Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Anthropology: Faculty Publications and Other Works Faculty Publications Winter 1993 The Discourse of Souls in Tana Toraja (Indonesia): Indigenous Notions and Christian Conceptions Kathleen M. Adams Loyola University Chicago, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/anthropology_facpubs Part of the Anthropology Commons, Religion Commons, and the South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Adams, K. (1993). "The Discourse of Souls in Tana Toraja (Indonesia): Indigenous Notions and Christian Conceptions." Ethnology, 32(1), p. 55-68. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Publications at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Anthropology: Faculty Publications and Other Works by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. © University of Pittsburgh, Department of Anthropology. 1993. University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education The Discourse of Souls in Tana Toraja (Indonesia): Indigenous Notions and Christian Conceptions Author(s): Kathleen M. Adams Reviewed work(s): Source: Ethnology, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Winter, 1993), pp. 55-68 Published by: University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3773545 . Accessed: 01/09/2012 12:31 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ethnology. http://www.jstor.org rTHE DISCOURSE OF SOULS IN TANA TORAJA (INDONESIA):INDIGENOUS NOTIONS AND CHRISTIAN CONCEPTIONS KathleenM. Adams Beloit College In InsularSoutheast Asia, indigenousreligions are orientedmore towardspractice than philosophy. Geertz's (1973:177) observationsconcerning religion in Bali generallyhold true for otherautochthonous religions of the Indonesianarchipelago: "Beyonda minimallevel there is almostno interestin doctrine...Thestress is on orthopraxy,not orthodoxy." Accordingly,discussions of indigenousnotions of the soul in insularSoutheast Asia rarelycenter on philosophicaldoctrine. Rather,local practitionerstend to emphasizeritual obligations to souls at variouspoints in time, enumeratingthe requisiterites to aid souls in theirafterlife journeys (cf. Fox 1973; Weinstock1987). This essay is broadlyconcerned with the relationshipbetween such amorphouspractice-centered indigenous conceptions of soul and subsequently- introducedChristian metaphysical propositions. Recently, Indonesianistsstudying processes of religious transformationhave promptedus to recognizethe dynamicinterplay between world religions, national politics, and indigenousreligions (cf. Atkinson1983; Kipp and Rodgers 1987). Atkinson(1983), for instance,has elegantlydemonstrated how the constructionof the CentralSulawesi Wana religion is rootedin a dialoguewith both world religions and nationalistIndonesian civil religion. In a similarvein, Hoskins(1987) illustrateshow the redefinitionof Sumbanesespirit worship as a "religion"resulted from exposure to the doctrineof the Christianchurch and the Indonesiangovernment. On Sumba, what was once a systemof ritualpractices and regulationsbecame transformed into a systemof beliefs. Takingsuch notions of religionsin dialogueas a startingpoint, this essay examines indigenousand Christian conceptions of the soul amongthe Sa'danToraja of upland Sulawesi. WhileHoskins and Atkinson give moreattention to the influenceof world religionsand nationalpolitics on local belief systems,my majorfocus in this paper is on the other side of the dialogue. That is, I am particularlyconcerned with the ways in whichChristian Torajans incorporate and reformulate indigenous conceptions of the soul. Ranger(1987:183) has stressedthe ironicaspect of AfricanChristianity, notingthat the dialecticbetween local religionsand Christianity evolves in ways that confoundboth missionary and indigenous expectations. In this essayI examinehow, for ChristianTorajans, indigenous and Christian notions of soul not only coexist, but intermingleand at times compete. 55 56 ETHNOLOGY This essay begins with a discussionof the indigenousTorajan conception of the soul. One shouldnote, however,that several factors have encouraged a moreformal elaborationof their notions of soul. These factors includeTorajan exposure to doctrine-centeredworld religions, the Indonesiangovernment's 1969 recognitionof TorajanAluk to dolo as an official religion,and the queriesof anthropologistsand touristsvisiting the Torajahighlands. After examining indigenous notions of the soul, I contrastthese with the Dutch ReformedChurch's vision of the soul. The final section addresseslay ChristianTorajans' approach to the concept,and suggeststhat there is a discernablepattern to those indigenousideas about the soul thatpersist. ETHNOGRAPHICBACKGROUND The Sa'danToraja people are primarilywet-rice farmers inhabiting mountainous TanaToraja Regency in the provinceof SouthSulawesi, Indonesia. Most Torajans speak both Tae' Toraja, an Austronesianlanguage closely relatedto other South Sulawesilanguages (Mills 1975),and the nationallingua franca of BahasaIndonesia. In a multi-ethnicnation of 185 million people, the Torajaare a minoritygroup numberingapproximately 350,000. Torajansociety is hierarchicallyorganized on the basisof age, descent,occupation, and wealth. Traditionallythere were three basic ranks: the aristocracy(to parengnge); commoners(to buda, to sama);and serfs or slaves (kaunan).1Today slaveryis illegal andthe topic of rankcan be sensitive. Before the Dutchcolonial incursion into the Sulawesihighlands, Torajans resided in scatteredmountaintop households, maintaining social ties throughan elaborate systemof ritualexchanges (Nooy-Palm 1979, 1986;Koubi 1982). Forthese Torajans the religious,political, and agricultural worlds were integratedand bound together by a systemof ritualpractices known as Alukto Dolo (Waysof the PeopleBefore).2 It was not untilDutch forces conquered the highlandsin 1906that Torajans were united under a single political authority. With the upheavalcaused by the expanding activities of Dutch colonialistsand missionariescame the gradualcoalescence of Torajanethnic identity(Bigalke 1981). Today, over 80 per cent of Torajanshave convertedto Christianity:only 11 per cent of the populationremain faithful to Aluk to Dolo (KantorStatistik 1983). INDIGENOUSCONCEPTIONS OF THE SOUL For adherentsof aluk to dolo, the natureof the soul is rarely a topic of metaphysicaldiscourse (Crystal and Yamashita 1987). My inquiriesabout indigenous notionsof the soul often left my alukto dolo friendsperplexed. They cautionedme that neitherthe Englishword soul nor the Indonesianterm arwah could be easily translatedinto the Sa'danToraja language. Whatemerged from our conversations was a clusterof conceptsassociated with different states of the life force. The Toraja termsmost oftenvolunteered in suchdiscussions were sumanga ', penaa, bombo,and deata. I examineeach of these conceptsbelow. THE DISCOURSEOF SOULSIN TANA TORAJA 57 Sumanga': AnimatingForce The termsumanga' roughly translates as soul, spiritor consciousnessand is closely related to the Indonesianword semangat(Tammu and van der Veen 1972:578). Sumanga'is presentin all living things, althougha suddenfright may promptit to flee or a malevolententity may appropriate the sumanga'of others. Whendescribing an unexpectedshock, I often heardTorajans proclaim, "My sumanga' flew off," or "His sumanga' left" (masso sumanga'na', pa'de sumanga ). As Coville (1988:155) observes, sumanga' has a bird-like quality, prone to flying off. The term sumanga' also appears in the ubiquitous phrase kurre sumanga', which is the standardway of expressingthanks. Literally,kurre sumanga' translates as to call the animatingforce (as one calls chickens). This phraseis commonin the old alukto dolo litaniessuch as the PassombaTedong, where it is usedto hail the ancestors(van der Veen 1966). Accordingto Bigalke(1981:200), Torajan head-taking was probablyonce linkedto the notionof enhancingthe powerof sumanga',which was thoughtto reside in the head. Bigalke (1981:201) furtherhypothesizes that the importanceof sumanga' declined after the seventeenthcentury, when shifting political alliances led to a dramaticlimitation of the numberof groupsfrom which it was acceptableto take heads. In contrast,Downs (1955) and Needham(1976) have questionedclassic Indonesianliterature which interpretshead-hunting as a questfor "soulsubstance." Whateverthe case, it is clear that for Torajanstoday, sumanga'is more a vague notionof animatingforce thanit is a powerfulconcept on whichaction is based.3 Penaa: Soul of the Living By far the morecommon gloss for soul or life-forcein the Kesu' areaof Torajais the termpenaa. Penaa closelyresembles sumanga', although it carrieswith it a sense of connectionto