Construction Sacrifice in Eastern Indonesia

Indonesia and the Malay World
ISSN: 1363-9811 (Print) 1469-8382 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cimw20
Construction sacrifice in Eastern Indonesia
Stefan Danerek
To cite this article: Stefan Danerek (2017) Construction sacrifice in Eastern Indonesia, Indonesia
and the Malay World, 45:131, 88-107, DOI: 10.1080/13639811.2017.1247547
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2017.1247547
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INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD, 2017
VOL. 45, NO. 131, 88–107
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2017.1247547
CONSTRUCTION SACRIFICE IN EASTERN INDONESIA

Stefan Danerek
Asosiasi Tradisi Lisan
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Rumours of headhunting and kidnapping for sacrifice in modern Received 30 December 2015
building construction were widespread in Indonesia during the Accepted 25 August 2016
20th century. Europeans also featured in such rumours, especially
KEYWORDS
in the eastern Indonesian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) Construction sacrifice; Flores;
and in the context of church construction, several decades after folklore; headhunting; oral
Downloaded by [Stefan Danerek] at 08:19 27 October 2017
independence. This article discusses previous research on the history

construction sacrifice rumours and various construction sacrifice
traditions which are viewed as local expressions of one ancient
tradition. It harnesses oral history as its methodology with crucial
eyewitness data from fieldwork in eastern Indonesia and
recordings are available in a digital repository (Kaipuleohone). The
data affirms that headhunting and kidnapping for construction
sacrifice was practised on Flores during the mid to late 1900s.
Strong evidence is presented of collaboration between one
missionary and his local assistants, particularly a notorious witch
doctor-cum-‘kidnapper-headhunter’. The author concludes that
the rumour is not merely folklore.
Introduction
Rumours of human sacrifice in modern building construction were widespread in Indo-
nesia during the 20th century. In the late colonial period the Dutch featured as instigators
of sacrifice in rumours of ‘kidnapper-headhunters’. Following the end of colonialism in
1949, and particularly during the New Order developmental regime (1966–1998), there
was a shift from seeing Europeans as instigators towards viewing the government and
developers as perpetrators. This suggests that local patterns of belief associating power
and construction with the offering of heads were the determinant factors behind the
rumours. But in the eastern Indonesian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT)
rumours about Europeans persisted, particularly in the context of church construction,
which still involved European missionaries after independence. The rumours were first
analysed in four articles in Oceania (Drake 1989; Erb 1991; Forth 1991; Barnes 1993),
and were considered unfounded, while the authors noted customary sacrifices as well as
historical reasons on how the rumours came about. Jordaan and Wessing (1996, 1999)
subsequently published articles citing archaeological evidence and arguing convincingly,
that the rumour was a historical reality in pre-colonial Southeast Asia.1
CONTACT Stefan Danerek ideaatwork@gmail.com

1
Jordaan and Wessing (1996) wrote about findings of an immured skeleton at the 9th-century Prambanan complex, Yogya-
karta; see also Wessing and Jordaan (1997).
© 2016 Editors, Indonesia and the Malay World
INDONESIA AND THE MALAY WORLD 89
Figure 1. Map of the main Flores island in eastern Indonesia, with Palu’e island in the north.
The broad aim of this article is to investigate and deepen the understanding of this
elusive subject. The work is informed by research on sacrifice but interpretations are
not attached to a social science theory. I present ethnographic data on local beliefs and
practices, but my main aim is to prove that there is a reality behind the rumour, including
its eastern Indonesian variant. I approach the subject as oral history and present crucial
eyewitness data, which, to my knowledge, is new.
My introduction to the subject occurred in December 2013 during my first fieldwork
for a language and oral traditions documentation project on Palu’e island, near north of
central Flores in NTT (see Figure 1). I became the object of jokes that scared little children.
As a stranger, especially a European, I could be suspected of being an ata nggemine, a kid-
napper-headhunter.2 A major aim of my project was to create a comprehensive collection
of sound recordings in Sara Lu’a (Palu’e, Ple), and this work was also the methodology for
this research, next to learning the language, participant observation, and other merits of
long-term fieldwork. All types of narratives were recorded between 2014 and 2015, includ-
ing oral history, which I intended to write about. The recordings are annotated and
archived at Kaipuleohone Digital Ethnographic Archive.3
My informants were interviewed and or recorded independently of each other and on
different field trips.4 Using pseudonyms, they are Ware, Wera, Baga and Pasa, who range
in age from about 62 to 85 years (as of 2015). They have all lived and worked for several
years outside of Palu’e. They, or their family, work on their own crop fields. One of them
is an entrepreneur, another is a healer, a third was a builder, and the fourth was a musician
known for his martial arts. Additional, sparse, biographic data is found under each testimony.
Inquiring into construction sacrifice

Sacrifice, ‘the act of offering something to a god, especially an animal that has been killed
in a special way’ (OED, 2015), is a universal ritual and existential phenomenon that is
2
The authors in Oceania; Barnes, Forth and Erb, who had done fieldwork on Flores, told of similar experiences. My Palu’e-
Indonesian dictionary manuscript lists nggemi as ‘kidnap’ and ‘to steal heads’. Italicised terms are Indonesian (Bahasa
Indonesia, BI) if the context does not imply another source language.
3
For information about the project, the collection and how to use it, see item SD1-000 in Stefan Danerek Collection – Palu’e
Audio. Transcripts related to the article may be requested from the author. Field notes are from December 2013 to March
2016.
4
Palu’e informants and the Palu’e who are named in the context of kidnapping-headhunting, have been given indigenous
aliases in the text, and the outsiders that they name are referred to with one of their initials. A Sikka informant has been
given a Christian alias. My informants have consented to the use of the material with few restrictions. I told the main
informants that I wanted to write about construction sacrifice. The two main eyewitnesses did not want their recordings
to be heard on Palu’e. Most of the interviews were recorded in the presence of other locals, mostly family.
90 S. DANEREK
inherently ambivalent because it affirms life with death. The rumours claim that builders
require human offerings to be placed in a building’s foundation. Is this sacrifice part of
religion? Is it performed ritually? The sacrifice might not have a source in the religion
of the instigators or of the ritual specialists, but it can still be performed as an expression
of a belief among their people.5 Edward Tylor (1871), in his influential work, proposed a
minimal definition of religion, that of the belief in spiritual beings, which he saw as a stage
in the evolution of religion. The phenomenon falls within this definition. There must exist
a belief in the benefit of the sacrifice, done for a reason considered worth its expense and
risks involved. We can rule out that the benefit is not derived from the matter, the body or
skull per se, but from what is believed to reside in the body or skull: soul or spirit. This
belief is spiritual in nature and is what separates the sacrifice from what would otherwise
be mere psychopathology.
The human, particularly a loved one, is the ultimate sacrifice, which is exemplified in
the Bible with Abraham’s attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac, who was later substituted with
a goat. In European legends, the master mason immures his wife or child, a notion that
superseded the victim of a kingly or divine origin (Allen 1897: 254). Substitution, accord-
ing to Smith and Doniger (1989: 189–90), is ‘the use of a “stand-in” in place of an original
which then “represents” it, is at the very heart of sacrifice. … the victim stands in for both
the sacrificer and the deity and thereby draws them together’. Wessing and Jordaan (1997:
118) adds: ‘One sacrifice often said to be a ritual substitute par excellence for a human
being is that of a buffalo, and it is used primarily in the “public” sphere.’ Water buffalo
is ceremonially sacrificed in many indigenous Asian cultures, and heads of water buffaloes
are offered in larger construction projects in Indonesia to primarily act as a protective
agent (tumbal), for the workers or for future users of the building.
The amount of anecdotes on this subject is immense. There is a problem with what
holds as evidence, since anecdotal corroboration has been regarded as hearsay. Eyewitness
reports would provide acceptable evidence, and in combination with excavations, solid
evidence. Anecdotes ‘have also always stood in a close relation to the longer, more elab-
orate narratives of history, sometimes in a supportive role … sometimes in a challenging
role, as the repressed of history – “la petite histoire” (Gossman 2003: 143). I focus on tes-
timonies of eyewitnesses; villagers who represent the subaltern whom Spivak (1988) asked
whether they speak, and to which she replied largely in the negative.
The voices of the rumours in the Oceania articles are represented mostly through local
informants. Due to the lack of eyewitness accounts these rumours were, like previous
accounts, ‘ethnographic rumours’ (Wessing and Jordaan 1997: 104), in spite of their consist-
ency from India6 to eastern Indonesia. Other problems are the necessary secrecy that shroud
acts of kidnapping and sacrifice, acts that demand severe legal punishments, and the cogni-
tive dissonance between secular, humanistic, rational thinking and magical thinking.
Inquiries into sacrifice ask: Who offers the sacrifice? What is offered and in what forms?
How is it offered? Where and when? Who is its recipient? For Wessing and Jordaan (1997:
101), the crucial question is ‘why sacrifices in connection with construction are thought to
5
Stutterheim ([1935] in Joordan and Wessing 1996: 52) noted the Javanese culik belief, ‘which involves a belief in human
sacrifice in connection with large construction projects’.
6
Crooke (1894: 297) reports about India the belief that the British government required victims for their construction pro-
jects: ‘This idea that great public works require a victim before they can be completed prevails widely among the rural
population.’
be needed in the first place, and how the social importance of the construction correlates
with the nature of the sacrifice brought’. They distinguish between types of sacrifice, ela-
borating on substitution, and conclude that human construction sacrifice is always con-
nected with buildings in the public domain (Wessing and Jordaan 1997: 114–15).
Actuality
Such rumours still exist but are less abundant than during the New Order period, and are
sometimes transformed.7 In late 2014, there were scares on Timor. Locals who were inter-
viewed said that it was the building season and mentioned the rumour that children’s
heads would be used as offerings (Pos Kupang, 2014). A group of five Timorese had
made several kidnapping attempts and the police investigated why they wanted to
kidnap children (Victory News, 2014). The five were almost lynched by a mob of 300 in
Erbaun. There were similar scares in Lombok and Bima, west of Flores, in late 2012
and in the Bima case construction sacrifice was mentioned (Tempo, 2012a, 2012b). On
Lombok, five suspected kidnappers were killed by mobs, which shows that the rumours
are potentially dangerous and need to be suppressed. Police authorities in Bima,
Mataram and Kupang declared that the rumours were baseless and that the public
should not be provoked. These incidents occurred during the late dry season, which is
associated with headhunting scares in NTT. The only confirmed case of headhunting
for ritual purposes connected with construction I could find in online news items was
from Seram in 2005. Naulu tribe members had procured two heads of civil servants –
which reverses the rumour victim or instigator categories – to be used in an inauguration
ceremony for a change of chief (Indosiar, 2005). A later article mentions the Naulu belief
that the heads will guard the adat (customary) house that was to be renovated for the inau-
guration (Non Stop online, 2013).
An ancient practice
Rumours of human sacrifice at foundation sites appear in various cultural and historical
contexts. The builders of ancient times wanted to avert the wrath of earth spirits or gods
and gain their benevolence by offering them a human or an animal sacrifice. The first con-
ception of human sacrifice is that stated by Wessing and Jordaan (1997: 107) as ‘[b]reaking
the soil for any building project … requires the permission and cooperation of the spirits
thought to own the land in question’. This has been confirmed by excavated findings8 in
Europe and Asia which contribute to the understanding of this ritual tradition that con-
nects ‘death with life, this world with the world beyond … and make possible the purpose
and functioning of the construction’ (Kropej 2011: 68). A second notion on the sacrifice is
that the spirit of the victim becomes a ghostly guardian of the building. Allen (1897: 25)
discusses European folk beliefs up to the 19th century and mentions rare findings of
7
See Forth (2009: 3–6) about the LAPINDO mudflow disaster in East Java (Nov 2006– ), which prompted fears of headhunt-
ing in NTT.
8
The tradition existed in Palestine as has been confirmed by numerous excavations of Canaanite sites (Luckenbill 1910:
368–9). There are refernces to foundation sacrifice in the Bible (Joshua 6: 26-27, first book of Kings 16: 33-34).
Klochko et al. (1998: 667, 672), radiocarbon dated ‘the remains of a “building sacrifice” – the skeleton of a teenager’
in the Subotiv settlement, Ukraine, to 834-807 BC.
92 S. DANEREK
immured humans, some in churches in England and Germany. Animals were in medieval
times immured in church foundations or under the altar in northern Europe (Allen 1897:
253), and therefore an animal became associated with the church; the church grim.9 ‘These
are the goblin apparitions of the beasts that were buried under the foundation stones of the
churches’ (Burdick 2013: 110). Heine-Geldern, on human sacrifices at construction sites in
pre-colonial Burma (quoted in Wessing and Jordaan 1997: 108) concludes that the
‘primary motivation seems to be to obtain the protection of the spirit of the person immo-
lated’. Allen (1897: 247–71) calls the practice ‘deliberate god-making’, which before antiquity
used voluntary victims. A third and widely distributed concept is that the sacrifice strengthens
the building structure. Frazer (1894: 144), traced ‘the old custom of immuring a living person
in the walls, or crushing him under the foundation stone’ and found that the animal sacrifice
in modern Greece had the same purpose: ‘The object of the sacrifice is to give strength and
stability to the building.’ The fourth concept is a combination of the latter two: the spirit ‘ani-
mates’ the building. ‘Our hypothesis about the animation of temples seems consonant with
Hindu-Buddhist notions about the “internal vivifying and spiritual force” attributed to
ritual deposits buried in temple pits’ (Wessing and Jordaan 1997: 118). Animation makes
sense in Southeast Asian beliefs, also encountered on Flores, about how the human spirit
travels after death as it clings to the body for a few days, and the spirits of people who have
died violent deaths remain near the place of death or their remains. That is why it is possible
to obtain a powerful protective spirit by killing a person, or certain animals, and keeping the
remains associated with the soul, particularly the skull.10
Ancestor spirits and deceased family members are traditionally given food offerings on
Flores as they can punish transgressors of customary rules with disease and death. Pigs on
Palu’e are often used in sacrificial rituals, as a form of substitution for the transgressor.
Buffalo blood, offered to the Supreme Being Hera Wula Watu Thana (Sun Moon Stone
Earth), is laja ca (big blood) and heals the earth. The Palu’e are not known to have a tra-
dition of headhunting or human sacrifice, unless somewhere in the distant past, the water
buffalo was substituted for the humans.11 The lakimosa (priest-leader of a traditional
domain)12 who cuts the buffalo in the Pati Karapau (Cutting Buffalo) ritual represents
the people and the buffalo can be seen as a substitute for himself or his family (Vischer
2009: 259), who will suffer severely if they fail to carry out the sacrifice.
Arndt (1944: 156–7) reported that in Lio13 in the past, when a stone pillar was erected
in the ritual centre (hanga), a slave or a stolen child was placed in a chamber beneath the
9
The church grim is an under-researched creature of north European folklore, but there exists plenty of documentation by
Scandinavian 19th and early 20th-century folklorists of this, largely forgotten goblin. Old churches in Skane, the author’s
home province in south Sweden, often have church grims (Swedish: kyrkogrim). According to local tradition in Hästveda,
Skane, the foundation stone of the first church was pulled by a white horse, which was then buried beneath it, to become
the church grim. According to Landtman (1922: 28–9) builders would bury the first animal that happened to enter the
hallowed area of a church construction site or a new graveyard, or even a child in the past. He also states that such prac-
tices were still alive, particularly in Germany, until his own time. Allen (1897) calls the random victim ‘the sacred chance
victim’.
10
Heine-Geldern and Wilken, respectively, about Burma and Indonesia (in Jordaan and Wessing 1999: 225).
11
There is a local myth that is similar to the biblical tale about Abraham and Isaac. In the past incest was punished by
burying the transgressors alive and upside down at the top of the volcano, and then piercing their bodies. Their
blood would avert a volcanic eruption caused by the transgression (Vischer 2006: 200). Vischer (2003: 59) reports that
‘the blood of humans, big blood, generally not a part of sacrificial events, is the most potent’. I suppose the ‘generally’
refers to the ritual punishment of incest.
12
Palu’e is divided into 14 separate territorial, political and ceremonial domains (Vischer 2006: 179).
13
The territories of the Lio people are today located mostly within the Ende regency.
fundament, who would become the guardian ghost. Men would be sent to a remote
village to lure a child away with sweets and delicious foods, the alleged modus operandi
of contemporary rumours. Forth (1991: 262) notes the similarities with ‘the Nage practice
of interring a living dog beneath a new peo post’, and the possibility that ‘in the distant
past, a human being may have been used for this sort of purpose’. Erb (1991: 119) writes
about the Manggarai house-building tradition that, ‘a black dog should be buried under
the central “mother house pole” (diri endeqen), as an offering to the spirit of the earth’.
On Palu’e, there exists in at least one domain a tradition of placing a puppy in the foun-
dation of the new house, but it is only done by a few. The dominant tradition is to spill
pig’s blood on the main poles and then share the meat with those who helped to build the
house. The practice of sacrificing an animal and spilling its blood, is called lali and is per-
formed to ‘cool’ down all new large or expensive things that are considered hot. Arndt
(1951: 79) states that the Lamaholot-speaking peoples of eastern Flores and the neigh-
bouring islands of Adonara and Lembata placed an enemy’s head beneath the main
post when a new korke, a wooden temple on poles, was built. In short, offerings are
always made at a main support of a structure with the primary purpose of strengthening
it. While a common house often needs blood, only public and ritual structures require
‘big blood’.
Prior research and rumours of European involvement

Southeast Asia’s earliest known written record of the rumour is, according to Forth (2009:
5), in the Hikayat Abdullah [1849], and in the context of the original building of the old St
Andrew’s church in Singapore which was completed in 1836. The British were alleged to
have engaged convicts to ‘capture heads’, especially of children, ‘to put inside their church’,
the same set of categories that appear in the eastern Indonesian rumours a century later
(Forth 1991: 260). Drake (1989) initiated the discussion in Oceania with an analysis of
a kidnapping rumour among the Mualang in Indonesian Borneo in 1979 in connection
with a construction project. His structural analysis is ‘based on the study of rumor in
social psychology’ and ‘identifies this rumor panic phenomenon as a “diving rumor”
and relates it to the study of folklore’ (Drake 1989: 269). Drake found that rumours of
the kind had been reported in Borneo since the late 1800s, and that they resurface in
similar contexts at a later date. He (Drake 1989: 275–7) concludes that the rumours
were an ideological defence in the ‘Geertzian’ sense of the Dayak tribes towards the
state(s) that have abolished the political autonomy of these ethnic groups and monopo-
lised violence. They express the resentment, fear and anxiety of the powerless towards
the powerful. ‘This appears to be borne out in the Manggarai case’, writes Erb (1991:
124), who saw the rumour as a ‘symbolic statement about the undermining of village
strength for the purposes of fortifying the state’ (Erb 1991: 116), and compared it with
other well known rumour complexes around the world: ‘a story that is good-to-tell but
is too telling to be good’ (Drake 1989: 272).
The account of the rumour by Drake (1989: 273) reveals five common elements: (1)
kidnapping/headhunting; (2) construction sacrifice; (3) state government perpetrators;
(4) feared (despised) strangers as instruments; and (5) Dayak (folk) victims. Forth
(1991: 259–60) notes the same elements among the Nage but he found the third and
fourth elements less pronounced in contemporary times. Erb (1991: 124) found that the
94 S. DANEREK
‘most striking difference between the Manggarai rumor complex and those of Borneo and
Nage, is that European priests have been the primary instigators of construction and there-
fore have been the most frequently suspected perpetrators of construction sacrifice’. For
Drake and Erb, the relationship between dominated citizen subjects and state rulers is
the main explanation for the rumours, coupled with a history of slave raiding (Erb
1991: 124) and a history of widespread headhunting between tribes (Drake 1989: 277).
Forth later (2009: 6) suggests that ‘a further analysis of the rumours could show how
the stories serve to articulate relations between local communities and … outsiders in
the context of nation-building, and … express an ambivalence towards modernization
and development … ’.
Barnes’ analysis (1993: 146–7) is historical and pays particular attention to Sjahrir’s
diary, Out of exile, and his account of a kidnap scare in Banda in 1937. Sjahrir could
not understand how the Christian and pro-government population could suspect the
same government of kidnapping, using native prisoners as agents, and sacrificing them
in construction projects. Barnes sees the history of Dutch outsourcing of warfare as a

reason behind the suspicion of Dutch headhunting through local agents. He emphasises
the historicity of headhunting and its association with political offices, and therefore,
‘headhunting panics associated with construction sacrifice may have been an ancient
feature of Indonesian life’ (Barnes 1993: 155).
The Dutch presence on Flores intensified in the early 1900s when the interior of Flores
was pacified.14 The Europeans came with superior weaponry, organisation, taxes, and
religion.
Part of the outsiders’ power was their construction of things that were larger, stronger and
more lasting than anything any Manggarai had ever seen. Foreigners, as well as the central
government, are ambiguous presences in the lives of the villagers … It is therefore under-
standable … that rumors about potential dangers originating from both these categories of
people should continue unabated. (Erb 1991: 123–4)
Forth (1993: 260) mentions that the Nage claimed that rumours abounded in the 1920s
and 1930s when Dutch construction projects were manifold. An informant from east
Flores, in 1982, told Barnes (1993: 149) that the Dutch had once murdered a pregnant
woman in Lobetobi to steal her foetus, and another informant from Lembata asked him
‘where Europeans get their heads to bury in the foundations of their great buildings’.
Forth (2009: 6), commenting on the Oceania articles and a stronger view by George
(1996) on the New Order as a developmental state that perpetuated violence on its citizens,
writes that they all ‘fail to address the durable suspicion of European involvement in all
these affairs, even after 60 years of independence’. Forth (1991: 259–60), like Barnes, rep-
resents the subaltern view fairly:
Nage insisted that mo gele was not simply an idea or an unfounded folk belief … because in
the past people actually had disappeared in such circumstances. I also heard a report that …
when an old Dutch-built bridge was dismantled … , a human skull was found beneath one of
the main supports.15
14
The colonial archives reveal continuous insurrection (ANRI Timor).
Mo gele is Nage for kidnapper-headhunter.
15
Erb notes that the Manggarai rumour panics centred on European missionaries. European
priests who had worked for many years in Manggarai had ‘frequently been the target of
fearful rumors concerning kidnapping and head acquisition for construction sacrifice’
(Erb 1991: 114). European priests can be called gorak (a forest spirit that kidnaps
people, but he can also wear black clothes and black rubber shoes) and empo dehong
(‘grandparent’, ‘to deceive and trick’), which refers to the kidnapper-headhunter (Erb
1991: 121–2). Barnes (1993: 157) cites Kohl on how older missionaries in eastern Flores
had told him that they had been offered heads in secret by locals assuming that European
temples also required heads. A possible link to the Europeans could be that European con-
structors have been goaded to sacrifice by local leaders, and agreed so that their projects
could go on.16
People in Flores and NTT are generally positive towards Europeans, who are associated
with aid, technology, tourism and money. Europeans have had a presence on Flores since
the 16th century. The Portuguese established a Catholic community in Larantuka, that
mixed with the indigenous population and became rather independent from the Portu-
guese centre of power on Timor.17 In 1859, the Portuguese handed over Flores to the
Dutch who brought with them Catholic missionaries as part of the treaty with the Portu-
guese. The missionary efforts have been very successful: approximately 85% of the popu-
lation are today Catholic although data from the early 1930s shows that around 60% of the
population were still ‘heathen’.18 A Catholic mission was established on Palu’e in 1926.
Glinka (1972: 905) reported two-thirds of the population to be Catholic. Today, Palu’e
is almost all Catholic, but many of the animist traditions are still practised. Under the lea-
dership of the Dutch missionary, Pater (Father) M (1906–89), the conversion of the
animist society moved quickly. M served Palu’e from 1952 until 1971.19 He was the
only European resident on Palu’e until the missionary Rud van der Velden arrived in
1962 to establish a new parish in the coastal village of Uwa. M led the construction of
the first church built with concrete on Palu’e, in the highlands towards the mountain in
Kampong Lei. Previously, services had been performed in a wooden chapel, built by
Pater Hoeijmakers, who had been sent to proselytise on the island in 1940. Construction
of the church and a permanent pastorate began around 1955.20 There were no roads and
little water available. In the dry season, cement was mixed with water tapped from differ-
ent plants. Building material had to be carried from the beach, along steep paths, by the
local people. The building was thus a great achievement. M was respected and feared.
He liked children, but they ran away in fear of him because they heard that he immolated
children in the church, according to Lengu, a grandmother from a village near the church.
Lelu, also a grandmother whose husband was M’s assistant from when he was barely a
teenager in Lio and until M left Palu’e, said that M was generous and spoiled the locals
who were poor.
16
Wessing and Jordaan (1997: 107) mentions a fieldwork anecdote from West Java, where in colonial times ‘a condemned
prisoner’ was shot on the failing spot of a road construction and it ‘solved’ the problem.
17
See Hägerdal (2012: 36–7).
18
Memories van Overgave 10 Feb 1932: 5 (ANRI).
19
He had previously worked in Flores for five years, in ‘Wolorita’, according to his former assistant Baga. All the earlier men-
tioned informants, and many others, have spoken about M.
20
The 60th anniversary of the first stage of construction was celebrated in December 2015. There is no extant documen-
tation on or for this church on Palu’e. I estimate that it was largely completed and functional by about 1958, as Baga
claimed, but that work was still ongoing in the 1960s. The dating of events is generally approximate.
96 S. DANEREK
The kidnapper-headhunter
We didn’t know what nggemi was for, and to take a human for what … because we didn’t
have that on Palu’e. Only after the church was built, in Pater M’s way, first then did we
know that nggemi was to steal heads to bury in that building. (Informant: Ware)21
Ngange (c.1935–1971) from the Keli domain was as a youth interested in acquiring all
forms of martial arts and magical or spiritual knowledge, including the notorious santet
(black magic).22 He was predisposed to this path by his lineage of inherited knowledge,
powers and objects (Ple: ndaju), and he travelled all over Flores and to other islands to
acquire more ilmu.23 Ngange did not hold any traditional inherited office (lakimosa).
He had a compassionate side and could be a good friend, especially in his early
youth, and he did heal people that he liked, but he did not cultivate that aspect of
himself. Ngange tested his powers by killing, and he could be bought to exact
revenge. Stories of his murders by supernatural means abound, and family members
of his victims are still around to tell. In the 1950s and 1960s, men learned martial
arts, which included the obtaining of charms and learning of rituals. They wanted to
become doga (Ple ‘invulnerable’, kebal), which was needed in the recurring ritual
border warfare between traditional domains. Because Ngange was successful, many
men came to learn from him. ‘It is proven; he had plenty of pupils on Palu’e. …
And the pupils tested with machetes on each other, and were never hurt’, said
Ware.24 Ngange’s reputation extended to Flores and according to Ware: ‘The police
and the military, hey, they never opposed him. In the ’60s, the police were afraid of
Ngange. Even more so the Sikka Regency Intel,25 because the police marketed him.
They were his pupils.’
Ware thought that Westerners in Flores, and particularly the priests in this part of
Flores, had a ‘mafia’ that the ordinary people did not know. M only spoke to certain
people that he trusted, and Ngange was M’s assistant and friend, and he often visited
Ngange in his house. Ware, Ngange and another relative used to travel to Mbai in
north-central Flores. Ngange would come as a salesman, scope out the terrain for a
couple of days, and then hunt with the aid of a local guide. After a week in Mbai, the
people would come to Ware and say, ‘Ngange … he is a kidnapper.’ The people would
chase him, and Ware too, but Ngange was so skilled in deception that when the people
ran after him in a certain direction, he would sneak back into the village to kidnap.
When I asked: ‘Did people know?’, Ware replied: ‘Eeee … Ngange went all over Flores
to kidnap. Everybody knew. … And he didn’t just take for Palu’e. When Pater S built
churches here and there he needed Ngange.’ Ngange later died in agony from unknown
diseases shortly before he was to marry his fianceé and his body stank horribly. His
death in this way functioned as a warning for others.
21
All accounts in this sub-section were provided by Ware.
22
Santet is the common Indonesian word for harmful magic, here called black magic or the dark arts. The informants about
Ngange who are his relatives, are Ware (b.1952) and Wera. Other informants are Baga, Pasa, Lengu and Dhoka (b.1935).
These informants have all been recorded, but not all of their accounts. Dhoka was a classmate of Ngange at the three-year
elementary school during the Japanese occupation.
23
Ilmu (knowledge) also means knowledge and skills in the mentioned esoteric fields.
24
Dhoka told of a ritual Ngange performed to make participants invulnerable.
25
Intelligence gathering unit of the law enforcement sector.
Eyewitnesses, kidnapper-headhunters
Wera’s account was recorded in one session as three separate narratives which are num-
bered and retold as synopses with quotes below. I have also taken supplementary notes
from interviews on later occasions, done openly in front of his wife and children. Wera
said he was barely in his early teens, but as tall as an adult, when Ngange one day came
by and said, ‘Let’s talk about stealing heads.’
1. ‘I will tell from the beginning. Pater M had come from the West to Palu’e. Pater M
and Ngange were friends.’ M had told Ngange to go to Lio to steal heads. Ngange
and Wera sailed to Aiwora, Lio. They found a child fishing by the sea and they
asked him how many were fishing, and found out that another boy was fishing
nearby. Wera went there and asked the boy if he had caught any fish. Then he
asked him to rinse his fish so that they could cook and eat together. Wera then
poured ‘hard water’26 on the child, which made him unconscious. Ngange appeared
and said, ‘Hang him upside down.’ The body was first let of blood in this position.
Then they began to sever the head with a sharpened cutlery knife, turned the
body upright in a standing position, and pulled the head off. After that they
cleaned the head with another fluid, covered up the ground, wrapped the body
with leaves and tied a stone to one of the victim’s legs. Finally, they sailed towards
Palu’e and disposed the body at sea. They arrived at Langaliwu from where they
walked uphill.
At the first place they stopped, people did not speak a word to them, as if they
suspected something. When they stopped to eat cassava at a friend’s place, Wera
let the host couple see the content of his bag, and they were terrified. Later Wera
showed off the head again, to three women on their way to a plantation. They all
ran away. When night had fallen they took the ‘child thing’ to the church where
two builders and M, wearing a purple robe, were waiting for them. ‘Pater M immedi-
ately fastened it [the head]’ in a prepared hole, uttering a prayer.
2. ‘Big M’s magic power, of his God Jesus. On Holy Thursday,27 Pater M told us to go
to Lio and back.’ Ngange and Wera sailed to Watu Sopu, Lio. Wera walked towards
Bena, where he met a woman who was filling containers with water by a well. After
enquiring about the whereabouts of her family, Wera asked her to fetch a bucket of
water for him, and as she leaned over the well he poured ‘hard water’ over her.
Then Ngange appeared and they carried the woman away from the well to cut
her up. She was in a state of advanced pregnancy, about a week from giving
birth. Ngange and Wera cut her from the navel downwards, and took the foetus
out, wrapped it up and put it in a box. After that they moved the body again,
buried it, and covered up the traces of blood with palm leaves. On Palu’e, M
was waiting for them by the shore. When the three arrived at the church they
immediately laid the baby, together with a yellow cloth and sweets, beneath one
of two main internal pillars.
26
I do not know what the wae keras (Ple ‘water’; BI ‘hard’) is. M had also provided them with a fluid that helped keep the
remains fresh.
27
Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday, is the day of the Last Supper of Christ with his apostles before Good Friday (Christ’s
crucifixion) leading up to Easter Sunday (Christ’s resurrection).
98 S. DANEREK
3. Wera travelled alone by boat to Maumere. There he met ‘two friends’, ata turis (Caucasian
residents), and invited them to ‘steal heads’, which they wanted to do.28 They walked until
Loworang, where they ‘began to find’. Villagers, however, caught notice of them and shot
dead the two Caucasians with bows and arrows. Wera was able to hide and return to
Maumere. Upon returning to Palu’e, he met Ngange and M by the shore. Because
Wera’s mission had failed, they attempted to abduct children on Palu’e, near the
kampong, Tomu. The young girl Phaku Simane went outside to urinate and M
ordered Wera to fetch her. Ngange intervened, knowing that Phaku was a relative, and
changed her appearance [to look like a sack of beans so that she could not be found.
Next, they went to a nearby hamlet where M himself reached for a child who was sleeping
in Ngaji Pisane’s stilt house. But people awoke and armed villagers chased after them.29
Wera was never paid for his assignments. All he received were a cutlery knife, a scarf,
and a yearly blessing. Ngange was, according to Wera and other sources, paid unknown
sums of money. Wera was stigmatised for his deeds, but the ignominy gradually disap-
peared because he served his community well in social activities. He knew of six sacrificial
offerings in the church and participated in two of them. One involved a pregnant woman
who was taken from the area of Mukusaki, Lio, by Ngange on another Holy Thursday
journey. She was immured next to the other internal main pillar.
When the choir balcony for the church was being built about the year 2000, the
ground floor (near the internal main pillars) had to be broken which accidentally
revealed the skeleton of the aforementioned baby with the yellow cloth and sweets
and, by the other pillar, where the pregnant woman from Mukusaki was immolated,
another skeleton. Hundreds of people saw the skeletons and were shocked, although
it was no news for many of them. A friend of mine told of how he witnessed the crowd
and the remains when walking by after school. After the discovery of the skeletons,
the domain’s lakimosa conducted a ceremony, sacrificing a pig, to ‘cool’ things down.
Since then, the family of the lakimosa place annual food offerings at the respective
sites of the six immured victims.
Building with Pater M

Baga (b.1940) was the last of the main informants to be interviewed. He was chosen as M’s
assistant and builder at the age of 15, and received a weekly salary. Baga was one of the few
Palu’e who had nine years of schooling in Flores. He was involved in construction activi-
ties all his life and in the building of almost all concrete buildings on Palu’e. He considered
M a very able and intelligent man. According to Baga, Ngange was involved in all the kid-
napping-headhunting incidents for construction sacrifice on Palu’e, while he himself was
trusted to assist with the church offerings. Baga and Wera confirmed each other’s involve-
ment in these affairs. It was all done in secret and even the lakimosa was unaware. But
Wera’s testimony reveals that he and Ngange were not secretive about their activities
with their friends, so the rumours spread.
28
Wera does not remember much about these persons.
29
Remi, a grandfather from Kampong Awa, said that Ngange and M had once tried to kidnap a girl in his family’s house at
night. He awoke, saw them, grabbed a bow, but they disappeared mysteriously. Several informants have confirmed that
the kidnappers were able to disappear quickly, and to mysteriously appear elsewhere.
Baga’s testimony begs the question of appropriation. Who learned from whom?
Baga told of a hitherto undisclosed seventh sacrifice which preceded the other six in
the same church. One day in late 1955, M ordered him to dig a hole in the ground.
M put in a small coffin containing the head and heart of a child. Then Baga put
stones over it and M poured water, uttered a prayer and covered the stones with
soil.30 The place for the construction had just been decided on. Present at the parish
were also two ‘brudders’ (brothers) who assisted in measuring the site the following
day.
This first sacrifice, seemingly a hansel, indicates that sacrifices were done at specific
stages of the construction, as the ancient texts and folk beliefs about temple construc-
tion prescribe.31 Baga nodded agreement when I asked him, but said that ‘it was his
matter’. According to Baga and Wera, M had a printed book, a ‘Book of the prophets’,
which included a manual for construction sacrifice, with gruesome illustrations of how
to prepare the victims, as exemplified in Wera’s testimony.32 Baga explained that small
children can be buried whole whilst alive whereas the head and the heart are taken
from larger bodies. At least one girl was buried alive. Baga led her from the pastorate
to the church. Baga told me that he did not feel good about it and wanted to bring the
girl to his village. But he was afraid, because if he did that then the people would really
know what they had been up to. Only M and Baga were present inside the building
where a hole had been prepared below the main altar. M performed a ceremony
and then the girl, who was calm, was placed in the hole and covered with concrete.
Baga told of two other sacrifices done at other buildings – one in his own house –
one of the first concrete houses on Palu’e, and an exception from the rule of public
buildings. This offering, a box containing a baby girl, was supplied by M.33 The other
sacrifice occurred about 1970, when the adjacent villages of Kaju Keri and Mata Mere
built their first concrete water tank (see Figure 2) to sustain them through the long
dry season. Baga (eyewitness), Wera and Sosu – all from the tank community –
spoke about this sacrifice, for which Ngange kidnapped a little girl from Ende.34 She
was being taken care of by Sosu’s family living near the construction site. Late one
night she was brought out by her female carer to be laid in a hole and covered with
concrete. She was buried with a miniature table, a plate and a spoon, so that she
could eat and live there, which confirms the idea of animation.35 The main reason
behind the immolation was to create an endurable tank. The kidnapping and the immo-
lation were done in secret. According to Baga, neither the lakimosa nor M were aware of
these particular incidents.
30
Baga said that as the coffin was buried, she, heart and head, cried as a kind of thank you and goodbye to her parents. His
testimony about the first sacrifice was recorded. Other information is from my field notes taken on the same occasion.
31
See Wessing and Jordaan (1997); Jordaan and Wessing (1999); Bakker (2007) and Parpola (1999).
32
Baga said that the book had Latin and some Malay text, and that Ngange and M learned black magic from it. He thought
it was grisly and declined to speak further about it. The book disappeared with M.
33
As I understood from Baga, Ngange did not kidnap this victim who was Caucasian. According to his nephew, a non-eye-
witness, a puppy was also buried in the foundation.
34
Tsuda (1918: 767), on human sacrifice in Japanese folklore, emphasised the female: ‘The Hitobashira or “human pillar”
traditions are always connected with some important enterprise and mostly with water.’
35
Allen (1897: 251–2) mentions a Danish legend: ‘Thus the wall of Copenhagen sank as fast as it was built; so they took an
innocent little girl, and set her at a table with toys and eatables. Then … twelve master masons closed a vault over her.’
100 S. DANEREK
Figure 2. Water tank in Kampong Kaju keri, Palu’e island. Photo by Stefan Danerek (2014).
Witch doctors, kidnapper-headhunters, missionaries

Pasa (b.1930) from Kampong Ndeo shared his views in a story that is only partially eye-
witness testimony (from the paragraph below beginning ‘Mboi’). Pasa resided for several
years in Lio and Sikka for work in the 1960s and the 1970s. He was skilled in martial arts
and was well acquainted with people who inhabited the same social space as Ngange,
whom he also knew well. During his journeys including a six-year stay in Aiwora and a
long stay near Nebe, he learned about the group of missionaries that he, Ware, Baga
and Wera all referred to as du’a waline (Ple term of respect, BI ‘saint’) and to whom M
belonged. All of them were, according to Pasa and based on what his local friends had
told him, hebat (‘awesome’), kebal, skilled in deception and the black arts, and involved
in construction sacrifice. Pater T, active in Lio, was superior, ‘used lots of ilmu’, and
was the ‘chairman’ of the headhunter-kidnapper priests. He was able to pull off illusionary
tricks like a master magician. For example, villagers had chased and cut T with machetes
after he had tried to kidnap children. Then they covered his body with firewood and burnt
it, but they could still hear him talking, as if he had exchanged his body with something
and was somewhere outside.36
I asked Pasa where he thought the missionaries had acquired their skills. He was sure
that they learned the black arts in Flores – which is plausible if they associated closely with
individuals like Ngange. It was especially during a longer stay near Nebe, where Pasa
worked on a coconut plantation, that he became convinced that the missionaries acquired
knowledge of the black arts. Local ritual specialists, including the guardians of a mountain
cave, and other jago (fighters, toughs) resided on Hili Wuli, part of the Egon mountain.
36
Vischer (1992: 45), in his dissertation which only became available recently, wrote about how the missionaries that had
served on Palu’e were remembered by the elders. The people thought the missionaries possessed magical powers like
their priest-leaders and ‘healer-sorcerers’ (ata pisa). The missionaries ‘resorted to performing simple conjurer’s tricks to
enhance this belief in their magical powers, because they felt it would assist them in their tasks’. For the same reason the
missionaries grew long beards.
These people informed Pasa that the wali visited the cave, which Pasa described as the
centre, a ‘hole’, with a terrifying snake guardian and a bearded devilish figure to deal
with inside. The purpose of their visits was, according to Pasa, to acquire superhuman
powers.37 Pasa himself never dared to enter there. Pater G, active near Nele, was one of
the mentioned wali who entered the Hili Wuli cave. Pasa recounted how the villagers con-
sidered him a kidnapper and had chased him all the way back to his church, cutting him
with machetes, which did not hurt him. Later, he would try another village where the
inhabitants were still unaware of such activities. He used special rubber shoes and was
skilled at hiding and deception. Pasa (like Ware, Wera and Baga) also mentioned Pater
S, who served in Detu Keli, and a Pater S2 in the context of kidnapping and sacrifice.
Mboi (c.1945–1997), Ngange’s younger brother, had also been involved in kidnapping
activities according to Pasa. Pasa was once invited by Mboi to kidnap and sell children to
Pater D in Maurole, whom Ngange had been in discussions with as a church was being
constructed.38 They were both interested, because they were broke, and money was
their only motive. Pasa, having doubts and feeling scared, went to see D and asked in
slightly veiled language, if he, D, was able to buy ‘goat and lamb’ for the party. D
replied, ‘Goats and lambs are very expensive’, to which Pasa countered, ‘No, it’s not
very expensive. Bapak … I know your intentions. Do you want that I report you to the
police?’ Pasa pulled out from the affair and went back to Palu’e with Mboi.
I asked Pasa why European missionaries were involved in these affairs, and he replied:
‘Because they wanted to become invulnerable. … strived to build buildings … firm, and
long-lasting. It needs that, human blood. … They wanted the money from the centre …
so they sold these human livers, human heads, to exchange there and to build houses
there so that they would be firm.’
Modus operandi, additional data

Wera’s testimony gives details of how kidnapper-headhunters operated. Victims are lured
away, kidnapped or decapitated, and young victims are arbitrarily chosen. There is a clear
preference for small children or pregnant women across existing literature. Smedal
reported the Lom (Bangka) belief that the younger the child, the greater its power (in
Barnes 1993: 148). Victims must be strangers and sought from somewhere far enough
away which explains why scares have erupted on Palu’e, when there was a project going
on in a neighbouring regency or municipality. Another reason is that a building can
break if the parent or a family member of an immured child visits it, a belief mentioned
by Ware, Baga and Sosu.39
The following story may provide a better understanding of how locals believe kidnap-
per-headhunters operate. Markus, a young Sikka man who works as a driver and tourist
37
What occurred at Hili Wuli may be understood as a spiritual transformation. The Nage creation myths tell of ‘how a
portion of the humans became witches when they spoke to a large snake who offered them wealth’ (Forth 1993:
101). On Palu’e there exists a practice of tama lia, ‘to enter a cave’ on the mountain and meet a giant snake, representing
ancestors, and ask for favours. But the cave is not a physical site; one sleeps on the mountain and enters the cave in a
dream.
38
Dhoka claimed – in the company of Pater D – to have shot to death with bow and arrow a suspected ata nggemine in Lio,
as a deterrent. Field notes.
39
Baga claimed to have experienced it; the iron bar of a main pillar in his house cracked when a foreigner one day passed
by. Doubtless, Baga believes in the magic of construction sacrifice.
102 S. DANEREK
guide on Flores, told of his childhood friend who was abducted near Habi, Maumere in
1995.40 When the six-year old did not return from school as usual his parents became
worried, and when night was about to fall they feared the worst, that he had been taken
to a dam project in Magepanda, about one hour’s drive away. Family members drove
to Magepanda and rescued him just as he was about to be immolated in the dam structure.
The boy had been enticed with sweets, probably drugged, and taken in a car. The family
did not report to the police as they feared retribution. Markus thought that the dam con-
struction had claimed many victims. His view on construction sacrifice was that the
builders, having already included the price for the offerings in the tender and in collusion
with oknum (corrupt figures) among the authorities, would hire certain individuals for the
kidnapping-headhunting mission.
Wera told of a large-scale raid targeting Palu’e that he witnessed in about 1979. Two
boats from Manggarai, carrying up to 50 men each, landed on Palu’e.41 The men were
armed with machetes and had come to steal heads to be used in the construction of a
new harbour (a large project that like dam construction involved the regency). They
had been promised good money. The whole enterprise ended in disaster because it was
poorly planned and one of the two Palu’e guides (Wera’s cousin) acted as a double
agent, which Forth (2009: 5) calls a ‘fourth category … a local “guide” who … assists the
outside abductor … ultimately thwarting his nefarious intentions’. When scouting the
terrain in advance, the guide tipped off locals who quickly assembled enough archers to
hunt down the intruders. Allegedly, dozens were shot to death in the terrain, and
buried there, the rest escaped on boats.
According to all my sources, kidnapper-headhunters have not been successful on
Palu’e. It has been more than a decade since someone came with the intention to steal chil-
dren, and my informants were unsure if the disturbing party had meant to kidnap
someone. The Palu’e kidnappers were however successful on Flores. In addition to the
above mentioned, Pajo revealed in a recording about healing that in his late teens he
had learned a lot from Ngange, and: ‘In the past, I together with Ngange, often kidnapped,
stole heads.’ Pajo must have hunted for construction on Flores before 1972. I have no data
on headhunting by Palu’e men after the death of Ngange.
Concluding remarks
All the mentioned factors in previous research have together with real events contributed
to the formation of pervasive rumours about kidnapping and headhunting for construc-
tion sacrifice. I emphasise the belief in the benefit of construction sacrifice, because
without it there would neither be rumours nor actual sacrifices. When I told Baga
about the Magepanda dam incident, he smiled and said, ‘I know.’ Baga often worked
together with builders from Flores and he knew that the practice was common in dam
construction and other larger projects.
It is very likely and logical that fears generated by practices of pre-modern statecraft
were subsequently transferred onto nation-building and powerful outsiders (Barnes
1993: 155). A report from late 19th-century Bima about a custom of the sultan’s palace
40
Field notes.
41
Field notes.
does more than support the idea. Van Braam Morris (1891: 224) was informed by a Bima
elder that, when the new flag pole of the keraton was raised, a pregnant woman was
crushed beneath it, and the supporting iron bars for each of the two entrance towers
were put on the bones of a child. It was the task of the kalila (secret servants of the
sultan), to search for victims and kidnap them. If this custom could survive from an
earlier source, into a late 19th-century Islamic keraton, it is conceivable that similar
customs could survive further in time and in a new context.
The data presented about the church construction on Palu’e is evidence that at least
one European missionary carried out human construction sacrifice. The testimonies are
triangulated, acquired independently of each other, include actual perpetrators, are con-
sistent with each other, and confirm the local rumours. The accidental excavation, wit-
nessed by hundreds, revealed two of the offerings – and the yellow cloth and the sweets.
M’s sacrifices, and possibly sacrifices done by the wali group (unproven but implicated),
are one of the sources of this particular rumour on Flores. M primarily used Ngange for
kidnapping-headhunting, and according to eyewitnesses, participated in such acts.

Ngange was involved in procuring about ten human offerings for Palu’e only, and
the main informants are all convinced that he also procured heads or victims for con-
struction sites on Flores. I have not yet had the opportunity to do fieldwork in Lio, other
than a few enquiries around Aiwora, Lio, which confirm that there are rumours about
Pater D and Pater T.
The wali group is remembered by locals as kidnapper-headhunters, reputed to be
skilled in magic and deception, and invulnerable – much like witchdoctors. What
makes these stories of the wali credible, although Pasa’s account is likely to be noted
for its ethnographic value, is that nowhere in these accounts were all European mission-
aries thought to be involved in construction sacrifice. No other priest who has served on
Palu’e, before or after Pater M, has been mentioned in that context. The informants, all
Catholics, have no reason to concoct the story about M’s sacrifices, much less admit
their own roles in them, and with such detail and consistency. M reinstated the ultimate
temple sacrifice at a time when the former Flores temple sacrifice traditions had been
abandoned precisely because of the new religion. The devout Catholic raja, Don
Lorenzo of Larantuka, refused to rebuild the korke for his coronation in 1887 in spite
of fierce resistance, ‘on the grounds that the rebuilding of the temple necessitated the
taking of heads for the ritual associated with it’ (Heslinga in Barnes 2005: 10). M per-
formed the offerings ritually, wearing religious attire and uttering prayers, and in
stages, as if he followed ancient building practices. On at least two occasions were
victims procured on Holy Thursdays for sacrifice during Easter, which implies that M
assimilated the offerings into the religion. Sacrifices can be added to a completed construc-
tion annually ‘to keep up the constant stream of divine life’ (Allen 1897: 255). It was not
coincidence that women in advanced states of pregnancy were chosen for the Easter offer-
ings: the younger, the more potent, and the almost born are the youngest. Construction
sacrifice in which ‘the victim is the god offered to himself’ (Allen 1897: 251), can be under-
stood through the lens of the binary opposition of life and death, and the opposition
against time that gnaws even at grand castles.
An obvious solution is to suspend time and that is what construction sacrifice does … at pre-
cisely the point at which the power that sacrifice unleashes is at its most intense and … that
104 S. DANEREK
power is bottled up in the building. … The building is not only the tomb of the victim but also
a womb that contains it as a kind of embryo in a state of perpetual gestation … . (Parry 2015)
‘Murder is no-murder in sacrifice’, says Brahma in Darmasastra (van Kooij 1999: 249),
but a more logical and sane view is that the church offerings were ritualised serial murders.
The ‘Book of the prophets’ manual and the repeated use of religious ritual do not support
the idea that M had appropriated local rites, and the sheer number of sacrifices means that
M did not just dabble with the occult. There was no goading, which could have been
refused, in any event, and the domain’s leading lakimosa was unaware, until the
rumour reached him. It is conceivable that two separate but related traditions (north
Europe and eastern Indonesia, linked by the Middle East and India) rejoined on this
issue. The mentioned book suggests an occidental source, and the missionaries encoun-
tered and studied local beliefs. As referred to earlier, M could have learned the ancient
practice somewhere closer to home: ‘Still milder substitutions occur in … the rude
images of babies in swaddling clothes similarly immured in Holland’ (Allen 1897: 254).
Finally, nation building and powerful outsiders do not have to be included in the
equation: poor villagers can also be perpetrators. The water tank sacrifice was instigated
entirely by locals, who likely had learned from Ngange, Baga and M. Altogether, the
data presented in this article shows that human construction sacrifice was indeed practised
during the mid and late 1900s in modern building construction. Whether the mentioned
cases from Flores constituted rare exceptions is yet unknown. It is however unlikely that
these cases from tiny Palu’e and Flores were the only ones that occurred in Indonesia
during the 20th century, considering the rumour’s wide distribution. Further research
would benefit from approaching retired builders and government officials responsible
for restoration and demolition of old buildings.
Acknowledgements
Research in Indonesia was carried out from 2013 to 2016 under the auspices of the Ministry of Research,
Technology and Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia (RISTEKDIKTI). I am very grateful to
the Association for Oral traditions (ATL), and chair Dr Pudentia Maria Purenti Sri Sunarti, for being
my partner organisation and for the positive exchange. I thank my local assistants on Flores and Palu’e:
Hilarius Ratu, Pidu Sophune and Methi Puine. I also thank Professor G. Forth and the anonymous
reviewers of Indonesia and the Malay World for comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Funding
I am very grateful to Ax:son Johnson Foundation, Sweden, for the travel grants that made possible
the documentation of the Palu’e language and its oral traditions, and this particular study. I also
thank the German association for endangered languages (Gesellschaft für bedrohte sprachen –
GBS) for a small grant.
Note on contributor
Stefan Danerek was awarded a PhD in Indonesian in 2007 from Lund University, Sweden. He is
presently working on the documentation and archiving of the Palu’e language and its oral tra-
ditions, with Asosiasi Tradisi Lisan, Jakarta, as the Indonesian partner. Stefan also translates Indo-
nesian works of fiction into Swedish, most recently Eka Kurniawan’s novel Cantik itu Luka. Email:
ideaatwork@gmail.com
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Construction Sacrifice in Eastern Indonesia

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Indonesia and the Malay World

ISSN: 1363-9811 (Print) 1469-8382 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cimw20

Construction sacrifice in Eastern Indonesia

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Download by: [Stefan Danerek] Date: 27 October 2017, At: 08:19

CONSTRUCTION SACRIFICE IN EASTERN INDONESIA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

independence. This article discusses previous research on the history

CONTACT Stefan Danerek ideaatwork@gmail.com

Inquiring into construction sacrifice

Prior research and rumours of European involvement

in construction projects. Barnes sees the history of Dutch outsourcing of warfare as a

Building with Pater M

Witch doctors, kidnapper-headhunters, missionaries

Modus operandi, additional data

kidnapping-headhunting, and according to eyewitnesses, participated in such acts.

human sacrifice. Leuven: Peeters, pp. 179–94.

tribe, headhunting as initiation to adulthood]. 27 December. <http://www.nonstop-online.com/

ethnography. Canberra: ANU E Press, pp. 179–201. <http://press.anu.edu.au?p=63701>

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