Aspects of Baduy Music
by WIM VAN ZANTENThe Baduy within Sundanese and Indonesian societies In some sense, the Baduy partially represent the Sundanese past in the present time. There used to be more of these isolated communities in West Java, but the Baduy are the only ones to survive (Bakels 1989). They were once considered to be the descendants of the people who managed to escape Pakuan Pajajaran, the seat of the glorious Hindu kingdom near present-day Bogor, just before Islamic forces destroyed it in AD 1579. However, Van Tricht (1929:63-71) and Geise (1952:11-2) have pointed out that the Baduy most probably originate from Banten, in northwest Java. Judistira Garna (1988:34) argues that the Baduy were already living in the Desa Kanekes area before the Pajajaran kingdom (1333-1579).
According to Berthe (1965:216-8), 'the Baduy consider themselves to be the guardians of the forest, irrigation sources, and the soil, and at the same time they hold themselves responsible for the destiny of the world'. They are seen as guarding the source of the river for the Sundanese people living on the northern plains, who depend on this river for irrigating their wet-rice fields. In this way the Baduy have a task to perform for the ruler of the north. Recently it has been suggested that the Baduy resemble a mandala community: they form a holy community in a holy area, and their ascetic way of life is beneficial for the 'king' and the whole world.
The Baduy are in any case considered to be of older descent than the surrounding Sundanese (Judistira Garna 1988:62-3). The spiritual leaders of the Baduy (puun; pronounced pu'un) are the 'elder brothers' of the secular leader of the north. This used to be the ruler (ratu, king, later the sultan) of Banten. As there is no longer a sultan of Banten, secular power nowadays is invested in the regent of nearby Serang and some of his subordinates in Leuwidamar and Rangkasbitung (Judistira Garna 1988:122, 366; Bakels and Boevink 1988:129). On a higher level it is the governor of the province of West Java and the Indonesian government, notably the minister of internal affairs, and even the Indonesian president, who today are seen as the 'younger brothers' of the Baduy.
The Baduy have always had the function of foretelling the future for the rulers. Every year, Baduy spiritual leaders climb the terraces of the holy place Sasaka Pusaka Buana4 on Mount Kendeng in the southern part of the Baduy area, and read the future from the growth of mosses or changed position of stones. When a Baduy delegation pay their annual respects to the rulers during the seba ceremony, which takes place around the first of June, after the rice harvest, they may foretell the future. It is said that President Suharto and some of his advisers have consulted the Baduy about the future.5 In one sense the former ruler of Banten has been replaced by the Indonesian president.
In 1985 a Baduy delegation was received by President Suharto. They pointed out to the president that, by their ascetic way of life, they had always helped to promote harmony in the kingdoms of West Java. In his turn, the king had always protected the Baduy area and respected their traditions. Now, with surrounding farmers using Baduy grounds in Desa Kanekes for wet-rice fields (the Baduy traditionally only have dry-rice fields, or huma), they asked President Suharto for his help. This was granted: the boundary of Desa Kanekes was marked with concrete poles, not painted with the usual red colour, but with the holy colour of the Baduy, which is white.
Social organization
Baduy society consists of the 'Inner' Baduy (kajeroan, urang tangtu, kaum daleum, or urang girang) and the 'Outer' Baduy {urang luar, panamping). The Inner Baduy live in three small villages in the southcentral part of Desa Kanekes, and their area includes the holy places Sasaka Pusaka Buana and Sasaka Domas, and the source of the Ciujung River in the south. According to Bakels and Boevink there are about 800 Inner Baduy (Bakels 1991:10; Bakels and Boevink 1988:31-3). Judistira Garna (1988:59, 1989:26) estimates 472 in 1983, and 500 in 1986. The Outer Baduy number about 4,500. They live in the area around the Inner Baduy, to the north, the east, and the west, in some forty villages. Some of them live in a so-called dangka village outside Desa Kanekes. Furthermore, in 1992, around one hundred families of Baduy descent {Baduy pamukiman) were living in nearby resettlement areas.
Both Inner and Outer Baduy men can immediately be recognized by their special clothing. The most visible difference is that Inner Baduy men always wear a white head cloth, while Outer Baduy men wear a blue-black one. There are, however, no clothes, colours, or other symbols that distinguish a leader from other Baduy people.
At the time of our visit to Desa Kanekes in June 1976 no angklung (set of bamboo idiophones) music was played. These instruments may only be played for about three months of the year (in the period from September to December) during the ceremonies that accompany rice planting. In September 1976 Talsim came to our house in Jakarta with a group of Baduy to play angklung and xylophone {calung and gambang) music. He again showed his interest in having Baduy music recorded when he turned up at our house in Jakarta in January 1977.
This time he had brought a storyteller with him to have & pantun story recorded. Again in 1992 several musicians were willing to recite a pantun story for a recording outside Desa Kanekes. Within Baduy territory the recitation of pantun stories can take place only within a ritual context. In October 1992, however, with the special permission of the village head Asrab, I was able to record the ceremonial playing of angklung on audio tape from inside a house. While doing this, I was able to witness the ceremony through a hole in the wall. In 1976 there were also restrictions on my recording of gamelan music. The gamelan was played inside a house in Gajeboh, a Baduy village. I was allowed to place microphones inside the house near the gamelan, but the recording apparatus had to be outside the house (see photo). Most other recordings took place on the verandah of Baduy houses, which is the place for receiving guests.
As certain Baduy social and religious customs differ from those of the surrounding Sundanese, many stories are told about them. Some Sundanese talk about the magical powers of the Baduy, and I suspect that some Baduy occasionally make use of this to generate income. This image may be partly due to the fact that outsiders' knowledge of the Baduy is still scant. In a fairly recent article the anthropologist Wessing (1977:294) mentions that the Baduy do not use money.
This was definitely not my experience during the 1970s: I paid money to Baduy individuals both in 1976 and in 1977. If anything, these stories show that people often do not realize that Baduy society is, and probably always has been, in a process of change. For example, whereas in 1976 I did not hear of any shops in the Baduy area, in 1992 I saw a shop in a Baduy village; it was very near the shops just outside the Baduy area in Ciboleger, and could be seen as a kind of 'luxury'. In this shop cigarettes, salt, and the like were sold for money, be it not openly, because officially shops were indeed forbidden by the spiritual leaders of the Baduy community.
In a newspaper article Bakels (1993) mentions that some parts of the holy forest in the Inner Baduy area have been cut down and used for agriculture by the Inner Baduy themselves. Persoon (personal communication, 1994) confirms that in the late 1980s he saw many durian fruit trees in this holy forest, viewed from a distance, through his binoculars. The composition of the forest was such that it could clearly no longer be considered primary forest. If this situation is indeed due to the Inner Baduy themselves, it would be another indication that their society is changing more rapidly than we may think. Unfortunately, the information is difficult to check: outsiders are not allowed to visit the Inner Baduy forest. Much of our information about the Inner Baduy comes from Outer Baduy, and may be biased due to some antagonism between these two groups.
Overview of Baduy music
The earliest reports on Baduy music date from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The information in these reports cannot always be taken at face value. The angklung (set of nine bamboo idiophones, which are played by being shaken) is reported by almost all early visitors to the area: Blume (1993[1822]:32), Spanoghe (1838:303), Van Hoevell (1845: 429). Pleyte (1907:26-7) gives information on the kacapi zither used for accompanying the recitation of pantun stories. Didi Suryadi (1974) gives a concise overview of Baduy music, mainly based on earlier literature. More recent information on Baduy music can be found in Baier (1985:10-11; 1986, IV:13, V:12). Presumably the earliest recordings of Baduy music were made by Bernard IJzerdraat (alias Kawat, Suryabrata) in the RRI (radio) studio in Jakarta in 1956 (Lysen 1956). The Archive of Field Recordings at Cornell University's Music Library has about 45 minutes of Baduy music, recorded by Suryabrata in the 1960s.
Most of the instruments used by the Baduy can also be found in the surrounding Sundanese area, be it sometimes under a different name and often in a slightly different form. Many Baduy instruments have white crosses (tumbal) on them. These signs indicate that they play a role in communication with gods and forefathers (Van Zanten 1989:94-5). Except for the ceremonial pounding of rice (gendek; the pestles and the long mortar are used as musical instruments) and the mouth harp (karinding), all Baduy instruments are played by men. Women may sing with the gamelan (lenong, koromong, goong) or other instrumental accompaniment. Boys may start to play the angklung and other instruments at the age of about eight.
During my fieldwork I recorded the following Baduy instruments (except for the tarawelei) and genres of music. Angklung. The term angklung refers to an ensemble of nine bamboo idiophones with two or three drums. Each idiophone consists of three tubes in a frame that is shaken; each such instrument on its own is also called angklung. The tubes within each frame are tuned in octaves, resulting in a distance of two octaves between the lowest and the highest tube. Between the notes produced by the different angklung instruments 9 I am grateful to Martin Hatch for granting me permission to listen to and make copies of some of the Sundanese music at the Archive in October 1991. there are approximately equidistant intervals, five within an octave. Thus, the tuning resembles the Sundanese salendro tone system. The highest two instruments are called roel, and they are played by one person. The other seven instruments are each played by one person, and from high to low pitch they are called: torolok, indung leutik, engklok, gunjing, dongdong, ringkung, and indung gede.
The three accompanying drums are, from high to low pitch, called talingting, ketuk, and bedug. Djoewisno (1988:44) cites an informant who compares the sounds of the different instruments to water (roel 1 and 2, torolok; these sounds are called 'basic'), flowing water (indung leutik, engklok), birds (gunjing), wind (dongdong), rain (ringkung), and frogs (indung gede). Men may sing and dance to angklung accompaniment, and I shall return to this below. Carita pantun. The (carita) pantun is an epic narrative sung by a male singer who accompanies himself on a zither (kacapi). A pantun is performed in recitatidnal chanting, alternated with melodically more elaborate songs which are interspersed in the long recitatives. The rate of recitation varies from normal speech tempo to very fast or very slow.10 Gendek. This is the name given to the ceremonial pounding of rice by some eight to ten women, each with a pestle (halu), in a 7 to 8-metre-long mortar (lesung). Through the pounding, with no rice in the mortar, rhythmic patterns are produced.
Elet, suling lamus, suling kumbang, tarawelet. These are different types of bamboo flutes; a photograph showing the first three types is presented in Van Zanten 1989:100. The elet, suling kumbang, and tarawelet are always played on their own. The suling lamus (see photo) may be played on its own, but also in combination with the kacapi zither and/or the bowed lute (rendo). The elet is an end-blown flute about 20 cm long with five fingerholes.12 It is mostly played by boys. The suling lamus (literally, flute like a pair of bellows) is an end-blown ring flute, about 62 cm long, with six fingerholes, a flute similar to that used in the Tembang Sunda Cianjuran music of West Java.
The suling kumbang (literally, flute of the bumblebee, that is, of someone in love) is a transverse flute with two fingerholes. The tarawelet, also called tarawelot or taleot, is also a transverse flute with two fingerholes, about 58 cm long. However, unlike the suling kumbang, both fingerholes of the tarawelet are near the open end of the flute, about 38 cm and 43 cm from the mouthhole. The inner diameter is about 2.4 cm, which is much larger than the 1.7 cm inner diameter of the suling lamus and suling kumbang. The Baduy elet and suling lamus are played using circular breathing. There is a continuous flow of notes, and some core notes are played for a relatively long time. In between these long notes the transitions are marked by trills and other ornaments. The suling kumbang of the Baduy is not played with circular breathing. It can only produce a few notes, and it is played in a more discontinuous way.
Kacapi, rendo. The kacapi is a zither, which can be played on its own, or to accompany a pantun singer. The rendo is a two-stringed bowed lute, called tarawangsa in other Sundanese areas. The rendo can be played on its own, or with a kacapi and/or a suling lamus. Van Hoevell (1845:428), most probably referring to the Outer Baduy, mentions 'a kind of trio known by the name rendo. It consists of three instruments, accompanying two singers. The instruments are the tarawangsa [...], the kecape, [...] and the suling [...].' In 1992 I made recordings of such an ensemble; during some of these recordings the ensemble accompanied a female singer (see below). More information on the kacapi zither and bowed lute (rendo) can be found in Van Zanten (1989:chapter 5).
Karinding. This is a mouth harp made of bamboo. The mouth harp is partially placed in a bamboo tube, to produce better resonance (see photo). My only opportunities to record this instrument were in 1976, and the instrument was then played on its own, as well as together with a second one. The players were all men. However, one of my informants (Pe'i, between 50 and 60 years old in 1976) said that this instrument was formerly played by women. He himself had learned to play the instrument from a woman in the inner area of Desa Kanekes.
Gambang and calung. These two xylophones are made of wood and bamboo, respectively. Both instruments are played on their own. In 1977 I made recordings of one gambang with 10 keys, and one calung with 16 keys. The gambang played on its own is different from the one used in the gamelan ensemble (see below). The gambang played on its own has a resonating frame consisting of a trough made from one solid piece of wood. The calung keys are laid down on two cords, fixed to a skeleton made of bamboo sticks.
Gamelan. Like most Sundanese gamelan ensembles the Baduy version consists of only a few instruments: - two caning: metallophone with five or six keys, called sawn elsewhere in Java; - kromong: set of ten bronze kettles resting on a horizontal frame, called bonang elsewhere in Java; - kenong: set of five bronze kettles resting on a horizontal frame (in Gajaboh), or kempul: one gong held in the hand (in Kompol); - gambang: xylophone with 14 to 20 keys;- kecempres or kecrek: two cymbals, held on top of each other and struck with a stick; - small and large gongs; - a rebab (two-stringed bowed lute) is optional. A violin (biola) with four strings may also be added. I have seen the violins, but have not heard them being played with the gamelan. In the recordings made in the 1960s by Suryabrata, a copy of which is kept at Cornell University (see footnote 9), the Baduy gamelan is played with both rebab and suling (lamus). This also happens in central Java, but the rebab-suling combination is no longer used in present-day Sundanese gamelan: the rebab is only used in the gamelan salendro, and the suling only in the gamelan degung (see also Van Zanten 1989:81, 103).
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