A Trust from the Ancestors: Islamic Ethics and Local Tradition in a Syncretistic Ritual in East-Central Sulawesi

Abstract

Molabot Tumpe is a unique traditional ritual that binds together Batui and Banggai, two geographically distant Muslim communities of East-Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. The ritual consists of an annual offering of maleo bird eggs by the inhabitants of Batui to the élite of the old Banggai sultanate. Originating in tribute-giving ceremonies and ancestral cults, the purpose of the ritual is now understood and explained in thoroughly Islamised ethical terms. However, both the general purpose and the precise details of the ritual have been contested by environmentalists, by part of the traditional local élite, and by proponents of Islamic reformism, the last of whom question the accepted interpretation of the ritual’s purpose, as well as its moral foundations, and object to crucial elements of the ceremonies, especially the idea of possession by ancestral spirits. Besides giving an ethnographic description of the ritual, the article addresses the general issue of religious syncretism in Islam.