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Is Maluku Still Musicological terra incognita? An Overview of the Music-Cultures of the Province of Maluku

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Margaret J. Kartomi
Margaret J. Kartomi
Affiliation:
Monash University
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Extract

The province of Maluku, otherwise known as the Moluccas, is divided into three main regions: the predominantly Muslim north, the mainly Christian central area, and the predominantly Christian southeast (see Map 1). The central region contains the “mother island” (nasa ina) of Seram which Maluku people believe to be the original source of Maluku culture. In some relatively isolated parts of this large island the original inhabitants such as the Nuaulu and the Huaulu ethnic groups (known in colonial times as the Alifuru people) still practise their ancestral rituals including music and dance.

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Articles
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Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 141 - 171
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Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1994

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References

M. and H. Kartomi witnessed and recorded some of the traditional music and dance performed in Ternate, Tidore, Ambon, Kai Archipelago and Tanimbar in December 1989–January 1990 and in Seram and Ambon in July 1993, under the auspices of officers of the Department of Education and Culture, to whom we owe a large debt of gratitude. We are most grateful to the Governor of Maluku and the Head of International Relations of the Department of Education and Culture in Jakarta, as well as to the Heads of the Department of Education and Culture offices in Ambon, Ternate, the Kai Archipelago and Tanimbar for their assistance during our visit in late 1989 and early 1990.

We are indebted to many functionaries and artists in North Maluku, including Joumuce (Yang Mulia) Mudafar Syah, the forty-eighth Sultan of Ternate; Lieutenant-Colonel Sutikno, Bupati of North Halmahera; Mrs Sutikno and the Dharma Wanita Music and Dance Troupe; Drs Nizam Gani and Bp. Syamsuddin Muhammad of the government tourism office in Ternate; Mr Tukang, Bupati of Central Halmahera; artists in the Radio Republic Indonesia office in Ternate; a group of court musicians living in Dufa-Dufa village not far from the palace, especially Bp. Majid Budran, Bp. Dalima Gafi, Bp. Mochtar Majid, Bp. Ron Hamisi, Bp. Isak Man and Bp. Tahir Man; Mr Abdul Togubu of the Tidore museum, other heads of the Branch Museums in Ternate and Tidore; and many musicians and dancers in the villages of Ternate and Tidore Islands. In Jakarta, we benefited from long discussions with the eldest child of the forty-seventh Sultan of Ternate, Jou ma fira (Ibu) Syahrinsad Syah, who has vivid childhood memories of the Ternate palace until she left it in 1945.

For data gathered and recordings made on Ambon we are grateful to church musicians and elders in the vilage of Waai, Kecamatan Salahutu; the musicians and elders of Hitu village on Ambond's northeast coast; the troupe of artists led by Bp. Jon Tamaela in Ambon's Department of Education and Culture; musicians employed at the Museum Siwalima in Amdon; musicians, instrument makers, elders, and young katreji dancers of the village of Soya Diatas in the hills just above the town of Ambon; and the university student troupe of Seram-style musicians and dancers led by composer, musician and choreographer Bp. Chris Tamaela at the University of Pattimura.

We would also like to thank Raja Dullah (Bp. Nohor Rennat of Kampung Dullah, Kai Besar), Bp. Gregorius Raharawin and Bp. Oni Labetubun of the Department of Education and Culture in Tual, Ibu Yuliana Refo of Letwuan village, Kai Kecil, and musician Bp. Awat of Mangun village, Kai Besar; Bp. Rahandra, Bupati (regional head) of the Kai Archipelago; Bp. Eusebius of Wowonda village, Tanimbar, the elders of Sifnana and Lauruan villages, the Camat (local head) of South Tanimbar, and the heads of the Museum Negeri Siwalima in Ambon; and heads, elders and female and male artists of many villages, especially Mangun Debut Langgun and Faan in the Kai archipelago, but also many others in other areas who helped to organize performances. During fieldtrips in 1989–90 and 1993, we were fortunate enough to have long discussions with elders such as Mr Nus Tamaela, and Raja Soahuku, and elders of Soahuku as well as Raja Filip Halaku and elders of Amahai, southern Seram. The anthropologist Dr Mus Huliselam, Director of the Maluku Study Centre of Pattimura University, was very helpful. I also wish to thank Bp. Chris Tamaela, son of Bp. Nus Tamaela of Soahuku, who directs the newly-created, Alifuru-based music and dance troupe of student performers of the University of Pattimura in Ambon.

I am grateful to the Australian Research Committee for assistance on fieldtrips throughout Maluku in 1989–90 and 1993. H. Kartomi and D. Salisbury were of great assistance to me in photographing, videotaping and recording performances in the field, and Chris Basile and Robin Ryan were my reliable research assistants for this project.

1 Unless otherwise stated all foreign terms are given in local Maluku spelling (M = Malay, Ar = Arabic, D = Dutch, I = Indonesian, J = Javanese). Moluccas is the English name for the province but it is frequently substituted for now by the modern Indonesian name of Maluku.

2 The third main division of Maluku actually covers all of the southern area of the province, but it is called “the southeast” to distinguish it clearly from the former Republic of South Maluku.

3 Micromusics are defined as “small musical units within big music-cultures”. See Slobin, Mark, “Micro-musics of the West: a Comparative Approach”, Ethnomusicology 36, no. 1 (1991): 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Subcultures are defined as more or less self-contained groups of people distinguished by class or ethnicity (Slobin, ibid., p. 2). In north Maluku, they include the two Muslim court subcultures of Ternate and Tidore, and the Christian subcultures of the Tobaru and Togotil peoples in Halmahera. Intercultures are self-contained groups which have interacted with other cultures or between groups who live within an interculture (ibid., pp. 2–20). In Maluku they include the Kai interculture or cultural unit, with its dominant immigrant group and its indigenous group. Another example is Ambon and coastal Seram, which experienced contact between the Dutch “superculture” (ibid., pp. 13–16) on the one hand and the indigenous “Alifuru” culture on the other.

5 See the bibliography in Barraud, Cecile, “A Turtle Turned on the Sand in the Kei Islands; Society's Shares and Values”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 146, no. 1 (1990): 121–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also van Dijk, Toos and de Jonge, Nico, “After Sunshine Comes Rain; a Comparative Analysis of Fertility Rituals in Marsela and Luang, South-East Moluccas”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 146, no. 1 (1990): 3–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on Marsela and Luang (Babar) islands; Barraud, Cecile, “Wife-givers as ancestors and ultimate values in the Kei islands”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 147, no. 2 (1991): 193–225Google Scholar, on rituals and art of the Kai islands; and Valeri, Valerio, “Autonomy and Heteronomy in the Kahua Ritual; a Short Meditation on Huaulu Society”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 146, no. 1 (1990): 56–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on Kuaulu rituals and art in the northern part of Seram island. Also see Ajawaila, J.W., “Marriage Rituals of the Galela People”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 146, no. 1 (1990): 93–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar, about the Galela people in Halmahera; and Platenkamp, J.D.M., “The Severance of the Origin?; a Ritual of the Tobelo of North Halmahera”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 146, no. 1 (1990): 74–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, about the Tobela people of Halmahera.

6 Sections below on the Uliase islands, Buru, Banda, Aru and Babar are based entirely on secondary sources.

7 See, for example, Abdurachman, Paramita, in “Moluccan Responses to the First Intrusions of the West”, ed. Soebadio, H. and du Marchie Servaas, C.A., Dynamics of Indonesian History (New York, Oxford: North Holland Co., 1978), pp. 161–68Google Scholar; Chauvell, Richard, Nationalists, Soldiers and Separatists. The Ambonese Islands from Colonialism to Revolt, 1890–1950 (Leiden: KILTV Press, 1990)Google Scholar; and Andaya, Leonard Y., The World of Maluku: Eastern Indonesia in the Early Modern Period (Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

8 Valentijn, François, “Beschrijvinge van Amboine” (Description of Ambon), in Valentijn, François, Oud en Nieuw Oost Indiën [Old and New East Indies] (Dordrecht-Amsterdam: J. van Braam, 1724–1726)Google Scholar, II. Valentijn was a Calvinist dominé who served two terms under the VOC (Dutch army), mainly in Ambon in 1686–94 and 1705–1713. His description of aspects of North Maluku were based on secondary sources and personal communications. Valentijn devoted the first three volumes of his five-volume work Oud en Nieuw Oost Indiën mainly to eastern Indonesia; and he included descriptions of the customs, art objects and history of Maluku. See Andaya, , The World of Maluku, p. 20Google Scholar.

9 Wallace, A.R., The Malay Archipelago (London: Macmillan, 1869)Google Scholar.

10 Joest, W., “Malayische Lieder und Tänze aus Ambon und den Uliase (Molukken)”, International archives for ethnography V (1892): 1–3, 4Google Scholar.

11 See Snelleman, J.F., “Musiek en Muziekinstrumenten in Niederlandsch Oost- Indië”, Encyclopedic van Nederlandsch-Indië (1918): 24–26Google Scholar.

12 See Kunst, Jaap, “Een en ander over de muziek en den dans op de Kei-eilanden”, Mededeling 64 des Koninklijke Vereeninging Indisch Instituut (Amsterdam, 1945)Google Scholar.

13 See Gieben, Claartje, Heijnen, Renée and Sapuletej, Anneke, Muziek en Dans Spelletjes en Kinderlied-jes van de Molukken (Hoevelaken: Christelijk Pedagogisch Studiecentrum, 1984)Google Scholar. Also see Boonstra, Gert, “Beperapa Tjerita, Permainan dan Lagu dari Maluku”, RPCZ pg Oom (Hoevelaken, 1982)Google Scholar.

14 Kartomi, Margaret J., “Appropriation of Music and Dance in Contemporary Ternate and Tidore”, Studies in Music 26 (1992): 85–95Google Scholar; and Kartomi, Margaret J., “Revival of Feudal Music, Dance and Ritual in the Former ‘Spice Islands’ of Ternate and Tidore”, Culture and Society in New Order Indonesia, ed. Hooker, Virginia (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 184–211Google Scholar.

15 McKinnon, S., From a Shattered Sun: Hierarchy, Gender and Alliance in the Tanimbar Islands (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

16 Kartomi, “Revival of Feudal Music, Dance and Ritual”, p. 198.

17 Andaya, , The World of Maluku, pp. 216–17Google Scholar.

18 See Kartomi, “Revival of Feudal Music, Dance and Ritual”.

19 Valentijn, “Beschrijvinge van Amboine”, p. 19.

20 Ibid., p. 22.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., p. 23.

23 According to a verbal communication from Ibu Syarinsad Syah, sister of the present Sultan of Ternate, the term is based on the words kololo, meaning “circumnavigate”, and kie, meaning “mountain”. According to a verbal communication from Leonard Andaya, the term should be kololokie (not kolokie). See Kartomi, “Revival of Feudal Music, Dance and Ritual”, p. 194.

24 Wallace, , The Malay ArchipelagoGoogle Scholar; Valentijn, “Beschrijvinge van Amboine”; Snellemann, “Muziek en muziekinstrumenten”; Tauern, O.D., Patasiwa und Patalima; Vom Molukkeneiland Seram und seinen Bewohnern. Ein Beitrag zur Völkerkunde (Leipzig, 1918)Google Scholar; Cooley, Frank L., “Altar and Throne in Central Moluccan Societies”, Indonesia (10 1966): 135–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gieben, et al. , Muziek en Dans SpelletjesGoogle Scholar, Valeri, “Autonomy and Heteronomy”; Andaya, , The World of MalukuGoogle Scholar.

25 This field data was collected and recordings made in Ambon and Seram by H. and M. Kartomi in July 1993. Bp. Nus Tamaele is the founder and owner of a museum of Seram artifacts, including those of several generations of his Seram ancestors in Soahuku, Seram (near Masohi).

26 Wallace, , The Malay Archipelago, p. 300Google Scholar.

27 Gieben, et al. , Muziek en Dans Spelletjes, p. 19Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., pp. 25, 27. Today these European-influenced dances and musical pieces are also still performed by Ambonese migrants living in Holland (ibid., pp. 90–100).

29 The author recorded and videoed katreji dances performed by primary school children accompanied by adult musicians of Waai village in Ambon in July 1993.

30 For a discussion of the competing calls of the altar and the throne in Central Maluku, see Cooley, Frank L., “Altar and Throne in Central Moluccan Societies”, Indonesia (10, 1966): 135–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 For example, the author made a video-recording of a polished kreasi baru (“new creation”) concert performance of Alifuru-based music and dance directed by Chris Tamaela of the University of Pattimura in Ambon in July 1993. It was based, however, on the music and dance of the Amahai area of Seram, where the traditional music and dance still survives in isolated areas. The university student members of his troupe are increasingly being asked by government officials to perform on official occasions and to receive visitors.

32 Heins, Ernst and van Wengen, G., “Maluku (Molukken)”, in Collaer, P. (ed.), Musikgeschichte in Bildern, Sudostasien, Leipzig: VEB Deutschen Verlag, 1/3 (1979): 142Google Scholar.

33 Gieben, et al. , Muziek en Dans Spelletjes, p. 22Google Scholar.

34 van Hoëvell, Baron G.W.W.C., Ambon en meer bepaaldelijk de Oeliasers, geografisch, ethnographisch, politisch en historisch (Dordrecht, 1875), p. 23Google Scholar.

35 In colonial Dutch times, this dance was called Cakalele Alifuru Waai due to its resemblance to the dances of the so-called Alifuru forest-dwellers in central Seram, i.e., the Huaulu and Nuaulu peoples. The name Alifuru, which is believed by some to possess perjorative implications, is not the name preferred by the Huaulu and Nuaulu people, who today prefer to be known by their ethnic group names. However, the term Alifuru is still regarded among government circles as a useful term for these groups.

36 See Marie Lainsamputty, “Bentuk Adat Istiadat di Negeri Waai, Kecamatan Salahuku”, unpublished paper (1993), 31 pp.

37 Ibid., pp. 25, 27.

38 Kpata tunak were referred to by Valentijn as kabata (Valentijn, “Beschrijvinge van Amboine”, p. 164). See also Van Hoëvell, , Ambon, pp. 128–32Google Scholar. A musical transcription of a kapata which is still used as a rowing song is given by Gieben (Gieben, et al. , Muziek en Dans Spelletjes, p. 29Google Scholar).

39 Valentijn, “Beschrijvinge van Amboine”, p. 256.

40 One distinguishing mark of the Patasiwa Hitam men is that they tatoo their skin, and the tatoos have secret religious meanings.

41 Heins and Van Wengen, “Maluku”, p. 142.

42 Gieben, et al. , Muziek en Dans Spelletjes, p. 39Google Scholar.

43 Valerio Valeri, “Autonomy and Heteronomy in the Kahua Ritual”, pp. 62–67.

44 See musical transcription in Gieben, et al. , Muziek en Dans Spelletjes, p. 39Google Scholar.

45 See Tauern, O.D., Patasiwa und Patalima, pp. 187–88Google Scholar.

46 See musical transcription in Gieben, et al. , Muziek en Dans Spelletjes, p. 45Google Scholar.

47 “Assoy” or “tutohato” are forms of slow, responsorial singing intended to honour a selected person as opposed to hasuha-a ceremonial singing in fast tempo (Valentijn, “Beschrijvinge van Amboine”, p. 164).

48 Kenji, Tsuchiya and Siegel, James, “Invincible Kitsch or As Tourists in the Age of Des Alwi”, Indonesia 50 (1990): 61–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Ibid., p. 64.

50 See Barraud, “A Turtle Turned on the Sand”, p. 35.

51 Most of the data in this section are based on field information from the author's 1989–90 trip.

52 See Barraud, “Wife-Givers as Ancestors”, p. 196.

53 The first social order, called melfuar or yang punya pulau/tanah (meaning “landowners”), is said to be the original inhabitants of Kai. The second is called malantar roa, lear, or rin, meaning “people from overseas”. The third social order is called iri, iriri, budak belian or melfuar (consisting of servants who had been defeated in war). The traditional customs on which the musical culture is based are called “mel and ren”, and the whole set of beliefs and social cooperative help system is termed “melren”. Information from Raja Dullah, Bp. Nohor Renuat of Kampung Dullah, Kai Besar, and Bp. G.W. Raharawin of the Department of Education and Culture in Tual.

54 Barraud found that on the Tanebar-Evav island in the southern Kai archipelago, all members of society belong to the noble order, “while in the northern part of the archipelago there are generally three social orders in each community: nobles, the servants of nobles (often called slaves or dependants), and commoners” (Barraud, “Wife-givers as Ancestors”, p. 196). On Kai Besar and Kai Kecil islands where the author recorded the music, only three social orders were found.

55 On the island of Kai Kecil, only thirteen of about a hundred villages are Christian, with the remainder being Muslim. On Kai Besar island, on the other hand, over half are Protestant and the rest are Catholic (information from Bp. Rahandra, Bupati of Kai archipelago in 1989).

56 The remnants of the nekara were photographed by H. and M. Kartomi in 1989.

57 Tifa parts are as follows: the head, un the body, arumun; the feet, yean; the tuning agent, rit-rit; the beater, fur, rotan lacing, warat.

58 My sources of information are Bp. Gregorius Raharawin and Bp. Oni Labetubun, Department of Education and Culture officers in Tual, December 1989.

59 Barraud, “A Turtle Turned on the Sand”, p. 44.

60 We recorded songs in all genres in Letwuan village, Kai Kecil in December 1989. A group of women singers were led by the seventy-year-old Ibu Yuliana Refo, a Catholic woman who was born into the noble class. We also recorded the following dances: tifa farsohad in which boys perform a martial dance with katar (shields), temar rubil (bow and arrow), followed by an entry by a group of female dancers who depict the making of peace; tifa panam, danced to the slow tifa nam rhythm; tifa sawat, in fast tempo; tifa hatu, in fast tempo; tifa silat, in very fast tempo; and tifa taran/mumur-mamir. All dances are accompanied by an ensemble comprising tifa, flute and gongs, except for the sawat dance, which substitutes four rabana for the tifa.

61 This paragraph is based on a verbal communication from Raja Dullah whom we met at the site of the belong boat in Dullah village in December 1989. Raja Dullah says his office has descended from that of the Sultan of Jailolo who fled from the Portuguese in the sixteenth century to settle in and spread Islam in the Dullah area. Today there are several Rajas in Kai Kecil, six in Kai Besar and one in Dullah.

62 A recording of tari sawat [M] which we made in Mangon village, Kai Besar, was accompanied by a gong (dada, with a boss called kaman) playing cyclic rhythms, three to seven frame-drums (rabana) (of which two pokok [“main”] drums interlocked to produce the main onbeat rhythm, and one pengikut [I], [“follower”] drum played an interlocking offbeat rhythm), and an endblown, 22 cm-long bamboo duct flute (sawarngil), having a backhole and six finger-holes. The lead drum part is called ain, meaning “first to enter”, or “solo” the second frame-drum to enter is called anru, meaning “second to enter”, or hiru, meaning “two playing together”; and the third to enter is called antel, meaning “third to enter”, or hirtel, meaning “three playing together”. The drumming is marked by three tempo variations, of which the tiwa nam (“deep sea rhythm”) is the slowest and linked to the ceremony to pay respect to the ancestors, the tiwa sawat is the fast tempo, and the tiwa farsohad is the very fast tempo. The third drum decorates the “main rhythm” (hevan) with variations (bung-bung). Devotional sawat is played on boats to request a safe voyage or to call the wind, and social sawat is performed at weddings and other celebrations. Annual sawat music and dance competitions are now being run by the government to popularize this form (based on a verbal communication from Bp. Awat, leader of the sawat group in Mangun village, December 1989).

63 Gieben, et al. , Muziek en Dans Spelletjes, pp. 78–79Google Scholar.

64 Ibid.

65 For a discussion of sound structure types in Tanimbar, see van Wouden, F.A.E., Types of Social Structure in Eastern Indonesia (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1968; originally published in Dutch in 1935)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an ethnographic study by a missionary-scholar who lived in Tanimbar, see Drabbe, P., Het Leven van den Tanembarées; ethnographische Studie over het Tanembaréesche Volk (Leiden: Brill, 1940)Google Scholar.

66 See McKinnon, , From a Shattered Sun, pp. 144ffGoogle Scholar.

67 At the ceremony to request rain to fall (tnabar tutuk alu), long horizontal bamboo poles are arranged in criss-cross fashion and are clapped rhythmically across each other to imitate the sound of the elements, while the dancers hop in and out of the poles between the claps (we recorded this dance in Wowonda village in December, 1989).

68 McKinnon, , From a Shattered Sun, pp. 75–79Google Scholar.

69 Ibid., p. 76. Photos of a performance and a design of the dance formation are also given in ibid., pp. 76–78.

70 The woman who opens and closes a ceremony or dance is called mangasyoru, while the woman who leads the dancing is called tnabar ual, and the other female dancers are called mangasabrar. My main source of information is Bp. Eusebius of Wowonda.

71 We recorded the Angkosi Petitais and Tutuk Alu dances in Sifnana village and the Silabat Angkus Ansoli dance in Lauruan village (near Saumlaki) on 30 December 1989.

72 van Dijk and de Jonge, “After Sunshine Comes Rain”, pp. 3–20.