the headhunter as hero: local traditions and their reinterpretation in national history

Abstract

After independence, a search for national heroes in the Indonesian struggle against colonialism drew attention to Wona Kaka, a Sumbanese headhunter who raided Dutch forces in 1911. Praised by some as the first figure in a common national history, he is also used as a champion of local tradition who resists integration into the “imagined community” of the Indonesian state. Controversy over efforts to “call back his soul” from Java shows the ideological bases of the construction of history and clashes between nationalism and opposition to outside control. [history, headhunting, colonialism, nationalist ideology, mythology, Indonesia]