26 Februari 2012

The Murder Ritual in Adonara from the Perspectives of Bauman

1    Introduction
Located between the islands of Lembata, Solor, and the mainland of Flores, Adonara Island has been known as the Island of Murder. Many literature from the 15th until 19th century reported by the Portuguese, Dutch or even modern Anthropologist such as; Ernst Vatter, Paul Arndt and Robert H. Barnes was shown how people who lived in this Island were eager to be involved in a physical contact continued to murder, individually or collectively. This international image also supported and elaborated by several local writers such as; Karolus Kopong Medan, Chrispinus Boro Tokan, Didakus Diwa, Dominikus Dore, Ridwan P. Puken and others.  One of the most known reports was written by an Ethnographer Ernst Vatter 1932:157 cited by R.H. Barnes;
There is no region in the east of the Netherlands Indies in which there is so much murder as on Adonara. Almost all murder and violence, raids and brutal offences which are brought to trial in Larantuka are committed by Adonaranese. No other island in the east of Indian Archipelago has so bad a reputation both among Europeans and the inhabitants of neighboring regions as this island, which is blessed by the nature with beauty and fertility and whose population is distingueshed from the neighbors by exceptional intelligence, entreprise, adaptability and limitless vitality. It is not just the curse of blood feud which burdens this land and in fatal linkages year in and year out demand victims over and over again. A special emotional mental structure, foreign to the other people of Solor-Alor Archipelago, also plays a role: an exaggerated sensitivity to offenses and insults, however harmless by nature,toward all friction and misunderstanding, as is unavoidable in communal life, a sometimes grotesque vanity and megalomania, combined with marked feelings of inferiority about their own race and culture, joy in war and bloodletting, paired with mistrust and fear, finally an unmistakable inclination to brutality and cruelty, or perhaps more correctly, an untameable drive to give spritual tensions an explosive resolution through acts of violence. One could also describes Adonara as the island of immoderation. For European sensibilities, provocation and response among these people stand in no relationship. Inducement and reaction seem to us to be beyond any rational relationship (Barnes, 2002)

Vatter’s report was supported by Paul Arndt, the missionary anthropologist, who focused his research on the tribal feud between Demon and Paji (two big groups that killing and burning each other during the 1613 and so forth in Lamaholot’s area; Lembata, Solor, Adonara and Larantuka). Arndt was trying to explore the myths, believes and cultures behind the murder held individually or collectively in Adonara by looking at the old mantra, poems, folklore and old lyrics. His work shows how the murder becomes part of the cultural products elaborated culturally, economy and politically by the outsiders such as Portuguese, Dutch and even India (Arndt, 2002).

However, not until several local writers in 1990s such as; Dominikus Dore, Didakus Diwa and Karolus Kopong Medan exploring the myths, reasons, believes and cultures behind the murder, there was a starting of a new era where local people their self looking at their own culture, than the murder start to be seen from different perspectives rather than just a simple passion to kill. The local writers start to reveals the mystery behind the murder which usually held within the murder ritual. On the basis of the cultural perspectives of all the previous writers on the murder ritual that becomes the heart of the murder and the experience of the writer as part of the culture itself, this paper trying to analyze Bauman’s view on the murder and the murder itself in the era of modernity as he says and on his concept of social exclusion and inclusion. Does Buman’s theory on modernity and social exclusion and inclusion are always appropriate? or Bauman has been wrong saying that there is no other place than modernity on this planet and does social exclusion always lead to redundancy and and human waste? This article will than firstly elaborating the murder ritual and than comparing it with Baumans perspective on modernity and social exclusion.

2    Murder Ritual
From 1990 until 1996 there had been 24 cases involving torture and murder with the murder ritual (Medan, 1997). Most of the cases are concerning land and women. This article will focus on the murder ritual on behalf of the land cases which mostly occur because the Adonaranese people believe that the land is their mother earth which supposed to be treating respectfully. Losing their land will mean losing their life, dignity and power because several lands belong to specific tribe. The sanctity of the land even appear through the traditional ceremony every time there were needs to dig or “hurt” the land such as; for cultivating and building houses. In several areas, it’s even considering forbidden to touch the land with weapons, because it might bring curse and death as the people believe and as what often happens to them if they do so.

Deciding doing the murder ritual for murder is actually not a simple decision; there are several general reasons why the Adonaranese people choose to solve their problem using this traditional way;
1.    Both sides involved on the conflict refuse or unsatisfied with the legal decision by the modern law institution.
2.    The actors didn’t think that they need the legal institution to manage the conflict because they were absolutely sure that they were right and being blessed by the rera wulan tana ekan, gods or the highest substance on the local religion.
3.    Both sides involved on the conflict couldn’t find another solution except the murder.

Murder ritual will be held under three big phases (Medan, 1997);
1.    Pre-Murder Phase
This phase called mula eken peri wato, gahin koda and bale nuren,are the ceremoies to establish relationship with the ancestors and gods, rera wulan tana ekan. This phase involving symbols, activities and mantra to analyze the opponents mistakes, to clean all the actors sins and preparing his self for the bless from gods and ancestors to commit murder.
People who are involved on this phase are:
-    The murder actor
-    Rera wulan alapen, people who have the ability to connect human with ancesstors and gods
-    Kirin puken, the oldest son in the tribe
-    Kirin beledun, people who accompany the kirin puken
-    Mehin alapen, a person who have to serve the traditional palm, usually the son of kirin puken’s daughter
-    Lewo alapen, the chief of the village
People who are not allowed to get involved on this phase are:
-    Women, because women are believed will distract this ritual as they were meant to deal with only good and soft things such as; giving birth and raising the children.
2.    Murder Phase
After having the blessed from ancestors and gods, the actors will prepare their self for murdering phase. This phase consist of several ceremonies such as;
-    Beliwane pana, the killing processes
-    Oron hurit, ceremony performed to great the people whose back from the battle
-    Odo mei, ceremony held to clean the sins of the actor for the blood war and to store back the weapons.
After all those ceremonies on the murder phase, both sides in conflict are limiting their contact for reflections. They were not allowed to talk each other or to eat from the same plate.
This phase involve only people who are considered having no sins on the first phase.
3.    Post Murder Phase
This phase consists of two steps which are;
1.    Bito batan hoke bake, the process of giving back the blessed to commit murder from the ancestors and gods
2.    Mela sareka or hodi limat, the process of building peace between two groups or two people in conflict
These two processes might take more than one year, because each side might think that they were right or might still looking for their mistakes on the ceremonial steps that cause their defeat on the battle field. If this is happens, than both sides in conflict and their family will remain excluding each other which still exist even until today.


3    Bauman’s Perspectives
It is very much interesting to look at one cultural activity from the various perspectives, especially on the case of murder ritual and murder on Adonara. Many writers have been looking at this case from the perspective of law, history and anthropology. To try to use Bauman’s point of view on this case would be a new challenge especially by elaborating the part of modernity and social exclusion.

3.1    Modernity
The statement of Bauman on one of his lectures which said that;
“The whole planet is modernizing hence human waste and redundant are producing everywhere,,,” (el'Homme, 2005).
has found its challenge. Bauman mostly talk about the economic area, he forget to mention that there are at least several small areas on the earth which remain untouched by the modernization, the mystic area.  Adonara, in terms of murder and murder ritual, with the strong belief to mystics, local religion, curse and mantra by its people, building its own culture than the culture of waste and excluding modernity itself at some point where mystical culture taking over. Regarding to land cases, people lose their trust toward the modern legal institution to solve the problem. Supported and legitimize by their belief on their ancestors and local gods, Adonaranese proved their stand point against the legal institutions such as court which build to control the society in the modernize way lead to modernity. Hence, modernity is not good enough to beat mystics in a land where international gods (Jesus, Mohammed and others) are not embedding to the mystical culture. Furthermore, it than leads to the conclusion that human waste and redundant are not always producing everywhere because both murder and victim consider their self a patriot for the truths and for their mother land.
    However, at the same time, it’s also questioning the state legitimacy translated on its ability of order-building or perhaps it also lead to questioning the need of a state when people are conforming and “convenience” with their traditional order-building which is not mentioned by Bauman. The state which represent by the provincial institutions in East Nusa Tenggara are often could not be able to create social awareness on what is known as “criminal law” and the law itself has lose control over the community.  People are conforming the traditional way of managing conflict rather than to trust the state institutions. They were more belief on the curse of rera wulan tana ekan rather than to the constitutions as the instrument of state order-building. In several cases even, to make it more easily and as their feeling of being responsible and the strong belief that the rera wulan tana ekan blessed will manage everything properly, several murders are surrendering their self to the police officer bringing the head of the victims or the bloody weapons they used during the murder, some of them are now staying in the Larantuka district’s present.

3.2    Social Exclusion and Inclusion
At this point Bauman correctly show how a design “to make the world manageable” (Bauman, 2008) will creates exclusion and inclusion. On the image of a perfect garden analogy, the perfect murder and murder ritual will always excluded the women and children. Keeping them away from the ceremony but not stopping them from being part of the victims when the battle causing lost of their father, husband or brother. But not like the exclusion toward the generation X, exclusion toward women and children on this case didn’t automatically grouping them into redundancy which lead them into a human waste. It is more to protect them,  also as part of the “job differentiation” where man protecting the life, women growing the life and whereas children enjoying the life. 
Another exclusion is the exclusion of several tribes which are not include at the murder and murder ritual as the rera wulan alapen, kirin puken, kirin beledun, mehin alapen or as the lewo alapen. This exclusion also based on the traditional order-building, where on each village, each tribe believed to posses’ specific knowledge and skill which leads into a heritage of job differentiation on village governance. Some tribes are believed to heritage the ability to govern the village, some tribes are believed to heritage the ability to connect with the rera wulan tana ekan and some are believed to be the mediator or even the soldier.

4    Conclusion
The changing discourse and methods of looking at the murder and murder ritual on Adonara didn’t really change the murder and murder ritual itself. To some extent, the discourse has expanded the local people’s ability to analyze their own culture through the local writers with a more ethnographic way. However, people are still belief on the murder and murder ritual. Bauman himself could not cope or at least haven’t been able to read the mystical culture on his modernity point of view. Bauman also could not explain why or he might not even recognize that some exclusion is not redundancy hence not a wasted lives. In conclusion, Bauman points of view can only be appropriate to the specific cases which he proposes, but to other cases such to murder and murder ritual on Adonara, it takes more than Bauman to understand the complexity of live.

5    Works Cited
Arndt, P. (2002). Demon dan Paji. Maumere-Flores: Puslit Candratiya.
Barnes, R. (2002). Murder Ritual on Adonara, Indonesia. Anthropos , 487.
Bauman, Z. (2008). Wasted Lives. USA: Polity Press.
el'Homme, l. F. (Sutradara). (2005). The Global Factory of Wasted Humans [part 1] [Gambar Hidup].
Medan, K. K. (1997). Pembunuhan Dalam Kasus Tanah dan Wanita di Adonara Flores: Suatu Studi Hukum. Semarang: Program Magister Ilmu Hukum Universitas Diponegoro.

Photos by:Petronela Somi Kedan from Titehena Assosiations meeting in 2011
Submitted as Paper to Wageningen University on February 2012

Tidak ada komentar: