Singing in Dangerous Places (Flores,Lamaholot, Indonesia)

At the eastern tip of Flores Island (Indonesia), there is a people whose members sing in special places, both inhabited and uninhabited, and at special times. Approximately four times a year, songs and dances are performed around a group of stones, in the dancing place. Singers move around these stones all night until dawn. They also sing in front of special trees when going out to their fields, or standing in circles around posts, stones or altars set up on the cultivated land. All these locations are named ‘dangerous places’. They are as far flung as seashores and forests. What relationships with these places do humans enter into? What kind of history and stories do these places mark? What potency do they bear? This paper shows that singing brings people into relationships with various categories of beings at certain places in every ceremonial domain of this peninsula.