Introduction

The theme of this presentation is to make comprehensible to us a form of witchcraft belief in Ende, eastern Indonesia, on the island of Flores — namely, ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ (wiwi riwu // rhema ngasu)
(an ‘experience-near concept’ for the people of Ende (Geertz 1983)). To achieve this, my strategy is (1) first, to place in parallel the concept of ‘bullying’ (ijime), which is experience-near for us, with ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’. Furthermore, (2) taking these two together, I wish to develop the discussion by addressing issues of explanation theory and responsibility from analytical philosophy (as ‘experience-distant concepts’).

1 A Thousand Lips and A Hundred Tongues

In this chapter, let us briefly summarise the belief in ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ (wiwi riwu // rhema ngasu) in Ende. The people of Ende explain that ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ is a type of witchcraft <<(porho) >>. Therefore, in the first half of this chapter, I shall first introduce Ende witchcraft belief. In the second half, I shall then introduce ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’, which is considered a type of witchcraft belief. An important characteristic of ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ is that there is no witch as an agent. What unfolds on the stage of ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ is action without a subject.

1.1 Witches and Witchcraft

As mentioned at the outset, when asked about ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’, any person from Ende will answer, ‘It is witchcraft (porho)’. Therefore (before introducing ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’), let us first explain witchcraft in general.¹

Let me briefly explain the agents of witchcraft, witches . Witches live amongst humans . In appearance, witches are indistinguishable from humans. However, in reality, they are completely different from humans. They possess the power to curse ² humans. They can cause people to fall ill. And they can bring them to death. It is said that witches devour (together with other witch companions) those they have killed in this way.

It is said that people become witches through various paths. Some become witches as a result of violating certain taboos,³ whilst others become witches without knowing it.⁴ Furthermore, some become witches by apprenticing themselves to famous witches.

It is said that the reason witches curse (tau) is jealousy . For example, when your harvest this year has been bountiful, your neighbour, who is a witch, will feel jealousy (rhené). However, in this state, a curse (tau) has not yet occurred. For a curse to happen, a trigger (‘cause’) is necessary, say the people of Ende. Let me introduce one episode.

This happened when I was invited to a house in Rhepadori village and was talking. A voice was heard at the entrance, so the master went out to the entrance. After a while, he came back, angrily saying, ‘That Daki. He was asking if he could borrow some rice’.

I knew there was a rumour that ‘Daki is a witch’. However, I couldn’t quite understand why the master of the house was so angry. Seeing my puzzled face, he continued to explain — ‘He’s looking for a pu’u (trigger)’, he said.

To me, who still didn’t quite understand, the master of the house explained carefully. He said that a witch cannot simply curse (tau) merely by being jealous. What is necessary for that is a ‘pu’u’ (cause, trigger). For instance, if he were to respond loudly, ‘I have no rice, go away!’, that would play into the witch’s hands. This event (the master shouting) would provide the trigger/cause (pu’u). Having obtained the pu’u, the witch would now be ready to perform the curse.

Next, I wish to discuss witch accusations. During my 45 years of fieldwork, there has been one occasion when a witch accusation occurred. A young woman from Rhepadori village suddenly ran through the village as if mad. After a while, she became exhausted and took to her bed. It is said that in her delirium, she repeatedly cried out the name of Joga, a man from a neighbouring village. Everyone believed that Joga was the witch.

Up to this point, this is a common occurrence. However, this time, circumstances developed considerably. The accusation became public, and Joga and all the prominent people from the neighbouring village were to come down. There were discussions for two days, but nothing in particular was decided. Afterwards, the relationship between the people of Rhepadori village and the people of the neighbouring village, including Joga, continued as before.

In fact, witch accusations in the past brought about more serious consequences. What can be gleaned from snippets of villagers’ conversations is the fact that accused witches were often killed in the past. At least several villagers have (apparently) experienced such accusations and executions. Near Rhepadori village, there is a cliff called ‘Koza Porho’ (‘witch tumbler’), where porho (witches) were said to have been executed.

Let us summarise the scenario of witchcraft. The beginning is the jealousy (rhené) possessed by the witch. However, that alone does not set the story in motion. A trigger/cause (pu’u) is necessary. For this, the witch goes to search for pu’u (nggae pu’u). Having obtained pu’u, the witch curses (tau), and the victim falls ill. On the victim’s side, ‘who did it (tau)’ is sought in various ways. As a result of that search, an accusation (p’e’e porho) is made, and retribution against the witch is carried out. The witch, so to speak, takes responsibility for their own actions.

If pu’u were not sought, and rhené (jealousy) directly connected to tau (cursing), the witch would be regarded as something like an automaton. For an automaton, responsibility does not become an issue. The human who does the cleaning has responsibility for that action, but a robotic vacuum cleaner has no responsibility. It is only through the moment of ‘searching for pu’u’ that the action of tau (cursing) becomes an action that should be accused and whose responsibility should be pursued.⁵

1.2 The particularity of A Thousand Lips

Above concludes the description of ordinary witchcraft belief. Let us now introduce ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’, which is considered a type of witchcraft belief. The point is the subject of the curse. In witchcraft, the subject of the curse — the witch — is (as emphasised in the previous section) an identified individual with responsibility. In contrast, in ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’, the subject is not named. As its name suggests, hundreds or thousands of anonymous people speak malicious gossip about a particular individual’s conspicuous behaviour. That gossip functions as a curse upon the victim. Therefore, accusation is also impossible.

I would like to give three examples of ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’. I think I probably first encountered these words, ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’, during my first fieldwork (1979/1981). When our co-researcher, A-san, became somewhat unwell, our foster parents, Epu and Pama, said, ‘That’s probably A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’. What was being hinted at, I think, was jealousy (rhené) and the malicious gossip based on it. Pama and the others were saying that this gossip had befallen A-san as a curse.

Let me give another example. One day, I noticed that Pama looked worried. When I asked what was wrong… Lau had again failed to attend the communal work (road construction) today, and had gone to his own field. ‘If Lau carries on like this, he’ll be caught by A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’, Pama said worriedly.

My younger sister, Oto, returned to Rhepadori village’s primary school as headteacher. A splendid promotion. A few years ago, she was complaining, ‘I’ve not been feeling well lately’. She kept falling ill and recovering repeatedly. ‘It’s probably “A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues”’, was Oto’s self-diagnosis. Here too, I think rhené (jealousy) was being implied.

As I mentioned at the beginning, everyone from Ende says that ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ is a type of witchcraft. Like witchcraft, the victim exhibits symptoms as if cursed. However, there is no witch here as a subject. If one must say, it is the thousand lips, hundred tongues — that is, anonymous people. However, there is no action of ‘searching for pu’u’ here — ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ takes on the aspect of a kind of automaton. Because there is no identified responsible party. There is no mention of searching for pu’u. And witch accusation is, of course, impossible. ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ is an eerie curse without a subject.

1.3 Summary

The point I wish to address in this paper is the peculiar characteristic of ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ — that of action (cursing) without a subject. How is it possible to imagine action without identifying an intending subject? I wish to consider this.

Let us call the eerily anonymous subject glimpsed behind ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ seken (the world, public opinion). If we do so, this may remind us of recent news — the imposition of morality through anonymous bulletin boards, and victims who have succumbed to it. However, anonymous cursing existed before the devices of anonymous bulletin boards were prepared to create ‘anonymity’. That is bullying (ijime).

2 Bullying and Anonymity

I came to focus anew on ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ after reading the substantial work by playwright Minoru Betsuyaku, Beckett and Ijime (Betsuyaku 2005) (first edition 1987). In this book, Betsuyaku addresses actual bullying incidents. His discussion has two keywords. One is ‘the malice of anonymity’, and the other is ‘joking’. The two are closely related, but in this presentation, I wish to focus only on ‘the malice of anonymity’.

【Digression】I intend to touch on ‘joking’ at the Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology meeting in June next year.

2.1 The Shikagawa-kun incident

What Betsuyaku addresses is an incident that occurred at a Tokyo secondary school in 1986. Bullying led one student (Shikagawa-kun) to take his own life. Through the mass media, the incident was reported extensively and in detail. The bullying continued insidiously and reached its climax with a ‘funeral’ game. Teachers also participated.

Betsuyaku reveals the strangeness of this story by contrasting it with modern drama centred on the ‘individual’.

So, let us follow Shikagawa-kun’s story step by step.

The daily bullying apparently continued insidiously. Here, let us look at the ‘funeral game’, which (many mass media believed) was the cause of Shikagawa-kun’s suicide. Within this ‘funeral game’, there are many episodes that make us feel a discrepancy with our everyday sensibilities. First, let us simply follow the story.

Shikagawa-kun had been injured and had been absent from school for a while. On the day Shikagawa-kun returned to school after several days’ absence, Shikagawa-kun’s ‘funeral’ was held.

His desk had been brought to the front of the classroom, with his photograph placed on it. Various patterns were drawn on the blackboard to create a funeral atmosphere. Furthermore, a coloured paper was prepared, with ‘Farewell Shikagawa-kun’ written in the centre. Around it were messages such as ‘Rest in peace’. Amongst these messages, it is said, were some by teachers. (41)

When Shikagawa-kun arrived at school and saw this situation, he is said to have said the following: ‘What’s this!’ ‘You’ve put this up now that I’m here!’

2.2 The malice of anonymity

Readers who hear this story, and particularly Shikagawa-kun’s reaction, will feel a certain sense of incongruity. Betsuyaku brilliantly exposes this sense of incongruity. The response should properly have been ‘Why did you do this?’ or ‘Who did this?’ That, he says, is what it should have been. ‘Properly’ refers to discussions within a dramaturgy that presupposes the (modern) ‘individual’. That is to say, what we see here is not the ‘modern individual’, Betsuyaku argues.

Let me quote Betsuyaku’s words.

In the past, the protagonist in theatre, apart from pre-modern times, had the sense that the ‘ko’ (individual) was the subject. However, nowadays, rather, relationship has become the subject, and in the sense that humanity is confirmed only within relationships, at present, the sense of the human being has changed from ‘ko’ (individual) to ‘ko’ (solitary). By thinking of the human being not as ‘ko’ (individual) but as ‘ko’ (solitary), something like humanity has come to be confirmed. (Betsuyaku 2005: 28–29)

This world consisting of ko (solitary) and relationship (society) summons bullying. It is not some identified individual who does the bullying. Rather, an assemblage of ko (solitary) that cannot be pointed to (society, seken) creates the bullying of Shikagawa-kun, so to speak, with an intuitive understanding. This, Betsuyaku calls ‘the malice of anonymity’. And Betsuyaku describes the relationship between the malice of anonymity and bullying as follows.

Roughly speaking, the character of this malice of anonymity and the tactics against it are as follows: First, this is completely different from malice that clearly establishes the subject in the form of ‘I don’t like you’ or ‘I don’t like you’. There is no subject. The malice itself is being remotely controlled. In other words, at the scene where malice operates, the subject that activated that malice does not exist. (Betsuyaku 2005: 103–104)

If one dares to rephrase Betsuyaku’s discussion in contemporary terms, anonymity is the ‘air’ (atmosphere), one might say. As words relating to a kind of pressure it possesses, one could consider, for example, idioms such as ‘sontaku’ (inferring what others wish) or ‘reading the air’. In this context, one explanation for the teachers participating in the bullying becomes possible.⁶ They did not act as ko (individuals) with the intention to ‘bully Shikagawa-kun’. Rather, their actions were, as ko (solitary) — that is, the result of reading the air.

2.3 Summary

In this section, I wish to summarise Betsuyaku’s discussion whilst overlaying it with the previous chapter’s Ende ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’.

Betsuyaku’s analysis of bullying, particularly ‘the malice of anonymity’ and the conception of the individual as ‘ko’ (solitary) that supports it, has, I believe, greatly advanced our understanding of bullying. What unfolds on that stage is not modern drama, where intentioned ko (individuals) are the subjects. A different kind of drama is being performed here. It is not intentioned ko (individuals) who act. Rather, ko (solitary) without intrinsic substance gather and, as the malice of anonymity, cause action to occur (in place of intention in individuals). The subject of responsibility is nowhere to be found.

The above imagination of bullying splendidly overlaps with the imagination of ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’. On the stage of the witchcraft imagination (other than ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’), the ko (individual) / witch with intention acts (curses) as the subject (who takes responsibility). This is narrated as the flow from ‘pu’u to tau’. However, in ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’, it is not each individual lip, each individual tongue that is the issue. Rather, the assemblage of these — the thousand lips, hundred tongues — acts (curses) as the subject (which is not the subject of responsibility, yet nonetheless).

3 Attribution and Responsibility

In this chapter, I shall overlay Chapter 1’s Ende ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ with Chapter 2’s Japanese bullying problem.

3.1 Attribution and relationship

Here I must ask you to bear with a small detour.

In my 1992 book, Ethnography of Exchange (Nakagawa 1992), I presented two methods by which people organise the world. I called one ‘attributive classification’ and the other ‘relational classification’.

What I suggested by placing Chapter 1 (Ende witchcraft) and Chapter 2 (Japanese bullying) side by side was that behind ordinary witchcraft vs ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ and modern bullying vs Shikagawa-kun bullying, there is an opposition in worldviews: attributive classification vs relational classification. Anticipating the answer, the following diagram was what I had in mind.

Here I wish to attempt a simple explanation of attributive and relational classification. First, to help you grasp the image, please look at the following diagram. In this world, nodes are the protagonists. The colour of nodes is attribution; the lines connecting nodes are relationships (between nodes).

Attributive classification sees this world as ‘attribution (colour)’ creating ‘relationship (lines)’. For example, the colour of N1 (blue) and the colour of N2 (green) are given in advance, so the question ‘Why is N1 blue?’ cannot be answered. ‘Why are N1 and N2 connected?’ (relationship) is explained using attribution. ‘Because N1 and N2 are different colours’.

Relational classification sees lines (relationships) as given. Therefore, the question about attribution, ‘Why are N1 and N2 different colours (attributions)?’ can be answered. ‘Because they are connected by a line’.

For example, let us organise a certain dispute in kinship theory using this opposition (attributive/relational classification). Descent theory says that people sharing the same descent form groups, and those groups establish marriage relationships. That is, descent theory is attributive classification, where the attribution of descent explains the relationship of marriage.

Alliance theory, since Lévi-Strauss, asserts that marriage relationships (relationship) create groups (attribution). That is, it is relational classification.

Within the structure of attributive classification, each node is a substantial ko (individual) assigned attributes (intention, responsibility). And within relational classification, each node is merely a junction of relationships, possessing no attributes whatsoever. It is ko (solitary).

What I wish to say is as follows. Ordinary witchcraft in Ende and ordinary (modern) bullying in Japan are based on the structure of attributive classification. ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ in Ende and ‘the Shikagawa-kun bullying incident’ in Japan are based on the structure of relational classification.

3.2 Summary

The two types of witchcraft in Ende discussed in Chapter 1 (‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ and other witchcraft), and the two types of bullying discussed in Chapter 2 (the Shikagawa-kun incident and other bullying), were in fact each supported by two worldviews: relational classification and attributive classification, respectively.

Thus, we have reached the stage where we can overlay ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ with the Shikagawa-kun incident. Let me reproduce the table (shown earlier in the form of ‘anticipating the answer’), with a slight modification. This time, you will be able to understand this table.

Conclusion

In attributive classification, where each node (personhood) is filled in advance with attributes (intention), that is, in ‘ordinary witchcraft’ (Ende) or ‘ordinary (modern) bullying’ (Japan), responsibility is questioned and accusation is made. However, in the structure supported by relational classification, which has a system consisting of empty attributes, that is, in ‘A Thousand Lips, A Hundred Tongues’ (Ende) and ‘bullying of Shikagawa-kun’ (Japan), there is neither the attribution of responsibility nor accusation. Behind each node (personhood) lies ‘the malice of anonymity’, or the eerie ‘thousand lips, hundred tongues’.

References