abstract: This thesis is an ethnographic account of the religious practices of the Ammatoa, a Konjo-speaking community of approximately 4600 people living in the southeast uplands of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. It examines aspects of Ammatoan rituals, cosmology, culture, economy, and politics that, from their point of view, are also considered religious. For the purpose of this dissertation, I understand religion to be ways of relationship between human beings and their fellow humans: the living and the dead, other beings, such as animals, plants, forests, mountains, rivers, and invisible entities such as gods and spirits. This conception of religion provides a better framework for understanding Ammatoan religion because for them religion includes many aspects of everyday life. The Ammatoans divide their land into an inner and an outer territory. The former is the constrained domains for their indigenous religion and the latter is more open to interaction with the outside world. The politics of territorial division has enabled Ammatoans to preserve their indigenous religion and navigate pressures from outside powers (i.e., Islam and modernity). The politics is, in part, a religious manifestation of Ammatoan oral tradition, the Pasang ri Kajang, which is the authoritative reference for all elements of everyday life. By following the tenets of the Pasang, Ammatoans seek to lead a life of kamase-masea, a life of simplicity. I explore how Ammatoans apply, challenge, and manipulate their understandings of the Pasang. Ammatoans demonstrate their religiosity and commitment to the Pasang through participation in rituals. This dissertation explores the diversity of Ammatoan rituals, and examines the connections between these rituals and the values of the Pasang through an extended analysis of one particular large-scale ritual, akkatterek (haircut). This ritual serves to incorporate a child into the wider Ammatoan cosmos. I also explore the encounters between Ammatoan indigenous religion, Islam, and modernity. I argue that the local manifestation of the concepts of Islam and modernity have both influenced and been influenced by Ammatoan indigenous religion. I conclude that despite their conversion to Islam and the intrusion of modernity, Ammatoan indigenous religion persists, albeit as an element of a hybrid cultural complex. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Religious Studies 2012

In the first part of this dissertation I investigate whether the Pentecostal Churches in South Africa has a reductionist understanding of crucial missiological issues. Issues such as the definition of mission, motivation for missions, the role of the Holy Spirit in mission, mission as a quest for social justice, mission as anti-racism, mission as a quest for gender equality and mission as inter-religious encounter. In the second part of the dissertation I present a more contextual approach to these missiological issues, challenging the Pentecostal churches to move: towards the formation of a more relevant missiology. l finally present the 'cycle of missionary praxis' or 'the Pastoral cycle' as a tool that can be used to formulate a contextual missiology / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M.Th.

In the first part of this dissertation I investigate whether the Pentecostal Churches in South Africa has a reductionist understanding of crucial missiological issues. Issues such as the definition of mission, motivation for missions, the role of the Holy Spirit in mission, mission as a quest for social justice, mission as anti-racism, mission as a quest for gender equality and mission as inter-religious encounter. In the second part of the dissertation I present a more contextual approach to these missiological issues, challenging the Pentecostal churches to move: towards the formation of a more relevant missiology. l finally present the 'cycle of missionary praxis' or 'the Pastoral cycle' as a tool that can be used to formulate a contextual missiology / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M.Th.