Kategori: The KIBS's Papers | Diterbitkan pada: 30-10-2008 |
By Robert Wessing
Introduction
During my first fieldwork in
Since that early fieldwork, and especially in the past decade, considerable attention has been paid to the meaning of the local landscape to its inhabitants (cf. Fox 1997b) and it has come to be realized that things like place names may contain significant, sometimes secret, local information that often may only be told at specific locations and times (cf. Osseweijer n.d.: 5, 8).
The contributions to Fox (1997b), however, generally discuss units larger than the local community, dealing with how “Timor is mapped” or with “
However, while people living in local hamlets may to varying degrees be aware of the topogenetic tales that define the larger landscape or territory, this larger unit is not where they primarily live. Rather, their lives, especially in the past, were and decreasingly are spent in local hamlets whose territory is correspondingly defined by locally relevant markers. As is shown in Wessing (in press b), in
The Hamlet
Thus far I have spoken of hamlets (kampung) rather than villages (desa). The reason for this is that for the Sundanese the kampung rather than the desa has long been the significant unit, the desa being a rather recent development among them. Until early in the 20th century the Sundanese generally preferred cultivating huma (dry fields) in hill kampung, protected from floods, wild animals and perhaps also predation by the government (cf. De Haan 1910-12, I:31). Populations were small, normally under ten households (De Haan 1910-12, III: 203; Van Marle 1862: 2). Colonial officials tried to consolidate these scattered communities into villages, but their efforts tended to be less than successful. Furthermore, even where villages were created, the kampung and its lands remained the primary unit, which proved difficult to unite with the other hamlet-land combi-nations in the village (Korn 1941: 122), people having little liking for the new arrangements (Van Dam 1937:81).
In the past, prior to the present high levels of population, hamlets within a village might also be quite far removed from each other, each lying amidst its own fields and being connected to the others by a path that often ran through dark, lonely patches of forest, thought to be inhabited by unpredictable and thus dangerous spirits. Consequently, people were afraid to travel between kampung and thus had little intercourse with people from hamlets other than their own (cf. Judistira Garna 1984:229, 233, 237). These places were considered far away, which referred not so much to physical distance as to the ‘otherness’ one might encounter along the path leading to them (cf. Tuan 1977:47, 136).
The founding of a hamlet begins with the definition of a boundary point that demarcates the sphere of the spirits from that of the future hamlet. Since it directly deals with the spirits, this act must be seen as a religious one with which the founder creates a place, a particular point, which is a human cultural entity from the previously undifferentiated and perhaps chaotic space of the forest (cf. Tuan 1977:56, 104). If after a while nothing adverse occurs, a sign that the spirits concur with the founder’s activities, this boundary point is then expanded into a space of its own. We therefore have two kinds of spaces, one embedded within the other: that of the forest in which the spirits live and the expanded boundary point (place) within which people are active. The original boundary point, which later becomes an altar to the cooperating nature spirit (tukuh lembur), now is one of the markers that define the hamlet. Other markers will later include the grave of the founder and other sites in the community, both positive and negative. Together these places define the space of human cultural order, the hamlet, which in turn started as a ritually demarcated place in the forest. This order imbues the space with meaning, changing it, in Smith’s terms (1992:28) into place, based on the marking of significant loci (cf. Fox 1997a:1; Tuan 1977:56).
It is in the hamlet, therefore, that we find the significant loci that are important in this discussion. I mentioned earlier that these loci are located on the hamlet’s boundary. Unlike those of villages, however, the boundaries of hamlets in
As with the topogenies, stories are told about these markers and the persons or entities associated with them. Like the markers themselves, these myths are local in nature, relating to the doings and adventures of local ancestors and spirits. In principle, however, they do not vary much from one community to the next, just like life does not vary that much between them. These myths tell how the community came into being and who the locally relevant spirit entities are, both the approved ones and those disapproved of. As O’Flaherty (1988:35) observes, these may not be true stories, but rather tales that people can infuse with their own truth – a truth that is then again necessarily local and based on local realities. Through their connection with the markers and their connection with the founders of the community, the tales gain authority and become a sacralized local history (cf. Mitchell 2001:10), further imbuing the landscape with meaning and defining the bounded landscape within which the community lives. Like the topogenies, then, the markers and their associated stories delineate the hamlet’s territory, facilitating the localization of an extended body of knowledge about ‘local’ history and relationships (cf. Fox 1997a:2, 13), but here on a community level. In this way they create a unique localized group referring to local myths, that contrasts with other such groupings elsewhere in the topogeny’s reach (cf. Appadurai 1995:209).
The Sacred Field
Elsewhere (Wessing in press b) I have called such units a sacred field. To understand this we must look first at the relationship between the founder of the hamlet and the nature spirit who is said to own the land on which the hamlet stands, and secondly at the relationship between the present inhabitants and the ancestors who laid down the rules for a good life, the adat. Since the adat contains within it the rules for dealing with the hamlet’s spirits, both ancestral and nature, the two are closely related.
It has long been recognized, that Southeast Asian rural communities, here specifically those in West Java, could in a general sense be characterized as religious communities (Mus 1975; Korn 1932:79-86, 180), in that daily life is governed by a set of sacred rules, the adat (cf. Wessing in press b). Villages were effectively the cosmological center for their inhabitants and as such have indeed been called moral entities; to ignore the rules governing interaction between people and between people and spirits (see below) within this center was to court disaster (cf. Van den Berge 1993:59). This does not mean, of course, that they were the closed corporate units of colonial imagination (cf. Breman 1988; Holtzappel 1986:105ff). Rather, the hamlet was the center of its inhabitants’ world, in which the ancestors and the nature spirits, the spirits most relevant in daily life were part of the local reality.
This relationship with the nature spirits came about when the leader of a group, the founder of the hamlet, and his or her kin and followers invaded the land they were to settle. This land was seen as owned by the spirits and thus their permission had to be obtained before the land could be cleared. If this were not done, the new hamlet would not prosper and illness and death might follow. The details would take us too far afield for the purposes of this article (cf. Domenig 1988) but obtaining this permission eventually involved the spirit in a cult and a set of mutual obligations with the community. As long as the community met its obligations to the spirit world, usually including an annual feast (seren taun), the spirit(s) in turn would guard the welfare of the people, assuring them of abundant harvests and fertile livestock. To be able to deal with the spirits and bend them to his will, a founder was obviously no ordinary person (cf. Lehman 1997). Often he is said to have been the scion of a noble house who was not in line for succession, or a pious Muslim whose powers came from God (Wessing 1999c:61; cf. Lehman 1981:104). Some are said to have enlisted the aid of wild animals, such as tigers, in clearing the forest (Wessing 1999b).
Whether noble or pious, such a person is thought to have had special cosmic powers, akin to the Javanese kesakten described by
The sacred field within which the ritual of people’s daily lives took place, was and often still is a function of a line that runs between the grave of the founder and the place where the guardian spirit is thought to reside (cf. Wessing in press b). This line bisects the community, acting as a diameter that defines the circle of the sacred field. In hamlets founded by a pious Muslim, a slightly different pattern is found since such person cannot, of course, have dealings with the spirit world. Here we find that an Islamic Jin has taken over the function of the guardian spirit while the end of the line that starts at the founder’s grave in theory extends all the way to
To summarize, in the above I discussed how the internal order of kampung came about through the cooperation of humans and nature spirits, mediated by the rules laid down in the local adat. Through this cooperation Sundanese villages as sacred spaces came into existence, defined or bounded by significant spiritually potent places. As will be seen, it is through the interaction of the inhabitants of the hamlet with these places, both individually and on occasion communally, that a feeling of a ‘shared’ understanding develops among them in which the memories of individual experiences become links between them (cf. Mitchell 2001:10). In the next section I shall give a sketch of some of these significant points in a particular kampung, to wit kampung Gajah Kantor in the kecamatan (district) Soreang, kabupaten (Regency) of
Places and Tales
Gajah Kantor is today one of the kampung in the village (desa) Gajah Mekar. At the time of my 1970-71 fieldwork, however, Gajah was part of the village Pameuntasan (Wessing 1978a). Gajah Kantor is said to be the eldest kampung of the village, having been the place where the founder, Embah Andui, first started a hamlet after the fall of the court of Batulayang circa 1802. Gajah Kantor lies along the river Citarum, its northern boundary. To the east and west it is bounded respectively by the streams Cipari and Cijaruwah, both originating in the hills lying to the west of the kampung. Their springs, as is common in
The sites and stories associated with Gajah’s markers can be divided into two general categories: tales and places dealing with graves of the founder and other important figures in the local history, and stories about caves and spirits. Except for Embah Andui’s grave, the important graves are located on top of a hill just outside Gajah, Gunung Lalakon. Most of the spirit entities are distributed on the lower slopes of Gunung Lalakon and another hill, Gunung Paseban. As told by the villagers, especially the stories about historical persons should not be taken as historically correct. Villagers generally do not know the exact details of events and, like people everywhere, really, depend on word of mouth and second hand stories for their information. Like is the case with myths, O’Flaherty’s (1988:35) observation that these are tales upon which truth is based is applicable here: these tales are true to the inhabitants and give meaning to their lives and their hamlet.
Embah Andui
Embah Andui, is said to have been a jago (strong man) who came from Panyalu near Galuh, fleeing from the Dutch forced labor. Before coming to this area he drifted from paguron to paguron (place of learning) in search of magic to give him kesaktian (cosmic power) and pluck. He even went to the paguron Dalem Tumpang in Cimahi but eventually ended up here, having heard that there was a paguron in Mahmud, just across the river. But, rather than magic, Islam was taught in Mahmud, as well as Pencak Silat. Embah Andui learned very quickly and became a good Muslim while his ilmu (esoteric knowledge) surpassed that of all the students at Mahmud. Indeed, once he was challenged to a fight by Embah Karir, who could change himself into a tiger and wanted to coba (test) Embah Andui. The challenge was that the loser would have to be taat (loyal and obedient) to the winner. Embah Andui won and to this day Embah Karir is said to guard his grave in tigrine form (cf. Wessing 1986; 1995).
All the land here originally belonged to Embah Andui. A bit more than half the land was inherited by his sons, and the rest was given to those who had helped him settle the area and clear the land so that these were sort of considered to be sons as well. Embah Andui’s grave lies on the eastern border of Gajah Kantor and is a source of protection and help. Various stories are told of people in trouble who appealed to Embah Andui’s spirit and had their problems magically disappear. These stories vary from a man who lost important keys for which he was responsible to another who was possessed by a forest spirit because he had felled a tree without this spirit’s permission. Only those living in Gajah go to this grave, however, as they are considered to be Embah Andui’s descendants.
Mahnaba
Normally, as was pointed out earlier, a kampung would be under the protection of a nature spirit who had been coopted into this position by the founder. This was indeed the case in the kampung Nyalindung (Sumedang), Guradog (Lebak), Naga (Tasikmalaya), Dukuh (Garut) and in the Kesepuhan kampung of Cipta Rasa on Mt. Halimun, although in 1998 the belief was fading in Nyalindung and Guradog and not admitted to outsiders in Naga (cf. Wessing in press b). This spirit, often said to be a female entity that manifests as a snake, is responsible for, or the embodiment of the general fertility of the hamlet. An appeal to this spirit can sometimes bring relief, though usually it does not concern itself with private matters and only looks out for the hamlet as a whole, in cooperation with the spirit of the founder.
Since Embah Andui was a pious Muslim, he did not, of course, enter into deals with heathen nature spirits. Instead, Gajah is guarded by the Islamic jin Mahnaba, who, not being a nature spirit and thus not having an abode in the soil, moves through Gajah at regular intervals, pausing at various langgar (prayer houses) and mosques. Otherwise he is much like the nature spirit in that appeals to him may bring relief from trouble and that he looks out for the welfare of Gajah’s inhabitants, especially their morality.
Hills
As Hidding (1933:470-1; 1935:34-5) long ago pointed out, mountains are a natural boundary of the settled area and as such part of that strange area where the world of humans ends and another life starts. Mountains are the places where important deceased are buried and where sacred sites are found, the object of pilgrimages. Among these mountains we may also count the hills around Gajah, in the past heavily forested and full of danger. Like elsewhere in
In the administrative area of Gajah Mekar itself, e.g. the official territory of the desa, no hills or mountains are found. Hills, however, begin to rise almost immediately beyond the village boundary, both on the road to Jelegong and to Kopo. While not officially part of Gajah, these bounding hills were nevertheless significant in the folklore of Gajah Kantor, especially those toward Jelegong. These hills were the source of the streams that encompass Gajah’s territory, as well as the location of various kinds of spirits; nature ones as well as those of important persons.
On the hill Buni Buana (hidden world; see sketch map) lies the grave of Eyang Santoan Kobul, who was related to the old dalem Batulayang. While not directly related to the people of Gajah, the title eyang (ancestor) makes him into a generalized protector. He is said to have come to Buni Buana from
Two other important graves, those of Adipati Ukur and Sembah Prabu Surialagakusumah are believed to lie on gunung Lalakon. Adipati Ukur, the hero of a failed 17th century revolt against the Dutch, was caught and executed by the ruler of Mataram. Local folklore has it that his body was cut into two parts, one of which now lies buried on Mt. Lalakon (cf. Ekadjati 1982; Rosidi 1985:88-100). Like Eyang Santoan Kobul, Sembah Surialagakusumah was related to the ruling house of Batulayang. The approach to this grave is marked by two boundary stones, symbolically setting this area off from the territory around it and possibly acting as a ‘container’ of the power of the grave (Wessing 1988b).
Spirits
Two named spirits are found in these hills as well. The first, located on an unnamed hill, is Embah Sanusi, an earth spirit (siluman) (cf. Moestapa 1946:87, n.5). From its association with the spring Cimuja (from puja, to venerate) it could be speculated that this is the original guardian spirit (dhanyang; see note 15 above) of the area, with whom Embah Andui refused to associate. Nothing much, either positive or negative, is told about Embah Sanusi. This is unlike Embah Batu Gajah, another earth spirit located on
Other Places
Finally there are a few places that informants indicate as strange, though no spirits are associated with them. The first of these is the Renges stone (Batu Rengis) on the slope of
Water
As was mentioned earlier, hamlets often lie in the bend or oxbow of a river or at the confluence of two streams, the water of which flows, in one direction or the other, between the grave of the founder and the place where the protective spirit resides. So important is this feature that where it is naturally lacking, it may be created by the construction of a canal.
Gajah too lies between two streams, the first of which is the Cipari, which originates at Pancuran Tujuh on Mt. Pasir Gambir, near Pasir Buni Buana. This stream, which flows north from here into the Citarum, forms the eastern boundary of Gajah. Although the spring is not considered particularly angker (eerie), it does have an Anu ngageugeug, a resident spirit. People who came to this spring to purify themselves before the Muslim prayer (wudlu) were unable to tell me this spirit’s name. Yet, one informant calls the water of this stream cikahuripan, the water of life, perhaps reflecting its symbolic importance to the hamlet since its position as Gajah’s eastern boundary brings it near Embah Andui’s grave.
Gajah’s western boundary is formed by the Cijaruwah whose spring is located at the foot of the hill on which Embah Sanusi resides, the spirit about whom I earlier speculated that he might be the original spirit-owner of the area. The water from the Cijaruwah crosses an irrigation canal by being led through bamboo pipes into a holding tank. From there it is allowed to follow its natural course. The two springs, then, lie not too far removed from each other, and their streams may be seen as embracing (ngahapit) the hamlet, the one associated with Embah Sanusi and the other with Embah Andui. To this we must add the spring of the Cimuja, located farther up the same hill. The water from this source is said to be very angker (supernaturally charged) but informants added nothing further. Springs then are angker and have a penunggu (guardian) which often takes the form of a (female) snake. There are also spirits in the streams themselves. Thus, the river Citarum, where it flows along our hamlet, is the
Springs and streams, then, are important features of the local sacred landscape. They, or perhaps the spirits that guard them and are associated with untamed fertility (cf. Wessing 1999a), provide the water of life. Having once drunk the local water, it is said that one must always return, e.g., one has an unbreakable tie with the place, which is now part of oneself. Similarly, the afterbirth of, especially male, children may be put into the stream, making this ‘sibling’ part of the local landscape’s periphery. This does not mean, of course, that the water of these rivers and streams is always sacred; it is so only in ritual contexts (Smith 1992:103-6). Yet, since life within the sacred field must be seen as a ritual, this sacrality is never far removed.
Ancestors
Finally, there are the ancestors, the immediate forebears of the inhabitants of the hamlet. Other than the apical ancestor, the founder of the hamlet, who looks after the community as a whole, these spirits are more concerned with the welfare, but also the behavior of their descendants. Their spirits are invited to all family rituals, and their help and advice is sought in times of difficulty. Forebears are therefore seen as a source of aid and blessing for their descendants, as long as these continue to honor them through visits to their graves at ritual times and adherence to the commands and taboos laid down by them. While today the dead are buried in community grave yards, in the past this was done on the house-plot, near their old house. Since the spirits of the deceased are thought to retain an attraction to their remains, this practice would tie their spirits to the house-yard and their descendants (Rikin 1973:27). This attachment to their ancestors leads many people to return to the ancestral hamlet (mulih ka kampung) at least once a year during Idul Fithri (the end of the Muslim fast). In common with Austronesian practice elsewhere (cf. Thomas 1997), if the present kampung is an offshoot from a previous one, visits may be made to the founder and ancestors in the elder hamlet as well, e.g. during bersih desa, the ritual of reconciliation between people and spirits at harvest time (cf. Sufia Isa 1971).
In summary, while more spirits could be mentioned, we have seen how the boundary of Gajah is defined, or comes into being, through a set of potent sites. These sites are created through a narrowing of ritual focus on them, an elaboration of relative differences that defines the distinction between the site and the rest of the hamlet (Lévi-Strauss 1981:672). In other words, power is focussed and concentrated, making it accessible to those who would handle it and removing it from the access by others (Smith 1992:109-111). They mark the transition between the inhabited, adat-governed hamlet, and the realm of the other (O’Flaherty 1988:3), the spirits with their positive and negative influences: graves that are the source of wellbeing, and sites of wild spirits that are visited for private gain and, often, anti-social activities. However, whether approved or disapproved, these are part of the local reality and help to define Gajah as a place and make up the hamlet’s topogeny, ‘the framework for the “placement” of more extended knowledge’ (Fox 1997a:13) about the place and its history.
Weaving Meaning
The insider in-the-know is aware of these places, their difference from the ordinary elements of the community having been more or less clearly marked, or at least commented upon in myths and stories. While some of the knowledge is common to most people living in the hamlet, other, more esoteric information about graves or spirits is controlled by specific persons (kuncen; intermediaries) (cf. Osseweijer n.d.:8). Each such location, Fox points out (1997a:13), has inherent within it the possibility for an ‘elaboration of knowledge’ and thus also for an adaptation to prevailing current of opinion, as we see, for instance in the altered image of Embah Andui since 1970 and the, apparently, changed position of Embah Sanusi. Being the acknowledged intermediary to a site, therefore, gives a person a degree of power over its message (cf. Heringa 1997) and thus also over the shape of the local cosmos. But, however the associated event may be reinterpreted, the place where it is commemorated is ‘for ever mnemonic’ (Fox 1997a:17; cf. Smith 1992:112), at least of its current version.
The knowledge about these places within the local landscape is embedded in stories, what
The telling of the tales, therefore, is an act of communion (O’Flaherty 1988:148) rather than just communication. The stories are familiar, except to the very young who might hear them for the first time. They are tales about the community and thus about the people themselves, about their relations, both social and spiritual, and about their common experience. These are sacred stories from which flows their ‘web of meaning,’ to borrow a term from Geertz (1973). This is the glue that holds together the social reality, both here and now and over time. In so far as at ritual times a hamlet can be seen to be acted together (see below), through these tales it can be said to be ‘told together’ as well. This process of learning the stories and their associated markers creates insiders, those who are in the know and participate in the local process, and who can thus be identified. At the same time, the oral presentation of the stories (Van den Berge 1993:2-3) will tend to promote local versions of even wider known myths, versions not immediately subject to tests of accuracy and correction that written versions would be subject to.
Identity
Participation in the local reality begins at least at birth. Disposing of the afterbirth either in the river or on the house plot makes the person’s spirit siblings (dulur opat) part of the sacred locality in which the persons ancestors are buried as well; and burying him or her in its ground after death completes the process of linking succeeding generations to the locality. In between, the person is socialized into the local customs and lore, competence in which it is hoped will created ‘reliable local subjects’ and produce ‘reliable local neighbourhoods’ (Appadurai 1995:205-8). It is the physical setting and the associated tales that create for the participant a sense of belonging, of being home (cf. Fox 1997a:91). These are strong feelings, Mitchell (2001:12) observes, both emotionally and physically. Home is where a person’s origins lie and where his identity is rooted, and where he or she must return at ritually important times. Rootedness in a place, and through it a connectedness with other persons, with the ancestors, with the spirits, and with significant places, constitutes the social person (cf. Tuan 1977:140-157).
The basis for this rootedness lies, of course, in a person’s childhood experiences. New babies are introduced to the local soil (nurunkeun) and the ancestors (Fox 1997a:49) and from earliest childhood they participate in the community’s activities. Like elsewhere in
Being There
This then is a process, in which the symbolically experienced locality and its associated tales mutually constitute each other in the shape of a community, and together are the context in or through which recognizable persons are constituted (cf. Appadurai 1995:204). The key words here are, of course, symbolically experienced, since without the participation of those recognizable persons, rocks and spring would just be that, and the tales that speak of extra dimensions would not exist.
The first symbolic experience of these places as was pointed out above, is in youth, as the child listens to and is perhaps frightened by the various tales, and participates to varying degrees in the rituals associated with some of these places. The exposure is not limited to this, however, as usually once a year the community as a whole gathers to celebrate itself and its relationship with at least the socially approved spirit entities we have discussed here. On this occasion the most important spirits, usually the ancestors and the protective spirit, are invited and feasted in a celebration that bears witness to the fact that the descendants continue to follow the adat of their forebears and to honor the agreements of the ancestors. This is true is more Islamic communities as well, though here the one that is honored is, of course, God. As Mitchell (2001:10) points out, the physical act of participating in such an event is the interface between what the individual experiences and the power points of the hamlet. Having experienced it, the individual attributes a ‘sharing’ of feelings to other participants in the community.
These celebrations have varying names, the most common of them being seren taun and its Islamized variant, ngabungbang. In kampung Naga (Tasikmalaya) there is a bi-monthly variant, called hajat sasih (month feast). The Seren taun is a ritual during which thanks are given for an adequate or abundant harvest. Kusnaka Adimihardja (1992:196) writes that the ancestors are thanked, though considering that the procession that is part of the celebration also links the founder’s grave with the spirit’s altar, more than just the ancestors are involved here. Ngabungbang takes place as part of Muludan, the celebration of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. During this celebration groups of people spend the night visiting the various sacred graves and chanting verses from the Qur’an over them, and over water and perfume that are placed on the grave and taken home afterwards, infused with the power of the grave and/or the chant. During the ngabungbang activities in Gajah only the various focal graves were visited and not the locations of siluman and jin. This last may have been a more recent development, however, since Prawirasuganda (1964:103) writes that people visit whatever place they consider keramat (sacred).
One common component in these activities is a communal procession to various defining points in the hamlet: in Naga and Cipta Rasa (
Parkin (1992) proposes that ritual is a ‘formulaic spatiality,’ that acts and creates through movement. In ritual performance, therefore, physical movement expresses the thing people want to express, e.g. the action performs the intent. Earlier I depicted the hamlet as a sacred field. A logical conclusion of this idea is that daily life must then be seen as having at least some characteristics of ritual, which is indeed the case. Many taboos and adat rules regulate contact between people as well as between people and spirit entities such as the pohaci (spirit) of the rice, the deceased and the spirits mentioned here thus far. These rules indeed have as aim the promotion of harmonious relations in the hamlet and the prevention of discord that would disturb this harmony. In other words, the rules of daily life aim at the integration of the hamlet and its inhabitants for the common good.
The annual visits to the sacred places, then, can be seen as a special instance of the daily ritual. People are made especially aware of their relationship with these points of power and, through the communal movement, their relationship with and dependency on each other. At the same time, these visits do physically what elsewhere in Austronesia is often done through the recitation of a topogeny, namely the passing on of social knowledge (Fox 1997a:8). Through these visits to the physical evidence, the founding myths of the community are made real, providing proof of their veracity (cf. Mitchell 2001:12). And thus, not only do these ritual visits act the hamlet into being, as was proposed elsewhere (Wessing in press b), through their involvement in the event, people create themselves as social individuals vis-a-vis other social individuals as well. Place, tale, teller and audience all mutually constitute each other by their physical participation in this symbolic reality.
New Tales, New Places
When I returned to Gajah for a brief visit in 1980, much had changed. I arrived at the house of my teacher, E. Sukarya, to find everyone in a darkened room, watching television: mains electricity had come to the hamlet. While in 1970-71 people had radios, the batteries needed to operate them were both too expensive and of too poor a quality to make it worthwhile to have the radio on all day. With the coming of mains electricity, all this changed and television came within reach. With it, however, came a significant change in the social patterns. Where before, as I described earlier, people had sat around in the evenings, recounting local history and lore, when not discussing the weather and market prices, they now sat facing the television screen: from interactive participants they had changed into passive receivers, absorbing whatever had been programmed somewhere beyond their hamlet by a government agency.
As has been discussed at length elsewhere (Effendi 1998; Pemberton 1994), messages from the government are anything but neutral in their content. Through an emphasis on modernization, the favoring of national versus local events, and the, sometimes not so subtle manipulation of local messages, they try to introduce cultural changes on the local level. At the same time, through the school curriculum children are exposed to modernizing ideologies (Hefner 1994) in which especially beliefs in spirits and ancestors are depicted as old fashioned and often also as un-Islamic. A further increasing awareness of the teachings of Islam has also helped to move the Sundanese away from the old, sacred beliefs discussed here, caausing people to perceive them as superstitions.
This is not to say that in the past everyone agreed with the nature of the ritual markers I have discussed in this article. Even during my 1970-71 fieldwork, the religious teachers in the Bojong section of then kampung Gajah frowned on such beliefs and did not like to have wayang presentations staged in the kampung. Others, however, made jokes about these teachers’ piety and readily discussed both socially approved spirits and negatively sanctioned ones. Since neither side was overbearing in pushing its point of view, people lived peaceably together (cf. Beatty 1996).
Since 1980, television has become normal and no longer takes up the attention it did in the early days, but the results of its and other influences are readily seen. During recent visits to Nyalindung and Guradog, people were reluctant to speak of things that were a matter of daily conversation in 1970 and 1980. Meanings can change, after all, and with them the way in which people perceive their world. Like elsewhere in Java, this is often a matter of political advantage, in which rival factions compete to define the nature of (symbolic) reality (cf. Parkin 1992:13; Wessing in press c + d; cf. Heringa 1997:361). This is an ongoing contest and its results will vary according to local circumstances.
Furthermore, while I have sketched hamlets as communities that are bounded by their own local symbolism, they were aware of and participated in a wider set of relationships, producing what Appadurai (1995:210) has called a ‘context of neighborhoods,’ and with it what is generally described as Sundanese culture. Minimally they were aware of the root-village from which they hove off to start the new community. Many also knew of significant places beyond their own local ‘ethnoscape’ (Apapdurai 1995:211), such as the grave of the Muslim saint Sunan Gunung Jati, and the presence of pilgrimage sites throughout
Some have wondered what the influence of this influx of new “tales” might be having on the local repertoire. Prof. Dr. Suripan of the IKIP Surabaya (AW 1991) has spoken of a decline in local oral folklore, as parents prefer to park their children in front of the television -much like what was noted in Gajah in the early days of television - rather than telling them stories (dongeng). No figures are given in AW’s short report concerning the level of story telling that actually took place prior to the advent of television, but in my own experience it was more often tales of local spirits than dongeng about Si Kabayan that were heard in the evenings. Of course, television stories are neither the first nor the only tales from outside the hamlet to be heard. Travelling bards (tukang pantun) and puppet (wayang) presentations with their tales based on the Indian Mahabarata and Ramayana stories have long been known in rural areas as well. Yet wayang tales are presented locally, within the context of both local tales and offerings made to local spirits. Rather than at least locally relevant stories disappearing, the findings of Sheila Fish (email 27 February 2001) show that especially children use mystery stories from television, e.g. Misteri Gunung Merapi; the Mystery of Mt. Merapi, as a vehicle to talk about local spirits. Thus, rather than there being a process of replacement, the television stories become incorporated into the local ones, or are used in addition to the latter (email 2 May 2001). Similar things have probably been taking place for many years, as wayang and other stories were presented in these areas, and their tales became part of the local repertoire.
Conclusion
In this article we have seen how local spirit entities, both positive and negative ones, defined the local hamlet and the identity of its inhabitants. Whether or not these inhabitants engaged with especially the negatively valued ones among these spirits, they were aware of their presence and those of the founder and his counterpart, the nature spirit guardian(s). As times have changed, the local tales have changed as well, having been subject to modernizing messages of television and the ever stronger voice of Islam. The impact of these new messages has not been uniform and the reaction to their content varies, although most often people still ignore their differences and prefer not to argue the fine points of belief.
Different stories, however, define different places and spaces and require different acts of membership. Ancestral rituals that until recently tied people to the place they defined are now replaced by Muslim ones that tie their adherents to new Islamically defined places, in which the old beliefs and practices tend to be denigrated as superstition. Yet, people over the years have integrated the various kinds of messages, much as children still do today, changing the emphasis one way or another, making a historical person slowly more Muslim than he might have appeared before or converting a spirit to Islam. In this way these new stories remain tied to the locality, which through them remains home, a changed place for a new person.
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