Ngaju Religion

Book excerpt: Hans Scharer was born at Wadenswil (near Zurich), Switzerland, in 1904. After his school years, he was trained for (Protestant) mis sionary work at the Missionshaus in BiHe. For seven years, 1932-1939, he lived among the Ngaju in southern Borneo; first with the Ngaju speaking people of the Katingan river area, later, for a shorter period. with those living along the Barito. He was granted European leave in 1939, and spent the years 1939-1944 studying Ethnology (as it then was called) under Professor J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong at Leiden University. He went home to Switzerland in 1944, but returned to Leiden in 1946 to complete his studies and defend his Ph. D. thesis on Die Gottesidee der N gadju Dajak in Sud-Borneo. It is this thesis which. published by E.J. Brill, Leiden, in 1946, is now being re-issued in English translation. Soon after, he left once more for the Ngaju territory, as Praeses of the Baseler Mission in south Borneo. He died there suddenly on December 10th, 1947, of blood-poisoning. These few biographical data are not merely of some slight historical interest: they help us to understand the man and his work. The present book is Scharer's only major work to have been published, and for Scharer himself it was, in a way, an experiment.