Prospering Rough Spirit:

Folk Religion and Interethnic Relationship in West Kalimantan, Indonesia

Abstract

This paper aims to illustrate the character of Latok worship elaborately and the interpretation by local shamans on the Latok worship phenomena considering the ethnic conflicts in West Kalimantan, Indonesia since the 1960s. The Latok worship is extremely popular among Chinese Indonesian in the whole Singkawang area. The Latok worship and shamans have begun to flourish after a series of ethnic conflicts since the 1960s. Their origins can be categorized into two types： the first origin is “non-Chinese”, which derives from Dayak, Malay, Bugis, and the other origin is a spirit of the victim to the ethnic conflicts. The first one represents that comforting local spirit’s anger to invaders seems to motivate people to worship them. And the other one represents that the belief that the spirit of tragic victim would remain in yang-jian (human world) to harm people is influential. The fundamental estrangement caused Latok worship, which is expanding its scale due to the series of ethnic conflicts. In addition, as the spirit of tragic victim is associated with the image of ghost (gui), the category of Latok is extended. The word “Latok” phonetically seems to be linked with Datuk in Malaysia and Singapore, and both of them are originated in local spirits. However, in contrast to the harmonious relationship between Datuk and people, the relationship in Singkawang is under the tension. The former Datuk have become a guardian spirit for people, but while Latok will remain a scary, dangerous spirit.