 Subjects -> PHILOSOPHY (Total: 762 journals)
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- Journeys and metaphors; Some preliminary observations about the natural
world of seashore and forested mountains in epic "kakawin"
Authors: Peter Worsley
Pages: 262 - 287
Abstract: In earlier publications I have argued that ancient Javanese poets imagined the world to be one marked by distinctions between a social world consisting of palace (kaḍatwan) and countryside (thāni-ḍusun) and a wilderness of seashores and forested mountains (pasir-wukir). The social world was characterized by the presence of an effective royal authority; the wilderness by its absence. A distinction was also drawn between this world inhabited by human beings and a world in which gods, ancestral spirits, and other divine beings dwelt (kedewatan). Journeys through these landscapes are an enduring interest in the narrative literature in the literary tradition of ancient Java and Bali. Margaret V. Fletcher (1990, 2002, 2021), Tony Day (1994), Helen Creese (1998), Raechelle Rubinstein (2000), and Peter Worsley (2012b, et al. 2013) have argued that the accounts of journeys in epic kakawin and other related works are not just tales of travel between one physical place and another. Rather, they are accounts of other kinds of journeys: the “journeys” which poets seeking inspiration make or which ascetics seeking apotheosis with their iṣṭadewata undertake or those on which young men and women transitioning from childhood to adulthood embark. In this essay, I make some preliminary observations about passages describing journeys in the natural world in a diverse selection of works authored between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries in Java and Bali and discuss aspects of the metaphorical referencing of these descriptions.
PubDate: 2022-04-29
DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v23i2.1089
Issue No: Vol. 23, No. 2 (2022)
- "The wandering poet"; Depictions on ancient Javanese relief
panels
Authors: Lydia Kieven
Pages: 288 - 336
Abstract: There are about 60 panels with narrative reliefs from the area of Trowulan in East Java depicting mountains, rivers, bridges, trees, fields, dwellings, pendopo, and palaces. A male figure wearing a cap-like headdress accompanied by a little panakawan-like figure, walks along a cobbled path through a beautiful landscape. The figures are carved in the simple style of East Javanese reliefs on Majapahit temples. The predominance of nature, in amazing detail, is unusual compared to other narrative temple reliefs. The exact provenance is difficult to determine. The artefacts are scattered in museums all over the world: the majority in Trowulan, as well as a large convolute in Jakarta, in Amsterdam, and elsewhere. Fixing the order of the panels is a challenge. This paper discusses two major topics: (A) presenting depictions of landscape and nature in visual art; (B) comparison with Old Javanese texts narrating journeys through landscape and nature. These exercises will provide some conclusions about the function of landscape and nature in the reliefs and their purpose at their original sites. Questions on provenance will also be raised, including the documentation practice of the colonial Dutch and Indonesian Archaeological Services. A number of the panels have been documented by the OD (Dutch Oudheidkundige Dienst), archived in OD photos entitled “Reliefs from Trowulan”, other panels have been documented as being from the site Menak Jinggo in Trowulan. In my paper, I call the reliefs under investigation the “Trowulan reliefs”. N.J. Krom’s (1923) suggestion of doing research on the convolute of these reliefs has never been undertaken, now 100 years later it is time to do so.
PubDate: 2022-04-29
DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v23i2.1106
Issue No: Vol. 23, No. 2 (2022)
- Honey-bees, court ladies, and beekeeping in Java before 1500 CE
Authors: JiŘí Jákl
Pages: 337 - 359
Abstract: People have been interacting with bees in the Indo-Malay world for thousands of years. Though the practice of robbing bees of honey and wax is relatively well-documented, we know very little about the early history of beekeeping in Southeast Asia. In this study I will use Old Javanese evidence to demonstrate that providing honey bees with artificial cavities was a practice known in Java at least by the twelfth century CE, several centuries earlier than suggested by the historians of beekeeping. In the second part of my contribution I will discuss in detail an intriguing passage in the Sumanasāntaka, a court poem composed in the early thirteenth century CE, in which a literary motif of the “marriage by choice“ (swayamwara) of Princess Indumatī is based on the image and structure of beehive. The idea that a bee-colony is ruled by the “queen“ rather than the “king“ was not widely known in pre-modern world, and the Sumanasāntaka suggests that pre-Islamic Javanese were good observers of nature.
PubDate: 2022-04-29
DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v23i2.1058
Issue No: Vol. 23, No. 2 (2022)
- The creative "lifeworld" in Geriana Kauh Village; Intertwining of culture
and nature during the pandemics in Bali
Authors: LG. Saraswati Putri
Pages: 360 - 384
Abstract: This research is an attempt to delve into understanding the process of creative imagination of the sacred which is revealed in the intertwining of culture and nature in Geriana Kauh, Karangasem, Bali. This study aims to investigate the relationship between the individual, the social and ecology, as well as the transformation of individual consciousness into a collective awareness sharing a communal reality. This qualitative research is developed by incorporating theoretical analysis and formulating field data collected in the traditional Village of Geriana Kauh, as the villagers resort to their cultural resources to deal with the cosmological imbalances caused by pandemics. By means of a phenomenological examination, this investigation
PubDate: 2022-04-29
DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v23i2.1113
Issue No: Vol. 23, No. 2 (2022)
- Surviving the influenza; The use of traditional medicines to combat the
Spanish flu in colonial Indonesia, 1918-1919
Authors: Ravando Ravando
Pages: 385 - 414
Abstract: The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919 was widely regarded as the deadliest in modern history, claiming more lives than World War I. Colonial Indonesia was not spared. Several scholars have estimated that around 1.5 to 4.37 million people in the colony perished, making the death rate one of the highest in Asia. In the midst of the chaos and confusion caused by the pandemic, many people in colonial Indonesia turned to traditional medicines, particularly the poorer members of society who were inexperienced in Western medicine. Herbal treatment was considered a viable option for those who frequently faced discrimination when visiting Dutch clinics or hospitals. This essay demonstrates how more than a century ago, various ethnic groups in colonial Indonesia relied on nature to develop their own “vaccine” and medication in the fight against the Spanish flu. In the context of the pandemic, Sin Po and other newspapers played an essential role in spreading information about herbal medicines as an alternative, more affordable remedy than modern Western medicine. These newspapers provided the inspiration to investigate traditional Indonesian therapies more thoroughly. An examination of this subject reveals that there is nothing new under the sun. The colonial government never had a grand design to combat or stop the spread of a pandemic. It made almost no efforts at prevention and the outcome of this lack of preparedness was clear. Unfortunately, even more than a hundred years later, when COVID-19 struck Indonesia, nothing had really changed.
PubDate: 2022-04-29
DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v23i2.1278
Issue No: Vol. 23, No. 2 (2022)
- "Belang" and "Kabata Banda"; The significane of nature in the "adat"
practices in the Banda Islands
Authors: Joëlla van Donkersgoed, Muhammad Farid
Pages: 415 - 450
Abstract: As an island community, the culture of the Bandanese is closely linked to their natural maritime environment. Not only is fishery the main source of income for many Bandanese, their cultural practices also include the creation of traditional boats and songs which tie the people, their environment and history together. These boats, locally referred to as belang or kora-kora, feature symbolic decorations and take part in an annual competition in which competing villages chant about their oral stories, known as kabata. Before this performance, various sacred locations, keramat, are honoured and a ceremony is held at the traditional house in which special bamboo poles play a central role in the performance of the cakelele warrior dance. This article highlights how nature plays a significant role in the traditional practices of the villages in the Banda Islands and illuminates certain passages from kabata in which Bandanese nature is honoured in song.
PubDate: 2022-04-29
DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v23i2.1100
Issue No: Vol. 23, No. 2 (2022)
- Primates and birds of "sabulungan"; Roles of animals in sculptures,
shamanic songs and dances, and the belief system of traditional
Mentawaians
Authors: Juniator Tulius, Linda Burman-Hall
Pages: 451 - 490
Abstract: Mentawaians sing ritual songs enshrined in archaic texts referring to particular primates and birds, while ritual and traditional dances imitate how gibbons, sea eagles, and other animals live in the natural world. Mentawaians craft sculptures of endemic primates and unique birds. The bilou gibbon ape and various other animals also symbolize specific sacred knowledge within the sabulungan spiritual belief system and traditional cosmology of Mentawai society. Although some do succeed in surviving, many older traditions have faded away. Among the traditions which continue intact, this report aims to examine the roles of primates and birds across the arts and in the Mentawai belief system to reveal the profound depth of connection between humanity and the natural world throughout Mentawai traditional culture.
PubDate: 2022-04-29
DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v23i2.1090
Issue No: Vol. 23, No. 2 (2022)
- Tradition, ritual, and art of the "Baliatn"; The conceptualization of
Authors: Yudhistira Oscar Olendo, Jagad Aditya Dewantara, Efriani Efriani
Pages: 491 - 518
Abstract: Rapid globalization has slowly eroded the survival of the Baliatn ritual of the Dayak Kanayatn. Nowadays, the locals only rarely perform this ritual which is a manifestation of their culture. This study describes the Baliatn ritual pointing out it is pregnant with the meaningful philosophy of the ancestors. This tradition sets out the relationship between the people and nature; an example of gratitude and spirituality in this modern era. It also discusses the importance of cultural conceptualization through philosophy, art, and spirituality. Importantly, the Baliatn is an expression of the Dayak Kanayatn idea of how to live and appreciate life. They believe their closeness to nature allows them to create a harmonious relationship with God. This culture is founded on ancestral traditions, including literature, art, music, and incantations. The writers claim that a good description of the Baliatn is essential because it is nearly extinct. They are continuing their research on the Baliatn ritual.
PubDate: 2022-04-29
DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v23i2.1059
Issue No: Vol. 23, No. 2 (2022)
- Wim van den Doel, "SNOUCK; Het volkomen geleerdenleven van Christiaan
Snouck Hurgronje"
Authors: Dick van der Meij
Pages: 519 - 521
PubDate: 2022-04-29
DOI: 10.17510/wacana.v23i2.1306
Issue No: Vol. 23, No. 2 (2022)
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