Stone structures found throughout South-East Asia are connected with religious life, as a medium to connect the living with the dead. As the word megalith holds ‘a romantic appeal to Europeans’ (Waterson, 1990: 23), these stone structures have been labelled megaliths. The stones in the Ngadha villages of Flores are concrete manifestations of the villagers’ culture; they are personified as ancestors and are perceived as essential to the well-being of the villagers.

Through the analysis of a ritual, which was observed in 1998, and focused on the moving of a clan’s stones, this paper illustrates how the megaliths are part of the contemporary lives of the villagers. However, their view of the megaliths is in opposition to state policy and the tourists’ view of them.

Indonesian state development policy has been premised on the belief that traditional culture represents an obstacle to socio-economic development (Dove, 1998: 1; Koentjaraningrat, 1971202–03). This same traditional culture is now regarded as an essential attraction for tourism, something to be preserved not annihilated (cf. Adams, (1984) for similar findings in Toraja, South Sulawesi). However, the megaliths, protected by state law, are transformed into heritage and thus assigned to the past. Furthermore, there is an essential contradiction in state policy that sponsors modernization on the one hand and protects and preserves aspects of their material culture on the other.

The tourist literature, guidebooks and government pamphlets use megaliths as ethnic markers of Ngadha society. Megaliths are potent symbols of a primitive and traditional society. The tourists experience confusion; lacking interpretation, they view megaliths, put to profane use, alongside village Catholic graves. They therefore view the megaliths as poorly conserved tourist attractions that relate to the villagers’ past, rather than contemporary symbols of the villagers’ relations with their ancestors.