Showing Signs of Violence

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"A wonderful book, theoretically challenging, edu1ographically rich, and
exquisitely written . . .. At times it is lyrical and poignant; it is always a
pleasure to read. Its brilliance lies in d1e way the aumor weaves together
the aesthetics of ritual violence with the intrusions of history and me cul-
tural politics of commemoration."
-Toby Alice Volkman, Ford Foundation

"At the very least, Ge.orge shows us how productive language- and
performance-centered ethnography can be. But there is much more to mis
study of disquieting human practices. Leaving behind 'explanations' that
work when our rationalizations (evolutionary, functional, symbolic) are
projected on them, this ac.count convincingly argues that ritual violence
needs to tJ;: !lllderstood as a historical phenomc;non a11d 'problem.' HYman
history, though always distinctive, is, like freedom, indivisible; it is theirs as
well as ours."
-Johannes Fabian, University of Amsterdam

"Fascinating and compelling.... Examines wim great subdety me cultural

construction of violence, and in putting forward a notion of ' pol.itical
affect' move.s beyond prevailing ideas of e motion in ways mat have great
significance for anduopology and oilier fields as well."
-Benjamin Orlove, University of California, Davis

"A seductive analysis of headhunting and an arresting narrative as well. It

places versions of ' local knowledge' on a wider stage of social and political
forces, yet remains a well-focused and richly textured account of a single
ritual."
-Janet Hoskins, University of Southern California

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Showing Signs of
Violence
The Cultural Politics
of a Twentieth-Century
Headhunting Ritual

Kenneth M. George

UN IVERSITY OF C:\.UFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley I Los Atwele; I Loudtm
U nivers.ity of California Press
Berkeley and los A_n geks , Calitb mia
University of California Pres.~
Lond on, England
Cop)'right () J996 by T he Regents of rhe University of CaJifo rnia

Library of Congress Cataloging·in·Publi.a tion .Data

George, Kenneth f't'l., 1950-
Showing signs of violence: the cultural po litics of a rn:-emicth·
c.:em-ury hc<ldhunting rintal 1 Ke.nncth M. George.
p. em.
lndude5 bibUographica.l rcferem:c;:s and index.
ISBN 0- 520-20041- 1 ( clodl: alk. pap<r).
lSllN 0-520-20361-S ( pbk.: a!k. pap<r)
1. Rites and cercmonics-lndoncsia-Bambang Region.
2. Violcnc:c--Sodal aspecb' -lndonesia- Bambang Region.
3. He-ad humcrs-lndoncsia-Bambang Region. 4. Discourse
an:alysisl Narrntive-lndonesia-Bambang Region. 5. Oral tra·
dirion- Indonesia-Bambang Region. 6. Bambang Region
( Lndooesia)-Soci-allife and customs. 7. Sulawesi Sc:Jat.lo
( lndoncsia~Soci-allife 01nd cus.toms. I. Title:.
GN635.165G46 I 996
394-dc20 95-36929
CIP

Primed in the United States of America

12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

The pap<:r used in rhis publication meets the m inimum rc:q uin:ments o f
Amtrican Nation-al Srandard fo r Information Sc.icnccs-Pc-rmancnce
of Pap<"r for Printed Library Materi-als ~ ANSI Z39.48-1984 ®

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for the ptoplc oftht headJMten
 Com ents

l
Rc!jcs from Aljeo Parts· An Torroducrjon

2
The .Mappurondo Enclave at Bambang 21
3
Defaced Images from the Past: On the Disfigured
Histories and DisfigllCing Violence of Pangngae 59

1
Violence, Solace, Vows, Noise, and Song: Ritual
Headhunting and the Commun.iry in Mourning 101
5
Enw, Adornment, and Words That Make the Floor Shake:
Pangngae and the Rhetoric of Manhood 134

6
From Violence t<> Memorv: Singing about Singing as a
Headhunt Ends i.n Soog 186
z
The Songs of the ToSalu and the Tolssilita':
The Horizons of TeJ<rualiey and Interpremtion, 1983-85 201
vii

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viii COl\'TENTS

8
The Spectacle of Dancing Men : l'angngae in the
Culture of Indonesian Modernity 238
2
Epi.loguc: The Headwaters, 1994 264

APPEND IX I: LINGUISTIC k'ID

ORTHOGRAPH IC NOTES 273
Al'l'ENDLX Il: TABLES 279
APPEND IX III : MUSIC FIG URES 287
NOTES 293
REFERENCES C ITED 309
INDEX 327

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 Maps and Figures

1 Island Sonthcasr Asia 4

2. South Sulawcsh Indonesia, showing srudy area 5
3. The Salu Mambi headwaters, d1e srudy area circled on Map 2 22
4. The regional a.1at territories: "The Seven Headwaters" and
"The Seven Rivcrmouths" 29

f iGtJBE$
I . Bamboo flutes resting in the gable-end loft of a home 8
2. A hamlet in Bam bang, at !he headwaters of the Salu Mambi 23
3. A single-hearth house and rice barn in Bambang 42
4. Ambe Sope, d1e topt~ppu in one of the mappt.rondtl
commuojrjcs 95
5. Am be Sopc in me loft, preparing to present !he head to the
s iri~ 98
6. The village elder greets the remrning cohort of headhunters 121
7. Each headhunter prepares a flute and decorates it with
palm lecaves 122
8. Pua' Soja, 1983 135
9. Village men lower drums and unleash the rhythms of
pabtmo 142
10. The jewelrv of !:he headhunt, and the basket in which it
~~t 1~
11. Two tobamni, f.1ces caked with rice paste, arc honored
with song 146
;,

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x MAPS AND FIGURES

12. A young woman about to give betel and areca co two

13. A cborus of women singing the sumeogo during

dipandebartmi 162
14. The cohort leade.r listens as village.rs celebrate his name
and deed< I 65
15. Women and girls cluster ncar one of the young headhunters 166
16. A villager brings a gift offood for one of the tobarani 167
17 The tqbamn j sound rhcjr flutes for the last rjmc 172
18 Tasomha srrnts across the floor and dcljycrs his mamare
s cech 178
19. A woman's coda to pa•w•wae: a lively but silent dance 183
20. Ambe Dido, a young baba./ako, looks on during pa"g"gae 208
21. "Mandar! She's speaking Maodar!" 215

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 Preface

T his book has to do wid1 the language and cultural politics of ritual violence
in a minority religious community in highland Sulawesi, Indonesia. More
particularly, it is aoout headhunting ceremonies and their stubborn presence
in the contemporary social life of a marginal, upland enclave, an enclave chat
has suffered the wounds of social and culmral dislocation just by staying in
place. No longer so remotely simated from the centers of state and post·
colonial order, chis minority community bas had to look for social terrain in
which its legitimaq and autonomy can be asserted. In their search, they usc
what is at hand as well as that which has been brought from over the hori·
zon. The discourse and violence of headhunting ritual have been tangled up
in the social life :t.n d strusgles of this enclave for a Ions time. Becoming fa-
miliar with the discursive construction of violence in the theater of head-
hunting ritual is, for me, a way to acknowledge and make pbin what chis
community has at stake as it tries to shape its history and its fate.
So as to be clear from the outset, this work is not a comparative srudy of
headhunting traditions. Although I will refer to practices in ocher societies
from time to time, I have no interest in putting forward here a general the-
ory of headhunting. Neither am I interested in developing general theories
of violence, rima! language, or social marginality. Tlus is not a refusal of the-
ory. Rather, it is a rejection of transcendant constructs and vantage points
chat would harness ethnography to the manufacture of a certain and fixed
human universe. Gerald L. Bnms (1988) has encouraged us to chink of
philosophy as revisionary work, a means for keeping our ideas and accounts
of the world plural, loose, and open to correction. Edu10graphy, I would

xi

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xu PREFACE

argu.e, is a revisionary task as well. In taking ideas and theories and placing
them in tension with a Jived-in world, ethnography offers us a measure of
our limitS and our historicity. It is a means for acknowledging those who re·
main re-sistant to our sense o f things, an entanglement with that recalcitrant
other who demands nothing les.~-and perhaps nothing more-than recog-
nition. It calls for readjustments to our moral and conceptual horizons.
Begun as a study of ritual speech and music, this work bas Jed me to see
violence as a crucial scene of textuatity, a discursive bridge tO other social,
potitical, and experiential dimensions of human Jife-i.n this case, in an out·
of·the·way community. To call attention to the textuality of ritual violence
is not to undermine the seriousness of its consequences for that small com·
munity or for us. Radter, I see it as a way of thrmving light on the com-
plexity and power of violence and on its reach into other sites of symbotic
exchange. Though there may always be slippage between violence and itS
representation in talk, song, and oratOry, the language of violenc:e always has
pragmatic entailments. Dictating what the story of violence wiU be is tunda-
men.ral ro itS exercise, and being in a position ro do so puts someone or
some group very close to the matrice.s of order and disorder.
Working with the discourse of headhunting ceremonies has obliged me
to go poaching in other disciplines in an effort to relate music, literacy,
Southeast Asian political history, gender hierarchy, topographies of grief and
envy, and the dynamics of commemorative tradition to questions concem·
ing ritual violence. I very much hope that readers in disciplines other than
anthropology-in, say, cthnomusicology, Asian studies, religion and ritual
studies, postcolonial history, folklore, psychology, and literary and cultural
studies-will find something worthwhile in the follo"~ng pages and forgive
any shortcomings they may find. By the same token, I look forward to a
multidisciplinary readership that can enlarge and revise the work undertaken
here.

This book reflects the influence and assistance of many teachers and fi:icnds.
My first words of thanks go to Jeff Titon, Daniel W. Patterson, James L. Pea·
cock, Kenneth lrb)•, Jonathan Strong, and Dennis Tcdlod. for showing me
some of the paths I might follow when going off ro stalk poems, songs, and
srories in other places. \Vhile at dte University of Michigan, I had the good
luck to study \vith Aram Yengoyan, Sherry Ortner, A. L. Becker, and Judith
Becker; they have my warm and enduring thanks for their fi:iendshlp, insight,
and patient advice. Much in this book takes inspiration from the work of
these ten scholars and writers, and I hope it measures up to their standards
of care, creativity, and critical reflection.

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 l'REFACE xiii

Colleagues in the Deparnnems of Anthropology at 'D.llanc, the Univer-

sity of South Carolina, and Harvard have been a consrant source of encour-
agement and imellecrual challenge, and [ hope they will rake pleasure in
reading this book. I am grateful in particular to Stanley Tambiah, Arthur
Kleinman, and Byron Good for their critical response as I worked d1rough
ideas for Chapter 4.
Two o ther Harvard colleagues deserve special acknowledgment. First, I
thank Michael Hertfeld for his endless puns and for his boundless critical
energy and generosity. I joined his NEH Seminar on "Poetics and Social
Life" at Indiana University during the summer of 1990, a time when I was
brooding over how to mrn a sprawling l'b.O. thesis into a book worth
reading. Michael volunteered to read the thesis and gave me some enor-
mously productive comments and suggestions. That kind, mad act was in-
strumemal in giving me direction and resolve. He has my lasting gratitude.
Mary Steedly has been a steadfast colleague, friend, and confidante for
many years. Circumstances have fom1d us together in Cbapel Hill, Ann Ar-
bor, and Cambridge, and perhaps that is why it is difficult for me to imagine
not being able to turn to ber for personal and i.mellectuaJ support. Her
critical approach to edmograpby and Karo social history has pushed me to
reexamine my own work, and her being around has deepened my under-
standing of friendship and collegiality. Mary's interest and concern, not to
mention her comments on several chapters, have made this a berrer book,
and I thank her for tim.
I am indebted to many o thers who have helped this book along by com-
menting on early versions of individual chapters or on the manuscript as a
whole. I would like to mention in particular Donald Brenneis, Johannes Fa-
bian, Douglas Hollan, Janet Ho.~kins, Webb Keane, Rira Kipp, Joel Kuipers,
Toby Volkman, and Jane Wellenkamp. Susan Ferguson, Lindsay French, and
Kate Hoshour also made comments dlat helped bring clarity or reason to
the manuscript in some way. Last, but hardly least, Kirin Narayan and John
and Karen Campbell -Nelson remained faithful listeners and eager readers,
gently chiding me tow<rd liner ethnographic work.
I want to express my very deep appreciation to Rcnato Rosaldo, Peter
Metcalf, Bob McKinley, and Janet Hoskins (once more) tor their encourag-
ing letters or thoughtful remarks as I put this book together. I cannot imag-
ine doing work on Southeast Asian headhunting t:raditions without building
on their accomplishments. A number of friends and scholars also helped me
fathom the music of headhunting ritual: particular thanks go to Rene Ly-
sloff; his expertise and patienr help were fundamental to my understanding
of sum.engo song structure and performance styles. I note, too, Greg Nagy,

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"" PREFACE

Kay Kaufman Shelemay, and Deborah Wong; all offered key insights on
choral singing.
Countless friends and acquaintances in Sulawesi made this a rewarding
project. A. Makmur Makka helped in very crucial ways, as did SyanlSltl Arief,
H. A. Oddang, S. Mengga, M. Saiyadi K., Mukhtar Sa.leh, and their respec-
tive families. The people of Mambi and Bambang showed me extraordinary
kindness and hospitality for two and a half years. I cannot possibly name all
of them here, bur let me mention with heartfelt thanks the generosity and
understanding of Abdul Rahman Enang, the late Johannes and Anton Pua-
tipanna, and their families. I owe a special debt to the mappurondo com-
munities in Bambang and Mambi, not only for tl1eir boundles.~ hospitality,
but for privileges seldom given to strangers. Their trust and patience, thci.r
kindne.ss and knowledge, tie at the hean of this book. Finally, I can only
hint at the immeasurable debt I owe Bombeng Boaz Rendeng ( Papa Ari ).
He worked faithfully with me on th.is project, raking me to the farthest
reaches of me Salu Mambi headwaters to teach me how to listen for me
breailiing of rivers and me felling of songs. His voice is in nearly all me
lyrics that follow.
Vida Mazulis worked valiantly to keep me manuscript from smoiliering
oilier kinds of intellectual interests in our home. Still, she rook me time to
go through portions of the book closely and critically, taking care ro remind
me of me need to hisroricize wherever possible, and making reasoned com-
plaint whenever my prose got too clever or tangled up in itself. Her incisive
ideas and patient companionship have helped me sec my way ilirough and
beyond iliis work, and on to new projects.

Funding for me research mat led to this book came from several sources. I
gratefully acknowledge support from ilie Social Science Research Council;
me Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Abroad Program ( Project No.
G00-82-0543); rbe Wetmer-Greo Foundation for Aniliropological Research
(Grant No. 4144); me University of Michigan Institute for me Humanities;
and me National Endow01eot for me Humanities. My tl1anks go also to my
Indonesian sponsors at Lembaga Ibm< Pmgetalman lndotw:ia (LIP!, me In-
donesian Institute of Science) and Pmat Lntiha11 Pcnelitian Ilmu-Ibttu So-
sial ( PLPIIS, me Center for Training in Social Science Research) at Univer-
sitas Hasam•ddi11 (UNHAS).
Some passages and sections of this book have been published elsewhere.
I iliank me editors and publishers of ilic foUo,ving journals for permission
to reprint materials from:

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 PREFACE ,,,

Lyric, Hisrory and Allegory, or the End of Headhunting Ritual in

Highland Sulawe.si. Am mean Ethnologist 20(1):697- 717.
Dark Trembling: Ethnographic Remarks on Secrecy and Concealment
in Highland Sulawesi. Ambropological Q!tarte>·ly66(4):230- 239.
Violence, Solace, and Ritual: A Case Study from Island Southeast Asia.
Cttlmre, Medicine, atld Psychiatry 19(2):225-260.
Music-Making, Ritual, and Gender in a Southeast Asian HjJJ Society.
Etlmonmsicology 37( l ):1- 26
Felling a Song mth a New Ax: Writing and the Reshaping of Ritual
Song Performance in Upland Sulawesi. Journal ofAmerican Folklore
103(407):3- 23.
Headhunting, History, and Exchange in Upland Sulawe.si. ]~11rnal of
An'a11 Studiu 50(3):536-564.

All of the photographs are mine.

In preparing this book I had a good deal of technical assistance. I would
like to mention Vivian Montgomery, who did a marvelous job transcribing
the sumcngo melodies into Western notation, and John P. Mama, who care-
fuUy put the notations into computerized form. l also thank Daniel Glazer
for redrawing my research maps and developing a simple sketch of South-
east Asia. Zack Whyte helped with the index.
Last, I want to thank Stan Holwitz, Rebecca Frazier, and others at the
Los Angeles office.s of the Universiry of California Press, and the copy edi-
tor, Bill Carver, for taking interest in this hook, and giving it their outstand-
ing care. They managed ro get the book reviewed, copyedited, and pro·
dm:eu duriug we canloquakc of 1994 , the nood• of 1995, and the several
other trials that have come their way. I take that as a good sign.

K. M. G.

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rel-ie {rei' ik), n. 1. a mrvirti11g memorial ofsomething past.
2. an object havi•tg interest by reaso11 of its age or its associatio11
with the past: a museum of historic relics. 3. a surviving trace
<ifsomethi"!l' a custom that is a relic of paganism. 4. reliu, a.
>'tmai"i'liJ pa.~·ts or fragmmts. b. the rmMim of a dtua.sed per-
sot~. 5. somethi•tg kept;, rem~mbrame; so~<vmir; memmto.
6. Eccles. (esp. in the Roman Catholic and Gnek ch~<rches) the
body, a part of the body, or some persrmal memorinl of a saim,
marty>; or other sacred person, p>·eserved as wortll)• ofvenera-
tio11. 7. a o11ce tvidespread linguistic [om< that m•·vives ;., a
limited area but is otherwise obsolete.
--71Je Ram/.om House Dicr:iona.ryofrlu Enalish lAnguaae,
2nd Edition Un4lnidgetl., 1987

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 l
Relics from Alien Parts
An Introduction

It bas been said that there are only two plots that really mat-
ter to stories and storytelling: "You go on a jOllrney or a stranger comes to
town."' If departures, returns, and unexpected arrivals make great material,
then it may be tha.t those we call headhunters have a real talc tO tell. Not
only do they go off on a joumey, but they bring back a mute, disfigured
stranger with them . And they tell stories about it. l know this because I
have Ustened to them. I know, too, that there is something disquieting about
finding wonder and grace in their songs of terror and blood and noise and
death.' It is not a matter of surprise. After all, violence is no stranger tO art:
dte bodies heaped or strewn across paintings, epics, and theater tell us that.
I dtink the disquiet may bave to do with finding oneself seduced by the spec-
tacle and advcnnlf<: of violence, by its clarity. It is the disquiet of thinking
tbat you could be its victim or tbe one telling its rale. It is the disquiet that
comes from assenting r.o a story of violence and acknowledgi ng the passion
and revulsion that quickened within you .
The force and seductiveness of headhunting stories remain real even when
violence is left behind. In a sense, the headhunter's story always leaves vio-
lence behind-the bodies of rhe fullen are absem, elsewhere, just over tbe
horizon of the senses. T here is nothing "here" except the narrative and
the dread trophy of the violent feats that happened " then and there.''
Consider, then, the oddness of a dumb, stolen head listening to the story
dtar celebrates dte de.ath and dismemberment of its own person.3 For many

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2 RELICS FROM ALIEN PARIS: AN INTRODUCTION

traditions of headhunting, though, it is a narrative of some kind that re-

mains as the only presentable or recoverable rrace of violence. Some head·
hunters- like the Uongot men who have figured prominently in the work of
Michelle and Renato Rosald~imply abandon the severed head of their
victim, aod retu.m bome to take up boasting and song. "We came home and
sang and sang" goes an Uongot headhunting story-a remark that prompted
Michelle Rosaldo to say d1at celebratory song itself was the source of the
"anger" that led men to kill (1980:56-57). Yet there are those, too, who
have put the violence of headhunting behind them in a different way. Here
1 have in mind those headhunters who make their predatory raids in the past.
Although they have long put away the headhunter's weapons, they conjure
relics of violence from the past in order to animate the present. Their vio·
lence happens only in the commemorative work of ritual narrative and song.
These are the kind of headhunters who people this book.
Where headhunters have put down their weapons and taken up song, the
mimetic discourse of rirual offers an especially revealing look at violence. We
se.e violence as a narrated form of symbolic exchange, something "figured"
and "read," so to speak, through the discursive tensions linking dominant
and oppositional social formations (Armsrrong and Tcnnenhousc 1989;
Chambers 1991; Feldman 1991; Medick 1987; White 1978), and shaped
through the social poetics that fran1e experience ( Herzfeld 1985; cf. Bren-
neis 1987; R. Rosaldo 1986). Nevertheless, the intrusions of history, along
with the ambiguities of commemoration, cor.•plicate our readings of the
headhunter's violence. Slippage, disjuncrure, and irony begin to character-
ize the way in which a circumstanced and recalcitrant social world stands
apart from the idealized \ision of the beadhunt. The edifice of ritual and all
of its pragmatic concerns begin to tremble.
The problematic gaps between the discursive projects of ritual and me
instabilities of the social world beg a story, roo. What stories need to be told
about headhunters who do not take heads, but who nonctlleless stage ritu-
als about headhunting? How should they be told? Consider the follo\ving
narrative:

umgago Now
They tool> heads They rake effigy beads
They take bead-shaped surrogates
They rake coconuts
They use coconuts bought in a market

This sin1ple narrative sketch posits an originar)' violence that bas been dis·
placed over time. It gives the terrors of the past an illusor)' firmness and dar·

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 RELICS FROM ALIEN PARTS: AN INTRODUCTION .l

ity. But each of the four "editions" o r "versions" invites a diffi:rent reading
of the headhunters' story. If I close the tale with "They take <fli6)' heads,"
a sense of violence lingers to haunt the present; the headhunter seems to
be exercising choice. Closing the StOr)' with " They take head-shaped surro-
gates," I imply something else- perhaps dlat the headhunters' violence and
capacity to act have been thwarted or c.ontained. If I say, "Now they take
coconuts," I am almost sure to raise a laugh, for the only sign of violence
is a harmless, pathetic theft-one of the weapons of the weak. And last,
should I close with "They usc coconuts bought in a market," I risk giving
the impression that contemporary headhunting is a masquerade or a relic
amusement for those tamed or humiliated by historical change and the ex-
pansion of a commoditizcd world.
Other stories cao be read in this narrative as well. It might be read as a
fall from authenticity into fakery, a story in which " really real" violence and
"really real" heads devolve imo gesture and stage prop. Read from another
prospect altogether, the narrative may look like the srory of all simulacra, a
story in whicb there is uo distinction between originals aod copies, between
reality and representation. Yet stiU another reading may be rhe most com-
mon and troubling one: a story of progress, a story in which pagan violence
is subdued and in which human characters ascend from a state of prim-
itivism to one just shy of civility and modernity. This modernist story of
progress has been a powerful one in the popular and intellectual traditions
of the West. Those traditions have been instrumental in making a fetish of
headhunters, headhunting, and the se\'ered head: turned into extravagandy
magical figures, trophy heads and headhunters have served a rhetoric of
control in the West's encounter with "others" (cf. Fabian 1983; R. Rosaldo
1978; Trouillot 1991; White 1978). In short, these representations of orhe.r
people's violence have played into the discursive violence emanating from
colonial and postcolonial centers.
Among other things, this book is about the language, music, and vio-
lence of headhunting ritual, and about the cultural politics that have shaped
them. Yet I hope it may help dislodge the cathcctcd figure of the head-
hunter from d1at rhetoric which peoples our world \vith "savages," "pa-
gans," and "monsters." My focus will be on the song and chant of a ritual
headhunt called pangngn.c, a ceremony observed by a minority religious
community on the island of Sulawesi, in Indonesia (see Maps 1 and 2).
What makes d1is rirual so striking, these days, is irs artifice. No one is killed,
no actual head is taken. But its rhetoric of violence is unmistakable. By ex-
ploring the di~conrsc of pangngae--cspecially it.!\ theme~> ir.s prnjccr.o;;. , and irs
situatedness- I hope to recognize what is at stake for the community when
it convenes in the theater of ritual headhunting.

Copyrighted material
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Map 2. So11th S11lawesi, Indonesia, showing #1tdy nrta

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6 RELICS FROM ALIEN PARTS: AN INTRODUCTION

Objects and Encounters:

October 1982 and July 1983

"lfs a kind of haNest festival." The Kepala Desa-the head of

the viUage district- was leading me over me pat:hs to me hamlet of Laso-
dehata, where he planned ro show me something about local ritual tradi-
tion. Though his remark was quite clear, I didn't koow what to listen for. I
was a stranger to Bambang (me name of the village district). I didn't know
me people, I didn't know me place, and I cercainly didn't know a euphe-
mism when I beard one. Guided by wonder and literality, I simply went along
wit:h him.
Some months later, when I began to get a hold on me local language, I
learned mat Lasodehata means "me phallus of me debata (or spirit)." The
story goes mat when some settlers sank me first hole for a housepost on mat
site sLxteen or seventeen generations ago, !:hey hit a large red rock. The mo-
ment !:hey did, me angry bellowing voice of a mountain spirit complained
of me wound. The settlers made amends to the spirit and named the hamlet
in commemoration of me evenr. Years later, civil and militar)' aut:horities
objected ro t11e hamlet's nan1e and changed it tO Rantepalado, "me field of
jackfruit"-11lthough no jack.fruit trees grow mere. About d1e same time, I
also learned that me "harvest festival" was called pangngae, and that pan-
gngae means "to take a head" in raid or ambush. But on mat day in Octo-
ber 1982, walking with me Kepala Desa, my working premise was mat I was
about to see something that had to do witb harvest ceremonies.
Lasodehata was very still when we arrived. People must have been away
in meir gardens and coffee groves. We stood below tbe shuttered door of a
large house, me comb from a nest of wasps or bees hanging beside it, set
out to t:hwarc malevolent spirit-beings from intruding into me house.• No
one was at home, so me Kepala Desa found a neighbor, stationed him at
me toot o f me bouse ladder, and men let himself in, beckoning me to fol-
low. Fine shafts of sunlight reached down from me match roof into the
dim, smokeless room . A large drum hung not fur from tbe door, cinched up
near a rafter. I rook a picture of it, and a lew weeks later carefully labeled
me stide: DRUM 11sed ;,. FERTILITY RITUAL, BAMBANG. Moments
after telling me about me drum, me Kepala Desa pointed up toward the
loft, saying, "Those instruments (Indonesian, a/at-a/at) are blown to make a
sound after prayers are made to the dewi padi (Ind. rice goddesses).·
I looked up, craning my neck to make out something I might recognize
resting in me loft. I saw several large bamboo rubcs-t:hcy looked like !:hey
might be flur.c s-and a snarl of plaited leaves. A small offering rack hung

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 RELICS FROM ALIEN PARTS: AN INTRODUCTION 7

next to the instruments. I fussed with my camera tr)'ing to find the angle,
tho rishr light, 3 sh:up focus, =d I v3suely rec311 lyins on the Aoor peerins
upward through the lens. I took another shot. That one is labeled: RIT-
UAL PARAPHERNALIA for Fertility Ritua~ Bambang. Kept 011 rafter<.
That was my first look at the relics from a headhunt. They bad been put
away after the previous harvest (March 1982), and with the exception of
the drum have since been replaced. I take out those two phocograplis from
time to time, usually to wind up remembering how on that day I had hope-
fully imagined sounds canting from a silent drum and sleeping flutes. I also
remember Ambe Lusa, the Kepala Desa and a Christian of abundant good
will and humor, who would die before I left the region with much-changed
ideas about the hatvest festivals he had described to me. His showing me
that loft persuaded me to live and work in the area for the next three years,
and I hold on to those photographs so d1at I can dUnk back on the mo-
ment. But to erase my eduwgraphk naivete and tn.istakenness, I have recap-
tinned them aViolmce: Still-Life I, " avio/mct: Still-Lift IF" (see Figure 1).
Circumstances kept me out of me mountains for the next five monilis,
and I would learn ~ttle about pangngae until the foUowing October. Shortly
after moving to th< region, I found out that those who had turned to the
church and the mosque had more or less forsaken the local ritual tradition
that interested me, a tradition caUed ada' mappuro11do. The mappurondo
communities- that is, the groups of people who adhere tO the traditional
ritual order-were quiet and remote. During tltis time, it was largely Chris-
tians and Muslims who interpreted local culmre for me.
Two monms or so after settling in the area, I joined Christian acquain-
tances in wedding festivities at Salutabang, a village in Bambang with a sig-
nificant number of mappurondo households. One of the mappurondo el-
ders there, Am be Teppu, confronted the host of the wedding. Mappurondo
terraces had already been "wounded» by the till, putting inro effect a
village-wide tabu on noise, laughter, music, weddings, and other festive rit-
uals. His anger weot even deeper upon learning that my Christian friends
had put on a surprise "culture-show~ (Ind., pamera,. bu.daya) fut· me as light
enrertainmenr and education, a show tl1at included some old headhunting
songs, a chant invoking the spirits of women's household rites, and a staged
version of a dance that in rimal circumstances would involve trance. Ambe
Teppu saw it not only as poking fun at ada' mappurondo, but as sacred
things out of place. Bitter about what had happened, he would later scold
the newlywed husbmd:
I have coffee beans. 1will give them to you and you CQn roast them up and make cof-
fee. 1have sheaves of rice. Go ahead and take them, and cook up some rice. But this
is my religion. I will gil'e you my religion. But don't, don't turn my religion into culture.

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fig. 1. Violmu: Still Lift II. Bnmboo flutes >'tsting i11 the gable-end left ofa home.
These large, tfecorate.djlutes-cn/led ramboli - nre tmique to local beadlmnting cere·
m01lies. 1982.

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 RELICS FROM ALIEN PARTS: AN INTRODUCTION 9

For me the words srung. This was a version of« the raw and the cooked ..
quite wilike the one I had digested in preparation for research? Ambe
Teppu was taking aim against d1e arrogation of local tradition by intruding
ideologies and social groups. Powerful institutions were competing with the
mappurondo communities for the ideological control and social production
of words, meanings, and practice (cf. Volosinov 1973; Williams 1977). Re-
sisting a civil discourse that denied him a religion and treated his sacred tra-
dition as "culture" and "arr"-marrers I rake up in this book- Am be Teppu
was also protesting conduct that abused and concealed the real nature of
mappurondo practices.
Though they were limed ar his nephew, I took Ambe Teppu's words as
an admonishment for me as well. After all, I was part of a "culture indus-
try," albeit of a different sorr. Although I had no intention of turning tradi-
tional sacred practices into ethnic song and dance (Ambe Teppu's most im-
mediate fear), I wanted to be sure that I did not slight the mappurondo
communities' authoriutive claims to their own traditions. Ambe Teppu's
words also reminded me that though he and I had been simated in unique
ways by the varied histories and politics that worked through us, both of us
were caught up inextricably in the same world. I met Jum at a time when
the discipline of anthropology was subjecting itself to a critique of its repre-
sentational authority and its complicity in the politics of domination.6 Ambe
Teppu's reprimand was forged in a similar spirit: the politics of culture do
matter.
I had not gone to Sulawesi with rhe idea of working on the problem of
heaclliunting or violence, but with plans to explore the biographical and
autobiographical strains of ritual discourse. And indeed, ethnographic re-
ports on Sulawesi had given me the impression that beadhunting ritual was
a thing of the past. As in other parts of Indone.sia, headhunting rumors
were common forms of terror, linked now, as in the colonial past, to d1e
presence of police, military personnel, workers from large construction proj-
ects, and other alien figures (Drake 1989; Erb 1991 ; Pannell J 992; Tsing
1993, forth.). When l learned, some mond1s after meeting Ambe Tcppu,
that mappurondo "harvest testivals" are headhunting rites, I was drawn to
them, tor several reasons. For one thing, it is very clear ro me d1at pang-
ngae is the central ritual apparatus within the mappurondo communities tor
asserting their cultural autonomy: the community that no longer holds
pangngae is in effect moribund. )usr as ritual theater was the basic cultural
idiom for d1e nineteenth-century Balinese State (Geertz 1980), the ceremo-
nial headhunr of pang11gae forms a political drama through which the map-
purondo communities try to control their past and their present. By the

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10 RELICS FROM ALLEN PARTS: AN INTRODUCTION

same coken, the riruals are a means for these relatively egalitarian communi-
ties to display and read signs of spiritual and material potency (cf. Atkinson
1989; Errington 1989; M. Rosaldo I 980). But I do not of cou.rse mean to
exorcise cooflict from pangogae, for as Dirks (1994) reminds us, ritual can
as eaSil)' exhibit or bring about conflict and instability, as put authority and
order on display. For the moment I want co stress that the mappurondo
communities' hold on autonomy, potency, continuity, and stability has been
thrown into question by a civil order that contests or censures the very
means for grasping them- the rhetoric of ritual violence. At stake is how
pangngae will be claimed, reclaimed, or forgonen, and by whom. Conflict
over rirual practice and representation is a fact of life for the mappurondo
enclave in Bambang, and Ambe Teppu's protest was just one more skirmish
in the ongoing struggle of a minority religious community to shape its owo
fute.
It would be misleading to describe this struggle as a struggle for identity.
The conflict has to do with ritual practice and legitimacy, "~th authorita-
tive claims to rradition, and with ways of coping "~th an uncertain world.
For people who have remained faithful ro ada' mappuroodo, rituals are the
evenL~ of rime, memory, and tradition itself. Authoring and authorizing rit-
uaJ "texts" arc at issue in this rivalry with Christians, Muslims, and the civil
administration. This brings me to another reason I was drawn to the ritual.
The texts and texrualiry of pangogae nor only were contested resources, bur
also promised a valuable point of entry into understanding the discursive
construction of violence and rirual tradition. A srudy that dwells upon the
discourse of pangngae, it seems to me, might take us far in coming to terms
with ritual violence. At the same time, I think it Mil give us a glimpse of
what the mappurondo communities have at stake as they negotiate their
place in the world through a tradition of headhunting ritual.

Recent Commentaries on
Regional Headhunting Traditions

Some of the more insightful commentaries on Southeast Asian

headhunting traditions have shown a deep regard for local discourse and
history. In particular, l have in mind here the work of the Rosaldos on
llongot headhunting in the Northern Luzon region of the Philippines and,
indeed, this book is in part an effort to resume the conversati