Category Archives: Sulawesi

Mad ferry to Papua, triple loaded

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Things just couldn’t get any smoother, less hot nor more comfortable, when leaving Makassar and Sulawesi for good and heading on to the wild and wicked corner of Indonesian archipelago, to the land which stereotypically provokes thoughts of cannibalism and naked people living up on trees. 

I stress again, stereotypically. Yet the truth was that we were going to Papua, and oh, I had been looking forward to get there for years. But the truth was also, that I had no idea how harsh it can be to get there!

As it was mid-January, there were huge crowds heading to back Papua to work after some Christmas holiday break at there families in surrounding islands, like Maluku and Sulawesi. Namely, Papua is probably the most well-off area in Indonesia, where there’s plenty of mineral resources, thus the need for work force and not so many people to carry out the need. The population in Papua is not more than 3 million, while the land is huge. The rates of pay are supposedly double from what is paid elsewhere in Indonesia, but also everything is more expensive. But at least – money is moving.

So together with around 4500 people in the ferry that is normally meant for 1500 people (indeed!) we were heading towards the promised land. It took us 3 days and 3 nights. People were sleeping everywhere – inside, outside, in the corridors, on the stairs, heads and legs all together, in this heat and humidity, along with rats and cockroaches, but pleased by the warm sea breeze and great view over Maluku islands.

Crowds queuing up for the ferry. Ferry overloaded, sweat, stink and party everywhere. 

Short stopover at Ambon, Maluku – great chance to stock up with some sweet fruits from local market.

I only had one problem with the ride – and that was my health. For all the travels I’ve done in my life, rough times in South America, Russia, Africa – I have never had much trouble with myself. Traveling mode does its job to keep me fit in whatever circumstances. But perhaps this was all too different here, as I was not only traveling for my own self-interests and joy, but I had a job to do here, I was here to conduct some fieldworks, I had some serious responsibility, and I was so very passionate about it, and still I was all alone doing the rough travel as always, where you have to improvise and figure out the next step every moment in this heat and sweat, so lovely when I come to think about it again.

But the moldy rooms I had been sleeping in the village of Sulawesi, had caused some allergic reaction n me, which couldn’t get any better with the lack of sleep and pressure from the police and all the guys that wanted to meet and talk to me, get married or pose together for some photos. Life had been a mess. Which is common for a traveler, and I love it, but I was far from my best.

Another thing you should never do when feeling weak and sick – take some pills of malaria. As Papua is a serious area of malaria threat, I did that mistake, and that bloody pill did nothing but knocked me down for another three days. I was so weak I could barely move, nor breathe. But this was a great excuse for us to hassle out a room in the ferry’s hospital after a night we had shared with hundreds of people and thousands of cockroaches.  Even though I was sick as hell, we still had to bribe to get it. This, by the way, is a very common practice on these ferries, as most of the crew prefers to earn some extra rather than sleep in their bed, so they give it away for passengers for 500 000 rp or 2 million rp, however, everybody’s happy.

Buginese princess: the making of it

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A sufficient amount income for the warias who work in salons, comes actually not from daily hairstyling, but from wedding preparations. Every other week, if not more often, this is the waria who makes the bride and groom pretty and decorates the wedding room. Already at our very first meeting Jaka was thinking that we should do a make-up session, to make a Buginese bride out of me.

When I looked at the photographs of some other brides I had seem before, I thought this is a way to big job we can experiment with. But Jaka told me to relax and give her an hour. And so we did it.

Pardon my narcissism if it looks this way, but I wanted to share the whole process with you. The making of it. The making of a Buginese princess. It took around one hour to cover all my face with powder, attach some fake eye-lashes, paint my forehead, my eyes, my lips, make my hair amazing and dress me up. Jaka could explain every detail of my outfit, some for Allah, some for adat (the local culture).

I felt I was turned into a princess, a Buginese princess, that has to do all the dirty work in the kitchen and elsewhere, but still, she always has to be a beautiful princess and smile. And later when already married, get pregnant, and smile. Just as most of the women in the world, just as we are so often expected.

All photos by Minna Hint

Makassar: pleasantly mad

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Jaka is a chill-out waria in her 40s. She has a quite popular salon in downtown Makassar, where she keeps  herself busy from morning til night. Once I caught him straightening girls’ hair until 2am.

Makassar, Sulawesi

But she always wakes up early in the morning, brings fish from the market, serves the first customers, cooks the fish, she is social with all her friends who constantly come over to hang out in her salon. And it’s always raining in Makassar, so it’s a good spot to wait until another shower is done and they can make a move.

As it was Saturday night, and this is the night when all people in Indonesia take it all with fun, some young even say they go hancur – they go crazy. So Jaka took out her high heels and we went for a rendez-vous in downtown. The city was full of young people, there were crowds of guys with all their crazy motorbikes. Built up and wild, retro machines, and the busy bikers with their blinking motorbikes. There was also a lot of crowd hanging around the waria hot-spot. Jaka knows the girls, but she’s already grown out from nightlife of the youth. She doesn’t bother anymore to go out that often. She has a salon to keep and a boyfriend with whom she feels happy with.

We stayed at her salon for couple of days, and truly enjoyed the company of Jaka.

Jaka and Minna

Makassar: who gets the business, and who don’t

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I had met Jaka already previous time in Makassar. She had a pretty popular salon in downtown, pleasantly busy each day. Eka suggested we can stay at her salon and get to know her better. Eka was her junior.

On the way to Makassar, we met a party of warias around the area. We stopped and had a chat, I took a photo.

But Eka had to hurry, because she had an important meeting in one of the big hotels of the city. Makassar is the capital of Sulawesi, and its huge. There are big roads and colorful neighborhoods, something for everybody, including the rich fucks, as the anarchists would see it. Eka was sitting attentively behind the desk together with couple of other ladies from the village, who are running good in business and have some extras to invest. The hotel had some 20 floors, we all were served expensive fruit cocktails and chocolate cake – rarity in Sulawesi. There was young and smiling man explaining on a fake iPad how the money they give starts to grow. Like a tree. It’s growing. They could all see it in the graphics. The arrow moves up, more money is coming back. Especially when you give in bigger sum.

But how?

They never asked.

Eka has played with investing before – she has got already two cars. “From internet,” as she puts it. Maybe she’s been the lucky first one, or maybe this is the reality of Indonesia? Economic crash has not touched this base here, Indonesia is booming, but it still has a long way to rise. 

Actually I was invited to come over to Makassar to screen “Wariazone”. Professor Halilintar Latief, the largest researcher on bissu on earth, and that’s true, invited people from various background and different religions to see the documentary and have an open discussion on the matter of the waria in Indonesia. Makassar is a well-known hub for warias, although lately they are crying more of the lack of basic economic needs. There is so many people, so many warias and competition is high. Even when you open a salon. It feels unsafe to work on the street. And again I can’t help of seeing the social reality that is behind this situation, that is creating it. This is because of the narrow zone for the waria that is left out there. This is exactly the socially constructed playground the warias are trapped in and which thus also shapes their identity. Zone, zone, wariazone.

Death around us

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“You have to eat, you can’t go without!” they told us again, and made us sit down again and eat. Whatever it was, we had to eat. “There is so much death around us, if you don’t eat, an accident might happen!”

Toraja, Sulawesi

To believe it or not, but of course I ate. I ate even the strangest food we were sharing, even such that you cannot bite but you just have to swallow the semi-transparent thing down. Having done that, they catch a chicken in the garden. “This is for dinner.” Earlier that day there was a phone call for our mom in the house were we were staying, that her once had passed away. Yeah, the death was certainly around. We had already been to so many funerals, and saw so many lives taken, one more bloody than the other. But there was also something magical in the air, in these mantras, and under this bright-starred night or humid and hot daytime. There was sweat and rain in the air, mud and blood everywhere. So the men are singing their mantras in the language of Toraja, unknown for me, but it definitely sings about eternal things, such as the circle of life and the worlds beyond. The life does not stop here with the moment we have named a death, but there’s so much more life out there. It’s in the trees, in the rocks, in the places untouched by human far away. Puang Matua, the creator is behind all that. There is much more than bare life and death and flesh and blood. There is much more than killing of thousands of animals, that definitely don’t deserve it.

People are often buried in the caves, inside the rock. And there are always guards outside, keeping everything in peace, being there for a reason. This is just beautiful who much the respect and love their ancestors, whose deal actually doesn’t matter much anymore, but they still do it, irrationally, in belief.

Little babies who die when they are still so little, under a year – they are buried inside of the big trees. This tree was so powerful, that it almost knocked me down emotionally. 

Flesh and blood, earth and divine: game of status in Toraja

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It is midsummer. People in many parts of the world, most likely where I am from, eat a lot of meat now. Here’s a story from another meat fest in Toraja, Sulawesi, Indonesia. We drove off on motorbikes up to the mountains to the world, which doesn’t know the price of the respect for their ancestors. This is proud Toraja, above the green hills in Central Sulawesi, where life and death get another meaning.  Rumors that right now there should be the largest ceremonies of the years had reached me already earlier. They said there’s gonna be 500 buffalos sacrifices, not just 5 or 50, but as many as 500 oxen, plus thousands of pigs. After arrival I couldn’t question these numbers. There was three big funerals going on in the area, one more ambitious than the other. Yes, all these hundreds of oxen, plus thousands of pigs are to be killed for the glory off dead, in order to ensure a smooth movement to the next world – to the world of spirits. Here when the body gets quiet by death, it doesn’t actually mean the death in our sense. People can keep the body in their house for about one year or so, treating it almost as if he was still alive.  But when the family doesn’t organize such funeral, the dead will be dangling somewhere around the village, and probably merge into one gang with all the ghosts that make up Indonesian everyday experience. The entire site of the funeral service is slightly hilly because of the piles of the pigs laying down in the mud, in pain of the heat. There’s a team of men around them, one stating loud in the microphone who has brought the pig here, another one is marking the pig with spray color. Again and again there are three-four men entering, a shouting pig on their shoulder, lips already foamy. Again and again some of them move a step away and there’s a knife thrusting into the throat of a pig, followed by intolerable squealing. Blood splashes around, the butcher pushes the vein with his toe. Then someone grabs a flamethrower and burns the pig into crispy pork. The bloody action is passed by a column of beautiful ladies with bleached faces and cherry red lips. I hear the trance-lifting mantras of Toraja. This here is some other world, which has evolved so bizarrely on this island with strange shape somewhere in the mountains. The buffalo-fetish of the community is also looking back to us from the houses of Toraja, shaped as if they were ships and topped with a head of a bull and many horns of sacrificed buffalos hanging over the doorway. The more horns hanging – the higher the social status of the household.

“And who was that woman?” I asked after hearing more about the market price of buffalos.

“The dead? Oh, she was a housewife. “

The next burial is particularly spectacular. There are tens of people with tens of buffalos in the huge square surrounded by thousands of spectators. At the same time, hundreds of men try to push the shell of the corpse to the top floor – in order to be closer to the natural world. Later I hear from kepala adat (cultural head of of the community, in other words, the most important man in region), that these white oxen cost about 350 million rupees each (about 35,000 euros!) There are some 24 of those, in addition to the normal buffalos, which cost around 20-40 million each. “We can estimate that the total financial budget for this ceremony can reach about 40-50 billion rupees. But nevertheless, this amount does not express how much the people of Toraja respect their ancestors, “said the man of importance. Namely, the white bull is especially considered a sacred animal, whose cost can be ten times more expensive than of usual bulls.

Why is that? Mostly the locals justified the high cost, because a white bull is just a rare occurrence. So the owners of the white buffalos stand proudly next to their animal, until it will be killed a couple of days later. I also confirmed, that there is no difference in the flavor of the meat. For this special occasion there are lots of media representatives around and every other visitor reaches out a hand with a smartphone to hit some shots of this bloody action or pose with a bule-buffalo, (or with me, as I’m also a bule – white person- here). Thousands of eyes recognize the sacrifice of the next bull – an arc of blood erupting from the throat cut wide open and the animal staggers between the worlds of the living and the dead for several minutes. Ugly. The dead used to work as a school teacher. She raised up 12 children.

In the next funeral there’s a family of our local friend, whose family automatically became our generous host. Thousands of people have gathered here, so the funeral place is surrounded by kilometers of deadlock. Before the comménce of the fierce bullfight, the men are singing mantras, holding their hands together in a circle. It even creates a certain sense of majesty. “At least once a year we gather together in such a funeral, there’s certainly someone who passes away every year,” says our friend’s cousin. “This time I brought one buffalo. But anyway, oh well, this is such a status game,” she laughed. “Everything here is publicly announced, who brought how many buffalos, all written down!”

After a few days in the funeral in Toraja, where according to the custom, I tried a bit of buffalo meat, I did not want to eat a single bite of meat for several months. The experience of Toraja can be a challenge for a fan of vegetarianism in principle. Though I must admit I was enjoying it in a sense I like blood and human perversion for example in the films of Jodorovsky or the revenge of inBOIL to iDeath in Brautigan’s “In Watermelon Sugar”.

Granny has a secret

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Would you ever think that this lovely old lady was born some 80 years ago as a boy? No, of course not, nobody would ever think of it. As far as everybody remembers her she has always been this sweet old lady wondering around the village.

Only that she somehow never got married and has no children of her own. But she has many grandchildren from her sisters, who would never guess that their granny has a major secret – that’s her male genitals and an ID-card of laki-laki (a man in Indonesian).

But does it really matter?

Personally I follow the feminist criticism on biological determinism. I don’t agree that our gender is supposed to be in accordance with our sex, that literally based on our genitals the whole society should be divided between men and women only, and there’s no room or just a tight one for any alternatives, both, in the scope of possible genders and sexualities, and also within the substance of these possible gender and sexual identities.

I think the case of this old lady – the oldest transgender I have met in my life -, who is living in the middle of the tropical village life, very down to earth, simple life of sunny and rainy Sulawesi, surrounded by rice fields and green hills, brings out fabulously the relativity of sex-gender pairing. Any foreign visitor, even an anthropologist, would see this world here ‘traditional’ – still out of the reach of modernity and globalization, that theoretically would bring along ‘the sexual revolution’. Yet this ‘traditional world’ here has reached far further than most of the societies in the West, taking the problem with gender with far more ease.

Granny can’t talk much about it, as the children are playing around and she wouldn’t want to let them know. But she brings out her ID-card where her sex is stated as a man. As Bugis culture distinguish between 5 genders, she has probably led a decent life as a calabai (male-to-female transgender) and finally people even forgot about that, seeing her as she is, whatever she wears under her skirt.

“Oh, stress!” – an anthropologists and a transgenders struggle for existence in front of the police and the bureaucracy

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We had long planned a trip to Makassar next morning, so we tried diligently to reach Segeri village by seven o’clock in the morning. With some delay we were ready waiting by the roadside. But somehow, Eka wanted us to meet her in her salon.  There was something important she needed to talk to us. Smelled bad. 

As we arrived, Eka blew up large foams. The question was whether I had a letter to confirm that I am here to do my research. Apparently last night she had been harassed by the police until one o’clock. Because of me, because of what I was doing here.

The police had actually already asked twice for my papers, visa and explanation for my research, but the truth was also that before leaving Java I didn’t know exactly which village I will be based in. Then of course I did not have such a letter. Eka, however, strongly insisted that I would obtain the letter. Initially I was trying to find some more flexible ways, because I honestly just did not want to cause my partner organization Gaya Nusantara from Surabaya any unnecessary burden. Obviously this is another case of bureaucracy, because why on earth I possibly could not be here for a week and visit some priests as a so-called normal person?!

But here in Sulawesi, as I understood now from Eka, it is required to notify the police twice within every 24 hours, where I am and what I do. They want to know my reasons for being here, and foreigners are not allowed to stay at the local people. Although I had talked to the police already twice, they still want the official confirmation of my existence.

Based on my previous experiences in Russia and other places of power, I already knew that this must be the local face of the so-called nasty little power. This little power has to create their legitimacy themselves, it has to require their power, and thus it often becomes nasty.

Big mosque of Segeri village

Eka was eating fast and furious, saying out load, that she do not agree to give me an interview, if I do not have such a letter. She provocatively walked to the kitchen, and continued eating there. She said she’s afraid. Also she claimed that the police had already took 200,000 rp from her after hours of negotiating last night. She said that to me, however, from the ends of her lips only when we were alone in the room, so, be cursed my distrust, but I’m not completely sure that this was not one of her white lies. I asked, why did she do that, after all, the police do not have any legal grounds to request the money! Eka shrugged. She’s afraid.

And I can understand her. I am pretty sure that Eka (and I) were harassed because of her non-confirming gender identity. And I am pretty sure that Eka was so resolute with me and with the police, because of the very same reason.

Being a sinner in the eyes of Allah, and marginalized anyway, she does everything possible to keep herself clean and to become an exemplary citizen who has good relationships with the police, the bureaucracy and all the aunties of the village.

Eka cries and raves, then demands me to eat with her, although I have absolutely no appetite after all this chaos early in the morning. She insists the number of my supervisor, and calls him. I was already preparing the letter, as we got teared in a car, because now, all of a sudden, we really need to rush to Makassar. Rush to the wedding.

Whose wedding?

No matter!

“Oh, stress!” Eka cries.

Colors of the daily village life: haunted house and love affairs

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Ma’ruf is a sweet dwarf with two humps. He seems to have a very peaceful mindset, and  he talks very clear Indonesian. He has a master’s degree in Islamic economics and occasionally he likes to play out load some Islamic prayers on his self-phone.

Me and Ma’ruf with excellent pomelos

The first time I saw him doing this, we were just comparing the tax systems of Estonia and Indonesia. And then he lets the phone sing in Arabic. I asked whether the phone was ringing because someone’s calling.

“No, it’s just music. Sometimes when I feel that I want to think of God, I’ll play it,” he said. I repeat, we were just talking about economic matters and there were dozens of children of the village playing around us. The man with two humps laughs craftily.

Ma’ruf put me and Minna sleep in an empty house. There were some old computers of about ten lying around, a few dusty furniture items, and one king-size bed. In one corner of the house there was a hole sized of few feet. The house rather reminded me an attic than a home, but since the whole abandoned house was ours, I liked it very much. I assumed the house must be haunted, but Ma’ruf and his wife both claimed that there were no ghosts. I had to believe them. At four o’clock in the morning we were waken up by load Islamic prayers coming from next doors’ mosque.

After visiting one bissu, we arrived back to the ghostly house around midnight.  It was pitch black out there and all the doors were locked. In what sense Ma’ruf doesn’t have his house keys?! It all smelled strange. Small Ma’ruf tried to knock on the window though, until someone finally came out of the house and we got the keys to our haunted house. But when that’s the case, where does Ma’ruf sleep himself?

“I do not sleep in this house, have not slept here for a long time,” he says shy. It turned out that Ma’ruf actually lives in the ghost house, or he crashes near the highway, where he has an internet cafe. Later it came out that he’s still in love with another women, with whom he had an affair before marrying his current wife. Also, it was his sister Eka who put him together with his current wife, they barely knew each other on the wedding day! And now the wife doesn’t get pregnant for already 8 years, and Ma’ruf still secretly meets his girlfriend from the university times. Oh, rumors of the village life.

Soon he asked if he can spend the night here. Why, here’s just one bed?

“Oh yes, one bed, three people.”

I starte to laugh, these things do not work that way. Especially according to the norms in Indonesia.

“But how is it in your country?”

“Also, not that way.”

Oh well, he’s a character, this Ma’ruf, sweet little dwarf.

When tourism industry goes wild about shamans – interview with a legendary shaman researcher Mihaly Hoppal

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Couple of last posts at Avantourists were about the local (mostly transgender) shamans called bissu in South Sulawesi. Although that world around bissu was very far from the tourist beaten track, it seems to be a good time to publish an interview with a legendary and world recognized researcher on shamanhood – Hungarian professor Mihaly Hoppal.

Soon reaching his 70. jubilee, he has done fieldworks in Siberia, Korea, in Manchuria in China since early 1980s. And produced some series of documentaries on shamanhood. Yes, shamanhood is the word he prefers, to refer to the local nature of any form of shamanic belief.

We met couple of months ago when he was a special guest on a festival of visual anthropology (Worldfilm) in Tartu, Estonia. The interview (bit shortened) was published this month in Estonian largest travel magazine Go! in a special issue dedicated on shamanism.

When meeting him on this snowy spring evening, we briefly shared some of our experiences – me about my experiences with ayahuasca-shamanhood in Amazon, he about Siberian shamanhood – and I hadn’t even pressed the record button of my voice recorder, when our conversation had already touched the issues around intersectionality of tourism and shamanism.

I was visiting these shamans near Iquitos in 2007. Their looks in casual T-shirts and a ritual hold in the same room with pigs and ducks might not go for any tourist though. But I don’t want to buy my spirituality either, especially when its nicely served and neatly packed.

During the recent years we can notice more and more phenomenons such as spiritual tourism or travelling (i.e. money-making) shamans. How do you see the state of shamanism in the light of these processes, which we could even see as the commercialization of shamanism?

It’s really a problematic question, especially for me. Because sometimes I feel that what happened is not something that went in a right direction. But immediately I have to admit, that this is not something that depends on us. With the very few, not more than 12 or 20, scholars from the beginning of the 1970s we started to re-study the shamanism. Because some of us realized that most of the scholarly literature was just scratching the surface. For instance, beautiful articles appeared in the scholarly literature without pictures. So how can I really see what they saw?! Why were the pictures missing? Because in most cases they saw nothing! The studies were some kind of fantasy description. I decided to change the course and we established an International Society (The International Society for Shamanistic Research – ISSR, T.T.) for scholars. I decided to personally visit as many places as I can.

Going back to the beginning, then this new type of freedoms that we saw after the 1950s or 1960s also included Russia. And somehow the shamans were allowed to come out. And that was exactly when the tourism industry started. And in the end of the 1980s, the big changes occurred all around the world, especially in the socialist world of Russia. Publicity and television all helped this movement. Television wanted to show something funny and new, and the shamans who had just came out and appeared as singers, writers or dancers on festivals – they got media attention. And they thought: „Oh, this is interesting. Maybe I can ask some money for the performance?” In many places like in Tuva, in Buryatia (in Russia – T.T.) – they got money. That was also at the time when the healing system in the Soviet Union collapsed, there was practically no medical care. Thus people instead went to dungur (shamanic drum in Tuva language) society that had just been established.

So the local people made use of the tourists, and the whole industry started. Thank god, when I was there I was able to make some nice films with old shamans, who were not interested in money. But whenever a Japanese film crew came, they made money. And the film we saw today (“Shaman’s revenge” by Laetitia Merli) – this guy was completely fake, he’s just a lyer.

Of course in some different places, and I’m glad it happened, shamanic practices made the local people more aware of their identity. They just picked up one feature of their own traditional culture and showed it at the festivals, which were organized everywhere. And then UNESCO came.

Or another example – one of my friend went to Iquitos and asked a shaman if he could try to make some drawings out of his (ayahuasca – T.T.) visions. And he did. And it turned out fantastic, colorful, crazy, whatever – sellable! So he made a wonderful big book out of it.

Sometimes I feel myself a little bit guilty, but that was a normal development.

But then again because there is more money moving around shamanism, or shamanhood as you prefer to say, then there is perhaps also more people interested in learning this ancient knowledge, so that in a way these processes can save it.

Yes, it is. I don’t want to say that all these movements are stupid or not reversed to exist. But still you can trace these elements… for instance – these costumes! Some parts of the costumes are ok, but some features are not the imitations from the old ones. That’s why I know that this is for a show. But if they can make good living out of this show – what can I do? I’m just happy that shamanism is still surviving. The important thing is that tradition is saved and followed, even when it’s not completely traditional. The main thing is to do it, acting out, to be within the tradition, to do what they think is their own tradition. So it is not necessarily 100% accurate. That’s why whenever I make some criticism against these fake shamans I’m still happy. Because at least he’s in it, he’s doing something, not just drinking. Anyhow, that’s a complex phenomenon. This is something which I don’t like very much personally, but I know that it can happen everywhere.

By the way, in China somehow they are much more faithful to their own old tradition. During the Maoist time there was persecution, but it was much more against the intellectuals, not so much for poor shamans. But somehow they survived and after the Mao time they just started flourishing. China was a little bit more flexible, so there was not so severe persecution against shamans like in Russia.

Every place is diverse, and we have the only task to go there, make a nice description, collect the material which is available and write a nice dissertation, will you do it?

Yes, but on a slightly different topic. I study transgender in Indonesia. But do you have any idea how many shamans have you met during your life-time? Because you have been studying it already since the 1970s…

Actually from the 1980s, it takes time. Usually you have to go back again when you can really get a possibility to meet a shaman, especially in the East. When you meet first time, it’s ok. For the second time, they say „Oh, you came back! Sit down, welcome!” When you go back third time, you are a friend. But when you go back 4th time or 5th time, then you will be close friend, or even a family member. So I followed this strategy, and it worked. So they got open and I heard more and more background stories. Unfortunately I was not able to stay for a long time.

But do you have any clue how many shamans have you met. I ask because I’m curious – how can you distinguish between the charlatan shaman and a shaman who really has capabilities?

For one trip, I usually met as an average 3-5 shamans. Since I had more than 10 or 15 fieldwork trips, so I have met around 40-50 shamans. I don’t want to say that all of them were real or all of them were charlatans. Some of them want to make money, or just a decent living – they are poor people. One of my old Tuva friend build a big house, but he’s not able to finish it. So he’s living downstairs on the ground floor in a very small room. Even if they are faithful for traditions, they are not so successful. That’s my problem with all these new self-made shamans, because a shaman has to have an initiation from someone or by someone who may lead them or teach them how to behave.

An elder shaman?

Yes.

One of the grounding principles in interpretive anthropology is that in order to understand something you need to become part of it, you have to get as close as possible. Shamanism – it is a different world. How is your personal experience with crossing these limits?

Theoretically you have to put your feet on the ground, you have to sort out what you really have to do. I was trying to compare different situations, making multi-sited ethnography, which means visiting different places to collect material and at home you make a nice description, comparison, nice films etc. This is what I did. I am a little bit too old for what you mentioned – to be involved with what you study. My daughter always asks me why I never tried ayahuasca. It’s because my best friend told me that you will have a terrible vomiting. And I was thinking why I have to vomit two days just for some visions! I was more interested in the question of identity.

I even realized that some shamans used me to empower themselves, in order to show for the local authorities that they are important – because a great scholar came from Europe. So it was an interesting double-play. But yes, I took shamanism a little bit in a traditional sense, however I’m quite aware of the fact that everything is changing.

You mentioned before that you have some amulets, such as an eagle around your neck to protect you while travelling. So you practice something that is driven from the shamanistic world?

I don’t want to deny that I’m a little bit superstitious. I need to do a lot of flying, so I put a protecting spirit here.

Is it from a shaman?

No, this is an archeological finding. When I was in United States with Michael Harner (well-known American promoter on  neo-shamanism– T.T.) an eagle started flying above me. Downstairs in the shop there was an Indian rattle with an eagle and I decided to buy it. From this sign, I know that eagle is my helping animal, my helping spirit. Whenever I went to the field in Tuva always eagles were  showing up, it was meant for a lucky day.

Do you have a particular shaman with whom you have a very good connection, not only as scholar-informant, but as something more personal, like a mental teacher?

One of the Tuva shaman asked me to stay with him. „You are my son,” he said. But I had a plane ticket that cannot be changed. Besides, I’m not so young anymore. I had my job and family at home. Another Korean lady also told that „Oh, I can give you old knowledge and everything.” Of course, I was completely amazed, because she had three beautiful young Korean women as her disciples. So it was a great temptation to stay, but how can I do when I have my family, I have my wife back home. That’s why it’s good to do fieldwork when you are young, because later you will face difficulties.

Have you ever experienced that the shaman is healing you or using her/his powers on you?

Once in Japan I had a back pain and a female healer shaman was beating my vision instrument thahh-tsahh, and after it was good.

Look, maybe I am a bit skeptical in this sense, because I’ve always tried to be a little bit outside, as I decided not to mix the role of the scholar and to be very much inside of the story. When you are very much in, you can lose your objectivity, which is maybe not true, but that is still my opinion.

Have you ever felt that some shaman is playing tricks on you?

No, no, never. First of all those shamans that I have met belong to the older generation and they simply follow their own way. After some minutes when they are getting more and more involved with their rituals, they just don’t care about me. They are communicating with the spirits. Even when we were making films, they were in another world. I was just there and they didn’t care.

So you have never felt endangered that maybe they can put a spell on you?

No, no. And the second point is that I’m a lovable person. With the first shaman I met, a Manchu, we were not able to exchange a single word. But we were just looking into each other’s eyes, and it was it. We started to trust each other, we started to like each other. It was natural, it was trust.

What is it that keeps you passionate about shamanism? It was been more than thirty years now.

Actually this became my life. I’m the president of the International Society, ten times re-elected. I wrote books, and my books on these shamans are already published in German, Japanese, Chinese, Polish, Estonian, Finnish, Turkish, and in Hungarian of course. It’s a great gift for me, to have found this particular theme for myself.

Do you think the knowledge of shamanism has helped you personally?

Yes, it has helped me to be a kind of person, who is self-assured. I can be very nice to you and for everyone, because I got practically everything from life. Shamanistic healing is nothing else than keeping balance. When keeping balance, you are healthy. Healing is prevention in shamanistic sense. They are usually not like us in our highly advanced technical culture, where we are calling the emergency when we are ill.  They go to visit a shaman when they just don’t feel very well.

Once in Tuva we went to make an interview with a shaman and a family came. I asked the stupid question – what is the illness of this young gentleman. The mother said: „Oh, nothing very special, but he felt not very well himself.” So they came for purification.

We can witness a growing interest for shamanism in the West or even worldwide, it’s like a shamanic boom. What do you think lies behind it?

It’s an interesting thing, kind of mystical and there’s a kind of fog around it, which I don’t like personally, but what can we do?! Somehow it is a hot topic! I can admit that I was a little bit behind the whole movement too, because of this International Society. And so was Michael Harner, of course. He was also an anthropologist at the very beginning, he went to the Amazon and tried ayahuasca.

Did he come back? There were plenty of those who never got back.

He did. We immediately got a good contact. I realized that he also liked to be a little bit out of the play, so I liked his approach.  Like the real shamans, he was always making jokes, trying to keep a balance, not to take everything so seriously. This is a shamanistic technique too, and of course, travelling is a shamanic technique.

Many people have got the initial interest into shamanism through the writings of Carlos Castaneda. What is your opinion about him?

I have my opinion, which is quite negative. I once wrote a long article about that. When his first book „The teachings of Don Juan” appeared, I immediately bought it. But when reading it, I became suspicious. I realized that the nature of the conversation was somehow too beautiful to be true. There was too much philosophy in it.

Then very quickly new and new volumes came out, and also his American colleagues got more and more suspicious. And there was a guy who got really angry and went after him to check all the statements. And suddenly Castaneda’s dissertation disappeared from the library! And soon he became a millionaire, because of the selling of his books. And more and more books, more and more philosophical bla-bla. That contributed again why shamanism is a hot topic now.

Now couple of times I realized that younger shamans in Russia also quoted Castaneda. But Castaneda have nothing to do with Altaic shamanism! Unfortunately I’m old enough to know what happened.

Now there are travelling shamans asking loads of money for ayahuasca rituals.

I’m categorically against those things. Without the local context these travelling shamans are nothing. It’s just a misunderstanding. Same for me with ayahuasca. I’m not belonging to ayahuasca culture, ayahuasca mythology, ayahuasca belief-system, so I don’t believe that I have to do it. Probably it’s not meant for me. If I want to go to altered state of consciousness, let’s make love! That’s an altered state of consciousness.

And his lover from Hungary called again. It was already the 3rd time during this interview. He said, it’s a gift to experience love, especially at his age. 

Tartu, March 2012. Shortened version published in Go travel magazine in Estonia, june 2012. 

What can the Holy Spirit tell about my love?

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Some experiences in life touch some other unknown realms with such profoundness, that even if they remain so far from our daily lives, they keep on haunting. I gave a visit to couple of bissus to ask about love, but experienced a live broadcast from some other dimension, in a language i yet don’t know.

Bissu Nasir in a state of trance (video-still)

Although vast majority of the bissu consider themselves transgender or locally calabai, actually bissu can be of any other gender too. The important matter here is to be clean. For women, this would mean that bissu can be a girl whose menstruation has not yet started, or a woman who have already reached menopause. As the first is theoretically impossible, then female bissus are generally elderly women. Also, according to the legend, the very first bissu was actually a woman. The rumors around the village also tell that the most powerful bissu now is a woman.

Bissu Ma Temmi is a brilliant woman that radiates warm energy. She creates an impression of a grandmother who is charming and smokes a lot. After approximately one hour-long interview we move on to her the sacred chamber to ask the spirit a question I have in mind. I take the classic step and ask about love.

Ma Temmi puts on her glasses, for a moment she gazes at her palm and then puts her fingers on the siri-leaves lying on the plate.

“Salaam Alaikum,” she begins to have a conversation with the spirit. It feels as if we’re listening over a phone-call in which one side is for us to hear, but the other is not. “Aahaaa, jajajjajaajjaaa …” she nods to agree with the spirit.

Finally, she tells us her interpretation in Bugis language what she has heard from the other side, which is then translated to me into Indonesian language, from which I in turn create my own interpretation. It turns out that this man I can marry, we suit for each other. But the other one is only playing with me and, besides, he has another woman in the heart. Of course, I do not want to believe it, because the reality always seems to be a lot more multilayered, than the information that reaches me through continual re-interpretation, and multiple translations. But you never know!

And just as she said her words, a candle burns down and the curtain falls down over the sacred place. The truth has been proclaimed.

“If you want to speak with the Holy Spirit more, you need to go to another bissu. Spirit was here for a moment and then it moves on to the next bissu,” Ma Temmi was laughing. As the spirit has already fled, so we too take a ride along dark and muddy forest paths to reach another bissu.

Bissu Ma Temmi

Our knocking on the door of this tiny hut woke up bissu Nasir from sleep. Nevertheless, this man (exactly, male bissus are particularly rare) is ready to speak to us, in case of course the dewata accepts us too. We reach out to give him our gifts on the plate and the bissu disappears to the rear chamber, leaving us with just a curious black cat. Just like in a fairy tale.

On the other side of the thin wall we hear a gentle murmuring of the bissu that mixes with loud sounds of tropical night bugs. We are waken up from the dreamy state by a huge rumpus. This is an unconscious bissu who has fallen out from his sacred chamber. I get scared, so that even the hum of the insects hush up. However Ma Temmi’s brother who was accompanying us does not seem to be surprised at all.

Bissu has entered deep trance, followed by a few cramps. Then he crawls himself together and his cheek against the floor he starts speaking with a strange voice. This live broadcast from the Spirit World lasts for next quarter of an hour. Even if I manage to ask something in the meantime, it seems rather, that the spirit guides his talk throughout the connection. The voice that has come alive in his body repeats that the spirit is already old and feeble and the strong dewata works with only a few selected shamans. Until he suddenly caught another strong rage of cramps and he enters into deep sleep again.

When bissu Nasir finally wakes up, it looks as if he’s having a huge hangover after traveling between the worlds. He does not seem to remember anything of the time that has passed. But I remember, I will always remember.  And up until now I am still thinking a lot about it and wondering how it should be interpreted.

“I can’t talk to you on Friday,” said the shaman between mundane and divine, man and woman. Maybe s/he was lying.

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Would you give up your gender and sexuality in order to talk to God? This is what came forward to me right at the cross-road of generations, local shamanic belief and Islam in South Sulawesi. 

Although I found many more thrilling aspects here in South Sulawesi, my main interest of visit was the holy personality called the bissu. These local shamans connect not only the divine and the mundane, but also the femininity and masculinity, on a very real grounds. Namely, most probably the bissu is also a calabai, locally, or a waria in Indonesia, which is globally rather known as a transgender. Bissu is seen as the 5th category of gender here in Bugis culture, the para-gender, that somehow accumulates all other genders in the society.

We were driving across the dirty and slippery village roads with Eka to give one old bissu a visit already on the very first day I was around. There were mosques sitting in the bushes every 400m or so as we were driving. The mosques resembled me some cosmic stations, and indeed they were often decorated just as Chistmas trees, bling-bling.

One of these simple Pippi Longstocking’s style of houses a bissu Nani was living. S/he was pulling together her shirt while I entered the house and I noticed hir breasts. But surely s/he was born as a man. On the wall there were some photographs of hir dressed in a bissu’s ritual costume. This was shaded by the huge fake photograph of Mecca in golder frames, which are the very common elements of interior design here around Sulawesi and Kalimantan, somehow less apparent in Java, which I think just has to do with current fashion and market availability.

I was handing hir over a plate covered with necessary gifts for the spirit. There were some betel nuts, special leaves, some cigarettes and a note of 20 000 rp. We also brought a bunch of bananas. You can’t go to meet a shaman without thinking about the hunger of the spirits, you need to bring an offering.

Bissu invited us to hir room of the spirit, which usually most bissus have in their household. The room was fully dedicated to serve the spirit, an altar was in the middle and there were all kinds of little baskets, rocks and candles around, which s/he seemed to know the meaning, and perhaps there wasn’t anything more complicated than the bare fact that these were all to reinforce the communication with the dewata or the world of spirit. But as we started to talk with Nani, and Eka seemed to be really anxious and not too much at the level of transcendence, Nani said that today is not the best day to have further conversation.

“Why not today?” I asked.

“Because today it’s Friday, and this is the holy day in Moslem. Better we talk some other day,” Nani explained.

“Is there a conflict between these worlds?”

“The spirit does not really want to come out on Fridays…”

Eka stood almost immediately up and started to make a move. That is her common way of restlessness. But I was confused.

The curvy dagger called kris is the most important accessory for bissu

I got even more confused when the next day we were visiting another old bissu. This time without the presence of Eka.  She somehow didn’t want to come. The bissu couldn’t believe that there could be any conflict between the world of dewata and the world of Islam.

“There’s no problem with Friday to communicate with the spirit,” s/he said. Apparently s/he was the kind of leader of the bissu community here, not that it would place hir spiritual capabilities anywhere higher, but this respected bissu must know something about the most crucial issues – and the relationship between old local belief and mainstream Islam is definitely one of them.

Here most of the bissus also go to mosques to make their daily prayers. And besides, they can always use their personal tempat dewata (the place of the spirit) in their household to get in touch with the God. Almost all bissus I talked to agreed that these worlds are actually the same, just the way to reach them is different. And I have to admit I agree with it, because I understand it (and this is almost the only reason why I tolerate institutionalized religion – most probably it can get you in touch with the same transcendence). And here the bissu even gives blessings to those going to a pilgrimage to Mecca!

I only later got to realize what might actually be the issue, why bissu Nani didn’t really want to talk to me that day when I went there with Eka. Because this very Eka sometimes likes to write a word bissu behind her name, just as she enjoys the friendship of the local authorities. And yet she’s a busy businesswaria and happily in love with her husband.

Once she was trying to get into the bissu community, she was learning about it, I later hear some rumors around the village. But how couldthe younger generations of the waria possibly dump there daily carefree lifestyle and literally give up of their gender and sexuality in order to talk to God?!

“This is when I was a bissu,” said the young waria and proudly showd me the picture.

“Wake up! I’ve already eaten twice today!” – Struggles of the everyday village life

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As much as I love Indonesia, as much as I love the local people, it never makes the everyday struggle easier – the struggle that draws on the difference between us and yet again makes our differences attract. A few examples from the village life in South Sulawesi. 

Fieldworks in action (photo by Minna Hint)

Already after few days in the village, I sometimes felt so tired of this star-aura that seemed to run around me, as I was a faraway guest in a place where seldom foreigners get lost. Sometimes I was missing my own space and solitude. I was after all coming from Estonia – claimed to be one of the most individualistic (and empty) country in the world. But here I was constantly surrounded by people that were seemingly more curious of me, than I could be of them.

Apart from being a good tool for public relations for Eka, which I never mind, in every step or another there was someone who asked: “Why don’t you marry a Bugis man?”

Yeah, why don’t I?! Is it really as easy for them as it sounds?

But I ask it other way around. Why? Why is it so important that I would marry a local guy – even their mothers and sisters where constantly proposing me!

Usually they said I would give birth to beautiful children. So here it is again – the cult of the white beauty…

- Number one: it’s my nose, the pointy nose. How many times they touched and squeezed it!

- Number two: it’s my skin that is claimed to be pure and beautiful. As with most parts of Indonesia, here also young girls seem to be obsessed with white. That’s why we see girls on motorbikes, wearing gloves and sweaters in 35C heat!

- Number three: it’s my body, even though I always feel huge like a hopeless elephant next to my local friends.

And I thought I could never explain why I wouldn’t marry an Indonesian (well I might as well, but it just doesn’t work this way). Until the sister of Eka got to know that I actually have only one brother, and that’s it. So she seemed to satisfy with the conclusion, that of course I couldn’t marry a Bugis, because as I’m the only daughter in the family, then my mother would be so unhappy not to see me nor the grandchildren. This news was spreading around the circles by the evening, and believe it or not, but it helped cooling things down.

 

Escape from over-eating – our love for pomelos (photo by Minna Hint)

Another daily struggle came with food. Firstly, the food in Sulawesi is absolutely gorgeous, so it made a good escape from Jawa for a change. But when all that delicious fish and cookies and cakes and coconut sauce and oily salads come with every visit and every step, as it does in Sulawesi, my feeling of being an awkward elephant didn’t get any better.

“Here we eat in order to live, and we live in order to eat,” tells Eka. “I’m already big, but I’m eating more and more, we have to eat, come, sit down and eat!”

For many mornings when Eka’s sister was waking me up, she was stating that she has eaten already twice today, aren’t we already hungry!

It took us some days until we made them believe, that bule likes fruit. And these pomelos here are terrific indeed.