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Jimat, small items that people wear or carry, form the focus of this chapter. Virtually invisible in anthropological theorizing, ethnographic description, and museum displays, they formed matters of considerable concern to the colonial state, which linked them to uprisings and burglary. An account of the massacre of a Sundanese Haji and his followers leads to discussion of how peasant rebellions, theft, and perjury resulted in efforts to stem the circulation of jimat through a series of impossible laws. While their materiality served to attract jurists’ attention, statutes, debates, and scholarship focused on imputed beliefs and intentions. Common translations (amulets) and ethnological analysis (which categorized them as fetishes) deflected attention from their myriad functions and the practices through which jimat come into existence and operate.

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