CLIFFoRD SA'rHFrR

OccasioDal Paper, No 2, Ceotre ofSouth East Asian Studics, UDiversity of KcDt

at Canterbury, pp. 34-72.
Waterson, Roxrnx. 20O9. Paths and Rivers: S/lLlan Toraja Socicly i
'l'ftDts|on
ati(D1.
Leiden: KITLV Press.
Weinstock,
Ioseph. 1987. Kaharingan: Liti and Death in Southcrn Borneo. In
I .lonesiin R.ligions in
'lnhsition.
Eds. Rita Kipp irnd Susan ilogers.
'l'ucson:
University ofArizona Press, pp. 7l-97.
Csaprnn 3
Separated Dead and Transformed Ancestors:
Two Facets of Ancestorship among the
Uut Danum of West Kalimantan
Pascal Couderc
owARDS rHE END of 1996, a rumour spread along the Ambalau river
in West Kalimantan, according to which a villager from the neigh-
bouring Lekawai river was changing into a watersnake- His bodywas
reportedly already covered with scales and onlyhis head remained human. I
happened to know this young man, who had recently been severely affected
lvith ringwonu. It was later told that he had completed his transformation
rnd was about to crawl down to the river, which would happen as soon as
his relatives gathered for a farewell feast. Husked rice could thereupon be
scirttred to send prayers to hin.r in case of need
-
"by
the bucketfulj' added
a
),oung
sceptic. Some people said that he had met a female watersnakc in
a clrcam cnd that they were about to get married. Others warned that he
nright share the fate ofthc Iegendary ancestor Koling ofNanga Sake village,
killed long ago during a fight with fellow watersnakes, whose dead body, cut
in seven pieccs, gave rise to a group ofislands located on the middle course
oitbe Melawi river. Back in the upper Melawi ten years later for a short visit,
I lcirnt that the Lekawai villager had perfectly recovered.
'[his
anecdote illustrates the enduring influence among the Uut Danuml
of West l(alimantan of a m1'thological pattern that I shall call the
"trans-
[irtrrred lncestor." Tl]is is a concept that I have devised to describe a pattern
resembling one described by V6ronique Bdguet
(2006). Her analysis ofthe
lban of Malaysian Borneo, which highlights the importance of metamor-
pbosis as a means to establish ancestorship in Borneo, has significantly in-
fluenced my approach to the present chapter. Frequently found in their own
orirl tradition and that of their Ngaju neighbours in Central Kalimantan
(Darlandjaya 197l: 266-267,Schdrer 19 66: t42-144, 234-239, 1963: 143-146),
I54
PASCAL CouDERc
the pattern of the transformed ancestor involves the IlletanlorPllosi\
ol'
a living human being -
a man in most cases -
into an animal' usually a
watersiake or a hawk, who subsequently becomes a pr otecting sPirit ior his
descendants. Before taking leave' he informs his relatives that' shouid they
or his future descendants need help in urgent situations' they rnay call him
by scattering husked rice mixed with turmeric
2
Transformed ancestors include a number of mythical ancestors frotn
whom Uut Danum subgroups trace their origins' as well as some n.rore
Iocalized helping sPirits. They also include other famous ancestors of tl'le
past such u, Putih Mun"u, a
Prominent
nineteeDth-century
chief' rvho
according to oral tradition and written sources
(Epple n'd' 3' Ktihr 1896-97'
VI: 229, Zimmermann 1968: 325-327i see also Schwaner 1853-54' Ir lB2)
married a female watersnake and settled in the Melawi river at Teluk Osa'
Although he belonged to a different ethnic group
(possibly the Osa people
of the iriddle Melawi), several Uut Danum families in vrrious villuges of
the Ambalau basin to this day recognize him as their ancestor
(fdli!/) and
regularly give him food offerings during ritual celebratlons'
-Of
course, transformed ancestors are excePtional Most people lelve
the visible world by dying. Furthermore,
the dead' including those who
received full mortuary treatment, do not feature amqng the sPirits that the
Uut Danum readily turn to in their daily existence For exanrple' the'r'irre
virtually absent from the system of vows and vow-redeeming
(ftajrlt) which
is the tt?ical form of communication with sPirit helPers Whereas this fornr
ofspirit communication is based on a conditional engagen.renl lo
Pay
olI a
debt upon fulfiIment of a request, relations with the dead are delined by
the unconditional obligation to perform nrortuary ritunls lvlost contircts
with the sPirits of dead relatives occur before the completion of mortuary
rituals, which have usually included secondary treatment of the deceascd's
remains. Beyond this often
Protracted Period
the sPirits of the dead are not
expected to ;nterfere in the existence of the living' neither to ltarm nor hclp
thc'rn, although both of this may indeed happen' ln other words' the state
of rcl,,tionshi! with the spirits of dead forebears that strould ideally result
frotn the correct execution ofmortuary rituals is mutual independence ;rnd
indifference.
As B6guet argues for tl.re Layar river Iban
(2006)' metarnorphosis aItoDg
the Uut Danum is thus a
PrinciPal
way in which some individuals can
become ancestral spirit helpers.3 In contrast to their Iban counterparts' Uut
Danum transformed ancestors t)?ically undergo metamorphosis
while still
SripAR,\'rED [)EAD AND
,l.nANsI,oRMLD
AN(ilisroRs
t55
alive. iSdguet also argues that death among the Iban is only one nranifestation
of a ntore general principle ofthe metantorphosis
ofi,soul,,itlto,.spirit,,
(20i16;
138). Ldvy Bruhl made a sirnilar claim when he observed that the
phcnonrenon
of double existence, allowing the same person (or,ioul,,)
to
.rppear, nolv in human, now in animal form, was as natural for the dead as
fbr thc living (1963:
4,213). In the Indo-Malaysian
world, soDre categories
of animals (e.g.,
tigers, crocodiles) are frequently involved in stories
"of
the
metamorphosis
of human beings, regardless of whether the transformation
happens during life or after deatlr (e.g.,
Ldvy_Bruhl 1963, Skear 1972).
The approach followed in this chapter simultaneously recognizes the
importance of metamorphosis as a principle of animic transforrriation
and
the iDlplicatiors of an ideology of ancestry predicated on a fundanrental
opposition between life and death. I submit that, far from offering eviclence
that "formerly the dead changed into hawks or into watersnakesl,is
claimed
by Hans Sclrirer (1963:
143,92), myths about transformed illlcestors
_
and
the.fact that they t'eature living characters
-
exemplify a form ofancestorship
with which the dead are concerned only marginally, irnd n)ortuary rituals
even less. Ile general purpose of the chapter is to explore the con(rasts
between two processes of transfornation which constitute two paths toward
aDcestorship, appearing in substantially different yet compiententary
forms.
'l
lrese two independent processes consist, first, of meta:norphosis an.l sorne
rclirtecl trreans througlr which some mainly living ancestors are turned into
lrl)tecting
spirits, and second, of nrortuary rites whiclt ircorporate spirits
ofdeceased parents into a community offorebears and make their remains
into symbols of the iDtegrity aDd continuity of family_groups. While associ_
irted rvith inclepenclert processes, it is arguerJ that thesc two complem"ntary
fbrrns of ancestorship :rre expressiorrs of a single, two_facete<l ideology
Naming the Ancestors
'flre
Uut L)iururrr rcf-er to ancestors in tlrree rrrain ways: as elclcrs, forebears,
ancl spirits of thc dead. As elders or predecessors,
ancestors are relerrecl to
by the expression uLun oko'('bid people,,),,r qualified by hoLu, (,,before,,)
or Lo'rq, ("in
the olden days") to indicate that they lived in the past. Uscd
alonc, o,to' ("old")
is a term of respect lbr olcl people and more generally for
people of lrigh social status; okon forrneily designated comnr-unity
chiefs
or house/village elders (okon
Lovu'\..Ihe
adverb ngoko, may be used to
conrplernel]t a verb in order to iirdicate that an action is performed carefully
P,r.sc.tl CouolRc
157
epics, Tambun and Bungai (who are also transformed ancestors in the above-
defined sense). For instance, thc genealogical links which the upper Lekawai
river people are able to trace to Lanfng Suling (see below), whom theygener-
a ily ack nowledge as the ir original ancest or (Ihto' koturun Lanying SuLing "We
are descended from Lanying Suling'), actually go through his sister Kasiang,
rvhcreas Lanying SLrling did not leave any offspring of his own. Neither did
Sahrvung, the apical rrncestor of the people of the
lengonoi
river, who left
his hurnan wife to return to the sky after the death of his only child. The
semantic ambivalence ofthe terms for ancestors and ancestry allows them to
express the fundamental value ofshared origin
(asar),
which involves notions
of identity and even consubstantiality betlveen co-descendants of a given or
pLrtirtive ancestor (e.g., as in the formulalions hico'koturun, 'bf one ancestryi'
hico' usi' daha', "ofone
flesh and blood"). In addition, it allows the singling
out, as thc best representative of that shared identity, ofa prestigious ancestor
who is not necesslrily the apical ancestor himself, but his or her descendant,
coll.rteral, or affine.
As dead people, ancestors are termed liow. When someone dies, he
carries on his existence as liov, a spirit ofthe dead. From that point onward,
he will normally not be spoken of without adding
"liow"
before his name
or the appropriate teknonym or kinship term (e.g., Liow Sepung'the \ate
Sepungi' tiow amay Tatan
"the
deceased father of Tavanl' Liow ini'"my
deceased motherj' Liow tahtu' ajuh
"(my)
deceased forebears"), to evoke
either his existence in the present (as a spirit) or in the past as a living person
(liow then meaning merely
"the
late'). This usage makes it easy to identifo a
deacl forebear in discourse and to distinguish him or her from a living elder
or from an immortal or transformed ancestor, and more generally from any
other category ofspirit. While kinship terms, those designating forebears in
particular, merge living and dead relatives (see Appleton and Sillander, this
volume), the life-death discontinuity is reintroduced in this way into the
ance'stor terurinology thus overriding this semantic continuum.
Mortuary Rituals and the Life-Death Dichotomy
Civen their close similarities with Ngaiu mortuary practices, the master
exarnple in Hertz's standard description ofdouble obsequies (1950a), it is not
surprising tlrat Uut Danum mortuary rituals better fit Hertz's transitional
vicw of death than another paradigrn which sees death, and the dead in
particular, as a source of regeneration (Bloch and Parry 1982, Nicolaisen
SEPARATED DEAD AND TRANsFoRMED ANcEsToRs
or with good intention. Mention of the ancestors as elders is collective atld
imperso-nal, t)'pically to stress the inherited and often inrnrrttable charactcr
of the social institutions
(e.g., customary law, ritual
Prilctices)
that thcy
founded or have handed down to the present Since this aspect of rclatiorls
with ancestors is not of central concern in this chapter' it sumces to make
one remflrk. The continuity of tradition emphasized in thc cliscursivc uses
oti uLun oko'is anchored in an ever-unfolditrg pirst lixpressions such :rs
"according to the words ofthe eldersl' often heard ir.r daily conversations
enrl
fornral discourse, merge ancestors ofthe ancient
Past
with receutly deceased
and still living elders
(who are also callecl alln oko) who taught the
Prescnl
generaiion these words which they had themselves letrnt froirr lheir owll
ilders. This is an asPect of ancestorsirip that indeed transcellds time as well
as the divide between the living and the dead existing in other contexts'
However, the authority of ancestors as elders, although olien invoked by
the Uut Danum, does not under normal circumstances
translate into dircct
spiritual agency; in other words, the expression
"elders ofthe past" does not
designate a definite category ofancestor spirits'5
,is forebears or relalives ofascending generations' ancestors are collectively
referred to as "grandPlrents and great-grandparents"
(tahtu' ajuh)
'
I]r'd.i'/idu-
ally, they are rJferred to with kinshiP terms according to generational
level:
fahr!'
(second ascending generation, o8o'in address)' aiufi
(third ascending
generariot), umbuh
(fourth ascending generation)
6
Taftf''
(and' more rarely'
."a1uh arli- umbuh) may also be used for forebears ofa higher' unknown' or un'
specifred generation, and more particululy for apical ancestors from whom
,hrred origln, are traced
(e.g., Lontloy tahtu' uLun Tobaloy
"Londoi' (first)
ancestor of the Tebahoi people"). As in other cognatic societies of Borneo' lin-
eal and collateral same-generation
ascendants above the parents' geuerstion
(i.e., tqhtu', ajuh, umbuh) are terminologicaily
merged' so that for inslancc
ajuh designates both one's great-grandparents
and their siblings' cottsins' and
same gcrir,rtion affines, as well as the great-grandparents
o[one"s col.tsins lttd
sanre-!eneration
irffines.7 Ancestors who function as tbcal points for collec-
tivc mcmory
(e.g., former titled chiefs, house or ossuary founders' lamotts
*orriors, t.ansfort,-recl oncestors) may thus be referrccl to with thesc kinshil'
terms by people who are not their direct descendants
8
The Ilotion of'rncstry
1"*p."rr"d
by such terms as koturun' Lihit, uhtus) is similarly classific:rtory'
eniling people to claim "descent"
(koturLfi) frorl't ancestors wlro are in firct
laterd Jr aftrnal relatives of their own progenitors This is true in pirrticulirr
for some mythical ancestors including the two maior heroes of the talrltitn
PAscAL CouDERc
SEpARATED DEAD AND
'l
rrANsr.oRMED ANcF.sloRs
corpse and from the mourners. Before n/oLatt, the ceremony for lifting the
rrrournirrg taboos, which nay be celebrated three, seven, fourteen or twenty
one days afier burial, the spirit of the dead stays in and around its former
house and represents a potential danger for mourners and villagers on whom
it can inflict various types ofpains and illnesses, subsumed under the cirtegory
of poros joott.The n'rost t]?ical symptom ofporosjoorl is temporary blindness
caused by the spirit ofthe dead pressing the eyes ofits victims with its finger
During this period the spirit of the deceased is also likely to appear, in the
forest or near the village cemetery, in the forrr of a terrifying creature with
bulging eyes and a long outstrtched torgue (llow ngirat, Liow ngambl'\.
Afler nyoLot, the deceased departs to Lovu' Liow, the land of the dead,
obtaining residence there in a farm hut which is given to him in the form of
an ironwood post (folas) erected at the end ofthe ceremony.lt)
'l1le
ritual process culminates with the celebration ofdalo', which realizes
the definitive aggregation ofthe liow into the community ofthe dead and tlre
placement of the deceased's bones (or ashes) into a hotrse-shaped ironwood
repositorl,, which is the visible counterpart ofthe cleceased's pernlanent house
irt the afierworld. I"Iowever, rnore entphasis is put on separation thau on
aggregation ns the aimed outcome ofsecondary burial, which represents the
deceased as ir rel tive with whom all ties must be severed, and a spirit whose
dangerous chilractc'r is not rildjcally altere'd as time passes. Dal,o'marl<s
the ternlination of f'eelings of afection towards the deceased, who is asked
not to impose his or her preseDce upon living relatives any ntore, to cease
disnrrbing and
"stop
remembering" (tondo' nohou) them. The Liow is often
dircctly associrted with misfortuDe resulting from death, along with which
it is "thrown
away" (izrlow) towards tJre setting sun, a direction synbolically
associated rvith death and the land of the dead. ln the Ambalau, a special
rite (nofova') is performed in the evening of the dalo's big day and again the
tbllorving night to expel the spirit of the deceased fiour every corner of his
fcrrmer housc. Several men artd boys holding a wooden stick in each hand
walk quickly through the rooms of the house in a convergeDt n'rovenent to
the main door, loudly striking the sticks on the floor as if chasing invisible
chickcns, beating also the kitchen hearth, heirloom jars, cltarms and other
farnily belongings. Later the same night, a chatt (parung
ngitot Liolr) may be
perfornred to escort the deceased to the remote land of dead (Lottu' Liow),
followed by the calling of the mourners' souls back into their owners' heads
(kurun
morua\, beginning with the spouse and omirting none ofthe living
descendants of the deceased.
2003, sather
2003: 22s-226),Not
that t:1'"'.-:J:T:TJ:"1,,t"r;3;l
:: ::
constitutive
elements
of the dead
m
.L
^-
rh
",\
rlrp i n lcndcd etfect
will see next, it does so mainlv
as a bv-proou:l";"r:;;;;i
i;rrrn
)
and post'
ofmortuary
rituals.
The latter inclu'
mourning
taboos
(r),oLdr)i an,r nnally
burial rites
(nosang); the lifting
ol mourntttts-l::;^",';;
nlonrhs
lo
;:".*;;il;i;;':),.*n"l:11,,0,""::':ff
ilil;",",T'*ll'.1',,,u.
several
years after d'in
o"
"::.:.:i',;1";,';;;,"lo;, pJrticiPation'
I)d
most imPortant
uut Danum
t)t-"itl"r
t""t*
Jo have grown-up
chil'lrcn'
exoenses'
is performed
mainly
tor orcer P*tl:
l::':^.:,;: ;"lv a nvo Lat. or
.ulffi;';;"Jtildren'
alihough
manv elders
I'*'"'"1'l-: il::
even only a nosang
lntrtt
t"'" oi tttt
fourest'
Five out of len' secondarY
rituals observed
in tht p"'ioa
rfvO
-OO iluot-u"a
tn"
"tona'rry
placernent
oI
remains,
while in th"
"-"ining
t"u'"Jth"
unop"ntd
g"ut
w15 cementcJ
or
a wooden
structure
"'"tt"d
uUou" it' both practices
bcing
motlcrn
srrbstitttlcs
for tladitional
secondary
treatment'
only a minority
of the dece:]sed
hxvc l11
;H;;;.*'-:u
l:'I;oio":*:',::'J;i:1"
.\rc ,r,e sr,,,, o, ,h.
The main elements
of persor
,1" Lo,lv {b.,llj'),
rnd tnc spiril
livins
person
(morua),
the breath
l;1 ,#,ilil:;"J
t,-'' ,r-'" body
,rnd
of the dead
(Liow\' Morua
: ,:ff.:-1il;".t.,g una niBl't-*"n.l"ti''s
associated
with the b*"tn'
""d'ltl:';
";t;"
*tttn
trtt u'""ttt
is r'rnnihil'ttcd
double of the living
person
l)eal
n ocr urr
':,-.
:
^;'.,,
"'.' 'e
ne rallv lrec ar.rte
:;,:;;;;
"Jthe
morra'leaves
the bodv
<le6nitelv
generattv
of beine
abducted
("na
'uu"qtt*'tn
a*ourei)
by a spirir'
T}e body
bcgitrs
to outrefy,
produciag
Iiqtid'
th;l';;";;ased
in'rbu'dancc
tltrrirrg-thc
rv'rkc
,,t the corpse
will b' uu'i'a
'ittiriin
tr"
*""'.
T']l]l]'-i:':1",|;',|'|tfi'
.1s., e.rlled
"Liow otu"' ot"olu
Liow ) comes
whcn life leaves the Uoay'
totti-ni
it into a corpse'
wlrich is rcferred
to as x
.,,f
i,1" 1o1,1.
as is tt"
""1
t'l':ir-:,:ji":..i.|:1,:Xilff;'ff
:il[:':]
r.llrenvin,
asortof
individualSuardran-sil
iff
;;;;;:;ith\^/hi.h
it I'
Drotecdng
and nurturing
the I
sometimes
identifiea'
tft" u"i'
iii' *tording
to some
informunls'
conliuLre
its existence
after
tht dt"th
"'
;';";;;"oo"*t'pu"
otto-ptotect
the latter\
children
and grandchildren
t'".
nppar
and Appell
,.9n.,
^:l:"'
o'"*"'
.....rit"'J
:
.:-*i
ir:ljj,"',''J::
L:il;"1;.::
Jfi ,lli ffi
;::;:
receives
food offerings
at a sP
ioio)
una
'o-"
itPortant
U[e rituals'
In conformity
with
"*t"t'rn()a"f'
death
cs a ritud
process
revolves
around
the gradual
'"P"'"t'";;;;t
';1;it
of the decersed
trom the decavi'g
P,rsclt- Couoenc
Another major purpose of dclo' is "to sh are"
(magi', tuLttt) vtith the dcad'
mainly in the form of sacrifices of pigs and cows (formerly also bLrfthlocs)
whicli are performed on the celebration's big day and constitute one oi its
emotional climaxes
(another one being the exhumation of the deceased's
remains, wlrich takes place on the
Previous
day). People hoPe
ProsPerity
lvill result from celebrating dcLo'in conformity with ritual rules and thcre
is a sense that it will do so in
ProPortion
to the gifts and sacrifices
Sranted
to the deacl, At Yarious moments the liow is asked informally to reciprocate
these gifts with charms, in particutirr charms
(pongoluiLi') thrt
"bring buck"
the pigs, the chickens, the rice, and other expenditures spent cluring the
feast. The scme request is
Presented
more formally when lhe parung ngiktt
Liow is performecl.
'fhen the singer narrates how the deceirsed collccts ltrck-
bringin! plant and tree species on high mountains of the sPirit world' rrld
requests charms fiom various inhabitants ofit on behalfofllis living rehtiv.r}'.
It is uncertain, however, whether securing benefits from the dead car be
said to represent an imPortant goal of the dnlo', as rePorted for the NgajLr
tiwah
(Schiller 2OO2t 23). Sacrificed animals, which become the deceased's
livestock in Lovu' Liow, funeral posts and bone rePositories' rvhich become
their habitations, and the various other gifts dedicated to lhem during laLol
are explicitly intended to provide a self-sulicient livelihood for the deceased
in the otherworlcl. Giving the liow his share of family
ProPerty
also fullils
a moral duty, especially strongly felt by widows and widowers' and if the
deceased had exPressed a formal wish that a daLo' be celebrated for him
ll
In both these ways, making gifts to the dead carries the meaning of frt'cirtg
oneself from a constraining bond, in view ofwhich the charms asked of the
liow apperrr to
Play
the role ofclosing counter-gifts
'Ite
liberating purpose
ofthis gift-giving is exPressed in the follolving excerPt of an invocation:
So that he
li.e.,
the deceasedl brings [these
gifts] along to the river Kaju'
Nahan, as a gift, as a share, so that he has enotrgh pans and plates' enottgh
paddy and glutinous rice, enough chicken and pigs as he returns to the
river Bendu'Bendrrng. He departs with good feelings because there are
many chicken and pigs, plates and knifes,
Pans
and
Pots'
shared with
him, given to him. He has obtained his share, his pnrt
'
Let him not be
angry, frightful, let him not anymore halrnt his grandchildrcn' who live'
'Ihal's
it for him!12
Mortuary rituals are thus intended to bring about a statc of D1lLtull inde-
pendence and indillerence between the living and the dead' However' this
SEPARATED DEAD AND TRANSFonMDD ANcEsToRs
iderrl order of things is difficult to obtain, ifonly because new deaths happen
all tbe tiDre aDd people cannot protect themselves against the wrongrloings
ofdeceased distant kin whose mortuary rituals it is not their responsibility
to perfornr. But even older dead, including one's own close relativos and
ttrrebears, are potentially dangerous, eve n 1f a daLo'was arranged for tlrenr.
'Ib
meet x derd relative in a dream is of no consequence if words are not
exchanged; such a dream is credited to a normal feeling of longing. But
if the dead answers the dreamer's questions, or if the dreamer does not
notice the stnle taste ofthe food served to him in the village ofthe dead, or
otherwise fails to perceive the inverted character ofthe village, this means
tlrirt he is soon to die, To neutralize the effect of the dream, several means
exist, fronr the simple ngopahtung rite in which a little anthropomorphic
rattan effigy is offered to the liop as a surrogate of the dreamert rrorua',
to a severirl-day shanranic ritual (hoboLian) airned to retrieve the patient's
morua' from the land of the dead, To prevent such undesired contact with
thc dcad, r /rolrolian, or even a more large-scale nyakay ritual, should also
be arranged afier dalo'.
'
re spirits of the dead are also said to b attracted to various social
and ritual events. Thus when an overly drunk woman fell to the floor in a
trance-like state during a wedding feast, some attendants suggested that she
was possessed by a recently-deceased co-villager To prevent such intrusion,
it is customary to utter a short invocation to dispel liow as a preamble
to life riturls, such as the first bath of babies or the singing of shamanic
clrants or epics, which the liou, enjoy as much as the living. Abasic nosang
ritual involving the sacrifice ofa chicken is held with th same aim prior to
nyakay, a mtjor shamanic ritual during which the sponsor's unoraa'is sent
to the upperworld to be healed and regenerated. In these circumstances the
clerd are typically addressed as an anonymous totality of liovl including
both ancient dead and spirits ofrecently deceased relatives:
I sweep, I throw, I dispatch the dead, the spirits (l/ow ofu) out ofthis
house,
All the spirits ofdead kin, close and distant relatives, grandparents and
greflt-grandparents,
'llrose
who har.e just died and those who died long ago.
(nyakay ritual, Uka| l99l\ .
r\ sinriiar rhetoric is apparent when people call back the "so,is" (morua') of
their krifes and plates for fear that the deceased might take them away, or
PAscAL CouDERc
when they say that the 'touls" (liow)B qf
similar small domestic imPlements
left on the deceased's grave will follow them to the land of the dead. What
it reveals, beyond the reluctance of the dead to leave their relatives ancl to
give up some of the pleasures of life, is a great ideological divide -
rituirl,
symbolic, topologic
-
between the domains of life ancl death, into whiclr
everything should fit unambiguously, beginning with the dead thernselves.
Hence this clear-cut opposition between moruq'and Liow and the necessity
to "finish death'
(ngumbot pahtoy;in Indonesian, menyelesaikru kcmation\,
which is also the official pretext for requesting the nowadays necessary police
authorization to perform dalo'. The contrast between mortuary rituals and
life-oriented rituals (e.g., those ofthe life-cycl, shananic rites, rice riturls),
common among societies of the Barito language family
(Schiller 1997:
54, Sillander 2oo4r 172, fn. 110, Weinstock 1983: 36), is likervisc expressecl
through dualistic symbolism. For instance, husked rice used to surnmon
the dead to attend dalo'must be rubbed with a particular species ofturtlr'rjc
(hdnda' Lokuang, possibly Curcuma xanthorriza), whereas ordinary
turmer\c
(hbnda' or hdnda' hinut:
"true"
turmeric) is used to colrtact sPirits
in life rituals. Dualistic symbolism also differentiates actions and objects
dcdicated to the dead versus the living in death rituals. For exanple, at one
inlportant juncture of the dalo', the solemn /ccrjan dance is 6rst pcrformecl
"to thc left" (ngomuLoy, i.e., in clockrvise moiion), at which point selcctctl
participants embody the spirits ofthe dead with characteristically inverted
gestures, and then "to the right" (ngotou', i.e., anti-clockwise), lt which
Point
the mass ofparticipants represent the living. Similarly, ironwood lorurs posts
"for the living" are made from Iiving trees and erected alongside similar but
higher posts made from dead trees "for the deadl'
Such ritual and symbolic compartmentalisation ofthe spheres oIlife and
of death is useful to protect the living against the contaminating porver of
death. In this regard, it suggests that death, occupying forever its own half
of the ideological divide, cannot be fully encompassed by nor transfortned
into life. Conversely, life cannot be secured otherwise than by sepantirrg
out death again and again, as exemPlified by the most elenrentary of all
Uut Danum ritual activities, the pohpas, which is performed at least once
during all life and death rituals. During polpas ("to sweep"), a fowl is lilst
waved facing sunset to send away various evil influences in that direction
(misfortune, illness, bad dreams, bad omens, etc.), then facing sunrise while
good harvests, health, well-being, good luck, etc. are asked for, before i( is
finally killed and its blood used to perform life-enhancing unctions (salki).1'1
Srp,rR4tto DElo atD TRANsFoRMED
ANcr.tsroRs
Beyond
Mortuary
Rituals: The
Significance
of Bone Repositories
163
Alongsicie
this life clcath separirtion,
secondary
mortuary
rituals also stress
ir findamental
sense of continuity
and shared ia."titi
*iii, tf* a."a
",
forebears
- both those for whom they are perform.a
".ia
_rr"ioir,
"n
cestors rvh'-se nremory
or presence
they arso inuot.. r,.,t.rulionl",*
o."o
Iolebc.rrs
etlccrs inrcgr tion.rmong
the liviltg on three fJr,r,lrirl
O,
i,];.1:::,:::llli::'s
the group ofmourners,
rhe deceased,.s
closesr reratives,
wn(r Jre tsolilted lront other parttcipdnls
at several jullctures
of the ritual
(i.e.,
during krrnrn rrorua
and oth
'or.
the m.,Lrnrers,
""r;*il;;:'.:r:li,i;ll,1lil,lf.llx',j;llii[ii,];
rvith aflirming
their desceDr links with ,h.r,r, ,"_:;;;;',""*.
o"4,"r.,
Fr,iicti
t
lhis rclrrion
or) futurr dcsccndtnts:
l_s*'ecp torviuds the setting sun (r?.ilrt4ro
udow baLop),
lixtinguished (Da1_op)
be the dead the spirit,
lixtinguished
his desire to linger on and to trouble his children an<i
grandchildren,
his great-grandchildren
ana
r-"_g..",-r.",rA.t,,ia*.
(dolo',
Buntrrt Sabon, l99t).
].11.^-:in
,.]a of riruirl inregrarion
encompasses
rhe larger circle of relatives
;:]::,:;':: L:,,l:,:":1,.,'ll,"l,.*
suests.if
rhe rituJr is sponsored
by a singre
'r,
r'
').
r'r irs co_orFarrzers
if severll related fartrilies celchr.rte
dnLo,for their
dccc.rscd
nrenrbcrs at the,,ame tinre..This
circle ofrel tives. rvho
recognlze
themselves
irs being 'bf
one descent line,.
Oir", t otrrlrrli
,
i)o;;;.r;;".."..
of tlrc part icip.rnts i n the kanian dance which is perforrned
again and agarn
clrrrirrg thc ritual. It is roughli
coextensive
with the group owning
the bone
repository
.(,todiri,
g or sandung)
ir)to which
rh. d..""r"d,
;.:,r;;;,:
"r.
p/aced on the lasl day ofthe performance _
where exhumation
is still urac_
ticed an.l such a group exisrs. Membership
i" ,hir;r;;;;;;;,.r""otu'
nrarily by descent, all descendants
of th , t rairi"g,"
Jrigri,;^f
^l"r"a".rfii,
a,,o
thei. spouses, being entitled to have thei. ,"_"i;";;;";;';;;;;;J;".,
l?ti;
jiill
I
simri.rr rule amons the Ma,anyan).
When s.r.,"irn.",u"r,
;,,;jl:lll-:-r^1
^-trtng-ownins
collectiviry
are exhumed
during the same
(sLU,
rr)err Doncs are placed
in the ossuary by order ofgeneratioi.rl
scnior.
ity. Prayers are addressed
to the liory of form.rfy
a..""'r.a ."f"iv..
r.i*"
remains it contains to inform thent about the arrival of the n"*".rn"<O
ancl to request charms from thenr.
t64
PAscAL CouDERc
The third levl of integration that can be identified in dalo'includes
the guests who contribute gifts to the sponsors of the ritual on the bcsis
of a-strict balanced reciProcity. They are often more distant relatives of the
deceased residing in neighbouring villages' After being first aggressively
denied access to the sponsorb house or village and treated as strangers' they
are welcomed and invited to join the g reat circle of kanjatr dancers around
the invisible presence of the Liow, all boundaries being frnally dissolved
between mournels and non-mourners, kin and non-kin Public speeches
and improvised singing sessions, for which the sPonsors and their
Suests
assemble to commemorate the deceased' strss the common descent of all
participants, from river-based groupings ofseveral villages which recognize
a common origin and frequently engage in relations ofceremonial exchalge'
or f.om lorger descent categories
(trftt4s), which were originally sub-ethnic
group. .u.h as the Dohoi or Penanyoi
(see below)' Celebrating- dalo' for
close forebears is thus also an occasion for the living to connect thcmselves
with more remote ancestral origins.
Bone repositories are the maior exponents of the co[titluity betwcell
dead forebears and their living descendants' As in other Southeast Asian
Fisure 3.1. An abandoned multi-family house with its mortuary monumcnts' including
itr?* ,"p-ar' poles and a kodring l6one repository) raised on two posts (partly
obscured by the central pole in the foreground) lenSonoi
river'
StrPARATED DEAD AND TRANSFoRMBD ANcEsroRs 165
societies, they are shaped like miniature houses and located within villages
(Waterson 1990: 209), typically in front ofor next to indiyidual houses (see
Figure 3.1). They often look neglected (cf. Av6 19901 43) and unless they
threaten to give way with their contents or suffer damage, liftle attention is
usually paid to them, reflecting the general attitude of indifference to the
dead once installed in the afterworld. During dclo', however, the kodiring
becomes the actual "house ofthe deadj'ls to which the spirits ofthe deceased
are said to "return" (bali) as their bones are reunited with those of their
relatives and forebears.l6
Bone repositories were traditionally owned by multi-family houses (Lovr'
or bihtang, i.e.,
"longhouses")
which used to form local settlements ol thcir
own. These communal houses were usually founded by groups of close
relatives, for instance a set of married siblings (or cousins) or a conjugal
pair with their married children, and included between five and twenty-five
contiguous apartments, each accommodating one or several economically
independent conjugal families (Enthoven l9O3 432, see also Molengraaff
1900, van der Willigen 1898). Signifrcantly, the term loyu'is now also applied
to nucleated villages, the presently dominant settlement pattern, to stress
their symbolic unity in contexts of ritual interaction with other villages.
When the upper Melawi area was subjected to indirect Dutch rule in the last
decades of the nineteenth century, representatives were appointed among
the elders ofthe largest houses and given titles by the Pariembahan (Sultan)
of Sintang (Enthoven 1903: 428-429, van der Willigen 1898: 393-394).
Many kodiringwhich are still in use, or whose vestiges are visible in present
villages or former settlements, are associated with the names of such titled
characters who typically also were house elders or founders. Usually, these
people either themselves erected the bone repository during their lifetime
for the daLo' of a relative, or then it was erected for their own secondary
burial by their children or grandchildren. Some of the oldest of these
repositories are more impressive than those constructed during the last fifty
years, testifying to the importance oftheir founders in life and contributing
to their renown after death.lT
Building a repository to store the remains of its deceased members was
normally a stage in the developmental cycle ofa house, corresponding to its
emergence as an autonomous house not subordinated to others with which
it was affiliated and to which rights ofaccess to other bone repositories were
atlached. Depending on its size, age, and the composition ofits membership, a
house might be associated with more than one family ossuary (see Grabowsky
PAscAr, CouDERc
1907: 74, Helbig 1982, I: XVIII, ill. 50). The closer the house approached the
ideal model of a cognatic descent group conveyed by the epic literalure
(consisting of the close bilateral descendants of a focal ancestor and their
spouses), the more likely it was to be associated with a single kodiring lrLlo
which all house residents would be transferred after their dalo', provided it
was celebrated for all of them.tS This ideal one-to-one pattern still persists in
several Ambalau river villages which have preserved small longhouses (with
five to six apartments)
(see Figure 3.2), and itwas probably widespread in the
past (see Molengraatr1900: 340-341 for an example).le
With exhumation nowadays giving way to simple burial and collective
houses to individual houses, incentives to build a new kodlring or nuin-
tain affiliation with an extant one (implying upkeep expenses) obviously
decrease. A number oflarge concrete ossuaris were nonetheless erected ir
thc 1980s and 1990s in the Ambalau river basin. In several cases, these
"stone
kodiringi' as they are called in ritual language, were built by related families
that were no longr (or had never been) co-resident in a house, in order to
replace timeworn or damaged wooden collective repositories. In 1991, Iifty
elementary families, scattered in several villages of the middle Ambaliru,
took part in the renovation of an old kodiring built six generations earlier
by two brothers who had migrated from another river to found a settle-
ment nearby. Before their transfer into a new concrete repository, built a few
meters from the old one, the numerous skulls and bones it contained were
rubbed with oil and perfume, wrapped in new cloths and given food offer-
ings. The master of the ceremony read the genealogy of every participating
family starting from the two founders. As this example illustrates, the ideal
house represented by the kodiring may sometimes outlive the real house
with which it was originally associated.
Materializing chains ofancestry, bone repositories symbolized the unity
of communal houses and demonstrated the prestige and wealth of their
founders. They could also play an important role in situations in which this
unity was threatened. When a party refused to acknowledge charges iu a
lawsuit (e,g., concerning property disputes or accusations of adultery or
sorcery), an oath (tuLut, sumpah) co,id be taken to ascertain the truth of
the case. Rarely or no longer performed today, these oaths differed in terms
ofthe techniques used and the categories ofspirits invoked. When the r,rLut
took place at a collective bone repository, the resident spirits (i.e., the l-iott)
were summoned by an elder knocking on one ofits posts or throwing ash or
rice mixed with salt at it. The defendant who was "brave enough" to stand the
StrpA&ATED
DEAD AND TRANSFoRMED
ANcEsrons
167
Fifiurc 3.2. Bonr rtposrrory
uwned bv a s
bv 'h,
'
hor,,c fuundcr in triu2for rhe,jrl,
rllmultiJatil"
housp icntnrorri\Pr
Buill
d r,,, n .e..,nd'y
m;;,;,;;
il;;H. ;:Hffl'"1j)i:ffi',:
i: ii:i,i l
;:
'h. l",n,. oi rrrcruun,lcr.t.murlr^.
t..r^,f,.,,
5r.,p1, ,
""pfr."
.,"a.*,". i"l f'i,
'hrldrcn
.rnd grrnrrchirdren.
srnce i rew years back, the currenr holrse heirs have
siart'd lo painr it annually in connection with Chrishas, l\"* V".r,
",
i".,..
.
168 PASCAL CouDERc
trial (bahanyi' hotuht) risked immediate death or dililcult lile conditrous
for him and his descendants (e.g., poor harvests, infertility, dccimation o[
livestock). Comparison with curses (also referred lo as tulul or sunpcrh)
that an offended parent or genealogical elder may utter during Iife against a
child or genealogical
.,unior
lvith the same t)?e of consequences (cl Schiller
1997: 96, for the Ngaju) suggests that one of th components of the oath'.s
elliciency was the moral authority ofthe forebears whose bones were stored
in the repository. According to an informant who in his youth attended a
tafuf at his natal village's kodiring in an allair of intergenerational adultcry,
the oath was performed at the bone repository of a rich cleceased and the
authority and punitive agency to which it appealed rvas specifically that of
former titled elders (okon), that is, people who during their life had acted as
adaf-law administrators at the level of a lov&'or village.
This conveys a form of individual or collective agency of the spirits of
the dead when asked to arbitrate in disp[tes between their Iiving relatives
and descendants. A more impersonal form of agency, associAted with the
bones rather than the spirits of the dead, was involved in a very pcculiar
variant ofthe fulal which could only be taken at n bone repository. Accus-
ing someone ofbeing a kofr', a much dreaded hybrid creature ofhalf hulnan
and half spirit condition, was
-
and still is considered one of the gravest
offences imaginable. To repair the wrong clone to hiur, the tccuseil hacl to
perform the trial of dancing the above-mentioned kanjan dance around a
bone receptacle. If he really was a kotu', he would soon shiver or turn into
an animal (e.g., wild boar, cat, dog, or frog), and the attendrnts woul(l be
entitled to kill him on the spot. lf not, the accusing party was lreavily iinetl.
The same ordeal, practiced by the Central Kalimantan Ngaju (Schirer 1963:
52, Zimmermann 1968: 351), has received an elegant and original interpreta-
tion by Anue Schiller in her study of upper Kahayan mortuary rituals.
'lhe
dance around the bone repository, she argues, reveals the latter's synbolic
value as a family stronghold in which kin rest together beyond reach of the
hanttLen (fhe Ngaju equivalent of the Uut Danum korr) to whose attircks
they had been exposd during their lifetime and at the moment of death,
tlre most feared risk being the introduction of
^
hantuen into one'.s fiurlily
through marriage with a non-relative (Schiller 1997: 92, l0l-103).
Contemporary Uut Danum in the Melawi areA are no less concerned
about witches than the Nga.ju and similarly consider the condition ofkot&'to
be transmissible through both descent and marriage. Unlike Kahayan viilag-
ers, however, they do not deny spouses access to bone repositories if they are
SEPARATED DEAD AND TRANSFoRMED ANcEsToRs 169
cognatically unrclated to the owners' family (Schiller 1997: 103, 107). Thus, Uut
DilDum ossuaries stress house group unity over genealogical unity, suggesting
a more inclusive definition ofkinship than among the Kahayan Ngaju.
Schiller motivates the role of the bone repository in the ordeal by the
fact that it is
"literally
and symbolically, a place where the concentrated
life force of the family is contained" (t992: t03;.zo This argument of hers is
more questionable, at least if applied to the Uut Danum. Even though bone
repositories symbolize the continuing existence of the dead, in Lovu' Liow,
as well as the permanence and genealogical integrity of loyr' houses, and
even though lhey used to be associated with magical potency expressing the
ability of the spirits of the dead to cross the life-death divide to inflrrence
their descendants in exceftional circumstalrces, the bone repositories are
in no apparent way symbols of life or sources of life-generating potency
in themselves. I will argue later that such potency is instead contained in
other objects inherited from forebears that like bone repositories belong
to the estate traditionally held by multi-family houses. First, however, I
rvill return to the transformed ancestors to explore further what bones rntl
bone repositories more restrictively stand for and to provide a more precise
tunderstanding of the ancestorship of dead forebears.
Ivletarrrorphosis Versus Re-ernbodiment:
Transformations of the Ancestors
Ndrratives aboLrt transforned ancestors involve two categories of spirit-
arirnals, watersn:rkes (Lobahta) and hawks (ataflg). Residing at th outer
margins of the human world, at the entrance of the aquatic underworld
and the heavenly upperworld respectively, they occupy symmetric posi-
tions in the dualistic topography of the cosmos, consistent with their
cornplementarity (and sometimes interchangeability) in these narratives
and the ritual practices that they legitimize. Both are benevolent spirits
associated with a particular place or territory (see also Hardeland 1859:
s.v. antang, djata). Lobahta' ate huge watersnakes, named after particular
cleep river bends (rolak)
or confluences (busung) where they dwell, which
constitute points of entry into the underworld. Most villages have one or
several Lobahta'in their vicinity, which are propitiated for various pur-
poses
-
especially, to ask for children, to protect women during pregnancy
and childbirth, to protect newborn children
-
and receive food offerings
ort all important ritual occasions. They also deliver omens. For instance, if
PAscAL CouDEnc
sand piles uP at a sandbank near a river confluence'
rePresenting the riclge
"iiiJr,."r.
"r
rrr" Lobahta, residingthere,
it indicates that the village will
enioy a good rice harvest'
'dnlia
minority among the known I obahta' are recognized as ancestors
Some informants make a distinction between such ancestral watersnirl(cs
onJl g.rrolrra' orr.s
(Lobahta' asar)tharwere
not formerly humans However'
us loJal spirits who often act as village
Euardians
-
and.which in some ctses
*u..""a o* another along family iines -
all Lobahta'are ancestral
in the
,".." ,ft" relationships
with them
(or their forebears) are inherited from
th. on"aatorc and maintained over the generations'
Thc same observation
appii.s to spirit-h"wks,
to the tutelary spirits of village offerirtg places' ar.rd
,llft" p"t.i"", tnOit
Protectors
(otu' Lrqr) of particular forebears' In ritual
.fr"rit,
-.*
aol ntLobahta',
which are typicaily identi{ied by a personal
,ro,rr" o.,"f.nonyrn
and a place ofresidence'
are often mentioned in additiorl
io to."t orr"r. Some of these dislant Lobahta' are chosen for their fame or
prou.n .o."".. in fulfilling vows
(see Hardeland 18591 13' on the celebrity
of particular antartg sPirits among the Ngaju) But they are.equally
often
s"t"ct.d on tfr. U"sis oi the descent tinks that the peoPle invokiug them trace
to the locality with which these spirits are associated
-
.. -- -'i"ng
^r:,
*lutial spirit-hawks
which are distinct from ordinary
hrwks
(also ciled atang) in the same way as Lobahta'are
from earthly snakes
ir..
Slftu*t 1965: 150-152)' Formerly they
Played
an imPortant
role as
aueural birds from which the Uut Danum used to solicit olnens
Prior
to
eoi'ng
ne"ahunting,
collecting debts' travelling' or moving houses' Rice was
:;:; tt involie the heavenly ancestor/master
of hawks
(tahtLi atLTnE)'
*io a"nt ftia grandchildren
down to earth to deliver the requested onen
;;;;;;
"".;t.
of two poles erected on the ground
(cf' Hardeland
t859:
ri, S.nai", 1966t 122)' lnformation on this mostly discontinued
practice2l
itat*i"t ,ft*,it. augural hawks, Iike the watersnakes
with which they arc
asso"iut"dinsom.n-arrativeswhichmentionhybrid..atarrgLobahta':'were
i.rritoriol spl.its. They usually presided cver large domains correspondiug
to the territories
of sub-ethnic
groups' and their names and places of
residenc., which are identical to those of these groups' apical rncestors'
suggest that they originate from them'
"ioAoftto'
^ni
otoigsPirits
have both aninal and human attributes Living
as humans in their resPective under and upper world domains' they assume
animal form when they move out from these Comains into the human
*orld, e^.rgirrg from the bottom ofrivers or soaring high in the skl" Along
Stp,tn.tn:o Dteo ewD'fl{ANst onMID AN(]Frs aoRs 171
with the idcrl ofhunanity as a universal or unmarked modality of existence,
the notion that bodily forns shift at boundaries that are botlt spstial and
oltological is one of the central tenets of aninrisnr as recently redelined
in anthropology (Descola 2005, Viveiros de Castro 1998). Metamorpltosis
irncl the identilication of the body with a clothing are two widespread and
ofterr combined expressions ofthis mutability ofphysical fornts in animistic
societies around the world, i[cluding South-East Asia (Endicott 1979: 112,
124, Horvell 1996r I39, Vivciros de Castro 1998:471). The identification
of tlie body with a clothing is also found in Borneo oral traditions. For
instilnce, ameng the Ngaju, crocodiles are represented as anthropomorplric
unclerworld beings which put on their crocodile clothes only when visiting
the above lying human world (Hardeland 1859: t03; see also Schiirer 1963:
88-89, Zimmermann 1968:325; Kershaw 2000: 65, for the Brunei Dusun;
Geddes 1991:84, for the Bidayuh). In Uut Danum epic narratives, animal
bodies (e.g., of watersnakes, crocodiles, tigers, fighting cocks) are often
represented as shirts (koLambi) or skins (u/rpalc)
that the protagonists don,
thereupon acquiriflg not only tl]e appearance of these spirit-animals but
also their behavioural characteristics (ci Viveiros de Castro 1998:482).22
In narratives about transformed ancestors, transformation is described
in terms of metamorphosis (using tlre verbs nomaLiw, nyoria', saLuh or
nyolung2l) rather than in terms of animal clothing to emphasize the un-
intcntiorrirl and irrevcrsible character of the transformation process, Mera
morphosis generally results from a breach, by the ancestor or someone else,
of a ritual prohibition pertaining to a spirit-animal of tlre sante category,
Inost typically eating the anirnal! flesh. A third variant is that the transfor-
mation results simply from trespassing in a spirit dot'l]ain, ln srrch cases, the
identity and speci6c capacities ofthe concerned spirits
-
including an ability
to sce these spirits as tlrey see themselves, that is, as humans
-
are acquired
all at once, without any apparent or explicit rnorphological change. lhis
variant is exenlpli6ed in one version of the afore-rrentioned story of Patih
Mancir of Toluk Osa, who becanre a lobalrta'after his lishing-net got caught
in the Melawi river Diving to retrieve it, he lound himself on the ridge of
the house of a local watersnake, a female. He entered tlre house, married
the rvatcrsnake rvlro appeared there in human form, and later settled with
her definitively. In another account, an ancestor was making austerities
(nonhpa)
on the river when the banana stem on which he drifted sank in
the water
-
and was then adopted by a Lobahta'family. In a story of the
Uut Danum of the upper Kahayan river (Danandjaya I97I:266-267), the
172 P^sceL Couoenc
ancestor met a snake which appeared to him in human form near a river
shore. ln this case, the ancestor temporarily retained his huma!t apPearance
but became abie to swallow a wild boar.2'l
Whether the result ol metamorphosis or not, people who are assimilated
into a spirit domain alive are referred to as gaip (or gdil), a tcrnr which also
denotes disappearance or acquired invisibility. Extended to grl? characters,
the category of transformed ancestors encompasses some anthropomorphic
spirit categories in addition to the Lobahta' and atafl& including protecting
spirits associated wilt' lojahan offering places, and some forest sPirits (see
the Ngaju Garp-Myths collected by Schirer, 1966: 218-222, 239-245).25
Howevet irrespective of how the transformation of the ancestors is rePorted
to have occurred, and notwithstanding the anthropomorphic character of
the spirits that they turn into, the ancestors undergo a profound m[tation
of their identity. Accounts of people who are gradually metamorphosed into
watersnakes (see, e.g., the story ofNaga Andoh in Schirer 1963: 143-144) onty
depict this radical alterity oftransformed ancestors in a more sPectaculirr !vay,
consistent with an ontology thirt posits the body as
"the
great differentiator"
(Viveiros de Castro 1998: 479; see Descola 2005: 188). This alterity does not
exclude ancestorship, however, which in this case consists preciscly of thtt
part of the ancestor (his name and identity) which remains unall-ected by the
process, and thus bridges the ontological gap between humans and spirits, to
provide the basis ofa reciprocaL ritual relationship.
In contrast to transformed ancestors, who undergo a siugle metamor-
phosis to become benevolent spirit-animals, the kofu'- the afore-metrtioned
witches
-
are malevolent spirits who normally appear as hurrrans and oc-
casionally change form to harn people. Kotr'is the substrtntival [ornr of
the verb rgotr', meaning literally to be, become, or act as a
"spirit" (olr).
They may metalnorphose into various animals, including dillerent spectes
of frogs and worms, and into stones, plants, and water (sic), or detach their
heads from their body in order to attack living victims or their souls, or
devour or take possession oI unattended corpses.
Resulting from a ritual process grafted upon the natural process of
death, the transformation undergone by the dead is a much urore complex
affair. Although death is not (under normal conditions) conceived of as a
metamorphosis (pace Beguet 2006: 34), the dead do not dift'er from trxns-
formed ancestors in all respects. The change experienced by the spirit of
the deceased during his journey to the land of the dead involves the above-
described threshold effect, whereby crossing the boundary ofa sPirit domain
SEPATATED I)EAD AND TRANSFoRMED ANcEsToRs
173
entails the acquisition oIsensations or behaviour typical of that category of
spirits. Halfway to the land ofthe dead, the spirit ofthe deceased (trow)
meets
a character named Inai Palai Henda]who is,,human on the one side andliow
on the other" (kola
non siLa' Liow siLa). It is for her to decide ifthe cleceased
will be accepted into Lovu' Liow or will have to return to the world ofthe liv_
ing (i.e., to life). This is a turning point at which the deceased realizes
_
later
to fbrget it along with the memcry of his surviving relatives
_
that he acts
and feels like a liow, that is, uses his left instead ofright hand, takes day for
night, tastes rice bran mixed vrith mice excrements as cooked rice, etc. In this
respect, dead forebears differ from transformed and gaip ancestors mainly in
ternts of the dtferent spirit domains into which they are assimilated, a point
clearly outlined in Schiirer's (1966:
218) definition ofgarp.
A greater contrast results from the physical transformation of the de_
ceased achieved by the mortuary ritual. Ritual activities centred on bones
during dalo'aim to reconstitute the bodily integritf ofthe deceased, in par_
allel with relocating their spirits within the land ofthe dead. Once exhumed,
bones are collected and enumerated in an orderly fashion from skull to toe
or in the reverse way, so as to symbolically create a complete body.26 One
person usually picks up the bones from the opened grave with a bamboo
claw, while another one, who turns away, 'tounts" (r/iap)
the bones, i,e., the
body parts. For instance:
- Which bone is that?
- Ihe skull, lest the dead have no head.
- Which bone is that?
-
'Ihejau
lest the dead have no jaw.
- Which bone is that?
-
The neck, lest the dead have no neck.
- Which bone is that?
- The shoulder, lest the dead have no shoulder, etc.
(r/oldr
ritual, Pnekasan, 1990).
This rite of symbolic re-embodiment represents, I suggest, a final re_
humanization
of the dead after a period of ontological indeterminacy.
The liminal period of death, as I have shown, is one of great instabil_
ity fbr the deceased, whose bodies undergo decomposition while their
newly unbounded spirits wander about with yet no place to settle.
euite
naturally, various ngures ofspiritual or bodily alterity may then exert their
attraction on
- or be attracted by
-
thern.z7 For example, the deceased
PAscAL CoUDF-Rc
mighl be abducted by evil spirits, such as the afbre-mentioned kofri'and
kanbl', or tbe ton(b)tLuy wiich prey on womerr during chilclbirth.
'Ihis
risk applies foremost, but not exclusively, to situations of violent cleirth,
and precautions are taken to keep such malevolenl spilits at bay
([ll illg
the wake for a deceased person. Among some Uut Danum subgroups (e.9.,
the Sehiai ofthe upper Serawai), parties oIpeople wcirring nrasks (lrrrlrorg)
which represent various forest spirits and animals rush into the horLsc of
the wake, dancing to the sound ofgongs and suggesting by tlreir aggressive
behaviour that they want to take hold of the corpse. People say that oftcn
whcn the party leaves the house, one more bu,tang has joined their rirnks,
which is the Liow.28
The deceased might also turn into animals, as iliLrstrated by an optional
ceremony held in the deceased's house a few days after burial as a prelude to
nyoLat. Asl\ is placed in a plate or rvinnowing tray covered by a gong. Alter
putting out the lights the lion is called, and people then inspect the rsh to
look fbr prints. If such are found, their shape will indicate which animal or
other being the deceased has turned into. Although traces of spirit-animals
llke Lobahta', or tigers, plants or even humans are sometinres fountl, the
beings most often identified in this rite are regular forest animals: srtlkes,
deer, mouse deer, wild boars, whose flesh becomes temporlrily (for t ferv
days, weeks or months) prohibited for the deceased',s relativcs. It is not clear
whether metamorphosis might create a helping spirit in this case, as it does
rvhen ancestors turn into spirit-animals while alive or when, as amorrg the
Layar Iban, recently deceased people appear in the form o[ snakes (l]iguct,
this volume).2e Whatever the result yielded by this clivinatory rite, it does
not affect the progress of mortuary rituals or the possibility of arrauging
a dttLo' for the deceased in the fLrlure.
'lb
explain how the dcccasecl coLrLcl
become an animal and yet receive full mortuary tratment, informants often
resorted to a notion of ntultiple souls: people have se\n rronlrl', thev sirid;
some of thern are trirnsformed into animals or plants, whilc the othcl clie
ancl go to the land of the dead as L/orv.l0
One ofthe deceased's possessions or body parts, or the liqLrids dril'Ping
from his decorlposing corpse, might also turn into a stone cl:.arrr, (ltociltun,
koruhoy). Some people keep stones said to originate frorn the longues ol
deceased relatives (bohtu' joLtt'), which have been metamorphosecl irt the
moment of their death or found in the earth when their grave rvas clug.
Such charms are considered both as transtbrmations oftire deird aud irs gilis
from them..]l Similar charms rray bc produced rvhcn liorv nl)penl ir the
SF,PARATED DEAD AND TRANsFoRMED ANcEsToRs
nonstrous form of the earlier mentioned Liow ngirot.If one manages to
seize the apparition, it turns into a stone.
It is not until their bones are ritually recollected and placed in the
/rodlring that the identity of the deceased is stabilized and made immune to
transformation. According to Ngaju beliefs reported by Hans Schdrer (1966:
403, 148), scraPs ot bones remaining on cremation sites (i,e.,leftovers
ofthe
secondary treatment) may be transformed into deer and other forest animals,
hence a prohibition on eating the flesh of animals of these species during
the tlrree rnonths following tiwah. This belief demonstrates the restricted
ability of morturry ritual to withdraw the dead from a general process of
animic transfonnation to which even their bones may be subjected, in
order to rnake the bones into symbols of their re-embodiment as humans.
Indeed, exhumation night reveal, or even trigger, the metamorphosis ofthe
exhumed. According to an account ofhanfuelr witches among the Kahayan
Ngaju (Sclriller 1997: 92-93), the identity of some characters as witches is
revealed upon exhuming the remains of their deceased child. Instead of
human bones, what one cliscovers in the child's grave are fish scales and
sqLrirrel firr, corresponding to the original animal identity of the childis
parents. In another version of the same story (Danandjaya
l97l 269-271),
the witch's bones turn into animal bones after having been exhumed and
crenrated
-
but before being placed, in a mausoleum.
Asked why the Uut Danum witch ordeal could only be held at a bone
repository, one informant suggested that since kotrr'(witches) have a propensity
to
"eat
otlrer people' (kuman injah\, a real ,lcotr.r' would inevitably attempt to
e{t the bones contair,ed]|.i,the kodiring.32 To this explanatior, which suggests
that thc deceased remain vulnerable to spirit assault even after seconclary
|lacenrcut,
we muy add another, Secondary mortuary rituals impart to bones
a symbolic power to reprcsenl and autheflticat the humanity ofthe deceascd,
rllowing thc re-embodied dead ofthe ,todirirgto unmask the hidden identity
of beings who Lack human bones under their human bodily envelope. As
Schiller observes, the mobilization of images associated with witches in
secondary nlortuary rituals provoke padicipants "to
reflect on the certainty
and essence oftheir own humanity" (1997: lO7).
Thus, mortuirry ritrral does not conform to the logic of animism char-
acterizecl by anthropomorphism and the mutability of bodily forms. it
instead fbllows a di stirrct anthropocentrlc logic, according to which human-
ity is purposively lixed and defined absolutely
jn
negation to both
"real"
itni'nirls and anirnirl-like beings living in human form in their own domains
PAscAL CouDERc
(transformed ancestors), as well as human-like beings who are zoomorphic
spirits in disguise
(witchcs)
33
In other words' the ancestral status achieved
by the dead i
-ottuary
ritual involves a reversal of the value ofontological
hybridism. This characteristic
positively defines transformed a[cestori as
helping spirits, but in mortuary rituals, which seek to establish an unmixed
hurnariity ofthe d"ceased at the bone rePository, it is negatively valued'
The dead nevertheless
revert to a cycle of animic transformation eventu-
ally. Bones fall to pieces, bone repositories collapse' and after dying again in
the land of the dead
(seven times according to some inforrnants and Kirhr
1896-97, VII: 67), the sPirits ofthe deceased come back to the human world
in the form ofvarious wild
Plant
species, several of which have the peculiarity
of producing sour or
Pungent
fruit that are especially savoured by pregnant
women
(for similar ideas among other Borneans and lndonesians' see Hertz
1960a:60-61,
Sather and Sillander, this volume) ln this way physical resem-
blances between children and their forebears are accounted Ibr' As irltlicllcci
by the expressions used to describe this
Process
-
"to retutn into"
(brlli'
not r'), "io dissolve oneself"
(mopoLonyuh arop' EPPIe n'd' 2: 7) -
this trlti-
mate transformation
ofthe deceased is not conceived ofas a rnetamorPllosis'
but rather as an assimilation ofthe spirit ofthe dead into these plants
3a
while the reincarnation of the deceased long after death may appeirr as
the final outcome of the natural process ofdeath' it should be stressed agair')
that this is not an intended result of mortuary rituals Neither do the latter
aim to resurrect the dead
(Hertz 1960ai 135' fn' I74) -
although they do
re-embody them
-
nor to bestow immortality on them in the afterrvorid
(Schiller 1997: 105), notwithstanding
that bone repositories represent'
or used to represent, the
Permanence
of house groups lncleed' it may be
argued that ,h. pro".., of transforming the dead into symbols of "pure"
hrirnanity and genealogical integrity implies neutralizing all forms ofvitality
associated with them. Unlike many tombs and other material embodiments
ofdead ancestors which function as symbols ofcontinuity for Austronesian
social groups (Bloch and Parry 1982: 34, Bloch 19821 212' Molnar 2000:
203), Uut Danum bone rePositories are not storehouses of life-generating
potency. While bones symbolize the shared ancestry of the members of
kodiing-owning
grouPs,3s the)' do not rePresent a "PrinciPle of life'' ln this
.."p..ith. Uutbanum difer markedly also from the Punan Bah ofSarawak
(Nlolaisen 2003)' whose exhumation
practices are informed by notions of
a potency contained in bones which can be tapPed and enables the rebirth
ofthe deceased in their descendants'
Stpan,r.rro Dneo,tuD'|RANSFoIMED ANcEs'l oRs t77
Apical Ancestors, Immortality, and Descent
'lbe
Uul Danum trace their origin to lteavenly ancestors who descended
to earth olt elevated points l1ear the headwaters ol the Lekawai, Samba,
Ambzrlau, Kahayan,
Joloi,
and other rivers in the Sclrwaner mountain
raDge rvhich separates tlte provinces of West and Central KalimaDtan. By
marrying among themselves or with pre-existing earthly human people,
these ances(ors lounded a number of descent lines (uifus) through which
the various Uut Datum subgroups trace their origins (e.g., the Dohoi,
Penluyoi, Tebuoi, Sehiai, Uut Melahui, Kolangan, Pangin, to nrention somc
subgroups of the lvlelawi area). The literature mentioDs several variants of
this myth of cthnogenesis which the Uut Danum share witlt some of tlteir
downstream neighbours.36 The fbllowing is a summary of a variant told by
the uppcr Lekawli Uut Danurn in West Kaiimantan.
l,anying Suling and his sister Kasiang ("Drongo') were lor.r'ered from
the sl<y orr golden ollering tray (pol,ahka' brlop) which landed on
the Dahtah Kasiang plateau at thc upper l-ekawai. Kasiang marr.icd a
nran nanted
]llung and bore two sons, Bulttilr and Kahung. Having oncc'
takei his two nephews to a net fishing party, Lanying Suling orderecl
thenr to cook soLuang frsh (Rasbora
sp.) in such ir way that none of
the lish shoulcl bc burnt nor bent. At a loss as to how ro cornply with
their uncle's demand, the young boys decided to roast the lish on hot
stooes, throwirrg the burnt and bent ones back into the river, where they
Srve
rise to etrr.lenric solluzg species with a burnt or bent appearance.
When Lanying Suling canre and sirw the outstretched roasted solri4rg,
hc laughed and shouted cheerfully because it conformed exactly to his
clesire. Upon hearilg their uncle's laughter, however, which resembled the
screarn of some fierce anirnal or evil spirit, Buhtih and Kahung thought
hc was a witch (kota')
and decided to kill him, which they accomplished
succcssfully. Brought back to life by his celestial parenls with datlum
kLthorirgan bolunr, the heavenly life-giving water Lanying Suling killed
his nephews in retaliation. To escape
yengeance
by his brother-in-law
LaDying Suling sailed offto
fava
where a contest opposed him to the king
of Majapahit to determine who of the two was of highest descent. The
two coitestants were placed in wooden cofllns which were then burnt.
'lhe
colfin containing Lanying Sulirrg br.rrst opeD 6rst, liberating Lanying
SLrling who turned into a hawk and ascended to the upperworld from
PAscAL CouDERc
lvhere he was lowered again
- seven times altogether - to found nerv
lines (ngalitus) in other rivers. The king of Majapahit also turnd into
a hawk rvhich flew downwards into the sea and beclrre a rvatersnake
(Lobahta). Befote setting out to kill his nephews, Lanying Suling planted
his plucked lule in the ground and took an oath so that it wouLd become
a stote tojahan where his fi.rture descendants could make vows and
offerings in case of need. Located near a former village site on the upper
Lekawai river, the fojahan of the lute stor.e (tojahan bahtu' konyohpi) is
still used today by local inhabitants lvho trace their lncestry to Lanying
Suling through the children born to his sister Kasiang after her brotheri
depcrture.
This story contains all the elements commonly occurring in flarratives about
transformed ancestors: the violation ofritual prohibitions, the metirrrl(rrpho-
sis, the separation betrveen the ancestor and his descendants, the rncestor
cult. To these elements, the story, like other descent m)'ths, adds immortaliry
arl attribute which the apical ancestors possess because of originating fiom
tlre upperworld beings (uLtn Langif), who represent a super-humanrt)' rvitl')
unlimited access to the most valuecl goods:.jars, rice, life.lz However, iulIrror-
tality, syrrrbolizcd by the heavenly Water of Lite (danun kohoringan boLum\,
is lost for the Uut Dalrum in the course of rhe mythical everlts. Whilc Lany-
ing Suling is resurrected lvith the Water of Life and xscends to the slry k)
rcsume his imrnortal lift, the death ofthe nephews on eartl.r is 1inal, as is thirt
of Sal.ravung's child in the descent mlth of the
lengonoi
river Uut Danunr.
In this other rnlth, the Water of Life fetched from the upperworltl provcs
ineft'ective to bring the child back to life due to the mother! non obscrvance
of the instruction given by the apical ancestor not to weep over thc child'.s
bodY.:it
Let us have a closer look at what brings about the death of Buhtih
and Kahung in this story, whence also results the line founcler's delinitive
departure. By killing their uncle, the tlvo boys conrmit the gravest conceivablc
oft'ence against a parent of ascending gneration. This defilernent of thc
yalue
of descent is sanctioned by their own death inflicted by the irnmortal
Lanying Suling. Two elements in this story are more decisive, howcver, in
investing it with its character as a foundation mlth. The lirst is the non-
observance by the children of the ritual prohibitions (palr) set by their
uncle for the preparation of the lish. This is a consistent theme of nrythicrl
narratives: the upperworld people can no longer mix rvith hurrrans Lrecausc.
SEPARATED DEAD AND TRANsFoRMED ANcEsToRs
they disapprove of the latter's ways, the domestic animals living around
them, the fact that they commit adultery, and, especially, the fact that they eat
tabooed food (grilled fish and vegetables, in particular). Once the separation
has occurred, the adoption and observance of such pa-Li' becomes a pre-
condition for maintaining ritual relations with the upperworld ancestors. In
this process the ritual prohibitions acquire a double dimension) as means
to ensure the eflicacy ofan alliance with powerful spirits, and as symbols of
descent links to particular apical ancestors. Thus the descendants ofLanlng
Suling share, at le{st in theory, the prohibition on roasting sollong fish,
while those ofSahavung share a prohibition on consuming thelarge dungan
fish species, which was brought back by the ancestor from the sky as a pet
for his daughter. In practice, the significance ofinherited taboos as descent
markers is limited by their multiplication resulting from intermarriages
between descent lines and frorn new alliances with ancestral and other
spirits creating new prohibitions as generations pass, and a converse
phenomenon whereby prohibitions are graduallyabandoned. Nevertheless,
many people respect some number ofancestral taboos which are said to run
in tlrcir desccnt lines (koturun).
The second element of the story establishing it as a foundation myth
rel.tes to the very deGnition of humanity. In wrongly inferring from the
strange behaviour oftheir uncle that he is a witch (kora), Buhtih and Kahung
transgress irlother fundamental distinction, mistaking the animality of
their irncestor, which is actually encompassed by his humanity, for that of
rvitches which is opposed to humanity (kotu'are seen as malevolent spirits
disgr/ised as hurnans).
With the death of tlre nephews and the departure of Lanying Suling,
we therefore move fiom a general state of undifferentiation between this
world and the upperworld, descendants and ascendants, humanity and
animaliry and between humans who are disrespectful ofritual prohibitions
and upperworld people who abide by them, to a state in which these dis-
tinctions arc respected and explicitly made asymmetrical. In the resulting
ideological order the central value ofdescent is segmented (Dumont 1982).
As epitomized by the apical ancestorsr ancestry involves immortality and
ontological hybridism (a doubly human and animal status). In its inherited
form, handed down by the mortalUut Danum, it lacks these two attributes.
Moreover, ancestry entails a reversal of value in the context of secondary
mortuary rituals, where humanity becomes superior to and exclusive of
.nirnality.
'Ihe
two unfortunate young protagonists of the story pay, as it
PAscAL CouDERC
were, for conflating
the two levels of the ideological
structure'
that is' tbr
;ilo*,';;*";i:"*:':-':,:'.1.':
:'J:r"iH;?"1';:::Ill!
"
o",u
.'n"
The neDhews
are not entrrely wt
'.
tHfi;;i;;;;p""o*r"v
'lr''"
'iisode
of the coolcing
of the'lislt
rnitv
-*"r
;.:;;;;;?'i
on t*o iiff""nilevels
rhe fi rst refers to the dom i r raur
facet of the apical ancestor
as genealogical
ancestor
arrd itltroduccr
ot
ritual taboos:
Lanying
Suling
tattehs toianifest
his satisfrction
that his
instructions
have been followed'
fio*"ut''
o" we kno$
rhe nephcws
l.rave
used a stratagem
and the rd"s f'av" in f"ct been violated
Hence
the secolld
levelofinterpretationaccoldingtowhichLanyingSulingactsinacapacity
W;;:,';"':;;;;;ry",':::i:":T#.",1i$:ilffi l3,',1::il...ill
promPts his mtaml'Pntill
lilt-*,"rr"oke the speci6c
form oftigcr-sPirits
andbeliefs
suggest
that aPical anc
tosanctionthesametlansgres,io,'on,ou.ting..rtaint}?esoffoodstull.
Thus, while witches
represent
trr-e^negative
asiect,of
metamorPhosis
and
animality,
the animality
of apical
aricestors
has both a
Positive
asPect'
lll-+i;
; ;;,;,i"'""
ur,i*
-r;#:ffi
',|ll5;ill,;
;:-*i;;
aspect,
exemPlified
bY this tuni
ritual transgressions'39
The value of descent' and its validation
as an asymmetrical
relalionship'
finds its maior
ritual expression
in th" to"ttpt of tttLqh'
TtrLqh' a terlrl of
'.t,i
;;t;;;:;;
;i;se equivalent
orthe ancient western
Malavo-Polvnesian
:;;;;i"|",
which ii has probablv supplanted
rmong the uut n'rtru'ir'
Like the latter,
it
Punishes
un'ifftntt
"g"in'' "ttu'"
(Blust l98l:-293)
'flrc
w^y tuLahworks
can be compared
to ln electric
short-circuiti
when trvtr
elementso[unequalstatusorlorcearebroughttoSether'itstrikestheillferior
one to restore
the initial gap' Deoending
oi context
and on the rvidth of the
gap, tuLahresults
in various symotomsl
includirrg
uncontrolled
defecatiotr'
lMdness, sudden
death' ano more generally
in.an i ncaO":'11.:t^
t:" t't"nt'
of tuLLh lomake
a living. m. .o"."ap, of n,loh
8O*r".
_,*o.
spherc' o[
relations
that basically
correspotid
to the two contexts
of lncestorship
outlined
here' The fi"t it
"p"it"ttd
by humu relirtions
with uPPerwolld'
and to a lesser extent underworld'
beings
Onc become's
susceptible
1o
tuLqh
when dreaming
of prominent
upperworld
or underworld
spirits'
plaiting certain motits rePresentins
them'
purchasing
or telling thc lristory
of high-ranking
ja rs QoLaW)
o"riginating
f'om th11'"'e1c^]^l,re
other is
the sphere of asymmetric
interp"rso"nal
relationships
ln the oral literlture'
,rirl'"tt
*t* from a lack of acknowledgenrent
of dillerertces
in age'
SEpARAi ED DFAo AND TRANsToRMUD ANcEsroRs
rvealth, experience, and most importaDtly, pedigree. In a poignant scene of
lhe lahtwn epic, the ancestral heroes Tambun and Bungai strike the iinai
blorv upon their enemies Lunjan and Kandang, who are respectively sons
of the king of the sun and the underworld spirit
|ahtal
Before dying, Lunjan
and Kandang curse the two heroes to become tuLah for spilling their royal
bloocl. However, Bungai and Tambun, themselves born ofadulterous unions
of hunrirn urothers with powerful upperrvorld and underworld characters,
reply that they rvill nol become lrlah since they are of no less noble descent
thln thcir cnemies.
In daily life, the principal cause of trilal is disrespect towards senior rela-
tives. In this context, trlay', serves to maintain the proper distance between
gcrleratiors, particularly with respect to sexual intercourse alld marriage.
Marriage ideally takes place between same-generation cognatic relatives.
All inter-generational marriages are potentially talaft, whether between
close relatives
-
in which case they are additionally considered incestuous
rncl therefore prohibited
-
or more distant kin, or even people only related
through links to others who are affinally related between themselves. In
the latter case, a fine must be paid by the marrying couple for "squeezing
in" (ktthtop) these other people between contradictory genealogical posi-
tions,
'Ihis
wide range of marriage restrictions manifests the importance of
the principle of generation for ordering social rlations (cf.
Schiller 1997:
99-100). The tisk of tuLah features centrally also in secondary mortuary
rituals, in connection with activities such as pounding rice for the dead of
ascendant generations, cooking their food, or cleaning and interring their
boncs, For this reason these tasks are either entrusted to genealogical elders
(of the same or higher generations than the deceased), or associated with
riturl precautions if performed by members oflower generations.
Stones, Bones, and
Jars
In llte recoLrnted my.th of ethnogenesis, LaDyiDg Suling not only founded
r dc.scent line, he also lounded
^
tojdhon (Figl-te 3.3). Tojaha , also olten
rct'elred as Dnlrlr.r'pofaIa', are community olleling places consisting ofone or
several erect stones surrounded by small wooden effigies and, often,
^
divung
pzrlnr'trce ((rrcospen o
flqmentosrm)
or cordyline shrub. They are usually
located lear villages, or in more remote parts of the forest near ancient
settlenrents, but some families possess their own tojahan erected it front of
their house in tlre village. Tojahanl>elong to a category of comnunity shrines
182 pAscAL
CouDERc
which.fbrmerly
played an important role in Uut Dalum and Nsaju social
and religious lil'e in connection with headhunting, rice ugrl.uln, rl, lawsuits,
131lei1.c.s,
slgnaary burials, auguries, etc. (Klokie
200alKuhnt_saptodewo
1993, Kiihr 1896-97, Maiullari 2004, Ma[inckrod I tgZ4_25, Schiirer tC63,
1966, Schiller 1997). Only part of this impo ance has been retained by the
West Kalimantan Uut Danum. Some authors havc clairned that tojolrrrr ancl
similar village shrines were declicated to a cult of the ancestors.40
Many tojalnnhavea
known founder, often a transformed orgaip ncestor
and sometimes a celestial ancestor like Lanying Suling, who i.
"lio
frl.1u.n,ly
considered as the apical ancestor ofthe lo.ul .onrnluility.
Howevec prtctices
involving the fojahan do not amount to a clirt of the tojahan founder strictly
:l:"k'",9.,1:
toiah.an s modus opelqfldJ is to contact the tutelary spirit, or
pers_on
\koLunonl of the tojahan (also
referred to as kan(d)atr tijtthrm\,
to ask it.to act as an intermediary
in relations with powerfut sil.its, such as
Lobahta' or jiin,
to which vows (hajat)
are made to enable ,,
i.oJ
fnrnr,"g
year, successful expeditions to collect forest products, the curirig ofillnesses,
etc. In the-event that the request is met, offerings are broughito the to;a_
han to fiilfil the vow (moruptt
hajat), an o.."rln o., *f,iln n"* .ftigl.,
or stones may be erected at the shrine. However, this tutelary spirit of the
tojahan is distind from the founding ancestort
spirit. Techni.oily, it i, th.
spirit of the original erect srone(s), which also represents the link with the
founder. In accordance with Kenneth Sillander,s observation,
on ,hot h.
labels "ancestral
objects" among the Be ftian, the tojahan stone often stands
in a metonymical
relationship
with the founding ances tor (2004:
220j. For
example, the stone may have appeared to the founder in a dre"m, o, it _uy
originate from an object belonging to the founder (like
Lanying Suling,s
plucked lute), or an animal killed by the founde(
or even,
^
*irfr o Ng"i"
tajahan that I observed on the lower Samba river in Central Kalimantan,
from the murdered foundert own head.
The example ofthis last-n.rentioned
Ngaju shrine erected around a petri-
fied ancestor's skull, which notably is not the sole example of its kind in
south Borneo,4l points to an interesting contrast between to7 ahan offerig
places and kodiring bone repositories. We have seen no* _o.,u"rf ,:ituot,
remove the bones of the deceased from the process of animic traruforrla_
tion. In the case of the petrified skull, however, metamorphosis
on the
contrary removes the skull ofan ancestor from the mortuary process _
and
flom therest ofhis body and transforms it into a stone whi.t U".o,n"s tf.,"
focus ofcult activities. Decisive in this process is thus less the metonvmical
SEPARATED I)EAD AND TRANSFoRMED ANcEsrons 183
Figure 3.3. Thc tofahan of the plucked-lute stone built by the apical ancestor
Lanying Suling. Upper Lekawai river. Detail showing the plucked-lute stone
(bahLu'
konyahpil.
P,rscnt-
Couolnc
association
betlveen
the stone and the founder
than the severance
of this
i"i *],i. ,it. i"t"aer
through
th
Petrifaction
ofhis skull'
At the same time, as places oforiein
associated
with settlement
founders'
toiahun also aypearas
the
'master-r"ellquaries"
from whlre *T"lT::*t'
ums derive
their symbolic
tuputny
in represenr
the,conti"tlt-^::
"l:t"t
",o'"'
i''ii*""i.,n:
""T:::
:i;:,::illl;llTliliiil;llil":::1::ll
these two categories
of ancestral
si
::ilJ;;il;"*ith
them'let
us brieflv turn once rsain tothe tahtum
eDic, to a story relating
how the young Bungai is blessed
by
'he
lpical altces-
,i, tino o".t*t
tine with a supernatural
gift'
At the beginning
of this story' the miserable
Bungai is alone and starving
in the village TaPang' abandoned
there by his in-laws
uho hove reiected
him because
ofhis filt\ appeuance
and asocial behaviour'
Dlstlrfed
bf
ut"r"rl ut*tt-t
t""pin!'
hi' d""""s"d
father-in-law
"Liow' Likil' talks
;;i;;;;-
inside the village bone rePositorv'
offering
to rewrrd
hinr
with
iars
and other riches if he stoPs cryinn
l:::Tll*^::1':".0^i'."""
U*g"t n"*t"a*
the ghost to make himself visrble and lo come oown
from the bone rePository
He then attemPts
to kill him with his sword
and strikes rePeatedly
the kodl'ing!
pol"s *nh
i^.*: , .l lll:i^:-*t
tU"*"
iii.tt t -" act tuLah ot whoever
commits
it Likit comPlains
to
;;;;,
;i;;;..""''l'l
:TJ
::l' ;',i:",:::
:HX ::ff
fill
1:
and makes a simiiar
offer to
** i"".tyi"r
tnt
"housd' ofhis deceased
father-inlaw
in exchange
for
gifts. Trusting
no more his own father than his father in-law -
lssumedly
because
they are both tio -
Bungai attacks SePu.ng
with nl:
:.*-U
Sepung subsequentty
summons
his lwn father' Lambung'
to request
his
n"io rri *"
^"tt""
*ith the same result' Lambung's
father' Sobila'Nakui
Kolatung
("Sobila' weaing a oons as hat")' who is then called' is no more
successful'
The last to be
"'il-"on"a'
Arang Bojoli Bulou
("the hawk
with
golden tongud')'
who is Sobila's
father and the apical ancestor
ofthe
j,""'-"",\^I",
*
"
n"wk
_
offers to give Bungai
a beautiful
and largc
hottse
l|rith,to,",oo.,fi,llofiarsandgongs.Bunsaiacceptsiis.gilt--because
this one is true" -
ana fouo*'
f ii*it'tor
to this wonderftrl
h'ouse
which
O tt*
"'*'
tn* tn e tojahanlocaled
downrive!
fron the village
TheaPicalancestor,whointhedescentml,thofLanyingSulirrg.wrsdepicted
as a cultural
tt"'o it' to"t'*i
to Uotn'rnott"l
humlns
:rnd aninalized
STIp.\RATED DEAD AND TRANsFoRNTED ANcEsroRs
witches, appeirrs in this story as a benefactor in contrast to the deceitful and
debilitating dead.
'lhe
tojahan, as the house of the apical ancestor, is here
counterposed to the bone repository, which is the house ofdead forebears.'12
But thc story aiso clearly illustrates how the bone repositoly symbolically
serves to enable the protagonist to climb, stp by step, up the genealogical
ladder to the apical aocestor, and how the latter, the tojallar founder, stands
Ibr the rvhole lile ofhis deceased descendants.
'
re nlissionary ethnologist Hans Schiirer noted the same typc ofrelation
betweeD the Ngqu tajahan and the collectivity of the ancestors, or "sacred
dead" (1963: 147-152). Based on the lact that sone Katingan river Ngaju and
Uut Danutn in Central Kalimantan set up new emgies at the shrine for eaclr
deceirsed person alter secondary mortuary rituals
-
a practice unkrrown
to the Uut l)anunr of the Lrpper Melawi - Schlirer claimed that deceased
ancestors are contacted as a totality at the tajahan and that
"they
manifest
tlremselves in the form of the antang, hawkl' which is the tutelary spirit
of lhe slrrirre (o tang ganan tajahan). It other words, the tutelary hawk-
spirit ofthe tajdhdrl was for Schirer an inlpersonation, or hypostasis, ofthe
totality ofthe dead. However, this interpretation is, at least strictly speaking,
incorrect, since the only 6gure that actually is h)?ostasized as a hawk,:rnd
tbc follrhcr'.s patron, is the apical anccstor By equating the apical ancestor
and the dead in this mannet Schdrer conflated two contexts or spheres of
ancestorship rvhich should be clearly differentiated. As the previous story
suggests, there is indeed a sort of encornpassing relationship between the
tojahan and the kodiring, between the tojahan founder and the dead, but
it is ol the Durnontian qpe whereby unity on one level does not preclude
-
and actually implies
-
contradiction on another. Because dead forebears
are qualitatively different - mortal and restrictively hunan
-
they cannot
reasonably, as the story also illustrates, be merged with apical ancestors in
a single 6gure, Nor is it correct, as Schdrer claimed, to take m),ths about
translormed ancestors as evidence that the dead
-
indeed all the dead
-
"formerly" changed into hawks and watersnakes (1963: 143). But this is not
-
to say that they do not, on their own level, represent the value ofancestry, as
I havc shown in this chapter.
However, there is a third category of ancestral objects which transcends
this division ofancestral spheres by connecting the Uut Danum simultane-
ously to their remote celestial origins ancl their close dead lbrebears. This
category consists of valLrable porcelain jars of Chirese origin
Qcof)
and
various typcs ofcharlns that are transmitted along bilateral descent lines as
186 PASCAL CouDERc
part ofthe state traditionally held by multi-family houses. Like the tojahan
shrines, heirloom jars and family charms are associated with agency and a
"persori' (koLunon). The heirloom jars are even attributed with t life soul
(morua), and have the ability to protect and bring luck to their orvners.
Significantly, as noted in respect to the charms originating from the recent
dead, these objects often result from metamorphosis.a3 The highesrranking
jars (boLanga)
are those made by Songumang and his father in the upper-
world. [n oral literature and ritual chants, Songumang's father, the highest
upperworld spirit whose personal name cannot be pronounced without
incurring fala&, is represented as dwellingin a boLanga' jar During rituals,
offerings of food are placed on the necks of boLanga' wares for their "mas-
rer" (tapun) Songumang and other "people above" (uLun diang). Some of
these jars, according to the stories recounting their origin, emerged from
the rivers, originating, for instance, from the horns or bodies ofwatersnakes
into which upperworld beings had been metamorphosed (see Couderc
2012, Klokke 1994, for illustrations of this theme in iconography and oral
literature).
Heirloom jars also feature prominently in several contexts of mortuary
rituals, during which their significance switches from an association with
death and the deceased to an association with life and the living. First, jars,
Figure 3.4. Heirloom jars (/iot) displayed upon a ca8e containing pigs to be socrificed
during a secondary mortuary celebration. Jengonoi river
SEpAIATED DEAD ANp Tte.nsporugu Atcxrons
altliough usually not the most expensive ones, are used as containers for
bones stored in bone repositories. This is illustrated also in the descent
nyth of Sahamng, in which the apical ancestor entombed his dead child
in a boLanga'
)ar
brought down from the sky, which later turned into stone.
Second, jars surround the deceased during the wake for the corpse; they
are brought along with the corpse to the graveyard, and displayed, along
witlt tom(b)oLang family charms, upon the cages containing pigs sacrificed
during post,burial iltes (nloLat)
and.secondary mortuary rituals (dalo)
(see
Figure 3.4). Some ritual sequences and formulas suggest that they
actually serve as dwelling places for the deceased (as liow) from burial untll
the sacrifices, which take place in the open space in front of the house of
the deceased and constitute a turning point in the whole ritual. While the
pigs and othei sacrilicial victims exhale their last breaths and leave for the
land of the dead along with an invisible counterpart (Iior)
of the jars, the
acttral, visible jars and family charms cross the life-death boundary in the
reverse direction. Brought back into the deceased,s house, these objects
go through exactly the same ritual operations as those undergone by the
deceaseds relatives to mark the end of mourning. first they t puiified
from evil influences, then smeared with blood from sacrificed pigs to
"cool" (nyorolngin)
them and enhance their potency (and
the vitality oif the
ntourners). Finally, they are fed with cooked rice and selected parts of the
sacrificed animals.
Exhumed bones, on the other hand, which stand on the opposite side
of the iife-death boundary, and which are not attributed with any
,peopld,
of their own, although associated with the Liow of the deceased, are ro,
sneared with blood before being placed in mausoleums. However, a sign of
their status as ancestral obiects ofanother category is the fact that they must
be smeared with vegetabl oil, a treatment also awarded to heirloom jars and
human participants during dalo'and other rituals. In the past, the skulls of
outstarlding warriors and chiefs were sometimes separated from the rest of
their renrains after daLo'to be stored in precious jars or other containers
inside family houses, or, as reported by informants for the former upper
Kahayan regional chief Damang Batu, in a special outdoor repository. FLm
the sparse information obtained on this practice, of which only a couple of
contemporary instances were reported to me for the whole upper Melawi
area,44 it appears that these ancestor skulls function as charms (pocihan)
which can provide omens and be propitiated: In major life and deaih rituals
(daLo',
nyakay, weddings), they are taken out of their containers, smeared
188
PAscAL CouDERc
anew with oil and blood, and presented with food Clearly then, by being
separated from the other bones stored at the bone rePository, the allcestor''s
skull undergoes a radical shift of its ritual status which makes it analogous
with the petrified skull of tojahan foundcrs, and, even more, with the valuable
jars and family charms, Iike which it serves as an heirloom
(pusaka)'
Valuable
jars, and to a lesser extent these other prisaka, thus pertain to
both contexts of ancestorship outlined in this chapter, one associated with
apical and transformed ancestors, another with deceased
"house ancestors"
(Helms 1998). As obiects originating from upperworld treings which are
inherited from dead forebears, as symbols oflife and ofdeath (see Roth 1992)'
as products of metamorphosed animal bodies serving as receptacles for
human bones,jars combine the dimensions that defrne these two contexts of
ancestorshiP. Like the concept of tuLah, they symbolize descent as a unilled
principle whose value, transmitted through generations of genealogical
forebears, ultimately rests with the uPperworldly apical ancestors lt is now
more clear why bol4trg4'jars may
Potentially
attract f'laft on their owncrs'
An ofiense against heirloom
jars would, to paraphrase llobert Blust (l9ul:
293), be "tantamount to an ofiense against [the]
descent line and ultimately
its apical rePresentatives, the
[upperworldly]
ancestors"
Conclusion
Describing ihe cult ofthe ancestors' such as
Practiced
in West Africa or China'
as the most consPicuous manifestation of a mode of relation characterized
by the domination ofthe dead over the living by means offiliation, PhiliPPe
Descola observes that this kind of accepted dependence uPon more or
lcss remote ascendants is totally foreign to Arnazonian Indians and other
animistic peoPles around the world. Tl.re very idea of ancestors seems odd
in Amazonia, where the dead are expelled from the society of the living rrs
sooll as possible and transmit very little, in the way of material or sPiritual
assets, to their descendants
(2005: 450-455)
These opPosite attitudes towards the dead correspotrd to differences oi
an ontological order. While animism posits a "sociological discontinuity
between live humans and dead humans" that is often exPressed by the
transformation ofthe dead into animals and other figures ofbodily alterity'
"religions based on the cult of the ancestors seem to postulate the inverse:
spiriiual identity goes beyond the bodily barrier of death' the living and
S8tan,qtnoDBeo,A.l'roTne.NsrotuEoANctstons 189
the clead are similar in so far as they nanifest the same spirit" (Viveiros de
Castro 1998:482,485 fn. l9).
However, as noted by Mary Helms (1998: 44-46), such antithetic con-
ceptions of humanity and otherness, respectively 'hnthropomorphic" and
'hnthropocentric," to use Viveiros de Castro's distinction, or "animic" and
"analogic," in Descola's terms, appear to be combined in the corceptual-
izations of ancestors found in many societies, reflecting the social and
cosnrological transfonnations that occurred when hunting and gathering
peoples settled dowl]. According to Helms, many settled societies recognize,
as a result of these transformations, two categories of ancestors which in a
complementary way connect them to their ultimate cosmological origins.
First, a category of"creator" or "hrst-principle" ancestors, represelting these
origins and cxpressing what may be called a persisting animistic worldview,
and second, one of "house"
ancestors consisting of close genealogical
ancestors nd expressing ir socio-centric worldview, which enterged upon
sedentarizrtion. While house ancestors are most notably produced through
mortuary rituals as a
"temporal
elaboratiod' of the enduring units to which
they belong, the living membership ofwhich gives rise with each generation
to a new ancestral oftshoot (1998: 37), first-principle aircestors are initially lo
cated outside society, both in time (preceding the house instead ofemerging
fronr it) and space (originating,
for instance, as immigrants or upperworld
beings), and they are "brought inlo closer contact with it through relational
imagery that ... is usually distinctly tontractual' rather than 'processual'
(emergent) in form" (1998: 40). Ancestorship centred on relations with first-
principle a)rcestors involves the hurnanizatioll of ontological outsiders, in
the two often combined forms ofaffinal ancestors (e.g., ancestors conceived
ofas
"fithers-in-law")
and
"totemic" (i.e., aninal) ancestors (1998:40 41).
This chaptel has illustrated how these opposed forrns of ancestorship
anong the swidden-cultivating Uut Danum are accomnodated within a
singlc ideological structure through the contextual hierarchization of their
ontological premises. Among the Uut Danum, unlike in other societies
conforming to Helms's dual model of ancestorship,
"house
ancestors" have
limited agency and do not much influence people outside the context of
t:rortuirry rituals, a situation which presumably reflecls the modest size,
limited life-span, and weak integrative function of Uut Danum house
groups. Tlteir predominantly synbolic importance is expressed through
bone repositories, which materialize short chains of bilateral descent links
stemming from house founders. Structurally, the bones of these ancestral
190 PAscAL CouoERc
dead are opposed to the living bodies of selected ancestors who undergo
metamorphosis into spirit -an irnals, givir.rg rise to a secord c:rtegory of
ancestors whose prototypical representatives are the upperworldly foundcrs
and apical ancestors of ahfas categories. I have argued that the relative lack
ofritual importance ofthe spirits ofthe dead, including their virtual absencc
fiom the system of vows and vow-redeeming, and the corresponding iur-
portance in this system of metamorphosed ancestors and other spirits
originating as human beings who in some way or another cscaped cleath,
is congruent with an ideology which consistently slresses the dntagonisrl
between lif-e and death.
Figure 3.5 summarizes the main elements of contrast and complement.r
rity between these two forms of ancestorship, one which arises from riturl
transformation and expresses a house-centred view of social relations, and
another which arises from animic transformation and
"refereuces
cosnro-
logical first-principles" (Hehns t998:38). Secondary mortuxry rituals, tnd
more particularly the secondary treatment ofthe remains ofthe dead, play a
pivotal role in articulating these two contexts of ancestorship aDd integrat-
ing their opposed ontological premises within an encompassing ideology of
HOUSE ANCESTORS
Close genealogical forebears
Def ine house/vi llage (lovll') identity
Mortal
Restrictively human
Not sources of blessin8s
(except in secondary mortuary ritu-
als)
Connected to the living through:
Relationships of obligation
centrecl on performance of
mortuary rituals
Associaled with:
Bone repositories
APICAUTRANSFORMED ANCESTORS
Distant mythical ancestors
Define ethnic/sub-ethnic (uhtu.r) identity
lmmonal
Both human and animal
Sources of blessings
Connected to the living through:
Conlractual rel.rtionships
centred on vows and vow-redeeming
Associated wilh:
Io./?ian shrines
Flumanity contradicts animality
Descent cncompasses alliance
Flumanity encompasses anirnality
Figure 3.5. Categories of ancestors and value reversals.
SEplnareo DrAo aND TRANSFoRMED ANcEsroRs l9l
ancestry. These rites confer on house ancestors a fixed and unambigr.rously
hunlan idcntity, thus imposing an anthrcpocentric ontology at odds with
an iruimism characterized by anthropomorphism and mutable identitics
and physical forms. Moreovet they ass ert the superiority ofthis restrictedly
clelined humanity over the human-cum-animal identity ofapical and trans-
fbrrDed ancestors, which in the context of house ancestorship is negatively
valued as a defining characteristic ofwitches.
Another reversal notable in a comparison of the two contexts of ances-
k)rship, respectively focused on house ancestors and transformed/apical
ancestors, pertains to descent and alliance, which are contrarily valued in
these contexts. Relations with transformed and apical ancestors are essen-
tially ritual alliances which are maintained conditionally through adherence
to inherited taboos, and activated through a system of
yows
and vow-
rcclectning whose contractual character contrasts with the sense of more
unconditional moral obligation prevailing in relations with house ancestors.
Descent is here ancillary to alliance, and it makes no difference for the Uut
Dirnunr when invoking, for instance, a Lobahta'village guardian-spirit,
whether this Lobaifa' is of ancestral origin (i.e., a transformed ancestor) or
not. What counts is th inherited alliance with the spirit and the benefits
it brings with it- Transformed ancestors are only a special case of such
alliances with spirits, in which the ancestor, by becoming the ontological
Other, himself en.rbodies the alliance relationship. The primacy of alliance
over descent in this context is also expressed by the fact, also observed by
Helms, that apical ancestors are often described in affinal (like the childless
Sahavung), or lateral (like the avuncular Lanying Suling), rather than lin-
eal genealogical terms. However, when the same powerful beings serve to
reference the origins ofhouse groups, villages, or sub-ethnic categories, the
relationship is reversed: descent encompasses alliance, and the Uut Danum
can draw on the classificatory properties ofcognatic kinship to trace ances-
try from such lateral or affinal ancestors. Descent similarly encompasses
alliance as a principle governing admittance to bone repositories, allowing
entry for amnal forebears on the basis oftheir spouset descent links to the
/<odiring's founder
Acknowledgments
I owe a special debt to Vdronique B6guet who, in the course of numer-
ous conversations, generously shared with me her reflections on her Iban
192 PAscAL CouDERc
materials and drew my interest to animism and the significance of meta-
morphosis ai a path towards ancestorship among the Iban and in Borneo
in general. She has thus been directly influential in my integration of this
topic in my analysis of Uut Danum ancestorship. Special thanks also go to
Kenneth Sillander for stimulation and comments. The ideas expressed in
this paper have reached their present form largely as a result of extensive
exchanges with him over the past yars. Fieldwork in West Kalimantan was
conducted between February 1990 and May 1992 and betwcen March 1995
and April 1996 under the joint auspices of the Lembaga Ilrnu Pengetahuan
Indonesia (LIPI) and Universitas Tanjungpura in PoDtianak, with grauts
from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Rescarch, thc Cen
tre National de Ia Recherche Scientifique, the Fonds Louis Dumont d'aide i
la recherche en anthropologie sociale, and the Programme Layoisiar of the
French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I wish to express my gratitude to Pr.
Mudiyono and to Pr. Ismet Noor of Tanjungpura University lor hospitrl-
ity and assistance during the two periods of fieldwork. A short visit to the
upper Melawi was also made in August 2006 during which data of special
relevance for this chapter were collected. My deepest thanks go to Rernirrcl
Sellato who helped me arrange my frrst trip to the upper Melawi in 1987 and
handed to me his fieldnotes and wordlists conccrning the Uut Danum.
Notes
I Thc Uut Danum (Ot Donum) are shifting cultivators living on both sidcs of the
Schwaner mountains in the Indolesian provinces of West and Central Kalinlantan.
ln West Kalimantan, they inhabit the upper reaches of the Melawi river and some
of its tributaries (Gilang, Ambalau, Lekawai, Serawai), totalling arouud 18,000
people in 2006, including the closely related and rapidly assimilating Sehiai of
the upper Selawai (see Avd, King, and dc Wit 1983, Couderc 1988, Sellato 1986). A
larger number reside in Central KalimaDtan, mainly at the headwaters ofthe Barito,
Kapuas, Kahayan and Samba rivers (Avd 1972). On these rivers, their downstream
neighbours are various Ngaju groups with which they share close similnrities ilr
language, oral literature, and ritual,
2 Similar beliefs and stories, often presented under the heading of totemisrn by
early writers, are reported from other Borneo peoples (Evans 1923: 40, 76,80,
Hose and Mc Dougall l9l2, Il: 76-78, 8l-82, lI0-U1, Kershaw 2000: 65-66, Metcalf
1982: 188). See in particular the Dusun legend of Aki Gahuk (Evus 1923: 76-78),
whose gradual metamorphosis into a crocodile is strifungly sintjlar to the pattern
described in Uut Danum rlalratives.
SDPARATDD
DEAD AND TRANSI.oRMED
ANcEsroRs
t93
3 See Bdguet i this volume and 2006, partrcularly
ch,rp.5 whrch presents
several
cases ofdeceased persons
metamorphosed
,ra _,,'rrir, ,r".,i,
"ri"Uo'*i"n
*,
as helping spirits (pelara)
for their descendants.
4 Vernacular
tcrms (in
the Dohoi dialect),are
noted according
to the following
conventions:
/_ is a palatal
lateral flap (see
Hudro" 1967, 36t; ; i:
" ^n.r"OU"O,",
spir;rnt ("11");
rl and y:rre 6nal <1iuh
".r'*u
i,
".,",r
;;'r";":;:;:,,"0'";:i"ri\i'li;i?,i";ilfj:XtT:J;,"r-"ffi1:
postploded
consonants (e.g.
tot t(b)oLang,
Lan(ti),)n).
o_ au."rilr'ru**"n
narres, and other unitalicized
namcs, the triuscriptron
follows stnnan.a iniun"r,on
spelling.
5 In this respcct, the Uut Danunr differ fronr the Berawan
ofcentral
north Borneo,
who mention in their prayers spirits ofpast 0n.",,o., ,n o .olt*i;.;,r;;;;;r"r.r.
'wiry,
in additior)
to spirits of individually
nanred ancc,stors (r;;r*;,;;;
6 illli and unftuh arc olien used ir
iiiii,,*
i. r-,.<, *r,r.r,;;;.;,il'.":#],t:::,,'.":;'""i,J:;:J:L":,ljlf
:::i
7 It.ntry be worth noting that this classrticatory
fiergiDg ot snDte-geDeration
as-
cer)diuts is cor))l).tible
rvith a ge'calogrr.rl
f"nriun,,
,ri""l*rry.'runi"'^,,
",r.".,".
ternr is applied b
'
non-lineal
ascendanr,
the genealogical
;:;;';;;;;:
,"r,"
(i.c.,
thc progerlitor)
obviously
exists in the porso-n
ofone
1o. ;;";;i;,;;;;;;;,""r"
a'cestor, who rtray be known or unknown.
Iry contrast,
when the same term is
afr)lr(rl rr) ilD nrri..r rer.rtivc ofsanre generation,
this see's to resuit either from the
lugicrl oferrrion
ot crassrfying
reratives by g"u".u,ion
r"u"t, o. f.;ir,
""
1.r"""",'
",
a gencirlugicrlrcl
ionship to a non-genealogical
reJative. Howe".;,-;;;;;"rr-
hrvc.r strong
prelcrencc
for the marriage
ofousins,,o,f,u,,
la""fff lf rro,Lfroy.
actunlly, affinrl irscenda,rts
are also geneilogi.ol
or."n;;,ir.
'' 'e!{u/
! rrur a
8 Such tirrous Iorebears.
especrally
ftl
arso provide
r",,,r,,,,k,
i;, ;;"';;;"#
;:lfil,[;li:::
l:ilrrnj[!'[;
::::j:::^il-,1:.llrer
Lekirwai river, r noticcd tho, *h"."".;;.;:".i','lu*,"0*"
ui gcne.trogrcal
Iinks rcrely went beyond thc generation
.f gronapur";,.,
f"opf" would olien be able to lracc de.cent frnm
^
Ti,*nku,,g,
orrl,
",
ira.iuu,,i
_.r",
for exiurrpie, their great-grandfather
or
cousin o. iD_law
-
great,great_grandfather,
or a grandparentt
9'lhe inclusion
of thedeacl in thegenericcatsgor),of
otu,warrants
translatiDetio,
as "spirir"
rather thaD as
,,soul.',
This renderi"g"i,
,f * ;;";;;":;rr"il;;:.."."
with the tern! rroran', which refers to r
iiving person.
wherees
;
;;::i: ::;iT::r,ff:i'r":,il,i:ffi:l1;
I966;682,842).
194 PASCAL CouDERc
l0 Other conceptions of the condition and whereabouts of the deceased's spirit
during the liminal period, which cannot be detailed here, include the belief in a
tempo(ary stay of liow awaiting dalo'at Mount Muluh, located to the west of the
Lekawai river. A picture of the progressive estrangement of the spirit of the de-
ceased during that period is provided by the location of food offerings (padrr) at
successive stages ofthe mortuary ritual. l)uring the wake, pdcufi is hung above the
corpse, first in the bedroom, and later in the guest-room or gallery of the hoLrse
when thc corpse is moved there; at /ios,rrg it is secured rbove the olLtside door; ilt
,/ot.it it is slipped through wall slats and dropped outside ofthe house (hence the
name of the ritual, which literally mcans "to slip"); linally .rt r/alo', ol{erings tbr the
dead arc brought to the bone repository or the grave depending on rvhether thc
remains have been exhumed or not.
lI Customary larv obligates the widow or widower to celebrate a lalo'for their
deceased spouse
lrrior
to remarrying, or to pay to the farnily of the deceascd a
substantial fine for "stepping over the bones" (ponokaLov' tlldrg). Traditionally,
spouses were reputed to have stayed married
"until the molnenl thcy placed each
other's bones" (nTirirg hosaLak tuLang) (cf.Schiller 1997: t03). In nry samplc oi'terl
dalo', two were celebrated by widowers who remarried shortly aftcrwards. As Ibr
the wish expressed by a parent or grandparent that their children or grandchildren
hold a r/nLo'for them after their denth, it could forrrrerly be accornpilnied by n curse
on the descendants if it was not to be fullilled (Epple n.d. 2: 8; see Zimmermann
1968: 374),
12 DdLo', Buntut Sabon, 1990. Kaju'Nahan and (Bahtang) Bendu' BendaDg are
lames of rivers in the land of the dead.
13 In this rhetorical use of the term, it is obviously more appropridte to trilnslate
Liow as
'toul"
than "spiriti'
14 The airn of pohpas frts almost word for word Hertz's description of the Maori
firn ceremony: "'[he fundamental theme is always the same: on the one hand, to
repel towards the pole of mortality all impurities and evils which have penetrated
and which threaten the community; on the other, to secure, strengthen, and attract
to the tribe the beneficent influences which reside at the pole oflife" (Hertz 1960b:
98-99). In the context ofmortuary rites, as we have seen, the same prayer is uttered
to
'tweep
out" the dead themselves.
15 The literal meaning of Lovu' Liow, which I translate as the "land of the dcadl' is
"house ofthe deadl'
16 The Dotion ofdeath as a return to the land ofthe dead expresses { conception of
life as a transitory existence in a "borrolved" world (daruon i jam boLun,lilcfttly
"the river borrowed to livd'), which the Uut Danum share with, and have possibly
borrowed from, thcir Ngnju neighbours (see Schirer 1963:6t, Schiller lr97r B6).
SEPARATED DEAD AND TRANSFoRMED ANcEsToRs 195
Significant is also the fact that graveyards are usually located on the river bank a
few meanders downstream from villages, so that exhumed bones are carried uprivr
by boat to the village to be interred in a /codirirg. This back and forth movement of
bodily renrains along the river is paralleled, in Hertzian fashion, by the journey of
the deceased's spirit, frrst downriver to the sea, then up the river ofthe dead, which
is conrmonly identified as a "left tributary'' of the sea (sapang Laut komuLoy) wiich
"flows
upstream' (tokuLahg murik) (see Sather 1993: 80, for a similarly stmctured
journey of the soul of the dead among the Saribas lban). The dalo'celebratcs the
final stagc of this journey and the welcome of the tiorl at the "village of the clcrrtli'
whcre they obtain residence further and further upriver upon performance ofpro-
grcssively nrore elaborate secondary mortuary rituals (all variants ofdalo). On their
rot]Je to Lovu' Liow, xs recounted in the afore-mentioned chant (p arung ngitot Liow),
tlr spirits of the deceased will have crossed the "hill of co6ns' (dahtah duhi)
^nd
the "hill ofthe liquids ofdecomposition" ( dahtah kqram\, that is, the graveyard (cf
Flcrtz l960ar 138, fn. 198). Thc transfer ofthe deceased'.s remains from the graveyard
to the villxgc ind the family ossuary (i.e., Hertz's phase of reunion) thus coincides
with .l linear progression to more and more remote regions of the land ofthe dead
(Hcrtzt phase of seprration), thereby reflecting the inseparability of the two func-
tional moments of the mortuary process identified by Hertz. In a different context,
that of healing rit$als among the lban, Barrett (1993) and Sather (1993, 2001) have
described how the journey of the lban shaman to the otherworld of the dead in
sexrch ofhis patientt soul is enicted as a bidirectional movement through the space
of the longhouse. Going out of the longhouse, and then re,entering it, the shaman
arrives in what has become the longhouse of the dead, where he will capture the
soul he is looking for. The same principle of identification-inversion between the
dwellings of the living and the dead is at work in both situations. To paraphrase
Sather (1993:91), "The starting point oflthe deceased's]
.journey
thus becomes, in the
inverted Otherworld ofthe dead, its destinationl' The difference, in the Uut Danum
casc, is that the journey ofthe deceased, starting at the house where he died, ends a
few meters from it in the bone repository and so does not come full circle.
17 It is in this sense that
peter
Metcalftalks about Berawan rites ofsecondary burial
as a "kind ofancestor factory" (Metcalf1982: 23). Although it would be exaggerated
to describe Uut Danum secondary death rituals by this term, bone repositories cer-
tainly play a role to preserve the memory oftheir founders, in some cases over long
periods of tinle. To give an example, Tokuh, a remote ancestor ofthe people ofthe
|engonoi
river, is known as the founder of an old ,todirirg whose exceptionally large
single post is visible iD a long inhabited upstream area. According to local tradition,
ire had it erected for the dalo' of his wife whom he killed after wrongly assuming
she lrad a lover I was told that the,todirizghad magical power and that people were
sometimes blessed by it in the form, for instance, of gold ornaments or canelian
beirds for.rnd on the ground near its pole. Another way in which secondary mortuary
PAscAL CouDERc
196
tuals are iDstrumental
in preserving the memoly ofsome forebears is through the
"l".rn"
"i,"r"rror"u
on the kodiring! walls the name(s) ofits founder(s) or ofsome
H;;;;;":l.t
tti
*"-o"rt"v"r
legl: 2e fn 77)'
seneratlv
preceded bv
;;;'itd;;;
"t-
ketunnan'
w..ich indicates that the ossuary is owned bv the
group of these forebears' descendants'
t8 Si-ilu.ly, a-ong the Ngaju'
"the extended
family is srid to drvcll bgether in the
repository"
(Schiller 1997: I04)
19 Three longhouses
(Tumbang Gagu' Tumbang Konyi' Tumbang Malahoi) located
t",j"a i*"1* *gnlu populuted up'iu"r areas ofCentral Kalimdntdn
exhibit lhc
ffi;;;il
ir*no rutpri-"v"r
considers typical.
(KtmPffmever l99l:
29-lI). Even where this arrangement
prevails' however' tlre i]::se gr.:l].1
.]nJ
th'
loa'ir'irg
g*upare not necessarily coterminott"'
sinie' at least thcoreticirlly'
rlght'
al i"""J,"oi.u-y
can only be derived fron forebears
who have contributecl
to
the cost of its construction'
So it can happen that some descendants
of the housc
;;;;; ;; not have full rights of ut" to th" tommunrl bone rePository and that
thcv have to pay a\ adat comPensation
to its owners in order to be grallte'l i'-
:"'1.;**il;i;i"
ttina i" a""'iu"a bv Douglas Miles.for.the
lo[ghouse
of
lunrlrang
Cagu in the uPPer Mentaya' whose residents were divideJ in two distinct
"tthous;.lo;"ly
,"luted descent
groups
(bublhan) holding.rights
to two separate
J;.'"il;;;t;,;-zot'
nrtho-uet' i"{it"" aoes not exPlicitlv strte so' one of these
,-tl.,"i"t Or.O"Ott
tncluded the house's single bone rePository
(sec Krmpffrrteyer
l99l:32).
20 The basis for this assertion by Schiller is not altogether clear although shc seems
tobeinfluencedbytheimportanceoffertilitysymbolisminNgijusecondarymor
tuary rituals, particularly as expressed in th context of
Pl^cing
tire bones in bone
repositories
(ichiller 1997: 106' see Couderc 1999)
2l On the resurgence of ritual
Practices
associcted
with augural hrwks during
i* l"."ti O"V"f.-*adurese
conflict in Central Kalinantan'
see Oesterhelcl'
this
volume.
22 Body clothing
may be combined
with metamorphosis'
as ir the followiug
i".**iat
.f afr" *gural hawk of some uPper Barito
PeoPle:
"llelonging to the
ir--,r"-.i,t
"
."*f",, ie flies very high and is considered
rs a supernattrrnl
hcinB'
'Jii:ilil;;Jil"'
tt'"p"
'"
th; la
Stt
(the highest heaven)' atrd taking tagle
forrn only when coming close to the eaith; then his arms change into wings' his
ii"tti.,^if -.
"
,",1, aid his headscarf into an eagle head"
(schwaner l8s3-s4' I:
230, mY translation).
23 All these verbs are used transitively
(eg' nomaLiw Lobahfti
"Io change into a
*"r"rr*f.":
nyoria' atang "lo become'a hawk') NomaLiw and saLuh specifically
denote physical transformation
or change of form' whereas nyoria' rLnl' nyoLtrng
SEPARATED DEAD AND TRANsFoRMED ANcEsToRs
have wider semantic ranges, corresponding rougbly to the lndonesian verb jarli and
its derivotivcs meridli and menjadikan. Used in this context, nyoria' and. nyoLung
denotc less the transfonnation itselfthan its result (i.e., "to become").
24 Mctamorphosis occurs at a later point in the story and is caused by the ances-
tor',s viol:ttion oIa promise made to the snake-spirit. He turns into a watersnake and
bcconres thc river! gunrdian-spirit.
25 ln Hardeland's Ngaju-German dictionary (1859: 122) gdtp is defined as follows:
"'lb leave tlris visible world without dyingi' to rvhich Schdrer (1966: 218) adds:
"...
and trr be admitted to a spirit village (GcisterdorJ\, not to ihe village of the dead
('Iotcnlorf)' Botlr pirrts of this composite delinition apply to thc Uut Danum no'
tion of.(](riPlgdil. I once hcard the term gaiP used to describe the fate of a former
Bovernor
ofthe provincc ofCentral Kalimantar whose spjrit had chosen to take up
residcncc on the lJukit Raya MountaiD. Although he had died long ago, my inform
ant maintained lhat he was not really dead and that his corpse corrld not be found in
his grave.
'Il
us
.ga
ip is clelined by the fact ofescaping death in one way or anothet in
which il is sirDilar to the Mally Dotion ofkrarrdt (see Dndicott l99I: 76).
2(r
'lhc
Ngaju use n sirrilnr procedure, Schiiler (1997: 63);cf. Hertz. (1960a:55, 135,
fn, I74).
27 I rm adapting here an argument by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (1998: 482), ac-
cording to rvhom tlre Amerindian dead, being "spirits delined by their disjunctioD
frorn r human body," are "logically attracted to the body of animals."
28 DescriptioDs of si|rT ilar firncra] masquerades arnoDg neighbouring groups by
Agerbcek (1909) and Schdrer (1940-41) represeDt the &rfturg masks in a role as
undertakcrs who take hold ofthe cofhn by force and carry it to the gravc.'Ihis sug-
gests that the masked characters are the allies ofthe mourners in accomplishing the
necessary cxpulsion ofthe dead out ofthe community ofthe livilg. 'lhe
frightening
nature spirits, for cxample, who represeDt the urlximal ontological gap that the de-
ceasecl could possibly cross, thus provide the polarir), oIthis displacement process.
29 I pressed the matter with two elderly informants, asking if it was possible at
sorne point to "make requests" (bofiajar) from such metamorphosed deceased. My
question elicited inconprehension, followed by laughter, from the first informant.
'Ihe
sccond, however, found it less absurd. After some hesitation, he answered that
it was indeed possible, after a long tirne,
"ifthe
deceased bad really transformed into
a snakc, a l-o[a[l.r':'The propensity olrecently deceased people to appear in aniIrlal
form, typically a deer o. inother forest nnimal seen at the graveyard, has been noted
elsewhere il Borneo (Hose and McDougall 1912, I: 81, Nieuwenhuis 1904-07, I: 105,
quote(l iD Rousscau 1998: lIl, fn.30, Roth 1896,1: ?19). ln these reported instances,
it resulls in a prohibition to eat the aDinral identified with the deceased but not
198 PAscAL CouDERc
in spirit guardianship, which, as Bdguet (2006: 208) observes, olien necessitates
confirmation by a dream or another extraordinary vent.
30 Nieuwenhuis (1904-07, I: 103-105) presents a similar conception for the lJnhru,
involving two souls (one goes to the afterworld, the other metamorphoses into a
zoomorphic spirit in the proximity ofthe grave).
3l Although endowed with an autonomous potency, these charms lnay in softe
cases mediate a relationship with the spirit ofthe deceased, at least for.,r certain tinre.
This is illustrated by the following example. A woman felt beneath her a snrall stone
when she was waking over the corpse of her just deceasd daughter, an unmarried
twenty-year old. Shaped like a miniature plaited pouch, this stone was kept by the
woman as a uring charm and regullrly used to treat patients, irs she was r shirDrirn.
'lo
explain the origin ofthe
"pouch
stone" (b ahtu' soLihpang), rhe nrother said thit it
wasagift from herdeceased daughter, implying thatthe pouch had been transformed
into stone through the daughter! agency. She also told me that the deceased had
"beconre" the storre (using the Indonesian verb (men)jadi), and further explained
that her daughter, detd since three months back and having underSone an chboratc
nyolat, felt lonely and hungry in the Iand ofthe ddd. Ifshe stayed with her mother,
as she had apparently decided to do, she would often eat, for the stonc received fbod
each tine it was used in a curiDg ritual. "It seenrs she wantcd to cotDe birck witl, !ncl"
said the mother. What is interesting in the woman\ account of the ritual relntion,
ship created throuBh the gift of a charrn is how it actually distorts the logic ol spirit
guurdianship irnd reverses dre stnsc ofdependcnce in it. lnstead of benelits frorn the
charm and its tutelary spirit, the charm oflcred the means to provide care ancl foorl
for her deceased daughter. From this point ofview it may lle argred thit the lvonlnn
interpreted metamorphosis according to the logic of mortuary rites, which, rc we
have seen, posits a ten1porary dependence ofthe dead upon their living .elatives. At
odds with the mortuary logic, however, is the fact that the spirit of the deceascd rvls
installed ifl the donestic sphere, for an indefinite period oftirne.
32 In connection with the same ordeal practiced among the Ngnju, ZimrDcrn1ann
(1968: 351) mentions that the l'afltuen
y'lete
lt$ed to the bone rpository with pig
flesh or another of their favourite foods. Heavenly witches were called dowr to
possess the suspected. hantuen who, in the event s/he really was one, would irn-
mediately metamorphose and climb up the bone repository to fetch the meat.
33 On the distinction between anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism and
thei! respective relevance in radically opposed cosmological perspectives, sce
Viveiros de Castro (1998: 484-485, fn. ll).
34 The same belief in the reincarnation of the deceased is described by lhe mission-
ary Zimmermann as the "large cycle" (grofle
Kreklaufl of the soul (i.e., the soLrl of
the bones), in contrast to a similar but shorter process ofreincarnation undergone
6y the hambaruan, rhe Ngaju equivalent of the morua', or life soul (Zimmerrrann
SEpARATED f)EAD AND TRANsFoRMED ANcEsroRs
in Stdhr t959: 198-202). According to another variant of this beliefamong the Uut
Dauunr of the upper Kahayan (Epple n.d. 2: 7), there is no lorg cycle: the main
moruu' of the deceased goes dennitively to the land of the dead (as liow), while
six other moftrd' associated wlth dilierent parts ofthe body undergo an immediate
transmutotion into various plant and animal species
35 Unlike mrny societies, the Uut Danum do not hold very elaborate or consist-
ent ideas about procreation and the origins ofdifferent constituents ofthe
Person,
but they usurlly describe the substance of common ancestry in terms of "blood"
or "blood and llesh' transmitted indifferently through the male and female lines'
Differing from this cornmon view, an informant stated that bones, eyes, and brain
derivc from the father, and blood and flesh from the mother' This resembles the
rvidespread Asian distinction between flesh (or blood) and bones as
PrinciPles
of, re-
spectively, female ind male ancestry (Bloch and Parry 1982, Bloch 1982, Huntington
and Metcalf 1991, Lvi-strauss 1969, Tsintiilonis 1999). In Borneo this conccPtion
is reported for the Ngaju (lay t99l), with conflicting views among religious sPc'illl-
ists about which aspect is male and which is female (Kuhnt-Saptodewo 1993:314,
Schiller 1997: 36-37), .rnd for the Kayan (Rousseau 1990:100). Rousseau observes
that it reveals a pirtrilateralbias ofcognatic kinshiP in central Borneo A similar bias
ol patrilateralily among the Uut l)anum may be expressed by the fact that descent
is often trrced ullimntely to male aPical ancestors, in particular to house and bone
repository founders. lt is also exPressed, as among the [,ePo Tau Kenyah (Rousseau
1990: 100), by the avoidance ofmarriage between
Patriparallel
first cousins, who are
coosidered to be too ciosely reiated. However, this proximity is usually e\plained
in te|ms.of shitled blood, not of shared bones. lt may be mentioned here that both
the Ngaju and Kayan (Rousseau 1998: lll) conceive of a bone soul, unlike the Uut
f)anurn.
36 See Av
(1972r I93), Collins (1999: 206), Epple
(n.d. l, n.d.3' 1927:230), Franssen
l lcr<lcrsche (t906: 385), Helbig (1942: 78), Maks (1857: l8), Riwut (1958: 370 ff),
Sch:irer
(i966:234), Schwaner
(1853-54, lI:152). The groups sharing this myth of
origin include the Melahui ofthe middle Melawi and some upriver Ngaiu groups in
Cicntrai Kalirnantdn.
37 Immortality is also mentioned in some narratives about transformed ances-
tors whose protngonists undergo metamorphosis when they reach the age of 150
or 200 years (Danandjaya lgTlt 267, HuPe in Sch?irer 1966: 144). Interestingly,
non-ancestral Lolrdhta' are generally believed to originate as metamorPhosed ter-
restrial snake$ grown very old and large cobras, which tur! into good Lobohtd,
and pythons, which turn into the evil Lobafita
PrarS;
both thereupon taking up
residence in the river. Very similar beliefs are held by the Ngaiu (Hardeland 1859:
s.v. pangorer), the Kayan (Rousseau 1998: 94 and fn. l), and the Bentian
(Sillander,
personal communicAtion). The immortality ofsnakes is also invoked in the origin
199
PAscAL CouDERc
m!4h of the north Borneo Dusun to exPlain the origin of humrn d:ithi
:Yhen
;:;;"*""
had made everything, he said:
'Who is able to cast off his skin? ll'
"ty.*."'"
a. *' n" shall not diei'Ihe snake alone heard and saicl:'l cltrl Ancl for
this reason till the present day the snake does not die unless killed by rnan
(The
O.rru.r. aia not tt"ui or they would also have thrown of their skins and there would
have been no death.)"
(Evans 1922: 176)'
38 The Ngaiu have similar mrths about the loss of the Water of l'ife and immortal-
ity
(Scherer 1966: 146-149).
39 Cultural heroes or apical ancestors assuming tiger form to punish hl]mall
rurisbehaviour are reported from elsewhere in Borneo
(Sellato 1983)
'rnd
Westerrl
lndoncsia
(Barendregt 2006: 120, Wessing 2006: 53 fn 56' 57) Other basic cultural
rules such as the taboos on incest and the mockery of animals' or the obligation
toshrrcorpartakeoffood,aresanctionedbymetamorphosis(Petrifactioll)ot
puni.irrn"rrt. inflicted by spirit-animals'
without evidence' however' thot aPic'l
arceslors execute lhese sanctions'
40 See Kiihr
(1896-97, VII:74)' Mallinckrodt
(1923:539' and 1928' 1r 69)' Schdrer
(1963:147-'152,1966:248'263,882-883);andAv6(1990:42)'foradissentingoPinio
4l See Mallinckodt
(1921:542,.92a,1:71)'schwaner
(1853-54' lI:58-59) Petrifac'
tion also occun in one variant ofthe GaiP-Myths recorded by Schiirer
(1966: 239-
245), whose humafl
Protagonists
turn into river stones and become guardian-spirits
after leaving their village and staying for a long
Period
ln the forest'
42 However, in this particular story, the aPical ancestor is himself portrayed as
mortal, his name being preceded by "liou" Genealogies collected by missiotrary
Epple in the uPPer Kahayan region
(n d 2,3)' in which the nanes ofsolne upical
"i."r,or. "r"
alro pr"c"dea by "flowl' suggest that these ancestors similarly lost
their immortality when settling on earth This was also the case with Kasiang' LaIry'
ing Suling's sister.
43 For a detailed study of charms resulting from metamorphosis
(Petrifactidr)
among the Layar lban' see Biguet
(2006, chap 6'2)
'
44 By comParison, many houses still contain ancestor skulls among contempornry
Bentian
(Sitlander, personal communication'
2003' and this volume) The cult of
ancestor skulls was aPparently more widespread among eastern Barito groups
(see, e.g., Hertz 1960", tl6, fn. tso; th"n among western Balito groups Howevcr'
missloiary zimmermann, writing in 1911, Doted its frequency among the Ngaiu
(in-
.-iling probably th" Uut Danum) of the upper Kahayan
(1968: 393) The colonjal
admiJsirator Kiihr
(1896-97, II: 76) mentions that the skull ofthe late Uut DdnuDl
"t
i"f Srr" of N"ng" Mentomoi
(Ambalau river' West Kaljmantan) was anoirted
withblood and given food oferings during festive occasions'
SEpARATED DEAD AND fhANstoRMED ANcF-sToRs
References
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