Fri Jul 27, 2007 2:56 pm (PST)
Journal article by Nancy I. Cooper;
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol 35, 2004
Tohari's Trilogy:
Passages of Power and Time in Java
by Nancy I. Cooper
Fiction which probes for answers ...
can help to create a greater understanding of Javanese society. (1)
A captivating narrative, Ahmad Tohari's Ronggeng dukuh Paruk (Paruk hamlet's ronggeng) trilogy set in Java comprises much more than intriguing characters and labyrinthine plots. The novels provide an entry point for deeper explorations of Javanese cultural dynamics, particularly gender identity, and their relationship to political developments.
Reminiscent of Rousseau's image of 'the noble savage', Tohari's Indonesian language portrayal of a rural hamlet in Banyumas Regency evokes both noble and ignoble images through the endearing inhabitants' dangerous belief system revolving around a sexually charged dancing girl.
While the girl represents local indigenous innocence defiled, the male protagonist represents national (masculinised) ideals of modernisation and religious reform posed to save the hapless rural folk.
One can easily see the parallel between this fictive trajectory of young lives awakening to the horrors of greed, violence and betrayal and the path of the Indonesian state through the 1960s. This local-national (feminine-masculine ) nexus is a key not only to understanding the trilogy, but also to making sense of the most violent periods in Indonesian history, when passages of power spelled times fraught with terror for ordinary people.
From erotic court dances in the fourteenth century, through the ubiquitous tayuban (ritual/community dancing) extending into the present, to the contemporary gyrations of dangdut star Inul, female singer-dancers have historically impressed local and international viewers and scholars, whether positively or negatively, with their
dramatic femininity. (2)
This analysis of Tohari's fiction will use existing scholarship on such genres, along with my own ethnographic observations in contemporary Javanese society, as a comparative sounding board. (3)
Although more respectable from a mainstream Islamicised perspective, the singers of Javanese gamelan ensembles--warangga na--who were the focus of my earlier research nevertheless evoke a sexually charged ethos akin to that attributed to Tohari's central ronggeng (singer-dancer) character, who comes by her performance abilities supernaturally after being possessed by the spirit of an ancestor. (4)
Waranggana are associated with widadari (beneficent goddesses) from Javanese folklore, classical literature and theatrical performances. At the same time they are targeted by derogatory gossip and media attention as suspects of promiscuity or concubinage at best, or occasional prostitution at worst.
It is this compelling image of stigmatised, yet powerful and thus feared, hyper-femininity that I have previously termed a 'Javanese siren' image, drawing a metaphor from Greek mythology via Homer. (5) The famous singer from Banyumas, Nyi Suryati, whom I met in 1986 and interviewed in 1990, has been mentioned in several scholarly works as an exemplar of such a figure.
Rene Lysloff has written of Nyi Suryati that '[h]er reputation was so highly regarded ... [that] she [was] the highest paid member of Sugino's troupe'. (6) Much more than such real-life waranggana, the fictional ronggeng from the same locale is the epitome of a Javanese siren.
Ahmad Tohari and the 'local colour' of Banyumas
Ahmad Tohari identifies himself as someone deeply concerned with human rights violations in Indonesia during the 1960s and has been described as having a 'deep and abiding commitment towards rural Javanese culture, ecology, and social justice'. (7)
As a pious Muslim, he has made the pilgrimage to Mecca that is expected of believers who are able to do so. He continues to be active as a novelist, journalist, leader of a pesantren (Islamic school) and national folk art consultant. Tohari was born, grew up and resides at this writing in the kabupaten (regency) of Banyumas, located in the western part of Central Java province. (8) Banyumas is also the setting for the fictional rural hamlet of Paruk, where much of the trilogy's action takes place.
Javanese anthropologist Koentjaraningrat has identified Banyumas as a distinctive 'culture region' with some of its own art forms as well as unique styles of widespread genres like the ronggeng. (9)
The term ronggeng is also common in the Sundanese province of West Java, close to the western border of Banyumas, and in Bagelen (a kecamatan or sub-district of Purworejo Regency) to the southeast. The Sundanese and Javanese people (the two indigenous ethnic/linguistic groups of Java) who predominate on either side of the West Java/Central Java border contribute a unique cultural mix of attributes to the population of Banyumas, including linguistic features, literary and theatrical texts and performance styles.
While Banyumas is an integral part of the greater central Javanese cultural heartland and is not located inside West Java, its proximity to the Sundanese heartland, as well as its isolating mountainous terrain, have affected its regional styles in ways that have become its artistic hallmark throug hout Java.
According to Lysloff, who has conducted extensive research in the area, local residents identify more clearly with Banyumas than with descent, history or connection to neighbouring court influences. (10)
Because of Tohari's background in Banyumas, where he was born in 1948, as well as his reputation as a reliable journalist, one can reasonably infer that the cultural, physical and social descriptions of the novels are fairly true-to-life local perceptions of the time period
represented.
Literary scholar Tineke Hellwig relates that Paruk is modelled after two actual communities with a history of ronggeng cults, although 'cult' is my own designation. Furthermore, when she interviewed the author in 1994, he revealed that the ronggeng of his trilogy is indeed modelled after an actual woman (still living at that time), but was less forthcoming as to any model for the male protagonist who shares certain similarities with regard to the author's own personal history. Hellwig concludes that it 'is patently evident in this case that a work of literature may not be brushed aside as a work of art with no relationship to reality'. (11)
While this may indeed be the case, neither should one mistake the work as being anything other than fiction, since it remains one person's representation without the checks and balances of scholarship or the verifications of science. By comparing this work to scholarship and my own and others' empirical research, this article aims to bring to light those ideas which do have a relationship with observed and documented phenomena.
With these precautions in mind and given the paucity of written witness to the mass killings and turmoil of the mid-1960s in Indonesia, Tohari's trilogy takes on a greater importance than such a work otherwise might have warranted. (12)
Originally appearing in serial form in the Jakarta daily Kompas, the novels have been categorised as sastra warna lokal (local colour fiction), a genre that emerged in the 1970s, paradoxically featuring indigenous local traditions (throughout Indonesia) through the lens of modernised, more individualised and more secular lifestyles promoted
by the New Order regime of President Suharto.
On the one hand, the literature in this genre tends to attract readers with the exoticisation of local ritual performance, while on the other it characterises more traditionally oriented lifestyles as backward and superstitious.
Modern knowledge and reformed (non-indigenous) religions may be presented as alternative rays of hope.
Michael Bodden suggests in an analysis of this genre of literature that the tide has gradually turned away from a demonisation of the indigenous past and romanticisation of the modern project towards a more realistic, practical view of local and national conditions. (13)
As a widely accessible, popular and acclaimed example of warna lokal fiction, Tohari's trilogy fits very well into the contradictory schema that characterises the genre. Although readers get a sense of nostalgia for a simpler country lifestyle that many Javanese still
experience and that others only experienced in their youth, the featured hamlet's inhabitants are explicitly deemed ignorant worshipers of their evil ancestor.
The hamlet setting, key members of the community and important rituals are described in painstaking detail. While modern life in more populated, less remote parts of Java is alluded to as superior, any description of it is sparse. Some of the worst tragedies occur in more modern and urban centres, perpetrated by individualistic characters. Yet in the end it is the hapless citizens of the tiny hamlet who are blamed for their own destruction after being duped by communist infiltrators.
Another contradiction lies with the relative lack of personal agency accorded the female protagonist, who does, however, embody a kind of chthonic feminine power that must be dealt with by others, whether positively or negatively. These are just a few examples of the unresolved contradictions abounding in the trilogy that nevertheless provide useful clues for cultural analysis.
One explanation for the contradictions in warna lokal fiction is the notion that authors of the genre are resisting dependency on Western influences by posing national 'culture' to local traditions rather than Western standards. 'Tohari's trilogy is revealing. Though it begins by valorising the modernising project of the distant, centralising state, it ends by desperately seeking refuge in a non-Western religious identity.' (14)
Indeed, the novels often appear to be championing the emerging New Order in the 1960s, until disillusionment and doubt enter towards the end. The male hero goes full circle from his remote hamlet to the national army and back to the hamlet as a changed religious man who attempts to heal the local wounds of economic, political and spiritual bankruptcy.
His physical journey through time and space parallels an inner journey of the spirit and conscience that transforms him from a naive country boy to a leader and teacher armed with knowledge of the outside world.
Despite the moralising tone of the hamlet's masculine saviour, Tohari's apparent sincerity as an author shows through, even as he struggles with the contradictions inherent in his content.
The rural life Tohari champions is, of course, not the life of the superstitious folk described in his trilogy, but rather an imagined transformation of it, enlightened by spiritual insight and moral and social reform.
Whether or not one agrees with the moral and political stance he alludes to, the journey he creates to lead readers there--a kind of literary dakwah or moral mission--is one well worth contemplating for the cultural insights it offers.
The narrative
Novel One: Paruk hamlet's ronggeng (15)
The central character in the trilogy is the ronggeng of Paruk hamlet, whose name is 'Srintil'. As the most celebrated person in the community, Srintil is showered with luxury and attention; to say that she has charisma, in the sense of attracting others, would be to vastly understate the effect of her presence in Paruk.
Yet she is not the one who purposefully wields this power; it is tacit in the sense that she exerts no effort in obtaining it and little in maintaining it. Rather, she is the focal point of a kind of fertility cult around which the entire hamlet rotates.
Paruk was founded as a hideout by an evil criminal fugitive in a somewhat isolated and environmentally impoverished area. His gravesite dominates the hamlet's landscape as the memory of him dominates his descendants' imaginations.
Although the residents know their common ancestor was not a good man by mainstream conventions (i.e., those prevailing outside of Paruk), he is their progenitor, so they venerate him in rituals and prayers.
He is thought to be responsible for sending the spirit of the ronggeng, a feminine complement to his own spirit, to inhabit the body of Srintil, thereby endowing his descendants with a possession of unparalleled beauty, grace and wealth. He is the source of her power, as she becomes the source of the power of the community.
The hamlet has a history of curses and catastrophes, such as people eating poisonous tempe (fermented soybean cake), leaving the two main characters-- Srintil and Rasus--orphaned. Rasus starts out as Srintil's childhood friend and over the course of the trilogy he curiously appears and disappears from the scene of action, his first-person voice fading in and out as narrator.
He falls into innocent love with her on the day she becomes possessed. As an expression of those emotions, he gives her a powerful kris, an ancient dagger that, unknown to him, is the lost possession of all the previous ronggeng of Paruk.
It is unclear whether he causes her possession by unwittingly giving her the ronggeng power contained in the kris, or is compelled to give it to her because she is already possessed with the power compatible with the weapon. (16)
Just as a kris can be used as the proxy for an absent bridegroom in Javanese weddings, the ronggeng's kris seems to represent the ancestor's potency; indeed, it symbolises the union of the ancestor and the virgin.
An older couple adopts the orphan Srintil in order to take care of her needs and manage her performances. The man is the official dukun (ritual specialist) ronggeng, who for many years has waited for the next ronggeng to emerge since the previous dancer passed away.
The dukun's wife takes care of Srintil's personal needs and dresses her for performances. She is portrayed as a woman whose primary concern is acquiring wealth through Srintil to perpetuate the ronggeng cult, and she goes to almost any lengths to procure 'clients' for Srintil's sexual services.
Srintil's duties are not confined to dance performances, but include sexual encounters with men who vie for the honour; for this she receives gold ornaments and wealth from outside the community, the likes of which the hamlet has never seen.
She is initiated into this activity at age eleven after being set up by her adoptive grandparents. She has no choice in the matter and is prematurely awakened to her own sexuality due to knowledge of her impending 'deflowering' .
In a moment of prescient self-realisation, she initiates her own true sexual awakening with her chosen sweetheart, Rasus, immediately prior to the official act with the winners of a contest. Indeed, what follows could be called ritual rape or sexual slavery, although it is only perceived as such primarily by Rasus and his friend, who refer to the sexual acts by the Indonesian term diperkosa 'to be raped'. (17)
The absence of overt resistance on Srintil's part is mediated by the fact that she is only an eleven-year- old child who has been indoctrinated with the belief system of the community. Neither does her compliance with this arranged intercourse with strangers ensure her safety; she is in fact injured and cries in pain.
Later in the story she is massaged as a form of birth control, which eventually renders her incapable of conceiving. Although elevated as a sacred being, she has almost no control over her own body or life course.
The first two men to officially 'deflower' Srintil are co-winners of a contest that is highly publicised outside of the hamlet; the criterion for winning is simply to offer the highest monetary bid. In their greed, Srintil's handlers trick each man into thinking he is the first
to couple with the 'virgin'.
Little does anyone know that in her foresight and courage it is Srintil herself who secretly deprives both of them of that distinction, having already given Rasus the honour. For that moment at least, she is able to seize her own power, if only in giving it away freely. (18)
The entire process, including the contest and the sexual deeds, is enveloped in a highly publicised cocoon of glamour and ritual, making rational reflection difficult on the part of any individual, including Srintil. One could say there is an almost complete lack of rationality in the hamlet of Paruk.
The opening of the elaborate mosquito netting arranged for the bed becomes the ritual passageway through which the male winners pass in their presumed transformation from ordinary to powerful individuals. (19)
Because power is being displayed, experienced and transferred from the charmed girl to the men who couple with her, Srintil brings the community together in what is originally perceived as a positive way. Only Srintil and Rasus (and readers) know that this whole belief system has already been subverted through their prior union.
In stark contrast to Srintil, Rasus is characterised as being nearly asexual, with the exception of an implied 'Oedipus' complex that he projects onto her. Prior to their only sexual encounter--initiate d by Srintil--Rasus repels her initial overture.
While she becomes a public spectacle of sexual prowess, he is the epitome of restraint. If he has any sexual life at all beyond the one awkward liaison as a child with Srintil, it is not discussed in the narrative.
On the other hand, Srintil's sexuality throughout her life is described in great detail. Rasus realises early on that Srintil belongs not to him as he fantasises and not even to herself, but to the community, to be rented to men of means without regard for who they are or where they live.
He is eventually heartbroken and repulsed as the shortlived innocence of both characters is lost forever. He leaves his home town, his childhood sweetheart and his childlike aspirations for a life as a soldier.
Novel Two: A falling star at dawn (20)
The second novel covers the middle 1960s, the period in Indonesian history when great political turbulence, bloodletting and imprisonment of suspected dissidents occurred. (21) The title appears to allude to Srintil's fall from grace at the dawn of a new Indonesian regime, the second since independence from Dutch colonisation.
A meteorite streaking across the sky at early dawn is the natural omen signalling these shifts of fate. Srintil and her troupe of musicians are frequently hired by the organiser of political rallies in the region due to the large audiences she attracts.
Thus, the ronggeng's original attraction as the focal point of a local fertility cult is now marketed as political charisma by communist sympathisers and extended to a national arena. The political activist in charge converts some of the customary lyrics Srintil sings to political slogans. (22)
As a young, illiterate country girl, Srintil does not grasp the full meanings of the texts she sings. Similarly, the people of Paruk are not versed in politics outside of their hamlet and do not know about the ideologies espoused, in this case by the national communist party (PKI).
They are easily tricked into believing that another opposing political party has desecrated their ancestor's gravesite. To take revenge, the people of Paruk continue to support the PKI, even though many of the rallies end in drunken brawls with hundreds of people trampling the rice fields they rely upon for nourishment.
The military considers Paruk as a communist hotbed and burns the entire hamlet to the ground, although the inhabitants survive; symbolically, only the hut belonging to Rasus' grandmother is left standing. The extent of Private Rasus' personal involvement in the massacres of this period is not dearly apparent. As he takes part in the army's activities, be wonders whether Srintil is dead or alive; in fact, she has been imprisoned during a roundup of suspected communists.
Rasus subsequently returns home after four years of absence, having heard of his grandmother' s impending death. Apparently he has become personally identified with Islam, as he utters a prayer in Arabic. He learns of Srintil's imprisonment from her grandfather, now the headman of Paruk, who asks for his help in finding her; Rasus
visits her in prison but is powerless to free her.
Srintil's ordeal is hardly over, as her sexual services continue to be taken under the management of a prison official. She feels degraded and looks to her keeper's wife, a rather typical urban housewife, as a role model of respectable feminine virtue (a model promoted by the New Order) and aspires to be like her should she ever be freed.
Novel Three: Rainbow wheel (23)
In the third novel Srintil is released from prison after two years of captivity, somewhat broken in spirit and shamed, not only by her status as what can now only be called a 'prostitute' , but also by her association with the blamed and defunct PKI.
Although it may have been others' perceptions of her sexual power that first endeared her to them, then endangered her, and later saved her life, Srintil must add to the litany of indignities that she already bears the considerable stigma in Indonesian society of being an extapol (ex-political convict).
Many people who previously celebrated Srintil both inside and outside the hamlet now shun her. In a changing moral climate she feels disgraced by her past as a celebrated dancer.
It is as if Eve, having been created in the image of God, has discovered her nakedness and is suddenly ashamed. Her own volition has had little to do with any of this misfortune; she clings to her aspirations to become a respectable woman and this keeps her going.
The community continues to manipulate Srintil, however, now from the standpoint of secular gain and entertainment more than from the prior desire for social prosperity, superstitious ignorance or a cultural need for ritual fulfillment.
Finally, having determined that her occupation is self-defeating, Srintil attempts to take back her own life. Against the protests of her (adoptive) family and community, she makes several attempts to change her lifestyle, but is continuously stalked by men.
Prior to her imprisonment, one of her would-be 'suitors', the head of a rubber plantation, had a sorcerer place a curse on her because she had rejected him. As a result she collapsed during a performance, but she recovered, unaware of the cause or that this man had originally considered having her assassinated.
Years later, after Srintil has been released from detention, the same individual bribes her probation officer in order to kidnap her, but she escapes after falling off the back of his motorcycle. Such moments in the narrative tell readers that Srintil is worthy of dignity and desires to achieve it, but cannot attain it without intervention. I
t seems that many people are not willing or able to release their ronggeng from their obsessive vice-like grip. No matter how hard she tries, the ronggeng identity she now rejects is the one that supersedes all others in the minds of other people. (24)
She grows increasingly alienated and isolated. In many respects Srintil is not seen as a human being, but as a magical charm that has progressively existed for the veneration of an ancestor, the pleasure of men, the promotion of ideology and now the secular accumulation of wealth and power.
Eventually, Srintil does stop her ronggeng activities entirely, regains a sense of selfesteem and pursues her dream of becoming a respectable woman, hopefully by marrying her absent childhood sweetheart-turned- soldier, Rasus. Although the offending spirit of the ronggeng has abandoned Srintil's body, Rasus visits only a few times
over a period of years, and seems to run away after only a day or so.
In his absence, the director of a construction project expresses an interest in Srintil but makes it very clear that he has no unsavory intentions - not an option in any case since a physical handicap has made him sexually impotent. After six months of treating her like a
respectable woman, however, the man suddenly and inexplicably offers her sexual services to his boss, hoping to be given a new project; he only informs Srintil minutes before the encounter is scheduled to take place.
It seems that his motives were no purer than any of the previous abusers in her personal history; he was simply a higher-classed version who patiently bided his time until he found a worthy enough goal upon which to spend his human token.
Srintil is devastated by the proposition made on her behalf by the person she thought was a true friend and possibly a future husband. Feeling hopelessly betrayed, she descends into psychological and physical shock.
She had thought that that part of her life was over, but apparently attraction to the idea of a famous or even infamous ronggeng is so powerful that some men can never resist either seeking her themselves or, as in this case, manipulating her and other men's desires for personal gain.
In extreme shock, Srintil hovers on the verge of collapse, but fortunately the prospective client himself is decent and incorruptible and declines his subordinate' s offer.
Nevertheless, this betrayal is one indignity too many in a long string of abuses and Srintil has a mental breakdown, eventually ending up at home, singing and talking to herself. Finally, Rasus comes back to stay and vows to correct the ignorant beliefs and practices of the people of Paruk.
He promises to marry Srintil after taking her to a psychologist for counselling. The reader never knows for certain if Srintil recovers from the demise of her traumatic yet compelling life of public drama and power, though the promise is implied.
The feminisation of Paruk
Srintil, the village dancer, the very symbol of the hamlet, had disappeared. The uncertainty of her fate could be likened to the fate of Paruk itself. (25)
The story of Srintil parallels that of the hamlet of Paruk, which is inhabited by the descendants of a criminal, similar to the way that Srintil's body is possessed by the ronggeng spirit.
Originally innocent, both fell prey to hardship and manipulation: Srintil by villagers, communist organisers and government officials and Paruk by nature, communism and political violence. The public display of Srintil's female body (albeit in dance costume) and its private but orchestrated and publicised penetration by strangers can be likened to the penetration of Paruk by powerful outside forces.
Although physically or politically powerful, individual men or masculine groups nevertheless desired a different kind of power only embodied in the feminine.
Srintil, the embodiment of human femininity, must therefore be protected from masculine excesses by strong and righteous men like Rasus, much as Paruk must be protected from the vices of sophisticated urban life, unspecified foreign influences and political manipulation.
There is hope for both, but only through intervention followed by psychotherapy for Srintil and--ironically, considering the anti-communist sentiment of the story--a kind of re-socialisation for villagers.
In my view, Paruk is represented as feminine, not only in that it can be penetrated, but also in the fascination it holds for people outside its borders. It is both powerful in its 'natural' charm and mystery and vulnerable in its relative lack of social agency and blindness to evil. And yet it cannot be given its own agency because of the danger that feminine power seems to pose to men. It is as if feminine power, unlike masculine power that directs and controls, is only viewed as good if it remains embodied rather than expressed or applied.
I follow Erving Goffman's notion of 'dramatic and directive ... [as] contrasting types of power' in his work on human 'performance' in daily life, in saying that feminine power in Paruk is portrayed as dramatic, while masculine power is shown to be more directive in nature. (26)
However underappreciated, suppressed or silenced, it would be a mistake to discount dramatic power as 'powerlessness' based on a lack of intended effect or product. Dramatic power's effect is in the moment of interaction and escapes easy quantification and definition.
One of the best indicators of its impact is the effort to suppress dramatic power and its agents on the part of those who feel threatened by it. Still, dramatic power in its place is needed, desired, cultivated and guarded from the directive powers of others.
That most characters of the trilogy are shown to victimise the possessor of this power--someone they once treasured—is only another sign, however poignant, that feminine power as a dramatic force exists and has great influence.
The implied but not openly stated solution to the victimisation of the feminine (both Srintil and Paruk) without destroying feminine power completely first appears in the narrative in the form of Rasus' witnessing the bloody aftermath of the actual event on 30 September / 1 October 1965 that set into motion Suharto's rise to power: the murder of a group of generals. (27)
Interestingly, Gerwani (the women's wing of the PKI) has long been rumoured in Indonesia to have participated in this massacre; Gerwani members were reported as having danced erotically around the well into which the generals' corpses were thrown. 'The onslaught of stories about the "sinister" act ... created an almost hysterical mass anxiety.' (28)
Although empirical evidence for such a scenario is lacking, and in fact evidence exists to the contrary, efforts to convince the public of women's participation appear to have prevailed.
President Sukarno appealed to the common sense of ordinary people by asking, 'has my People sunk so low that it believes the nonsense that some few hundred women have cut off the genitals of the Generals with a Gillette knife?' (29)
Such a social climate of suspicion among readers of the trilogy may enhance the idea of Rasus as a righteous soldier in a symbolic exorcism that takes place during the period of frenzied killings following the original event through March 1966; in short, the suspicion legitimises this conception of him.
For a period in the narrative, this national obsession takes precedence over the more trivial individual symptoms of the evil spirit possessing Srintil. She suffers while the would-be saviour of Paruk hamlet (and, as a part of the military, of the nation) stamps
out ignorance, superstition and communism.
After the military has subdued the populace and brought order to the land, however brutally, Rasus appears to have second thoughts about his role in this horror--the extent of which is not explicated-- begins to identify himself with Islam, and returns home to help Srintil with her 'personal' difficulties through modern psychology.
Although he does not have the 'stomach' for sadistic and violent atrocities and witnesses the corruption and hardening of previously ordinary individuals, he clings steadfastly to his beliefs that superstition and communism are the primary causes.
Superstition, communism and corruption act upon the hapless villagers in a narrative that cannot imagine a world in which women (or small rural communities) are free to be powerful in their own right without destructive consequences.
Nevertheless, dramatic power is woven into the fetishised female character that resonates with a view of power that has been a part of Javanese cultural ideology.
This concept of power, made famous outside Java in Benedict Anderson's masterful essay, is one of quiet or understated power in which the 'audience', using Goffman's term, may be more active than the possessor of power. While the modern version may be called 'charisma' and linked to men in many scholarly discussions, I have linked it to Javanese women as 'centripetality' .
Sherry Ortner also writes of 'centripetal forces, used to attract men and/or their valuables into the women's families' among Pacific Island societies. (30) The kind of power inherent in Srintil as a mortal woman complements and symbolically balances the evil active power emanating from the ghost of Paruk's ancestor.
By taking over her body, the spirit appears to cause directive and dramatic power to merge into one personification that is nearly irresistible, in spite of being dangerous. The underlying message seems to be a caution against such merging in favour of a clearer separation of powers by gender.
History provides many documented examples of so-called 'sacred maid' status for selected virginal females in Pacific societies that are reminiscent of the ronggeng cult in the trilogy: 'the girl in these cases is almost wholly turned into a symbolic object by her kin'. (31)
It is as if Tohari, a modern Muslim, redraws the characteristics of a sacred maid who is then stripped of the very factors that made her sacred to her people, namely virginity, enhanced attractiveness, indigenous fertility belief system, strong kin ties and a pre-industrial subsistence economy.
The feminisation of Paruk recalls 'Orientalism' rather than indigenisation or localisation, linked to the historical example of Western attitudes and fantasies about Asia. It is also consistent with the association of 'female' with 'inside/inner' in Southeast Asia. (32)
Purging Paruk of its local—and in my view 'feminine' power--or at least controlling it in order to protect it, is an agenda that permeates the novels.
People such as those in Paruk become victims, I surmise, not because they are any more ignorant than any other group of people, but because they begin to be subsumed within a larger social system that is developing different values, structures and expectations.
As with classic acculturation, one group is more powerful than the other, forcing the weaker one to adjust. What befell the people of Paruk is not unusual in real accounts of cultural clashes; what is a bit uncommon is that they are presumably of the same ethnic group as most of the outsiders.
Thus instead of Said's 'Orientalism' , couched in racial terms, we have the negative exoticisation of a conservative lifestyle. Paruk is seen as different in much the same way as some men often view women.
Although beleaguered, it holds a primal attraction for those who see themselves as progressive, moral and privileged, just as 'respectable' men can be attracted to naive, poverty-stricken girls.
Paruk, through the use of Javanese stereotypes, has been feminised, as the 'East' has been Orientalised by 'Others'.
Women performers, power and art
Our reactions to her [Inul's] gyrating movements, tell more about us than they do about the singer. (33)
In order to take a more critical look at the dynamics Tohari crafts in his trilogy in relation to notions of gendered power in Javanese and Indonesian contexts, I will first briefly describe the ronggeng genre in the context of its cultural and historical setting. (34)
In The history of Java, Stamford Raffles not only describes ronggeng and their singing--'The voice, though sometimes harmonious, is often loud, dissonant, and harsh to a European ear'--and dancing, but includes a 'Europeanised' drawing as well. (35)
Claire Holt's influential book Art in Indonesia describes ronggeng essentially as itinerant street dancers who sing while dancing, accompanied by a small ensemble, and
collect small change from onlookers. 'Like the Indian nautch dancers, the ronggeng are reputed to be prostitutes but they are never despised or subjected to abuse ... these dancers have a somewhat protected position in Java.' (36)
In the Central Javanese sub-district of Bagelen, according to Koentjaraningrat, [the] ronggeng starts to perform at a very young age of about 8 to 10 years. Her father usually acts as the manager of the group, while his daughter dances ... and sings children's songs ... The local population calls her lengger. Not all lengger become ronggeng when they grow up, as many lengger girls get married and leave the profession. Most ronggeng, however, have been lengger dancers. (37)
Accompanied by a calung ensemble, which uses instruments made of bamboo rather than the more expensive bronze, iron and hardwood of gamelan, the lengger genre of Banyumas and surrounding locales such as Bagelen is renowned throughout Java.
According to Lysloff, who has translated an entire wayang kulit 'shadow play' performance entitled 'Srikandhi dances lengger', 'most drumming here [in Banyumas] has developed out of the lengger tradition'. He adds that
“These girls (and they are quite young) are on stage mainly as sexual objects. They are reputed to be of loose morals, although this is ridiculous in modern-day Islamic Java. They may have been part-time prostitutes in previous days, but the greatest titillation a male of today's audience gets is bare shoulders under a silky scarf and swaying (rather boyish) hips. I ... saw one fight that resulted from the sexual tension of a lengger performance despite boys not being invited to dance, but it was the exception rather than the norm. (38)
In most written accounts, the performances of singer-dancer genres such as ronggeng occur in rural folk settings. Many scholars also link these practices with court performances in some way, often by assuming that the forms in villages mimic those in courts.
'[F]emale street dancers ... dance poor imitations of the srimpi and the bedaja [bedhaya, a stately court dance] with elements from folk sources mixed in ... As the girls are as often as not professional prostitutes, this art is at the bottom of the kasar-alus [crude to refined] ladder. (39)
More than one scholar, including none other than Koentjaraningrat himself, has suggested that the reverse is the reality, i.e., that the courts have in fact imitated and appropriated the genres of the villages. 'Their dances ... have become a source of inspiration for choreographers of court dances, which resulted in the creation of beautiful golek dances in Yogyakarta, and the gambyong dances in Surakarta'.
Peggy Choy has noted this as well in her extensive research about the development of these two dance genres in the courts. (40) Felicia Hughes-Freeland, following the late dance scholar Ben Suharto, rightly points out that the dichotomy between sexualised folk singer-dancers and the abstract, controlled bedhaya dancers of the courts expressing a 'dissimulation of sexuality' is a false one. She would like to see the common singer-dancer of the past more explicitly acknowledged as a 'predecessor of palace dancers, as priestess rather than profanity'. (41)
Certainly in court performances of the pre-Islamic past, there is written evidence of erotic dancing reminiscent of the fertility cult in Tohari's trilogy.
For example, regarding Canto 66, Stanza 4 of the fourteenth-century Negarakertagama, Theodore G. Pigeaud writes that '[t]he Princes' performance of the erotic dance in the divine presence of the Rajapatni seated on her lion-throne in the center of the main courtyard proves its social and religious significance. Probably the woman represented the chthonic power, the fruitful earth, and the origin of all life.' (42)
Another example suggests a link between the earliest documentations of Javanese female dancers and twentieth-century court dancers. W. F. Stutterheim noted the similarity of the appearance of court dancers of the early 1900s to reliefs on the ninth-century Buddhist monument, Borobudur. (43)
The erotic impression from the reliefs is apparent, as are the more nuanced and refined presentations of modern-day dancers. Koentjaraningrat has suggested that the bedhaya originated in Banyumas:
In Banyumas village communities, the laran-laran dance is ...sometimes called [bedhaya] ... and is performed by a group of eight little girls ... [in some places boys] who are supposed to represent heavenly nymphs ... The whole performance often has a ritual character ... [T]he folk [bedhaya], after technical improvement and refinement, has become a highly sacred dance in the Central Javanese princely courts. (44)
From these sources it can be inferred that any artistic 'superiority' attributed to court forms is more a result of superior resources than of inspiration, creativity or skill.
In my view the great expressive and creative talent of Indonesia has always derived from the 'folk', only to be further developed and supported by the power and resources of the ruling centres. Even the modern nation-state has recognised this in establishing tertiary arts institutes that draw upon (some would say 'exploit') folk traditions in pursuit of both 'classic' and innovative art forms.
I have witnessed firsthand the seemingly magical effect Banyumas ronggeng can have on their audience of men, knowing as well that the same women may be denigrated the next day in gossip, as if those held under their sway are embarrassed to have been so captivated. In the spotlight of the dance arena, however, the men I saw were not
embarrassed in the least; they were visibly proud to be dancing with the ronggeng.
Men's obviously enraptured state, and thus vulnerability, in the presence of feminine power in public places flies in the face of conventional Javanese gender ideologies that associate men more with reason and control and women with emotion? (45)
This may partially explain the derogatory private speech in the light of day that, nevertheless, does not appear to seriously undermine women performers' respected celebrity in their home towns.
The performance arena appears to be a social venue in which 'official' (in Pierre Bourdieu's sense) ideologies are bracketed and alternative attitudes can be openly followed, even reversed. (46) In the light of day, though, both actually and figuratively, people return to normative behaviour.
The hard print or broadcast media coverage is less personal than local gossip, cheapening women performers' images much more. The predominantly male reporters are less likely to live in the vicinity, personally know the ronggeng, or see them perform, much less dance with them. Reporters have less personal 'face' to consider in what
they write, and are not likely to be affected by any reaction on the part of their subjects.
This is one way that modernisation renders relatively innocuous local gossip into a potentially more harmful kind of objectification. Performers do not necessarily resist such coverage, not fully realising this distinction between local gossip and commercial media, or feeling that they have no choice.
The denigrating discourse belies a different gender ideology from the official, dominant one. Men may denigrate women verbally as an attempt to compensate for their own perceived failure to live up to the ideal of masculine control.
Because performers are publicly available as symbols--even icons--of certain cultural attitudes, the talk surrounding them is heightened, to be sure, but of a similar nature to that concerning ordinary women. The 'dominant ideological premise [in Javanese society is] that to be male is to have greater self-control, whereas to be female is to be lacking in control'. (47)
In everyday life this dominant ideology appears to be carried out in most contexts, easily observed by anyone, including foreign visitors. However, when women star as performers while men swoon (or the masculine equivalent), that mundane facade is turned on its head.
The problem for scholars is that these contexts in which cultural ideology is inverted for a moment are not as readily accessible or as easily interpreted by outsiders, while those who do observe the enactment of alternative ideologies may be reluctant to proclaim an interpretation that goes against conventional wisdom.
Moreover, some observers may resist interpretations that are contrary to their own patriarchal presuppositions and those of the host setting, in this case, Java and Indonesia.
Although the Indonesian state itself has always been secular and the Muslim majority moderate, there remains the question of religious influence on attitudes towards women performers. Notions of a relative lack of restraint by women over their own natural passions and the cultivation of restraint by men are consistent with Islamic beliefs that entered Java by the fifteenth century? (48)
James Siegel, in his initial study of Islam in Aceh, writes that '[h]awa nafsu, or passion, desire, nature itself, leads man away from God ... [and that only] [t]hrough the use of akal [reason] man can ... control his ... instinctive nature'. (49) The ability or sincere intent to master his own innate passions is a sign of a cultured, spiritually potent man.
Among the Javanese aristocracy, this ideal is evidenced in the teachings of a noble father to his son in the nineteenth-century didactic poem Wedhatama, a few lines of which are familiar to many contemporary Javanese. Understood as 'a mantric emblem of
"Javaneseness" ', such poetry, while not to be read too literally, does give a sense of the masculine virtue of restraint: (50)
Selfishness dominates
In man's physical being ...
Since he is stuffed tight with passions
He falls short and fails to achieve his object ...
The Wise Man finds it prudent to give in,
And thus he shields the Fool. (51)
One of the most visible differences in the practice of Islam in Java from Middle Eastern countries is that 'women participate actively and in public and on television ... particularly in the recitation of the Qur'an'. Anne Rasmussen suggests that this is at least partially due to 'the historically prominent female performer type in Indonesia'. (52)
In the trilogy, leaving Paruk and joining the military seems to be Rasus' idea of a rational solution to his heartache; avoidance can be a common mode of dealing with interpersonal problems among Javanese.
He initially seems to find spiritual and moral solace in the military institution, which substitutes for his family, friends and birthplace, although eventually his experiences as a soldier dismay him as well His religious transformation, only alluded to, seems oddly understated considering the underlying moral message of the trilogy.
The idea of competing gender ideologies of passion and reason would help explain a major and perhaps unintended mystery of the trilogy: why does the male protagonist take so long to act and remain so silent throughout the horrific travails of his childhood sweetheart?
The reader gets an impression of emotional paralysis on the part of Rasus in response to the sexual potency, public celebration and then social stigma of Srintil's turbulent life, almost as a silent counter-plot running beneath the surface of the story.
Rasus is helpless in the face of the ronggeng's supernatural power, intimidated by Srintil's overwhelming sexual allure, unable to prevent her capture or arrange her release, and of little help very late in her recovery process. Although it is implied early on that he loves her in some sense, he never directly expresses a desire to marry or even actively help her until near the end of the story.
From a Western reader's standpoint, Rasus may appear impotent. From a Javanese perspective, on the other hand, it is as if he had to purify himself first (of his passions for Srintil) by participating in the military to defend the nation, a more manly kind of passion. In doing so he proved his worthiness to become a saviour of ordinary folks, much like the heroes of literature, shadow plays and dance dramas who are tempted by powerful forces in order to prove their worthiness for greater contributions to humanity.
Rasus was not only tempted but was successfully seduced by Srintil as a child, yet he pulled himself together and consciously left the ronggeng whom others could not resist. Perhaps even more significant is that he also left Paruk, the bastion of ignorance, for a more progressive goal.
Like the shadow-play hero who comes down from the mountain top after meditating, gaining power and resisting temptation in the form of heavenly nymphs, Rasus eventually returns home with a mission to cure Srintil's mental illness and Paruk's cultural afflictions.
There are also parallels in real life to men in the trilogy who think nothing of 'managing' the ronggeng, first in the hamlet, later in prison and again when Srintil is 'rented out' to a sexually inexperienced young man for his heuristic purposes.
Although it is difficult to document, there is reason to believe (based on information from musicians and singers themselves) that those male musicians in gamelan orchestras who occasionally offer liaisons with women singers to other men, often do so without the women's permission or even their knowledge.
The 'client' assumes the offer is authorised, but would only find out by accepting it. The musician or other man making the offer benefits from the perception that he controls the sexuality of the glamorous celebrity, whether he really does or not.
The woman's reputation suffers whether or not she is aware of the offer or enters into a liaison. The offer itself is the source of negative discourse about her, and it can do as much damage as an actual liaison.
As Anderson, Suzanne Brenner, Ward Keeler and others have suggested, understated power or spiritual potency, while more often associated with men (who are more likely to cultivate it), is more highly valued among Javanese than the power of brute force. (53) In fact, brute force often serves refined power.
One could argue that it was not only the brutality of ex-President Suharto's rise to power that most impressed many Javanese--although it did terrify and subdue them—but also the appearance that he gave of not having struggled very much in the process.
The 'smiling president', as he has often been labelled in media accounts, was a figure who apparently caused calamitous events by merely willing them. Some believe this is still happening today in spite of Suharto's loss of prestige, lack of official office, ill health, advancing age and reported mental confusion.
Much of the action of a refined Javanese hero in classical literature and shadow plays is carried out subtly or by others. Even in the key scene of classic theatre when the hero finally fights his primary enemy, his spiritual potency can fell the mightiest giant with a mere flick of the wrist.
This quintessential Javanese action scene is tellingly labelled the 'flower battle' (perang kembang), hardly a 'Rambo-type' encounter. Although use of refined hero imagery may have been a political slight-of-hand in Suharto's case, it took decades for many ordinary people to overcome their impression of genuine supernatural power.
Srintil could be seen as a polysemic icon evoking the most central meanings in her society. Her role is ambiguous or 'liminal' perhaps, using Victor Turner's meaning of that term as being caught 'betwixt and between' two statuses (in this case milieus). The two milieus are the agrarian lifestyles of rural dwellers prior to large-scale development projects and the more industrialised, modernised and urbanised lifestyles under the New Order regime. (54)
Srintil is located centrally in the nexus of her community's cultural beliefs, attitudes and identities. Although the male characters can be politically or violently powerful, they operate peripherally in their contests for access to her. Men are mesmerised by Srintil as the embodiment not only of femininity, but also of humanity itself. Although women do not desire her in the same manner as do men, they too admire and envy her in the beginning.
Unlike the 'art' of industrial societies, which tends to be located on the margins of core activities in a sphere of leisure, the kind of ritualistic performance exemplified by the ronggeng resides near the centre of cultural meanings. The art of industrial societies, although significant and occasionally powerful, is seen as optional, as opposed to ritual, which is seen as necessary.
Rapid advances in the scale and complexity of society, particularly after industrialization, have passed this unified liminal configuration through the prism of division of labour, with its specialization and professionalisation , reducing each of these sensory domains to a set of entertainment genres flourishing in the leisure time of society, no longer in a central driving place. (55)
Although one could say that both ritual and art have existed universally in some form throughout human history, upon industrialisation there is a shift to a predominance of art.
The transformation of meanings attached to a continuing phenomenon (the ronggeng) in a rapidly changing context is what Arjun Appadurai has identified as a constitutive feature of ritual practices. (56)
We will return to the key practice of opening the mosquito net, not only as a symbol of a transformation of power, but as constituting changing cultural attitudes, in the conclusion. Guilt and salvation are to Srintil and Rasus as feminine and masculine are to community and nation
He saw their guilt and their plea for forgiveness ... Yes, he was a son of Paruk and, as such, was sympathetic to his people. But he was also a soldier and therefore required to see things beyond the narrow perspective of his village. (57)
Real ronggeng and their counterparts throughout history and Java are not always or simply prostitutes, but sometimes symbolise fertility in ritual contexts that link them to prosperity.
Although this would in no way justify victimisation through rape, enslavement
or economic or political exploitation, it does help clarify the contexts in which such cultist practices came to be legitimised. Not all actual ronggeng, particularly today, have been as disadvantaged as Srintil.
Some see themselves not as victims, but rather as celebrities. Srintil was victimised not only by individuals but also by a social redefining of what her occupation meant.
Reinterpreted in a modernising and increasingly monotheistic milieu, what previously signified prosperity later signified backwardness.
Female sexuality was reduced from being a kind of power (often signified as danger) to a kind of sin for which she felt shame. 'She felt that she had lost ... her very self ... [as] [t]he people around her had made her feel that she was a disgrace to humanity'. (58)
In actual Javanese society of today, while the genre of ronggeng survives in the midst of newer, more popular genres such as the hybrid campur sari (a mixture of gamelan and kroncong), the meanings and understandings of what a ronggeng entails have shifted. (59)
A somewhat instructive historical case is that of the auspicious devadasi of Orissa India who sang, danced and participated in important rituals in the temples. Transcending caste and considered to be sacred, these women were wives of the gods and, by divine proxy, the king; their temple functions included sexual relations with him. Frederique Marglin documents the changing of the sacred activities of devadasi into a kind of prostitution as beliefs and values changed, particularly in response to British colonialism.
What Hindus originally considered to be positive, life-giving and auspicious came to be stigmatised, condemned as sin and even banned. Similar bans of tayuban (related to the ronggeng genre) have been initiated but only partially effective in Java. 'The perception of moral depravity as pertaining to the devadasi is a Western construction which in turn implies that this might not be an accurate perception of the devadasi'. (60)
On a broader scale in some Brahmanic traditions, the power of gods (sakti) is embodied in the feminine principle. Without this locating of power in the feminine, the gods--or, by extension, men--could not act.
Javanese power is signified with a word built on that Sanskrit root: kasekten. Considering the significant influence Indian cultural elements had in Java's early history, it is not unreasonable to suggest that at least some of this sentiment took hold here, being
indigenised by combining with more complementary forms of daily gender interaction.
There is a supernatural mystique that surrounds ronggeng, albeit less so today than in accounts from the past. Srintil, like the seblang and gandrung (of East Java) and Sang Hyang Dedari (of neighbouring Bali), is thought to be possessed. (61)
According to Paul Wolbers, 'studies on these traditions suggest that ancient fertility rites form the basis of a good deal of them'. (62) This historical legacy lends credence to the otherwise contradictory premise that a figure can embody power despite the fact that others have control over her life.
Indeed, as Ortner has asserted, the gender dynamics of power, prestige and dominance do not always correlate in every society and may in fact vary independently of one another. Many of the Javanese people I have encountered do see women as powerful, although discursively and officially this is suppressed.(63) While there is patriarchy, gender discrimination and at certain times and places oppression and violence against women in Java, hard-core misogyny or historical patterning viewing women as inherently weak or flawed are rare.
With some exceptions and to differing degrees, this is a recurrent cultural theme in much of indigenous Southeast Asia and in stark contrast to many East and South Asian indigenous gender configurations.
The cultural notion of powerful yet contained femininity also contrasts with the ways in which Western women have been viewed from Plato's time to the present. The favourable conditions of contemporary Western women have been long in coming and hard-fought for by women themselves against a chauvinistic legacy.
Human refinement to the point of delicacy, associated more with women in Western societies, is a highly valued ideal for Javanese men and women alike; in terms of gender, men concern themselves more than women do with cultivating refined behaviour, although women among the traditional aristocracy called priyayi are also expected to be refined.
The emerging urban elites, bureaucratic priyayi and middle class of large cosmopolitan cities like Jakarta comprise yet another set of dynamics outside the scope of the present article. A strong male type similar to the Western 'macho' image has long existed, but takes a back seat to the refined noble hero who would appear effeminate to most Westerners.
Efforts to control women in Java focus more on controlling their perceived embodied power, rather than preventing them from acquiring it or thinking that they are too weak to possess it.
One of the recurring themes in the novels and in real discourses about contemporary women who are traditional performers is the issue of prostitution. Vietnamese scholar Thanh-dam Truong captures the essence of the dominant view of 'prostitution as promiscuity and crime'. Citing a number of studies, she points out that 'the criminalisation of prostitution has been selective. Law and its enforcement mainly affect women, while clients, pimps and brothel owners have remained relatively untouched.' (64)
Similarly, in the trilogy Srintil is detained for two years, while her 'managers' and the musicians who support her are freed after a few days.
If 'prostitution' were to be defined as sexual activity whose primary function and motivation (of either the provider of sexual services or the provider's agent or owner) are economic or/and an activity that is devoid of emotional attachment, the character of Srintil would not fit.
Although wealth is the product and one of the signs of her power, she emerges to fulfil a prophecy in an essentially haunted society. It is only as she begins to perform outside of her hamlet, in a different moral and political context, that she is stigmatised as a prostitute -- although this may have always been the view of outsiders.
Added to that is the stigma of having been in prison, as ex-political prisoners in Indonesia have had to bear an additional yoke of suspicion and fear and were officially marked with that identity until quite recently.
As the progressive view of the larger society penetrates the small community, Srintil comes to accept their definition as her own, resulting in great shame.
Two main models for women can be discerned in the trilogy.
The first is one of feminine power expressed through the flaunting of sexuality; the ultimate icon of this model is the ronggeng. To some extent, however, all the women of Paruk were associated with this image. On the one hand is the adoptive grandmother who is the principal procurer for Srintil's sexual liaisons, and on the other are the townswomen who reportedly 'sleep around'.
The second feminine model presented is that of respectability, accomplished through controlling female sexuality and typified by the ibu rumah tangga 'housewife' of aristocratic or modern middle-class families. (65) The strong autonomous peasant and/or market woman image, documented in many ethnographies of lava and common in contemporary Java, is conspicuously ignored in the novels.
In the trilogy ronggeng and peasant women are associated with primitivism, ignorance and the past while the ibu rumah tangga are associated with progress, respectability, morality and the future.
After all, 'a caste of "shameless women" allows the "honest woman" to be treated with the most chivalrous respect', as Simone de Beauvoir has pointed out. (66) In this binary view, one cannot exist without the other.
Thus, Srintil is compared to the bourgeois women, the ibu-ibu or middle-class housewives so widely promoted by the New Order regime. In her naivety and desire for social respect, she even endorses their values and aspires to be like them.
The tone of the first novel is sympathetic and culturally relativistic, as if from an insider's perspective. The pitiable hamlet's culture at least has meaning for its own inhabitants, who find solidarity as descendants of their founding ancestor. Although maladapted, resulting in a kind of culture of poverty and pestilence, they nevertheless find some solace in the rituals and beliefs that bind them together.
The second novel spells out a period of liminality, ambiguity and uncertainty for the community during the social reversals and upheavals of the 1960s in Indonesia. It is at this juncture in the story that dichotomous categories and archetypes gain prominence.
Lastly, in the final book, the previously veiled moral tone becomes more strident after Rasus' conspicuous silence and social paralysis are broken when he decides to return home and help Srintil and their people. (67)
Although Rasus chastises the people of Paruk as victims of their ignorance and for their stubborn adherence to supernatural beliefs, the author himself uses natural and supernatural devices in the text and titles as signs, omens and harbingers.
For example, the title Lintang kemukus dini hari refers to a falling star occurring over Paruk the morning before Srintil--the hamlet's star--is unexpectedly and tragically imprisoned.
This imagery recalls the Javanese wahyu or heavenly boon, often described as a light descending from heaven onto a favoured person, particularly a ruler. Exceptional artists are sometimes said to have the wahyu, in this sense more of a supernatural inspiration or talent bestowed upon the individual.
The brother of a dhalang (puppet master) once told me, 'Although I can perform shadow plays competently, everyone acknowledges that Mas Yudi [a pseudonym] is the one in our family with the wahyu. Our role, accordingly, is to support his career in any way in which we can. His prestige and success will reciprocally benefit us.' (68)
In the trilogy, while the streak of light in the heavens appears to signal the loss of fortune for Srintil and Paruk, it might also be read as a wahyu descending upon an emerging ruler: as it turns out, Suharto.
Jantera bianglala, the title of the third novel, specifically refers to the rainbow that encircles the moon towards the end of the story; a mysterious mist acts as a prism in creating it.
Although it appears to an elder as a representation of the haze of confusion and suffering that permeates Paruk, it does transform the reflected light of the moon, perhaps alluding to Srintil, into the rings of colour known as a rainbow.
It symbolises Rasus' hope that the hamlet of Paruk with its previously treasured ronggeng is beginning to emerge from its quagmire. In his narrator voice, Rasus declares 'the mist [to be] in plain view after making a rainbow ring around the moon'. (69) His interpretation recalls a similar transformation in the well-known moral story 'Dewa Ruci'.
Although harking back to pre-Islamic Java, the story is also infused with Islamic sentiment like most Javanese 'classical' and 'neo-classical' literature. The following excerpt of the story is taken from The book of Cabolek:
Werkudara's heart became pure on receiving / this Divine revelation, the gift descending upon him like the moon shrouded in mist: (70)
Rasus, like Werkudara, feels transformed in that he can now see through the haze of ignorance and confusion to the rainbow; even if he is the only one with such clarity, the hope of salvation for others is now possible through his agency. Conclusion
The constructions of gender in Tohari's novels vacillate between one featuring familiar oppositions of female and male, backward and progressive, sinful and moral, etc. and one of a Javanese mandala of power with women (however stigmatised) at the centre.
At the beginning the ronggeng is the powerful centre--albeit one manipulated by her
adoptive family--through which men can gain power by contesting access to her.
The men's prestige is measured by their ability to gain access to Srintil. She convinces Rasus to join her in pre-empting the leading contenders, however, by secretly coupling prior to the official rape ritual; she thus exercises personal agency within the most constricted conditions.
Confused, Rasus then restrains himself (as far as the reader knows) until the cultist activities have played out, the ronggeng is punished and the hamlet burned to the ground in the context of national power shifts; he then returns to claim his prestige as favourite son.
He is untainted in the narrative since he was absent or merely a witness in the text during much of the turmoil.
In descriptions of him as a soldier, he is repelled by knowledge of the association with violence that his uniform and weapon convey. It is a literary morality that stipulates absence, reticence and silence as virtues.
As the story proceeds, the powerful feminine centre dissolves, displaced by a linear view of progress through economic development accompanied by modern ideas of moral reform.
The progression depicted in the trilogy parallels the political downfall of Sukarno, rise of Suharto and the industrialisation and modernisation thrusts of the New Order regime.
The state and its modernising processes, compelled by international aspirations and modelled on colonial-era precursors, were masculine in a different and conspicuous way that departed from the complementarity so typical of previous Javanese cultural constructions.
The imagery of the refined noble hero began to be replaced by that of a 'macho' man posing as a Javanese king. The depiction of Paruk hamlet as an ignorant backwater where innocent feminine youth is victimised is a convenient vehicle for the idea of a moral masculine saviour in the character of Rasus.
What is interesting is how the feminine victim remains local Javanese while the masculine hero and the foreign demon appear modern and national or international, respectively, by the end.
Contrary to the real indigenisation that has historically characterised foreign encounters in Java and Southeast Asia, in the narrative the indigenous model is more or less abandoned for the new.
This shift conjures up, however unwittingly, 'the campaign to associate communism with wild, perverse, sexually loose women and to present the army as the virile saviours of a nation on the brink of destruction' , to use Saskia Wieringa's phrase. (71)
The inhabitants of Paruk, and indeed Indonesia, seem locked in a binary trap. On the macro level, political ideology, economic development and Puritanism will purportedly save society from the hapless quagmire into which it would otherwise fall.
As noted by Ortner, 'we get to the great divide: the rise of the state. Here there is a radical shift of both ideology and practice ... At the same time one finds for the first time symbolic idealisation of woman in the mother-aspect, rather than in the sexual. (72)
It is as if 'by borrowing the categories of the West, the "internalised orientalism" of state narratives participates in a "gendered formation of power" whereby a timeless ... essence is defined as embodying the nation, whereas women are by definition always and already antinational' . (73)
While Ortner is referring to a broader historical progression, in the trilogy the 'state' enters in at the point when Paruk can no longer function as a relative isolate.
Tohari's ronggeng, living in an 'Orientalised' or feminised society, provides a window into actual Javanese gender transformations corresponding to Indonesia's modernisation- -modernisation that inevitably imports cultural features.
The notion of women as powerful in their own way (as in markets, agriculture and households)- -not to mention as sources of desire, givers of life and nurturers--has long been considered complementary to men's customary use of power (as in politics, religion and administration).
The historically recent rise of a masculine modern state powered by a masculine economy is somewhat alien, not because it is masculine but because that cultural version of masculinity has been constructed differently from that found in lava and much of the rest of Indonesia.
Unlike the nearly unchecked masculinity of many modern states and economies, Javanese masculinity, even in the form of kingship or religious Puritanism, has customarily been tempered and complemented by Javanese femininity.
The mythical Queen of the South Seas, Kanjeng Ratu Kidul, for instance, symbolically balances what remains of the power of the descendants of the Mataram dynasty to this day.
A similar phenomenon, at the level of ordinary rural folk, is the symbolism of Dewi Sri, the goddess of rice. (74)
The small-scale economies of households, farms and local markets of the past and present are primarily the concern of women, who preserve the men-folk's dignity by distancing them from the crass concerns of money.
Many contemporary Javanese households and local produce markets continue with a similar practice, but the modern state and global economic models overwhelm local orders.
Tohari's trilogy presents an example of a rural, relatively isolated structuring of social relations and cultural meanings in transition to something like the more internationally affected situation in much of lava today. As female performers gain in influence and respect, their roles are secularised, losing much of their mysterious link to the fertility of crops, which leads to human prosperity.
The erotic connotations of their performances, perceived as both positive and negative by local folk, have oftentimes been reduced to gossip, media speculation and occasional outbreaks of actual scandal. Gossip and media sensationalism, among other practices, 'serve to restrict women's social and sexual behaviour'. (75)
As previously integrated fields of ritual activity split in the modernisation process, prostitution (or 'sex work' from a decriminalised industrial standpoint) becomes a separate sphere from that part which becomes art.
(Here I refer to 'art' as humanly created form that is appreciated more for its aesthetic and/or entertainment qualities than for its social meaning.)
The novels provide a glimpse into a worldview that is difficult for many modern folk to imagine because it is built not only upon oppositions but also upon complementary relationships revolving around an integrated centre of feminised power symbolised by the ronggeng. 'In a real sense she [the sacred maid] is symbolically the daughter/sister of the entire village, and its prestige is tied up with her prestige.' (76)
This centring of femininity provides an ambiguous yet alternative example of gendered and unequal othering to the one based on binary oppositions.
That alternative view, reflecting real-life attitudes extant in Java, focuses on power as the axis around which individuals gather, organise and conflict. The organisational aspect of this entails a masculinised prestige hierarchy in which men occupy the most prominent positions, with the ancestor progenitor at the apex (if visualised as a cone).
This would not be possible, however, without a representative woman as the 'down-to-earth' centre around which all gather and about which they contest. Rather than focusing only on two extreme ends as with an oppositional model, Tohari's gaze vacillates between these different modes of conceiving power.
It can be suggested that his ambivalence parallels and indeed indicates the movement in Indonesian cultural perspective from a local outlook (albeit merged with national and foreign influences) to a more modern, internationally influenced
outlook, which is nevertheless indigenised.
Similar to Orissa's devadasi, Java's ronggeng--like Java itself--suffer as much from a recontextualisation of meanings over time as from indigenous patriarchal oppression. Like many indigenous rituals, the ronggeng phenomenon became a genre in a modern arena of the arts.
While I rejoice with Tohari at the freeing of Srintil and all similarly oppressed women, my concern is that too narrow a path may be substituted. If traditionally oriented Javanese people are being saved by modernising processes, primarily because the world has become modern and societies must adapt, at the same time they may also be losing some valued parts of a less dichotomous past.
Historically, what was a powerful ritual sphere featuring dramatic hyper-femininity
has been transformed into a modern performance genre now encapsulating little rituals that ronggeng candidates must undergo to become legitimate performers.
As reported in a local newspaper article in 1996, the 'bukak klambu' (symbolic opening of the mosquito net) ritual is a required part of initiation ceremonies for contemporary ronggeng, in addition to certain ascetic practices leading up to the initiation performance.
In stark contrast, in Tohari's trilogy the 'buka[k] klambu' is the sequential sexual penetration of eleven-year- old Srintil by two contest winners on the bed set up for the purpose by her adoptive grandparents and managers.
One wonders what this dance ritual means in the contemporary setting for the ronggeng candidates aged 13 through 17 who are pictured dancing in the article captioned 'Ritual ceremony "Opening of the Net" by teenage girls'. (77)
The national government has attempted to purge such art forms of their prior associations with negative sexuality by strictly moderating them through patronisation, but this does not necessarily censor all of the cultural attitudes that have survived in some form until the present.
Whatever the particular interpretations, the ronggeng dance genre has endured a passing of power through time. In the turmoil of political, economic and cultural struggles to possess the soul of Indonesia in the twenty-first century, the meanings inherent in both the polysemic symbolism of the dance and the ongoing opening of the country to more
democratic possibilities and to increasing international exposure may truly lie in the eyes of the beholder.
Tohari's 'eyes' reveal a national trajectory disguised as fiction. In spite of valiant attempts
to resist Western influences, parts of the narrative in terms of gender identity are as recognisable as a Grimm's fairy tale: the males are active agents of change, good or bad, while the females are victims or passive-aggressive survivors. (78)
However, Tohari's trilogy departs with an ingenious (or possibly organic) twist. Unlike
Grimm's female heroes--who never mature into women or else lose their agency or are punished for using it--Srintil struggles, strives and resists through two novels and most of the third, well into womanhood.
As for Rasus, he is a Javanese man for whom 'action' is refined or simply alluded to, rather than described--a literary device for minimising unrefined behaviour inconsistent with the moral figure he represents. Although punished and damaged, both heroes survive to the end. There is hope and faith that the feminine will recover in that Srintil does grow up with at least the possibility of agency and remains a sympathetic character throughout. Although Rasus in some ways resembles a Western masculine hero, his agency is suppressed through literary device.
This renders the trilogy as an Indonesian parable that quite possibly exceeds even the author's intentions. In Grimm's tales, as interpreted by Ortner, the girl with agency either never grows up or must suppress her own agency if she does. (79)
Like Indonesia itself, Srintil at least has the possibility of surviving into maturity with some agency of her own intact. As a feminine icon, her character represents what even modern men live for in their contests with each other.
The introduction to this article noted that this analysis of a work of Indonesian fiction is motivated by a search for cultural understanding, and it has been established that the genre of sastra warna lokal and Tohari's trilogy in particular reveal a profound
ambivalence regarding Western influences, be they literary, political or economic.
The story about a remarkable Javanese singer-dancer is especially significant for untangling complex cultural ideologies and practices of gender in transition from indigenous subsistence lifestyles to a more modern existence linked to global politics and the international economy.
Although Tohari may not have intended this meaning, the trilogy shows that modernity need not follow a strictly dichotomous model, whether derived from secular Western or orthodox religious influences.
Alternative modernities can include balancing elements such as gender complementarity and religious tolerance, two principles extant in Java today. * * *
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I first addressed this topic in a paper for the 46th Annual Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies in a panel on 'Defining the other: Women in art and fiction from contemporary Southeast Asia'.
