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Portable Potency: Christianity, Mobilityand Spiritual Landscapes among theKelabitMatthew H. AmsterPublished online: 12 Oct 2009.

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Portable Potency: Christianity,Mobility and Spiritual Landscapesamong the KelabitMatthew H. Amster

In this paper I explore religious conversion and Christian identity among the Kelabit, an

indigenous group from the interior of Borneo. The main thesis of the paper is thatChristianity facilitates wider geographic mobility and urban migration and, over time,

has led to a re-inscription of spiritual meanings in the local landscapes of ruralhomelands in the Kelabit Highland region. Beginning with a brief sketch ofcontemporary Kelabit life, presented through the lens of two individuals, I offer a

history of Kelabit conversion and the ways that pre- and post- conversion beliefs arelinked to issues of mobility and place. To illustrate how conversion has led to re-

inscription of new spiritual meanings in the local landscape, the paper highlights theemergence of Christian revival movements in and around the Kelabit Highlands,

including worship on nearby Mount Murud, which has become a highly significant site ofspiritual practice.

Keywords: Portable Potency; Conversion; Christianity; Mobility; Kelabit

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to consider Kelabit Christianity as it relates to issues of

mobility and changing notions of place and, in the process, to contribute to broaderdiscussions in anthropology about conversion to world religions among indigenous

people (Buckser and Glazier 2003; Hefner 1993). More explicitly, my purpose is toexplore changing Kelabit engagements with, and relationships to, local landscapes

both in light of the conversion process and in terms of contemporary religiouspractices. Building on arguments first articulated by Horton (1971, 1975a, 1975b),

whose work in Africa explored how conversion to world religions is linked to broadersocioeconomic processes wherein people typically become less spiritually connected

Correspondence to: Matthew H. Amster, Department of Anthropology, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA 17325,

USA. E-mail: mamster@gettysburg.edu

Anthropological ForumVol. 19, No. 3, November 2009, 307–322

ISSN 0066-4677 print/1469-2902 online� 2009 Discipline of Anthropology and Sociology, The University of Western AustraliaDOI: 10.1080/00664670903278429

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to local places, I show how conversion to Christianity has similarly helped facilitate

mobility and urban migration for Kelabit. Since the sense of spiritual power theKelabit now experience as Christians is no longer necessarily linked to direct

entanglements with local place and can be pursued anywhere, I use the term, portablepotency. At the same time, I show how conversion to Christianity has also led to

successful efforts to instil new spiritual meanings in the Kelabit homelands, in theform of a nearby prayer mountain and other practices that help mark and

commemorate Christian practice (see also Howell, this issue). Hence, the portabilityof Christianity is not simply seen as a function of its ability to support urbanmigration, as Horton argued; it may also bring new potency to the rural homelands

and reinvigorate them with new spiritual meanings.In illustrating how Christianity has allowed for a wider mobility while also

reinvigorating local places with new spiritual meanings, I show how conversion doesnot simply detach urban migrants from their homelands and lead to efforts at

purification of local landscapes (see Telle, this issue; Robbins 2006). Rather, what canensue is a more complex set of interconnected relationships with place and spiritual

practice that includes people settling in the wider world of towns, while alsoreaffirming and reshaping in new spiritual terms their sense of local place andterritorial attachment to their homelands. As Basso (1996, 87; italics in original)

points out, having a sense of place is one of the most basic human impulses: ‘beingfrom somewhere is always preferable to being from nowhere’. It should come as no

surprise that Kelabit, on the whole, tend to express a nostalgic pull to their ruralhomelands and appreciate seeing their local landscapes reinfused with new meanings

in Christian terms, whether they live in rural or urban spaces, actively worship, ormore passively observe religious events taking place there.

The Kelabit homelands lie in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia, in the KelabitHighlands, the mountainous interior along the Indonesian border. There are also a

few Kelabit rural communities located elsewhere. Of a total of approximately fivethousand Kelabit today, about three-quarters live in town, with the greatestconcentration in the coastal town of Miri, where the local economy is based on the

offshore oil industry. Locally regarded as having been highly successful in educationaland professional advancement, in contrast to other indigenous groups in Sarawak,

Kelabit are also widely known for their strong involvement and leadership positionsin the SIB church (Sidang Injil Borneo, formerly the BEM or Borneo Evangelical

Mission). In many respects, the SIB church is a focal point of both rural and urbanKelabit life, and devotion to Christianity has served Kelabit well in their transition to

town life, while also being a central feature that shapes life in their rural homelands.1

Indeed, a key tension of contemporary Kelabit life is the dual desire to succeed intown while also retaining connections to their rural homelands, to which they have

come to attach spiritual significance in Christian terms.To illustrate Kelabit sentiments and perspectives as they relate to the argument of

this paper, I begin from the vantage point of the present, viewed through the lens oftwo Kelabit individuals, whose relationships to Christianity and Kelabit rural

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homelands highlight the heterogeneity and common interests of Kelabit today. Then

follows an historical overview covering the process of Kelabit conversion from itsinception, prior to World War II, to the present, culminating in a discussion of how

conversion has led to new relationships to landscape and place.

Sketches from the Present: Tama Apui and Ganit2

In some ways Tama Apui and Ganit are quite dissimilar. Although close in age, theyare quite distinct in their choices of lifestyle, patterns of residence and ways ofrelating to their identities as Christian and Kelabit. Tama Apui, the elder of the two,

is a man in his late forties who lives in the rural Kelabit Highlands with his wife andfive children. Ganit is a woman and professional urbanite in her mid forties, who has

remained single, is childless, and enjoys the freedom and independence of town life.Both were born and raised in longhouse communities in the vicinity of Bario in the

Kelabit Highlands, one of the main areas of rural Kelabit settlement close to theMalaysian/Indonesian border in Borneo’s interior. Both also began their primary

school education in the highlands, before proceeding to secondary school in town.Such movement was typical of their generation, children born in the late 1950s and1960s, and this trend has continued into the present. Finally, both their lives are

marked by considerable mobility.For Tama Apui, this mobility has included working on oil platforms both nearby,

just off the coast of Sarawak in the South China Sea, and as far away as the North Seaof Norway, as well as doing stints on oil tankers. Ganit’s mobility and independence

have been facilitated by her office job at Shell Oil’s main Sarawak office, located northof Miri at Lutong, her income from which has helped pay for her own modest house,

shared with numerous siblings and other family members over the years. Ganit ownsa car, the ubiquitous Malaysian-made Proton Saga, used both for her personal needs

and in regularly assisting numerous family members in town. She often helps takecare of nieces and nephews, including shuttling them to and from school, andassisting other family members to get to work. Her house is a kind of hub for her

extended family, and she regularly hosts relatives on long and short visits, includingher elderly parents who commonly visit during the less labour-intensive periods in

the agricultural cycle of wet-rice farming. As in most Kelabit households, one ofGanit’s most prized commodities is her stock of rice grown by family members in the

highlands, which she eats daily and which serves as a constant reminder of herconnection to the land back home and her family farm. When Ganit has time off and

can afford it, she enjoys taking vacations throughout Malaysia and nearby Brunei,where she has relatives, and sometimes she goes ‘home’ to the highlands to take abreak from the stresses of town life.

In contrast, Tama Apui’s life is more focused on farming and raising a family and,when he is home in the highlands, he spends most of his time tending to his rice farm

and water buffalo and working on his house. He mends fences, goes hunting, and, onrare occasions, gets paid work guiding Western tourists on jungle treks in the forests

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near his home. He works hard and, in many respects, is a role model, exhibiting

characteristics valued and expected of Kelabit men. As with most men who return to,or remain in, their home communities in the highlands, Tama Apui’s wife is a non-

Kelabit, a situation that emerges in part from the fact that few young Kelabit womentoday are interested in living in their rural home communities and, like Ganit, are

instead able to obtain office or service sector jobs in town (Amster 2005a). TamaApui’s well-paid offshore work has allowed him to be somewhat ambitious by local

standards, especially in terms of his plans for his family homestead, a single-familycompound not far from the main longhouse. Tama Apui and his family own a goodmotorcycle, used for transporting themselves and goods to and from the nearby

airstrip at Bario, and an array of possessions—such as chainsaws and portable dieselgenerator—which make rural life in the Kelabit Highlands off the electric grid more

comfortable. Tama Apui and Ganit share strong feelings of nostalgia for their homecommunities and a strong sense of identity as Kelabit. The idea of living in the rural

homeland has never appealed to Ganit or any of her sisters—as is the case for mostKelabit women of her generation—and she is now too accustomed to urban life to go

back for more than extended holidays to see her parents and brothers. For TamaApui, town is a transient place, full of temptations such as the pubs where hisco-workers gather, and not an attractive place to raise a family.

In their own way, both Tama Apui and Ganit see themselves as deeply committedChristians, though they are very different in the style and intensity with which they

express this commitment. Ganit’s involvement in Christian practice is limited mainlyto Sunday churchgoing, which she does with some regularity, though it is not an

absolutely essential part of her typical week. Nor is she choosy about whichcongregation she attends, willing to do whatever other family members prefer. Yet

Ganit is a self-professed, deeply committed Christian whom I have seen, on manyoccasions, full of enthusiasm after a lively church service or sermon. She is

comfortable with both her Christian commitment and a modern lifestyle thatincludes a host of hobbies and interests; these lead her to socialise regularly withfriends and co-workers from different ethnic groups and religious persuasions,

including Muslim Malays, Chinese, Indians and expatriate Westerners. For Ganit,attending church has the added pull of being explicitly linked to her sense of identity

as a member of the Kelabit community in town. Yet, despite the centrality ofChristianity for Kelabit such as Ganit, they have no church congregations in town

that are purely Kelabit. Like the vast majority of Kelabit, Ganit attends services at oneof the dozen or so multi-ethnic SIB church congregations in Miri, all of which

include substantial numbers of Kelabit parishioners. Much as Ganit enjoys church asa valued component of her varied life in Miri, she would be unlikely to plan avacation for the sole purpose of attending church-based events, such as large prayer

meetings on Mount Murud or Easter celebrations in Bario. In this respect, she andTama Apui have very different dispositions and desires. In sum, Ganit is a modern

urban woman whose Christianity is an important anchor and link to her ethnicidentity and natal homelands, for which she harbours deep affection and attachment.

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Tama Apui, in contrast, is a deeply religious man whose daily life is infused by

Christian worship. When home in the highlands, he wakes early nearly every morningto attend the services that begin before sunrise (except on Sunday, when they begin

later). He eagerly takes his turn at the podium as one of the church deacons leadingservices, and always sings hymns with great bravado and eagerness. He goes to great

lengths to experience spiritual transcendence and has frequently made the difficulttrek up the steep slopes of nearby Mount Murud to attend the large multi-day church

services held there. He also often attends major church events, whether in town, therural highlands or across the porous jungle frontier in nearby Kalimantan, Indonesia.His family is always visibly involved in church activities, both large and small; and in

my conversations with Tama Apui and his wife, they often mentioned spiritualmatters. I once asked Tama Apui’s wife if she felt lonely in their solitary, single-family

house away from the main longhouse, particularly when her husband was away forlong periods. She responded that Jesus was always with her and kept her company.

Similarly, when I visited Tama Apui, sick with influenza after an arduous trek backfrom a prayer mountain meeting, he stoically expressed satisfaction that he was able

to make the journey, asserting that his illness was a small price to pay for the joy hegained from being on the mountain and worshipping God.

These brief descriptions of Tama Apui and Ganit and their religious dispositions

are included to foreground the broader historical context, sampling from thediversity of lifestyles and religious orientations possible for Kelabit today. The fact

that Tama Apui is rural, married, deeply religious and male and Ganit is urban,single, less deeply religious and female is certainly not insignificant and, indeed, each

of these dimensions could be discussed in depth to offer an even more nuancedunderstanding of the Kelabit community today. Although neither Ganit nor Tama

Apui can be treated as ‘typical’, the contrast between their respective situations offersa useful shorthand for considering the diverse linkages among religion, mobility and

notions of place in contemporary Kelabit life.Tama Apui and Ganit exemplify a tendency for Christian worship to be less of a

daily activity in town than it is in rural communities, though one can find many

exceptions in both places. Christianity among urban Kelabit is still an important facetin most people’s lives and a prominent aspect of communal events. While most

Kelabit today reside in Miri, they do not cluster into ethnic enclaves, but live widelydispersed throughout the town. Nonetheless, they remain firmly connected to one

another through the strong social networks and constant flow of information andgossip that bind them together (Amster 2004). The most common way for people to

gather is at church or at events held periodically by ethnic associations, the mostregular one being a multi-day sports competition. These events, involving banquets,speeches and cultural performances, are most often held in hotel ballrooms and tend

to focus on nostalgic representations of ‘traditional’ culture via song and dance.However, these events always include some prayer as well, and are infused with a

strong Christian ethos. Some incorporate religious services, such as a New Yearcelebration I attended in the mid 1990s. Indeed, most Kelabit tend to conflate their

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identity as Christians with their identity as Kelabit and this conflation is readily

apparent at ethnic association events where Christian themes merge with Kelabit-specific references with great regularity. Ganit’s experience and perspective are no

exception to this; she readily asserts that a central aspect of what it means for her tobe Kelabit is linked to the group’s common devotion and shared history as

Christians. Furthermore, she does not look unfavourably upon the more intenseforms of worship commonly exhibited by fellow community members, even if she

herself does not always participate with the same emotional intensity.In contrast, Tama Apui’s life in the highlands revolves much more intensely

around the church parish, which is a focal point for village sociality and also

instrumental in organising communal work groups for agricultural tasks. Formalchurch services, whether at dawn on Sunday or on the numerous evenings they are

held, are well attended by community members. Even on the nights when no formalchurch services are planned, it is common for people to cluster for impromptu

services in people’s homes, perhaps to try to solve some problem afflictingcommunity members. Like most rural Kelabit, Tama Apui embraces this daily

rhythm of prayer and worship and enjoys the fact that Christianity is a constantpresence in his life in the highlands. For Tama Apui, a large part of the appeal ofraising his children in the highlands is the certainty that they will be immersed in its

Christian practices and ethos.Besides illustrating differences in lifestyle between highlands and town life, I

introduce these two exemplars to consider their broader sense of place, and the placeof religion in the changing spiritual landscapes of Kelabit in both locales. Tama

Apui’s and Ganit’s respective situations and dispositions also correspond to the dualprocesses that are the focus of this paper. In Ganit’s case, we see a person whose life is

emblematic of the geographic spread and mobility of the Kelabit. Tama Apui’s life isentangled with a homeland that has gained new Christian meanings, as people link

Christian practices and recent historical events to their local landscapes, as illustratedbelow. As the next section shows, these contemporary sentiments and relationships toplace emerge from a long history of conversion that has gradually transformed the

Kelabit people’s sense of place over the last century.

Pre-conversion Beliefs: Spiritual Anxiety and Restrictions on Mobility

From the perspective of Kelabit who express opinions on the subject—mainlymiddle-aged or older individuals who are vaguely familiar with pre-conversion life—

Christianity provided a number of advantages over their prior animistic practices. AsChristian converts, they have forgotten much of the former animistic orientation,except for some of the very eldest Kelabit, and virtually none of the pre-conversion

rituals are practised today. Indeed, former beliefs are now highly stigmatised, anddiscourses about headhunting and infanticide, in particular, are used as examples of

how Kelabit have emerged from the time of darkness when they were under adetSatan (the way or ‘custom’ of Satan). Christianity is now typically described as

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linking them to a higher power and helping them to transcend many of the daily

nuisances associated with their former beliefs, which, using the English phrase, arenow categorised as ‘superstitions’. Sketching a series of historical shifts from the

1930s to the present, I show how conversion, as an ongoing process, is intimatelylinked both to changing spiritual beliefs and to changing political, economic, and

social conditions. My main concern here is to show how Christianity works insynergy with the ever-increasing mobility of the Kelabit community, and how this

also allows for the reinvigoration of local places with new Christian meanings.I begin by outlining the former epistemological orientation of the Kelabit prior to

conversion, then discuss the process of conversion and consequent religious events

and transformations. Part of my argument resembles Horton’s (1971, 1975a, 1975b)general theoretical model, in which he argued that people tended to focus on ‘lesser

spirits’ when their lives were more locally oriented—which he calls the‘microcosm’—in contrast to people, such as urban migrants, who occupy the

‘macrocosm’ of the wider world, and thus tend to focus on supreme beings, such asthose found in Islam and Christianity. Horton’s claim is essentially that conversion is

inevitable among people moving in the wider world as they will be drawn to larger,more overarching spiritual beings, whether these beings have their origin in their ownculture or come from external influences. Horton’s argument can be criticised as

simplistic on theoretical and empirical grounds; however, Hefner (1993, 21) pointsout that Horton ‘quite properly draws our attention to how incorporation into a

larger social order acts as a catalyst for both conversion and the reformulation ofindigenous religion’. In short, Horton’s model suggests that conversion and mobility

work together by helping cast a wider spiritual net over one’s sense of place.Of course, this is not all that happens when one converts. For instance, a recent

article by Robbins focuses on how conversion among the Urapmin of Papua NewGuinea has led to a ‘loosening of territorial attachment’ (2006, 63).

Their Christianity has provided them with the conceptual and ritual means todisassociate themselves from their land and in so doing has been crucial in bringingthem to the point at which they can imagine themselves able to barter theirterritory for the promise of a different kind of life. (Robbins 2006, 66)

Robbins (p. 76) goes on to show how the Urapmin ‘actively work to break thespiritual ties that bind them to their territory’ and that this leads to a process of

‘desacralisation that makes symbolic detachment possible’. In contrast, what Iattempt to show here is how conversion does more than help facilitate movement in

the wider world. Rather than offer a break from their territorial homelands,Christianity helps to transform and reaffirm people’s relationships to their locallandscapes in spiritual terms (Scott 2007). Thus, conversion can have the opposite

effect to that Robbins describes, by eventually leading to a resacralisation of localplace. Despite moving away from the highlands in large numbers, Kelabit retain deep

emotional attachments to their rural homelands. Thus, rather than having a focus onpurging their rural homelands of primordial elements, as Robbins has described,

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their concern has been to reinscribe local landscapes with new spiritual meanings in

Christian terms.Prior to conversion, Kelabit adhered to a set of beliefs about maintaining good

relationships with non-human persons and entities inhabiting their social and naturalworld, what we still tend to call in anthropology, for lack of better terminology, an

‘animistic’ orientation (Harvey 2006). At the time of earliest contact with outsiders,Kelabit were rice farmers who lived in large, multi-family, longhouses, and each

longhouse community had a single headman, typically of hereditary high status.Their major ritual complexes centred on two different types of large-scale longhousefeasts, mortuary rites held in conjunction with secondary burial (burak ate) and

protective initiatory rites for children (burak ngelua’), both of which were multi-dayevents that involved copious drinking of rice beer (burak) and numerous ceremonies

and festivities. Their animistic epistemology promoted a close integration of thehuman and non-human arenas and did so in a highly anxiety-ridden manner.

Virtually all dimensions of the physical and social world were potential sources of fearand spiritual concern, often manifest—visibly, audibly or in dreams—by signs

communicated by birds, animals and forest-dwelling spirits.3 In this context, peoplewere in constant dialogue with nature, spirits and the broad environment, andvirtually all elements of this merged social/natural environment, including what we

think of in Western societies as non-living things, were seen as havingcommunicative potential (weather, rocks and water, for example). Spirits (ada’)

were not only seen as inhabiting the forests and rice fields, the earth, and the variedlayers of the sky, but were also capable of entering one’s dream states (see Lohmann

2003). Hence, it would be misleading in such an epistemological framework toattempt to dichotomise the physical and spiritual realms (see Hornborg 2006).

Indeed, in considering the vast repertoire of pre-conversion spiritual beliefs andpractices of the Kelabit, one is struck by how closely intertwined are the natural and

spiritual realms. As people navigated this merged social/natural world, rife as it waswith messages of spiritual consequence, any number of spontaneous events—oftencoming from what we might call ‘nature’ but also emerging from dreams or the

trance states of shamans—necessitated ritual response, often immediately. The worldwas also conceptualised as having many layers, with animals, and especially birds,

able to communicate signs that portended both hazards and positive messages acrossthese layered dimensions of space. Watching or listening for dangerous signs and

omens was an ongoing part of daily life.Bird omens, especially, were a central concern. Among the bird omens most

commonly cited by elders were those linked to the movement of the ngae’(spiderhunter). Whenever a ngae’ crossed a path in front of people on their travels,the direction of its movement was viewed as an important sign. Such bird omens

would often force people to stop doing a particular task, whether working a farm,setting out on a journey or hunting. Whereas the ngae’ and other lower flying birds

communicated potential danger in a rather immediate way near the ground, thekeniu (eagle) was considered even more powerful, imbued with what Kelabit call

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lalud, and was intentionally called by ritual specialists to gain valuable information.

The calling of the eagle was generally reserved for auspicious occasions, such as whenholding a large ritual event, including mortuary or initiation rites, or when

responding to illness and epidemics or making the weighty decision of moving alonghouse to a new location. The essential underpinning of these beliefs and practices

was the implicit understanding that one was engaged in intimate and ongoingconversation with elements of local geography, and much ritual action and attention

entailed responding to cues emerging from this merged spiritual/natural realm.Kelabit also attributed specific dangers to people entering certain ecosystems, such

as springs and salt licks where animals go to drink (rupan). They also had a well-

defined concept of prohibited places, known as ‘bad land’ (tana da’at), which weretypically places where people had died unnatural or untimely deaths and were,

therefore, considered highly dangerous (Amster 2003a; see also Bovensiepen, thisissue). Other locations to be avoided included the homes of dragon spirits along the

bends of rivers, certain kinds of anthills, and areas of forest reserved as a location forthe final placement of the deceased. To summarise, what we see is a relationship with

a spiritual/natural environment that involves many spatial restrictions and constantengagement, negotiation and conversation with unseen forces (Bird-David 2006). AsIngold (2006, 14) writes:

What we have been accustomed to calling ‘the environment’ might, then, be betterenvisaged as a domain of entanglement. It is within such a tangle of interlacedtrails, continually raveling here and unraveling there, that beings grow or ‘issueforth’ along the lines of their relationships.4

Hence, we see how, prior to conversion, Kelabit people were engaged in a highly

dialogical relationship with what we in Western terms call the ‘natural’ landscape, butwhich from their former perspective is better described as a merged arena of nature

and spirit. As shown below, conversion to Christianity does not simply erode thisdistinction but leads to new ways of thinking about spiritual power and potency thatallow for Kelabit to move about more freely as they reconceptualise their spiritual

beliefs.

Conversion and Mobility: World War II to the Present

Here, I sketch a history of conversion that illustrates how Christianity becomes linkedto increasing physical mobility and political and economic advancement among the

Kelabit. Conversion to Christianity began in a cursory manner in the late 1930s,accelerated immediately after World War II, and went through a series oftransformations in subsequent decades. It must be pointed out, however, that even

prior to the adoption of Christianity the policies of the Brooke government, whichruled Sarawak from the 1830s until World War II, had already led to the suppression

of headhunting and, significantly, the opening up of regional trade. Thus, even beforeconversion began in the late 1930s, Kelabit were becoming involved in previously

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unprecedented travel for trade. The political conditions for wider geographic

movement were already well in place, even though it was not until the 1960s thatwidespread opportunities for urban migration began to emerge.

The first Kelabit converts to Christianity were three young men, who set off fromthe Kelabit Highlands in the late 1930s and made the bold move of attending a Bible

School one day’s walk away across the border, in Dutch territory at Belawit (nowLong Bawan). One of these men, Galih Balang, one of my key informants, described

how, upon their return home, they encountered a deep reluctance among the eldersto convert. He recalled the unwillingness of leaders to give up key rituals and thedrinking of burak (rice beer), which was forbidden by the first missionary who

entered the region around this time.5 By the mid 1940s, the situation had changeddrastically. Allied forces led by Major Tom Harrisson (1984 [1959]) descended by

parachute into the Kelabit Highlands and began to organise Kelabit andneighbouring indigenous people, including their former enemies across the (then

relatively insignificant) international frontier, to fight the Japanese. I was told byelders that one of the things that most impressed Kelabit then was the ability of these

men to move freely and ignore obvious omens, without ill consequences.After the War, Kelabit converted in large numbers with great zeal, now with the

explicit encouragement of their leaders, who wanted to be more closely associated

with powerful outsiders. They quickly abandoned many key rituals, despiteHarrisson’s own opposition to conversion (a sentiment based on his appreciation

of traditional culture and a desire to see it preserved). After the War, the Barioairstrip was used by missionaries to fly into the Kelabit Highlands and proselytise a

now much more receptive audience. New avenues for mobility emerged at this time,with some Kelabit, mostly men, attending Bible School in the coastal town of Lawas,

while others were brought to the towns of Kuching and Miri, often by Harrissonhimself—who stayed on as director of the Sarawak Museum—to be trained mainly as

teachers and medical dressers. Many of these early migrants who returned to thehighlands served as teachers, pastors and medical staff, opening up the path for futuremigration for subsequent generations of Kelabit. Most Kelabit stress that back then a

great deal of drinking still took place, which they today see as antithetical to beinggood Christians.

By the 1950s, some fascinating reinventions of Kelabit tradition began to takeplace, which allowed Kelabit to salvage aspects of their longhouse feasts (formerly

held only in connection with mortuary and initiation rituals), the most important ofwhich was the newly designed name-changing ceremony (Amster 1999). This

innovation allowed people to mark their change of status after attaining parenthood,and to do so in the familiar format of a traditional multi-day longhouse feast (thoughnow without alcohol or rituals involving sacrifice). Name-changing ceremonies,

together with Christian holidays such as Easter and Christmas, now constitute themajor celebratory events in the highlands. During the 1950s, drinking burak became

less openly tolerated, though it still occurred, and most Kelabit today aver thatconversion was far from complete.6 Mobility during this period remained limited,

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with select individuals going off to town, often returning to staff schools and medical

clinics in their home communities.The 1960s was an important turning point for outmigration. In the early 1960s, an

undeclared border war (known as ‘Confrontation’) erupted between Indonesia andthe newly formed Malaysia, of which Sarawak was now a member state. This

geopolitical event, as with World War II before it, had a substantial transformativeeffect on the Kelabit Highlands. Kelabit were once again recruited into a military

campaign, and the British SAS who ran this campaign also successfully relocatedKelabit communities away from the border areas; they also moved the first schoolfrom its original location some distance away (at Pa’ Mein), nearer to the Bario

airstrip. The SAS airlifted whole longhouse communities, one of which was relocatedto an area near Bario, formerly believed to be ‘bad land’ (tana da’at).7 After

Confrontation, regular air services were established, and this ushered in a period ofrapid outmigration that is ongoing. From the 1960s onward, nearly all school

children who began their education in the Bario schools would complete it in towns,mainly Marudi and Miri, spurring the outflow of Kelabit to town areas.

The next major milestone for the Kelabit, a Christian religious revival movement,took hold of the Kelabit Highlands in 1973. While praying fervently, someschoolchildren were said to have been moved by the Holy Spirit, which allegedly

descended on the Kelabit region at that time (Lees 1979). For the first time, peoplebegan to speak in tongues and bands of youth roamed from longhouse to longhouse,

and to the residences of their teachers, rooting out lingering ‘pagan’ practices of theirelders (especially the use of charms). As word spread, many neighbouring people

journeyed to the Kelabit Highlands, and urban migrants returned in large numbers towitness and participate in the revival. One possible explanation for the revival is that

it was a means to reinvigorate the local landscape in the face of outmigration.Certainly, the revival was a pivotal event in inscribing new spiritual meaning in a

Christian idiom on the local landscape, as well as having the effect of solidifyingKelabit conversion. Kelabit today often assert that their conversion was not reallycomplete until the revival, and that it established Bario as an important place in

spiritual terms. The revival is sometimes commemorated with large church servicesin the highlands, including a multi-day event that I attended in 1994 to mark its

twenty-first anniversary; such commemorations are clear evidence of howChristianity has led to the instilling of new spiritual meanings in the Kelabit

Highland region. Kelabit today often point to the 1973 Bario revival as a key turningpoint in their religious history.

During the 1980s, the continuation of localised, religious phenomena in thehighland region may also be seen as a partial response to outmigration, linked to adesire by both rural and urban dwellers to reinvigorate their sense of place in spiritual

terms in their rural homelands. Of particular importance is the emergence of a prayersite on nearby Mount Murud, which today has become a kind of pilgrimage site. This

process began in the 1980s among neighbouring Lun Bawang, as an outgrowth of alocal revival movement among the followers of the late Agung Bangau, a charismatic

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Lun Bawang man who died in July 1992. Prayer meetings on Mount Murud, a remote

area of wilderness and the highest peak in Sarawak, began in the mid 1980s. The firstchapel was built on the mountain in 1990. Just two years later, in August 1992, one

month after Agung Bangau’s death, a large church that can accommodate upwards ofa thousand people was constructed. This was done with the assistance of Shell

Malaysia, which provided helicopter transport for the materials (Choo 1994, 74). Thechurch and the makeshift village that now surrounds it were the site of many large

gatherings and spiritually important events throughout the 1990s and up to thepresent day. These gatherings, which typically occur annually, though are sometimesheld only every other year, tend to comprise predominately Lun Bawang and Kelabit

worshippers, but also draw a host of other Christians from throughout Malaysia andbeyond, including related indigenous peoples from nearby Kalimantan.

What is interesting about the church on Mount Murud is how it resacralises locallandscape in a Christian idiom, as well as creating a venue for articulating pan-ethnic

religious affiliations (see Amster 2003b). Some people described this as an areaformerly off limits in spiritual terms (something I had difficulty verifying), and

suggested that people are, in essence, recolonising spiritual landscapes. Prayermeetings on Mount Murud provide a local venue to assert a range of spiritualconcerns and have played a pivotal role in fostering pan-ethnic ties. This has occurred

in the midst of an area of forest that was, and remains, unoccupied other than duringthese sojourns, and is adjacent to an area of forest being intensively logged and the

locus of much political contestation.For example, in the early 1990s an innovative ritual took place on the mountain—

led by a group of Lun Bawang women who claimed to have received instructionsdirectly from God—with the aim of evicting primordial spirits that were believed to

be in conflict with the churchgoers.8 The women ritually bombed a cave with salt,thus ousting the spirits of three generations of women (a daughter, mother and

grandmother) from the landscape, and purifying the mountain of primordial spirits.This kind of purging of the local landscape is reminiscent of events outlined byRobbins (2004, 150), who has described rituals among the Urapmin in Papua New

Guinea that ‘rearranged their spiritual landscape by cleaning out the ancestors’.Similarly, Telle (this issue) describes how Sasak Muslims combat ‘ancestral spirits’ in

the ongoing effort to purify religious practices closely linked to a local landscape.However, such purging of primordial spirits was not typical among Kelabit, and

those with whom I spoke about the cave bombing, and particularly the churchleaders, were not happy with the ritual and expressed anxiety about it.

In 2003, while I was in the Kelabit Highlands, a helicopter transporting thepresident of the local SIB church crashed on its way to a major prayer meeting onMount Murud. Much speculation ensued about what could have caused the crash,

most seeming to centre on one of two possibilities: that God was calling the presidenthome because it was his time, or that the Devil was trying to interfere with the

devotion taking place on the mountain. Not surprisingly, the multi-day prayermeeting went on as planned, even as the funeral was being arranged in town. What I

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find interesting about this event, in contrast to the eviction of forest spirits in the

1990s, was that the possibility of this crash being the work of primordial forces wasnot among the explanations I heard considered (though bad weather and limited

visibility were not cited either). While I hesitate to read too much into this oneexample, it suggests to me that Christianity is deeply established in this region and

that the lingering fears of primordial/ancestral spirits, and the kind of intimateentanglement Kelabit dealt with prior to Christian conversion, have been radically

submerged. Increasingly over time, the fears that existed as part of the formeranimistic epistemology are being replaced by more proactive appropriations of spacein Christian terms, even if fear of primordial spirits has not entirely vanished. It is

interesting to compare this situation with other cases of Christian conversion andrelationships to local landscape in some recent ethnographies of Christianity

throughout the Asia-Pacific region. In a recent study of conversion among anAustralian Aboriginal group, for example, despite being presented with a form of

Christianity that ‘leaves people free to construct their own relationship to the earth’,the Aborigines’ sense of place remains strongly traditional; ‘Dreaming beings have

not forsaken the land’ (McDonald 2001, 201). At the other end of the spectrum, Scott(2007) has shown how Christianity in the Solomon Islands has mapped new spiritualmeanings onto the local landscape, as I have also shown here for the Kelabit.

As this brief sketch shows, Kelabit today have a deep connection to Christianpractices and are active in local churches in both rural and urban settings. Both rural

and urban dwellers have positive associations with their rural homelands, and see thesurrounding forest/mountain landscape (much more so than town areas) as

religiously significant in Christian terms. Indeed, the longhouse-based communityin which I lived during the mid 1990s undertook a construction project to build a

very large church in the early 2000s, made possible only by virtue of the considerablefinancial support of town-dwelling members of the community, who remitted large

sums of money. In town, SIB congregations with which Kelabit are actively involvedare numerous and flourishing, and the SIB is claimed by local congregants to be thefastest-growing church in Malaysia. People have also found novel ways to reaffirm

their connection to their rural homeland, even as the majority of Kelabit havemigrated to town. Thus, Christianity can be seen both as helping Kelabit to adapt to

town life, where they have re-anchored their sense of community around local churchcongregations and periodic communal events, and as giving them new ways to assert

connections to their rural homelands. The latter have emerged as a landscape ofspiritual significance, owing to such events as the 1973 Bario revival and the worship

that continues to takes place on Mount Murud.

Conclusion

While Kelabit people’s former relationship with the perceived powers in the world at

large (via birds, omens, dreams, and shamanistic intervention) gave them directchannels of communication with forces of a highly local nature, this relationship was

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also one fraught with fear and anxiety. In contrast, Christianity offers new forms of

religious practice that are highly portable, in that they allow people to venture outsidetheir homeland relatively free of primordial anxieties; and Christianity has also led to

a resacralising of local landscapes, seen in the revival movements and reaffirmed inthe commemorative events discussed here (see also Telle, this issue). Conversion

initially facilitated a kind of unhinging from the anxiety-filled spiritual geography ofthe former Kelabit system, and gave Kelabit a new set of beliefs and practices in

relation to the landscape that allowed them to transcend the former limitations oftheir spiritual geography. Over time, however, Christian practice has also become avehicle for re-articulating local landscapes in light of new political, economic and

spiritual concerns, geographically widening people’s conception of both sacred andsecular arenas of power and, thereby, helping Kelabit to establish and solidify their

position as active and engaged citizens of the modern nation-state.In using Ganit and Tama Apui as exemplars, my aim was to show how these two

dimensions, or dual aspects, of a portable potency are played out in daily life. Boththese Kelabit consider the highlands ‘home’ and a source of ethnic identity and ethnic

pride. As Basso (1996, 85) writes:

Fueled by sentiments of inclusion, belonging, and connectedness to the past, senseof place roots individuals in the social and cultural soils from which they havesprung together, holding them there in the grip of shared identity, a localisedversion of selfhood.

While Ganit’s life illustrates urban mobility, Tama Apui shows how contemporary

Kelabit Christianity is also increasingly linked to their rural homelands. Together,they illustrate how conversion can provide new sets of belief and practice that help

to make people mobile, while also giving them mechanisms to reinvigorate localplaces.

Notes

[1] The SIB (then called the BEM) was originally founded in 1928 by Australian missionaries, andtoday has both evangelical and charismatic orientations as well as Pentecostal influences. Thosewho founded the BEM were themselves Protestant, though they did not link it to a particulardenomination (see Southwell 1999). There is considerable variation among SIB congregationstoday and, at times, overt disagreement over what is considered an appropriate level ofcharismatic activity, such as the use of speaking in tongues.

[2] These names are pseudonyms, used to protect their identities. ‘Tama’ means ‘father’ in Kelabit.It is commonplace for Kelabit, once they become parents, to be referred to as the mother/father of their firstborn child. Hence the name Tama Apui literally means ‘Father of Apui’ (hisfirstborn son). Since Ganit has not achieved the state of parenthood, she still retains herchildhood name.

[3] My fieldwork, begun in the mid 1990s and ongoing, has been conducted among Kelabit whohave a universally strong Christian orientation, and this inevitably shapes the ways they havediscussed pre-conversion traditional beliefs. I have attempted, to the extent possible, to besensitive to this bias in presenting ethnohistorical material.

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[4] For additional insights on the entanglement of natural and spiritual landscapes, particularly asarticulated by Ingold, see Allerton and Bovensiepen, both in this issue.

[5] For a firsthand account from the perspective of the first missionary to enter the region in thelate 1930s, see Southwell (1999).

[6] See Amster (2005b) on a firsthand account of a 1950s visit to the Kelabit Highlands, whichcaptures the flavour of daily life at the time.

[7] Interestingly, this longhouse has twice burned down, raising some speculation about whetherthis was because it was constructed on tana da’at. That said, it remains occupied today andpeople are cynical about such lingering views.

[8] For an in-depth discussion of Christian spiritual warfare in Papua New Guinea, see Jorgensen(2005).

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