A Trust from the Ancestors: Islamic Ethics and Local Tradition in a Syncretistic Ritual in East-Central Sulawesi

Die Welt des Islams (2021) 1-27

Zoltan Szombathy Department of Arabic, Eotvos Lorand Tudomanyegyetem, Budapest, Hungary [email protected]

Abstract

Molabot Tumpe is a unique traditional ritual that binds together Batui and Banggai, two geographically distant Muslim communities of East-Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. The ritual consists of an annual offering of maleo bird eggs by the inhabitants of Batui to the élite of the old Banggai sultanate. Originating in tribute-giving ceremonies and ancestral cults, the purpose of the ritual is now understood and explained in thoroughly Islamised ethical terms. However, both the general purpose and the precise details of the ritual have been contested by environmentalists, by part of the traditional local élite, and by proponents of Islamic reformism, the last of whom question the accepted interpretation of the ritual’s purpose, as well as its moral foundations, and object to crucial elements of the ceremonies, especially the idea of possession by ancestral spirits. Besides giving an ethnographic description of the ritual, the article addresses the general issue of religious syncretism in Islam.

Keywords

Islamic ritual – Indonesia – Sulawesi – Banggai sultanate – religious syncretism – ancestral spirits

Religious syncretism in Islam tends to be regarded, whether explicitly or implicitly, as a distinct phase in the process of Islamisation. A related assump- tion seems to be that, owing to increasing contacts with the metropolitan centres of Islamic civilisation and increasing familiarity with the authoritative

© Zoltan Szombathy, 2021 | doi:10.1163/15700607-61020004 Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 07:55:58AM This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 License. via free access 2 szombathy sources of Islamic law and ethics, syncretistic religious traditions are destined to be gradually displaced by more normative (i.e. text-oriented) forms of religiosity and eventually by contemporary reformist versions of Islam. The change is thus seen as unidirectional, moving towards greater conformity with normative, text-oriented religious praxis, and syncretism is implicitly understood as resulting from inadequate knowledge of the textual tradition of Islam.1 To be sure, the existence of such a textual tradition is an extremely important factor, which must alert us to the particular problems attendant upon the study of complex societies. Even the remotest rural Muslim communities are not entirely isolated from the wider world of Islam, and studying the links to the centuries-old Islamic “grand tradition” must necessarily form part of the research on local culture and religious life, great though the geographical dis- tance from the traditional centres of Islamic civilisation might be.2 Precisely how the “grand tradition” is related to the indigenous elements within a local

1 This model of the development of Islamisation is more often than not assumed rather than clearly stated, but a sample of explicit expositions of the model will better serve to illustrate the tendency. Perhaps the most articulate statement of it is a seminal article by Humphrey J. Fisher, “Conversion Reconsidered: Some Historical Aspects of Religious Conversion in Black Africa” Africa 43:1 (1973), 27–40, esp. 31–38, which proposes a model of conversion to Islam through three consecutive stages, which he calls “quarantine”, “mixing”, and “reform” respectively, the whole sequence constituting a general “progression […] towards a purer faith.” Fisher responded to criticism in a later article, “The Juggernaut’s Apologia: Conversion to Islam in Black Africa”, Africa 55:2 (1985), 153–73, insisting on the cumulative and unidirectional nature of Islamisation that leads to the shrivelling of local religious practices and beliefs. Another famous expert on African Islam, Nehemia Levtzion, speaks of “a movement of individuals and groups, departing from any form of traditional religion before its contact with Islam and following a line which ends with normative Islam”; see “Patterns of Islamization in West Africa”, in Conversion to Islam, ed. N. Levtzion (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1979), 207–16, esp. his concluding paragraph. Regarding Southeast Asian Islam in particular, the same assumptions are manifest in Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (London, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 65–74, where he describes “the general movement toward an Islam of the book rather than of the trance or the miracle [i.e. traditional syncretic forms of Islam]”, to a large extent propelled by influences from the Arabian Peninsula. Elsewhere, too, Geertz evokes “the drift towards orthodoxy”, a trend that he clearly links to increasing communication with the Middle East. See Clifford Geertz, The Religion of Java (Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 125. Christian Pelras, “Religion, Tradition, and the Dynamics of Islamization in South Sulawesi”, Indonesia 57 (1993), 133–54, contends that the process of Islamisation consists of two characteristic phases: “first, the coming of Islam and its final official acceptance; and then, the long struggle, lasting often until now, for its complete implementation” (p. 134). Accordingly, he characterises the numerous pre-Islamic elements in Bugis and Makassarese culture as vestiges that have “managed to survive” (p. 152). 2 Philip Carl Salzman, “The Study of ‘Complex Society’ in the Middle East: A Review Essay”, IJMES 9 (1978), 539–57.

10.1163/15700607-61020004 | Die WeltDownloaded des Islams from Brill.com10/08/2021 (2021) 1-27 07:55:58AM via free access a trust from the ancestors 3 context is a crucial yet complicated aspect of all research on Muslim societies. The subject can be studied from various perspectives. One unfortunate yet not uncommon option seems to have been completely oblivious to the presence of Islam: as Thomas Gibson notes, anthropological studies of Indonesian societies in particular show a dismal tendency of “editing out the Islamic bits”.3 When choosing not to be blind to the pervasive impact of Islam, the researcher may grapple with the issue in many fruitful ways. One can focus on the role that written, normative texts derived from the “grand tradition” play in a local context,4 or emphasise the process of a selective adoption of traits from the Islamic cultural repertoire by a local community,5 or stress the historical con- tingencies of the socioeconomic and political processes informing the local practice of Islam,6 or seek to identify distinct local varieties of Islamic belief and praxis7 – although going so far as to speak of “islams” in the plural8 is perhaps ill-advised, – or again one can adopt the widespread emic dichotomy of custom versus religion as the framework of analysis.9 While I recognise the merits of all these approaches, I find none of them to be adequate for the case at hand, a syncretistic ritual in which the very purpose of “tradition” is understood in terms of Islamic ethics. The point is not that Islamic concepts and local traditions of pre-Islamic origin may blend; that is

3 Thomas Gibson, “Islam and the Spirit Cults in New Order Indonesia: Global Flows vs. Local Knowledge”, Indonesia 69 (2000), 41–70, esp. 43, 53–59. 4 Brinkley Messick, The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society (Berkeley etc.: University of California Press 1993). 5 Leif O. Manger, From the Mountains to the Plains: The Integration of the Lafofa Nuba into Sudanese Society (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1994). 6 Robert W. Hefner, “Islamising Java? Religion and Politics in Rural East Java”, Journal of Asian Studies 46 (1987), 533–54. 7 Andrew Beatty, Varieties of Javanese Religion: An Anthropological Account (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), and most famously Geertz, The Religion of Java. 8 Abdul-Hamid el-Zein, “Beyond Ideology and Theology: The Search for the Anthropology of Islam”, Annual Review of Anthropology 6 (1977), 227–54. 9 Ladislav Holy, Religion and Custom in a Muslim Society: The Berti of Sudan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). In Indonesia, the distinction between adat (custom) and agama (religion) is far from being a clear-cut matter. Although a proper discussion of this issue would go beyond the scope of this essay, it must be noted that these terms tend to be used in malleable, and often manipulative, ways that serve and hide various political and cultural agendas. See for instance Jane Monnig Atkinson, “Religions in Dialogue: The Construction of an Indonesian Minority Religion”, American Ethnologist 10 (1983), 684–96; Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, In the Realm of the Diamond Queen. Marginality in an Out-of- the Way Place (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 29–31, 152–53; and also see Norshahril Saat, “Islamising Malayness: Ulama discourse and authority in contemporary Malaysia.” Contemporary Islam 6 (2012), 135–53, esp. 142–45 and Farouk Yahya, Magic and Divination in Malay Illustrated Manuscripts (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2016), 31–33 on Malaysia.

Die Welt des Islams (2021) 1-27 | 10.1163/15700607-61020004Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 07:55:58AM via free access 4 szombathy true but trivial. Instead, Islam – often treated as a supposedly “foreign” super- stratum over indigenous tradition – can in fact provide most of the vocabulary for elucidating local tradition and even for identifying its very meaning. To deal with such a profound level of interplay between local traditions and the supra- local Islamic “grand tradition”, I find a conception introduced by Talal Asad quite serviceable. He proposes to view Islam as a shared discursive tradition that provides the conceptual tools for discussing controversial issues in myr- iad local contexts.10 This approach has been found helpful by John Bowen,11 who applied it to his profound analysis of the religious life of the Gayo of Northern Sumatra.12 In this conception, syncretism is not a definable phase of Islamisation, with more and more Islamic elements accruing until un-Islamic practices disappear and a “purer” form of Islam (a particularly infelicitous notion) prevails. One finds instead a process of ongoing, indeed interminable, debate on what is properly Islamic, what is permissible and why, the very terms of which – most importantly – are defined by the Islamic “grand tradition”. Nor is the applicability of this approach restricted to the study of Muslim societies. Lorraine V. Aragon compellingly argues that it is more meaningful to under- stand local adaptations of a world religion, in this case Protestant Christianity in Central Sulawesi, in terms of a process of “active interpretation” instead of “incomplete conversion”.13

10 Talal Asad, The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam (Washington DC: Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, 1986), 14. 11 John R. Bowen, Muslims through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 10. 12 Similarly rich and nuanced analyses of Islamic religiosity (including syncretistic forms), going far beyond the “gradual movement towards orthodoxy” paradigm, exist for other local contexts, notably Java and Lombok. Important works include M. C. Ricklefs’ trilogy – Mystic Synthesis in Java: A History of Islamization from the Fourteenth to the Early Nineteenth Centuries (Norwalk: EastBridge, 2003), Polarising Javanese Society: Islamic and Other Visions (c. 1830–1930) (Leiden: kitlv Press, 2007) and Islamisation and Its Opponents in Java: A Political, Social, Cultural, and Religious History, c. 1930 to the Present (Singapore: nus Press, 2012) – and Stephen C. Headley, Durga’s Mosque: Cosmology, Conversion and Community in Central Javanese Islam (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004) on Java, and Sven Cederroth, The Spell of the Ancestors and the Power of Mekkah: A Sasak Community on Lombok (Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1981), and Erni Budiwanti, Islam Sasak: Wetu Telu versus Waktu Lima (Yogyakarta: LKiS, 2000) on Lombok. 13 Lorraine V. Aragon, “Reorganizing the Cosmology: The Reinterpretation of Deities and Religious Practice by Protestants in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 27 (1996), 350–73, esp. 371–73.

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The goal of this article is twofold. First, I wish to argue that syncretistic religious practices among Muslims may in fact rely on the Islamic textual tradition just as much as text-oriented – including modern reformist – interpretations claim to do, and partly for that reason, syncretism can prove quite resilient vis-à-vis traditional and contemporary reformist challenges.14 In the particular case that I present here, an indigenous ritual honouring the founding ancestors is understood in terms of Islamic ethics. That interpretation has lent legitimacy to an ancient ritual in thoroughly Islamic terms, even though it is now contested, and the ritual criticised, under the influence not just of Islamic reformism but also of environmentalism and local politics. The second goal is ethnographic – namely, to give the first description in English (indeed in any Western language) of a unique and little-known ritual. The ritual presented here is known as Molabot Tumpe (lit. “Bringing the First [eggs]”) and consists of an annual offering of eggs by the inhabitants of Batui, a coastal town in eastern Sulawesi, to the sultans’ dynasty on Banggai island. The eggs are those of the chicken-like maleo bird (Macrocephalon maleo), an endemic megapode of Sulawesi. To the best of my knowledge, no compre- hensive discussion of the ritual exists even in Indonesian.15 I attended the

14 Of course, both syncretism and reformism are problematic concepts. The latter I will consider at a later point, but some clarificatory remarks on syncretism are imperative here. Asim Roy contends in The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), xi-xiii, that syncretic versions of Islam may in fact come to be viewed in local contexts as representing the “Grand Tradition” of Islam, which makes any attempt at neat categorisation rather overstated. Indeed, as Charles Stewart and Rosalind Shaw note in “Introduction: Problematizing syncretism”, in Syncretism / Anti-Syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis, ed. Charles Stewart, Rosalind Shaw (London, New York: Routledge, 2005), 1–24, the practitioners of syncretic religious traditions will often vehemently deny engaging in any religious mixing. This introductory essay highlights other problematic aspects of the term “syncretism” as well, such as its common connotations of inauthenticity, contamination, incompatibility, and deviation from an assumed standard version of a world religion. While the term “syncretism” has not been totally abandoned in anthropology, terminological alternatives including “collage”, “creolisation”, and “hybridity” seem to be preferred nowadays. All in all, Stewart and Shaw advise salvaging “syncretism” as a value-free descriptive term and jettisoning all pejorative connotations, and this is the usage that I adopt here. 15 The doctoral dissertation of Esther Velthoen does mention Molabot Tumpe, but her primary concern being the history of eastern Sulawesi, she gives no description of the ceremonies and only discusses it insofar as it is relevant to the political relations between Banggai and Batui. See Esther Joy Velthoen, Contested Coastlines: Diasporas, Trade and Colonial Expansion in Eastern Sulawesi 1680–1905 (Ph.D. dissertation, Perth: Murdoch University, 2002), 117–19.

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Molabot Tumpe ceremonies in Batui during the 2017 and 2018 seasons, but in Banggai only in 2017. As I speak neither Batui nor Banggai, fieldwork was conducted in Indonesian throughout, a shortcoming but perhaps not a fatal one since Indonesian is widely used in everyday social interaction as well as during the ritual in Batui and Banggai alike and code switching takes place all the time.16

1 Ethnographic and Historical Background

Part of Central Sulawesi province, the eastern salient of the island is one of the least-known parts of Sulawesi. To its west live the better-known Pamona- speaking populations of the central mountains. The ethnic groups of the eastern salient and the neighbouring Banggai archipelago speak closely related languages, the main ones being Saluan (including the partly non-Muslim Loinang), Banggai (including the non-Muslim Seasea), and Balantak. The three peoples together refer to themselves as Mian Babasal (“Great People”), show- ing awareness of linguistic and cultural proximity.17 Whether a dialect or a separate language, Batui appears closest to Saluan.18

Brief summaries in Indonesian are given in Joyly Rawis, Montulungi pada Suku Bangsa Saluan di Kabupaten Banggai, Sulawesi Tengah (Jakarta: Direktorat Jenderal Nilai Budaya, Seni, dan Film, Kementerian Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata, 2011), 127–29, and Nurhani, Wa Ode Sifatu, “Upacara Peran Dua Kerajaan Dalam Mempertahankan Malabot Tumpe/Tumbe di Sulawesi Tengah”, Etnoreflika 7:3 (2018), 158–66. 16 My non-expert impressions are corroborated by Herdian Aprilani, Kristina Tarp, Tanti Susilawati, The Banggai of Central Sulawesi: A Rapid Appraisal Survey Report (N. p. [Dallas]: sil International, 2010), 12, 15, with regard to Banggai. 17 Rawis, Montulungi, 43–4; Muhammad Ali Akbar, Etnografi Komunitas Adat Terpencil Loinang di Daerah Kabupaten Banggai (M.A. thesis, Makassar: Universitas Hasanuddin, Departemen Antropologi Sosial: Fakultas Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik, 2017), 91; J. D. van den Bergh, Spraakkunst van het Banggais (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1953), 1–3; Aprilani, Tarp, and Susilawati, The Banggai, 5–6; Abdurrahman (ed.), Sejarah Kesultanan Banggai (N. p. [Jakarta]: Puslitbang Lektur dan Khazanah Keagamaan, Kementerian Agama ri, 2012), 143–44. 18 David Mead, Edy Pasanda, An Initial Appreciation of the Dialect Situation in Saluan and Batui (Eastern Sulawesi, Indonesia) (N. p. [Dallas]: sil International, 2015), 26–27.

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In terms of the common Southeast Asian paradigm of centre versus periphery, the whole region is clearly peripheral. The most formative political and cultural influence was that of Ternate in North Maluku, eastern Sulawesi having been part of the domains of the Ternate sultanate, despite occasional forays by the Bugis states of south Sulawesi.19 Just as Ternate played the role of centre vis-à-vis the Banggai sultanate, the latter played the same role vis-à-vis Batui and a host of other tributaries on the Sulawesi coast and on Banggai island, including the four old chiefdoms (basalo sangkap) of Banggai whose heads came to form the advisory council of the sultan.20 Despite Batui being something of a backwater, immigration certainly took place in earlier periods, as attested by the name of one of the wards of Batui, Bugis (the main ethnic group of South Sulawesi).

19 On Banggai’s role as part of the Ternatean periphery, see Leonard Y. Andaya, The World of Maluku: Eastern Indonesia in the Early Modern Period (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1993), 85–86. 20 Albertus C. Kruyt, “De Vorsten van Banggai”, Koloniaal Tijdschrift 5–6 (1931), 505–28, 605–23, esp. 515; J. J. Dormeier, Banggaisch adatrecht (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1947), 113; S. S. Haliadi-Sadi, Syakir Mahid, Wilman D. Lumangino, “Sasi” di Indonesia Timur (Kepulauan Aru, Banggai Kepulauan, dan Raja Ampat) (Jakarta: Direktorat Sejarah dan Nilai Budaya, Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, 2013), 149–51; Rido Miduk et al., Banggai: Sulawesi Tengah (Jakarta: Penerbit Buku Kompas, 2014), 15–16.

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It is hard to say exactly when the majority of the region’s inhabitants con- verted to Islam. The élite of the Banggai sultanate certainly embraced Islam many centuries ago. The ancient heirloom Qurʾān manuscripts owned by the families of the Banggai rulers and their courtiers and regional representatives21 bear witness to, and symbolise, the long association of the sultanate with Islam. At any rate, a late 19th-century Dutch report describes the coastal population of the mainland as Muslim save for a few villages around Kintom.22 In 2011, the proportion of Muslims in Banggai Regency (on the Sulawesi mainland) as a whole was 79.98%, and in Batui subdistrict 90.12%; in 2015 the percentages were 77.65% and 91.92%.23 In Banggai Kepulauan Regency (at that time com- prising all the Banggai archipelago), Muslims comprised 69% of the population in 2005, a lower figure that reflects the presence of substantial Christian communities in the western half of Peling island.24

2 The Ritual

Molabot Tumpe is a yearly ritual sequence taking place over several days in two distant places, Batui and Banggai, and culminating in a series of nightly thanksgiving ceremonies (monsawe) in jungle shrines near Batui. The following summary of the proceedings mainly relies on my field notes from 2017; since I could not attend the final thanksgiving ceremony in Batui, in that regard I rely on oral information that I gathered and on Indonesian online news sites. With one crucial difference (on which more below), the ceremonies in 2018 were grosso modo identical to those of the previous year. Informants also confirmed that this was indeed the standard form of the ritual proceedings, hence the use of the present tense below. Since eggs of the maleo bird are the chief prerequisite for the ritual, 100 or 160 eggs must be collected prior to the ceremonies, an equal number by each of the five wards of Batui.25 The eggs are wrapped in palm leaves for protection throughout the multi-day ceremonies. The route of the egg carriers is deco- rated beforehand at regular intervals by narrow flags of alternating red and

21 Abdurrahman (ed.), Sejarah, 89, 133. 22 F. S. A. de Clercq, Bijdragen tot de kennis der Residentie Ternate (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1890), 133. 23 Rawis, Montulungi, 54; Kabupaten Banggai Dalam Angka (N. p. [Luwuk]: Badan Pusat Statistik Kabupaten Banggai, 2016), 112. 24 Aprilani, Tarp, and Susilawati, The Banggai, 8. 25 Velthoen, Contested Coastlines, 117, speaks of 400 eggs, a number none of my informants mentioned.

10.1163/15700607-61020004 | Die WeltDownloaded des Islams from Brill.com10/08/2021 (2021) 1-27 07:55:58AM via free access a trust from the ancestors 9 white stripes; similar flags also bedeck boats in Banggai harbour and flank the eggs’ route up to the sultan’s palace.26 The first day of the ritual is consecrated to bringing the eggs in dignified procession to the house of rituals (rumah adat) and hoarding them there, after the pronouncement of incantations, for the next day’s ceremonies. A senior man with a spear and a narrow, elongated shield heads the procession, followed by the leaders and the red-clad egg carriers of each of the five wards of Batui. In single file, they ascend the stairs leading to the ritual building, where they deposit the eggs in the care of two elderly women burning incense over them. The ceremony for the day is ended with formal speeches and a brief communal meal of pre-packaged snacks. (Similar meals are distributed among participants and audience at later stages of the ritual sequence.) The second day begins with official addresses by traditional leaders and administrative notables. The assembled representatives, male and female, of the principal local lineages take their places in the house of rituals and listen to the traditional chief of Batui reading aloud a written speech over the eggs in a mixture of Indonesian and Batui. This is followed by a speech and incantations delivered in the Batui language by the bosanyo langkoyang (lit. “beau- tiful chief”, the female ritual leader of the community), while incense burns next to the eggs and to a small basket of offerings. This is when the ritual’s first instances of possession by the ancestral spirits take place – not only within the building but also in front of it. More possessions will follow in the harbour, when the eggs have been embarked. Within the rumah adat, a so-called silatu- rahmi27 ceremony – brief Islamic prayers followed by handshakes among the

26 An interesting explanation I found in an online news site is that red-and-white flags were substituted for the traditional all-red flags after the 1965 anti-communist massacres in Indonesia so as not to raise suspicions of communist sympathies. See Christopel Paino, “Maleo dan Tradisi Masyarakat Adat Batui yang Digerus Industri”, in https://www.mongabay. co.id/2016/01/31/maleo-dan-tradisi-masyarakat-adat-batui-yang-digerus-industri/ (accessed 25 May 2019). However, it is worth mentioning that a red-and-white striped cloth was used at the installation ceremonies of the Ternate sultans as well; see Andaya, The World of Maluku, 64. In both Ternate and Banggai, the colour red symbolised martial prowess and bravery; see Fakhriati et al., Sejarah Sosial Kesultanan Ternate (Jakarta: Puslitbang Lektur Keagamaan, Kementerian Agama ri, 2010), 188; and Velthoen, Contested Coastlines, 89. On the rich symbolism of the combination of red and white – even thought to have curative properties – in South Halmahera (historically also part of the Ternatan dominions), see Dirk Teljeur, The Symbolic System of the Giman of South Halmahera (Dordrecht and Providence: Foris Publications, 1990), 65–67, 170. 27 The original Arabic form of this term is ṣilat al-raḥim (lit. “uniting the womb”). The Arabic term (like the Indonesian derivative, silaturahmi) expresses the Muslim’s duty of maintaining kinship ties. See Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʼ ʻulūm al-dīn

Die Welt des Islams (2021) 1-27 | 10.1163/15700607-61020004Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 07:55:58AM via free access 10 szombathy participants, designed to reaffirm kinship and friendship ties – completes this phase, before the eggs are carried in stately procession down to the elaborately ornamented harbour. Once there, the eggs are put on board of a motorised boat, which departs immediately, to the musical accompaniment of gongs, for far-away Banggai island. The delegation will make several stops during the two-day sea passage, on Peling and Labobo islands, where they will also change the withered palm-leaf covering of the eggs. Boats await the delegation in Banggai harbour, where the sultan’s egg carriers, clad in red and white, take over the eggs from the Batui delegation and carry them to the hilltop wooden palace (karaton) of the sultanate. The egg carriers enter the hall of the palace in a crouching posture so that they should not tower above the vizier (jogugu) and his assistants, who sit cross-legged while the eggs are handed over to them to the accompaniment of gong music. This completed, the audience listen to Islamic prayers and official speeches delivered through amplifiers in the verandah, which give a detailed exposition on the origin and meaning of the ritual. The eggs stay two nights in the karaton, lit by oil lamps, then they are distributed among the high functionaries and the constituent chiefdoms of the sultanate. Back in Batui, a thanksgiving ceremony for the success of the ritual (monsawe) is held on four consecutive Sunday nights in each of the four local chiefdoms’ kusali deep in the jungle.28 The walls of the kusali are draped in red, a red-and-white flag is raised in front of the building, and a maleo egg is placed in every corner. The nocturnal ceremony begins after the night prayers, with chanting accompanied by gongs continuing till dawn and possession by the ancestral spirits taking place on a massive scale. The next morning, the participants make a ziyāra (“visit”, local pilgrimage) to the graves of the ancestors, including the first missionaries of Islam in the area.29

(Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 1426/2005), 678–69; Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā al-Nawawī, Riyāḍ al-ṣāliḥīn, ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla 1405/1984), 175–83; ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAlawī al-Ḥaddād, al-Naṣāʾiḥ al-dīniyya wa-l-waṣāyā al-īmāniyya (N. p. [Beirut]: Dār al-Ḥāwī, 1420/1999), 286–90. For some Indonesian terms derived from Arabic both the Arabic and Indonesian variants will appear according to the particular context, thus both amāna (A.) and amanah (I.). 28 Among the Banggai, a kusali is either an altar on which betel offerings to the ancestral spirits were placed or a special hut serving the same purpose; see Albertus C. Kruyt, “De pilogot der Banggaiers en hun priesters”, Mens en Maatschappij 8:2 (1932), 114–35, esp. 119; Kruyt, “De Vorsten”, 607–08. 29 “Hadiri Ziarah Makam Leluhur Adat Batui: Forkopimcam Batui Terlihat Kompak”, Obor Motindok, 1 January 2018; A. K. Mukhlish, “Ritual Adat Batui dalam Timbangan Aqidah Islam (Bagian Dua)”, in https://www.voa-islam.com/read/liberalism/2019/03/14/62570/ritual-adat- batui-dalam-timbangan-aqidah-islam-bagian-dua/ (accessed 7 June 2019).

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3 Contested Meanings

3.1 The Beginning of Tradition and the Ancestors The myth that accounts for the origin of these ceremonies has several variants which differ in highly significant ways (discussed below within the section on local politics) but agree on the foundational role of Adi Soko, an immigrant from Kediri (East Java) and first sultan of Banggai (probably in the late tenth/ sixteenth century). Adi Soko married a daughter of the rajah of Motindok (i.e. Batui) called Siti Aminah (in other versions Nuru Sapa/Nursafa). When a son called Abu Kasim was born to the Javanese immigrant and his local wife, the happy grandfather made a gift of a pair of maleo birds to his son-in-law Adi Soko. Adi Soko later returned to his homeland of Java, where he spent the rest of his life. Being reluctant to occupy the throne in Banggai himself,30 Abu Kasim went to Ternate to bring his brother, Prince Maulana Mandapar, to become the next sultan of Banggai, while Abu Kasim himself settled in Batui. He also brought the two maleo birds there and released them in the jungles of Bangkiriang near Batui, from which they would spread over huge areas of Central and Northern Sulawesi.31 Central to the myth and the ritual based on it are the founding ancestors, to wit a Javanese immigrant and a local ruler whose daughter he married. The cult of ancestral spirits is (or used to be) widespread both in the wider region32 and in East-Central Sulawesi, as for instance in rituals honouring the pilogot spirits among the animist Loinang and the Banggai. Interestingly, among both

30 According to one version, he was entitled to rule by virtue of having won a top-spinning contest with his siblings; see Stevan Pontoh, Rolex Malaha, “Molabot Tumpe, Cermin Persaudaraan Warga Banggai”, in https://www.antaranews.com/berita/1199187/molabot- tumpe-cermin-persaudaraan-warga-banggai (accessed 28 March 2020). 31 In certain historical traditions collected in Banggai, Abu Kasim plays a very different role, and neither maleo birds nor eggs are mentioned; see Kruyt, “De Vorsten”, 517–25. Nevertheless his person is of crucial importance, and his miraculous skull, kept in a ritual house on Banggai island, is one of the most sacred objects of the Banggai polity; see Velthoen, Contested Coastlines, 88. 32 See for instance Nils Bubandt, “Interview with an Ancestor: Spirits as Informants and the Politics of Possession in North Maluku”, Ethnography 10:3 (2009), 291–316; Aragon, “Reorganizing the Cosmology”, 361–62; J. W. Schoorl, “Belief in Reincarnation on Buton, S.E. Sulawesi, Indonesia”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 141:1 (1985), 103–34, esp. 119–20; Koentjaraningrat, Javanese Culture (Singapore, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 340–41; Beatty, Varieties, 230; Bowen, Muslims through Discourse, 173–85; Minako Sakai, “Publicizing Rituals and Privatizing Meanings: Negotiating an Identity of the Gumai of Sumatra”, in Founders’ Cults in Southeast Asia, ed. Nicola Tannenbaum and Cornelia Ann Kammerer (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 2003), 159–83, esp. 163–64.

Die Welt des Islams (2021) 1-27 | 10.1163/15700607-61020004Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 07:55:58AM via free access 12 szombathy groups the ancestral spirits were seen as closely associated with the balakat (blessing) emanating from the sultans of Banggai and Ternate.33 Founders’ cults are a special form of ancestor cult widespread in Southeast Asia.34 Adi Soko is clearly a founding figure of cultic significance – some of my informants explicitly mentioned that he turned into a spirit. Typically for a founding ancestor, the introduction of several culturally important articles is attributed to him. He is also a stranger-king (indeed his name is a distortion of the Javanese form Adi Cokro) of a type widespread in Sulawesi cultures.35 According to some informants in Batui, he married many local women and begat numerous offspring; according to Banggai traditions, he had two wives in addition to the daughter of the rajah of Motindok: a woman from the Ternate sultanate and a lady from one of the four chiefdoms of Banggai island. Thus Adi Soko’s person represents a link to the distant cultural centre of Java, and his marriages, affinal links to the semidistant centre Ternate and to the local, peripheral dominions both on the mainland and on Banggai island. Founders’ cults typically involve offerings to such spirits, usually placed on graves for the spirits to consume. Here, the procedure is far more complex, since the offering goes to the sultanate’s dynasty and courtiers. This appears more consonant with the notion of tribute in Eastern Indonesia, which flows from the periphery to the centre, while power and prestigious cultural traits (often through the agency of foreign culture heroes) tend to proceed from the centre to the periphery. It has been customary in Maluku states (and other Southeast Asian realms) that tributaries would bring the first fruits of the land to the overlord in an annual ceremony. This was often meant as a symbolic re-enactment and regular confirmation of the access to the riches of the land that the original overlord (typically a stranger-king) gained by mar- rying a daughter of the local chief. The first fruits of the land submitted to the dynasty could be of many types, including agricultural produce.36 The sultan of Banggai received such yearly dues from many sources, for instance sago

33 Albertus C. Kruyt, “De To Loinang van den Oostarm van Celebes”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 86:1 (1930), 327–536, esp. 401–08; Kruyt, “De Vorsten”, 605–10; Kruyt, “De pilogot”. The pilogot are the spirits of remote ancestors, as opposed to the tominuat, spirits of recently departed relatives. On the cult of the tominuat among the Loinang see Akbar, Etnografi, 82. 34 For general discussion as well as case studies from the region, see Nicola Tannenbaum, Cornelia Ann Kammerer (eds.), Founders’ Cults in Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies 2003). 35 On stranger-kings in Sulawesi traditions and history, see David Henley, Ian Caldwell, “Kings and Covenants. Stranger Kings and Social Contract in Sulawesi”, Indonesia and the Malay World 36:105 (2008), 269–91. 36 Andaya, The World of Maluku, 56–57, 66, 97.

10.1163/15700607-61020004 | Die WeltDownloaded des Islams from Brill.com10/08/2021 (2021) 1-27 07:55:58AM via free access a trust from the ancestors 13 from certain chiefdoms of the Banggai archipelago and husked rice from the chiefs of Kintom, as well as onions, a mat, and a spear from the Wana highland- ers living to the west of Batui.37 Eggs were considered worthy of forming (part of) the tribute to an overlord, as among the Malays, where the eggs of fresh- water turtles were a royal privilege.38 Maleo eggs, regarded as a delicacy and therefore a sought-after jungle product,39 often played a similar role. Among the To Mekongga people of Southeast Sulawesi, only the ruler had the right to eat maleo eggs.40 Turning back to our subject, a Dutch source in 1908 describes 300 to 500 maleo eggs as part of the yearly tribute of Batui to the Banggai sultan, although no ritual significance is noted.41 Of course, eggs also have a powerful symbolism of their own as signs of fer- tility and prosperity,42 which is particularly pertinent here. Among the Bugis of South Sulawesi, ritual offerings must always include eggs, either boiled (when directed towards the mountains or upstream) or raw (towards the sea or down- stream).43 An offering of raw maleo eggs carried by sea to their destination fits nicely into this conceptual scheme, although I am unaware of any direct link with Bugis traditions. Furthermore, it may not be coincidental that one of the legends of origin of the Ternate sultanate speaks of four supernatural serpent (naga) eggs from which the founders of four tributary states of Ternate were born, one of these being the progenitor of the Banggai dynasty.44

37 Henley and Caldwell, “Kings and Covenants”, 276-67; Kruyt, “De To Loinang”, 356–57; Kruyt, “De Vorsten”, 619; Jane Monnig Atkinson, The Art and Politics of Wana Shamanship (Berkeley – Los Angeles – Oxford: University of California Press, 1992), 307. 38 Walter William Skeat, Malay Magic: An Introduction to the Folklore and Popular Religion of the Malay Peninsula (London: Frank Cass and Co. 1965), 35. 39 See for instance Alfred Russell Wallace, The Malay Archipelago (Singapore: Periplus Editions, n.d.), 200; Akbar, Etnografi, 71. 40 Christiaan G. F. de Jong, Nieuwe hoofden, Nieuwe goden: Geschiedenis van de Tolaki en de Tomoronene, twee volkeren in Zuidoost-Celebes (Indonesië), tot ca. 1950 (Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing 2011), 45. The precept was not watertight, as maleo eggs were on sale at certain markets. De Jong also mentions that the rulers of Banggai enjoyed a similar prerogative, although he erroneously speaks of the first egg (in the singular) of the season being offered to the sultan. 41 Velthoen, Contested Coastlines, 117. Velthoen also points out that Dormeier’s account of the annual tribute from Batui in the 1940s (see Dormeier, Banggaisch adatrecht, 108) makes no mention of eggs. 42 As among the Wana in the mountains not far from Batui (Atkinson, The Art and Politics, 55), among the Bonerate of South Sulawesi (Harald Beyer Broch, “‘Crazy Women are Performing in Sombali’: A Possession-Trance Ritual on Bonerate, Indonesia”, Ethos 13:3 [1985], 262–82, esp. 276-67), and among the Malays (Richard Winstedt, The Malay Magician: Being Shaman, Saiva and Sufi [Singapore: Oxford University Press 1985], 51–52). 43 Christian Pelras, The Bugis (Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), 201. 44 Andaya, The World of Maluku, 53–54.

Die Welt des Islams (2021) 1-27 | 10.1163/15700607-61020004Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 07:55:58AM via free access 14 szombathy

Be that as it may, the Molabot Tumpe ritual is certainly no ordinary tribute-giving. The ancestors are major players in the ritual, expressing their satisfaction by possessing the participants during and after the ceremonies. Possession by the ancestors (totembang) takes place routinely during the proceedings, and especially during the final thanksgiving ceremonies in the jungle shrines. As I had occasion to observe, the possessed writhe or imitate movements of the silat (Malay martial art),45 and other observers report that some make dancing movements or seem to levitate while seated cross-legged. It is only in Batui that possession by ancestral spirits takes place, never in Banggai – this, despite the fact that the Banggai also believe in the possibility of possession by ancestral spirits (polelean) as well as of disasters resulting from the wrath of dissatisfied ancestral spirits (tobuntus).46 Indeed, the founding ancestors’ cult played a legitimising role in the inauguration ceremonies of the Banggai sultans.47 Yet the ancestors involved in the Molabot Tumpe ritual are those of the tribute-givers rather than those of the sultans. Why this should be so cannot be adequately explained without reference to the interpretation given by the participants themselves in thoroughly Islamised terms.

3.2 Islamic Keynotes It is hardly surprising that a ritual all of whose participants are Muslim should be initiated with the traditional Islamic formula of the basmala (“in the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful”), or that participants should exchange religious greetings in Arabic. The official speeches, as well as the rest of the ceremonies, are also liberally sprinkled with Islamic formulae and short prayers. Indeed, the elders insisted during an interview that even the incantations over the eggs are doa (supplications).48 The use of Islamic prayers in such a context

45 The martial arts tradition of the archipelago is associated with spirit possession in many ways. Javanese-style silat in particular often involves the invocation of ancestral spirits taking the form of certain animals, and, when possessed, even inexpert men can move like silat masters; see D. S. Farrer, Shadows of the Prophet: Martial Arts and Sufi Mysticism ([New York:] Springer, 2009), 145–46, 194. 46 Abdurrahman (ed.), Sejarah, 142. 47 Velthoen, Contested Coastlines, 110–11. 48 Doa is derived from Arabic duʿāʾ (supplication, prayer), on which see Muḥyī l-Dīn Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā b. Sharaf al-Nawawī, al-Adhkār min kalām sayyid al-abrār (Mecca, Riyadh: Maktabat Nizār Muṣṭafā al-Bāz, 1417/1997), 468–89; al-Ḥaddād, al-Naṣāʾiḥ, 240–44; Marion Holmes Katz, Prayer in Islamic Thought and Practice (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 29–42; David Parkin, Stephen Headley, eds., Islamic Prayer across the Indian Ocean: Inside and Outside the Mosque (London, New York: Routledge, 2015), 4–7, 10– 14. On the complex semantics of doa in the northern Sumatra highlands, among the Malays and among the Javanese respectively, see Bowen, Muslims through Discourse, 82–87; Yahya,

10.1163/15700607-61020004 | Die WeltDownloaded des Islams from Brill.com10/08/2021 (2021) 1-27 07:55:58AM via free access a trust from the ancestors 15 is far from unique. For instance, Christian Pelras notes that the Bugis of South Sulawesi believe that prayers and offerings are two complementary techniques, one associated with Islam and the other with tradition, and can produce the same results. They can be combined, too, and no contradiction is felt to exist.49 Indeed, the ritual use of words of Arabic origin or vaguely Arabic-sounding phonetics is a frequent practice among animist, and even Christian, populations in some parts of Indonesia. In these contexts, (pseudo-)Arabic words serve “to index the religious (albeit not Muslim) character of a speech event” or “to tap into the power held by politically dominant groups and to claim some of the status associated with spatially distant sources of knowledge”.50 To initiate the ceremonial addresses at Molabot Tumpe, speakers use the famous formula that, according to hadith, the Prophet Muḥammad would utter to begin his religious sermons.51 Still usual at Friday sermons in the mosques, the formula stresses the role of God’s guidance as a precondition of man’s righteous conduct. The transferral of the initiatory formula of Islamic sermons to an indigenous ritual may surprise outsiders, but for the participants it is highly appropriate, since – as I will presently argue – the ritual as a whole is understood as fulfilling an Islamic moral obligation. Far more remarkable than the use of Islamic religious formulae is the conceptualisation of the ritual in a thoroughly Islamic framework. Thus, for instance, the nightly monsawe ritual (the concluding ceremony of the ritual sequence) is perceived as a dhikr (technically, a Sufi ceremony), and the chants consist of the Islamic confession of faith (shahāda) and other Arabic formulae like “Yā Ḥasan yā Ḥusayn”.52 The communal aspect of the ceremonies is

Magic, 86–87; Winstedt, The Malay Magician, 82, and Headley, Durga’s Mosque, 391–92; Beatty, Varieties, 44. On the meaning of doa among the animist Wana in Eastern Sulawesi and on their frequent use of Islamic vocabulary in these incantations, see Atkinson, The Art and Politics, 63–65. 49 Pelras, The Bugis, 199. In fact sacrifices and offerings to spirits (dhabāʾiḥ al-jinn) are an extremely dubious (or rather evidently illicit) activity in the eyes of Muslim jurists; see for instance Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, Laqṭ al-marjān fī aḥkām al-jānn, ed. Muṣṭafā ʿĀshūr (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qurʾān 1988), 148–49. 50 Webb Keane, “Religious Language”, Annual Review of Anthropology 26 (1997), 47–71, esp. 52. 51 Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim bi-sharḥ al-imām Abī Zakariyyā Yaḥyā ibn Sharaf al-Nawawī, ed. Ṣidqī Jamīl al-ʿAṭṭār (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1415/1995), 3(6):130; Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Nasā’ī, Sunan al-Nasāʾī bi-sharḥ al-ḥāfiẓ Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī wa-ḥāshiyat al-imām as-Sindī (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1415/1995), 2(3):104, 185–86. 52 The term dhikr is usually associated with the ceremonies of Islamic mysticism (Sufism), but in some parts of Indonesia it is obviously expanded to cover all magical formulae and incantations; see for instance Bubandt, “Interview”, 306; Bowen, Muslims through Discourse, 266. The formula yā Ḥasan yā Ḥusayn is reminiscent of (but not necessarily directly derived

Die Welt des Islams (2021) 1-27 | 10.1163/15700607-61020004Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 07:55:58AM via free access 16 szombathy highlighted using an important Islamic ethical concept, ṣilat al-raḥim (maintaining kinship ties), Indonesianised as silaturahmi and widely actualised in ceremonial form throughout Southeast Asia. Silaturahmi ceremonies are part of the ritual at several points, and official speeches also elaborate on the meaning of the term and encourage the audience to practise this Islamic virtue. Indeed, the ritual sequence as a whole is regarded as a silaturahmi between the related peoples of Batui and Banggai. Such an understanding of indigenous ritual in Islamic terms occurs elsewhere in Indonesia, too. Thus among the Gumai of South Sumatra, a sacrifice to honour the ancestral spirits is referred to by the Arabic term nadhr, which properly denotes a vow to God usually made through the intercession of a Muslim saint. The indigenous term for a sacrifice to the ancestors is now avoided.53 In addition to certain aspects of the Molabot Tumpe ritual, its very purpose is interpreted in Islamic terms. A term of Arabic origin, amanah, is consistently evoked, in both formal and informal speech situations, whenever the purpose of the ritual is to be identified. The term and the idea it expresses have a prom- inent place in Islamic ethics. Particularly relevant to understanding the uses of this concept are two works by renowned Shafiʿite jurists widely known and consulted in Southeast Asia, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s (d. 505/1111) Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn and Abū Zakariyyā al-Nawawī’s (d. 676/1277) Riyāḍ al-ṣāliḥīn.54 The original Arabic form is amāna, an abstract noun that occurs in five verses of the Qurʾān (2:283, 4:58, 8:27, 23:8, 33:72), in addition to several verbal

from) Shiʿism, which is marginal in Indonesian Islam today, although vestigial elements of religious culture show its earlier influence in a few places. Cf. Bowen, Muslims through Discourse, 91; Majid Daneshgar, “The Study of Persian Shi‘ism in the Malay-Indonesian World: A Review of Literature from the Nineteenth Century Onwards”, Journal of Shi’a Islamic Studies 7 (2014), 191–229, esp. 194–95, 199. On the complex interplay of earlier Shiʿa elements, the Sufi veneration of the ahl al-bayt and more recent Iranian influences within contemporary ʿĀshūrāʾ rituals of the Archipelago, see Chiara Formichi, “Shaping Shiʿa Identities in Contemporary Indonesia between Local Tradition and Foreign Orthodoxy”, Die Welt des Islams 54 (2014), 212–36. (I am grateful to Rainer Brunner for calling my attention to this study.). 53 Sakai, “Publicizing Rituals”, 172. 54 On the widespread use of these two works in Southeast Asia, see Martin van Bruinessen, “Pesantren and Kitab Kuning: Maintenance and Continuation of a Tradition of Religious Learning”, in Texts from the Islands: Oral and Written Traditions of Indonesia and the Malay World, ed. Wolfgang Marschall (Bern: Institute of Ethnology, University of Berne, 1994), 121–45; Martin van Bruinessen, “Kitab Kuning: Books in the Arabic Script Used in the Pesantren Milieu.” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 146:2–3 (1990), 226–69, esp. 255, 258. Although contemporary Indonesian reformists tend to make direct references to Arabic sources, al-Ghazālī’s influence on Southeast Asia often progressed through Malay

10.1163/15700607-61020004 | Die WeltDownloaded des Islams from Brill.com10/08/2021 (2021) 1-27 07:55:58AM via free access a trust from the ancestors 17 derivations. It expresses a quality of highly positive connotations, its most fun- damental aspect being trustworthiness and a sense of moral responsibility.55 The conscientious observance of religious obligations is a natural extension of this meaning, since God entrusted humans with carrying out those duties. Indeed, one’s whole life can be understood as an amāna.56 Expounding these ideas, al-Ghazālī’s twelfth-thirteenth/eighteenth-century Malay translator and commentator ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Falimbānī says that amanah is a necessary attribute of prophethood, since a prophet will faithfully convey the divine commandments to mankind and can always be trusted to teach only right and virtuous things. On a lower grade, an imam also has the obligation to carry out faithfully all religious duties that have been entrusted (diamanatkan) to him by God.57 Like al-Ghazālī and his commentators, many other Sufis, too, offered their own interesting elaborations on the concept, including the idea that Islam as a whole is an amāna, as is the total abandonment of self-conscious- ness during the mystical experience.58 The term amāna may also refer to the instrument or recipient of faithful treatment. For instance, each bodily part with which one carries out religious duties is an amāna from God, as is one’s child that one must nurture and educate.59 This brings us to the most concrete meaning of the term amāna, i.e. an object which has been handed over for safekeeping and which must be returned to its rightful owner. In this tech- nical sense, the word is applied in Islamic law for various forms of fiduciary

adaptations and commentaries of his work, especially ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Falimbānī’s Sayr/ Siyar al-sālikīn ilā ʿibādat rabb al-ʿālamīn, based on the abridged version of the Iḥyāʾ. Completed in 1203/1788, it is widely consulted in West Java and Sumatra, as well as in the outer islands. See Bruinessen, “Kitab Kuning”, 257–58; and for more detail see Megawati Moris, Al-Ghazzālī’s Influence on Malay Thinkers: A Study of Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Palimbānī (Selangor: Islamic and Strategic Studies Institute, 2016). 55 A hadith lists ten components of morality, of which amāna is featured next to ṣilat al-raḥim (upholding kinship ties), a concept that I have already discussed (al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʼ, 677). Another hadith personifies the virtues of amāna and ṣilat al-raḥim as two guardians of the narrow bridge leading to Paradise (al-Nawawī, Riyāḍ, 133). 56 al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʼ, 890, 178–79, 280, 1346, 1364. 57 [al-Falimbānī], Sair as-Salikin (Banda Aceh: Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Museum Negeri Aceh, 1985), 64, 148. 58 Abū l-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qushayrī, Tafsīr al-Qushayrī al-musammā Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt, ed. ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1428/2007), 3:46; 1:212, 390. Although such Sufi commentaries were not well-known in Southeast Asia in the pre-modern period, the idea of mystical or esoteric knowledge being amāna was. In the Malay martial arts tradition, certain fighting styles entrusted exclusively to a master’s own lineage members are conceptualised as amanah; see Farrer, Shadows, 177, 182, 192–93. 59 al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʼ, 280, 1346, 955.

Die Welt des Islams (2021) 1-27 | 10.1163/15700607-61020004Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 07:55:58AM via free access 18 szombathy relationship.60 It is obviously this meaning that is relevant to our purpose here, although no legalistic connotations were ever invoked by my informants or in the public speeches. Instead, moral obligation was consistently stressed. The idea that the eggs are amanah – more precisely, “a trust from our ancestors” (amanah leluhur kita) – was repeated all the time, both in formal speeches and in casual conversation. This view is echoed by outsiders as well, as in an online report that says that the Molabot Tumpe ritual is “laden with Islamic values (sarat dengan nilai-nilai Islam) owing to the importance of guarding an amanat” (variant of amanah).61 The idea of traditional rituals being a sort of amanah inherited from the ancestors, hence a moral obligation, is apparently evoked elsewhere in Indonesia, too. Thus, for instance, one finds the term amanah being applied to describe the essence of the Hanta Ua Pua of Bima, Sumbawa, the Pataniti (a ritual offering to ancestral spirits) of Ambon, and the Seba of the non-Muslim Badui of West Java.62 However, in none of these examples is the concept of amanah so obviously suitable for adaptation to a local context, nor the idea so thoroughly elaborated, as in the case of Molabot Tumpe.

3.3 The Impact of Tourism and Environmental Concerns Colourful and unique, the ritual has obvious touristic potential, yet it is ques- tionable whether its authenticity could survive the onslaught of mass tourism. The elaborate funerary rites of the Toraja of South Sulawesi are, of course, the classic (and, so far, well-nigh the only) Sulawesi case of the promotion and marketing of “indigenous ritual” in the service of the tourism industry63 and may therefore offer a relevant lesson. The opening speech of the subdistrict head of Batui in 2018 stressed that cultural tradition is, and ought to be, an evolving rather than stagnant phenomenon and should be part of the state’s efforts of development and the promotion of tourism. A representative of the

60 Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 140, 147–48, 157. This includes money; thus meeting a debt can be considered an act of returning an amāna, as in al-Nawawī, Riyāḍ, 134–35. 61 “Molabot Tumbe, Prosesi Hantaran Telur Maleo”, in Luwuk Post, 15 April 2015, http://news. luwukpost.info/2015/04/15/molabot-tumbe-prosesi-hantaran-telur-maleo.html (accessed 24 May 2019). 62 Alan Malingi, “Syiar Islam dalam Upacara Adat Hanta Ua Pua di Tanah Bima Nusa Tenggara Barat”, Jurnal Lektur Keagamaan 14 (2016), 29–54, esp. 40, 44; Achmad Mujadid Naya, Ismail Solissa, “Ritual Pataniti (Studi Budaya Masyarakat di Jazirah Leihitu Kabupaten Maluku Tengah)”, Jurnal Fikratuna 8:1 (2016), 36–53, esp. 47; Endang Supriatna, “Upacara Seba pada Masyarakat Baduy”, Patanjala 4:3 (2012), 481–96, esp. 486, 491. 63 Toby Alice Volkman, “Mortuary Tourism in Tana Toraja”, in Indonesian Religions in Transition, ed. Rita Smith Kipp, Susan Rodgers (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1987), 161–67.

10.1163/15700607-61020004 | Die WeltDownloaded des Islams from Brill.com10/08/2021 (2021) 1-27 07:55:58AM via free access a trust from the ancestors 19 tourism office of Banggai Regency was also present, which promises more changes soon. As of now, no foreigners are seen at any of the venues of Molabot Tumpe, but local reporters and Indonesian tourists do visit and keep using their cameras and video recorders, with some recordings ending up on online sites and blogs. Environmental concerns will surely affect the future of the ritual. Gathering maleo eggs is controversial, and the ritual is technically illegal, since maleo is a protected species.64 According to a report, the decreasing number of maleo birds was commented upon by the subdistrict head (camat) of Batui at one of the monsawe sessions of 2017.65 The jungle of Bangkiriang, the main nesting ground of the maleo, was declared a wildlife reserve in 1998, yet it is increasingly encroached upon by commercial logging and plantations. According to an official investigation in 2010, a corporation had already turned 562 hectares of the 12,500-hectare Bangkiriang reserve into oil palm plantations since 1999. Other companies have concessions for oil and natural gas around Batui. Even traditional shrines have been destroyed in the process. In 2004, a commercial sawmill, in callous disregard (or ignorance) of local traditions, felled the sacred forest around the kusali (jungle shrine) of Bola Totonga, which led to the dem- olition of a police station by enraged demonstrators and the subsequent arrest and imprisonment of many respected community leaders of Batui. The inci- dent shows the weakness of the indigenous community vis-à-vis corporate interests, although a decision by the Constitutional Court of Indonesia in 2012 confirmed the indigenous communities’ rights to their own traditional areas, including spots of ritual significance.66 As a result of the birds’ shrinking habitat, it is increasingly difficult to obtain the maleo eggs required for Molabot Tumpe. The ritual nowadays tends to begin later than it used to, and it is common for the organisers to travel to other parts of Sulawesi to buy eggs. Moreover, some environmentalists have recently proposed changes to the ritual. alto (Aliansi Konservasi Tompotika) is an ngo whose objectives include the conservation of the maleo population. In addition to voicing concerns about the damage done by corporate interests to the Bangkiriang reserve, its governmental relations manager, Noval Suling,

64 Nurhani and Sifatu, “Upacara”, 159. 65 “Pasca Tumpe, Batui Gelar Monsawe”, Obor Motindok, 1 January 2018. 66 Paino, “Maleo”. On the complex issue of the land rights of indigenous communities (masyarakat adat) in Indonesia, see Greg Acciaioli, “Grounds of Conflict, Idioms of Harmony: Custom, Religion, and Nationalism in Violence Avoidance at the Lindu Plain, Central Sulawesi”, Indonesia 72 (2001), 81–114, esp. 87–91; Tania Murray Li, “Articulating Indigenous Identity in Indonesia: Resource Politics and the Tribal Slot”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 42 (2000), 149–79, esp. 155–57.

Die Welt des Islams (2021) 1-27 | 10.1163/15700607-61020004Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 07:55:58AM via free access 20 szombathy suggested in a 2016 interview that protection of the maleo may necessitate the reconsideration of tradition and the substitution of maleo eggs with symbolic objects of an oval shape.67 In fact, such a modification would not be unprece- dented in Sulawesi. An interesting parallel is the substitution of a coconut for the victim’s skull in symbolic headhunting rituals in the Pitu Ulunna Salu highlands of western Sulawesi.68 Yet the Batui community is unwilling to take responsibility for the dwindling maleo population and modify their long-standing tradition for environmental reasons. Reasonably enough, they emphasise that the ritual has continued for centuries with no harm to the maleo population, whereas recent commercial intrusions into the Bangkiriang Wildlife Reserve have resulted in a precipitous decline of the bird population. Local authorities seem at least partly to agree with the local community, and their presence gives the ritual the endorsement it certainly needs. However, in the distant places where it is now necessary to buy the requisite number of eggs, people may be increasingly wary of the sale of this item.69 Perhaps the existence of a maleo hatchery station beside the coastal Luwuk-Batui road points to a more sustainable solution.

3.4 Local Politics It has been noted by scholars that local ritual and historical traditions in lands under the cultural influence of Maluku tend to focus on the community’s links to the centre.70 This concern is obvious in the Molabot Tumpe tradition. As noted above, the Batui and Banggai versions of the myth of the maleo eggs differ in significant details, and the differences express issues of precedence and dominance between Batui and Banggai. Although the official speeches in the Banggai palace stress the unity of the Mian Babasal (v.s.) and the brotherhood of Banggai and Batui, the relationship between these two polities has never been quite so simple. The elders in Batui stress that possession by the ancestors only takes place in Batui, rather than in Banggai (my observations indeed confirm this), which obviously makes the dead – and the living – of Batui the principal actors in the founder’s cult. They also attribute the origin of maleo birds to a gift from the rajah of Motindok (i.e. Batui) to his son-in-law Adi Soko, founder of the Banggai sultanate, which

67 Cristopel Paino, “Telur Maleo Sebagai Ritual Adat, Begini Tanggapan Aliansi Konservasi Tompotika”, in http://www.mongabay.co.id/2016/02/27/telur-maleo-sebagai-ritual-adat- begini-tanggapan-aliansi-konservasi-tompotiko/ (accessed 25 May 2019). 68 Kenneth M. George, “Headhunting, History, and Exchange in Upland Sulawesi”, Journal of Asian Studies 50 (1991), 536–64. 69 Paino, “Maleo”; Paino, “Telur”. 70 Andaya, The World of Maluku, 49.

10.1163/15700607-61020004 | Die WeltDownloaded des Islams from Brill.com10/08/2021 (2021) 1-27 07:55:58AM via free access a trust from the ancestors 21 again stresses the founding role of Batui vis-à-vis Banggai (and fits the zoo- logical facts).71 Contrastingly, the Banggai side claims that the original maleos were brought by Adi Soko from Java (where, in fact, maleos do not live), thus stressing the founding role of Banggai vis-à-vis Batui.72 Rather than excep- tional, such a difference of interpretation by the two parties in a tributary or gift-giving relationship is in fact also typical of precolonial highland-lowland relations in Central Sulawesi.73 Local tradition is, now as earlier, a crux of conflicting political interests. There are separate ethnic organisations in the Banggai region for indigenous as well as immigrant communities. For the Banggai people, this organisation is lmab (Lembaga Musyawarah Adat Banggai), formed in 1987 and led by the sultan (tomundo). Other members are the traditional high functionaries of the sultanate – such as the jogugu, hukum tua, mayor ngofa, and kapita laut74 – and the leaders of the chiefdoms and districts.75 These officials are promi- nent in the ritual in Banggai. In Batui, too, one finds the traditional political authorities and adat specialists overseeing the rituals: the bosanyo of Batui, the daka’nyo chiefs, and representatives of the main binsilo,76 as well as the ritual leaders. As far as the audience is concerned, participation in the ritual is not restricted. Nor, according to my informants, is the selection of the egg carriers a political issue: the main criterion is physical strength and stamina, as the ceremony is long, and the eggs must be protected against all mishaps. Enthusiasm for taking this task, however, seems markedly to differ in the two communities

71 It also fits the widespread Maluku political tradition of the wife-givers’ ritual supremacy over the wife-takers, a conception also present in Central Sulawesi; see for instance Andaya, The World of Maluku, 68, Lorraine V. Aragon, “Twisting the Gift: Translating Precolonial into Colonial Exchanges in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia”, American Ethnologist 23 (1996), 43–60, esp. 49; Henley and Caldwell, “Kings and Covenants”, 279. 72 For an insightful analysis of the significance of these different interpretations, see Velthoen, Contested Coastlines, 117–19. She makes no mention of the concept of amanah, which is ideally suited to reconcile (as well as obscure) the two sides’ differing interpretations of the relationship. 73 Aragon, “Twisting the Gift”, 51–52. 74 These titles are a legacy of the overlordship of Ternate. On their use in Ternate and its periphery see Andaya, The World of Maluku, 69–72, 98; David Henley, “A Superabundance of Centers: Ternate and the Contest for North Sulawesi”, Cakalele 4 (1993), 39–60, esp. 53; de Clercq, Bijdragen, 127–28. 75 Rawis, Montulungi, 70–103. 76 The title bosanyo (roughly equivalent of the Ternatan title sangaji) was traditionally given to local overlords representing the sultan of Banggai in major coastal settlements (including Batui, Kintom, and Luwuk); a daka’nyo oversaw a ward or a smaller locality, while binsilo was a hamlet or a cluster of related families (de Clercq, Bijdragen, 133; Kruyt, “De To Loinang”, 354, 358–60; Dormeier, Banggaisch adatrecht, 30, 53, 94–99).

Die Welt des Islams (2021) 1-27 | 10.1163/15700607-61020004Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 07:55:58AM via free access 22 szombathy involved. Volunteers are numerous enough in Batui, in notable contrast to the sparser attendance of ordinary people in Banggai, where the responsibility of carrying the eggs must now be assigned to upper secondary school students.77 Local authorities, a category quite distinct from that of traditional political and ritual leaders, were very visibly involved as guests of honour and official speakers at the 2017 ritual in Batui. A respectful traditional welcome met their arrival, and a huge podium was set up for them. The head (bupati) of Banggai Regency was due to be present but, as he could not attend, his deputy delivered the opening address. Likewise in Banggai town, the administrative, police, and military élite were a conspicuous presence. Back in Batui, the subsequent monsawe ceremonies and the associated ziyāra to the founding ancestors’ graves were also attended by many high-ranking state functionaries.78 Next year was quite different, even startlingly so, in Batui. Although the head of Batui Subdistrict (a lower-level administrative division) was present, there was an obviously smaller crowd, and somewhat apologetic speeches stressed the benevolent involvement of the authorities and the need for local development. Inquiries revealed that the reduced dimensions of the ceremonies were due to an emerging controversy as to the active presence of state authorities. As a result, the ritual in Batui took place in two separate places and at different times in the afternoon.79 The split within the community, apparently exacer- bated by the coming elections, ran roughly along the boundaries of wards, with one ward maintaining dual loyalty and participating in both ceremonies. One faction, headed by the bosanyo (traditional chief) of Batui, regarded the heavy presence of governmental representatives as illicit interference in the jurisdic- tion of the traditional élite. Assembling in the residence of the bosanyo instead of the house of traditions (rumah adat), this faction shipped the eggs from the traditional venue of Batui harbour. The other faction organised the ceremony in the rumah adat (the traditional venue), and then took their eggs to a make- shift harbour at the mouth of the Batui river. (The factions also used separate boats to bring the eggs to Banggai island.) At the ceremony in the rumah adat, which I witnessed, the head of Batui Subdistrict gave an opening address in which he emphasised his status as a member of the local community familiar with this ritual ever since his childhood. All official speeches explicitly stressed the need to heal the rift in the organisers’ ranks.

77 Nurhani and Sifatu, “Upacara”, 160, 164–65. 78 See “Pasca Tumpe”; “Hadiri Ziarah”. 79 The local press soon took note of the controversy; see for instance “Sesepuh Adat Batui Pecah, Proses Pengantaran Tumpe Terjadi Dua Kubu”, in https://koranbanggairaya.blogspot. com/2018/12/sesepuh-adar-batui-pecah-proses.html (accessed 25 May 2019).

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As noted by some observers, politics and the supernatural mix smoothly in Indonesia.80 It is only too natural, then, that the ancestral spirits had their say on the controversy in Batui. The day before the beginning of Molabot Tumpe, the rumah adat was cleaned as usual, and nothing unusual was observed, but on unlocking the building next day an extra maleo egg had materialised over- night upon a cupboard inside. The miraculous egg (telur ajaib) was the subject of constant comment both among participants and in the official speeches. In what seems to have been a sign of supernatural approval for a political faction, the ancestors’ gift of an extra egg obviously symbolised their support. Understandably enough, the egg was given pride of place and was the first to be carried to the river for shipment.

3.5 Islamic Reformism Muslim reformists are a diverse category, the common denominator being a tendency to assess – and, as the case might be, criticise – local practice by measuring it against texts from the formative period of Islam, especially the Qurʾān, hadith, and written juridical sources. A host of terms (e.g. “orthodox”, “sharīʿa-minded”, “text-oriented”, and “universalising” Islam) have been used to describe this religious outlook, each of which poses special problems.81 Terminological considerations aside, contemporary Islamic reformism obviously forms part of a broader and older trend of universalising, text-oriented critiques of local religiosity, which in Indonesia have come from traditional santri communities and the traditionalist scholars of the Nahdlatul Ulama no less than from contemporary reformist groups. However, my informants expressly denied any substantial opposition to the ritual on the part of the traditional Muslim élite, many of whom actually participate in the proceedings. And participants see (or admit) no contradiction whatsoever between Islamic tenets and this ritual; indeed, they see it as the fulfilment of an Islamic moral obligation. The reformist challenge discussed below is a recent development. After the appearance of a video recording of the ritual in local online media, reformist Muslims within the province began to comment on it in a different

80 See in particular Nils Bubandt, “Sorcery, Corruption, and the Dangers of Democracy in Indonesia,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 12 (2006), 413–31; Bubandt, “Interview”; Nils Bubandt, “‘An Embarrassment of Spirits’: Spirits, Hauntology, and Democracy in Indonesia”, Paideuma 60 (2014), 115–38. 81 Especially “orthodoxy”, a notoriously problematic concept when applied in Muslim contexts. For example, Cederroth includes both Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah in what he calls “orthodox” Islam; see Sven Cederroth, From Syncretism to Orthodoxy? The Struggle of Islamic Leaders in an East Javanese Village (NIAS Reports) (Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 1991), 7–10.

Die Welt des Islams (2021) 1-27 | 10.1163/15700607-61020004Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 07:55:58AM via free access 24 szombathy tone. The devastating earthquake and tsunami of 2018 in Palu, at the far end of Central Sulawesi province, added to the unease, since some local Muslims considered these natural disasters as a warning from God to avoid customs verging on polytheism. Some reformists feared that continuing Molabot Tumpe would be an invitation for yet more disasters, in diametrical opposition to the traditional belief that the punishment for not holding the ritual would be natural disasters. As it happened, seismic tremors were apparently felt, unbeknownst to me, in various parts of Banggai Regency about the time of the ritual in 2018.82 One finds a very interesting exposé of the ritual from the viewpoint of Islamic reformism on an online site, whose arguments deserve to be presented here at some length, being as they are a succinct summary of reformist objections.83 The author stresses the principle that “local tradition must be brought under the control of religion” (adat harus di bawah kontrol agama) and customs must conform to established principles of the sharīʿa to be permissible.84 Molabot Tumpe obviously does not pass muster for him. He has a few minor objections, such as to the belief that failure to accomplish a traditional ritual will result in natural disasters; to the erroneous pronunciation of the shahāda formula as to vowel length and precise wording;85 to the use of musical instru- ments like gongs and drums during a dhikr; and to the pronouncement during the nightly thanksgiving ceremony of the formula Yā Ḥasan yā Ḥusayn. Apart from these smaller concerns, his main objections are twofold: first, this ritual cannot properly be interpreted as amāna, and second, the possessing spirits cannot be those of the ancestors. However, he questions neither the moral obligation of amāna nor the possibility of spirit possession.86

82 A. K. Mukhlish, “Ritual Adat Batui dalam Timbangan Aqidah Islam (Bagian Satu)”, in https:// www.voa-islam.com/read/liberalism/2019/03/12/62531/ritual-adat-batui-dalam-timbangan- aqidah-islam-bagian-satu/ (accessed 7 June 2019). 83 The treatise forms a logical whole but appeared as a series of online articles. 84 Mukhlish, “Ritual Adat … (Bagian Satu)”. 85 The correct pronunciation of Arabic words tends to be a major concern owing to the status of Arabic as the language of revelation; see Keane, “Religious Language”, 55. 86 Possession as such is not incompatible with Islamic dogma for most Muslim scholars, even for sharīʿa-minded literalists; see for instance al-Suyūṭī, Laqṭ, 88–93; Badr al-Dīn Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Shiblī, Ākām al-marjān fī gharāʾib al-akhbār wa-aḥkām al-jānn, ed. Ayman al-Buḥayrī (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Kutub al-Thaqāfiyya, 1415/1995), 129–32. What is problematic is the idea of possession specifically by ancestral spirits. For another detailed reformist critique of popular beliefs concerning possession, see Jahid Sidek, Berpawang dan bersahabat dengan jin daripada perspektif Islam (Kuala Lumpur: Utusan Publications, 2004), 45, 113–18. For many educated, urban Indonesians, however, the whole idea of spirit possession can be embarrassing, whether they be influenced by Islamic reformism or self-styled “modern” thinking; see Bubandt, “‘An Embarrassment of Spirits’”, 127–30.

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Molabot Tumpe, he argues, cannot be seen as fulfilling the obligation of amāna, because nobody knows whether a promise to return the eggs to their rightful owners was ever uttered, and even if it was, it has already been fulfilled by the ancestors themselves. While descendants can be held legally responsible for paying an inherited debt, they cannot for a moral obligation already met. That is shown by Q 53:38, which reads: “No soul laden bears the load of another”.87 This being so, the custom is an unnecessary waste of time and resources. The author also denies the possibility of possession by ancestral spirits, typically of reformist Muslim reasoning, which categorically rejects the notion of human souls returning to this world before Judgment Day. Indeed, deny- ing the involvement of the dead in worldly affairs is one of the distinguishing features of reformist thought.88 The rationale for this rejection is a particular interpretation of a few Qurʾānic verses, especially 23:99–100 (“Till, when death comes to one of them, he says: ‘My Lord, return me, […]’ Nay, it is but a word he speaks; and there, behind them, is a barrier until the day that they shall be raised up”),89 in addition to some hadiths. The conclusion is that “a deceased person’s soul cannot return (to life)”. Since other hadiths state that every human being has an accompanying spirit (qarīn),90 the author infers that the

Indeed, even rural Indonesians may associate the belief in spirits with backwardness and be reticent about it when strangers are present; see Harald Beyer Broch, “Yellow Crocodiles and Bush Spirits: Timpaus Islanders’ Conceptualization of Ethereal Phenomena”, Ethos 28:1 (2000), 3–19, esp. 14. I must note that not a single one of my interlocutors in Sulawesi ever expressed such sceptical views. 87 This is indeed part of the accepted interpretation of this Qurʾānic verse: no-one can be held responsible for their kin’s failures; see for instance Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, al-Mufaṣṣal fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm, al-mashhūr bi-Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, ed. Fakhr al-Dīn Qabāwa (Beirut: Maktabat Lubnān Nāshirūn, 2008), 2:1868. This Qurʾān commentary, known as Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, was by far the best-known – indeed, often the only known – work of the genre in Southeast Asia up to the twentieth century; it also had an early Malay translation; see van Bruinessen, “Kitab Kuning”, 253–54. The principle and the supporting Qurʾānic verse frequently appear in the arguments of Muslim reformists elsewhere, too (Bowen, Muslims through Discourse, 268–70). (For quotations in English from the Qurʾān, I used Arberry’s translation.). 88 van Bruinessen, “Pesantren”, 124. On Buton island in Southeast Sulawesi, where the Muslim population see nothing wrong with belief in reincarnation and even purport to find a justification thereof in Q 3:27, the cult of ancestors is nevertheless rejected by Muslim reformists. See Schoorl, “Belief”, 107, 118–19. 89 On the interpretation of this verse see al-Maḥallī and al-Suyūṭī, al-Mufaṣṣal, 2:1280–81, which states categorically that “returning to life in this world is impossible forever after one has departed it” (al-rujūʿ ilā ḥayāt al-dunyā muḥāl abadan baʿd mufāraqatihā). 90 On this tradition see al-Suyūṭī, Laqṭ, 81–83; al-Shiblī, Ākām, 34–36.

Die Welt des Islams (2021) 1-27 | 10.1163/15700607-61020004Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2021 07:55:58AM via free access 26 szombathy agents of mass possession are not ancestral spirits but jinn, the use of musical intruments like gongs serving as an invitation for these beings. Such interaction between humans and spirits is, in his view, not permissible for Muslims. In true reformist tenor, he condemns “blind imitation” (taklid buta) of traditional practices and recommends that the mui (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, Indonesian Fatwa Council) branches of Banggai Regency and Central Sulawesi should issue fatwas on this ritual – presumably, with conclusions similar to his. The state in its turn should ban “all activities that reek of sinfulness and polytheism” (berbau maksiat dan kesyirikan).91 I am afraid the emergence of such reformist recommendations does not bode well for the unchanged continuation of the ritual. The compromise that the Gayo of Sumatra have found for the continued existence of traditions – discretion and relegating the controversial aspects of rituals to the private and less visible sphere92 – will obviously not be a feasible option with Molabot Tumpe, in which communal participation and visibility are the very point of the proceedings.

4 Conclusions

Syncretistic rituals among Muslims are often understood, implicitly or explicitly, as animistic residues somewhat modified by Islamic influence and then doomed slowly to disappear under the combined influence of modernisation and increasing knowledge of the normative textual tradition of Islam. However, Molabot Tumpe is certainly far more complex than this simplistic scheme sug- gests. Its core appears to be either a founders’ cult or a tribute-giving ceremony (or a combination of both), but there is – and probably there has always been – an intrinsic controversy as to exactly who the principal figure was to whom homage is to be paid each year and, by implication, as to the respective positions of the two main communities participating in the ritual. Ironically, a concept

91 For a full discussion of these objections and the final verdict see A. K. Mukhlish, “Ritual Adat Batui dalam Timbangan Aqidah Islam (Bagian Tiga)”, in https://www.voa-islam.com/ read/liberalism/2019/03/16/62599/ritual-adat-batui-dalam-timbangan-aqidah-islam-bagian- tiga/ (accessed 7 June 2019); A. K. Mukhlish, “Ritual Adat Batui dalam Timbangan Aqidah Islam (Bagian Empat)”, in https://www.voa-islam.com/read/liberalism/2019/03/19/62647/ ritual-adat-batui-dalam-timbangan-aqidah-islam-bagian-empat/ (accessed 7 June 2019); A. K. Mukhlish, “Ritual Adat Batui dalam Timbangan Aqidah Islam (Bagian Kelima-Selesai)”, in http://www.w88club.live/read/liberalism/2019/03/21/62706/ritual-adat-batui-dalam- timbangan-aqidah-islam-bagian-kelimaselesai/#sthash.VphNfIIr.dpbs (accessed 7 June 2019). 92 Bowen, Muslims through Discourse, 317–18.

10.1163/15700607-61020004 | Die WeltDownloaded des Islams from Brill.com10/08/2021 (2021) 1-27 07:55:58AM via free access a trust from the ancestors 27 deriving from Islamic ethics has proven ideal for masking, and thereby recon- ciling, such divergence of interpretation. Islam is thus present in the ritual in far more profound ways than the adoption of superficial elements of terminology and religious symbolism. The notion that the offering is a “trust from the ancestors” creates a simultaneous link both to a cult of the ancestors and, through the concept of “trust” (amāna), to Islamic ethics as expounded in relevant Shafiʿite works. Legitimacy in Islamic terms is created while the demands of the cult of ancestors are simultaneously met. Recent developments are also complex and do not follow a set course. As we have demonstrated, reformist Muslim ideology objects to crucial elements of the ritual (such as possession by ancestral spirits) and even questions its very raison d'être, which is now understood in Islamic ethical terms. This is definitely a very serious – potentially fatal – challenge to the continued existence of the ritual, but then other actors will also have an impact on its fate. Environmental concerns and the sheer difficulty of procuring the ritual’s essential ingredient – maleo eggs – may lead to modifications of its form, or to its gradual decline. Local politics may affect the ritual’s viability, choreography, and leadership – in fact, it has already done so. On the other hand, the obvious potential of the ritual to attract tourists, so far blissfully untapped, may well help its survival. And a combination of all these factors and controversies may take the ritual in unexpected and unpredictable directions, since its present syncretistic form is a testimony to its ability to absorb and reconcile many influences and integrate them in a subtle and sophisticated way.

Acknowledgements

During my fieldwork, I received invaluable help and information from many individuals. I gratefully record my debt to Mustar Labolo (deputy head of Banggai Regency) and to Faisal Karim (head of Batui Subdistict) for their kind welcome. I also thank all members and leaders of the Batui community for permitting me to attend the ceremonies and answering my queries, and I wish to express my particular gratitude to Baharuddin Saleh (ketua adat of Batui) and to Jalaludin Aspar (lurah of Batui ward). The constructive comments that I received from Rainer Brunner and two anonymous readers have considera- bly improved this essay, a debt that I wish to acknowledge here. All remaining errors are definitely mine.

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