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Talking Heads: Capturing Dayak Deathways on Film
Author(s): Anne SchillerReviewed work(s):Source: American Ethnologist, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Feb., 2001), pp. 32-55Published by: Wiley-Blackwellon behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3095115.
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talking
heads:
capturing
Dayak
deathways
on film
ANNE SCHILLER
North
Carolina
State
University
In
1996,
an elite
group
of
Ngaju Dayak religious
activists invited
National
Geographic
Television to
film their
rites of
secondary
treatment
of the dead
in
the
village
of Petak
Putih,
Central
Kalimantan,
Indonesian
Borneo.
In this
arti-
cle,
I
explore
activists'
efforts
to
engage
the
National
Geographic
Society
and
theirattemptsto exert a high degree of control over the manner in which local
traditions were
portrayed
to the filmmakers.
I
focus in
particular
on how
rep-
resentations of
specific
local
practices
figure
in
the
recasting
of
a
contempo-
rary
Dayak
face,
and on
questions concerning
religious authenticity
and
authority.
I
argue
that
the
activists' interest
in
making
a
film,
and their
deci-
sions
during
its
shooting
were
part
of their
larger organizational strategies,
with
potentially
far-reachingpolitical
and economic
consequences.
[Indone-
sia,
Dayaks,
religion, identity,
tourism,
filmmaking]
Identity
s a
production
hat s never
complete,always
n
progress,
nd
always
constituted
within,
not
outside,
representation.
-Stuart Hall
(cited
n
Ginsburg
995:260)
The official
damages
were four
downed
banana
trees,
six
shingles
off
a
roof,
and
a
trip
to
the
polyclinic
for a
grandmother
who
experienced
shok
(shock)
when
loud
noises and
strong
winds
from the
helicopter persuaded
her that her
house
was
turning
to
stone.
A
few
kilometers
away,
in
Petak
Putih
village,
Central
Kalimantan,
Indone-
sia,
hundreds of
residents and
guests
stood
looking
skyward
in a
field behind
the
Hindu
Kaharingan
Meeting
Hall
trying
to
spot
the
returning
aircraft.
There,
Mantikei,
a Kaharinganpriest, host of a radio show on Ngaju culture, and head sponsor of the
death
ritual in
progress,
chatted with
a sound man
about
the
musicians
scheduled
to
play
at a
recording
session.
Meanwhile,
I
was headed
upriver
in
a
diesel boat.
My
as-
sistant and I
passed
our
time
searching
for
macaques
in
the brush
where
fig
trees
dipped
tangled
roots
and
sagging
branches into
tea-dark
waters. We had
left
our
walkie-talkies
behind
and
could not
be sure when
the
fly by
would
occur. We
were
mindful
never
to look
overhead lest we
ruin
he shot
by
staringdirectly
into the
camera.
Throughout
June
and
July
1996,
I
participated
in
a
cooperative
(ad)venture
in
film
making
with the
villagers
of
Petak Putih
and
National
Geographic
Television
(NGT).
With
a
cast that
numbered
up
to
2,500
revellers,
our
undertaking
was
of
almost
mythic proportion. Its impetus certainly sprang from a myth, specifically the Ngaju
Dayak
origin
myth
called
panaturan.
The
village
was
hosting
the
largest
secondary
mortuary
ritual
(tiwah),
to
be held on
Central
Kalimantan's
Katingan
River in
at
least
80
years.
The
performance
of
tiwah
is
associated with
an
indigenous
religion
known
as
Kaharingan.
At
this
tiwah,
89
ancestors were to
be
exhumed
and
their
souls
American
Ethnologist
28(1
):32-55.
Copyright
2001,
American
Anthropological
Association.
8/10/2019 Talking Heads_Capturing Dayak Deathways on Film
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talking
heads
transported
to the
"Prosperous Village"
near the zenith of
a
cosmological
upper
world.
My
official role was
to
serve
as
head
of
the
publicity
committee.
My charge
came
from
Mantikei,
who had
known
me since
my
first fieldwork
in the
early
1980s
and had written to ask that I publish an account of the celebration, and, if possible,
bring
a crew
willing
to
film it.
Coincidentally,
a few
years
earlier,
a
story
editor
at Na-
tional
Geographic
Television
had contacted me to discuss
the
feasibility
of
making
a
film
about
Indonesia's
Ngaju
Dayaks,
an
indigenous
people
of the rainforest.1
After
receiving
Mantikei's
letter,
I
renewed those discussions.
By
mid-1996,
my
duties
as
head
of the
publicity
committee had
expanded
to include
serving
as
consulting
an-
thropologist
for the
film entitled Borneo:
Beyond
the
Grave
(Rosenfeld
1997).
In
this
regard,
I
would
emphasize
that
many
of Central
Kalimantan's
indigenous
peoples
are
now
eager
to attract attention to
their
traditions,
deeming
them
resources
in
the cause
of
development.
Their interest
in
promoting indigenous
Dayak
culture
can be traced partlyto state policies that encourage "showcase culture" and that re-
markable
"recuperation
f
difference" hat
John
Pemberton
has termed "the
Mini-ization
of
Indonesia"
(1994:12).
It is also
part
of their
broader
quest
to
achieve
self-determi-
nation.
Across
Kalimantan,
indigenous
peoples
are
increasingly
outspoken
in
de-
manding
that
the
government
take their
long-neglected
interests
into account.
Many
see
the 1998
collapse
of
Indonesia's "New
Order"
regime
and
the
approval
of new
laws
regarding
provincial
autonomy
and
reapportionment
of
regional
income as
op-
portunities
for
Dayaks
to become
more
involved
in
local
development.2
In
exploring
ways
to assert
and maintain
their
identity
while
participating
as
full
partners
in
re-
gional growth,
some
Dayaks
(including
the
subgroup
known
as the
Ngaju)
have
be-
come interested in cultivating aspects of their traditionalculture as tourist attractions.
Here
I
consider
why particular
traditions are
selected
for
promotion
and how
this
process
may
reinforce
or
challenge
constructions
of
identity
(Oakes
1997:36-37).
I
focus on
the
fledgling
attempts
of a
group
of
elite
religious
activists
to
promote
their
particular
version
of
Ngaju
death
rituals
in
the international
media.
The
opportunity
to
involve
the media
in
otherwise
local
rivalries
over the construction
and
repre-
sentation
of "authentic"
Ngaju
culture
was
made
possible
by
some activists'
relation-
ships
with
me,
an
ethnographer
who has
followed
developments
in
their
religion
for
many years.
In
asking
me
to
help
them
engage
with
NGT
in
creating
a
film about
ti-
wah,
activists
hoped
to achieve
more control
over
how
their
traditions
are
portrayed
and potentially win greater authorityand legitimacy
for
themselves
among
their co-
religionists
and others.3
I will
argue
that
the terms
of this
struggle
for cultural
domi-
nance cannot
be reduced
to
simple
dichotomies
like
Dayak
versus
non-Dayak
or
Christian
versus
non-Christian
Dayak.
To
the
contrary,
I
will
show
that activists'
at-
tempts
to
promote
their
rituals
hold
complex
interethnic
implications
for
relations
be-
tween
indigenous
religionists
and
Christian
converts,
as well
as between
villagers
who
accept
activists'
attempts
to reform
the
local
faith and
those
who
do not.
In this
article,
I
also
reveal
a
paradox
regarding
how
activists
seek
to
portray
hemselves.
On
the one
hand,
they
are
willing
to
be exoticized
as
part
of
winning
recognition
for
their
culture
as
unique,
and,
on the
other,
they
are
attempting
to control the terms
of
their
exoticization.
Such
circumstances
recall
Stuart
Hall's
argument
that identities
are
never
unified
and
have become
increasingly
fragmented
and
fractured.
They
are
sub-
ject
to
a radical
historicization
and
are
constantly
transforming
(Hall
and
du
Gay
1996).
The issue
of
religious
authority
is one
of
several
factors
complicating
how
Ngaju
Dayaks
represent
themselves
to themselves
and to
outsiders.
Political
events of
the
20th
century-including
independence,
the establishment
of
Central
Kalimantan
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american
ethnologist
province,
and
the so-called
Pan-Dayak
movement-contributed
to a sense
of
Dayak
identity,
but
the
Ngaju
do not
necessarily
consider themselves
a
"people."
Further-
more,
tradition
(particularly religious
tradition)
figures
problematically
as an
ethnic
markerbecause for the Ngaju it raises the fundamental issue of how to essentialize
and exhibit
their
"Ngajuness"
(Schiller
1997a).
Many
of the traditions
said
by
Dayak
villagers
to
characterize
Ngajuness
are
grounded
in
the local faith.
Nevertheless,
most
Ngaju Dayaks
today
are
Christians;
some are Muslims.
Christians
might participate
in
a
kinsman's
secondary mortuary
ritual but
certainly
would
not
want
one
for
them-
selves. Are
they
therefore not
really
Ngaju Dayak,
as
some activists
would
argue?
Representations
of
death
ways
are
further
complicated by
a
particular
set of
signifying
practices-namely
head
taking
and human
sacrifice.
Accusations
of
head
taking
as
part
of
religious
ceremonies continue to be
leveled
at
followers of
Kaharingan by
some civil
authorities and
ordinary
citizens.
Questions
of
the extent to which
head
takingwas formerlypracticed by indigenous southern Borneanpeoples, and whether
and
how
it
should
now
be
portrayed
as ever
having
been a
local
tradition,
are
more
problematic
among
these
Dayaks
than
among
some others
who
readily acknowledge
that
their forebears
took heads.
In
Central
Kalimantan,
o
raise
the issue of head
taking
is
to risk
profoundly offending many
religious
activists.
In
recent
contributions
on other Asian
societies,
several
scholars have
explored
how
representations
of the
past
figure
in
the
construction
of
identity today
(Aragon
2000;
Nicolaisen
1997;
Winzeler
1997).
These authors
share
my
interest
in
issues
of
resistance to
cultural
homogenization.
As
Joel
Kahn has
noted,
the
forging
of
cultural
identity
is never a
smooth,
homogenizing process. People
do
not
blithely
accept
iden-
tities given to them, but rather reworkthem to make them fit theirown circumstances
(1998:11-12).
With
regard
to
the
case
of Central
Kalimantan,
specifically,
the deci-
sion
by religious
activists to
encourage
filming
of
their
death rites
should be
under-
stood in
terms of
the
reworking
of
the broader
relationship
between
culture and
relig-
ion
within
the
arena
of
Indonesian
identity
politics.
With
regard
to that
arena,
it
is
also
appropriate
to
add
a
special
reference to tourism.
Other
anthropologists
have
written
about
tourism
and
ethnic
identity
elsewhere
in
Indonesia
(George
1996:238-263;
McGregor
2000;
Picard
and Wood
1997).
Many
of
Central
Kalimantan's
indigenous
peoples
are
eager
to draw
tourists to
their
provinces
and
envious
of
neighboring
East
Kalimantan's
apparent
success
in
attracting
tourists
to
Dayak
areas.
The arrival
of a
foreign tourist in Central Kalimantan is still uncommon, however, and the infrastruc-
ture
to
support
large
scale
tourism
is far
off.
I
would
emphasize,
therefore,
that
some
local
leaders,
in
particular
the
activists described in
this
article,
are
trying
to
set
the
stage
for
the
anticipated
tourists that
they
expect
will
soon
reach
the
interior,
as
well
as
establish
beforehand
what
cultural
practices
will
be
presented
to
them
as
"authen-
tic."
According
to the
activists,
one of
the
immediate
benefits to
accrue
from
having
a
film
made
about
the
celebration
in
Petak Putih
was that
the
audience
would
want to
come to
Central
Kalimantan
after
viewing
it.
They
assumed
that
tourists would
then
search out
the
people
whom
they
had
seen
in
the film
and
visit Petak
Putih.
Thus the
anticipated
film
figured
into
a
larger
cultural
promotional
strategy,
one with
the
po-
tential
to affect
regional religious, ethnic,
and
economic
relations
far
into the
future.
I
open
the
article with
a short
introduction to
the
peoples
known
as
Ngaju
and
to
the
Hindu
Kaharingan
religion.
I
show that
indigenous
religionists
have
become
proactive
in
their
efforts to
disseminate an
"acceptable"
image
of their
faith.
To illus-
trate this
phenomenon,
I
compare
local
responses
to
depictions
of
Kaharingan
re-
ligionists
published
four
years
apart
in
two
nationally
circulated
newspapers.
Both
portrayed
the
adherents of
Kaharingan
as
headhunters.
That
Kaharingan
continues
to
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talking
heads
be identified
with
head
taking
is a
situation of concern to
many indigenous
religionists
who resent
this
common
stereotypic portrayal.
As
suggested
earlier,
it is
partly
in
this
regard
that
I
understand
my
informants' efforts
to
attract media
attention to
the
Petak
Putih tiwah while attempting to control how the media reported on their practices.
Participants
felt
that
they
were
demonstrating good citizenship through
conformance
to state
rules
concerning
the conduct
of
public
celebrations and wanted
their
confor-
mance documented.
Religious
activists who touted
the
ritual as
"correct"because
it
was conducted
according
to
their own
rules wanted
it
recorded
as
an
example
to the
future.
Everyone hoped
to establish
to
the
film's
audience,
whomever
it turned out to
be,
that
this tiwah
was carried
out
without
a head.
In
fact,
however,
whether the
peo-
ples
now called
Ngaju
hunted heads and whether
there
was
a head
hunted for
this
particular
tiwah were
questions
that
affected
how
sponsors
interacted
with
regional
authorities
while
we
prepared
for the
ritual,
how
the NGT
crew
interacted
with me
while we were in the field together, and how I interacted with my informants as I
brokered
information between
a
five-person
film
crew
who knew
Borneo
mostly
through
excerpts
from
19th-century travelogues
and several
hundred
ritual actors
who had
never
seen
a
documentary
film. Thus
the
question
of
headhunting
became
a
point
of
convergence
for two incommensurate
worlds: that of
indigenous
religious
ac-
tivists,
who
needed
NGT to
help
them become
known as
peaceable,
religiously
de-
vout,
modern Indonesian
citizens,
and that
of the
crew,
who
needed
the exotic
and
extraordinary
ootage
that
a
journey among
reputed
headhunters
might
earn
them.
One
of the
participants
most
anxious that
I not discuss head
taking
with
the
film
crew
was
Mantikei,
the
primary
sponsor
of
Petak
Putih'stiwah.
Mantikei
is
among
the
most active of the second generation leaders of an indigenous synod, established in
1979,
that oversees
the
administration
of matters
pertaining
to the
practice
of Kaharin-
gan.
We first
met
in
1983. I
had
been in the
provincial
capital
only
a short
while
when
Mantikei
arrived
from
Petak Putih.
He had
come,
at a
synod
member's
invitation,
to
serve
as
an office
intern at
synod
headquarters.
We
became friends
while
participat-
ing
in
Thursday evening
prayer meetings
at the
Hindu
Kaharingan
complex.
Mantikei
is a
gifted
orator and
was often
asked to
testify
or to lead discussions
even
then.
Part
of
my
research
at the time
involved
recording
and
transcribing
his
sermons
and
discus-
sions.
We renewed
our
acquaintance
during
my
second
trip
to the
field
in
1991.
While
I was
in
Central
Kalimantan
in
1995,
Mantikei
invited
me to
adopt
his oldest
son,
who was
16,
in a ritualknown as hambai that involved the
exchange
of blood
between
myself
and the
boy.
By
virtue
of that
adoption,
Mantikei
and Ientered into
a
kinship
relation
in which
we
became
known
to
one another
as
dampu
(adopted
sib-
ling).
When
Mantikei contacted
me
to
secure
my
assistance
as
head
of
the
tiwah's
publicity
committee,
it
was
evident
that
he would
carefully
manage
every
aspect
of
the celebration
together
with the
help
of other
synod
leaders.
Indeed,
just
as
it was
my
relationship
with Mantikei
that
ensured
the
level of
access
that
the
filmmakers
re-
quired,
it
was the
high
degree
of
ritual
management
on the
synod's
part
that
allowed
NGT
producers
to
plan
their
filming
schedule
from
the United
States.
It is
therefore
important
to
emphasize
that
the
form
in which
Kaharingan
ritual
was
presented
to
filmmakers
was
influenced
by
the
synod's
broader
agenda
of
religious
change,
a
key
aspect
of
which
is their
attempt
to
standardize
indigenous
religious
practices.
As
men-
tioned
earlier,
the
synod
saw
the
film
crew's
participation
as a means to ensure
a
re-
cord
of
a
"correctly performed"
ritual,
a clear
example
of how media
may
be
impli-
cated
in the
transformation
of
identity
as well
as in the
transformation
of
society
by
cultural
activists
(Ginsburg
1995:256).
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american
ethnologist
the
Ngaju
and
Hindu
Kaharingan religion
Kalimantan is
the Indonesian
name for the island of
Borneo.
Indonesian
Borneo
comprises
four
provinces,
one of which
is Central Kalimantan
(Kalimantan
Ten-
gah)-one of Indonesia's least
developed regions.
Most of CentralKalimantan s car-
peted
in
forest
and much
of the rest is
swamp.
Eleven
major
rivers
and about
eighty
small
ones
wend
through
the
province.
Waterways
are
thoroughfares
and
almost
all
villages
and towns
are
located on
rivers.
Population
density
is
low,
about
10
persons
per square
kilometer. The
overall
population,
under
two
million,
is
ethnically
diverse;
the
largest
group-about
half
the
inhabitants-are
indigenous peoples
known
as
Dayaks.
Although
some
Dayaks
live
in
Palangka Raya,
the
provincial
capital
located
on
the
Kahayan
River,
or in
the
regency capitals,
many
more
reside
in
villages they
have
established
along
the
banks of
four
primary
rivers
and their
tributaries.
There
they practice
shifting
cultivation,
alternating
their
time
between their
primary
homes
in the village and far-flungfarm huts. Most supplement their diets and their incomes
by
hunting,
fishing,
and
growing
small
stands of cash
crops
including
rubberor
rattan.
There
are
many
kinds
of
Dayaks
on
Borneo.
The
indigenous
population
of
Cen-
tral
Kalimantan
is
composed
of
various
suku
Dayak,
a term
loosely glossed
as
Dayak
tribe or
ethnic
group.
The Suku
Dayak
Ngaju
is the
largest
and
most
influential,
and
their
language
is
Central
Kalimantan's
lingua
franca.
Because
Indonesian
censuses
do
not
categorize
citizens
by
ethnic
group,
there is no
official
consensus on
the
number
of
Ngaju
speakers.
Local
estimates
fluctuate at
between
500,000
and
800,000.
With
regard
to
questions
concerning
Ngaju
culture,
I
would
underscore
that,
their
exonym
Ngaju
notwithstanding,
these
people
have
not
traditionally
identified
themselves as a tribe despite their shared language and similar traditions. Although
they
increasingly
use
the
phrase
"suku
Ngaju"
or
"suku
Dayak
Ngaju"
to refer
to
themselves,
the word
ngaju
itself
originally
had
pejorative
connotations.
Instead,
local
identity
centers
largely
on
bilateralkin
groups.
People prefer
cousin
marriage,
and
super-
natural
beliefs
about
the
potentially
disastrous
consequences
of
marriages
with
non-
kin
serve
as a
deterrent to
exogamy.
Unlike
relatives,
non-kin
are not
assuredly
hu-
man;
they
may
be
supernatural
beings
called
hantuen
who
have
disguised
themselves
as
ordinary
men
or
women to
infiltrate
nd
destroy
families
through
n-marriage.
Particu-
lar
people
or
families
are
often
suspected
of
being
hantuen.
Belief in
hantuen
figures
interestingly
in
current
processes
of
religious
reformation
and in
the
construction
of
contemporary identity. Inthe past, forexample, Kaharinganritualswere family based
and
mostly
enacted
in
the
home.
The
synod
encourages
community-wide
ratherthan
family-wide
ritual
celebrations,
however,
and
seeks to
establish a
corporate
religious
identity.
One
unusual
feature of
Petak
Putih's
tiwah,
therefore,
was
that
it
involved
the
participation
of
many
nonrelated
sponsors
who
had
simply
responded
to a
general
call
sent
out
by
Mantikei.
One
sponsor
was a
member of
a
family
of
suspected
han-
tuen. In
other
words,
as
part
of
providing
the
entire
local
Kaharingan
ongregation
the
opportunity
to
participate
in
this
tiwah,
Mantikei
and
other
participants
ook
the
unac-
customed risk
of
joining
forces
with
suspected
hantuen to
host the
most
elaborate rit-
ual
possible.
Despite
the
synod's
efforts
to
standardize
worship, many adherents of Kaharin-
gan
also
continue
to
point
to
differences in
religious
rituals
as a
way
to
assert
their
uniqueness.
In
this
regard,
another
unusual
feature of
the
Petak
Putih
tiwah
was
that
Mantikei
and
other
council
members
decided
to
enact
it in
the
elaborate
ritual
style
associated
with
Kahayan
River
peoples,
rather
than
the
abbreviated form
that
is
prac-
ticed
on
the
Katingan.
The
official
replacement
of
local
ritual
forms
was
a
watershed
moment in
the
history
of
the
Kaharingan eligious
movement
and a
point
of
contention
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talking
heads
between some
would-be
participants
and
Mantikei because it
challenged
the funda-
mental
notion
of the
probity
of local
hadat(adat
in
Indonesia;
customary
law-but
see
below).
According to adherentsof Kaharingan,all that exists in the universe, materialand
immaterial,
has
a
sensate conscious essence
known as
gana.
Everything
hat exists is
obliged
to act
correctly
or in
accordance
with its
hadat,
which
refers
to rules
and ex-
pectations concerning
the
proper way
to
live.
Hadat is often translated
as
"customary
law,"
but such
a
simple gloss
fails
to communicate
fully
the
many
dimensions
and
complexities
of
this
concept. Ignoring
or
transgressing
hadat
risks
serious
supernatural
sanctions.
In the most
dire
cases,
adherents
of
Kaharingan
believe
that offenders
and
their
villages
are
turned
to stone. Thus the
grandmother
mentioned
at the
outset of this
article,
upon hearing
the roar
of a
contraption
that she
never
saw,
concluded that
someone
nearby
had
transgressed
hadat and that
her
village's petrification
was
immi-
nent. Hadatvaries from riverto river,as can be seen in the differences in ritualforms.
To enact
a
ritual
according
to other
peoples'
hadat
implies
that one
is
neglecting
one's
own
hadat.
For
this
reason,
some
villagers
eventually
refused to
participate
in a
tiwah
that
departed
so
markedly
from
the local norm.
They
saw
the
attempt
to
alter hadat
by
substituting
the rituals of
one
riverwith those of another
as a
violation
that
might
war-
rant
supernatural
reprisal.
Although
most
Kaharingan
Ngaju
would
probably
agree
that
hadat
has a
relig-
ious
dimension,
Christian
and
Muslim
Dayaks
might
object.
National
religious
poli-
cies
pose
a clear distinction
between
adat and
agama
(religion);
this
distinction
is
evi-
dent
even
in
the
organization
of
state
bureaucracy
(Kipp
and
Rodgers
1987).
Nevertheless, the relationship between adat and religion has been complicated in
popular
consciousness
by
important
1980
legislation
concerning
the
recognition
of
Kaharingan
as
a
type
of
Hinduism.
To
understand
why
Kaharingan
was
legally
declared
Hindu,
one
must know
something
of the historical
and
social
contexts
in
which
Kaharingan
operates
as well
as the
role of
the aforementioned
synod,
known
properly
as the Great
Council of
Hindu
Kaharingan Religion
(Majelis
Besar
Agama
Hindu
Kaharingan).
A
relatively
new
organization,
the
Kaharigan
ynod's
roots
lie
in
an
older
political
party,
the Un-
ion
of
Kaharingan Dayaks
of
Indonesia
(Sarikat
Kaharingan
Dayak
Indonesia or
SKDI).
SKDI
was
one
of several
indigenous
parties
involved
in
the
struggle
for the
es-
tablishment of a Dayak Province in the late 1950s. Their campaign
for
provincial
autonomy proved
successful
in 1957
when the
Province
of
Central
Kalimantan
was
established
by emergency
presidential
decree.
Then-president
Soekarno
issued
the
decree
in
response
to continued
guerrilla
warfare
against
representatives
of the
cen-
tral
government
by Dayak
underground
movements.
Nevertheless,
Kaharingan
was
still
not
recognized
as
a
religion.
Like
he belief
systems
of
many
other
minorities,
Ka-
haringan
remained
relegated
to
the lesser
category
of
tribal
religion
or
belief sect
(At-
kinson
1983).
Throughout
the
1960s,
lack
of official
recognition
for
Kaharingan
continued
to
anger
adherents,
who felt
that
they
were
subject
to discrimination
in their efforts
to
gain
access
to
education,
health
care,
and
other
benefits
associated
with
regional
de-
velopment.
In
1972,
some
younger
Union
of
Kaharingan
Dayak
members
decided
to
form
what
they
called
a
nonpolitical
synod;
it would oversee
the administration
of
matters
pertaining
to
Kaharingan
and the
protection
of
indigenous
religionists'
inter-
ests.
By
the
following year,
they
had
selected
leaders
and established
regency,
subdis-
trict,
and
village-level
councils
along
the
lines
of the
Department
of
Religion
model.
By
1979,
leaders
had chosen
a
new
course
of
action,
namely
to
pursue
integration
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american
ethnologist
with
Hinduism,
a faith
that had been
recognized
by
the state
in
1963.
Integration
was
approved
in
1980,
and
the council received its official mandate fromthe
Department
of
Religion
soon
thereafter.
With Departmentof Religion approval in hand, the Hindu Kaharingancouncil is
now
engaged
in
an
aggressive program
of
religious
codification and ritual
stand-
ardization.
Among
its
best
known
initiatives is the
inauguration
of
weekly
prayer
meetings
and
the
preparation
of
religious
texts,
the
most
important
of
which
is
the
panaturan
(origin myth)
mentioned
in
the
opening
of
this article. The council
claims
that
its 1996
published
edition of the
myth
should now
be considered the
sole
"authentic"
one.
In
the volume's
preface,
written
by
the council's
general
chairman,
Mantikei is
credited as
one
of its
two authors. In
fact,
this newest edition of
the
panaturan
includes
Mantikei's
autobiography
as an
appendix.
The
indigenous
religious
bureaucracy
continues to evolve
rapidly.
Activists
claim that they do not mix politics and religion, although like every other social or-
ganization
in
Indonesia,
the council
was
compelled
to
adopt
the Five
Principles
of
state
(Pancasila)
as its
sole foundation
(Ramage
1995:3).
Nevertheless,
since
the offi-
cial
recognition
of
Kaharingan,
council
members
have
assumed an
increasingly
high
profile
in
regional
politics.
Some have
won
election to the
provincial parliament
and
now
seek
higher
office.
These
politicians
offer
an
appealing message
of cultural
legiti-
mation,
ethnic
empowerment,
and
citizenship participation
to
a
disadvantaged
peo-
ple
long
characterized
within and
beyond
Borneo as
among
that
island's
"wild
men."
As
part
of
this
general
movement,
religious
activists
have
aggressively
begun
to
explore
opportunities
to market
indigenous
death rituals
as tourist
attractions
(Schiller
in
press). Elsewhere in Indonesia, the arrivalof large-scale tourism has often been ac-
companied
by
significant
infrastructural
development
(Picard
1997),
and
many
peo-
ple
in
Central
Kalimantan
hope
to
profit by
example. By
appropriating
the
symbolic
resources of
traditional
Ngaju
culture,
activists
seek
to
facilitate
development
in
re-
mote areas
where the
majority
of
villagers
are
Kaharingan.
At the
same
time,
they
re-
alize that
bad
press,
particularly
concerning
head
taking
at
tiwah,
may
dissuade
tour-
ists from
attending
death
rituals.
Among
Ngaju
who
live
along
the
Kahayan
River,
the
enactment
of
a
secondary
mortuary
ritual
is
particularly
elaborate,
sometimes
lasting longer
than a
month.
First,
gongs
and
drums are
carried to a
specially
constructed
hut,
the
balai
garantung,
in
front
of
the
head
sponsor's house. These are sounded to markthe startof tiwah. Mo-
ments
later,
participants
begin
to
erect
the
centerpiece
of
tiwah,
the
sangkaraya.
A
sangkaraya
is
a
bamboo
structure of
poles,
fronds,
and
lashes,
bedecked with
flags
or
pennants.
Hosts
and
guests
dance
around the
sangkaraya
throughout
the
celebration,
sometimes
performing
the
nanjan,
a
mortuary
dance,
or,
at other
times,
the
popular
social
dance
nasai.
The
next
day sponsors
travel to
other
villages
to
pick
up
the
various
specialists
(basir)
who will
perform
at tiwah.
The
number of
specialists
contracted
to
perform
at
tiwah is
always
odd-usually
five, seven,
or
nine. After
they
arrive,
they
chant
invita-
tions
to
supernatural
beings
(sangiang)
to descend to
the
village
and
join
them
in
the
balai
garantung. Upon reaching
the
village,
the
sangiang engage
in
projects
that
par-
allel
the
sponsors'
own
efforts to
ready
their
surroundings
for tiwah.
These
activities
include
constructing
mortuary
edifices,
sweeping
the
village,
and
gathering
wood,
among
other
things. Ngaju
believe
that the
sangiang
do
these
things
during
chants
performed
by
basir.
In
the
days
to
come,
the
bones of
the
dead
whose
souls
will
be
processed
at the
tiwah
are
exhumed,
washed,
and
prepared
for
treatment.
While
some
villagers
attend
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talking
heads
to
these
graveyard
tasks,
others
remain
in
the
village,
busying
themselves with the
erection of
posts
to which
large
sacrificial
animals
will
be tethered. A
few
days
later,
neighboring villages
may
send
offering ships
carrying
rice,
coconuts, animals,
and
other goods as contributions for the tiwah. Ifa ship is sent, a mock battle ensues be-
tween costumed
givers
and receivers
before the crew is
permitted
to
tie
up.
Animal
sacrifices
commence
thereafter. The
sacrifices are followed
later
in
the
day
by
chants
that
transport
the soul of
the deceased's
intellect to the
Prosperous
Village
(Schiller
1997b:36-39).
The souls of the soft
and hard
body parts
are also
transported
o the
up-
per
world
by
means of chants
performed by
the
specialists
on
subsequent evenings.
Within the
next
day
or two the
bones of the dead are
deposited
in
repositories
(Schiller
1991).
Then the ritualson
their behalf are
finished.
At this
point,
rites intended
specifically
to benefit the
living may
begin.
All
par-
ticipants
are
subject
to an ablution
in
the riverthat washes
away remaining supernatu-
ral
pollution. During
balian
patandak (chant
to
give
a
title), specialists
and
sponsors
receive
honorific names
in
recognition
of
their role
in
tiwah.
Finally, sponsors
request
benefits
from
the
supernaturalbeings
whom
they
have honored
alongside
their dead.
In
all,
it
may
take
up
to
33
days
to
complete
the celebration.
The broad outlines of tiwah are similar
throughout
the
Ngaju-speaking region;
however,
there are variations
in
format. These variations are
important
o
participants
because,
as mentioned
earlier,
like
other distinctive elements of hadat
they
are con-
sidered diacritical
of
identity.
For
example,
a
Katingan
River ritual
style
differs from
a
Kahayan
River one. The former is shorter and
simpler.
It lasts about a week and fea-
tures
only
a
single
lower level ritual
specialist.
In
fact,
there are few ritual
specialists
outside the
Kahayan
and
Kapuas
River
regions. Katingan
bone
repositories
are
gener-
ally
smaller and less elaborate
than
those of the
Kahayan
area,
and the sacrifices asso-
ciated with tiwah are
far fewer there.
By inviting
NGT
to make
a film
in
a
Katingan
River
village
that
was not
performing
tiwah
in
the local
style,
Mantikei and other
synod
members
told
me
that
they
intended,
in
part,
to create
the
equivalent
of
a train-
ing
film,
and
thereby
encourage Katinganpeoples
and others
to
accept
that
Kahayan
practices
were
"correct."
Many
adherents welcome
this kind of
ritual standardization.
Yet
resistance to the council's
hegemonic
vision
in
some
quarters speaks
to
the
broader
issue of the
problematic
construction
of a
Ngaju
cultural
identity
that draws
mostly
from
Kahayan
tradition.4
Despite
resistance, however,
the council
continues
to demonstrate
its
growing
power,
most
recently
in
its
ability
to mobilize
forces
against
bad
press
thatsensationalizes
indigenous religionists
as headhunters.
headhunters
in
the
media
With
regard
to
the
portrayal
of
Kaharingan
n the
media,
I
have
already suggested
that
many Ngaju,
including
converts to other
faiths,
are
acutely
sensitive
to
how
local
practices
and
beliefs
are
represented
to
a
broader
anticipated
public
of Indonesians
and
foreign
tourists.
This was
made clear to
me
in
a conversation
that I had with
the
director
general
of the
Hindu
Kaharingan
council
in
1983.
The
director
general
was
lamenting
newspaper
reporters'
endencies
to sensationalize
descriptions
of
Kaharin-
gan
rituals. He
mentioned
an article
concerning
the second
stage
of treatment of
the
dead
that
had
appeared
in
a
newspaper
"somewhere on
Java"
a few
years
before.
The
director
general
himself had
invited
a
journalist
to
accompany
him to the event
and
explained
before
their
arrival hat
the souls
of the dead
would
bid farewell to their
kin
that
night
in the course
of
a chant
performed
by
five
specialists.
To mark the
souls'
departure
from the
house,
all the
lamps
would
be
extinguished.
When
they
were
relit,
mourners
would
scrutinize
a
pan
of kitchen
ash that
had been
set
beside
the
front
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american
ethnologist
door for the
departing
souls'
footprints.
To
the director
general's
dismay,
however,
the
journalist's
published
account
implied
that
mourners
had taken
advantage
of
the
darkness to
engage
in
illicit
sexual relations.
"It s so difficult
to
fight
lies
and
misrepre-
sentation by the media," he said.
The most distasteful
of the media's
misrepresentations,
as far as the council
is
concerned,
focus
on head
taking
and human
sacrifice.
Early
accounts
by
missionaries
and colonialists describe
upriver
peoples
taking
heads
and
sacrificing
slaves within
the context of
tiwah
(Schiller
1997b:5-6).
Widespread
characterizations
of modern
Dayaks
as
headhunters
continue
to inform
the
thinking
of
many
Indonesians
and
oth-
ers.
I
recall a
conversation
I
had
with the senior
editor of
an
important
Indonesian
news
magazine
in
1996. The editor
began
our
meeting by
expressing
his interest
in In-
donesians
who were
"masih buas"
(still
wild),
employing
a term that is
usually
used to
describe the
ferocity
of
wild animals or of
devastating
forces of nature.
Head-taking
incidents that occurred as part of the recent spate
of
violence
in
West
Kalimantan
have reinforced
outsiders'
impressions
of
Dayaks
as
headhunters.
In
early
1999,
Indonesia
was in the throes of a
major
economic crisis.
Weakened
in
the
course of
major political
reforms,
the central
government
faced
challenges
to
national
stability
in
the form of interethnic riots
in
far-flung
areas. The Kalimantan
ri-
ots occurred
in the Sambas
region
of the west
province.
The
proximate
cause
was
ru-
mored to be
a
dispute
over bus fare between an
ethnically
Madurese
passenger
and
a
Malay
driver.
Some
Dayaks
remarked to
me that the Madurese
man was found to be
carrying
a hidden
weapon,
thus
violating
a
pledge
taken
by prominent
local citizens
on behalf of their
respective
ethnic constituencies
that had
been aimed
at
reducing
tensions between Madurese
migrants
and local
people.
The
ensuing
clashes lasted
approximately
one month and left close to 200
people
dead and more
than
50,000
Madurese
seeking
safety
and shelter after
having
been burned out of their homes
by
Dayaks
and
Malays.
Although
noteworthy
for its
scale,
this violence was not an
isolated incident.
Madurese
migrants,
Dayaks,
and local
Malays
have
engaged
in
violent conflicts on
many
occasions
during
the
past
three decades.
Malay
and
Dayak
citizens
consistently
blame the
Madurese,
whom
they perceive
as
aggressive
and
disparaging
of
Dayak
culture for
setting
off
these incidents
(Schiller
and
Garang
2000).
Commenting
on the
explosive
situation in
1999,
the
governor
of
West Kalimantan
described the Madurese
citizens
in
his
province
as
"mastermindsof
conflict"
(biang pertikaian)
and issued a
plea
to social
scientists to find a
solution.
"I
ask for the
assistance of academic circles
to
investigate why
Madurese
always
cause disturbances in
West Kalimantan.
I
hope
that
[the
local
university]
will
coordinate
sociological
or social
anthropological
re-
search
concerning
why
the
Madurese cause unrest
in
West Kalimantan.
One could
say
that, indeed,
the disturbances
are
always
started
by
Madurese citizens"
(Suara
Kaltim
1999:1)
Although
international
media
reports
noted
the bus incident in
passing
as well as
the
strained relations
between the
Madurese
migrants
and
other
people
in
the
region,
the bulk of the
coverage
focused on
the
Dayak
rather than the
Madurese
role
in
the
conflict.
In
prose
reminiscent of
19th-century
accounts of
headhunting expeditions,
reporters
described
"screaming
tribesmen"
(CNN
1999)
and
"euphoric
warriors"
en-
gaged
in
acts of
"ritual
savagery"
(New
York
Times Website
1999).
The
Associated
Press
announced: "Old
customs of
tribalwar
that were
thriving
when Britishand
Dutch
colonists
ventured
into the
Borneo interior
centuries
ago
have been
played
out
in
grue-
some shows
of
public
rejoicing"
(New
York
Times
Website
1999).
There
were
reports
of
scalping
and of
cannibalism.
CNN
posted
a
photograph
from Sambas
of a head
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talking
heads
perched
on an
oil
drum
in
the
middle
of
a
street,
a
cigarette
stuffed
up
one nostril
(CNN 1999).
During
the
time
these events took
place
in
West
Kalimantan,
Central Kalimantan
remained calm. Yet Central Kalimantan'snative people are likewise suspected of be-
ing
covert,
if
not
overt,
headhunters. As an
ethnographer
of
the
Ngaju,
I
have
found
the issue of
headhunting
awkward
to
address ever since
my
first
fieldwork. Rumorsof
attempted
human
sacrifice,
although
infrequent,
nonetheless
circulate
among
the
Dayaks
themselves.
One
story
with
which
I
am
most
familiar
came
to me from
an ex-
tremely
reputable
source,
a native
customary
law
authority (damang),
who claimed
to
have
helped
rescue the
intended sacrificial victim
in
1983,
only
hours before
she
would have
been killed.
I
have
chosen not to
try
to
substantiate
these claims
because
asking
questions
about
head
taking
would
likely
end
my
relationship
with members of
the Hindu
Kaharingan
Council.
My apparent
uninterest
in
head
taking
has become
the basis of our trust.Thus, my situation is differentfrom that faced by ethnographers
who
carry
out research
among peoples
who now
perform
headhunting
festivals
with-
out
heads
(George
1996;
Hoskins
1996;
McKinley
1976;
Winzeler
1994),
or
even
in
the next
province
where
the
reputation
of
the ancestors
of some
Dayak peoples
as
headhunters
is
touted
in
a
growing
tourist literature
Dinas
Kepariwisataan
1999)
and
mock
head-taking
dances are
performed
for
visitors to
Dayak villages.
When
I
spoke
to Mantikei
about the
probability
that NGT
would ask
questions
about
headhunting
and
tiwah,
he asked me
to
say
as little as
possible
and to
keep
in mind how
long
it had
taken
people
in
Central
Kalimantan
o
come
to trust me
with
regard
to this issue.
The
manner
in which individual
Dayaks
in
Central
Kalimantan
confront
the issue
of head takingvaries, often by religion. Christiansand Muslims recount the headhunt-
ing prowess
and
ferocity
of their
ancestors
who lived
in the
jaman
kayau
(the
age
of
head
taking).
Yet their tales
often conclude
with
the
narrators
reprehending
their
an-
cestors'
barbarity
prior
to conversion.
Most adherents
of
Kaharingan
also acknow-
ledge
that
head
taking
occurred,
although
the
majority
posit
that
it ended
decades
ago.
Some
Christians
and
some adherents
of
Kaharingan,
including
many
civil ser-
vants,
say
that
it
never
happened.
Instead,
they
contend,
rumors
of
head
hunting
and
human sacrifice
were
conjured by
colonialists
to
frighten
indigenous
peoples,
thereby
destroying
tribal
unity
and
putting
an end
to
potential
local collaboration
in national-
ist movements.
Finally,
there are
a few
individuals
who
claim
not
only
that heads
con-
tinue to be taken, butthatthey themselves have aspiredto or engaged in the practice.
Within
the
past
few
years,
two
reports
of head
taking
for
tiwah
performances
were featured
in
the
"Criminality"
ection
of
Indonesia's
nationally
read news
maga-
zine,
Tempo.
The
markedly disparate
local
responses
underscore
the Hindu
Kaharin-
gan
Synods's
clout and
increasingly
proactive
stance
with
regard
to the
portrayal
of
Kaharingan,
as did their
subsequent
enthusiastic
support
for
inviting
NGT
to make
Borneo:
Beyond
the
Grave
(Rosenfeld
1997).
The
first
of the
two articles
appeared
in
1987:
"The
Mandera
Post with
the
Cut-off
Head."
The subtitle
queried:
"Tiwah,
the Ritual
o Escort
Souls
to the
Seventh
Heaven.
Does
it Still
Existor
Is It
an Issue
Made
Up By
Colonialists?
Kuni,
an 18
Year Old
Ado-
lescent,
Was Beheaded."
According
to the
report,
a
widower
sought
to
ensure
his
de-
ceased
wife's
comfort
after
death
by
providing
her
with a servant.
He
therefore
de-
cided
to
bury
a
human
head
beneath
her bone
repository
and sent
his son to
solicit
assistance
in
ensnaring
a victim.
The
younger
man contacted
a
fellow
villager
who
agreed
to
assist.
To earn
his
reward,
the
villager
won
the
trust
of
a
group
of
young
women
who
were
targeted
as
potential
victims.
In
time,
they
agreed
to
accompany
him on
a
rubber
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american
ethnologist
collecting
expedition.
Before
they
left on their
rounds,
the widower's
son
and
several
other
men hid themselves
in the forest.
What follows
is the account
of the
surprise
at-
tack
as
it
appeared
in
Tempo.
The
report
did not include
the survivors'
direct
testi-
mony, and it is unclear from the article whether the women who survived the attack
attended the trial.
An
atmosphere
f
panic
erupted.
Kuniwas
suddenly
ied and
dragged
off...
by
[the]
boisterous
group.
But
Kuni's riendsscattered
wildly.
Kuni
alone came closer
and
closer to death. Kuniwas
dragged
everal
meters rom he tree
[beneath
which
the
group
had been
waiting].
Then he
18-year-old
irgin's egs
were
also tied to a
fallen
tree
trunk.She was
carried
a
short
distance],
hen
her
body
was thrown
downto
the
ground
with a
toppled
reeas a
pillow.
Kuni's
yes
were
coveredwith
a
cloth.And
he
executioner
..
calmly
unsheathed
he cutlass
...
"Bles"
the
sound of
the
cutlass
striking].
Blood
poured
out of
the neck
of
that
unfortunate
ounggirl-before
her
sev-
ered head
rolled
o
the
earth.
Praginanto
nd
Hatta
1987:92,
author's
ranslation]
At
his
trial,
the man
who
had
led the
girls
into the
forest
confessed that his
cutlass
had
indeed been used to
decapitate
Kuni.
He
was
sentenced
to
15
years
in
prison.
Although
the
defendent's
lawyers
proposed
that Kuni
had been
killed
for
the
sake
of a
religious
ritual,
not
everyone
who
participated
in
the trial
accepted
their asser-
tion.
Two
prosecutors
pointed
out that
using
human heads
at tiwah
was
forbidden
by
the
Kaharingan
religion
and
argued
that
"[the
notion
that]
an
offering
of a
human
head is
religious
obligation
in
the
Hindu
Kaharingan
religion
is
only
a
political
issue
[invented by] Dutch colonialists" (Praginantoand Hatta 1987:92). Significantly, the
authors
of
Tempo's
report
preferred
to overlook
contemporary
Kaharingan
doctrine
and
went
on to
detail two
failed Dutch
attempts
to
end
head
taking.
The
authors con-
cluded:
"Heads still
roll around in a
tiwah,"
and
"a tiwah
without
a head
isn't a
tiwah"
(Praginanto
and
Hatta
1987:92).
Indeed,
even the
title
of
the
report
explicitly
equated
tiwah
with head
taking
with
its
reference to
a
mandera
post,
another
structure
associ-
ated with
mortuary
rituals.
When
I
visited
the
council's
Palangka
Raya
offices
in
1991,
the
director
general
called
my
attention to a
more
recent
article.
Entitled
"Gadut,
Spirit
Offering
at
Tiwah,"
(Gadut,
Tumbal
Tiwah),
the
report
advised
that
factions of
the
"Dayak
Kaharingan
Tribe"were continuing to take heads as partof the observances surroundingsecon-
dary
treatment of the
dead.
Tempo's
writers
drew
a
parallel
between
the
legends
of
American
Indians
who
skinned
or
scalped
their
victims
and the
religious
practices
of
their
compatriots
in
the
jungles
of
Kalimantan.
They
contrasted the
reports
of
scalping
among
Native
Americans
with
reports
of
headhunting
in
Central
Kalimantan,
with
the
assessment that
headhunting-in
contrast to
scalping-"isn't
a
fairy
tale"
(Yarmanto
and
Hatta
1991:96).
When
"Gadut,
Spirit
Offering
at
Tiwah"
reached
magazine
stands in
Palangka
Raya,
it
engendered
a
huge public
outcry.
The
Kaharingan
council
responded
swiftly,
intent on
damage
control.
The
chairman
emphasized
that
he had
not
responded
to the
1987
publication properly
and that
the
council was
determined
not to
allow
this
most
recent
media
assault to
go
unchallenged.
In
what came
to
be
popularly
known
as the
"Hindu
Kaharingan-Tempo
Insult
Case,"
council
leaders
threatened
suit
against
the
magazine
for
slandering
a
ritual
"they
themselves
regarded
as
holy
and
held
in
high
esteem"
(Lewis
1991:6).
An
informal
ribunal
composed
of
local
dignitaries
demanded
a
meeting
with
representatives
from
Tempo.
During
the
arbitration
that
followed,
Tempo's
representatives
agreed
to
submit a
formal
apology
to
the Hindu
Kaharingan
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talking
heads
Council,
attend a
tiwah,
publish
the director
general's grievance
letter
in a forthcom-
ing
issue,
and
donate
money
to
the
cost of
performing
a
peace-making
ceremony
be-
tween
the
magazine's
staff and the council.
These two reportson head taking at tiwah, published in 1987 and 1991, respec-
tively,
did not differ
significantly
in
content.
Nevertheless
they provoked
dramatically
different
responses.
The
high profile
arbitration
hat followed the second
publication,
and the
subsequent
release
of the director
general's
letter of
protest,
underscores
the
council's
now
aggressive
stance with
regard
to the
positive
portrayal
of
Kaharingan.
When Mantikei contacted
me
concerning
his
family's upcoming
tiwah,
I
realized
he
was
eager
to introduce
his
religion
to the wider world
as far as
possible
on his own
terms and
that concerns over how
Kaharingan
would be
portrayed
in the media
weighed
heavily
on
his
mind. Neither of us could
have
guessed
at that
time,
however,
the tremendous amount
of media interest that
this tiwah would
eventually
attract
once
word
got
out that
NGT
would be there.
Before the ritual was
over,
the
sponsors
had hosted
not
only
the NGT
crew,
but also
a
private
Indonesian
television
company,
reporters
from Radio
Republik
Indonesia,
several Central
and South
Kalimantan
news
dailies,
and a
journalist
and
photographer
from the
newsmagazine
Gatra.
if
you
build
it,
they
will come:
preparing
for the film crew
Writing
on feature
film
making among indigenous
peoples
of
Australia,
Faye
Ginsburg
notes
that
many minority peoples
now use media
"as new vehicles
for inter-
nal and external
communication,
for
self-determination,
and for resistance
to
outside
cultural
domination"
(1995:256).
As cultural
identity
is a social
construction
highly
situated in time and place, it is important o be specific about how the performance of
Petak
Putih's
tiwah
figured
in
a
larger agenda
of
religious
change-why
activists
wanted to achieve
the
broadest
possible
exposure
for their ritual.
As noted
above,
ac-
tivists construed
the
opportunity
to
participate
in
a
film as a means
to
help
resist
cul-
tural
domination
by
creating
a record
of a "correct
and
complete"
death ritual
or ti-
wah modal
(model
tiwah).
At
the same
time,
the model itself
was rather
progressive,
imposing
a
particular
kind of
ritual
homogeneity
and
employing
almost
entirely
younger,
council-trained
specialists.
In
fact,
there are
very
few
ritual
specialists
of
any
age
outside
the
Kahayan
and
Kapuas
River
regions,
so for
now these
individuals
must
be
imported,
as
they
were
in this instance.
Also,
in a move that he
said
was intended
to make this tiwah "even more authentic,"Mantikei insisted that bone repositories be
constructed
from
a traditional
material
that
had
largely
fallen
into
disuse,
namely
ironwood.
This
was done
with the clear
intention
of
creating
a
complex
that
could
be-
come
a tourist
destination.
Most
striking
of
all,
of
course,
was that Petak
Putih's
tiwah
was
held
in the
Kahayan
River
style.
Most
participants
had never
even seen
a
tiwah
performed
this
way,
and
nearly
every
evening
they
would
gather
for a
briefing
from
Mantikei
and other
clerics
about
the next
day's
ritual
agenda.
In
1995,
I
travelled
to Central
Kalimantan
to
finalize
plans
for
inviting
the
film
crew
to
the
upcoming
tiwah
and
devise
ways
of
surmounting
the
logistical
challenges
of
getting
them
and their
equipment
safely
to Petak
Putih.
I
brought
along
an
eight-
millimeter video
cassette
recorder
lent
to
me
by
some NGT
staff
members
so
that
I
could
shoot
footage
for
the
final
pitch
of the
film to their senior
producers.
When
I
ar-
rived
in
the
field,
Mantikei
and
I
agreed
to shoot
roughly
equivalent
amounts,
making
our own
decisions
about
what
to
film.
My panoramas
were
certainly
the more
pedes-
trian.
Mantikei
seized
the
opportunity
to
present
scenes
that he termed
"exotis"
(ex-
otic),
saying,
"We have
to
make
an
impression
about this
Dayak
land,
something
dif-
ferent
than
what
they
see
at home."
He decided
to use a
special
avenue
of
appeal
to
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american
ethnologist
the
supernatural
world to
help
win
approval
for
filming.
When we arrived
at Petak
Pu-
tih,
Mantikei
performed
a
ritual
to
alert
the
inhabitants of
the
upper
world that
NGT
might
attend the
upcoming
tiwah. The next
day
he
hired a
diviner
to
go
into
trance
and inquire how the supernaturalbeings felt about the film crew's presence. Out of
several
possible
choices,
he selected the diviner
who
was
a transvestite
and
by
far
the
most
photogenic.
Although
this diviner
usually
works
at
night,
Mantikei
arranged
for
an
afternoon
performance,
during
a time
when oil
lamps
had
yet
to be lit. This
change
in
schedule
would
facilitate his
filming
with
the
eight-millimeter
camera. That
after-
noon the diviner
took on
the
persona
of five
different
supernatural beings,
including
the
spirit
of a
large carp
that
lives
in
a freshwater
pool
near the
village;
all of
these
su-
pernatural
beings
apparently
wanted to
cooperate
with
NGT. As
afternoon
passed
into
evening,
Mantikei told
me that there were
simpler,
less
expensive
ways
to
get
the
same
information
from the
upper
world,
but
none were as
likely
to
make as much
of
an
impression
on
the
producers.
When he
felt confident
that denizens of the
upper
world were
supportive,
he en-
couraged
villagers
to
go
ahead with
plans
to
enlarge
a house
for NGT's use. He
urged
me to film
his
co-villagers
at
work on the
house
in
order to
demonstrate to
NGT
how
welcome
they
were.
Finally,
he
called the
villagers together
to
explain
how
they
should
behave
around a
film
crew.
He stressed in
his address
that
the
only people
that
have the
right
o
give
information nd
guidance
or
making
his
film
are the
council. Other
people
are not
entitled o
[speak
about
Kaharingan].
f,
or
example,
there is a
question:
what is
meant
by
tiwah?
Why
does a bone
repository
have
foursides
and
why
is therea
sangkaraya?
illagers
o not need to
give
an
expla-
nation.Allof thesequestions houldbe referredo the council.Why?Well,one exam-
ple
is the
Tempo
magazine
case,
in
which
Temporeported
hat a
person's
[from
another
village]
head
disappeared
ecause it was
cut
off
by
someone who
wanted o
carry
out a tiwah.
Eventually
he
council
established
n
court
hat his was
only
a ru-
mor,
not a fact.
Another
xample
s
that
someone
might ay
something
ike
"Oh,
I
saw
Mantikei
aking
a
head,
or
at least
I
think
he was
taking
a
head because
someone his
height
and
size
chased me."
Or, "Oh,
Bapa
Luang
hased me witha
swordwhen
I
was
collecting
rubber."
Don't
pay any
attention
o
any
statementsike
those because
they
will
only
ruin
our ritual.
Other
higher-ranking
synod
members
shared his
anxiety
over
how
Kaharingan
would be portrayedin the film. The general chairman insisted that a council member
be
assigned
to
accompany
the NGT
crew at all
times,
emphasizing
that
"only
some-
one
who has
mastered
at least
75
percent
of
Hindu
Kaharingan
philosophy
will
be al-
lowed to
explain
things
at
this tiwah."5
The vice
chairman
bemoaned the
lack of offi-
cial uniforms
for ritual
specialists
and
pondered
how to
convey
to the
older
ones that
excessive
drinking
was
not
appropriate
behavior
for
modern
clerics. To
ensure
that as
little
as
possible
about the
ritual
was left
to
chance,
nearly
every aspect
of the
celebra-
tion
was
carefully
scripted.
A
partial
inventory
of the
documents
compiled
and
sub-
mitted to
the
council
prior
to
the Petak
Putih
tiwah,
for
example,
includes
rosters of
the
composition
of
the
tiwah
advisors
committee
(pelindung/penasehat),
of
the head
participants (panitiapelaksana),
of
the
general
assistants
(pembantu umum), and the
heads and
members
of
the
subcommittees on
ritual,
local
arrangements,
consump-
tion,
publicity,
and
safety.
There
was a
list of
the
number
and
varieties
of
sacrificial
animals,
a
list of
