Slametan: Javanese Ritual Meals (Special Topic 4)

In this special topic from the subject Symbols and Society, we'll work on the concept of multivocality in relation to a ritual meal known as the "slametan". But first, a word of warning; this topic requires managing a lot of detail.

Women preparing sweets for a slametan at my fieldsite in Banyuwangi, Java.

What is a slametan?
The word slametan refers to a kind of ritual meal frequently held in Java. As I have written:

Ritual meals are...an important aspect of orthodox [i.e. traditional Islamic] religion. Geertz called them “slametan”, and different words might also be used in different circumstances. The host invites neighbours, family, friends for a child’s birthday, to ensure the successful sale of land, or farewell a nephew visiting from the city. The guest’s wives help the host’s wife prepare a small plate of rice with some meat on the side at the host’s house. Usually, the husbands gather in the front room (ruang tamu) of the host’s house, after evening prayers, and lead by someone knowledgeable, recite passages from Koran. Then they gulp down the rice dish, share a joke, smoke a cigarette, then leave with a takeaway pack of the food. Leftovers are seized by any wives and kids who happen to be around (Herriman 2014)

The red dot marks the location of Pare, Java, Geertz's fieldwork location, where, in the 1950s, he analysed slametan.

What does a slametan look like?

 For an overview, you could look at my 1 page explanation of ritual meals in Banyuwangi, Java, my first fieldwork location .

Slametan in Java (my first fieldwork location 2001-2002)

You can see the similarities between ritual meals in Java (my first fieldwork location) and  ritual meals among the Cocos Malays (my second fieldwork location). I have also blogged about specific ritual meals among the Cocos Malays, including a Feast for the Spirits of the Dead and  ritual meals at the end of Ramadan, the Fasting Month.

Men filling bags with takeaways at the end of a ritual meal on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands

The Cocos (Keeling) Islands, where I have done fieldwork 2012-, are indicated at the bottom left of this map.

Slametan as multivocal

Geertz

This apparently simple ritual meal has sparked a lot of academic controversy; at least in relation to Java. To start with, could read the first chapter of Geertz's classic Religion of Java. You might also like to look at my summary of this. What anthropologists of symbols take away from Geertz on slametan is that that 3 different groups come together at a slametan and the 3 groups get three different kinds of meaning out of the ritual. We anthropologists of symbols could thus say the symbols are multivocal, just like the Virgin of Guadalupe. To understand the three groups' perspective, we need to look at the larger topic of Islam in Java.

Islam in Java = Syncretic Islam

As in other parts of the world, the Islam in Java has unique features—it has been indigenized or domesticated such that it reflects both local as well as foreign influences. It is thus what anthropologists call "syncretic". Clifford Geertz’s (1960) seminal work on Islam in Java assessed these influences on the religion of the Javanese people, who primarily inhabit central and eastern Java. 

Islam in Java: 3 variants

On the basis of fieldwork in Pare, the author characterized Javanese religion as being composed of 3 ‘variants’, which correspond with the tripartite structure of Javanese society:

1.  abangan, the peasantry, whose ‘socio-structural nucleus’ was the village. The abangan or folk religion is “a balanced integration of animistic, Hinduistic, and Islamic elements”;
2. santri, small traders, whose ‘nucleus’ was the market (in the sense of “the whole network of domestic trade relationships on the island”). The santri religious tradition is “a purer Islam, less contaminated with either animism or mysticism” (1960:5). I will also refer to this religious culture as “orthodox Islam”; and,
3.  priyayi, the gentry, formerly the aristocracy, whom the Dutch had transformed “into an appointive, salaried civil service” and whose “socio-structural nucleus” was the bureaucracy (1960:6). The priyayi religion is Hindu, incorporating “etiquette, art, and mystical practice” (1960:238).

Hence, Javanese religion was a syncretic Islam with the abangan ‘variant’ emphasizing animistic elements; the santri, Islamic; and the priyayi, Hindu elements within this syncretism. They call came together at the slametan ritual, which they all interpreted differently. Geertz insisted that these three variants were entirely separate in their mental outlook. 

Different interpretations of the slametan

What did the slametan mean to the 3 variants/groups in Java. 

1. The slametan is central to abangan life. A commonly held ritual meal, the slametan expresses abangan belief in the importance of harmonious relations with other humans, spirits, ancestors and gods. 
2. For santri, the emphasis in slametan is to worship Allah, the One, so these overtly pious Muslims they politely overlook reference to supernatural beings which are condemned by dogma.  
3. Where the abangan might be animist, the santri monotheist, the priyayi engages in slametan from a mystical perspective. The priyayi sees deeper significance to the symbols of the slametan which connect the self with God and the universe. 

In these ways, the slametan could be seen as multivocal--providing different symbolic meaning to different groups

Wider application of Geertz's model?

 Geertz’s typology has been the most influential in the study of Javanese religion. It has even been applied more widely to describe various political historical phenomena through out Java (Hefner 1987b:534-5), even though Javanese are just one (admittedly the largest) ethno-linguistic group in Java. (Other ethno-linguistic groups of Java include Madurese, Sundanese, Osing). Even though some authors have felt the model as wider significance than even Geertz argued for, other scholars have questioned the model. Indeed, as a model for religion in Java, it has been subject to revisions, eight of which are discussed in the following paragraphs.

 8 revisions to Geertz

1. Religion and class do not always align.

Hefner (1985:3-4 nn.) records that “a number of scholars” have pointed out “that variation in religious orthodoxy cuts across class lines”.  One can find peasants or aristocrats whose Islamic beliefs and practices are as orthodox as santri.

 2. Using local ideas and terms does not provide accurate analysis

Closely related is the second revision, namely that Geertz employs the terms that his research participants to describe society. As such it could be called an ‘indigenous sociology’ or an ‘emic’ or as Geertz would prefer, an ‘experience-near’ account. However the use of the term “priyayi” to denote a religious culture by Javanese people has been questioned on the basis that it usually only denotes a class—the aristocracy.

3. Regional variation much more important 'socio-structural nucleus'

 Regional variation within Java is more important than socioeconomic class in explaining religious culture. For example, areas along the north coast (pasisir) have tended to be more orthodox, upland mountain areas have tended to cling to Hindu-Buddhist or animist beliefs (Hefner 1985; Koentjaraningrat 1985:318)

4. Geertz's fieldwork location was particularly divided

A fourth revision relates to the particularity of Geertz’s fieldwork location setting. The tense relationship between orthodox Islam and Javanist Islam that Geertz describes can be traced to historical factors such as a Communist Party revolt (Madiun) and intense party-politicking in rural areas which focused on, and heightened, differences in religious culture (known as aliran politics) (Hefner 1987b). 

5. There are really only two variants.

A fifth revision has been to reject the tripartite structure. Koentjaraningrat (1985:316-7), for example, recognizes only two variants of Javanese Islam:

Variant A: “Islam of the religious people” (Agami Islam Santri) incorporates animistic and Hindu-Buddhist elements but “is much closer to the formal dogma learnings of Islam.”

Variant B: “Javanese religion” (Agami Jawi) is an “extensive complex of mystically inclined Hindu-Buddhistic beliefs and concepts, syncretistically integrated in an Islamic frame of reference” (Koentjaraningrat 1985:317).

 In this way, Koentjaraningrat (1985:316-7, 336) apparently subsumes the beliefs of Geertz’s priyayi and abangan religious variants into the single term “Javanese religion”.

6. Religious difference can be plotted along a continuum.

The sixth revision holds that the distinction between Javanist Islam and santri Islam is actually a continuum.  Geertz explicitly excluded this possibility of continuum, treating the different variants as discrete entities:

even amongst the most kolot [old-fashioned] of santri there has been a crucial shift when a man… becomes a santri. Nor can one simply say that the kolot-to-moderen scale measures the degree to which the principles have taken hold in the essentially abangan mentality of the Javanese (Geertz 1960:160).

Notwithstanding the idea that there is a continuum between santri Islam and Javanist Islam can be found in studies of Islam in Java, such as Woodward (1989:7) and Beatty (1999).

7. Sufism more important

A seventh revision pertains to the historical roots of Javanist Islam: namely, that it has been more influenced by mystical Islam or Sufism, than by pre-Islamic elements, such as Hindu-Buddhism (Woodward 1989:3, 242).  This could be attributed to the likelihood “that many of the merchants and travelers who introduced Islam to Southeast Asia were Sufis” (Barton 2002:64). Woodward (1989:6) argues that the distinction between Javanist Islam and santri Islam does not correlate with a distinction between “orthodox and syncretist Islam”, but rather a distinction between legalistic and mystical interpretations of Islam.

Perhaps the only safe conclusion one could make on the basis of these revisions is that there are two general trends in Islam in Java:

1.  Javanist Islam emphasizes indigenous, Hindu-Buddhist, and/or Sufi elements, while
2.  orthodox, normative, or santri Islam emphasizes ‘purifying’ Islam of these elements

8. The important distinction is between Civil and regimist Islam.

Finally, a new typology of Islam in Indonesia has been developed by Hefner (2000). Instead of defining his types in terms of differences of class or doctrine and practice, Hefner characterizes Indonesian Islam in terms of two emergent and rival traditions regarding the political role of Islam. “Civil Islam” is “pluralist” (2000:6) and affirms “democracy, voluntarism, and a balance of countervailing powers in a state and society” (2000:12-3). This is contrasted with a regimist Islam, which strives for an Islamic state without checks and balances (Hefner 2000:20).

 Accepting revision 5 for the sake of the argument leaves us with two major kinds of Islam in Java: Javanist Islam and santri Islam. This is the starting point for Beatty’s work Varieties of Javanese Religion.

The red dot indicates Banyuwangi, Java where Beatty did fieldwork in the 1990s, and I also did fieldwork 2001-2002.

Beatty’s mystical, practical Islam & pious Muslims

Beatty

This major contribution to the study of religion in Java is based fieldwork on research a village in mountain Banyuwangi given the pseudonym “Bayu”, as well as apparently shorter research periods in a traditional orthodox Islamic village and a Hindu community. Beatty is critical of accounts that explain religion from the perspective of ‘experts’ (urban Islamic preacher/scholars, sect leaders and so on) and instead searches to find the common- or middle- ground. For Beatty (1999:115-117) this religious common ground is what he calls “practical Islam”. Practical Islam is in the middle of a continuum with two ends:

1.  Proponents of a purer version of Islam, whom Beatty labels “santri.” 
2. Javanese mysticism is at the other side of the continuum. This  emphasizes worldly symbols of divinity (such as the human body, forests, foods) (Beatty 1999:158-186). 

Red and White porridge

Like Geertz, Beatty identified the multivocality of the slametan: people interpret the symbolic meaning of different rituals in their own way, and are not aggrieved by different interpretations (1999:49-50). Again from the two ends:

1. For a pious Muslim, the red and white porridge of a ritual simply represent Adam and Eve.
2.  For the mystic, Adam and Eve are “mere intermediaries”. 

The majority of people, i.e. those adopting, practical Islam,  have an opinion “falling somewhere in between…the two extremes (1999:38).

Aside from multivocality, another method by which local people deal with their religious differences is that the differences are brushed over such that questions of religion are not “spoken about, let alone debated” (1999:125-126).

My experience of Banyuwangi

A few years after Beatty, I also did fieldwork in Banyuwangi 2001-2002. I found evidence of the kind of religious diversity within Islam Beatty describes. It was apparent, of course, in Beatty's own fieldwork village and several surrounding villages. By contrast, elsewhere, in Banyuwangi, I was struck by the conformity of religious practice according to a pious, or santri Islam. Indeed, Beatty's fieldwork location was so unique that camera crews visited to film rituals there, it was set up as a tourist location, and the government has made a point of trying to preserve the special rituals. I decided to write a paper about that conformity of religious practice elsewhere in Banyuwangi. If you're interested, you can find it here.

Theoretical approaches to the symbolism of slametan

OK let's leave the debates over variants aside and rather focus on how the different theories might apply to the symbols in a slametan.

What would it look like if we applied Ortner's theory to something slametan and combined it with Geertz's theory?

Using Ortner, we could say that the slametan as an elaborating symbol of the ‘key scenario’ type. It's an elaborating symbol puts everything into context, helps you sort out ideas, explains how everything fits together, orders life. It's a key senario because it shows you how to live out life.

On top of this, we can also apply Geertz's ideas of models for and models. We could say that these elaborating symbols are models for how to behave. Maybe you act out gender roles, slamet is restored. It shows people how to act in the world: calm, resigned and peaceful. Also, as it is an unassuming and apparently insignificant ritual is not sacred like for example like prayers before fasting month.

Aside from the elaborating symbols, there are also models of. In the ritual how the world is and how to behave all hangs together For exathe colours of the porridge etc seem to be a model of Adam Eve etc.

As Geertz notes in rituals models of and for come together similarly the selametan is as much a model of society. We enact relationships with ancestors and with each other but is this in a symbolic way? Geertz says it symbolizes "the mystic and social unity of those participating in it" but is it a symbol or actually it? That is, it doesn't just make sense of the world, it actually creates order in the world. Anyway, it organizes their life: people are arranged equally, food is distributed, spirits are appeased and neutrality is achieved.

Final Words

There are no final words on the debate! Geertz started a fascinating conversation by analyzing a kind of ritual meal as having different meanings to different groups. The different groups could come together at the one ritual he observed. Ever since then different scholars have grappled with this idea. Maybe the debate has now run out of steam. But I hope not.

As for the different theories of symbols; I have applied Ortner and Geertz's own theory to the slametan. What other theories do you think illuminate aspects of the slametan?

Muslim Veils: Different Analyses (Special Topic 3)

Veils are piece of cloth that people wear around your head. Nuns of different cultures wear them. Jewish and Muslim women in different parts of the world wear veils too.

Issues surrounding whether Muslim women should or should not wear veils have been on-and-off the public agenda in many countries. In Western public discourse, you can find people supporting Muslim women veiling. Supporters might say "the veil is an expression of female agency" or "it’s just as an expression of religious piety". And you can find people opposed to it. Opponents might say, "it’s a rejection of all we stand for" or "it's simply an expression of male control over women". I find both views, for and against veiling,  uninformed by the kind of qualitative analysis anthropology gives.

Ostensibly, veiling is a religious issue. In the Q'ran, God says:

O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And Allah is oft-forgiving, most merciful.

But this doesn't really help us anthropologists understand Muslim veils. Why?

In the study of religious adherence we tend to focus more on what ordinary, lay-folk believe. Some anthropologists focus on studying religious specialists (who in Islam might be called "clerics", "ustadz", "ulama", and other words). But although religious specialists are influential, as specialists, they are 'special', so we analyse their understandings as them as having very particular stances on matter.

In any case, what matters to us interpretation. As much as certain people would like to say there is only one correct interpretation of the Bible, Torah, Q'ran, Scriptures etc., they only say that because so many interpretations exist! As we can see from the research by Abu-Lughod and Lindquist the veil has a wealth of significance that can't be easily deduced from the Q'ran passage above.

I think the best way to  begin approaching this topic is an extension (literally) of the Hair Debate (Special Topic 2). The question of public vs. private symbolism remains crucial in understanding Muslim veils. From this one question anthropologists might ask is, "what do veils mean, personally, for women who wear them?"  The other question is, "what do veils mean in the cultures in which they are worn?"

In this, the third special topic, from my subject Symbols and Society, I consider two different accounts of veiling. From them, we get a sense of similarities and difference in the meaning attached to veils in two different Islamic cultures.

Image of Malay women wearing jilbabs (the Malay Muslim veil) at my field site, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. These women are waiting to eat the food they have prepared for a communal meal.

 Abu-Lughod: Veiled Sentiments

Bedouin woman

GLOSSARY 

ghinnawa = poetry of yearning and love

hasham = modesty, shame, shyness, sense of being unworthy

tahasham = having hasham

It might be surprising given the title of the book, but in her Veiled Sentiments, Abu-Lughod only directly deals with the meaning of wearing a veil on p. 159. It must be remembered though, anthropology is mostly about providing context. Consistent with the idea of holism, anthropologists feel that one must have a picture of the whole culture and society (Awlad Ali Bedouins) before a single phenomenon (wearing a veil) can be understood. Also the word “veil” in the title is metaphorical; the ghinnawas, highly personal poetry, give veiled expression to highly personal and, in certain contexts, inappropriate poetry recited by women. So what does Abu-Lughod have to say about actual veiling in the physical? 

Bedouin Wedding Procession

The immediate context is tahashsham. I’m going for a simplified explanation that will leave the experts rolling their eyes: hasham is a feeling a shame, shyness, and unworthiness. Tahashsham refers to women who comport themselves in an appropriate manner. A woman who tahashsham is disinterested in sex; avoids contact with most men (aside from those of her father's family); is publicly disinterested in her husband. And most of all, for our purposes, women who tahasshsham wear a thick veil. They particularly do this in the presence of male superiors and strangers. To understand this in detail you'll need to read pp. 153-159 of Veiled Sentiments, which is available online at most university libraries. I have also tried to summarise it here:

Lindquist: Maju, malu and veils

Glossary:
Maju= advanced
malu = coy, shy, reserved
jilbab = veil which leaves face exposed

Located near Singapore and Malaysia, the Indonesian island of Batam is replete with modern factories and brothels. Singaporean men use it as a source of cheap labour and cheap sex. For an analogy, you might consider Tijuana; the Mexican city just over the border form San Diego, where young American men might go for buck's nights etc.

Factories in Batam as a rule typically only employ young women (it used to be the virginity was also tested!).  Lindquist writes about Indonesian women have migrated from all over Indonesia to Batam to work in the factories:

“As unexpected as it might seem, migrant women sometimes wear Muslim veils or take ecstasy in the same places and for the same reasons,” writes Lindquist. The factories, as a rule, employs only young single, high-school educated females. These young women may feel ashamed because they have travelled to demonstrate their personal development; but often fail to save money and ‘get ahead’ and be maju. To be maju is to be up-to-date, developed, cutting edge. A country that has made itself maju is Korea or Japan; a Muslim that has made herself maju would be sophisticated and embody the latest in practice and thinking about Islam [which would include wearing the veil]. The opposite of maju is to be backward, rural, traditional. Migration is about becoming maju and not malu (modest, shy, embarrassed).

Batamindo Industrial Complex

“In conversations with workers who wore the veil it was clear that most of them began to do so only after they had arrived on Batam. The typical response to my enquiry about this was that they had only just ‘become aware’ (baru sadar). For instance, Widya, from the city of Yogyakarta in Central Java, claimed that she had always wanted to wear a jilbab before she came to Batam, but that it was rare there. While in Java it was easy to be branded fanatik (cf. Brenner 1998:232), on Batam one gained support not only from roommates but also from the agencies and companies that recruited them. Widya continued: ‘one of the good things about working here is that there are a lot of religious activities. In the kampung [my village of origin] it is usually only on Hari Raya [the day of celebration that breaks the Islamic fasting month] that there is anything going on.’

One aspect of personal development these young migrant women can work on is religion—there are more religious activities and information sessions than where they came from. Wearing the veil (jilbab) is part of this religious development; they need not return to their home feeling malu, even if they have little money saved, at least the veil shows they are developed. Lindquist writes:

In the [Batam industrial] estate, however, it is possible to take part in religious activities on a daily basis, either in the main mosque or in a wide variety of organizations that are organized through particular companies or by community-based groups created by workers and supported by the estate management. The interests of the workers, the companies, and the local government appear to converge, as the movement of workers is restricted to the mosque (or the church), the dormitories, and the factory. The development of the [Batam] industrial estate is matched by the spiritual development of the worker” (Lindquist 2004, 493).

At a more complex level, Lindquist ties wearing a jilbab in with morality, affect, subjectivity, nationalism, migration and various other concepts. According to Winarnita (2011) for Lindquist, modesty/shame/shyness or malu is:

a key emotional trope [for female migrants to Batam]…Lindquist argues that in migration malu should be understood in relation to representations connected to the originating nation…to him malu is an important starting point for thinking about the motivations and actions of Indonesian migrants in negotiating their hopes and frustrations. [Lindquist] he sees the women migrants as having agency in which malu becomes a reflexive management of appearances in the face of dramatic economic and social change.

You want to show how advanced you are by succeeding in migration both in earning a wage and becoming a better Muslim. Thus wearing a veil symbolises to others that one has become advanced or maju.

Symbolic Significance

The veil could thus be seen as symbolising something personal for the wearer herself (such as her personal journey to Batam). She also sends out message to others about herself, whether it be that she is malu or tahasham. To understand these different levels of symbolism it is useful to refer to the great anthropological debate regarding hair.

Summary

So for Lindquist failing in migration makes female workers feel malu. To deal with this feeling of malu, the sex workers take ecstasy. Those who work in factories want to feel like they have 'made it' and one way of showing of success is religious development. And one sign of religious development is wearing a veil. When the workers go back home, they wear a veil, they can feel less malu. Feelings of malu lie behind both taking ecstasy (for sex workers) and wearing a veil (for factory workers).

For Abu Lughod, writing about Bedouins, wearing a veil is also related to feelings of hasham. 

Reflection

I think of hasham and malu as important symbols and feelings. The feelings/states they relate to include modesty, humility, shame, shyness, coyness, chastity etc.