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WANA 851
and a decline in quality of resins from central Sulawesi, the resin trade has fallen
off. In the mid-1970s, Wana were selling rice for coastal goods, a hardship in
a subsistence-based economy. The rice helped to support the coastal settlements,
whose largely Muslim populations engage in copra production and sea-oriented
activities like fishing and trading.
Wana vaccilate in their coastal-mountain orientation. While drawn to the coast
as a source of much desired trade goods, many Wasa resist the loss of autonomy
lowland life entails. Many move to foothill settlements to improve their economic
lot. Often such moves entail conversion to Islam or Christianity. Financially
disadvantaged, many return to interior settlements, where they shed their religious
affiliations and resume their former existence.
Wana culture bears the imprint of generations of contact with such coastal
Muslim peoples as the immigrant Bugis (see Bugis). Like hill peoples elsewhere
in island Southeast Asia, Wana use the image of siblingship to express the relation
between themselves and the lowlanders. Once there were two brothers, they say.
The elder one remained in the Wana homeland to maintain the traditional ways.
The younger one moved to the lowlands and became a Muslim. Indeed, this
myth may very well reflect historical experience. The To Ampana, Muslim
farmers living along the northern coast of the Wana area, speak a dialect of Taa,
the Wana language, and are recognized as cultural neighbors. In recent years,
a third sibling has been added to the story, reflecting the increasing importance
of Christianity in the Wana region, due in part to a small but significant influx
of Christian Mori into the area.
With their shamanistic tradition unfettered by orthodoxy and open to entrepreneurial
innovation, Wana borrow freely from the Muslims. Be they pagan,
Christian or Muslim, Wana assert the existence of one God and anticipate a
heaven modeled along Islamic lines. Their world is inhabited by spirits such as
jimi (from the Arabic jinn), malaeka (from the Arabic malaikat, the plural form
of malak, or "angel") and nabi (by which Wana mean not prophets in the
Islamic sense, but guardian spirits of people and objects). Do'a, a variant of the
Islamic word for prayer (doa), is the Wana word for magical spells, an important
resource in Wana society. And spells themselves are laced with potent terms
like bisumila (Arabic bi'smi'llahi, "in the name of God"), salama (from the
Arabic salamat, salam, "peace") and ala ta ala (from the Arabic Allah taala,
"God, may He be exalted").
Religion has become a key element in defining Wana identity. For coastal
peoples, the absence of a world religion is a critical feature of the inhabitants
of the Wana hills. An argument could be made that paganism is the creation of
world religions—there are no pagans except through the eyes of believers in
world faiths. That certainly appears to be the case for the Wana. At least as far
back as the beginning of this century, Wana have been aware of their heathen
status vis-a-vis Muslims. Through longstanding relations with Muslims and,
since World War II, with Christians, unconverted Wana have come to articulate