The Empty Seashell: Witchcraft and Doubt on an Indonesian Island

316 Pages·2014·4.068 MB·English

by  Nils Bubandt

The Empty Seashell

The Empty Seashell
Witchcraft and Doubt on
an Indonesian Island
Nils Bubandt
Cornell University Press
Ithaca and London
Cover art: Empty nautilus shell on a Buli beach. Photograph by Nils
Bubandt.
Copyright © 2014 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or
parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in
writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University
Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 2014 by Cornell University Press
First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2014
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bubandt, Nils, author.
The empty seashell : witchcraft and doubt on an Indonesian island /
Nils Bubandt.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8014-5295-6 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8014-7945-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Witchcraft—Indonesia—Halmahera. 2. Halmahera (Indonesia)—
Religion. 3. Ethnology—Indonesia—Halmahera. 4. Belief and doubt.
I. Title.
BF1584.I5B83 2014
133.4’30959856—dc23 2014025811
Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible
suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing
of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks
and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly
composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at
www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.
Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Paperback printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For L.—my adopted father in Buli—
who taught me everything he didn’t know about witches
And for Asta—my daughter in Denmark—
the only child in kindergarten who knew exactly what her father did at work:
wrote a book about witches

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xvii
The Shell of the Nautilus 1
1. Witchcraft, Doubt, and Aporia 33
2. The Origins of Witchcraft and the Doubts of Tradition 63
3. Hope, Conversion, and Millennial Politics 77
4. Christianity and Deception 98
5. The Viscerality of Witchcraft and the Corporeality of the World 118
6. New Order Modern 142
7. Subjectivity, Exchange, Opacity 180
8. Technology, Money, and the Futures of Witchcraft 210
Witchcraft beyond Belief 236
Notes 247
Bibliography 263
Index 285

Preface
The Dog That Wasn’t
Ih ave never seen a cannibal witch. The closest I have ever come to seeing one was
in June 1992. I had been doing fi eldwork for four months in Buli, a coastal and
predominantly Christian village on the island of Halmahera in eastern Indonesia,
and for reasons that I hope will become apparent, the experience of not seeing a
witch goes to the heart of the topic of this ethnography—namely, the presence and
absence of witchcraft in Buli.
I t was well past midnight. Still, I could not fall asleep. I had been suffering
from a cold for a few days, but I had nevertheless arranged to go on a fi shing trip
with Kenari and his son-in-law, Anton, the next day.1 We were supposed to leave
when the morning star ( siwséwil ca) rose over the bay—at around four o’clock
i n the morning—in order to catch the offshore breeze ( latan wagaf ) that would
bring us to the distant reefs before the sun grew enough in strength to make the
coral fi sh less “lazy” and therefore harder to spear. Unable to fi nd rest, I fetched
my shortwave radio and clambered under the mosquito net. I was fi ne-tuning the
radio to the news on BBC World when I heard something outside the house, right
outside the corner post next to my bed. It sounded like a dog gnawing on a juicy
bone. In itself, this was not unusual. Dogs and cats were a constant nuisance to
me. They would sneak into the kitchen, breaching the barricade I had set up at
the door, and steal any food that was not securely locked up. However, there was
something out of the ordinary about the sound of this particular dog. The sound
of chewing did not come from the ground. Rather, it appeared to emanate from
the top of the house, as if the dog had somehow climbed the house post and was