Tricky Subjects Available to Purchase
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Published:April 2025
A report about the arrest of a Balinese “witch doctor” (balian; in Indonesian, dukun) introduces a cast of characters not only animating Dutch responses to such practitioners and their clients but relevant to colonial constructions of magic more broadly: fanatics, frauds, and fools, along with their implicit opposite, the white man of reason (exemplified by colonial officials). This chapter addresses how specialists in healing and harming were transformed not only into witch doctors, but also charlatans, native physicians, magicians, and traditional healers. Colonial authorities concerned themselves with severing potential truth (e.g., herbal remedies) from what they regarded as self-evidently false (“spirit possession”). By contrast, what Balinese say and do about such experts offers insights into how skilled practitioners make realities.
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