In his 1929 essay Van Tricht remarked that there is much conflicting information on the Baduy. He warns that we should not take our fieldwork results as the only truth. Up till now ‘all researchers had to be content with interviewing the all the same little communicative group of Baduy and there never were objective research findings’ (Van Tricht 1929: 91). More than fifty years later Danasasmita and Djatisunda (1986: 2–3) formulated one of the major reasons for these poor research results as: ‘… the Baduy custom does not allow visitors to stay in Kanékés for more than three days and foreigners are even not allowed to enter’.1 Not just anybody is allowed to set foot on Kanékés soil that is considered ‘sacred land’. However, these Baduy rules are not cast in iron. As a foreigner I was allowed to visit Kanékés with my wife already in June and July 1976, and both times we stayed for a few days and nights in Gajéboh. There are rules, but there is also mutual trust between the researcher/visitor and the Baduy. In order to obtain reliable ethnographic data a researcher needs to take time for building-up a necessary good rapport. In fact ‘all social scientific data are co-produced by researchers and researched’ and reliable ethnographic data are research materials that ‘have been co-produced before they become commoditised into “data”‘. (Pels et al. 2018: 391, 397).
This book will mainly pose questions and not try to fully answer them. One of the questions that regularly appears in the literature is from where the Baduy originated. This is a complicated issue and we have to cope with conflicting data. For instance, Section 6.1 mentions a Baduy story about the origin of the community, which tells that the Baduy are descendants of the Hindu king of Pajajaran and his followers. In 1579 during the Islamization of Pajajaran the king did not want to become Muslim and left Pakuan, near the present-day Bogor, with his followers. According to this story the Pajajaran king founded the hamlets Cibéo, Cikeusik and Cikartawana (Pleyte 1912: 261–266). However, nowadays the Baduy strongly deny that they are descendants of the Pajajaran king and his followers, who supposedly fled to Kanékés when the Hindu kingdom fell to the sultan of Banten in 1579. How do we interpret these data?
Danasasmita and Djatisunda (1986: 90) suggest that the Baduy avoid to be associated with Pajajaran, because ‘everything that smells like Pajajaran needs to be silenced tightly to such a degree of secrecy that it approaches [the category] forbidden (buyut) [to talk about]’.2 They state that the Baduy rather associate themselves with the ‘king of Sunda’, because they think this is politically more safe as regards their relation to the Muslim ruler of Banten. However, Danasasmita and Djatisunda also point out that in Sundanese history the names ‘Sunda’ and ‘Pajajaran’ are considered to be identical and in the Old Sundanese manuscripts the ‘Ratu Sunda = Ratu Pakuan = Susuhunan Pajajaran’ and the King of Sunda = King in the capital city Pakuan = Ruler of Pajajaran (Danasasmita and Djatisunda 1986: 91). These remarks by Danasasmita and Djatisunda are also interesting when compared to the pantun storyteller who wants to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, and tells us: [Forgive me] ‘when I lie in search for the truth, when I sometimes lie’.3
In this chapter I want to discuss some methodological issues, to find answers to questions, based on the available ethnographic data. It concerns the validity and reliability of the data. Simply said, an observation (or measurement) is valid if it corresponds to what we want to observe in ‘reality’ according to the theoretical concepts we use; it refers to the ‘trustworthiness of instruments, data, and findings in research’. Validity has to do with the operationalization process: from theoretical concept to empirical measurement. An observation or measurement is reliable if it will show the same result when we repeat it, using the same instrument and procedure. A reliable observation is not necessarily also valid: we could be seeing or measuring something that is irrelevant according to our theoretical framework or the models of the researched people. For citation and more information on these important concepts see, for instance, Bernard (2002: 49‐57). Apart from getting the right ‘facts’, I will discuss some ethical issues, like power relations between researchers and Baduy, but also intellectual property rights of individuals and the Baduy community by making information publicly available. This last issue is also very relevant for the audio-visual examples that I will present with this book: what can be published?
The above mentioned complicated issue about religion and origin is a warning not to draw easy conclusions on the basis of our ethnographic data. With our research we should also not start from the beginning, as if there had been no researchers working in Kanékés before. It is all right to again list the ‘ten rules’ for the Baduy, including the one that they are ‘not allowed to sing because they are happy’4 (Sucipto, Limbeng and Maria 2007: 66). However, it is a shortcoming not to add to this that in practice the Baduy sing susualan for entertainment, as shown in Chapter 7. This practice has been known since the publications by Van Hoëvell (1845), Meijer (1890) and Pleyte (1912). This all seems obvious, but unfortunately quite a few publications on the Baduy suffer from these shortcomings.
In facing new situations Baduy balance between the given rules of the ancestors and the benefits of new developments. For instance, Pusponegoro and Arbay (2015: 30) give the example of an Inner Baduy woman in Cikartawana who was expected to experience a difficult delivery of her child. For saving her life she could be transported to the nearest hospital in Rangkasbitung by ambulance in a three-hour drive. However, Inner Baduy men and women are not allowed to travel by car. The solution reached by the spiritual leaders was that the woman would wear Outer Baduy clothes when travelling by ambulance and in the hospital premises: Outer Baduy are allowed to travel by car and train. After delivery she would undergo the punishment for violating the ancestral rules before she and her child could be accepted again by the community of Cikartawana.
Section 3.1 presents some information from historical sources and earlier publications on music and dance. Section 3.2 shows how some researchers since about 1940 dealt with the restrictions imposed on their research by the Baduy. Section 3.3 discusses how this was for the earliest visitors to Kanékés, from 1822 to 1931. The following section will treat the periods of my fieldwork between 1976 and 2016. The last section in this chapter (3.5) is on some theoretical issues and definitions.
3.1 Historical Sources and Earlier Publications on Music and Dance
In the Old Sundanese manuscripts of several centuries ago, some Baduy and Sundanese performing arts and musical instruments have been mentioned, although there is little or no additional explanation. Further the pantun stories are a source of information about performing arts and musical instruments of the past. In the manuscript ‘Sanghyang siksa kandang karesian’, dating from 1518, several kinds of kawih (singing) have been listed, like kawih sisi(n)diran, kawih ba(ng)barongan and kawih igel-igelan.5 In current practice the Baduy use susualan or sisindiran (short poems with an allusion, sindir, based on sound association)6 texts in their songs; they do not use the bangbarong animal mask and their dancing is restricted and it is called ngalagé, baksa, or topéng and not igel-igel. Also the performances of wayang stories and the recitation of pantun stories are mentioned in the old manuscripts. Only the pantun stories are still performed by the Baduy; they never had wayang theatre.
The Old Sundanese manuscripts mention tatabeuhan and this indicates instrumental music or musical instruments. Atja and Danasasmita translate tatabeuhan as ‘gamelan’ and that is problematic. It is possible that the tatabeuhan ensemble consisted of several instruments that are now part of the Baduy and Sundanese gamelan ensembles, like small gongs (for instance, the bendé), cymbals (kecemprés or kecrék) and xylophone (gambang). The brass cymbals (gangsa), (‘yellow’) gongs (goong (kuning)), drums (gendang) and shawm (sarunay) are mentioned in these manuscripts (Noorduyn and Teeuw 2006: 200, 243, 261, 354). Of these instruments the drums and shawms are not included in present-day Baduy gamelan. As far as I know, the word ‘gamelan’ occurs in none of the (about ten) Old Sundanese manuscripts that have been made available in transliteration and translation. This supports the claim that the word ‘gamelan’ is a relatively new word for the Sundanese and the Baduy, as has been argued by, for instance, Heins (1977: 20–28). Today the Baduy know and use the general Indonesian word gamelan, but they also use the terms keromong/koromong, goong and lénong, for this music ensemble. Atja and Danasasmita’s translation of tatabeuhan by gamelan may have been caused by the ‘tendency to stress the long tradition’ in the performing arts of Sunda (Van Zanten 1993: 150; see further Van Zanten 1989: 33–35).
The Old Sundanese manuscripts mention under ‘games’ (pamaceuh), for instance, ngadu lesung, ‘competing at the mortar’ for the communal pounding of rice (Atja and Saleh Danasasmita 1981b: 14,40). Presumably ngadu lesung is producing rhythmic patterns while pounding rice with several women, similar to the ngadu angklung (literally: to compete with angklung instruments; Van Zanten 1989: 83). Nowadays Baduy women still perform this ngadu lesung ‘game’, in particular for announcing important feasts in the hamlet; it is called gendék (see above and Section 5.6 below). See further Atja and Saleh Danasasmita (1981a: 4, 66; 1981b: 14, 39–40), Van Zanten (1989: 13–21) and Herdini (2011: 109–15).
For modern Sundanese, Eringa (1984) translates maceuh as ‘to a large extent, far-reaching (being taken to a bad habit)’. The kubs (1976) gives: ‘very much attracted to, inclined to sinful behaviour, so much that one often forgets about her/his responsibility: [example] She/he became increasingly attracted to gambling’.7 Pamaceuh may then indicate something distracting from the essence of life: a game. Alif, Sachari and Sabana (2015: 395) quote jaro tangtu Sami of Cibéo as saying similar things: children’s games that you find in the cities are forbidden, because ‘our task is not to play’. According to these authors the Inner Baduy rather speak about ‘the activities of children’ (pagawéan barudak). Compare also Jacobs and Meijer (1891: 25–26, 64–65) who describe what Baduy children do in their plays is imitating the activities of grown-ups (nabootsende spelen). See also Figures 24 and 26.
Boy carrying a piece of wood from the place where a house is broken down and rebuilt. Kaduketug 1, near house secular village head, 21 July 2016
Drawings of several types of cars and other objects in the soil between houses in hamlet Cijangkar, presumably drawn by Baduy children, 2 June 2014
Children swimming and playing in the Ciujung river near Gajéboh, 13 July 2016
Although this may be the ideal, with the Outer Baduy I noticed several ‘children’s plays’ that are common in Indonesia, such as playing football (soccer), playing with marbles, kites and the already mentioned propellers, but also playing cards, etc. Children also make drawings in the sand: see Figure 25 that mostly show cars; some other drawings I photographed in June 2014 show pictures of living beings.8 In 2003 I saw a robot-toy working on batteries in Kaduketug. It was a soldier with a gun, who shouted in English: ‘Fire! Don’t move, drop the gun! Fire, fire!’ (Van Zanten 2004: 136–137). Also grown-ups play games. In July 2016 an Outer Baduy football team took part in a local tournament and on YouTube is a film of Outer Baduy playing a friendly football game in the Sérang stadium during the 2017 séba ritual on 29 April 2017.9
caning:metallophone; saron in other parts of Sunda;kacapi:(board) zither;karinding:Jew’s harp;tarawangsa:two-string bowed lute in West Java; tarawangsa is sometimes used to indicate the very similar Baduy rendo.
In the text of the manuscript ‘Sanghyang Raga Dewata’ as transliterated by Ekadjati and Darsa (2004: 152, 174) we find the taléot flute mentioned. A two-finger hole side-blown flute with this name (or tarawélot, tarawélét) is still used by the Baduy. This manuscript also mentions the honghong and gobong that I did not find with the Baduy. I have no idea what a gobong might be. However, presumably this honghong is the hatong honghong as mentioned by Kunst (1973: 376) which is a bamboo flute producing just one tone, also called hatong ijén. Kunst mentions that this single-pipe instrument was used by the drivers when stag-hunting in the Caringin district of Pandeglang. The double-piped hatong sekaran and the three-piped hatong pan(g)ajak, kinds of a Pan-pipe (hatong), were used by the hunters themselves.10
The first publication about the people of Kanékés and based on fieldwork by Blume in 1822 does already mention the angklung ensemble of shaken idiophones and the ’gamblang’, a kind of xylophone. From the description of this ‘gamblang’ it becomes clear that Blume is not describing a gambang xylophone with wooden keys, but a calung xylophone with bamboo keys (Blume 1993 [1822]: 32), also called calung gambang in West Java (Soepandi 1995a: 16; Ensiklopedi Sunda 2000: 143–144). In current practice both of these xylophones, with wooden and with bamboo keys, are used by the Outer Baduy (see Section 8.5). Spanoghe (1838: 303) also mentions the angklung ensemble of shaken idiophones that he saw on a trip to Kanékés in 1823 and he remarks that the Baduy sing to its accompaniment and that ´this is the only music they have.´
It may have been that Spanoghe’s visit to the Baduy happened at a time in which mainly the angklung is played, as the musical seasons follow the agricultural year (Section 4.1 below). Anyway, his last remark was almost certainly wrong, as two decades later Van Hoëvell (1845: 428) wrote that the Baduy also have a tarawangsa, a ketjapé and ´a suling, a kind of flute made of bamboo and with finger holes in it.´ Van Hoëvell also produced drawings of the first two instruments between p.428 and p.429 and it seems that he described the instruments that the Baduy now call rendo, a two-string bowed lute that is similar to the tarawangsa in other parts of West Java, and a kacapi (pantun) zither. Van Tricht (1929: opposite p.49, left, below) gives a photograph with the description ´Outer Baduy playing the kacapi (on the left is the district head of Leuwidamar).´ The picture does not show the whole instrument. However, this is clearly not a kacapi, but the two-string bowed lute rendo. These mistakes have a long life. For instance, although Noorduyn and Teeuw give the correct translations in the Glossary as mentioned above (zither for kacapi and Jew’s harp for karinding), in the text they translate kacapi by ‘lute’ and kari(n)ding by ‘reed-flute’ (Noorduyn and Teeuw 2006: 234). Also, in the book by Hasman and Reiss (2012: 84,104) the kacapi is wrongly described as a ‘lute-like instrument’.11
Pleyte (1907: 26–7) describes the kacapi that is used for accompanying the recitation of pantun stories. Pleyte has done excellent work on the texts used in the Baduy epic pantun stories and shorter stories (dongéng) (Pleyte 1905; 1912). He published many more texts of pantun stories from other parts of West Java that are also recited by the Baduy in their own version (see Section 6.3 below). There are several later works on the texts of the Sundanese pantun stories, for instance by Eringa (1949), Ajip Rosidi (1973) and Kartini and others (1984). The recordings of pantun stories and transcriptions of the recited texts by Ajip Rosidi (1973) include two recordings of the bard Sajin (also written as Sacin) of Kanékés (Sajin 1973; 1974). See further Chapter 6 about the pantun stories in this book. The pantun stories are a useful source for information on performing arts; see for instruments mentioned in the pantun stories, for instance, Van Zanten (1989: 82–83).
Presumably the earliest recordings of Baduy music were made by Bernard Suryabrata (1926–1986), alias Bernard IJzerdraat, alias Kawat.12 Suryabrata’s first recording of Outer Baduy music was apparently of an angklung group of 18 musicians, including nine angklung players, three drum (‘dog-dog’) players and dancers. The recording session took place in the ‘angklung season’ (see Section 4.1), around September-October 1956, in the Radio (rr1: Radio Republik Indonesia, Radio of the Indonesian Republic) studio in Jakarta, as reported by Lysen (1956). Later, in the 1950s and early 1960s, Suryabrata recorded other Baduy music, presumably also in the rri studio in Jakarta. The Archive of Field Recordings at the Music Library, Cornell University, has about 45 minutes of Baduy music, recorded by Suryabrata in the 1960s.13 In Section 6.4 below I write that undoubtedly there are audio or audio-visual recordings of Baduy music, possibly including pantun, in personal archives in Indonesia. In the 1990s, I heard recordings of the kacapi player Yanci (Figure 44, Illustration 1 in Van Zanten 2016a: 417) at the home of the late Enoch Atmadibrata (1927–2011). Furthermore, the late Atik Soepandi (1944–2004) also told me that he possessed recordings of Baduy music. Further, there are the already mentioned audio recordings of pantun stories by Ajip Rosidi from the 1970s. Those recordings still need to be listed, digitalized and kept safely in a public library or some other public institution. See further Section 6.3.
A first overview of Baduy music, mainly based on earlier literature, was written by Suryadi (1974). Some more information on Baduy music, especially on angklung, may be found in Baier (1985: 10–11; 1986: iv: 13, v: 12). Atik Soepandi wrote a short article on bamboo instruments of the Baduy (Soepandi 1995a). In my book on Tembang Sunda Cianjuran (Van Zanten 1989), a kind of music that is not found with the Baduy, I nevertheless present some details about Baduy music. A few years later this was followed by an article entirely devoted to Baduy music, based on short periods of fieldwork in 1976, 1979, 1992 and 1993 (Van Zanten 1995). Some more information about the music of Kanékés, based on fieldwork periods between 2003 and 2016, may be found in Van Zanten 2004, 2009, 2012, 2016a and 2017.
In his PhD dissertation Dinda Satya Upaja Budi (Budi 2015) discusses the angklung (dogdog lojor) in Kasepuhan Ciptagelar, lying about 40 km southeast of Kanékés and about 40 km northwest of Sukabumi and in the southern part of Gunung Halimun National Park. There are many similarities and differences between the Baduy and the Ciptagelar rituals as regards the rice and the role of the angklung music and Budi’s dissertation has been very useful to me.
3.2 Restrictions for Researchers and Other Methodological Issues
The people of Kanékés are willing to answer most of our questions, but they do not want to share all their knowledge with outsiders, especially not with outsiders who show little understanding. As such the Baduy are not very different from other communities. For the Baduy there are fundamental issues at stake. They want to live an ascetic life and emphasize that real knowledge does not only consist of knowing ‘facts’. Several times I, and others, have heard the remark that knowledge learned in formal schools is not very useful for their way of living, as it makes children clever in cheating others (see also Bakels 1988: 40; Erwinantu 2012: 103). The people of Kanékés teach their children themselves, in their own, non-formal way. Although currently children living in the Muslim enclave of Cicakal Girang hamlets in Kanékés (non-Baduy children) get some formal schooling, the general ideal of Baduy living in Kanékés is still that knowledge about nature and the worlds of human beings and gods should be experienced and developed within their own indigenous community. There it is passed on from generation to generation. For outsiders certain Kanékés mysteries have to remain, and that is also necessary for the safety of the Baduy community.14 This attitude makes it more difficult to get answers to the questions outsiders may ask. When the question is about something the Baduy do not want to discuss, it is mostly ignored and not answered, as they are not allowed to lie.15
A complicating factor for outsiders’ understanding is that a particular god, person or object may have different names, according to time and place. A personal name is attached to the period in his/her life, like in many other parts of Indonesia and the world. For instance, when a Baduy man and his wife get their first child, they are called after this child’s name. If the child is called Arwa, his father will be called Ayah Arwa (father of Arwa) or just Arwa, and his mother will be called Ambu Arwa (Sundanese), Ibu Arwa (Indonesian: mother of Arwa) or also just Arwa (see also Geise 1952: 70; Danasasmita and Djatisunda 1986: 65–67). This change of a person’s name makes analysis of the situation more difficult for outsiders. For instance, it took some time before I realized that Daénah, secular village head from 1997 to 2015, was the same person as the young man I recorded in 1992 on the rendo: Darmin (see film fragment <AV27>). Names of hamlets and hills may also change, in particular when a hamlet is rebuilt after a big fire destroying many houses. A hamlet may also have a ritual name, according to its function in rituals. For instance, the ritual name given to the Inner Baduy hamlet Cikeusik is Pada Ageung. In the past other names seem to have been given when the position of this hamlet changed slightly, possibly when it was rebuilt after a serious fire: Kanékés (Blume 1993 [1822]: 31), and Cisamodor and Rawayan (Koorders in Meinsma 1869: 328, 330). See further Section 3.3 below and Appendix 1.
In the epic narratives (pantun stories: see Chapter 6) it is forbidden (pamali) to use the ‘real’ names of the gods. Another name is used to avoid sacrilege by saying things that should not be expressed. Pleyte (1907: 13–14) mentions some other names for Batara Tunggal, the highest god: Guriang (Yang) Tunggal. Batara Guru is another manifestation of Batara Tunggal and for this name the Sundanese pantun storyteller uses Guriang Tujuh.16 In the west Javanese puppet theatre (wayang golék) that the Baduy do not have, the heroes may also have different names, according to the aspect (wanda) that corresponds to the character in a particular period of her/his life, function or situation. Sarah Anaïs Andrieu calls this the hyper-characterization of a person (hyper-caractérisation des personnages) that coexists with the general characteristics of a person (servant, king, knight, or giant of a particular group), the ‘generic’ (générique) aspects of a character (Andrieu 2014: 75; 2017a: 100–101).
Possibly the most important restriction for outsiders is that they are not allowed to stay in Kanékés for a long time, that is, mostly no longer than one month. People from outside Indonesia are not allowed to enter the Inner Baduy area (almost half the size of Kanékés village), that is, the region with the sacred places. Indonesians are allowed to visit the hamlets in the Inner Baduy area, but for just one day. Like most Baduy, they are not allowed to visit the sacred places there. Until now anthropological fieldwork that includes participant observation for just over a year and hence allowing to follow the whole agricultural cycle, has been impossible. The restrictions with respect to the duration and place of the fieldwork have been reported by several authors. Geise (1952: 9–11), who wrote one of the major anthropological studies of Baduy society, reports that ‘to enter Kanékés-soil was buyut, forbidden’ to him in 1939–1941 and the ‘heart of the Baduy society, that is the three Inner hamlets, cannot sufficiently be studied’. Berthe was allowed to enter Kanékés and he speaks of ‘the exorbitant privilege of a stay of almost one month’ in the Outer Baduy hamlets Kaduketug and Cicatang that he was granted in March 1962. However, like previous foreign visitors, he was not allowed to witness any important ritual or ceremony (Berthe 1965: 190–191). Also Bakels (1993: 356, footnote 12) reports that she had never been able to attend a circumcision ritual, although she could take part in a marriage celebration.
Suryadi (1974: 14) remarks that, permission to enter the Baduy area does not mean that you may go everywhere by yourself and look around and attend ceremonies. He had to wait for a long time to get permission to do some fieldwork in December 1972, together with members of the Anthropology Department of Pajajaran University in Bandung. After Geise (1952) a next serious anthropological monograph was the PhD dissertation written in Malay by Judistira Kartiwan Garna from the Anthropology Department of Pajajaran University in Bandung in 1988. Garna (1988: viii) mentioned that his field research took him 14 years and that he used the participant observation method during his fieldwork (Garna 1988: 11–17). During 1972–1975 each year he spent a period of two months in Kanékés and Baduy informants came to visit him in Bandung each month. During the years 1976–1984 on the average he spent each year two periods of one week in Kanékés and the Baduy visited him more frequently than in the former years (Garna 1988: 14–15).
When starting to tell an epic narrative (pantun story), Baduy storytellers will ask forgiveness from the gods in the sung opening (rajah), because they will be revealing sacred knowledge of the past. For instance, the storyteller Sawari whom I recorded in 2003 recited: ‘Give me permission to tell the story of Paksi Keuling, a story of the past that is now being (re-)created’ [performed].17 Researchers reporting about the Baduy society have been faced with similar ethical problems as the Baduy storytellers: are they allowed to publish their findings, which should not be revealed to outsiders, people that are ‘not knowledgeable’?
Hence several Indonesian authors who wrote about the Baduy started their publication by asking forgiveness for revealing Baduy knowledge; see for instance, Garna (1987: 5), Djatisunda (1992: vi), Hamidimadja (1998: v). When presenting his book about the Baduy, Garna directs himself to ‘all the members of the Baduy community’ when saying: ‘I beg your generous forgiveness/I keep asking forgiveness/if I arouse the rage of the ancestors/if I go where it is not allowed/[when] I will be telling about the Baduy’.18 In the beginning of his PhD dissertation Garna (1988: ii) quotes a well-known Baduy saying that reflects his awareness of the difficulty of representing ‘social reality’: ‘What is long should not be shortened/What is short should not be lengthened/What is not [true] should be denied/What is not allowed should remain forbidden/What is true should be confirmed/Become a person who is not just clever/but also honest’.19
In Van Zanten (1995: 519–521) I describe my fieldwork periods in and around Kanékés between June 1976 and November 1992. My knowledge of the socio-economic position of the Baduy was limited at that time, as until then I had very much concentrated on understanding, recording and filming musical activities. After my three-week long visit to Kanékés in March-April 2003 I started to better understand some issues that had played a role in my former dealings with the Baduy. Especially the history of the gamelan that I bought from a Baduy family in 1976 and that I gave back to the secular village head (jaro pamaréntah) Samin, as representative of the Baduy community, in July 1979, was revealing; see Section 5.4 below. I became more aware of the complicated relation between the Baduy indigenous group and the outside world, and the Indonesian authorities in particular. I reported on this in two articles (Van Zanten 2004: 143–145; 2009: 291–302). It also made me understand that the willingness of the Baduy authorities to let outsiders stay with them, for instance for doing research, also depends on the general socio-political situation of that time.
In the earlier years of my research the use of my documentation apparatus, like photo camera, audio recorder and film camera, was sometimes restricted. For instance, when recording a gamelan in Gajéboh, July 1976, I was allowed to place microphones inside the house near the gamelan, but the recording apparatus had to stay outside the house (see photo in Van Zanten 1995: 520). In 2009 I wrote ‘Most probably this was because modern and foreign technology could not come too close to the fireplace of a Baduy house (kitchen), positioned behind the room where the gamelan was played, which is a place for family members and close friends only. Most other recordings took place on the veranda of Baduy houses, which is the place for receiving guests’. (Van Zanten 2009: 294). When filming an angklung ensemble of shaken idiophones that played songs for entertainment on the evening of 24 October 1992, I was only allowed the light of one high-pressure lamp, although I had asked for three. At that time the use of high-pressure lamps was forbidden to the people of Kanékés and the permission for one high-pressure lamp given to a foreigner was already a kind of compromise. The rules are negotiated. In this case the Baduy elders wanted to honour the wish of a guest researcher and at the same time follow the Baduy ancestral rules. An excerpt of these dark film recordings may be seen in fragment <AV05>.
On the whole the Baduy were very positive about my music recordings (see Van Zanten 1995: 519–521; 2009: 293). However, it has been difficult to record music that was strongly connected to Baduy rituals, like pantun stories and the playing of the angklung ensemble with drums during the major rice ritual. In October 1992 I got the opportunity to audio record the angklung playing at this ritual in which the goddess of rice, Déwi Asri or Nyi Pohaci Sang(h)iang Asri, was married off to the earth (Van Zanten 1995: 532–537, 544).
I was less fortunate with the pantun stories. Several times I have tried to record a pantun story in Kanékés village, but this never happened. In June 2014 I was given permission to attend a pantun recitation during the ritual for officially recognizing Campaka, at that time a hamlet consisting of ten houses, as a hamlet of Kanékés (nukuh lembur). I could attend, but had to sit outside the house where the recitation took place and was not allowed to see the performer, audio record or to take photographs. In July 2016 I got permission to attend two circumcision rituals and heard three pantun performances (see Sections 4.4 and 4.5), but again I was not allowed to record the recitation and see the performer. Hence I have only been able to record two Baduy pantun stories outside Kanékés: in January 1977 in Jakarta and in April 2003 in Margaluyu (Van Zanten 1989: 194; 1993: 144–8; 1995: 529–30, 540–1; 2012: 131; 2016a: 417–423). The Baduy make a clear distinction between a recording inside and outside Kanékés; one could say: on sacred soil or on secular soil.
Feed-back session of showing the 2007 version of my film ‘Baduy life and music’ in Kaduketug, 12 December 2013
In Van Zanten (2015: 120) I reported on the feed-back asked from Baduy on the 2007 version (unfinished) of my film ‘Baduy life and music’ in December 2013 (Figure 27). In this film version I had included fragments of pantun storytelling, recorded outside Kanékés in April 2003. Also included was a fragment of about one minute taken from the one-hour singing of the song Maréngo, sung with angklung accompaniment at the supreme moment of the rice ritual: the announcement of the engagement of the rice goddess Nyi Pohaci Sangiang Asri or Déwi Asri to the earth, audio-recorded in Kanékés in October 1992 (Van Zanten 1995: 532–537). I showed the film twice to a group of Baduy.
One group included the elder Rasudin, who is very knowledgeable about Baduy intangible cultural heritage. This session (Figure 27) took place on the veranda of the secular village head. The man seated in the middle, in front of the standing boy with the ‘Qatar Airways’ shirt, is Rasudin, leader of an angklung ensemble (jaro angklung) and neighbour of the secular village head Daénah. The other group included Daénah, the secular village head of that time (1997–2015). They were asked to comment on the film and ‘in particular whether they thought that certain elements should be left out, because these were considered too sensitive to be shown to the outside world’. (Van Zanten 2015: 120). For the village head, the pantun storytelling was no problem: the recited text in the film was limited, he said. Another reason may have been that the filmed performance took place outside Kanékés and that the performer was a migrant from Baduy descent, who was no longer recognized as a Baduy.
However, the included Maréngo song was a problem and the village head asked me to use the recorded ritual angklung songs only for documentation and not for a film shown to the general public. This I promised. Later the non-Baduy secretary (carik) of Kanékés village, Sapin, told me that these feed-back sessions had been very much appreciated by the Baduy leaders. It left me with the difficulty to decide what ‘for documentation purposes only’ and ‘the general public’ exactly means. I have presented my major articles about the Baduy to the secular village head, although they cannot read English and French. That is, all ethical questions have not been solved in a legal way.
In Van Zanten (2009) I raised the complex issue of ‘prior informed consent’, ‘contract’ and intellectual property rights (ipr) in relation to, for instance, the Baduy and in the context of the 2003 unesco Convention for the safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. What about the audio-visual examples with this book? The selection of my AV files depended also on how to deal with the property rights and privacy of individuals and the community. According to most Western law systems Baduy music lies in the public domain, I think. However, ethnomusicologists would like to be more careful and recognize the intellectual property rights of communities as far as possible and avoid abuse of their rights. On the other hand, for some readers it is useful to see in a film excerpt how a flute player produces the notes on his instrument. What is ‘fair use’? In its recent ‘Ethics Statement (2018)’ the Society for Ethnomusicology offers no easy solution to this as ‘… there is no binding international copyright law’ (p.3).20
All the mentioned restrictions for outsiders make the literature about the Baduy far from perfect, and that also holds for my research. These are general methodological issues and I have tried to show that these issues are very relevant for research in Kanékés. How valid and reliable are the published data about Baduy life in general and music and dance in particular? For these methodological questions it seems useful to discuss Dutch visits to the Inner Baduy area, and even to the holy places, before the Second World War.
3.3 Visits to the Holy Places in Kanékés between 1822 and 1931
Since about 1935 people from outside Indonesia, or possibly more relevant: people that have not been circumcised, are not allowed to enter the Inner Baduy (tangtu) area. Indonesians are allowed to visit the Inner Baduy area, but most of them for just one day without staying overnight. No outsider is allowed to visit the holy places there in the ‘forbidden forest’. These holy places are only visited for rituals once a year and by a small party of (mostly) Inner Baduy. The party to Sasaka Pusaka Buana21 is led by the puun of Cikeusik and the party to Sasaka Parahiang is led by the puun of Cibéo. Sasaka Pusaka Buana is considered to be the centre of the world, as it is connected to the myth of origin of the world: seven gods who came down from heaven to that place and created the first human beings. Sasaka Parahiang is connected to the creation of the Baduy people (Garna 1988: 127; Ekadjati 1995: 73–74).
When going to perform the rituals at Sasaka Pusaka Buana, a party sets out from Cikeusik, including the puun, the girang seurat and kokolot (elders) of each of the three Inner hamlets, and some other Inner and Outer Baduy men (Garna 1987: 73). This ceremony takes place from day 16 to day 18 of the Baduy month Kalima (Danasasmita and Djatisunda 1986: 86; Ekadjati 1995:74). Koorders in Meinsma (1869: 336), Pleyte (1909: 508) and Garna (1987: 73) give the dates 17, 18 and 19 of the month Kalima.22 In 2003 the secretary of Kanékés, Sapin, told me that on these days about 50–60 men take part in this ceremony and that individuals may decide for themselves whether they are spiritually clean enough after the fasting period to go to this sacred place. The party stays the night in the talahab shed. The next day they clean themselves again and approach the terrace complex of Sasaka Pusaka Buana from the north (see map by Koolhoven in Figure 29 below). There they worship on the different terraces, clean these and they finish by taking some of the komala mosses from the natural stones before going back. This moss is supposed to bring good luck to the ones who need it (Ekadjati 1995: 74–75). Similarly the yearly cleaning ceremony at Sasaka Parahiang is led by the puun of Cibéo.
Before the Second World War several Dutch researchers visited the tangtu hamlets and some of them even visited the holy places of Sasaka Pusaka Buana near Cikeusik and Sasaka Parahiang near Cibéo in the ‘forbidden forest’ (leuweung larangan). Several visitors reported that the Baduy were not really pleased with their visits, but nevertheless received them. It seems that the only non-Baduy visitors to these holy places in the Inner Baduy area, who reported about their visits, were Blume, accompanied by Spanoghe and Kent in January 1822, Daniël Koorders in July 1864, and W.C.B. Koolhoven and his team in December 1931 (see also Judistira Garna 1988: 295). Edi Ekadjati mentioned two Indonesians Muchtar Kala and Anis Djatisunda who visited these holy places, presumably after the Second World War (Ekadjati 1995: 69–70).23
However, doubts about the visits of Blume and Koorders have already been raised at the end of the 19th century. Also, on 29 March 2003 Daénah, secular village head from 1997–2015, told me that he did not believe that Sasaka Pusaka Buana (Arca Domas) had ever been visited by non-Baduy people: those travellers were misled by people wearing Baduy clothes who took them to another place. We will discuss this issue in some detail here, because it is relevant for the evaluation of research about the Baduy and in particular the methodological implications.
3.3.1 Blume (1822)
The botanist Blume described his visit to Sasaka Pusaka Buana (called Arca Domas by him) on 2 January 1822 in newspaper articles that were re-issued in 1993. Blume gives a fairly lengthy description of the journey, although some details are not entirely clear. The journey started on 31 December 1821 in Rangkasbitung (Lebak Regency) and took the party via Cibéo to the southeast near Gunung Kendeng. He was accompanied by the assistant resident of Lebak, J.B. Spanoghe, and the head of the botanical gardens in Bogor (then Buitenzorg), W. Kent. According to Blume, from Ciawi onwards they were guided by the spiritual leader (girang puun) Wartini of the hamlet Kanékés (now called Cikeusik)24 and some other Baduy from Cibéo and accompanied by some other Sundanese for the translations (Blume 1993 [1822]: 41–54). Blume describes that on 1 January 1822 they had just reached the hut with a bamboo roof (talahab) near Arca Domas, when the Ciujung flooded the area nearby the river (see the map by Koolhoven below in Figure 29). However, they were then safe and at nine o’clock that evening puun Wartini came with some more food (from Cibéo or Cikeusik?) so that they could still the hunger.
[…] in the meantime the Baduy seemed grudgingly and worriedly be looking at this investigation, so that I could not extend it to all gravestones, because even this moss is precious to them, as it covers the ashes of their forefathers and is so closely linked to the memorial that they would not dare to clear the memorial entirely from it.
blume 1993[1822]: 48
The Baduy turned pale when we approached these gravestones and trembling they begged us to leave them speedily, as they claimed that a warning voice had urgently asked them to do so. […] This [place and nature around it] had made us so gloomy that we felt very much impressed by the startled looks of the good-natured Baduy, whose broken words were translated to us by the Sundanese men who were equally startled.
blume 1993[1822]: 49
At last they returned to the hut (talahab), ‘much to the relief of the Baduy’. Blume then describes that from there they travelled back another way than they had come: to the northwest, passing the hamlet Cibarani and staying the night near the Batu Mountain (Gunungbatu) before returning to Ciawi (see Figure 2).
Boys fishing in Dangdang Ageung lake. 14 December 2013
3.3.2 Van Hoëvell (1845)
Van Hoëvell (1845) was the first one to write a substantial article about the Baduy (Badoeïnen), including a section on ‘language, poetry, etc.’ (part x, pages 409–430) which includes ‘music and singing’ (pages 428–430). In the beginning of his article he summarizes earlier publications in which the Baduy are mentioned: Raffles (1817), Blume (1993 [1822]), Spanoghe (1838) and some others. Van Hoëvell (1845: 338–339) noted that, although a ‘fair amount’ had been written about the Baduy, there was still a lot that we do not yet know. Further, he remarked that it is ‘not rare that the different writers contradict each other’ and that this hampers a proper understanding of the Baduy and their relation to the outside world. He considered it of the utmost importance, especially for the history of this island [Java], to understand the relation between this special and isolated group and the surrounding numerous Muslim population.
The language used by Van Hoëvell in his descriptions of the Baduy and their music and dance was characterized by that time. He described the tones of the calung xylophone, ‘replete with feeling and harmony’, as ‘proof that the seeds of higher development are present in these simple mountaineers, and await only some external circumstance, like rain and sunshine, to allow that seed to germinate’ (Van Hoëvell 1845: 430). See also Jaap Kunst’s criticism in his inaugural address on the ‘appreciation of exotic music throughout the centuries’ (Kunst 1942: 23).
Van Hoëvell travelled by horse from the north via Bojong Menténg and Cibolégér to the still existing Dangdang Ageung Lake (Figure 28) in Kanékés and produced a map from his journey (Van Hoëvell 1845: between p.342–343). From there the party travelled by foot because the road with very steep slopes was considered too dangerous for the horses. Also, the guide Tarpi had begged them not to take the horses nearer to the major Baduy hamlet (hoofdkampong van de Badoeïnen) that they were heading for, because horses were forbidden in the Baduy area. They reached Cibéo in the late afternoon. Van Hoëvell (1845: 350) mentioned that he was surprised that horses were not allowed in the Baduy area, because Blume had taken the horses to Cibéo about twenty years earlier and it seemed that the Baduy had taken the initiative for this. He also noted that he found many other peculiarities that ‘entirely contradicted’ the reports by earlier authors and that had now become clear to him. I will come back to these issues below.
3.3.3 Koorders (1864)
Daniël Koorders visited Kanékés in 1864 and he left notes about this fieldwork. He died in January 1869 and his notes were published by Meinsma (1869); the part specifically referring to the Baduy journey starts on 5 July and ends on 10 July 1864 (Meinsma 1869: 325–341). Koorders started this fieldwork in the Baduy area on 5 July 1864, approaching it from the north via Rangkasbitung and Leuwidamar. With his Sundanese helpers he travelled by horse via Parungkujang to Parakan Beusi and then further south to Ciawi (see Figure 2: just west of Kanékés, near Cisadane and northwest of Cikeusik). In Ciawi, just outside Kanékés, Koorders’ company was met by Tarpi, then the secular village head (now called jaro pamaréntah) of Kanékés who lived in Cibéo and his ‘deputy’ Tayun, who lived in Cibarani outside Kanékés (see Figure 2).
Koorders describes Tarpi as a Baduy, for more than 25 years ‘jaro’: the person representing the three Inner hamlets and ‘intermediary [middenpersoon] by whom this small society has dealings with the government and receives orders from the government’. Tayun is described by Koorders as Tarpi’s ‘deputy that he had chosen himself, the elder Tayun, one of the expelled persons who lives in Cibarani that is dependent on Ci Samodor’. From Koorders’ description it seems that the expelled Tayun was the first secretary (carik) of Kanékés who assisted Tarpi, considered to be the first secular village head of Kanékés. Jaro Tarpi also guided Van Hoëvell’s party when travelling to Cibéo about twenty years earlier (Van Hoëvell 1845: 344–346).
From Ciawi Koorders travelled to Cisamodor (Cikeusik)27 with Tarpi and Tayun. Koorders mentioned that from Ciawi, like Van Hoëvell about twenty years earlier, they had to travel without horses, as the Baduy ‘religious tradition, in splendid accordance to the condition of the terrain’ did not allow horses in their area (Meinsma 1869: 327).
Koorders also visited Sasaka Pusaka Buana, and briefly describes the place that he called Arca Domas as consisting of 13 terraces, going up from north to south (Meinsma 1869: 336), where Blume described five terraces going up from north to south.
3.3.4 Criticism by Jacobs and Meijer (1891) and Pennings (1902)
Jacobs and Meijer (1891: 2, 64, 134) and Pennings (1902: 378) were critical about the publications by Blume (1993[1822]), Van Hoëvell (1845) and Koorders (Meinsma 1869) about the Baduy. Jacobs and Meijer describe the earlier researchers, like Blume and Van Hoëvell, as ‘those who think they have been visiting the real Baduy’; they have effectively been misled by the Baduy and were at most allowed to visit the Outer Baduy hamlets. Jacobs and Meijer (1891: 2) report about Van Hoëvell: ‘Dr Van Hoëvell has only been in the hamlet Cibéo, whereas the other hamlets, where he thought that they also stayed with the real Baduy [eigenlijke Badoej’s], were all Outer hamlets [buitengehuchten] where the people that were expelled from Baduy society a long time ago had settled and for the greater part mixed with the Muslim people’.
According to those critics, even Koorders was misled, because the Baduy fear to let non-initiated people have access to their hide-outs. This sufficiently explains their misleading, while the unfamiliarity with the terrain, where ‘the real Baduy have pitched their tent’, made such misleading possible. Others, who have written about the Baduy often obtained their information from hearsay. For instance, it would be impossible that Blume had visited the Baduy area, because the Baduy do not allow horses in their area and certainly do not touch them, as Blume had said. Also the horses of Jacobs and Meijer had to stay outside the Baduy area.
In 1822 Blume had reported that when his company reached Cibéo (called Tjiboam by him) in the afternoon of 31 December 1821, women prepared a meal and men made a shed for the horses. The Blume party had travelled by foot from the small river Ciawi to Cibéo, but had asked for the horses to be following them (naleiden), in spite of the difficult road, because near the Ciawi river the horses would not be protected from the nightly attacks by tigers (Blume 1993[1822]: 42). Also the party of Van Hoëvell came by horse from Cibolégér (called Cibaleger by him) in the north to the hamlet Dangdang (non-existent nowadays) and near the still existing Dangdang (Ageung) lake (Figure 28). On the explicit request and begging of the Baduy official (girang seurat) Tarpi, who accompanied the party, the horses were left behind in Dangdang and they went on by foot (Van Hoëvell 1845: 350–351).
It is possible that the earlier visitors were misled by the Baduy. Did Van Hoëvell visit the Karang group living to the east of Kanékés village in June 1845? Are his observations, including his remarks about music from there? I will not really try to solve this problem, but from the description of his journey and the section on Baduy poetry and music in his essay it seems fairly certain that Van Hoëvell visited the Inner Baduy area, as did Blume twenty years earlier and Koorders twenty years later.
Jacobs and Meijer regularly speak about the ‘real Baduy’ (eigenlijke Badoej’s) and by this they mean what we call the Inner Baduy (tangtu) nowadays (Jacobs and Meijer 1891: 2–3, 47, 60). Most present-day researchers would not follow them in saying that the Outer Baduy are not ‘real Baduy’. These two groups are, together with the people living in the dangka hamlets, part of the Baduy community, each with their own task. Geise (1952: 24–26) emphasized the unity between Inner and Outer Baduy: the two groups were ‘bound by an indissoluble bond’ (onverbrekelijk verbonden) and he talked about ‘the essential unity between Inner and Outer Baduy’ (de essentiële eenheid tussen binnen en buiten-Badujs, Geise 1952: 32).
The Resident, who has a very remarkable tact to spare the prejudices and superstitious follies of the natives, but by speaking to them in their spirit and to reason according to their standpoint, nevertheless achieving what he wants, got them to understand, that this was not the case with us. He agreed that indeed, the Girang puun was not allowed to meet his equals and that this was a very wise ruling by their ancestors that they should be following obediently. But now it was a different case. After all the Resident was the Girang puun of the whole of Banten, and should not been seen as an equal of the Girang puun of Cibéo, but as his superior. This reasoning was accepted: they agreed to satisfy our curiosity. The Girang puun left his house and sat down before us.
In colonial times foreign visitors used their privileged position and power to get things done from the Baduy, by negotiating in a subtle or less subtle way. As mentioned below, Koolhoven showed this colonial attitude – be it in a less crude way – when writing that the surveying task in Kanékés that was given to him by the Dutch Indies government ‘had to be done’ in 1931; also when the Baduy protested he could not refuse the job (Koolhoven 1932: 66–67).
3.3.5 Koolhoven (1931)
Koolhoven was a geologist who surveyed Kanékés for the Dutch Indies government during one week in December 1931 with a group of surveyors and Sundanese guides and he published his results in an article. This article included a ‘geological map of the Baduy area and surroundings’ with rivers and the three Inner and 24 Outer hamlets. Further it includes a photograph of ‘the lower terraces of “Arca Domas”; in the foreground the Ciujung [river]’ and a detailed map of the location of Arca Domas, now called Sasaka Pusaka Buana, just northeast of where the Cikadu river joins the Ciujung, the shed (talahab) and the place where white, soft china clay (kaolin) was found (‘lemah bodas’: literally, white earth; Koolhoven 1932). Koolhoven remarks that this place with ‘white earth’ confirms the detailed report by Koorders (Meinsma 1869: 336), who wrote that in 1864 ‘on the way back [from Arca Domas] we passed taneuh putih [white earth] and returned to the talahab [shed]’.
Initially the Dutch-Indies government did not want Kanékés to be surveyed, but eventually they decided that such survey would be useful. However, the Baduy persisted in refusing to let the Koolhoven surveyors’ party enter their territory and take measurements and collect specimen of stones: this was all forbidden (buyut) by the ancestors. So, when the surveyors arrived in Kanékés the Baduy protested. However, the work given to Koolhoven ‘had to be done’, as he wrote, and, according to him, it could only be tried to spare the Baduy and to accommodate their wishes as much as possible. Hence he started to carry out his surveying task. With heavily overgrown hills, much of the geological work had to be done by following the rivers in order to find stones that were not weather-beaten.
As long as they did not enter the Inner Baduy area, everything went all right. The surveyor Sayadi could measure the Ciujung from the north until hamlet Batubeulah (then lying on the border of the Ciujung: see Van Tricht’s map as given in Figure 13). Then the Inner Baduy in Cikeusik were warned about these activities and a party of Inner Baduy took away Sayadi’s measure rope, although he himself was ‘in no way treated rudely’. The Baduy requested him to leave the area, and in such a pressing way that he complied with it.29 In the following discussions with the Baduy authorities it became clear to Koolhoven that the reason of this refusal of the Baduy to cooperate – although not mentioned by the Baduy – was that the sacred place Arca Domas was lying on the banks of the Ciujung, near its origin. Hence Koolhoven decided to do his survey of the Ciujung River by starting in the south. ‘The necessity to make a geological survey of the region of the source of the Ciujung, also gave me, together with some guides from hamlet Cibarani [just outside Kanékés: see Figure 2], the opportunity to determine the position of Arca Domas’. (Koolhoven 1932: 66).
Koolhoven describes this approach from the south. They started in the hamlet Cibarani and they first climbed the ‘main watershed’ (presumably between the rivers Cibarani and Cibatungeunah?), more or less following the border of Kanékés. This watershed was followed for about 1 ½ km to the east. Then they descended following an extraordinary steep slope on which they cut themselves a path to the Ciujung that they further followed downstream. ‘Just below the mouth of the right branch Cikadu […] lies on the right bank of the Ciujung the terraced built Arca Domas’. Koolhoven confirms that the terraces build up from north to south, as Koorders had already remarked (Meinsma 1869: 336).
In this way it could not be avoided that the Koolhoven party ‘discovered’ the holy Baduy places on the banks of the rivers Ciujung and the Ciparahiang. On the produced geological map of Kanékés Koolhoven (1932: 65) clearly marked the sacred places Sasaka Pusaka Buana/Arca Domas southeast of Cikeusik and Sasaka Parahiang east of Cibéo.30 ‘It goes without saying that we refrained from hitting, moving or taking stones from or near those places out of reverence’. (Koolhoven 1932: 66–67).
The position of Arca Domas (Artjadomas) or Sasaka Pusaka Buana, according to Koolhoven (1932: 67)
3.3.6 Van Tricht (1928)
A few years before Koolhoven, the physician Van Tricht visited the Inner Baduy area, although he did not see the holy places. He was sent on duty by the Dutch Indies government to ‘look at the isolated Baduy society in south Banten with a medical eye’. (Van Tricht 1929: 43). Van Tricht (1929: 86) reports that he visited the tangtu hamlets Cibéo and Cikartawana in 1928: ‘When we – uninvited – paid a visit to the forbidden hamlets Cibéo and Cikartawana we were noticeably not welcome. When confronted with this accomplished fact, the Baduy treated us in a hospitable way with palm wine (wayu) and bananas’.
Together with the visit of the holy places by Koolhoven in 1931, this episode may have influenced the Baduy leaders (and the Dutch-Indies government?) to decide ten years later that Kanékés would be a forbidden place for the anthropologist Geise. Geise started his PhD research in 1939 and stayed from February 1939 until August 1941 in the hamlets Kamancing and Cipeureu outside Kanékés. He writes about his situation: ‘As it was forbidden (buyut) to set foot on Kanékés soil, it is clear that only with some [Baduy] the contact became really close so that longer professional talks could take place in which we could pursue questions in greater depth’. (Geise 1952: 10–11.)
3.4 Fieldwork Periods Present Author
In 1976 travelling to Kanékés was much more difficult than forty years later. My first visit to Kanékés was from 11 to 15 June 1976, together with Bernard Suryabrata, his assistant Uk Sukaya and my wife. Our group travelled by 4-wheel drive car, driven by me, from Jakarta to Sérang – Rangkasbitung – Leuwidamar to Cisimeut. Suryabrata had also invited the journalist Machmudi Romli of newspaper Berita Buana to join us. Romli reported on this June 1976 journey to the Baduy in two newspaper articles (Romli 1976). The article of 6 July 1976 included a photograph of the Land Rover car that was ‘forced to go very slowly because of the very bad state of the road’ between Leuwidamar and Cisimeut. Romli further wrote ‘We had to push the jeep [Land Rover] that often got stuck in the mud. You can say that almost every 200 or 300 meter our jeep got stuck in mud holes’. We left our Land Rover in Cisimeut and for the last few kilometres to Cibolégér we travelled on foot and by an old army truck, called ‘power’ by the local people.
On my second trip 19–27 July 1976 we took another way to Cibolégér from Leuwidamar. About one kilometre south of Leuwidamar where the road splits near a police station, we did not follow the road to Cisimeut, but took a ‘path’ more west via Bojongmanik for about 12 km. The local people had said that a car could pass there and that we would reach Cibolégér. I drove our Land Rover with walking speed along the last kilometres of this ‘road’ that consisted of very large stones and that would bring us to Cibolégér and Kanékés. Several times we had to stop and put large stones in the existing holes before we could drive on. When arriving in Cibolégér the local people told us that this was the first time a car had managed to pass that path!
In the 1990s there was an asphalt road from Cisimeut to Cibolégér and I could use the public transport. The quality of the asphalt depended very much on the season; in the rainy seasons it was mostly pretty bad. However, as compared to the two trips in 1976, the later visits to Kanékés were rather easy. Also, the recording apparatus gradually became lighter. For instance, Nagra iv-S and Nagra is-d tape recorders and Beaulieu Super-8 camera in 1976–1979 became Roland R-26 digital audio recorder and Panasonic nv-GS400 movie camera since 2013.
As mentioned above, possibly the most important restriction for outsiders is that they are not allowed to stay in Kanékés for a long time, that is, mostly no longer than one month. People from outside Indonesia are not allowed to enter the Inner Baduy area, that is, the region with the sacred places. Indonesians are allowed to visit the hamlets in the Inner Baduy area, but most of them for just one day. For all researchers it is therefore difficult to cover one whole agricultural and musical year when planning fieldwork in Kanékés.
Around 1990 I decided to do more fieldwork in Kanékés and try to summarize my data on Baduy music in a book, film and audio recordings. Therefore it became important to cover the different music seasons in a year as much as possible. In 1992 I made many recordings of angklung and got the opportunity to witness the ritual in which the goddess of rice, Nyi Pohaci Sangiang Asri, was married off to the earth. I reported on the 1992 fieldwork and this rice ritual in Van Zanten (1995). The next fieldwork period in 2003 was purposely planned during the kawalu fasting months, when tourists are not welcome in Kanékés and in a season that was said to be less suitable for music making. It was a risk: would the Baduy accept me to enter at this time of the year? Because they knew me from my earlier visits, the Baduy apparently trusted me and allowed me to do some recordings in the companion of my assistant Mumu and a Leiden anthropology student, Nanni Tempelman. At that time there was no angklung and no keromong, but I could record flutes and zithers, and also the popular songs by the female singer Raidah with the accompaniment of violin and kacapi siter.
As I also had other tasks and limited means for travelling, I was not entirely free in choosing the period of my fieldwork. The fieldwork periods of 2013, 2014 and 2016 were all more or less determined by the dates of conferences that I attended in Indonesia and Malaysia. In Table 4 my fieldwork periods in these different musical seasons are listed.
Major periods of fieldwork in and around Kanékés and recordings in Jakarta
| year | major musical activities | period | remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | Keromong (gamelan) Angklung |
11–15 June, 19–27 July 8–9 September |
Recordings in Jakarta |
| 1977 | Keromong/angklung | 8–9 January | Pantun recording in Jakarta |
| 1979 | Keromong | 15–17 July | Recordings in Cipangembar, Gunung Tunggal |
| 1992 | Angklung | 10–27 October 6–10 November |
|
| 2003 | Kawalu | 18 March- 8 April | Including recording pantun in Margaluyu |
| 2013 | Keromong/angklung | 9–16 December | |
| 2014 | Keromong | 25 May-8 June | |
| 2016 | Keromong | 1–22 July |
These fieldwork periods have also been presented in Figure 30. It shows that, within the constraints set by the Baduy rules and my own obligations for teaching at Leiden University, I more or less managed to include the major musical seasons in these periods of fieldwork.
Major periods of fieldwork that roughly cover the different musical seasons. The short periods (one day/night) in September 1976 and January 1977 indicate recordings in Jakarta; the other periods include visits to Kanékés
As the fieldwork periods were rather short and much of the social context of the music making was still missing, I did not manage to participate in music making. Hence the ‘participant observation’ was mainly limited to observing, recording and interviewing in the field. I obtained some music-technical details, but these do not constitute the major part of my data. My field notes 1976–2016 are in the collection donated to Leiden University Libraries (see footnote Section 1.3).
Another big problem was the Baduy language. Sundanese spoken by the Baduy is different from Sundanese spoken in Bandung; see also Section 6.3 and the methodological remarks at the beginning of Appendix 4 about the song texts. I mostly spoke Indonesian in the interviews and had research assistance for the Sundanese language. In 1976 that was supplied by Uk Sukaya, a musician working at the Faculty of Performing Arts of the Universitas Nasional in Jakarta, led by Bernard Suryabrata. In 1992 it was Enip Sukanda, then staff member of the Music Department of the stsi Bandung (Arts Academy, now isbi – Institut Seni Budaya Indonesia). Since 2003 Mumu Zaénal Mutaqin, then a student at the Theatre Department of stsi Bandung, assisted me on my Baduy fieldwork: 2003, 2013, 2014 and 2016. Mumu was raised in southern Banten and he could understand many of the special Baduy words; see also photograph in Figure 23.
In the fieldwork periods as from 2013 it became clear that the musical season for keromong was longer than what I had reported earlier. In 1995 I wrote that it was roughly from the beginning of June to the beginning of September (Van Zanten 1995: 528). In 2013–2016 I learned that the keromong may be played from after the séba ceremony (about beginning of June) until the start of the fasting period kawalu, about January. Section 4.1 will explain that it would be better to say that these two types of music belong to different worlds and are used to mark times with different social qualities: ritual angklung music for the goddess of rice (Déwi Asri/Nyi Pohaci) and other deities, and keromong and non-ritual angklung music for human beings. Therefore the sounds of keromong music and ritual angklung should be kept apart.
3.5 Some Theoretical Issues and Definitions
When I first visited Kanékés in 1976, I did not plan to write a book on Baduy music. At that time my Baduy research was just part of a general interest in Sundanese music. This first visit was meant for making audio and film recordings for documentation and possibly producing a gramophone record of Baduy music with Bernard Suryabrata. I soon learned that the Baduy community had special music that needed to be studied more thoroughly, because it might shed light on the history of Sundanese music. When I seriously considered to write a book on Baduy music in the 1990s, after finishing my PhD dissertation on Cianjuran music in 1987, I had to think about the major issues that should be addressed. No doubt that the greatest part of the book needed to be descriptive: a description of the music that I had heard and recorded, because little had been written on Baduy music and its social context. However, I also looked at theoretical issues that might be taken up by future researchers. Because of other obligations, the real start of writing this book only began in the 2010s.
Although the greater part of this book is descriptive, is does not mean that it is free from biases of the researcher. For some musical analysis in Chapters 5 to 8 I used transcriptions of the music sounds in Western staff notation, always a problematic issue. In Section 5.1 I explain how I did this and what some possible biases might be. Similarly, the translations of some song texts are also based on some guessing; see also the methodological issues mentioned in Appendix 4. It is never wrong to use one’s ears and try to ‘feel’ what is meant by certain song texts, however, it is a tricky business. We should be aware of these limitations and not believe that we have found the final answer.
One of the major questions that I addressed in Van Zanten (2004 and 2017) was the sustainability of the Baduy society and their music. How well did the Baduy cope with the changing outside world and safeguarding their intangible cultural heritage (ich) and care for environmental issues? The Baduy indigenous group is part of the modern mainstream Indonesian nation state, something that the Baduy have always accepted. Therefore it is important to look at the cultural policies of Indonesia and how these affect the ethnic minority group of the Baduy; see also Sections 2.4 and 2.5 above.
For ‘minority’ I take the working definition as used by the Study Group on Music and Minorities of the International Council for Traditional Music.31 ‘Minorities’ or minority groups refer to ‘communities, groups and/or individuals, including indigenous, migrant and other vulnerable groups that are at higher risk of discrimination on grounds of ethnicity, race, religion, language, gender, sexual orientation, disability, political opinion, social or economic deprivation’. In this book I will mostly use ‘indigenous community’ (masyarakat adat) or ‘small ethnic group’, rather than ‘minority’ or ‘minority group’ for the Baduy group. This is, because in the international discussions, small ethnic groups have expressed that they rather like to be called ‘indigenous peoples’.32
‘Sustainability’ is defined as ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ and the ability to reach this goal is part of ‘agency, the capacity to make decisions that have an impact on social practices and representations in which individuals and communities are involved’.33
‘Sustainability’ has different dimensions, like a socio-cultural, an economic and an environmental one. As already mentioned, in 1999 the secular village head Daénah had expressed critical views about the government’s programmes for Baduy resettlement (see Section 2.2 and also Figure 31). On the whole, the Baduy community was fairly critical about the government dealings with their society. It seems that the Indonesian authorities see a (too) close connection between sustainability of ich and economic sustainability, because they very much stress the ‘cultural tourism’ and obtaining patents when safeguarding ich. The economic dimension is emphasized and the socio-cultural and environmental dimensions of sustainability seem to get far less attention.
Baduy resettlement hamlet Sukatani in Jalupang Mulya village, north of Kanékés that had just been officially opened on 21 September 1992; photo taken in October 1992
As mentioned in Van Zanten (2004: 143–144), after presenting a gamelan to the Baduy secular village head of Kanékés, Samin, in 1979, I only returned to the resettlement hamlet Cipangembar in 1992. Samin had died in December 1991, and this gamelan was now kept at the house of his sons: each of them had a part of the instruments. The sons told me that they were put under great pressure to give the gamelan to the resident of Rangkasbitung, as had happened with other Baduy instruments. In West Java, as in other parts of Java, a gamelan has always been connected with the power of the ruler. It seemed that the local rulers in Rangkasbitung wanted to use the ‘Baduy’ music of the resettlement hamlets to further legitimize their power. In this way, the Baduy music in the resettlements was even more cut off from the rituals in which they serve. In fact, although some Baduy rituals were (and are) still performed in the resettlement hamlets, the Baduy of Kanékés do no longer consider their kin in the resettlements to be Baduy. Paraphrasing Judistira Garna (1988: 41–43), Baduy music was, as other elements of development, also ‘used to serve the majority of the Indonesians, rather than the Baduy community itself’.
These cultural policies of the Rangkasbitung government were confirmed to me in 1993. The local government was afraid that the music of the Baduy would be disappearing rapidly. Therefore they were collecting Baduy instruments in Rangkasbitung, where no Baduy were living, and training non-Baduy people to play these instruments. In Van Zanten (2012: 137–141) I discussed the Indonesian cultural policies with respect to the 2003 unesco Convention for the safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Whereas the unesco convention emphasizes the importance of involving (cultural) communities in safeguarding processes, in this respect there were several shortcomings in the Indonesian cultural policies.
A second major question is the issue of religion. The Baduy are very aware that they are surrounded by Muslims, as also becomes clear from their pantun story texts (see Section 6.5). In 1985 the Directorate for the Guidance of Indigenous Peoples of the Suharto government wrote ‘As for the Outer Baduy […], they are already influenced by the Islam and they are formally called followers of the Islam’ (Departemen Sosial 1985: 7).34 In Van Zanten (2004: 137–141) I remarked that this attitude of the Indonesian authorities may have been an attempt to protect the Baduy indigenous group, however it did not respect the Baduy wishes: Baduy call their religion Sunda wiwitan and they consider it to be different from Islam. The way Indonesian society will deal with religious minorities in the coming years will greatly affect the Baduy community. The intolerance shown by some fundamentalist groups towards minorities, is a potential threat for the social stability of Indonesia and in particular for the Baduy.35 The Indonesian situation also depends on global developments, in which fundamentalist groups and individuals (‘lonely wolves’) may use any ideology to find an excuse for their violent behaviour.
In 1998 Gerard Persoon wrote that the Indonesian government looks upon the cultural minority groups, or indigenous groups ‘as deviating from the cultural mainstream, and policies are aimed at bringing these people back into the mainstream of Indonesian life’. (Persoon 1998: 281, 371–372.) After Suharto’s New Order government was replaced in 1998, steps were taken towards more democracy and decentralization in Indonesian politics. Nevertheless, in 2017 I pointed out that, although the official Indonesian motto is ‘unity in diversity’ (bhinneka tunggal ika), the Indonesian policy towards the Baduy seemed not in line with this motto. The Indonesian attitude rather reflected that ‘most problems would best be solved if the Baduy would become Muslims and if they would start using irrigated rice fields’. I pointed out that this limited understanding of the Baduy indigenous group by the Indonesian authorities was a serious problem for the sustainability of the Baduy society (Van Zanten 2017: 93). Chapter 9 will again briefly address this issue of sustainability and its different dimensions. However, before that, Chapter 4 will discuss the important issue of Baduy music seasons and major rituals. Chapters 5 to 8 will also be on the different types of music, rather than on Indonesian cultural policies.
These words are repeated in Sucipto, Limbeng and Maria (2007: 54). Although until this day foreigners are not allowed to enter the Inner Baduy area, this is certainly not true for the Outer Baduy area: I have seen many small groups of foreigners passing the house of the secular village head in Kaduketug 1 to pay a visit to the Outer Baduy hamlets.
‘… segala sesuatu yang berbau Pajajaran harus ditutupi secara ketat dengan tingkat kerahasian yang mendekati “buyut” (tabu).’
‘… mun bohong nyari-nyari, mun bohong sakala kapeung.’ (Sajin 1974: 10). See Table 12 in Section 6.5.
‘… teu meunang ngawih lantaran senang.’
Presumably kawih sisindiran is the singing of sisindiran, that is, short poems based on verbal sound association, kawih bangbarongan the music accompanying the dance of the bangbarongan animal mask and kawih igel-igelan the singing accompanying the dancing (Van Zanten 1989: 15).
‘Kacida katarikna, kasengsremna ku lampah ma’siat, nepi ka mindeng poho kana kawajiban: Beuki maceuh baé manéhna kana maén téh.’
See examples of similar figures (warogé) carved in bamboo sticks and used in rice rituals in Garna (1988: 313–314) and Djatisunda (1995: 9–10). As mentioned, I am not sure whether these pictures were made by Baduy children. I will not go further into this topic of such visual representation here.
See
See on hatong also Kunst (1968: 1; 1973: 445), Soeharto (1978: 53–4) and Soepandi (1995b: 84). Whereas Kunst and Soeharto describe the hatong as a kind of Pan-pipe, that is, one tube or several tubes tied together in one row and each producing a single tone, Soepandi describes it as an ‘kind of wind instrument made of wood or bamboo and producing only one tone’. See also Eringa (1984), who describes hong as the sound of a hatong and hong-hongan as a continuous production of such sound.
This might also have been caused by some authors, like Falk (1978: 45), who stated that the bowed violins tarawangsa and rendo possibly developed from the plucked kacapi zither.
Bernard IJzerdraat started the tradition of playing on the gamelan instruments of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam with the Babar Layar group in the 1940s and with the support of Jaap Kunst. He went to Indonesia in the 1950s, and became an Indonesian citizen. Listen for Suryabrata/IJzerdraat’s involvement with the gamelan playing in Amsterdam, for instance, to the radio broadcast of vpro’s urubicha on 4 March 2004 (in Dutch):
I am grateful to Martin Hatch, who granted me permission to listen to and make a copy of some of the Sundanese music at the Archive in October 1991.
See also Andrieu’s remark about the puppeteer (dalang) in the ritual wayang golék theatre: ‘… the dalang keeps the mystery by using a language from the past (Old Javanese and Sundanese), as his knowledge is not for diffusion to the masses.’ (Andrieu 2017b: 185).
For instance, on 26 March 2003 I had an interview with the former secular village head Asrab (1990–1994, and ad interim 1996–1997). Asrab told us that we are all born from one womb with four brothers and sisters. My assistant Mumu asked for their names, who are they? Asrab answered that it was now one of the ‘forbidden’, fasting months (kawalu) and that therefore he could not answer that question (A2003-1: 40).
Batara is the general Sundanese title for a god or an incarnation of a god and Tunggal here means ‘the only one’ (Eringa 1984). Eringa describes Guriang as ‘a kind of (heavenly) spirits or gods (with the Baduy and in pantun stories).’ Pleyte (1909: 502), Van Tricht (1929: 48) and Garna (1988: 29) also remark that Batara Tunggal and Batara Guru are already mentioned in the Old Sundanese manuscripts and that they are ‘in essence’ the same as Shiva: the one who created everything and to whom everything returns. In his description of guriang, Garna (1988: xxi, 334, 338) mentions that guriang is also used for male ancestors (karuhun) who protect and look after a Baduy hamlet. Baduy also have female gods and spirits in their belief system: Batara Bungsu and Nyi Pohaci Asri. Pleyte (1907: 12, footnote 3) mentions that it is forbidden (buyut) for pantun performers to use Guru Yang Tunggal (Guru, the only one) for Batara Guru and instead they use Guriang Tunggal (Spirit that is unique).
“Kasih kawenang-wenang nyaritakeun lalakon Paksi Keuling, lalakon baheula diciptakeun ayeuna” (Van Zanten 2016a: 425).
“Meda agung nya paralun/Meda panjang nya hampura/Bisi nebuk sisikuna/Bisi mincak loronganana/aing dék nyaritakeun/urang Baduy” (Garna 1987: 5). Garna uses here several words in unusual Sundanese spelling: (meda, instead of neda, mincak, instead of nincak, loronganana instead of laranganana); I do not know whether these are printing mistakes, or indicating the different pronunciation of words by the Baduy.
“Lojor teu meunang dipotong/Pondok teu meunang disambung/Nu lain kudu dilainkeun/Nu ulah kudu diulahkeun/Nu bener kudu dibenerkeun/Jadi jelema lain pinter baé/Tapi kudu bener.”
See
In the earlier literature Sasaka Pusaka Buana was called Arca Domas.
This difference of dates may have to do with starting a new day at sunset, following the Javanese and Baduy system, or starting at midnight, following the Western system.
Anis Djatisunda is presumably mentioned because of a remark that the authors/one author of the book by Danasasmita and Djatisunda (1986: 85, footnote) make when they describe Pada Ageung or Sasaka Pusaka Buana: ‘Direct observation of the author(s), only until the seventh terrace’.
Nowadays it would be remarkable if the highest spiritual leader of a tangtu hamlet (puun) would operate as a guide (compare the critical remarks by Jacobs and Meijer 1891: 64): an acting puun is not allowed to leave the Inner Baduy area. However, it could have been that Wartini earlier had the position of puun, but then left this job, possibly because his wife died; see Section 2.1. In current practice it is customary that a Baduy leader would keep the title belonging to his former official position. This also holds for the position of jaro: the former jaro pamaréntah Asrab (1990–1994) and jaro pamaréntah Daénah (1997–2015) were still addressed as jaro Asrab and jaro Daénah in 2016.
Blume speaks of nagenoeg twee palen, almost three kilometres, as at that time in Java one paal was a distance of about 1507 m. This seems to be a very large distance from the talahab hut to Arca Domas, although the way followed the ‘several turns’ in the Ciujung riverbed upstream. However, also Danasasmita and Djatisunda (1986: 86) mention that the temporary hut (dangau, talahab) lies quite far (cukup jauh) from the Sasaka (Pusaka Buana).
As mentioned above, Batara Guru is another name for the highest god, Batara Tunggal (or Guriang Tunggal), which is commonly used by the Baduy.
According to Koorders, Ci Samodor was one of the three Inner Baduy hamlets, next to Cibéo and Cikartawana. The puun of Ci Samodor is described as the first one responsible for the cleaning of the holy site Arca Domas (Sasaka Pusaka Buana), which is exactly what holds for the present puun of Cikeusik (Meinsma 1869: 333; Garna 1987: 71–73). See also Appendix 1.
Van Hoëvell (1845: 356) mentioned that they arrived in the ‘hamlet Cibéo, the present main settlement of the Baduy, the final destination of our journey’ (kampong Tji-beo, het tegenwoordige hoofdverblijf der Badoeïnen, het einddoel van onzen togt.) It is unclear what he means by ‘main settlement’ (hoofdverblijf) of the Baduy. Currently the Inner Baduy hamlet Cikeusik may be seen as the main centre of spiritual leadership and the Inner Baduy hamlet Cibéo has as one of its tasks to deal with the outside world; see also Jacobs and Meijer (1891: 28).
Koolhoven also refers here to the experience of the geologist Dr. E. Ganz, as reported by Van Tricht (1929: 44), who took photographs in Cibéo (in the late 1920s?) and then was politely guided to outside the hamlet by the Baduy ‘while they kept dancing around him in a circle.’
This Koolhoven map with the position of Sasaka Pusaka Buana/Arca Domas and Sasaka Parahiang is exactly reproduced in Garna (1988: 68). The map in Geise (1952: after page 266) is based on the Koolhoven’s findings I suppose, including the position of these two sacred places. The map I produced in Figure 2 is based on the Koolhoven and Geise maps. See further Appendix 1.
See
I am grateful to Gerard Persoon (personal communication, February 2020) for pointing this out to me. See also his 1998 article.
See the unesco ‘Glossary intangible cultural heritage’ (2002) on
Actually, at that time the Indonesian name of the department was ‘Direktorat Bina Masyarakat Terasing’: the directorate for isolated communities. See also Garna (1988: 41–43); Persoon (1998: 287–288).
An example of this is the 2011 violence against the Ahmadiyah Muslim minority, in which three Ahmadi were killed in Banten province and which led to international protests by human rights organizations. In June 2016 the Ahmadi complained that ‘their human rights were breached by a local government refusing to issue them state id cards unless they renounce their belief’ (see