The Christian conversion of the Mualang as a phase of a messianic movements cycle

Abstract

For the Mualang people, one of the Ibanic peoples of the middle Kapuas River in Kalimantan, Barat, the conversion to Christianity has unquestionably been the most important development in their cultural history in the past sixty years. Understandably they have "canonized a convincing story that, explains for them this momentous acculturation experience. This story involves a revitalization movement. Historically this revitalization movement was just one aspect of a general anticolonial unrest that had been occurring, not just in this area, but in several other parts of the Dutch East Indies as Well. This paper will describe this movement and the anticolonial foment in which it occurred. By emphasizing the power aspects of the religious system it will attempt to provide a religious understanding of this religious response to political suffering.