TY - JOUR
T1 - Lamòling Bèaka
T2 - Immanence, Rituals, and Sacred Objects in an Unwritten Legend in Alor
AU - PERONO CACCIAFOCO, Francesco
AU - CAVALLARO, Francesco Paolo
N1 - PERONO CACCIAFOCO, Francesco, and Francesco Paolo CAVALLARO. (2018). Lamòling Bèaka: Immanence, Rituals, and Sacred Objects in an Unwritten Legend in Alor. Religions, 9, 7, 211 (Special Issue "Religion, Ritual, and Ritualistic Objects"): 1-15
Funding Information:
Funding: This work was supported by the AcRF Tier 1 Research Project RG56/14, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2018/7/7
Y1 - 2018/7/7
N2 - This paper recounts a parallel story of the Lamòling myth. The original analysis of the legend addressed the relationship between two gods, Lamòling and Lahatàla, from the Abui traditional religion. The myth evolved from ancestral times to the arrival of Christianity in Alor, with the resultant association of the ‘bad’ god as a demon and, finally, as the devil. This paper completes the myth as handed down from traditional ‘owners’ of the narrative and storytellers by telling a parallel version centered around an Abui ‘prophet’, Fanny, who was the only person able to travel to Lamòling Bèaka, ‘the land of the Lamòling gods/servants’. We also focus on a number of sacred objects and rituals associated with this religious myth and on their symbolic meaning for the Abui. This account tells a different version of the killing and eating of an Abui child by these gods/supernatural entities and of how Fanny came upon the gruesome feast. The paradoxical absence of Lamòling in this version of the myth depicts him as an immanent being, pervading and sustaining all that is real and created in nature, existing anywhere and nowhere at the same time.
AB - This paper recounts a parallel story of the Lamòling myth. The original analysis of the legend addressed the relationship between two gods, Lamòling and Lahatàla, from the Abui traditional religion. The myth evolved from ancestral times to the arrival of Christianity in Alor, with the resultant association of the ‘bad’ god as a demon and, finally, as the devil. This paper completes the myth as handed down from traditional ‘owners’ of the narrative and storytellers by telling a parallel version centered around an Abui ‘prophet’, Fanny, who was the only person able to travel to Lamòling Bèaka, ‘the land of the Lamòling gods/servants’. We also focus on a number of sacred objects and rituals associated with this religious myth and on their symbolic meaning for the Abui. This account tells a different version of the killing and eating of an Abui child by these gods/supernatural entities and of how Fanny came upon the gruesome feast. The paradoxical absence of Lamòling in this version of the myth depicts him as an immanent being, pervading and sustaining all that is real and created in nature, existing anywhere and nowhere at the same time.
KW - Abui
KW - Alor
KW - Alor-Pantar Archipelago
KW - Lamòling
KW - Oral Legends and Myths
KW - Traditional Religions
KW - Toponymy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85050132511&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/9/7/211
U2 - 10.3390/rel9070211
DO - 10.3390/rel9070211
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85050132511
SN - 2077-1444
VL - 9
SP - 1
EP - 15
JO - Religions
JF - Religions
IS - 7
M1 - 211
ER -