Tag Archives: Kalimantan Tengah

Manugal – planting rice with the Dayaks

A couple of weekends ago, our new friend (and workmate) Lelie very kindly invited us up to visit her village of Tewang Rangkang, on the Katingan River about 80km (or 2 hours) to the northwest of here. It’s a Dayak Ngaju village. (The indigenous people of Borneo, especially the interior parts of the island, are collectively known as Dayak people, and the Ngaju people are one of the many sub-groups). The occasion of our visit was for a ‘Manugal’ ceremony and working-bee.

Tewan_Rangkang_20141025_0185Gotong royong and Manugal. Across Indonesia, the practice of ‘mutual cooperation’, where a community all pitches in achieve some goal that is too big for an individual to do on their own, is very much alive. Think ‘barn-raising’. They call it gotong royong, and it’s part of the national ethos (although the concept got hijacked for political purposes by both Sukarno and Suharto).

Amongst the Dayak people, who still practise slash-and-burn dry rice cultivation in forested lands (ladang), everyone pitches in to help their family and neighbours to clear land for cultivation, and to plant and harvest the rice. The ceremony and working-bee at the time of planting the rice is known as Manugal.

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To get to the ladang fields, we first had to walk through the village and across the sandbanks to the river’s edge. Some small motor-powered canoes (‘ces’) were waiting to ferry us across the river, where we climbed up muddy banks and ladders, then through forest, plantations of durian, bamboo and rubber trees, and finally across a rather bleak terrain of recently cleared and burnt countryside. This was where the rice was to be planted.

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By the time we got there (about 8am) there were around 40 people assembled under a tarpaulin shelter on the edge of the field. Bags of rice were measured out into baskets to be carried by each of the planters – white, red and yellow rice. Everyone took a taste of sirih – betel leaf, areca nut and lime paste – to chew on as they started work. We walked out into the burnt field, spitting red as we went.

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The men each took a wooden staff, sharpened at one end, and formed a loose line standing about two metres apart. We worked our way across the field. making shallow holes in the ground as we proceeded, twisting the poles to form a roughly conical depression every 30cm or so.

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The women made a second parallel line, sweeping across the field behind the men, and dropping about 10 grains of seed rice into each of the holes. It is all pretty rough and basic: the seeds aren’t covered at all, or watered in. In fact the crop is not irrigated at any stage, relying on the (usually reliable) rains from November to February to sustain the crop.

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At the end of the plot (ownership boundaries are marked with string) everyone moves across to the next strip and repeats the process until the whole area is done. There are stumps and logs all over the field, and you just clamber over them and plant around them as best you can. It’s not worth investing in full-on clearing, because the whole area is abandoned after a few years, or converted to growing rubber.

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The work was done with a lot of humour and laughter, and sometimes seemed to be more about bonding the community than getting the job done. Everyone got their faces smeared with charcoal at some point in the day, and there were breaks for coffee, fried pork and rice, and sweet cakes (all delicious).

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Even with the breaks, we were all finished by about noon. Just as well, as the day was getting seriously hot by then. Members of Lelie’s family, especially her sister and one of her uncles, spent a lot of time explaining things to us – as well as they could with our limited Indonesian language and non-existent Dayak Ngaju!

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So then it was time to pack up and head back the way we had come, no longer too concerned about keeping our clothes (and faces) clean. We knew there was a mandi and a change of clothes waiting back in the village.

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The mood was very relaxed on the way back, everyone seeming content with the morning’s (modest) work effort. There was much hilarity as the three ces raced across the river, each driver trying to spray the other boats in their wake. Halfway across I was asked if I could swim. “Yes”, I replied. “But my camera can’t”. This meant I got excused from the all-in splashing and dunking battle that erupted as we reached the home shore.  Tewan_Rangkang_20141025_0173 

We stayed back in the village for a wash, lunch, and to meet some of Lelie’s huge extended family. (Our standing joke is that she doesn’t have a pohon keluarga (a ‘family tree’) like most people – instead she has a hutan keluarga (a ‘family forest’)!

As we headed back home later that afternoon, feeling warm inside from all the hospitality (and good food!), we had no idea that we would be back for a three-day visit less than a week later. But that’s a story for another time.

Kuda Lumping

One of the nice by-products of the after-school art classes at the YUM library, which are now co-hosted by Karen, is that she makes connections with families around the immediate area. So, at the Sunday produce market at Tangkiling this week, a little girl tugged at her sleeve and shyly said “Selamat Pagi, Ibu Karen” and then introduced us to her dad.

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Another time, two girls from the (Javanese transmigrant) village of Suka Mulya invited her to come to the village “to see some dancing”. Not knowing what to expect, she turned up there at the appointed time (Tuesday at 2pm), to find that a large wedding celebration was in progress. A temporary stage had been set up in a grove between the houses, and a small gamelan orchestra had been installed. And the dance performance … well, it was a Kuda Lumping performance, and she phoned me at work to say: “get over here right away, it’s amazing!”

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The Kuda Lumping originated in central and east Java, and is a very special thing indeed. Over a couple of hours, a number of young men and teenage boys go into a state of trance, and supposedly become possessed by the spirits of horses. They strut around, stamping the ground, rolling in the dirt, eating grass and chaff (and sometimes, we were told, they eat glass and walk over burning coals), seemingly oblivious to pain or the crowd around. The meaning and origin of the Kuda Lumping is unclear. It goes back at least several hundred years, with one theory being that it began with Mataram Empire cavalry battling against the Dutch – but it could be much older again…

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The gamelan plays fast, just a few gongs and several prominent drums, and with vocalists alternately singing, wailing and making syncopated screeching sounds. A woodwind instrument (I don’t know the name) plays over the top, sounding like a jazz improvisation on an oboe. It’s quite powerful and other-worldly, and actually sounds rather better and more melodic than you might imagine!

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Overseeing the ‘trancers’ are a small number of very serious-faced older men (perhaps shamans) who ensure that the boys don’t hurt themselves as they trot and canter around. It’s a bit wild and chaotic at times, looking like it might spiral out of control, but the older guys keep a lid on it, and ensure that there aren’t too many in trance at any one time. These ‘minders’ have some kind of power over the horse-boys, and go through a dramatic and elaborate procedure to bring each of the boys out of trance.

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This can involve tapping them on the forehead to make them pass out backwards into the arms of waiting support crew, wiping a cloth violently across the boy’s forehead, or … striking him three times around the abdomen with a whip. And they don’t appear to hold back with the whip arm, either! Once returned to normal consciousness from the trance, the boys look dazed and confused, with a what-am-I-doing-here expression on their faces, and they are ushered off backstage to ‘recover’.

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We had seen a Kuda Lumping performance once before, in 2009 near the Prambanan temple outside of Jogjakarta. On both occasions we were the only non-Indonesians present, and the structure of it was much the same. On both occasions the trances looked half-real, half-contrived. We did see that some of the trancers were sitting backstage in a very spaced-out state for some time after they came offstage. Perhaps they were just exhausted from all that horsing around.

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One difference on this occasion was that the bride and groom got involved at one point, with one of the trancers carrying first the groom, then the bride, through the crowd and into the wedding pavilion and onto a little throne set up for them there. They each tried to look dignified as their ‘horse’ swerved and reared up on the way.

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We went over to congratulate the bride and groom, and to pay our respects to their parents, and of course (this being Indonesia, perhaps the most hospitable place on the planet) we ended up sharing in the wedding feast and refreshments (i.e. buffet meal, cakes and coconut water).

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Idul Adha in Marang village

A few weeks ago we were invited to attend an Idul Adha event in the (mostly Javanese Muslim) village of Marang – about 20km from here. We rode our little Yamaha Jupiter to the village, bouncing along very slowly on the broken sandy ‘main road’ into Marang. The road, like most roads other than the Trans-Kalimantan Highway, was bitumen once (perhaps a few hundred years ago?!) but is now largely broken and potholey, with a narrow smooth sandy strip along the edge where motorbikes can get through.

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Idul Adha (or Eid al-Adha in Arabic) honours Abraham’s submission to God’s demand that he sacrifice his son Ishmael. God was satisfied with Abraham’s submission, and let him sacrifice a lamb in place of the (no doubt relieved) Ishmael. I’ve had the first verse of Dylan’s Highway 61 going round in my head all month!*

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The event is commemorated amongst Muslim communities world wide, with each year around 100 million animals (sheep, goats, cattle, camels) sacrificed and shared with family, friends, neighbours and the poor. It’s a feast day, and for many people in this area, it’s perhaps the only time they get to eat meat (other than chicken) all year.  Beef is expensive, around the same as Australian prices – but the cost of one beast is about about equivalent to the average annual income here!

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Marang is a poor village, but there were two cattle and a goat slaughtered, in an open area beside the masjid. One of the cattle was a gift from the Mayor of Palangkaraya, and one was provided by YUM (the Yayasan Usaha Mulia, for who I am working). Apparently YUM donates an animal to a different village each year.

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The event was more of a community butchery session than an overtly religious event. We arrived at 9am, and so we missed any ceremony that may have occurred before our arrival. We had read that Idul Adha is an occasion for everyone to wear their very best clothes, so we fronted up in   the best that we have, batik and leather shoes etc, to find that most (but not all) of the villagers were very sensibly decked out in clothes suited to work in a slaughterhouse!

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All of the adults participated in the work, with clear demarcation of responsibilities – but no-one seeming to be in charge, or giving orders. We see this repeatedly, how the logistics for events just seem to work with a whole community working seamlessly towards some common goal. The animals were very efficiently slaughtered, skinned, chopped up, cleaned and hung, with much good humour and laughter.

Kids

We, the only bules (westerners) in attendance, were made to feel very welcome, and a mat was laid out for us to rest in the shade of the masjid when the day started getting real hot. As always, the kids were very interested in us, wanting to ask questions and pose for photos.  All on their best behaviour – perhaps because the adults of the village were all nearby, wielding large sharp knives?!

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 * Oh, God said to Abraham: “Kill me a son”
Abe said: “Man, you must be putting me on!”
God said: “No”
Abe said: “Why?”
God said: “You can do it if you try.
Or the next time you see me coming, you’d better run”
Abe said: “Where you want this killing done?”
God said: “Down on Highway 61″

Smoke gets in your eyes

 

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It’s the tail-end of the Dry Season (Musim Kering) here in Central Kalimantan. Here (and in parts of Sumatra) it’s also known as Musim Kebakaran (‘the Burning Season’), because of the prevalence of man-made fires in the forest and farmlands. From piles of rubbish and raked-up leaves, to garden plots, scrubby farmlands, entire forests – it seems like the whole landscape is being progressively turned into smoke and ash. Even the ground is smouldering in places, because much of  it consists of dried-up peat swamp, often metres deep, and once fire gets a hold … it just keeps burning.

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The Dayak people have always used fire to clear small areas of forest in preparation for planting dryland rice and vegetables. But it was done on a small scale. Now everyone, not just shifting cultivators, is doing it. With much larger-scale cultivation of plantation crops (particularly oil palms), very large areas of both primary and secondary growth forest are being cleared, by chainsaw and fire. Indonesia has now overtaken Brazil as the ‘world leader’ in deforestation. And the fires have become an international issue, with Malaysia and Singapore complaining every year about the massive smoke clouds drifting over from Indonesia.

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Most, if not all of the fires are illegal, and national and regional governments regularly announce crack-downs, prosecutions and punishment of offenders. There’s even a website that uses high-res satellite imagery to give live updates of ‘hotspots’ across the archipelago. However, a just-completed independent audit of the 17 largest forestry firms in Riau found that none of them (not one!) managed even a 50% score for compliance with the regulations. Along the Trans-Kalimantan Highway which is our main road here (locally known as Jalan Tjilik Riwut), there is an anti-fire billboard every few hundred metres. They proclaim, alongside a picture of the provincial Governor: “Stop Fires! Protect forests and fields from damage”. There’ll often be a smoking or burning field behind the billboard.

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In Sumatra, the government has taken to handing out face-masks to passengers as they arrive at the airports. Here the Palangkaraya airport is often closed because the smoke is too thick for pilots to land their planes. Pre-schools have closed, and primary schools were all closed for two days last week. Vehicles drive with headlights on throughout the day.

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We actually haven’t been affected too much by the smoke haze. It seems to have a cumulative impact on the health; some of the expats who have been here for the longest are suffering more than us, with several going to places with clearer air (like Bali – or even Jakarta!) for relief. Local people (by and large) don’t have that option, and so endure by being stoic.

We have air conditioning in our little house, and that helps a great deal. We also wear good quality masks when travelling on the motorbike, and when hiking. It has a certain ‘bandit chic’ about it, don’t you think? Nonetheless, we ARE looking forward to the arrival of the rains (probably within the next month), because that will spell the end of the Burning Season, and the end of the smoke…

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And, speaking of smoke, could it be that attitudes to tobacco smoking are changing? When we were here five years ago, I remember reading that 70% of adult men in Indonesia smoke every day (women almost never smoke), and that there were some 5 million people working in the tobacco industry (as growers, hand-rollers of kretek cigarettes, distribution and sales etc). That made the industry a pretty powerful lobby, and there seemed to be little push to reduce tobacco consumption. Now you can still buy and smoke cigarettes anywhere and everywhere, though the price has gone up to about A$1.60 per packet of 20 (i.e. around 10% of the price in Australia, often for the same brands). Advertising for cigarette brands is still seen everywhere (on billboards, shop banners, posters), often with those absurd Marlboro Man / James Bond / Racing Car images, and words like ’smooth’, ’taste’, ‘mild’, ’satisfaction’ and ‘fresh’.

But there doesn’t seem to be as many people smoking as there were five years ago, and cigarette packets now carry warning pictures – mostly Grim Reaper-style images, and some of the graphic diseased-tissue photos as on Australian packets. We hear people acknowledging the negative health impacts of smoking – five years ago there were people telling us that smoking is good for your throat and lungs! My work colleagues were joking recently about the foolishness of people who assiduously wear smoke masks all day, only taking them off in order to have a cigarette!

Kanarakan village

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Last week I went north up the (Rungan) river with some of my new workmates to check on the condition of home gardens in the village of Kanarakan, which has no road access. It’s still the dry season, so the river is low, the gardens are currently ‘resting’ (i.e. mostly dead), and the air is always hot and thick with smoke from the burning of forests all over Kalimantan. But it was a great day, really enjoyable and interesting. Very comfortable travelling in klotoks (canoes with outboard motors). Keep the camera dry!

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There were monkeys and even a couple of orang-utans to see along the way. The orang-utans live on a large-ish island in the river in a ‘rehabilitation centre’ preparing for later return to the ever-diminishing forests. There are security posts across the river from the island to ensure that they don’t get disturbed by visitors or hunters.

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The only human signs of life along the river were a few fishermen, and a lot of the floating gold-mining dredges. Most (all?) of the mining platforms are unlicensed (illegal) and they use mercury to extract the gold from the sediment. They leave big piles of sand where they have been working, and they are a major reason for the declining health of the river systems here.

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The village of Kanarakan consists of just one road along the riverbank, no cars and only one or two motorbikes all day while we were there. It’s a mixture of Dayak (Protestant Christian/traditional Kaharingan religion) and Javanese Muslim people. Across the road from the masjid is a church, with a Dayak spirit-house next door to it. The 300 or so villagers get a meagre living from the river (fish or gold mining) or the forest, where they collect rattan and some kind of wood that they tell me is used in Chinese cosmetics (?). I read somewhere that 93% of the people in this district live on less than US$2 per day.

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Every house has a floating platform down on the river. It’s where they moor their klotoks, bathe, do the clothes washing and, in the little floating outhouse which is missing a plank in the middle, go to the toilet. That’s a pile of the Chinese cosmetic wood in the lower right of the picture.

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We were invited in to have coffee with the kepala desa (village head), the warm, gentle and talkative Pak Anden. His coffee is grown out the back of his house, and he flavours it with a mixture of six spices, including ginger, cloves and cinnamon (I forget the other ingredients, but it was very nice…) When I told him where I came from, he said (in Bahasa) “Oh yes, I have had other visitors from Australia”, and got out his photo album with photos of Harry Jenkins and Bronwyn Bishop when they were there on a parliamentary delegation a few years ago. Sometimes the world feels too small.

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We had a hot but easy amble around the village gardens, most of which have nothing growing as everyone waits for the start of the wet season. The gardens are located about 10 metres above the river level, so any water for the gardens has to be carried up in buckets. There is a project under way to construct some water tanks, and the village should have road access within the next year or two. At one point Sumarlan and Erna got a long bamboo pole to collect some kedondong (ambarella fruit) for me to take home for Karen.

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After lunch and some more garden inspections, we had time for a few games of ‘billiards’ (though it was really pool, with a half-size cue ball). Each player chooses four playing cards from a deck, and then has to sink the balls that match their cards. I won! (Now they want me to join them for volleyball…)

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Some of my new workmates – Joko, Agus, Erna, Memey, Novi and Sumarlan. A great team, friendly, generous, and all good workers too, doing really worthwhile stuff. The ‘Agro’ team are helping to establish home veggie gardens, teaching nutrition and cooking skills, and experimenting with fish-farming, worm culture, compost recipes and ‘integrated pest management’. Other parts of the YUM organisation are running after-school classes and library services, and a vocational training centre (computing, sewing and English language classes). More about the workplace and the various projects at a later time…