Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the different modes of Luangan ritual sociality and how they are informed and qualified by moral values. It shows how a "conditional ontology" of not-knowing and the unpredictability of real-life events motivate the extension of sociality and the diversification of its forms.

Paper long abstract:

In one of the many origin myths told by the Luangan shifting cultivators of Indonesian Borneo, eight shamans - so magnificent that when treating a patient that patient would not not-become cured, so powerful they could awaken people from death - were killed on behalf of their relatives because of becoming too occupied in their trade, failing to take care of their children. A metacommentary on the conditions of shamanic efficacy, suggesting that sociality has intrinsic value and is indivisible from well-being, yet insufficient for its realization, and sometimes at odds with its attainment, the myth presents the eight shamans as morally ambiguous, potent, but ultimately destructive. The paper uses the Luangan myth as a vantage point for discussing sociality as a value and its role in promoting well-being in contemporary Luangan healing rituals. In these, sociality with nonhuman beings and between ritual participants, exemplified by a variety of activities involving collective participation, commensality, and exchange, is considered crucial to their success. The paper explores the multiple modes and valences of this ritual sociality, and shows how it is fundamentally predicated on a "conditional ontology" of not-knowing, qualified by human finitude. This motivates its continuous extension and the diversification of its forms. An inherent risk of "reversibility" of ritual sociality propagates constant efforts and cautionary measures, such as the recurrent dramatized ritual acts of "undoing and redoing" (pejiak pejiau), whereby attempts to counter the inevitable uncertainty of ritual outcomes are made.