On the Catholic Church and indigenous identities: Notes from Indonesian Borneo

This article draws from a range of sources by Catholic missionaries, past and present, to explore relationships among culture, religion and identity among native peoples in eastern Indonesian Borneo. Older materials, including parish journals, provide documentation of little-known local beliefs and practices. More recent ones, including missionaries' ethnographic and ethnohistorical publications, offer insight into how the Church affects and responds to identity-related activism. In addition to these underutilised sources, the paraliturgy affords a unique point of access concerning how world religion may affect the formation of native peoples' identities.