La emergencia de grupos vulnerables en contextos de injusticia ocupacional

What can such rules tell us about the spiritualist discourse that may have existed and to some extent have dominated the pre-colonial times? First, there were the stories about how to make sense of the world. Such stories, later collected by cultural anthropologists in their areas of research, dealt for instance with the origins of ethnic groups and the founding of a particular village or community. Although these stories may have changed through the course of history we may assume that they provide us with some information about how hunter and gatherer societies used to make sense of the world. For the case of Aru, Osseweijer reports that Aruese believe that their ancestors had to flee Enu, their island of origin, in boats and that those who could not flee became fish, dolphins, and sharks, who are now the keepers of the marine resources.12_{Schefold wrote down Mentawaian stories that tell about the cos-}

mos consisting of two separate domains: one belonging to human beings, the other to the spirits. The latter is invisible to humans. It forms a ‘special world, hidden from men, a culture of the beyond’.13 _{Likewise, Aragon described}

for Central Sulawesi that this other world is inhabited by powerful ‘unseen guardian deities, often referred to as ‘“owners” or “lords”, of an area’.14_In

many regions, including Toraja (Sulawesi) and Bali,15 _{communities thus}

believed or continue to believe that all land is owned by local spirits or gods. Another important kind of story was about the link between a human and a tree, plant or animal. The soul of a human being was believed to be able to be transferred to a tree, plant or animal for the protection of the person’s life. Whenever something happened to the tree, plant or animal the life of the person was in danger.16

With the help of such stories about a spiritual world people have long been making sense of natural phenomena: fish that were at times abundant and then at others not, deer that sometimes hid and sometimes were easy to find, aggressive attacks by wild animals, fires, volcanic eruptions, or the sudden death of a person.

Not surprisingly, such stories were interwoven with arguments about how to treat spirits and deities. One such argument spoke of the necessity for anyone who wanted to settle in a particular area to negotiate with the land- lords of the area an agreement about the land’s initial clearing and its transfer from the ‘“wild” to the human domain’.17_{In many cases such an agreement}

was sealed with the marriage between a founding father of a community and

12 Osseweijer 2000, p. 76.

13 Schefold 1992. The various meanings of the Indonesian word for Nature,alam, support

this idea. It is used to describe concepts as diverse as world, kingdom, region, and hereafter. 14 Aragon 2003, p. 115.

15 Van Vollenhoven 1918, p. 363,485. 16 Van Ossenbruggen 1912, p. 296-298. 17 Aragon 2003, p. 116.

52 Spiritualist discourse

a local spirit.18_{In either case, the arguments served to make it clear to people}

from the outside that they could not just settle in that particular region because the landlords had already reached an agreement with the sitting settlers. As such, such stories also served other purposes, most importantly, to legitimise resource and power claims.

A second argument suggested compliance with the rules as a symbol of respectful treatment of the deities and spirits19_{and their world in the time}

that followed the initial settlement. If people complied with the above-men- tioned rules and brought regular offerings20 _{they would, for instance, be}

granted fertility for their land and themselves in return. On the Mentawai Islands people believed that the spirits would send certain ‘streams of blessing’ to those who complied with the rules.21_{What form this blessing took could}

vary from person to person: good health, material and spiritual welfare, or power. In addition, Lehman found that compliance with these rules ‘ensured that there would continue to be communication between the two parties’ that would eventually serve to keep things under control and to help avoid chaos and violence.22 _{Wilken mentions that spirits were expected to provide the}

villagers with advice, help against other humans and evil spirits, and blessings for various activities such as hunting, fishing and agriculture.23_{Broch notes}

that in the case of the island Timpaus compliance has been seen as necessary to keep the cosmos in balance. But this is not to say that everything needed to remain untouched:

‘Balance can also be obtained by replacing old species with new ones. The balance does not require stability in the sense that no changes in the ecological composition can take place. […] balance is based on an equilibrium of good and evil forces.’24

This same idea was found by Osseweijer in Aru: there, people did not believe that marine resources could ever become truly extinct. At the most, the

18 For an overview of founders’ cults in Southeast Asia see Tannenbaum & Kammerer 2003. Cf. Bakels 2003, p. 73.

19 Aragon describes that the transfer from the spiritual world to the human world often, if not always, resulted in the emergence of a new type of spirit, the so-called ancestral spirits of those individuals ‘who made successful agreements with the guardian deities’ Aragon 2003, p. 116. These then came to share in reigning over the spiritual world together with the guardian spirits and had, just like the deities, to be treated with respect.

20 Kammerer & Tannenbaum 2003, p. 3.

21 Bakels 2000, p. 31 citing Bloch, 1986 and Schefold 2000. 22 Lehman 2003, p. 16.

23 Van Ossenbruggen 1912, p. 220.

24 Broch 1998, p. 211-212. This observation is important since many ecological philosophers tend to idealise Asian attitudes towards nature claiming that these are conservationist in nature. See, for instance, Kalland & Persoon 1998, p. 1-6. See also what has been said about the myth of the ‘noble savage’.

Chapter 7 53

ancestors’ annex managers of the resources could temporarily hold them back or bring them to other areas.25

The other side of this coin was that non-compliance could have disastrous effects. As Zerner learnt on the Moluccas,

‘[w]atchful spirits listen, see and respond to the everyday practices as well as the ceremonial performances of the community. A fisherman’s fate, as well as his luck in fishing – whether fish cluster about his net or disappear from sight – depends upon his relationship to these fractious spirits of the place’.26

Moreover, in other cases, people believed and sometimes continue to believe that non-compliance could result in disappearance, illness or even death.27

In Pulau Seribu, for instance, a man told me in 1999 that people who went to the most northern part of the small archipelago did not return because the tiger spirit (In.roh macan ormacan halus) living there prevented them from finding their way back out of the mangroves. Likewise, Volker has described a more historical case of the Moluccas where a boat carrying women dis- appeared without a trace. The people linked this disappearance to the local spirits. To grant these spirits a nice time with the women that they had kid- napped and to make them favourably disposed for the future the people decided to close the port at the foot of the mountain where the spirits were supposed to live for three months.28_{It is likely that the idea that non-compli-}

ance could lead to personal or natural disasters served to provide people with a sense of control where untamed nature was or continues to be perceived as omnipresent and powerful. They could try to reduce the occurrence of illness and the like by becoming ‘better persons’ who complied with the rules of the spiritualist discourse.

However, there were also exceptions to the rules on human treatment of nature. When animals, which according toadatrules were to be respected, attacked humans or their domestic animals, humans were allowed to kill them. In this case, according to the Dayaks in Borneo, the animal had shown to belong to a lower class and not to be worth being respected.29

In addition in these cases where rules did not apply, there existed possibil- ities to ask for exceptions, a traditional kind of ‘license’. This had to be accom- panied by certain rituals30 _{to appease the spirits, which we may interpret}

as a form of discourse institutionalisation. These rituals were often only known

25 Osseweijer 2000, p. 73-74. 26 Zerner 1998, p. 557. 27 Cf. Boomgaard 1992, p. 46. 28 Volker 1921, p. 295.

29 Hose & McDougall 1993, p. 57. Cf. the case of Kerinci where tigers had to pay with their life for entering the human domain and thus breaking the contract (Bakels 2000, p. 274). 30 Rituals often symbolise a re-creation of the natural world in the hope to maintain the natural

54 Spiritualist discourse

to a group of experts, thedukuns, who thus needed to be consulted to mediate between their world and that of the spirits. Their successful performance of the required rituals would ‘attract […] the positive forces of luck, health and prosperity.’31_{However, not even thedukunswere obligatory. As McVey notes,}

the mediation of experts ‘enhances rather than monopolizes contact with the world of the ancestors which is available to all.’32_{Often, therefore, even or-}

dinary men could perform appeasing rituals, such as in Kerinci (see above), to indicate that they would ‘behave respectfully’ in the forest, and ‘ask[ing] the forest spirits to give them some of their “cattle” [wild deer]’.33

In this case, treating the spirits politely therefore seemed sufficient to obtain the key to otherwise restricted areas or unavailable resources. That rules were interpreted loosely is also reflected in practices where actors more or less openly deceived spirits. Hose describes this, for instance, for some Dayak communities in Borneo that speak as little as possible about their intention to go hunting or fishing or use indirect language such as ‘there are many leaves floating here’ to mean that there are plenty of fish in the water. They do this in order to prevent the spirits from informing their prey of their intentions.34

In his discussion of Van Vollenhoven’s work Sonius has characterisedadat

rules as ‘directed towards harmony in the basic communities and […] adverse to conflict’, ‘unwritten’, and ‘based on age-old traditions’.35 _{This label,}

‘directed towards harmony’, has often been interpreted to mean there was a general consensus on and thus no conflict about rules. One of the most prominent examples in this respect is the New Order government under Soeharto that attempted to ban ideological conflicts from politics by formu- lating harmony as a normative requirement for any process of decision-making (see part III). Likewise, proponents of customary law have in their struggle for its recognition portrayed it in such a way as to qualify it as an alternative to state law. However, as scholars of customary law have pointed out we cannot assume thatadatrules were by definition acceptable to and accepted by all people concerned. Chanock, for instance, has noted for Africa that proponents of customary law construct it as the opposite of state law and thus as ‘long-lived, […] acceptable and right practice’ despite the fact that the content of customary law is contested within local communities as well.36

31 Schefold on Mentawai in Nas & Persoon 2003, p. 2. According to Schefold, ‘this explains why people are so dedicated to the rituals for which they work hard and make a special effort, whereas they generally prefer to be easygoing.’

32 McVey 1993, p. 6. 33 Bakels 2003, p. 74.

34 Hose & McDougall 1993, p. 101. 35 Sonius 1993, p. 52-53.

36 Chanock 1989, p. 173, (also cited in Ubink 2008); see also Oomen 2002 for the case of South Africa. For recent cases in Indonesia see, for instance, Tsing 1999, Li 2000, Li 2007, and Bakker forthcoming.

Chapter 7 55

What probably made them more acceptable than non-adatrules was the fact that they were unwritten and thus flexible to some extent. As Slaats and Portier note, one may wonder whether such rules had functions comparable to those of later, written rules: ‘More often than not what seems to be a rule turns out to have the character of a principle or even only a general guideline for behaviour.’37 _{Here, we also need to differentiate between communities}

with a simple social organization and more complex ones. The simple ones lack all kinds of institutions, such as priests,dukunsoradatcouncils that can define rules. Members of a simple community, therefore, can have very differ- ent ideas about the world and how to behave in it, even to the extent that they ‘freely contradict [their] own statements’.38_{In communities with a more com-}

plex social organisation, on the other hand, there existed institutions specifically intended to formulate specific ideas. In terms of discourse we can see such institutions in two ways. First, they were the institutionalisation of a particular discourse, for instance a discourse on the relations between humans and spirits and how to uphold them. Second, once established these institutions played an important role in maintaining and guarding the discourse. They formulated specific ideas about concepts, policies and rules. As such they helped make the discourse more specific.

Yet, even in more complex communities the rules about human treatment of nature allowed for negotiations. This possibility was institutionalised in practices such as musyawarah,39 _begundem40 _{or runggun.}41 _{We may assume}

that in the event that a person was accused of non-compliance with a rule regarding the human treatment of nature and so bore the responsibility for a consequent natural disaster he could defend himself or attempt to justify his behaviour in such a forum. The major aim of the process of deliberation was then to make sense of what had happened, to formulate a solution that was acceptable to all stakeholders, to restore harmony in the community42

and to find a new balance in inter-human and man-spirit relations. In this, such institutions differed from the Western-type courts, which apply law and are based on the legal principle that similar cases require similar outcomes.43

So far, the analysis of the spiritualist discourse has shown that its main, fundamental idea was that nature was inhabited by spirits. These spirits had

37 Slaats & Portier 1992, p. 6.

38 Hose makes this point in a more specific way about communities with and without priest- hoods Hose & McDougall 1993, p. 74.

39 For instance, among the Minangkabau in West-Sumatra as described in Von Benda-Beck- mann 1984.

40 Among the Sasak on Lombok as described by Koesnoe 1979.

41 Sonius 1993, p. 33. Such institutions existed not only for dispute settlement but for all important moments in a person’s life as Slaats and Portier have noted for runggun among the Karo Batak in North Sumatra (Slaats & Portier 1981, p. 189).

42 Slaats & Portier 1992, p. 17. 43 Slaats & Portier 1992, p. 17.

56 Spiritualist discourse

authority over resources and thus the well-being of humans. Treated in the right way, the spirits were inclined to help humans in their struggle of life. At the basis of this discourse was thus a reciproque conceptualisation of man- spirit relations.

What ‘treating the spirits in the right way’ meant was locally defined. If rules existed, they were generally not rigid. There were exceptions and rituals to circumvent them. In other cases, it was common practice to deceive spirits. What made the rules flexible was the belief that people had the option of making excuses for wrong behaviour. What made the rules attractive was that they provided people with a sense of control. Modern conservationists’ idea that resources can become extinct has not been a part of the spiritualist dis- course.

Contrary to the ideas of some modern conservationists, the spiritualist discourse with its rules on the treatment of nature was not a discourse prob- lematising human exploitation of nature. Rather, it was mainly a discourse that served to explain natural phenomena, to ask spirits and deities for spiritual and material blessing, and to claim and legitimise the access to nature for a certain community. The conservationist benefits that may have been occurring as a result of the spiritualist discourse have thus been accidental rather than intended.44

In order to make sense of natural phenomena it is likely that people some- times accused others or a whole community of ‘wrong behaviour’. However, how such an accusation was debated and negotiated very much depended on the local context and power configuration. Imagining a situation in which the causes of a natural disaster were debated, three main options come to mind: there was no disagreement at all, different stories were allowed to be told by different people or there was a power holder or group of power holders whose version could dominate the discussion.

It is unknown whether all communities in the archipelago had rules as described in this chapter. If they did, there are many examples of communities or members of communities who eventually forgot about them or developed other ideas about nature and man-nature relations. Nowadays we therefore find many communities in which the proponents of the spiritual discourse have to compete with proponents of other discourses. Osseweijer describes this, for instance, among the people in Aru, where at present many people do not behave according to the old rules. According to one tradition-minded informant ‘they just go and see whether they are lucky in bringing back a good catch; they never tell you that bad behaviour, on the tidal flats and in the village, is sanctioned by the ancestors in the form of disappointing harvest, sudden bad weather, encounters with ancestral sharks […] different people have different ideas.’45

44 Cf. LeBlanc 2003, p. 25. 45 Osseweijer 2000, p. 69.

Chapter 7 57

Those who still reproduce stories and arguments belonging to the spiritual discourse may do so for various reasons. One reason may be that people still believe in the ideas that form the basis for this discourse. Another reason may be that the modern conservationist movement in the 1980s started to portray indigenous peoples as traditional conservationists. As later chapters and partIV

will show, tribal communities have readily reproduced such stories in an attempt to gain more access and authority over the increasingly scarce natural resources. In many cases this meant they had to adjust the spiritual discourse to fit new requirements.

Another case of reproduction involved institutions related to this discourse more than the discourse itself. Also from the 1980s onward, the Indonesian Ministry for the Environment has attempted to ‘revitalise’ the Moluccansasi

as a conservationist institution,46 _{actually transforming it, despite the fact}