<![CDATA[The position of women within the spiritual domain of indigenous communities had often been perceived as participants in ritual practices rather than as actors with spiritual authority. However, the customary life of the Dayak Lawangan community showed that women holding the position of Mandong Mayang had played an important spiritual role in traditional ceremonies as companions and supporters of the Balian or ritual leaders. This study aimed to analyze the construction, negotiation, and strategies for maintaining the spiritual authority of Mandong Dayang women in Dayak Lawangan ritual practices in Dusun Tengah District, Barito Timur Regency, Central Kalimantan. This study employed a qualitative approach with an ethnographic perspective. Data were collected through participatory observation, semi-structured in-depth interviews with 10 informants, and documentation studies. The data were analyzed using the Miles and Huberman model through data condensation, data display, and conclusion verification. The findings revealed that women’s spiritual authority had been constructed through ritual knowledge mastery, ritual experience, and collective recognition, transforming cultural and social capital into symbolic capital. This authority had been maintained through ritual knowledge reproduction, social service, community relationship preservation, cultural value transmission, and moral exemplarity. These processes enabled spiritual authority to develop into cultural leadership that contributed to social cohesion, tradition continuity, and the collective identity of the Dayak Lawangan community. This study implied that social-spiritual legitimacy reproduction provided a framework for understanding the construction, negotiation, maintenance, and transformation of women’s spiritual authority in indigenous societies.]]>
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