Stock ID #176152 The Potent Dead. Ancestors, Saints and Heroes in Contemporary Indonesia. HENRI AND ANTHONY REID CHAMBERT-LOIR.

The Potent Dead. Ancestors, Saints and Heroes in Contemporary Indonesia.

Crows Nest. Allen & Unwin. 2002. Stock ID #176152

Map, black and white photographic illustrations, xxvi + 234pp, notes, bibliography, index, very good hardback in dustjacket.

"The dead are potent and omnipresent in modern Indonesia. Presidents and peasants alike meditate before sacred graves to exploit the power they confer, and mediums do good business curing the sick by interpreting the wishes of deceased forebears. Among non-Muslims there are ritual reburials of the bones of the dead in monuments both magnificent and modest. By promoting dead heroes to a nationalist pantheon, regions and ethnic groups establish their place within the national story.

Although much has been written about the local forms of the scriptural religions to which modern Indonesians are required by law to adhere to - Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism - this is the first book to assess the indigenous systems of belief in the spirits of ancestors." Publisher's description.

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