Sasak
The Sasak are an ethnic group with approximately 2.7 million members, who make up about 85 percent of the population on the Indonesian island of Lombok . They are related to the Balinese in ethnicity and language.
language
The Sasak language belongs to the Bali -Sasak- Sumbawa subgroup of the West Malayo-Polynesian language branch in the Austronesian language family. Different language levels serve to confirm social differentiation and are strictly adhered to in traditional culture. When using the three language levels jamaq, tengaq and utame , the speaker can be assigned to the respective social class. According to a common classification, five regional dialects of Sasak are distinguished: menó-mené, ngenó-ngené, meriyak-meriku, kutó-kuté and ngettó-ngetté. The transitions are partly fluid, further dialects can be delimited according to the vocabulary.
History and society
Little is known about the history of the Sasak. From the middle of the 14th century Lombok was directly subordinate to Gajah Mada and thus practically belonged to the Hindu Majapahit Empire. The Kingdom of Karangasem from East Bali had ruled Lombok since the 17th century. Previously, Lombok was divided into a number of Sasak principalities, often at war with one another. Now they had to pay tribute to the Balinese. In 1891 the Sasak and the Dutch successfully fought against the Balinese dynasty in the west of the island. Lombok then belonged to the Dutch colonial possession.
The Sasak adopted the closed hierarchical structures of a class society from the Hindu Balinese. Traditionally, they are divided into four classes: Raden were the noble nobles, Menak and Perwangse were simple nobles, and Jajarkarang or Bulu ketujur formed the people. The classification concerns the marriage system and the language level. Raden is also a title for members of upper-class families whose ancestors were kings of the small empires. Raden Nune is the suffix for men, Raden Dende for women. Getting married should take place within the appropriate shift. The form of address does not distinguish between married and unmarried adults; However, if they have children, they are given the title Amaq (father) or Inaq (mother) plus the name of the first child.
Until around 1960, the arranged cross-cousin marriage , which was practiced within the village ( endogam ), was common for all social classes . Marriage among cousins has become rare among the general population, and nobles are no longer expected to do so either. However, should nobles marry outside of their social class, they would lose their title and reputation in the family.
religion
Sasak see themselves as the original inhabitants of the island, who they refer to as gumi Sasak ("world"), and thereby distinguish themselves from the Balinese who later moved to the western part and the minorities of the Javanese , Arabs and Chinese . Between the late 16th century and the early 17th century , the Sasak converted to Islam , whereby some natural religious and Hindu belief elements were retained in the Wetu-Telu religion , which dominated until the 19th century . The followers of this syncretistic form of Islam, who mainly live in the mountain villages in the north, were estimated at 20 percent in the 1960s and have since fallen to a few percent due to ongoing Islamic proselytizing. There are also isolated, non-Islamized followers of the Sasa Boda (ancient Malay ancestral beliefs and Buddhist elements).
Most of the Sasak profess to the orthodox Islamic denomination of Waktu Lima, which could be distinguished from the Wetu-Telu followers from around 1900 . Waktu Lima offered the opportunity to gain power and social recognition outside of class society as early as the colonial era. On the other hand, the nobility, who drew their power from common law ( adat ) , joined forces with the Dutch. They could not prevent the rapid conversion to Islam in the 1930s. During the unrest in 1966 after the military coup in Suharto , the Orthodox Muslims received support from the army and used threats and violence to convert Wetu-Telu supporters.
Due to a small but vocal group of devout Muslims who were educated in conservative Islamic schools (pesantren) , and due to influences from the West, there is a tendency towards an equalizing society in which class differences are becoming smaller.
Culture
According to the religious distinction, the music of Lombok is assigned either to the Javanese-Balinese gamelan music or to music influenced by Islam. Genggong is a musical ensemble that performs dance movements, named after the jew's harp genggong , which includes the two-string rebab , the bamboo flute suling and percussion instruments. Gandrung is similar in performance style to the Javanese Gandrung Banyuwangi , except that the melody-leading instruments on Lombok are rebab, suling and the rare cone oboe preret . The Serat Menak Sasak is a local cycle of legends that is rarely performed as a form of the Indonesian shadow play wayang kulit . Most revered is the Lingsar Temple on the west coast, where a major annual temple festival is held. In the village of Lenek in the east of the island, old dance traditions are maintained at village festivals.
Cilokaq is a traditional popular music with singing and instruments that belong to the Islamic culture, such as the low-pitched one-sided beaker drum rebana , the plucked gambus , the violin (biola) and, at least earlier, the wind instrument preret .
literature
- Geoffrey E. Marrison: Sasak and Javanese Literature of Lombok. KITLV Press, Leiden 1999
- Kari G. Telle: Nurturance and the Specter of Negleger: Sasak ways of dealing with the dead. In: Monica Janowski and Fiona Kerlogue (eds.): Kinship and food in South East Asia. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen 2007, pp. 121–148. ISBN 87-91114-93-4
- David D. Harnish: Bridges to the Ancestors: Music, Myth, and Cultural Politics at an Indonesian Festival. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 2005, ISBN 978-0-8248-2914-8
Web links
- Sven Cederroth: From Ancestor Worship to Monotheism. Politics of Religion in Lombok. Temenos, 32, 1996, pp. 7-36
- Jocelyn Grace: Sasak Women Negotiating Marriage. Polygyny and Divorce in Rural East Lombok. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, No. 10, August 2004
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sasak. A Language of Indonesia / (Nusa Tenggara). Ethnologue.com
- ↑ Mahyuni: Valuing Language and Culture: An Example from Sasak. Makara, Sosial Humaniora, Vol. 11, No. 2, December 2007, p. 82 f
- ^ Albert Leemann: Internal and External Factors of Socio-cultural and Socio-Economic Dynamics in Lombok (Nusa Tenggara Barat). Zurich 1989. According to: Jocelyn Grace, point 8