Isabell Herrmans Towards the Breaking Day An Ethnography of Belian Curing Rituals among the Luangans of Indonesian Borneo Research Series in Anthropology University of Helsinki Academic Dissertation Research Series in Anthropology University of Helsinki, Finland Distributed by Helsinki University Press P.O. Box 4 (Vuorikatu 3 A) FI-00014 Helsinki University Finland Tel. (09)70102363 Fax (09)70102374 www.yliopistopaino.fi Copyright Isabell Herrmans Photographs by Isabell Herrmans and Kenneth Sillander ISSN 1458-3186 ISBN 978-952-10-7062-4 ISBN 978-952-10-7063-1 (PDF, http://ethesis.helsinki.fi) Unigrafia Helsinki 2011 Contents List of Illustrations v Acknowledgments vii 1. Introduction 1 The Frequency of Belian 3 Ritualization, Practice and Framing 6 Emergence and Tradition 12 Writing Strategies 16 2. Luangan Lives: The Order and Disorder of Improvisation and Practice 19 Who are the Luangans? 20 Field Work and Site 26 Mobility and Social Landscape 31 Ritual Repertoire 38 A History of Marginality 49 3. Representing Unpredictability 60 Dancing with Spirits 60 A Politics of Spirits 65 Truth as Experiment 70 4. Making Tactile: Ganti Diri Figures and the Magic of Concreteness 78 Ritual Imagery 79 Images for Spirits 91 Tactile Knowing 99 Epilogue 107 5. The Uncertainty of Spirit Negotiation 108 Negotiating with Spirits 111 If it Strikes . 129 A Falling Vessel 132 Extreme Measures 137 Buntang Again 142 Speaking from the Outside 146 Uncertainty and Representation 149 6. So that Steam Rises: Ritual Bathing as Depersonalization 153 Scene One: Following the Work of Itak Pantak 155 Scene Two: Fruit for the Caterpillars 171 Scene Three: So that the Sun Can Be Seen Clearly 179 Towards the Breaking Day 7. It Comes Down to One Origin: Reenacting Mythology and the Human-Spirit Relationship in Ritual 189 Prelude 189 The Myth of Human Origins 192 Relating with Spirits 204 Recalling Origins 211 Sameness and Difference 217 8. Conclusion 222 Glossary 231 References 237 Index 249 v Illustrations Map of Southeast Borneo 21 Photographs 1. View over Sembulan village 28 2. Karim and his daughter Hai by the door of the village longhouse of Sembulan 30 3. Village longhouse surrounded by “development houses.” Sambung Village 34 4. Belian bawo performance 43 5. Belian sentiu 44 6. Dressed up, perfumed, made-up. Tak Lodot, Tak Dinas, Nen Bujok, Nen Bola, and Mancan. 62 7. Spirit house (blai tentuwaja) and “fishing basket” (siur) containing valuables and wooden ganti diri sticks 81 8. Spirit houses (and ansak offering trays) on display 81 9. A belian holding some ganti diri sticks while curing a patient 90 10. Spitting on the ganti diri sticks 90 11. Images of juata, the water spirit, in its different manifestations 94 12. Sleeping at a ritual 101 13. Young boy playing drums during a belian ritual 102 14. Playing the kelentangen during buntang 110 15. The belian Ma Buno sitting by the blai juus. Soul search ship (sampan benawa) in the background 118 16. Ma Putup as belian sentiu 125 17. Collective action during buntang. Presenting offerings to the spirits. 134 18. Participants in bathing ritual seated in the flower grove (baang bunge) of Sembulan 156 19. Bathing indoor at the bathing chair (panti penota) 158 20. Kakah Ramat bathing people outdoor at balei naiyu during buntang for Ma Bari 178 21. Kakah Ramat at the entrance of his house 193 Acknowledgments This thesis has been long in the making. Just like the journey of belian curing of which it is about, the process toward its completion has been carried out along a meandering and often ramifying path. Along the way significant political and environmental changes have occurred: Indonesia has left the New Order era behind and entered the age of reformation and democratization; the narrow forest paths along which I first walked in 1992 to reach what later was to become my field site are now roads, some even paved, and recently, I regret to hear, the rainforests encircling the central Luangan villages have largely been converted into oil palm plantations. Writing the thesis would not have been possible if it was not for the advice and inspiration received from the numerous people that I have encountered at different steps of this journey, or the financial support of various funds and institutions. I would like to thank all these here. Many of the people to whom my greatest thanks are due have sadly passed away along the way. I would like to dedicate this thesis to them, and especially to the many belian curers who so generously shared their knowledge with me. Financial support for fieldwork was provided by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Funding for writing the dissertation was received from the Sasakawa Young Leaders’ Fellowship Fund, the Oskar Öflund Foundation, the Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation, the Alfred Kordelin Foundation, the Nordenskiöld Foundation, and Vetenskapsstiftelse för kvinnor. A grant for the final stages of dissertation writing was also provided by the University of Helsinki. I thank all these contributors. The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) provided me with a research permit. Professor Parsudi Suparlan at Universitas Indonesia acted as supervisor of the field research. For practical assistance in helping to obtain the research permit and for encouragement as well as valuable information on Borneo, I am indebted to Bernard Sellato. Joseph Weinstock likewise generously shared his knowledge on the Luangan region before I started fieldwork. At the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Helsinki, I would like to thank Professor Emeritus Jukka Siikala and Professor Karen Armstrong for comments on several chapters of the thesis given during the department’s graduate seminars. The subtle humor and cultural critique of the lectures of Professor Emeritus Matti Sarmela originally drew me from the study of literature into anthropology, and he also provided vii viii Towards the Breaking Day support and encouragement for my research during its initial stages. I owe a special gratitude to Professor Emeritus Clifford Sather who acted as supervisor during the middle stages of my thesis work, as well as to his wife, Louise Klemperer Sather, both of whom provided extensive advice, support, and friendship. Cliff provided detailed comments on several chapters and generously shared his vast knowledge on Borneo and ritual studies. Louise read part of the thesis and helped to edit the language as well as provided important moral support. Visiting Professor Jane Margold also gave valuable comments on draft versions of two of the chapters and boosted my confidence in the beginning of the writing process. Professor Timo Kaartinen acted as supervisor of my research, pushing me theoretically as well as mentally to finally finish the thesis. Comments by an anonymous reader of the Journal of Ritual Studies served to strengthen the arguments in Chapter 3. I also want to thank my pre-examiners, Professor Peter Metcalf and Dr. Marina Roseman, for their insightful comments on the thesis, which I have tried to take into account to the best of my abilities and as far as the time-table has permitted. Slightly different versions of Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 of the thesis have been published as articles. Permission to republish what in the thesis constitutes Chapter 3, published as “Representing Unpredictability: An Analysis of a Curing Ritual among the East Kalimantan Luangan,” in Journal of Ritual Studies (vol. 18, 2004: 50–61), was granted by the journals Co- Editors, Dr. Pamela J. Stewart and Professor Andrew J. Strathern. Chapter 4, “Making Tactile: Ganti Diri Figures and the Magic of Concreteness among the Luangan Dayaks,” has appeared in the Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society (vol. 30, 2005: 44–679), as well as in the Borneo Research Bulletin (vol. 36, 2005: 108–138). I have shared all stages of research, from fieldwork to dissertation writing, with Kenneth Sillander. Sometimes it is hard to say where his input ends and mine begins. I thank Kenneth for his relentlessness during fieldwork, without which many issues, for sure, would have remained untangled, as well as for his unforgiving demand for and help with achieving textual clarity. Our sons, Sid and Elliot, who were both born during the process of dissertation writing, have been an important but most welcome source of distraction. As they followed us to the field for a short visit in 2007, they also got to know our “extended family” in Borneo and hopefully to appreciate some aspects of that life. I thank them for their patience in putting up with hard travel conditions and often absent-minded parents. I also wish to thank both friends and family members for support and encouragement, and in particular my grandparents, Frank and Ejlid Jernström, who both sadly passed away before the dissertation was finished. Acknowledgments ix My greatest thanks go to the people of Kalimantan, and especially those of the village of Sembulan, who so patiently put up with our often annoying questions and agreed to share their lives with us. I am especially indebted to the late Tak Ningin and Ma Bari who took us into their family, allowed us to live in the village longhouse and shared their sparse resources with us throughout fieldwork. Without the late belian Kakah Ramat, who seemed to enjoy telling us myths and chants almost as much as we enjoyed listening to them, this thesis would not have been the same. The near-daily discussions with him on all things ritual served as our basic guide to belian curing and Luangan tradition. Besides Kakah Ramat I would also like to thank all the other ritual specialists who shared their knowledge with us, among them especially Tak Ramat, Ma Buno, Ma Putup, Ma Sarakang, Mancan, Ma Dengu, Nen Bai, Tak Dinas, Ma Lombang, Ma Kerudot, Ma Joke, Nen Tampung, Nen Bola, and Ma Beliai.