ABSTRACT
Violence in Indonesia has become a major problem since the events that immediately preceded the fall of Suharto in 1998. Using tradition to counter violence is particularly interesting because it directly contradicts other governmental polices which have been to classify certain forms of violence as ‘traditional’ and thus, by implication, impossible to eradicate. The specific local dynamics of each outburst of violence need to be analyzed on their own terms, but also related to wider political tensions in a comparative historical framework. The chapter argues that the ‘worlds of song’ show a new way of mobilizing people in an arena filled with potential for more real democracy, as well as the threat that the ‘social contract’ can be dissolved into chaotic acts of violence. During the nineteenth century, Sumba was a backwater region which offered little potential for commercial development to the Netherlands Indies government.
