Punks, Monks and Politics by Julian C H Lee Marco Ferrarese

Author:Julian C H Lee, Marco Ferrarese [Julian C H Lee, Marco Ferrarese]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786600219
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2018-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Culture as Art

From Practice to Spectacle in Indonesia

Greg Acciaioli

My fieldwork in Indonesia began with a foray into the mountains of Central Sulawesi in 1980. I accompanied the camat1 or subdistrict officer on an official tour of the Da’a-speaking area in the mountains to the west of the provincial capital city of Palu. Curious to ascertain the extent to which these Western Toraja2 people still practised the customs described by early Dutch missionaries (e.g., Kruyt 1926, 1938), I relied on him as an interpreter in my initial enquiries on household structure, bridewealth and inheritance. That first night the villagers of Rondingo assembled in front of their meeting house (bantaya in Da’a) in response to the camat’s command. He ordered them to sing the songs of the lalundu and roya cycles, haunting chants interspersed with solo recitatives about the passing of the seasons and the cycle of planting and harvesting. As my journal entry for this initiatory night in the field ran:

I feel like a real anthropologist at some hallowed ritual as the pressure lamp lights the faces of the huddling villagers (it is really cold). At first I think there is nothing contrived here, but then I realize this is a performance for the camat’s benefit, and it is just that—a performance and not a spontaneous ritual. The camat has them turn to the roya cycle, which he dutifully tape-records. And later he tells them all that they must come to his home to sing these songs again. But they must also come up with some kind of dance to accompany them. Nothing like legislating art. This is what the bupati [district head] must have meant by encouraging the development of kesenian daerah [regional art]. (Field journal, 13/9/80)

After this performance, the camat and his team delivered a series of exhortatory speeches to the local populace. His own talk centred on the theme of Pancasila, the Five Principles (belief in a Supreme Being, humanitarianism, nationalism, representative government and social justice)3 officially invoked as the basis of the Indonesian state. He emphasized especially the role of religion (agama), specifically the Salvation Army (Bala Kesalamatan)4 in this area, as a ‘glowing torch’ in whose light the inhabitants could purify themselves and progress (maju). Such progress required ‘developing their art’ (mengembangkan kesenian), but only those aspects that did not conflict with religion.

I was to hear this speech in every village to which we walked, each time with thrust unchanged. Villagers were admonished to live in compact villages rather than dispersed field huts so that everyone could go to school and church and assemble for group labour oriented to development (pembangunan). Only thus, in the camat’s words, would they cease to live as monkeys, pissing and shitting on graves. Over and over the camat emphasized the need to learn dances so as to be in tune with the culture (kebudayaan) of the provincial capital Palu. Indeed, the presentations of local custom (adat) with which we were regaled during the day bore witness to the progress

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