06/08/2026
"My grandmother introduced me to her 'crocodile twin' when I was a child by taking me to the river next to her house to throw eggs as offerings. She regarded not only the crocodile as 'sacred,' but also the river, the crocodile's habitat. That was my first introduction to multispecies relationships, especially human-crocodile, in my own community in Indonesia."
Andi Alfian (Syracuse University) is studying a wide variety of documents from our Special Collections on a Lingling Wiyadharma Fellowship, learning as much as possible about the historic roles of the crocodile in indigenous culture and religious practice in his native Sulawesi. With what goal? Charting the encounters and conflicts between these indigenous religions and world religions and (post)colonial governments over the past two centuries.
A recent survey in Indonesia found about 170 indigenous religions being practiced across the islands. "Interestingly, these indigenous traditions are mostly maintained by people who actually have one of the six state-recognized religions inscribed in their passports or ID cards (Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism)," says Andi. โDespite the Indonesian state recognizing local religions (Kepercayaan) as a separate category in 2017, people generally accuse one another of being 'heretics' and 'backward' if they're practitioners of these indigenous beliefs rather than followers of Islam, Christianity, or other world religions."
"In this context, I'm using the crocodile, one of the sacred animals in many local religions and communities in Indonesia, as a proxy to study the historical exclusion of these local religions from the 19th to the 20th century. For example, Dutch missionary Kruyt wrote about 'the crocodile in the life of the Poso people' in the early 20th century. Other documents Iโve studied in Leiden concern colonial government policies around crocodile hunting projects, which were done mostly for profit (crocodile skins), but also had a side effect of stereotyping people's relationships with sacred crocodiles and relegating indigenous religious traditions."
Are you also interested in studying the Leiden Special Collections in residence? Apply for a fellowship in your field: โก๏ธ edu.nl/8vvqq
