Indigenious Religions of Indonesia

LEYAKET ALI MOHAMED OMAR
History of Religion Part 2- Prof Bernard Adeney- Risakotta and Prof Margana
Readings are from : Danielle C. Geirnaert- Witnessing the creation of ancestors in Laboya.
Stephen C. Headley- Durga’s Mosque:Cosmology, Converstion and Community in Central Javanese Islam .


The study of traditional practices by tribe of Laboya is an interesting phenomenon. These religions conceal, often barely, older indigenous systems of belief embedded in distinctively local forms of ritual practice. These involve beliefs in and respect for a range of supernatural beings, many of them embodied in features of the local landscape and natural species. But a central element in almost all is the role of beings known generically as ancestors-those who lived and died before, but remain a real part of the lives of their descendants-powerful, perhaps dangerous, and in a way still part of the community of the living.

The exploration of ancestor practices ranges from across Indonesia. Among the other rituals are the Tiwah. It is a rare traditional ritual of Dayak tribe in Borneo to send the soul of dead person to heaven. In Dayak Ngaju belief, the death is a commencement of a long journey to the Lewu Tatu (Heaven). The soul of the dead stays around one's living area until the family performs this ritual. The substance of this ritual is the respect to ancestor and elder person. This is also a very long exotic ritual, rich with natural wisdom.

Given that example and having Indonesia on the other hand which consists of so many separate island and more than a hundred ethnic groups, it is certainly difficult and problematic to define what Indonesian culture is. Although Christians, Hindu and Islam has been the major religion in the region and with all respect to the more ancient religion, these indigenous practices are still almost in every corner of Indonesia and today with the vast work of missionary work from the Christian and Islam they are either blended together with Islam and Christian practices or on its own. These can be seen unique for some or even the academician but to most Muslim or probably Christian this is unacceptable.

Stephen C. Headley in his account on Jihad had aspire me to a greater height of capturing what his understanding of its meaning through his interpretation from a few authentic resources. It is a notion that has to be amplified that Jihad in Islam never meant war against the enemy blindly. The qur'an has to parallel to the tradition of Prophet in its translations. During the period of the Prophet Muhammad (PBH), he always used it as a defence and not attack . Jihad in the path of Allah means to struggle in defence. Scholars of Islam have always emphasis the meaning of Jihad is to struggle in the obligations that Allah has ordained upon His followers.