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Indonesia Council Open Conference 2025
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The Lasting Gospel: An Ethnographic Approach to Funeral Music in Toraja, Indonesia

Individual Paper

Individual Paper

11:30 am

08 July 2025

M13 + M14 (Melbourne Connect)

Session 1: Art and Music: Post-Regional Narrations, Non-Theatrical Film, Dangdut and Toraja Music

One Conference streams

Arts & Culture

Submission Description

This study focuses on the Toraja people in Indonesia, where indigenous identities intersect with a range of old and new Indonesian religious identities, including Christianity and Islam. This paper explores the Christian communities in Toraja and discusses how indigenous cultures and ways of doing and thinking have shifted since the arrival of Western missionaries and during and after colonial times. I particularly focus on the grand funeral of Toraja that takes place up to a week full of rituals and celebrations. Despite the shift of the majority of the people from their indigenous faith, Aluk Todolo, to Christianity, traces of the old religion have been incorporated into the practice of the new religion. Based on ethnographic research, I explore how Toraja Christians use music to negotiate identities in funeral practices and eventually produced their own unique Christianity where the new and old identities of Torajan intersect.

Presenters

Presenters

Individual Paper Presenters

Ms Danielle Dudung - University of Auckland