• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Religion in Indonesia - Animism

Religion is very important in Indonesia, so important that every citizen must adhere to a monotheistic religion. With a population of 240 million, the 2000 census reported 88 percent of the population as Muslim, 6 percent Protestant, 3 percent Roman Catholic, and 2 percent Hindu. Other religions (Buddhist, followers of traditional indigenous religions, Jewish, and other Christian denominations) were less than 1 percent of the population. So officially the animist population of Indonesia is less than 1% of the totoal.

But many combine their beliefs with one of the government-recognized religions and register under that recognized religion. An estimated 20 million persons [8% of the population], primarily in Java, Kalimantan, and Papua, practice animism and other types of traditional belief systems termed "Aliran Kepercayaan." The government permits the practice of the traditional belief system of Aliran Kepercayaan as a cultural manifestation, not a religion. Isolated hill tribes living in the interiors of the islands of Sulawesi, Seram, or Timor might express devotion to ancestral spirits through animal sacrifice at home.

The Dayak indigenous religion - Kaharingan, meaning "life " is a form of animism, but for official purposes, it is categorized as a form of Hinduism. During Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, peasants from Java might emphasize their Islamic faith and affiliation, whereas in other settings animist practices would dominate. Upon closer examination, it might be concluded that possibly 80& of the population of Indonesia might be classified as animist. Animism existed since before Indonesia's earliest history, and has survived overlays of great religions imported from other regions.

The approximately 65,000 Asmat people of the south-central alluvial swamps of Irian Jaya Province are descended from a Papuan racial stock. They live in villages with populations that vary from 35 to 2,000. The Asmat are primarily hunters and gatherers who subsist by gathering and processing the starchy pulp of the sago palm, and by fishing and hunting the occasional wild pig, cassowary, grubs, and crocodile. Asmat believe that all deaths--except those of the very old and very young--come about through acts of malevolence, either by magic or actual physical force. Their ancestral spirits demand vengeance for these deaths. These ancestors to whom they feel obligated are represented in large, spectacular wood carvings of canoes, shields, and in ancestor poles consisting of human figurines. Until the late twentieth century, the preferred way a young man could fulfill his obligations to his kin, to his ancestors, and to prove his sexual prowess, was to take a head of an enemy, and offer the body for cannibalistic consumption by other members of the village.

Traditionally, most of the scattered ethno-linguistic groups inhabiting the interior of the vast island of southern Kalimantan have been labelled collectively by outsiders as Dayak. Religiously, they tend to be either Protestant or Kaharingan, a form of native religious practice viewed by the government as Hindu, with an estimated 330,000 adherents. Through its healing performances, Kaharingan serves to mold the scattered agricultural residences into a community, and it is at times of ritual that these peoples coalesce as a group. There is no set ritual leader nor is there a fixed ritual presentation. Specific ceremonies may be held in the home of the sponsor.

Shamanic curing or balian is one of the core features of these ritual practices. Because this healing practice often occurs as a result of the loss of the soul, which has resulted in some kind of illness, the focus of the religion is thus on the body. Sickness comes by offending one of the many spirits inhabiting the earth and fields, usually from a failure to sacrifice to them. The goal of the balian is to call back the wayward soul and restore the health of the community through trance, dance, and possession.

Modern recognition of the legitimacy of Kaharingan as a religious practice has been the culmination of a long history of struggles for autonomy. Since the southern coast of Kalimantan has long been dominated by the politically and numerically superior Muslim Banjarese, Christian and Kaharingan adherents of the central interior sought parliamentary recognition of a Great Dayak territory in 1953. When these efforts failed, a rebellion broke out in 1956 along religious lines, culminating in the establishment of the new province of Kalimantan Tengah in May 1957.

The abortive coup of 1965 proved that independence to be fragile. With the unity of the republic at stake, indigenous religions were viewed as threats and labelled atheistic and, by implication, communist. Caught in a no-win situation, the Dayak also were told that they did not have an agama and thus became suspect in the anticommunist fever of the late 1960s. By the early 1970s, negotiations began between Kalimantan Tengah and the national government over recognition of the indigenous religion of the peoples of the province. But as late as 1979 they were unable to conform to the requirements laid down by the Indonesian government: 1) that their belief knew only one God; 2) that a holy book or script was present; 3) that a special building for religious services was present; and 4) that a set number of yearly feast-days were ordered. After making changes to conform to these criteria, in April 1980, the Kaharingan community obtained official recognition by the state government, not as Indonesia’s sixth religion but as a branch of Hinduism.

One minority group that has been successful in gaining national and international attention is the Toraja of central Sulawesi, with a population of approximately 650,000. This group's prominence, beginning in the 1980s, was due largely to the tourist industry, which was attracted to the region because of its picturesque villages and its spectacular mortuary rites involving the slaughter of water buffalo.

An important kind of group with which Toraja have close affiliations is the tongkonan (ancestral house), which contrasts with banua (ordinary house). Tongkonan as social units consist of a group of people who reckon descent from an original ancestor. The physical structures of tongkonan are periodically renewed by replacing their distinctively shaped roofs. This ritual is attended by members of the social group and accompanied by trance-like dances in which the spirits are asked to visit. A third important kind of affiliation is the saroan, or village work group. These groups were probably originally agricultural work groups based in a particular hamlet. Beginning as labor and credit exchanges, saroan have since evolved into units of cooperation in ritual activities as well. When sacrifices and funerals take place, these groups exchange meat and other foods.

The flexibility of these affiliations is partly responsible for the intensity of the mortuary performances. Because there is some ambiguity about one's affiliation (that is, one's claims to descent are not only based on blood relationships but also on social recognition of the relationship through public acts), Toraja people may attempt to prove the importance of a relationship through elaborate contributions to a funeral, which provides an opportunity to prove not only a person's devotion to a deceased parent, but also a person's claim to a share of that parent's land. The amount of land an individual inherits from the deceased might depend on the number of buffalo sacrificed at a parent's funeral. Sometimes people even pawn land to get buffalo to kill at a funeral so that they can claim the land of the deceased. Thus, feasting at funerals is highly competitive.

The Toraja have two main kinds of rituals. Those of the east-- known as rites of the rising sun and the rising smoke--are concerned with planting fertility and abundance. Following the rice harvest are rituals of the west centering on the setting sun, consisting primarily of funerals. Both involve the sacrifice of water buffalo, pigs, and chickens as offerings to the ancestors, and a complex distribution of the meat among the living.

It is difficult to describe the Balinese version of Hinduism in the same doctrinal terms as Islam and Christianity, since this unique form of religious expression is deeply interwoven with art and ritual, and is less closely preoccupied with scripture, law, and belief. Balinese Hinduism lacks the traditional Hindu emphasis on cycles of rebirth and reincarnation, but instead is concerned with a myriad of local and ancestral spirits. As with kebatinan, these deities are thought to be capable of harm. This is not really Hinduism, but is rather animism.

Balinese place great emphasis on dramatic and aesthetically satisfying acts of ritual propitiation of these spirits at temple sites scattered throughout villages and in the countryside. Each of these temples has a more or less fixed membership; every Balinese belongs to a temple by virtue of descent, residence, or some mystical revelation of affiliation. Some temples are associated with the family house compound, others are associated with rice fields, and still others with key geographic sites. Ritualized states of self-control (or lack thereof) are a notable feature of religious expression among the people, famous for their graceful and decorous behavior. One key ceremony at a village temple, for instance, features a special performance of a dance-drama (a battle between the mythical characters Rangda the witch and Barong the dragon), in which performers fall into a trance and attempt to stab themselves with sharp knives.

The Sundanese are an ethnic group native to the western part of the Indonesian island of Java. They number approximately 30 million. Although Sundanese religious practices share some of the Hindu-Buddhist beliefs of their Javanese neighbors -- for example, the animistic beliefs in spirits and the emphasis on right thinking and self-control as a way of controlling those spirits -- Sundanese courtly traditions differ from those of the Javanese. The Sundanese language possesses an elaborate and sophisticated literature preserved in Indic scripts and in puppet dramas. These dramas use distinctive wooden dolls (wayang golek, as contrasted with the wayang kulit of the Javanese and Balinese), but Sundanese courts have aligned themselves more closely to universalistic tenets of Islam than have the elite classes of Central Java.

The striking variations in the practice and interpretation of Islam -- in a much less austere form than that practiced in the Middle East -- in various parts of Indonesia reflect its complex history, introduced piecemeal by various traders and wandering mystics from India. These historical processes gave rise to enduring tensions between orthodox Muslims and more syncretistic, locally based religion. On Java, for instance, this tension was expressed in a contrast between santri ["white" - Orthodox Muslims] and abangan [people who are nominally Muslim and who, in fact, are followers of kebatinan, an indigenous blend of native and Hindu-Buddhist beliefs with Islamic practices sometimes also called kejawen, agama Jawa, or Javanism. The word is derived from the Javanese abang, which means "red."]

Most Javanese peasants, particularly those in Central Java, resist the universalism of Islam and its political connotations. They favor a more moderate blend of Islamic practice with an indigenous Javanism, expressed in household feasts, pilgrimages to local temples and shrines, and belief in local spirits. For many Javanese peasants, the spiritual world is richly populated with deities who inhabit people, things, and places, and who are ever ready to cause misfortune. Believers seek to protect themselves against these harmful spirits by making offerings, enlisting the aid of a dukun (healer), or through spiritual acts of self-control and right thinking.

In contrast to the Mecca-oriented philosophy of most santri, there was the current of kebatinan, which is an amalgam of animism, Hindu-Buddhist, and Islamic -- especially Sufi -- beliefs. This loosely organized current of thought and practice, was legitimized in the 1945 constitution and, in 1973, when it was recognized as one of the agama. As a body of belief, kebatinan is administered by the Department of Education and Culture rather than by the Department of Religious Affairs. President Suharto counted himself as one of its adherents.

Kebatinan is generally characterized as mystical, and some varieties were concerned with spiritual self-control. Although there were many varieties circulating, kebatinan often implies pantheistic worship because it encourages sacrifices and devotions to local and ancestral spirits. These spirits are believed to inhabit natural objects, human beings, artifacts, and grave sites of important wali (Muslim saints). Illness and other misfortunes are traced to such spirits, and if sacrifices or pilgrimages fail to placate angry deities, the advice of a dukun or healer is sought. Kebatinan, while it connotes a turning away from the militant universalism of orthodox Islam, moves toward a more internalized universalism. In this way, kebatinan moves toward eliminating the distinction between the universal and the local, the communal and the individual.

With approximately 62% of the country's population, Java has a population of over 150 million, of whom 97.3 percent are officially Muslim. Only 5-10 percent follow Agami Islam Santri, with 30 percent following Agami Jawi. The rest are only nominal Muslims, called abangan, whose religion is based more on animism, mysticism, Javanese Hinduism and Javanese Buddhism. Thus perhaps as much as 90% of the Population of Java is animist.