Protestants (about 7% of the population) outnumber Catholics, largely because of the work of Dutch Calvinist and Lutheran missions and more recent Evangelical movements. The main Protestant populations are in the Batak area of Sumatra, the Minahasa and Toraja areas of Sulawesi, Timor and Sumba in Nusa Tenggara, Papua, parts of Maluku and Dayak areas of Kalimantan. Catholics comprise 3% of the population and are most numerous in Papua and Flores.
Outside India, Hindus predominate only in Nepal and Bali. The Hinduism of Bali is literally far removed from that of India.
BELIEFS OUTSIDE THE OFFICIAL BOX
Fascinating elements of animism, mostly concerned with the spirits of the dead or fertility rituals, survive alongside the major religions all over Indonesia today – especially among peoples in fairly remote places. These belief systems often involve elaborate rituals, which have become tourist attractions in their own right, and include the following:
Nusa Tenggara's Sumbanese
Kalimantan's Dayaks
Sumatra's Bataks
Sumatra's Mentawaians
Sumatra's Minangkabau
Sumatra's Niassans
Sulawesi's Toraja
Papua's Dani
Papua's Asmat
Hinduism & Buddhism
These belief systems of Indian origin have a key place in Indonesian history but are now practised by relatively small numbers. Arriving with Indian traders by the 5th century AD, Hinduism and Buddhism came to be adopted by many kingdoms, especially in the western half of Indonesia. All of the most powerful states in the archipelago until the 15th century – such as Sriwijaya, based in southeast Sumatra, and Majapahit, in eastern Java – were Hindu, Buddhist or a combination of the two, usually in fusion with earlier animist beliefs. Indonesian Hinduism tended to emphasise worship of the god Shiva, the destroyer, perhaps because this was closer to existing fertility worship and the appeasement of malevolent spirits. Buddhism, more a philosophy than a religion, shunned the Hindu pantheon of gods in its goal of escaping from suffering by overcoming desire.
Though Islam later replaced them almost everywhere in Indonesia, Hinduism and Buddhism left a powerful imprint on local culture and spirituality. This is most obvious today in the continued use of stories from the Hindu Ramayana and Mahabharata epics in Javanese and Balinese dance and theatre – as well as in major monuments like the great Javanese temple complexes of Borobudur (Buddhist) and Prambanan (Hindu). Bali survived as a stronghold of Hinduism because nobles and intelligentsia of the Majapahit kingdom congregated there after the rest of their realm fell to Islam in the 15th century.
Most Buddhists in Indonesia today are Chinese. Their numbers have been estimated at more than two million, although this may come down at the next count following the reinstatement of Confucianism as an official religion in 2006. Confucianism, the creed of many Chinese Indonesians, was delisted in the Suharto era, forcing many Chinese to convert to Buddhism or Christianity.
Bali: Island of Dogs, a film by Lawrence Blair and Dean Allan Tolhurst, shows the complicated lives of the island's misunderstood dogs. Many are being slaughtered in the ongoing – and misguided – effort to eradicate rabies.
Women in Indonesia
For Indonesian women, the challenges of balancing traditional roles and the opportunities and responsibilities of the modern era are most pronounced. Many are well educated and well employed; women are widely represented in the bureaucracy and business, although elections in 2009 and 2014 saw women win only about 18% of the seats, far below a goal of 30% professed by some of the parties. Two-income households are increasingly common and often a necessity, however women typically still see roles such as housekeeping and child rearing as their domain.
As a predominantly Islamic society Indonesia remains male-oriented, though women are not cloistered or required to observe purdah (the practice of screening women from strangers by means of a curtain or all-enveloping clothes). The jilbab has become more common, but it does not necessarily mean that women who wear it have a subservient personality or even deep Islamic faith. It can also be a means of deflecting unwanted male attention.
It's also increasingly common to see women in Muslim areas wearing headscarves even as the popular media typically shows women without.
Author Djenar Maesa Ayu shook up Indonesia's literary scene with her candid portrayal of the injustices tackled by women. Her books include Mereka Bilang, Saya Monyet (They Say I'm a Monkey, 2001), Nayla (2005) and 1 Perempuan, 14 Laki-laki (1 Woman, 14 Men, 2011).
Tenuous Gains?
Despite the social liberation of women visible in urban areas, there are those who see the advances made by conservative Islam in the past decade as a threat to women. Pressure on women to dress and behave conservatively comes from elements of sharia law that have been introduced in areas such as Aceh.
An attempt to reform family law in 2005 and give greater rights to women never even got to be debated in parliament after Islamic fundamentalists threatened those who were drafting it. Women still cannot legally be heads of households, which presents particular problems for Indonesia's estimated six million single mothers.
THE POWER OF SMILES
A smile goes a very long way in Indonesia. It's said Indonesians have a smile for every emotion, and keeping one on your face even in a difficult situation helps to avoid giving offence. Indonesians generally seek consensus rather than disagreement, so maintaining a sense of accord, however tenuous, is a good idea in all dealings. Anger or aggressive behaviour is considered poor form.
Arts
Indonesians are very artistic people. This is most obvious in Bali, where the creation of beauty is part of the fabric of daily life, but it's apparent throughout the archipelago in music, dance, theatre, painting and in the handmade artisanry, of which every different island or area seems to have its own original form.
Theatre & Dance
Drama and dance in Indonesia are intimately connected in the hybrid form that is best known internationally – Balinese dancing. The colourful Balinese performances, at times supremely graceful, at others almost slapstick, are dances that tell stories, sometimes from the Indian Ramayana or Mahabharata epics. Balinese dance is performed both as entertainment and as a religious ritual, playing an important part in temple festivals.
Java's famed wayang (puppet) theatre also tells Ramayana and Mahabharata stories, through the use of shadow puppets, three-dimensional wooden puppets, or real people dancing the wayang roles. It too can still have ritual significance. Yogyakarta and Solo are centres of traditional Javanese culture where you can see a wayang performance.
Yogyakarta and Solo are also the centres of classical Javanese dance, a more refined, stylised manner of acting out the Hindu epics, performed most spectacularly in the Ramayana Ballet at Prambanan.
Many other colourful dance and drama traditions are alive and well around the archipelago. The Minangkabau people of West Sumatra have a strong tradition of Randai dance-drama at festivals and ceremonies, which incorporates pencak silat (a form of martial arts). The Batak Sigalegale puppet dance sees life-sized puppets dancing for weddings and funerals. Western Java's Jaipongan is a dynamic style that features swift movements to rhythms complicated enough to dumbfound an audience of musicologists. It was developed out of local dance and music traditions after Sukarno banned rock 'n' roll in 1961.
Central Kalimantan is home to the Manasai, a friendly dance in which tourists are welcome to participate. Kalimantan also has the Mandau, a dance performed with knives and shields. Papua is best known for its warrior dances, most easily seen at annual festivals at Danau Sentani and in the Baliem Valley and Asmat region.
The best bet for traditional dance? Ubud on Bali, where you can see several performances by talented troupes every night of the week.
Music
Traditional
Gamelan orchestras dominate traditional music in Java and Bali. Composed mainly of percussion instruments such as xylophones, gongs, drums and angk
lung (bamboo tubes shaken to produce a note), but also flutes, gamelan orchestras may have as many as 100 members. The sound produced by a gamelan can range from harmonious to eerie, with the tempo and intensity of sound undulating on a regular basis. Expect to hear powerful waves of music one minute and a single instrument holding court the next.
Balinese gamelan is more dramatic and varied than the refined Javanese forms, but all gamelan music has a hypnotic and haunting effect. It always accompanies Balinese and Javanese dance, and can also be heard in dedicated gamelan concerts, particularly in Solo and Yogyakarta in Java. Similar types of ensembles are also found elsewhere, such as the telempong of West Sumatra.
Another ethereal traditional music is West Java's serene kacapi suling, which features the kacapi (a harplike instrument) and suling (a bamboo flute).
Rock legend Iwan Fals has been around for decades but still packs stadiums. His anti-establishment bent has caused him to be arrested several times.
'ANTIPORN' & OTHER RESTRICTIVE LAWS
One issue that continues to stir emotions in Indonesia is the 'antipornography' law finally passed by parliament and signed into law in 2008 after years of debate. Promoted by Islamic parties, the law has a very wide definition of pornography that can potentially be applied to every kind of visual, textual or sound communication or performance, and even conversations and gestures. Many traditional forms of behaviour across the archipelago are technically illegal – from wearing penis gourds on Papua, to the modest gyrations of traditional Javanese dancers (to say nothing of the brazenly topless on Bali’s beaches).
Exactly what the antiporn law means is ill-defined. Behaviour not sanctioned in some areas continues in others. Although singled out by a quasi-governmental group for being 'immoral' in 2009, yoga on Bali is being taught and practised by more people than ever. And there have been assurances from the government that Balinese dance and other cultural forms of expression across the archipelago are safe from the law's ill-defined strictures. Opponents of the law include some secular political parties as well as women's, human-rights, regional, Christian, artists' and performers' groups and tourism industry interests.
Many internet providers block a wide range of sites deemed immoral and there has been a general chilling of freedom of expression. In 2011, the popular singer Ariel (aka Nazril Irham) was sentenced to more than three years in prison when a sex tape he made ended up on the internet, after his laptop was stolen. He was released in 2012 and has taken to performing with his band Noah overseas to escape the restrictions at home.
Recently there have been other efforts to curb behaviour seen as antithetical to more traditional Muslim beliefs:
Restrictive alcohol sales laws passed and modified in 2015.
Plans announced by Jakarta city counselors to require all nightclubs to close at midnight.
Of course given the range attitudes across the archipelago, the enforcement and interpretation of such dictates varies widely.
Contemporary
Indonesia has a massive contemporary music scene that spans all genres. The popular dangdut is a melange of traditional and modern, Indonesian and foreign musical styles that features instruments such as electric guitars and Indian tablas, and rhythms ranging from Middle Eastern pop to reggae or salsa. The result is sexy, love-drunk songs sung by heartbroken women or cheesy men, accompanied by straight-faced musicians in matching suits. The beats are gutsy, the emotion high, the singing evocative and the dancing often provocative.
The writhings of dangdut star Inul Daratista (whose adopted stage name means 'the girl with breasts') were one reason behind the passage of Indonesia's controversial 'antipornography' legislation. She continues to sell out large venues around the archipelago.
No discussion of modern Indonesian music is complete without mention of the punk band Superman is Dead. From its start on Bali in 1995, the three-man group has gained fans across the country and the world. These days they're known for their environmental crusades.
The glossy monthly English-language magazine Jakarta Java Kini (http://emag.jjk.co.id/) contains interesting articles on what's hot in the arts and entertainment, with a Jakarta focus. Another good source of Jakarta and Bali cultural news is The Beat (http://beatmag.com).
Painting
Galleries in the wealthier neighbourhoods of Jakarta are the epicentre of Indonesia's contemporary art scene, which has flourished with a full panoply of installations, sculptures, performance art and more, and which can be either extremely original, eye-catching and thought-provoking, or the opposite. Jakarta (www.jakartabiennale.net) and Yogyakarta (www.biennalejogja.org) both hold big biennale art events.
Traditionally, painting was an art for decorating palaces and places of worship, typically with religious or legendary subject matter. Foreign artists in Bali in the 1930s inspired a revolution in painting: artists began to depict everyday scenes in new, more realistic, less crowded canvases. Others developed an attractive 'primitivist' style. Much Balinese art today is mass-produced tourist-market stuff, though there are also talented and original artists, especially in and around Ubud. Indonesia's most celebrated 20th-century painter was the Javanese expressionist Affandi (1907–90), who liked to paint by squeezing the paint straight out of the tube.
Architecture
Indonesia is home to a vast and spectacular variety of architecture, from religious and royal buildings to traditional styles of home-building, which can differ hugely from one part of the archipelago to another. Indian, Chinese, Arabic and European influences have all added their mark to locally developed styles.
The great 8th- and 9th-century temples of Borobudur, Prambanan and the Dieng Plateau, in Central Java, all show the Indian influence that predominated in the Hindu-Buddhist period. Indian style, albeit with a distinctive local flavour, persists today in the Hindu temples of Bali, where the leaders of the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit kingdom took refuge after being driven from Java in the 16th century.
Bali Style (1995), by Barbara Walker and Rio Helmi, is a lavishly photographed look at Balinese design, architecture and interior decoration. It captured a spare, tropical look that spawned oodles of copycat books and magazines and is today almost a cliche.
Traditional Houses
For their own homes Indonesians developed a range of eye-catching structures whose grandeur depended on the family that built them. Timber construction, often with stilts, and elaborate thatched roofs of palm leaves or grass are common to many traditional housing forms around the archipelago. The use of stilts helps to reduce heat and humidity and avoid mud, floods and pests. Tana Toraja in Sulawesi, Pulau Nias off Sumatra, and the Batak and Minangkabau areas of Sumatra exhibit some of the most spectacular vernacular architecture, with high, curved roofs.
Royal Palaces
Royal palaces around Indonesia are often developments of basic local housing styles, even if far more elaborate as in the case of Javanese kraton (walled palaces). Yogyakarta's kraton is effectively a city within a city inhabited by over 25,000 people. On Bali, where royal families still exist – even if they often lack power – the 'palaces' are much more humble.
Colonial Buildings
The Dutch colonists initially built poorly ventilated houses in European style but eventually a hybrid Indo-European style emerged, using elements such as the Javanese pendopo (open-sided pavilion) and joglo (a high-pitched roof). International styles such as art deco started to arrive in the late 19th century as large numbers of factories, train stations, hotels, hospitals and other public buildings went up in the later colonial period. Bandung in Java has one of the world's largest collections of 1920s art deco buildings.
The Banda Islands in Maluku are a virtual theme park of Dutch colonial architecture with old forts and streets lined with old columned buildings sporting shady verandas.
Modern Architecture
Early independent Indonesia had little money to spare for major building projects, though President Sukarno did find the funds for a few pres
tige projects such as Jakarta's huge and resplendent Mesjid Istiqlal. The economic progress of the Suharto years saw Indonesia's cities spawn their quota of standard international high-rise office blocks and uninspired government buildings, though tourism helped to foster original, even spectacular, hybrids of local and international styles in hotels and resorts. Bali in particular has some properties renowned for their architecture around the coast (especially on the Bukit Peninsula) and overlooking the river valleys near Ubud.
Balinese Architecture
The basic feature of Balinese architecture is the bale (pronounced 'ba-lay'), a rectangular, open-sided pavilion with a steeply pitched roof of palm thatch. A family compound will have a number of bale for eating, sleeping and working. The focus of a community is the bale banjar, a large pavilion for meeting, debate, gamelan practice and so on. Buildings such as restaurants and the lobby areas of hotels are often modelled on the bale – they are airy, spacious and handsomely proportioned.
Lonely Planet Indonesia Page 143