Sozialer Wandel im Spiegel der Festkultur: Das Beispiel der Minahasser auf Sulawesi

Abstract In precolonial Minahasa, feasts served to represent the cosmological unity between the supematural world of ancestors and the world of living human beings. The changes introduced by Dutch colonization and Protestant missionary activities transformed both the tribal organization and animistic religion of Minahasans, there by establishing a Christian society based on perennial cash-crop agriculture. The differentiation in Minahasan villages caused by a monetarization of everyday life since the 1950s reduced the importance of feasts for the social cohesion of rural communities. However, feasts as ritualized performances became an instrument for the manifestation of Christian identity, setting Minahasa apart from a predominantly Islamic Indonesia. The central government tries to compensate this development by utilizing the communicative functions of feasts for the implementation of an all-Indonesian national consciousness. Recent trends indicate that an increasing portion of the younger generation will permanently withdraw from formalized festivities, while developing more casual forms of social gathering and entertainment.