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Physicalising the spirit-dimension by song, dance and ‘fakery’ in indigenous mainland Riau, Indonesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2015

Nathan Porath
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Abstract

The Orang Sakai of Mainland Riau, on the east coast of Sumatra, have an elaborate performing art genre through which they physicalise the unseen spirit-dimension in a shamanic ritual called dikei. Their shamanic ritual utilises songs, dance as well as comedy. This article elaborates on how songs and dance visualise the unseen beings and provides detailed examples of Sakai performances during which shamans ‘dance with’ or ‘move with’ the spirits. A second theme of the article is the question of the relationship between the meaning of ‘performance’ and fakery, and suggests that there are three types of performed fakery, two of which are accepted as valid and necessary performances which technically contribute to the performance of medicine and the physicalisation of spirit presence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , October 2015 , pp. 368 - 390
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2015 

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References

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2 See Edward Schieffelin, ‘Problematising performance in ritual’, in Ritual, performance, and media, ed. Felicia Hughes-Freeland (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 194–207; Edward Schieffelin, ‘On failure and performance: Throwing the medium out of a séance’, in The performance of healing, pp. 59–90; Susana Rostas, ‘From ritualisation to performativity: The Concheros of Mexico’, in Ritual, performance, and media, pp. 85–103.

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10 Porath, Nathan, ‘Creating medicine on a swing: The effectiveness of mirroring, mimetic sensoriality and embodiment to facilitate childbirth among the Sakais of Riau (Sumatra)’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 17, 4 (2011): 811–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Porath, Nathan, ‘Freud among the Sakais: The father-archetype, the talking cure and the transference in an indigenous Sumatran shamanic healing complex’, Anthropos 108, 1 (2013): 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 The puat is a highly condensed and multivalent symbolic object in dikei as well as in Sakai knowledge about the self and the environment (cosmos). The different leaves of the puat represent the different species of tall trees (Sialang) in which bees nest. There are many types of puat as well as tiered three/seven/nine-branched puat. On one basic level the puat represents what in broader Indonesian discourse is called Kayu Alam (World Tree, Cosmic Tree).

12 For a detailed description of Sakai bark houses see Nathan Porath and Gerard Persoon, ‘Lean-tos, huts and houses: Forms of shelter among nomadic forest dwellers in Southeast Asia’, in Indonesian houses: Survey of vernacular architecture in western Indonesia, vol. 2, ed. Riemar Schefold, Peter Nas, Goudenz Domenig and Robert Wessing (Leiden: KITLV, 2008), pp. 279–308.

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14 In an earlier period the Sultan of Siak would bestow on the batin headmen a deta bekampuh as a sign of office. These would be worn when meeting state officials. There may also have been an original association of the shaman's crown with Alexander the Great, who in classical Malay histories is Raja Iskandar Zul Kernain (King Alexander with the two horns), the great rajah of antiquity from whom the Malay sultans of Johor claimed descent.

15 In the past a yellow cloth was donned when performing for a raja.

16 Sandbukt, ‘Kubu conceptions of reality’.

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20 She is usually represented by the multivalent puat (puan), here representing ‘the maiden’ given as a gift to the raja spirit. The gift of the maiden theme is also found in Sakai legend, reflecting the power relationship between the Orang Batin and the hierarchical Malay world.

21 Another term is akuan.

22 Don Handelman, Models and mirrors: Towards an anthropology of public events (Oxford: Berghahn, 1998); Bruce Kapferer, A celebration of demons: Exorcism and the aesthetics of healing in Sri Lanka (Oxford: Berg; Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute, 1991).

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29 For a fascinating account of the use of incongruity, superiority and descending incongruity within the play of therapeutic comedy, see Kapferer, Bruce, ‘Entertaining demons: Comedy, interaction and meaning in a Sinhalese healing ritual’, Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice 1 (1979): 108–52Google Scholar.