Ritual communication, custom, and reflective tolerance in the Tengger Ngadas indigenous community of East Java, Indonesia

Social tolerance is a fundamental but fragile condition in religiously diverse societies such as Indonesia, where formal policies and interfaith forums have not fully prevented recurrent conflicts and everyday intolerance. This article asks how an indigenous community sustains social tolerance not primarily through state regulation or doctrinal teaching, but through ritual communication embedded in customary practices. Focusing on the Tengger Ngadas indigenous community in East Java, we examine how ritual communication, custom, and social education interact to cultivate what Forst calls “reflective tolerance. Using an interpretive ethnographic approach, we conducted long-term fieldwork in Ngadas, including participant observation of major rituals ( Kasadha, Karo, Entas-entas, Barikan ) and everyday mutual-help traditions ( gentenan, sayan, cecelukan ), as well as in-depth interviews with customary and religious leaders and other community members. Data were analysed using Miles et al.’s interactive model, combined with iterative, emic–etic interpretation and member checking. Ethical procedures included informed consent, anonymization of sensitive narratives, and continuous reflexive scrutiny of the researcher's positionality. The findings show that ritual communication in Ngadas works on three interconnected dimensions: religious (collective effervescence and shared sacred narratives), cultural (custom as a moral grammar and value filter), and educational (experiential social learning across generations). Nonverbal participation in rituals functions as a public, non-discursive communication system that renews collective identity and regulates potential tensions between religious groups. At the same time, participation is shaped by social expectations and power relations, revealing both inclusive and ambivalent aspects of ritual as a mechanism of tolerance. Conceptually, the article proposes a model of “ritual communication for reflective tolerance” in which ritual acts as a mediation space, custom operates as a value filter, and everyday social education serves as a transmission mechanism. This model refines Carey's ritual communication paradigm by integrating Durkheim's collective effervescence, Geertz's symbolic systems, and Forst's theory of tolerance within a specific indigenous context. Practically, the study offers a locally grounded reference for character education and interfaith dialogue programs in Indonesia and comparable plural societies.