Anthropos: Anthropos, 100.2005

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-d-4754913

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-d-4754913

Persistenter Identifier:: BV043334262

Titel:: Anthropos

Erscheinungsort:: Fribourg

Verlag:: Ed. St. Paul

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1906

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-d-4750167

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-d-4750167

Persistenter Identifier:: 1510223378432

Titel:: Anthropos, 100.2005

Erscheinungsjahr:: 2005

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 100, 2005, Heft 2

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

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ANTHROPOS 
100.2005: 359-377 
A Ritual Resurgence in Eastern Indonesia 
R. H. Barnes 
Abstract. - At the invitation of the eastern Indonesian village 
of Leuwayang, three researchers returned to Kedang to observe 
a revised harvest ritual once thought extinct. The article 
contains consideration of recent political changes in Indonesia 
affecting religious expression, describes the village birthday 
celebration and the series of community rituals that were 
subsequently carried out over a three-day period in the original 
village site. There follows a summary of the nightlong chant 
accompanying the reciting of male genealogies of the village 
with an explanation of its references to legendary village 
history. An attempt is made to place the chant within the 
comparative study of ritual language. The conclusion briefly 
tries to situate the rituals in relation to villagers’ preoccupations 
in the modem world. [Eastern Indonesia, Lembata, Kedang, 
ritual, religious politics, cultural revival and reinvention, ritual 
language] 
R. H. Barnes, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of 
Oxford, Fellow of St. Antony’s College, Oxford. - He has 
conducted extensive field research between 1969 and 2004 
among the Kedang- and Lamaholot-speaking peoples of Flores, 
Adonara, Solor, and Lembata. - His publications include: 
Kedang. A Study of the Collective Thought of an Eastern 
Indonesian People (Oxford 1974); Sea Hunters of Indonesia. 
Fishers and Weavers of Lamalera (Oxford 1996); and numerous 
articles on eastern Indonesia. 
In July 1998 together with Ursula Samely and 
Ruth Barnes I returned to Kedang at the eastern 
end of the island of Lembata in eastern Indone 
sia in response to an invitation of villagers of 
Leuwayang. We were invited to attend an annual 
harvest ritual which had been extinct when I first 
conducted research there from 1969 to 1971 and 
revived some years after that research. There were 
in fact two more or less independent events within 
a few days of each other. The first was a village 
birthday celebration staged in the new part of the 
village at the beach. This celebration was also an 
innovation subsequent to my first research. The 
second event, called a utan (“we [inch]” or “I eat 
beans”) was a complex of ceremonies which took 
place over three days and nights in the traditional 
village site high in the mountain. 
Some Preliminary and 
Background Considerations 
I am not in the position to describe all of the shifts 
in perspective and changes in personal relation 
ships that may have contributed to reinstating a 
traditional ceremony which was once deemed to 
have disappeared for good. That there has been a 
change of attitudes is clear. In the 1960s, many 
Catholics and Muslims would have refused to par 
ticipate on religious grounds. In 1998 they took 
part with no sign of inhibition whatsoever. What 
can be said, however, is that in the background are 
several significant shifts in the politics of religion 
in Indonesia. Religion has been a politically sensi 
tive issue in Indonesia since the inception of the re 
public in 1945. It became acutely so following the 
attempted coup allegedly led by disaffected army 
officers with communist sympathies in 1965 and 
the subsequent slaughter of hundreds of thousands 
of persons. The official state ideology of pancasila 
prescribes belief in one God. In the aftermath of 
the coup attempt, the state, aided by the army, 
forced mass conversions to one of the recognized 
world religions. Those who did not convert ran 
the risk of being deemed communists. The late 
1960s, therefore, was a period of fear and religious

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