to us by itself.
The way to receive something given by ancestors or something coming by itself is vision
(nipi tei). The person who carves most of the reliefs and the life-size sculpture is Mr.Wolo,
who is not a ritual leader but excels in vision. He became head of the administrative village
soon after graduating from university in the early 1990s. He was appointed (poi leka podi,
topu leka jopu) to the role by the ritual leaders.
Since 1999, rituals have been carried out more smoothly than in the early 1980s. The ritual
leaders make decisions about fines for transgressions in rituals more quickly and clearly than
in the 1980s. At the climax (riwu nuka: the coming of thousands) of the annual ritual called
the Great Ritual (nggua ria), the ritual center is always crowded, not only with Wologai
people, but also visitors. Especially the ritual court-yard is filled to capacity with people who
participate in the circle dance (gawi) in the Coming of Thousands. The gawi circle dance has
become an important event on other occasions, even in places on other islands to which
West-Lio speaking people emigrated.
In this milieu of revitalizing ‘tradition,’ during the Coming of Thousands on September 6,
2008, a séance occurred.
14
3.2ˊEmergence of a Séance
It was tranquil at night. The ritual part, called ‘Refining Rice (rase are)’ was over, but
‘Encouraging Areca Nuts (ia keu)’ had not yet started. Many people gathered on the veranda
of the ritual house of Rini People, the one Mr. Yan is affiliated with. As mentioned above, Mr.
Yan had become a candidate for regent of Ende. The election was scheduled for October.
Among the villagers, there sat some election campaign members; Mr. Yan, his wife Mrs.
Tina, his son Simon, his daughter Nona, Mr. Ema, Mr. Yopi, his wife, his brother Mr. Rea
and an ex-Catholic-priest-candidate. Simon had recently received his MA in sociology and
Nona was a student at a medical college in Java. Mr. Ema and Mr. Yopi are
Regency-councilors, while Mr. Ema is affiliated with Wolosoko. Mr. Yopi, Mr. Rea and the
ex-Catholic-priest-candidate derive from the East-Lio speaking area. His wife is originally
from the Manggarai region in western Flores. They are basically town dwellers.
Mr. Yan and his campaign members had visited several mountains, including Lepembusu and
Kelimutu, in central Flores before this visit to the Wolosoko ritual center. Those mountains
are well known as bhisa. Kelimutu has three caldera lakes of different colors, and is one of
the main tourist spots in Flores. It seems that those visits were pilgrimages to bhisa places.
Their participation in the Great Ritual also seemed to be a pilgrimage, since they did not
engage in any campaign activities.
I approached the veranda, which was illuminated by fluorescent light. Mr. Yan and Mrs. Tina
beckoned me, and I sat next to Mrs. Tina. About 40 people sat there. After tea, coffee, fried
sweet rice cake and popped rice had been served to all sitting there, Simon and Mr. Yopi shut
their eyes. With two women between them, Mr. Yopi sat on the right side of Simon. After a
while they began to speak. Mrs. Tina whispered to me, ‘Ancestors are talking now.’ Simon
was speaking with his eyes half shut and Mr. Yopi was speaking with his eyes shut. Mr. Yan
said with deep emotion, ‘They try to protect us.’ Mrs. Tina talked to me, ‘When Simon
studied in Java, he made many friends of Javanese traditional doctors (dukun Ind.). So he
came to be able to become ancestors (kesurupan Ind: spirit-possession). He has already
helped many people in Java.’ Simon behaved vigorously and sometimes aggressively, while
Mr. Yopi moved sluggishly and listlessly. Mr. Yan, Mrs. Tina, Mr. Rea and the
ex-Catholic-priest-candidate told me that the ancestor who is temporarily Simon is Embu
Manggu Mite, in his early middle age, living on Kelimutu; the other, temporarily Mr. Yopi, is
Embu Manggu Du’a, extremely old woman, living on Lepembusu.
While Simon usually speaks in Indonesian, as Embu Manggu Mite he now spoke in West-Lio.
His words were so short that villagers sometimes could not understand what he said. Mr. Rea
served as translator and mediator for Embu Manggu Mitte and the
ex-Catholic-priest-candidate did so for Embu Manggu Du’a.
15
Manggu Mite asked the people who was suffering from any pain. An old man came to sit in
front of Manggu Mite. He started the healing séance as below.
Séance
‘Give me the thing in your cloth. Give me the thing at your west. It is the tummy that
hurts.’
The man nodded.
Mnggu Mite uttered,
‘Make the soul stay.
Do not be afraid, do not shudder.
I only pick something black lying inside.
Knowing the Lio language is difficult.
Even unsatisfied, do not have intercourse.
Palm wine! Hurry up!’
Those surrounding him urged those inside the house to bring palm wine. An old woman
gave him a small stone. Manggu Mite, uttering ‘black snake,’ drank the palm wine and
rubbed the patient’s back with the stone. He uttered,
‘Be cool, pick it off.’
He ate something that he had picked, uttering ‘healed all over.’
Those surrounding him asked the patient,
‘Have you already become cool?’
The patient answered timidly,
‘My tummy has not yet.’
Hearing that, some women inside the house laughed. Mr. Yan uttered scornfully to them,
‘You will be harmed.’
Manggu Mite ordered to the people inside the house,
‘Ginger and salt!’
He ordered the patient three times as below,
‘Stand up, sit down.’
He asked the patient,
‘How do you feel?’
He padded the patient on the legs, picked something off, and bit the piece of ginger. He
shouted,
‘Water!’
On receiving it, he blew his breath into the water in a glass, made circles with the glass
and made the patient drink the water.
He asked the patient after uttering ‘Embu Mitte,’
‘Has your liver been purified?’
The patient answered,
‘Purified.’
Manggu Mite asked him,
16
‘Sure?’
The patient answered,
‘Sure.’
Manggu Mitte uttered ‘Manggu Mite,’ and the patient touched his hands. The session
was over.
Then Manggu Mite called Mr. Yan. When he sat in front of Manggu Mite, Mr. Rea told
him to hold Manggu Mite’s hands. After Mr. Yan held Manggu Mite’s hands, Manggu
Mite chanted to Mr. Yan several times,
‘Be cool.’
Mr. Yan told Manggu Mite,
‘I have a pain in my lower back.’
Manggu Mite drew something off from his back, and asked him,
‘Do you feel better?’
Mr. Yan answered him.
‘I feel better.’
Manggu Mite chanted several times, ‘Be cool,’ and gave him a piece of ginger. Mr. Yan
bit it and held Manggu Mite’s hands. The session was over.
While Manggu Mite did healing sessions, Manggu Du’a was giving her blessing and
instruction. Her words were rather poetic,
‘Do not empty the ritual rice baskets.’
‘Yan, do not thrust with the small knife.’
‘Yan and Ema are brothers. Your livers are one.’
She invited children and gave them her blessing.
When Manggu Mite called Mr. Ema to him, I was called by Manggu Du’a. She sat on a chair.
When I sat in front of her, she kissed me on the head and embraced me. On seeing that, the
ex-Catholic-priest-candidate said to me in Indonesian, ‘That Manggu Du’a behaves like this
means that she really loves you,’ and several people around us agreed. With water on her
right pointing finger she drew a line from my forehead to my nose and then another line on
the sole of my foot. It went slowly. The ex-Catholic-priest-candidate told me that the session
was over and suggested that I hold her hands.
When my session finished, Manggu Mite had already finished his session with Mr. Ema.
While he called a little girl to him and crooned her to sleep, Manggu Du’a told the
ex-Catholic-priest-candidate to write4 her instruction. The instruction was as follows:
4
Ratu is a spirit/deity/ancestor who lives on Mt. Kelimutu. Lepe literally means firefly. In this context, it might
probably mean Mt. Lepembusu.
17
Stout village
Outsiders may not break the fences
Outsiders may not destroy the foundation
Descendants of the standing stones at the center
Descendants of the ritual court-yard at the center
Work at the dark and dry place
Ratu and Lepe, why do you hold ira (plant name)
Slash vines and work
Why do people try to know about the tip of tree shoots
Do not thrust to have intercourse
Do not spread the news
Work at the vines
Make at the dark place
Slash it and make it wide, then it becomes bright
Inform the ritual leaders of this.
The instruction contains the East-Lio language, which is the language of Mr. Yopi’s home
village. Compared with the poetic speeches used in West-Lio language in Wolosoko, I dare
say, the message above ise poor as poetic speech.
Several times thereafter, Manggu Mite uttered ‘Lepe is calling me, Lepe’ and Manggu Du’a
answered him ‘Lepembusu.’ The two ancestors left. When Mr. Yopi and Simon drank water,
the séance was over.
I had never seen a healing séance since I started fieldwork there in 1980. Wolosoko people
also told me that it was the first séance in Wolosoko. It also seems that the ancestors, Manggu
Mite and Manggu Du’a, were new to Wolosoko villagers. Manggu Du’a’s instruction was not
sent to the ritual leaders. The ritual leaders did not give any comments regarding this séance.
It is interesting that the séance, led by people whose sociocultural background was different
from the villagers’, involved villagers and occurred in the middle of the most important
village ritual.
Not only all the members of Mr. Yan’s election campaign, but also all the Wolosoko people,
including the ritual leaders, are Catholic. On the day after the séance, Mr. Yan and his family
requested a special blessing after Sunday Mass, for the election. The priest who gave the
blessing had been born in and grown up in Wolosoko and had been newly ordained in
Slovakia. He was the first son of one of the most important ritual leaders. ‘Traditional’
religious practices and Catholic practices often go side by side and sometimes merge.
18
Conclusion
In Flores not only traditional villages, the Catholic mission and the modern state, but also
their relations, have changed much these hundred years. Personal experiences and attitudes
concerning them are so diverse that we can hardly treat Wolosoko people as a group. Even
attitudes of an individual have changed through the course of his/her life. At the same time,
however, by sharing experiences and events on ritual occasions or through daily face-to-face
communication, individuals have been related to each other as Wolosoko people.
As we have seen in ‘2. The Milieu Where the Events Occur,’ it is apparent to many
Wolosoko people that those modern states, Dutch, Japanese and Indonesian, intruded into the
Wolosoko area violently and outrageously, and were accordingly defeated by the chants and
naturally ruined, since they had hurt their own source. The Historical explanations do not
necessarily make sense in the Wolosoko life-world, with which the nation-state and the
Catholic Church have been interlaced in one way or another, say, in a sort of bricolage, as we
have seen in ‘3. Reemerging Traditional Religion.’ In the convention of study of religion, a
series of revitalizing ‘tradition’ events and the emergent séance presented above would
possibly be explained in liberal secular perspectives, for example, politico-economically or
socio-culturally. Any of such explanations is partial because religious activities as such are
left unexplained. They are the very activities pointing to the outside of the cobwebs, just as
we do in installation and performing arts by bricolage. This article sheds light on events not
from a viewpoint that reduces them to scientific and rational thinking, social facts or a system
of meaning, but from one that tries to understand them as religious issues.
How clearly Wittgenstein leads us to an understanding of ‘religious humans’ by describing
the attitude of piety toward Schubert and possible alternatives. How vividly Garcia Marques’
story “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” tells us how a huge drowned body
drifted ashore near a poor village, charmed the women, was given a name and became sacred
(Droogers 2010). Of course, we cannot treat what we observe during fieldwork like a plot in a
novel. The simple description of what we observe may lead us to a better understanding. For
example, descriptions focused on events vividly tell us how belief in the apparition of the
Virgin Mary emerged (Fujiwara 2004). While those documented events are usually events
that resulted in apparition belief or pilgrimage, there must have been innumerable subtle
incidents of religious emergence woven into everyday life. The events described here are
such subtle incidents. By this means, we can understand religious issues as they are, and can
stand at the starting point for further analysis of human activities. Instead of killing or
paralyzing people’s emergent religious life through our simplistic analysis, we must present it
as life that is as understandable as our own.
19
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