The Catholic church and education in East Kalimantan: Testimonies of Bo Hagong.

Abstract

Colonial policies in the Dutch East Indies had limited activities of the Catholic Church to pastoral care for Europeans until the mid-19th century, when the Apostolic Vicariate of Batavia could be established. Pastoral tours to the island of Borneo in the following decades led to the foundation of missionary stations in West-Borneo since the late 1870s and the spread of catholic missions to the eastern portion of Borneo since 1970. A missionary post and a catholic school were set up in the village of Laham in the middle reaches of the Mahakam River. Despite initial setbacks, at present Catholicism has become most influential in East Kalimantan, both spiritually and politically, Recently, just prior to the centenary festivities of the catholic mission to the eastern part of Borneo, the Diocese of East Kalimantan has been elevated to become an Archdiocese. This paper includes a brief review of the history of catholic missions to the island of Borneo, with a particular focus on the dissemination of Catholicism to the upper reaches of the Mahakam and the Apo Kayan plateau in East Kalimantan, and a discussion of the socio-political and socio-cultural dynamics of this area, which was among the latest to be penetrated by the Dutch colonial administration. Education and the recruitment of alumni from the missionary school in Laham – as teachers and indigenous “ambassadors” –played a crucial role in the spread of the catholic faith. My analysis of the promotion and localisation of Catholicism in East Kalimantan is based on an oral history approach, with special reference to the testimonies of Bo Hagong, a Bahau elder who was among the first female graduates of the Laham school and since the 1920s was pioneering as a teacher in the Apo Kayan region.