A collection of studies by leading scholars of Indonesian culture, history and anthropology examining the death practices and rituals of Indonesian tribal groups in the context of ongoing changes in Islam.

HENRI CHAMBERT-LOIR represented the Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient in Jakarta for fifteen years, and is now in Paris as a senior research fellow with that institute. He edited (with Claude Guillot), Le Culte des Saints dans le Monde Musulman (1995).
ANTHONY REID took his BA and MA from Victoria University of Wellington, and his Ph.D in History at Cambridge University in 1965. He is currently Professor of Southeast Asian History at the Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. He has taught in Malaysia, Indonesia, and at Yale University in the USA.

Preface
Maps and Illustrations
Introduction by Henri Chambert-Loir and Anthony Reid
1. Castrated dead: the making of un-ancestors among the Aoheng, and some considerations on death and ancestors in Borneo (Bernard Sellato)
2. How to hold a tiwah: the potency of the dead and deathways among Ngaju Dayaks (Anne Schiller)
3. Witnessing the creation of ancestors in Laboya (West Sumba, Eastern Indonesia) (Danielle C. Geirnaert)
4. Reciprocity, death and the regeneration of life and plants in Nusa Penida (Bali) (Rodolfo A. Giambelli)
5. Remembering our dead: the care of the ancestors in Tana Toraja (Elizabeth Coville)
6. Island of the Dead: why do Bataks erect tugu? (Anthony Reid)
7. Modernising sacred sites in South Sumatra: Islamisation of Gumai ancestral places (Minako Sakai)
8. Ancestors' blood, genealogical memory, genealogical amnesia and hierarchy among the Bugis (Christian Pelras)
9. Saints and ancestors: the cult of Muslin saints in Java (Henri Chambe