Magical Discourse, Moral Boundaries, and the Mapping of Interrelations in the Riau Archipelago

Faucher, Carole

doi:10.1163/15685310260188790

“…Bernstein also writes of the dukun's prowess in providing traditional healing for diseases caused by one's body being entered by a spirit (Bernstein, 1993). Spirit ownership is a specialty of the dukun (Faucher, 2002). They may, as in West Java, be considered capable of handling mental conditions which are incurable through modern medical practice (Horikoshi-Roe, 1979), or of controlling spectral tigers as in Aceh (Ali, 1995).…”

Section: Existing Understanding Of the Dukun Knowledge Abilities Anmentioning

confidence: 99%

Redefining The Term of Dukun

Sartini

¹

,

Ahimsa-Putra

²

2017

Hum.

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Dukun, wong pinter, and other terms, commonly constitutes to the term of shamanism, are often interpreted in the same way. In particular, the dukun and wong pinter are generally understood as persons who have extraordinary or even supernatural powers, are capable of communicating with spirits and understanding the unseen, can generally help resolve issues faced by members of their communities, including illnesses, spiritual disturbances, lost items, unfortunate fates, etc. They are also predicated to charge to the patient and even willing to help witchcraft to harm other people. In fact, not all shamans have negative behaviors. In Temanggung, Central Java, though this general understanding is still common, there is distinction in the specific details and characteristics of the dukun and wong pinter. Dukun are often understood negatively, meanwhile the wong pinter has more positive connotations. Because of the different principle meaning the both terms should not be generalized and used appropriately and wisely. Improper use can cause discomfort in the community, and academically the both term actually refers to a completely different subject characteristics.

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“…Bernstein also writes of the dukun's prowess in providing traditional healing for diseases caused by one's body being entered by a spirit (Bernstein, 1993). Spirit ownership is a specialty of the dukun (Faucher, 2002). They may, as in West Java, be considered capable of handling mental conditions which are incurable through modern medical practice (Horikoshi-Roe, 1979), or of controlling spectral tigers as in Aceh (Ali, 1995).…”

Section: Existing Understanding Of the Dukun Knowledge Abilities Anmentioning

confidence: 99%

Redefining The Term of Dukun

Sartini¹,

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dukun, wong pinter, and other terms, commonly constitutes to the term of shamanism, are often interpreted in the same way. In particular, the dukun and wong pinter are generally understood as persons who have extraordinary or even supernatural powers, are capable of communicating with spirits and understanding the unseen, can generally help resolve issues faced by members of their communities, including illnesses, spiritual disturbances, lost items, unfortunate fates, etc. They are also predicated to charge to the patient and even willing to help witchcraft to harm other people. In fact, not all shamans have negative behaviors. In Temanggung, Central Java, though this general understanding is still common, there is distinction in the specific details and characteristics of the dukun and wong pinter. Dukun are often understood negatively, meanwhile the wong pinter has more positive connotations. Because of the different principle meaning the both terms should not be generalized and used appropriately and wisely. Improper use can cause discomfort in the community, and academically the both term actually refers to a completely different subject characteristics.

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“…Endicott's theory of the centrality of semangat and its dichotomous relationship with bodiless ‘free spirits’ has since come to underpin manyanalyses of Southeast Asian ‘spirit phenomena’ (e.g. Faucher 2002: 158‐62; Ong 1988: 30‐2).…”

Section: Mysterious Taxonomiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Haunting Malayness: the multicultural uncanny in a new Indonesian province

Long

¹

2010

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

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This article investigates how useful notions of ‘Malay spirit beliefs’ and ‘the uncanny’ are for analysing encounters with mysterious non‐human creatures, known as makhluk gaib, in Indonesia's Riau Archipelago. It suggests that the multiplicity of cosmologies within a plural society necessarily frustrates efforts to analyse such encounters within the framework of specific cultural worldviews. Rather, interactions between humans and makhluk gaib come to be meaningful through being embedded in the diverse affective experiences of multicultural living. To gain greater analytic purchase on the diversity of affects fostered within the case material, the article rehabilitates Freud's suggestion that one can delineate multiple species of the uncanny. Species concerned with repression and historical memory are shown to be less unsettling than recent theoretical interventions suggest, whilst a more powerful species of the uncanny is argued to derive from the multiculturalism of the region's population in the context of provincial secession. Résumé L’auteur décrit l’utilité de notions de « croyances malaises dans les esprits » et de « l’étrange » pour l’analyse de rencontres avec de mystérieuses créatures non humaines appelées makhluk gaib dans l’archipel indonésien de Riau. Il suggère que les efforts d’analyse de ces rencontres dans le cadre de visions du monde culturelles spécifiques se heurtent inévitablement à la multiplicité des cosmologies au sein d’une société plurielle. De fait, les interactions entre les humains et les makhluk gaib prennent leur signification parce qu’elles sont tissées dans les expériences affectives diverses d’une vie multiculturelle. Afin d’avoir une meilleure prise pour analyser la diversité des affects fournie par les matériaux, l’auteur réhabilite la suggestion de Freud selon laquelle on peut identifier de nombreuses sortes d’étrange. Celles ayant un lien avec la répression et la mémoire historique s’avèrent moins dérangeantes que ne le suggèrent les interventions théoriques récentes, tandis qu’une sorte plus puissante d’étrange serait issue du multiculturalisme de la population de la région, dans le contexte de sa sécession provinciale.

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Magical Discourse, Moral Boundaries, and the Mapping of Interrelations in the Riau Archipelago

Cited by 5 publications

References 4 publications

Redefining The Term of Dukun

Redefining The Term of Dukun

Redefining The Term of Dukun

Haunting Malayness: the multicultural uncanny in a new Indonesian province

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