Ecofeminist Spirituality of Natural Disaster in Indonesian Written Folktales: An Analysis of Symbols

Purwanti Kusumaningtyas (Fakultas Bahasa dan Sastra UKSW) [email protected]

Abstract: Indonesia yang terletak di wilayah pertemuan lempeng bumi sudah sepantasnya membuat orang Indonesia terbiasa dengan bencana alam seperti gempa bumi dan letusan gunung api. Keyakinan-keyakinan tradisional yang bagi orang modern mungkin merupakan takhayul mengajarkan kepada kita etika partnership yang diyakini oleh pandangan ekologi spiritual dan ekofeminisme. Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk membahas kemungkinan-kemungkinan makna- makna simbolis atas sikap partnership spiritual terhadap bencana alam yang ada dalam cerita rakyat Indonesia, melalui analisa simbol. Telaah ini menunjukkan bahwa cerita rakyat Indonesia yang sudah tertulis mengandung banyak pesan perlindungan ekologis yang erat berkaitan dengan makna simbolik perempuan sebagai representasi spiritualitas ekofeminis. Dengan demikian cerita rakyat merupakan media yang berpotensi besar sebagai sarana menggeser pola pikir patriarkhis menjadi cara pandang yang lebih adil gender kepada generasi muda.

Key words: Spiritualitas Ekofeminis, Bencana Alam, Cerita Rakyat, Analisa Simbol

A. Introduction People responded differently to disasters spiritually and religiously. The first response is to put the Divine as the problem solver and / or an escape to what human did wrongly to the environment. For example, in Indonesian case of forest fire recently (June 2013), The Mayor of Dumai, Sumatra, invited all people to pray for the rainfall after all efforts to extinguish the fire and reduce the thick smoke-haze did not help much. They prayed after what they did to the land: slash and burn it to prepare land for oil palm and rubber plantation, especially those in South Sumatra (http://www.antaranews.com/berita/381836/dumai-gelar-sholat-minta-hujan- untuk-atasi-asap). Forest fire and smoke-haze have happened repeatedly in the area since 1997 and Byron and Shepherd (1998) reported that it was due to “the deficiencies in both forest management systems and the policies and regulations that are supposed to control the clearance of forest land for agriculture.” A different response comes from people like those in the mountainside of Mount Merapi whenever it erupts. They generally personify it as “mbah Petruk” (literally means Grandfather Petruk, the name of one of the four servants of Pandawa of Mahabharata epic) and very often people came up with pictures of old man contemplating as they tried to portray the power of this volcanic mountain. Whenever it erupts, which may happen periodically every five years, the folks in the mountainside will consider that “Mbah Petruk is having his feast” or “the mountain is cleaning itself.” Such beliefs are difficult for people outside the region to accept as the folks never consider the eruption as disaster. Instead, they think that it has to happen in order that the mountain gives more blessings to them, for their farming and their business, in short, their welfare and well-being (Pak Hardi from Cangkringan, Sleman, Yogyakarta, personal conversations in, November 2011; Pak Sitras Anjilin from Padepokan Tjipta Boedaja, Tutup Ngisor, Dukun, Magelang, personal conversation, July 2011). A number of folks in Merapi mountainside even believes that the nature speaks to them only if they are willing to listen to the nature as the nature are the representation of the Divine, the source of Life. Only if people are willing to listen to the nature’s “whisper,” then they will be able to understand the nature’s moves. They faithfully hold the philosophy “wong sing gedhe gentur tapane, yo kuwi sing arep ngerti akibate” (whoever is diligently and faithfully contemplate and meditate, s/he will understand what the consequence is). It gives them courage to befriend with nature, no matter how hard it is.1 Those two cases reflect the conclusion of what human beings fundamentally seek for in their lives: “why is anything at all happening? Why am I here?” as what Wilber (1995) postulates as “behind the happen stance drama is a deeper or higher or wider pattern, or order, or intelligence.” To be more specific, G. Schlee (as quoted by Low and Tremayne (2001) declares that “rituals, practices, beliefs and spiritual values are often adaptive responses (not consciously) to the ecological environment” in order to nurture and protect their relationship with their environment (p.1). The anthropocentric explanation of the interconnectivity of human and their environment, posing nature as secondary to human beings, leads to the ideas of the dichotomous thoughts of the transcendent/immanent–men/women–culture/nature, which leads to domination. On the other hand, the ecocentric one which breaks the wall of the dichotomy is moving with the ethic of partnership with nature (Merchant, 1992, p.188). Ecofeminist perspective owes the latter ethic to bring fairer gender relation, which so far is believed as being occupied with the ethic of domination due to the homocentric perspective. Disasters are one of the components of the interlinked web of nature in which human beings have to face and deal with, especially those who live in Indonesia, which is located in the rings of fire and the Earth’s diving and sliding plates. Indonesian myths and legends that tell about such calamities are worth looking closer look to find out how they share the ethic of partnership through the acknowledgment of complex cosmic interconnectivity between human beings and the Earth with all its components (Merchant, 1992, p.86). Studies about any traditions related with spirituality have discussed how the European and Native American folks placed femininity as the Female Divine in many stories. Spiritual ecology has even owed much from the feminine deity of the Greek, Roman, and German goddesses and references to the scriptures of the mainstream religions (Merchant, 1992, pp.114 – 117). Interpretive information about what folktales may tell their audience can provide the audience with ideas of how to refresh the ideas of spirituality that so far have been shifted into simply rituals and traditions, ignoring the underlying values, even negating them in Indonesian society’s daily practices particularly. As a means of transferring knowledge and more importantly values and principles, folktales play central role to shape the people’s mindset (Brunvard, 1968; Lankford, 2008;

1 Reflective discussion with a number of local leaders and farmers of Cangkringan and Candibinangun, Pakem, Sleman, in Padepokan Lawang Sewu (BapakSuparman’s house), Dusun Kalireso, Candibinangun, Pakem, June 21- 22, 2011. Nachbar&Lause, 1992). And thus, they are greatly potential means of shifting the patriarchal mindset into gender-fair perspective. This paper attempts to interpret the spiritual meaning of the disasters off our tales of calamities, which the folklorists categorized into stories number A1000 to A1099 (Danandjaja, 1992, p.54), from different folks in Indonesia. Employing spiritual ecology and ecofeminist perspective that promote ethic of partnership (Merchant, 1992, pp.110-129, 188), this paper will discuss how the stories in Indonesia identify the nature as the significant part of relation in the web of life to humbly contribute to the change of mindset (if the story is told to younger generation).

B. Male Deity, Feminine Deity and Ecofeminist Spirituality The term spirituality here is contrasted against “a long-established, perhaps fixed and inflexible, major world religion” and used in revisionist sense for the word “religion,” which for spiritual ecologist is connoted with male domination, in which male god is always the center of the religious worship that leads to the legitimate male centered authority and traditions (Aune, 2011; Merchant, 1992). According to Flanagan and Jupp (as referred by Aune, 2011), it is considered as “more accommodating, signifying the search for transcendence outside traditional religious institutions” for many people in today’s post-industrial countries like the US and Europe (p. 32). In response to the needs of today’s life which desires to get free from the existing “ideals and values of the early scientific era, which viewed the individual as a sort of efficient machine,” people’s spontaneous movement with the interest in the “reality of spirit and its healing effects on life, health, community and well-being” becomes “spiritual revolution” that “found at the heart of the new sciences,” where the “spiritual visions of reality” renews their dignity through the recent discoveries in physics, biology, psychology, and ecology (Tacey, 2005, p.1). Spiritual ecology shares some similar beliefs as deep ecology, in which the relation of human and environment concerns the activists deeply, so their agenda is to transform consciousness, particularly religious and spiritual one. The spiritual ecologists attempt to alter the interconnectivity of human and nature from one that is based on the ethic of domination with one that is ethic of partnership based. Spiritual ecology as a perspective regards religious ideas as being able to generate ecocentric-ethic-based “moods and motivations” that lead people to “new modes of behavior” (Merchant, 1992, pp. 111 – 112). This “earth-based spirituality movement” encourages the view of the “fusion of human and nature” as well as the equality of female-male instead of the dichotomy of the two, which is derived from the ancient nature religions with their “hybrid male-female and human-animal” figures and worship of female deities as “bringers of natural fertility” in connection with the male deities. It engages various religious and spiritual bases, ranging from old religions, various Native American land wisdom, to mainstream religions as Christianity with its various denominations, Judaism, and Islam (Merchant, 1992, pp. 113 – 129). Ecofeminist movements converge on women’s core involvement in save-the-planet movements by developing the ethic of partnership which perceives human and non-human as equal and partners. Non-human nature, including natural disasters, is given “space, time, and care,” so it can “reproduce, evolve, and respond to human actions.” This partnership ethic does not regard sex, race, and class differences as sources of compartmentalization; instead, relationship and compassion are possible, even fostered, for any creatures and creations as they are all equal parts of the “ecological web” (Gaard, 1993; Merchant, 1992).

C. Symbolic Meanings of Indonesian Folktales Folktales are often known as oral story-telling tradition of a particular society, which functions for “cultural continuity” that binds group together as it is told to the small homogenous audience that are present immediately (face-to-face) to the story-teller. The original author is often unknown and it’s up to the story-teller, who becomes the spokesperson in the group, to make variation that suits the audience’s expectation, so that the story is functional, even though the patterns of the story tend to be less dynamic than popular or elite stories. Folktales’ themes reflect the audience mindset and it is often expressed in naïf up to vulgar ways (Brunvard, 1968; Danandjaja, 1994; Nachbar & Lause, 1992). Vico (as referred by Hawkes, 2003) perceives that, after proper assessment, the response of even what he called “primitive” people to the world shows the man’s inherent ‘poetic wisdom’ (sapienza poetica) in which they address their environment “in the form of a ‘metaphysics’ of metaphor, symbol and myth.” They represent “mature and sophisticated ways of knowing, of encoding, of presenting, instead of “lie” about, the facts. Their compositions are forms of coping with the reality, not “mere embroidery of reality.” Vico’s belief of mythology or the interpretation of fables as “the first science to be learned” derives from the conviction that “all the histories of the gentiles have their beginnings in fables.” In other words, proper interpretation of myths will lead people to see “civil histories of the first peoples who were everywhere naturally poets” (p.2). Indonesian folktales may as well tell the audience what the people belief about the interconnectedness between humans and their environment. Deriving from Saussure’s idea that signs functions ‘not through their intrinsic value but through their relative position’ (Hawkes, 2003, p.16), Peirce believes that his semiotic theory provides tools to explain “the cognitive process of acquiring scientific knowledge as a pattern of communicative activity in which the dialogic partners are, indifferently, members of a community or sequential states of a single person's mind.” Peirce’s process of knowing the communication involves “a relationship of progressive adequation between two fundamentally opposed elements, "objects" and "signs." As "a sign does not function as a sign unless it be understood as a sign," signs must be interpreted in order to be signs, but their "significant character which causes them to be so interpreted", namely, the ground, is the basis for this interpretation, when it occurs.” (Parmentier, 1994, p. 3-4).

The Ethic of Partnership of Kasada and Mado-mado The myth of Kasada tells about the origin of the Kasada rituals held by Tengger people, who live in Mount Bromo mountainside. It happened firstly when Mount Bromo’s eruption ruined its surroundings and killed many people. Joko Seger contemplated a long prayer and eventually he was enlightened by a spiritual whisper that told him to send a virgin girl as the sacrifice, by assigning her to jump into the crate to stop the eruption. Joko Seger’s daughter, Rara Anteng, was elected to be the sacrifice to calm the mountain’s restlessness and to return the society’s safe and sound life. After Rara Anteng was sacrificed, the mountain became quiet and from then on, Tengger people send offerings to the crate of the mountain yearly, in a ritual called Kasada. In today’s practice, of course, the offerings are in the form of food and harvest.

The myth of Mado-Mado (Nias) all started with the dispute among the nine sons of Sirao, the King of the closest level of the sky to the Earth. To succeed the kingdom due to the King’s old age, the King held a competition for his sons and it was the youngest son who won the competition. So, the other eight sons had to be sent down to tanöniha, the land of human beings, which is the original name of Nias island. Among the sons, four of them landed safely on the land and became the ancestors of mado-mado, Nias people today. One of the other unlucky sons, Latura Daö, whose big body was too heavy to land on the ground that he landed under the ground, turned to be a giant snake called Da’ö Zanaya Tanö Sisagörö, Da’ö Zanaya Tebö Sébolo. The name means the Earth’s buffer. Whenever a war took place and human blood permeated through the land and fell on his skin, he would get angry and shake his body. That would make earthquake. To stop it, Nias people would shout, ”Biha Tuha! Biha Tuha!” which means “Stop, Granny! Stop, Granny!” The shout indicates that they repent for what they are doing and will stop killing each other. The myths share the same patterns of story: [1] Natural disasters take place in a region. Both myths tell about earthquakes. In the myth of Kasada it was a volcanic earthquake and in the myth of mado-mado it was a tectonic earthquake. [2] Natural disasters may be caused by human careless actions that upset the nature. In the myth of Kasada, it implicitly shows that Joko Seger’s long contemplative prayer is the means of the nature to speak to human beings to ask for offerings. In the event, the people of Tengger seemed to be negligent to the duty of giving offerings to the mountain and they had to wait until the mountain “got angry” and asked for it. In the myth of mado-mado, people’s action of killing upset the land, so it became angry. *3+ People realize the nature’s anger. After receiving the enlightenment, Joko Seger understands the mountain’s anger. On the other hand, Nias people’s shout, ”Biha Tuha! Biha Tuha!” indicates their realization of the land’s anger. *4+ Human beings do proper actions to please the nature. Joko Seger gives his virgin daughter as the offering for the nature. Nias people’s shout explicates their repentance of the bad deeds. The virgin girl sacrificed as offering to Mount Bromo may sound contradictory to the idea of equality between human and non-human that spiritual ecology and ecofeminism encourage. However, it should be perceived as innocence, purity and sincerity that every human being should own. They will only be able to respond to the environment properly when they are pure, sincere, and innocent, the same way as the virgin girl’s submissiveness to the crate. It is re- emphasized with the symbolic idea of Joko Seger’s long contemplative prayer in response to the mountain’s volcanic earthquake. Joko Seger came to the enlightening understanding of submitting virgin girl when he stayed quiet. Thus, only quietness brings understanding of submissive attitude to the nature that asks for its part. It is then human beings gives out that they give “space, time, and care,” to non-human to “reproduce, evolve, and respond to human actions” (Gaard, 1993; Merchant, 1992). The myth of mado-mado carries a lot of symbols that are respectful to nature. The giant snake, Nias people call Da’öZanayaTanöSisagörö, Da’öZanayaTeböSébolo, the Earth’s buffer, is a paradoxical character. Even though it unluckily is placed below the land because of its “heaviness,” it earns a respectful title as the elderly “Granny.” They do not view the “unlucky giant snake” as lower than themselves. It reflects the initial attitude to partnership ethic. When he shakes his body, the people understand that he is angry for their improper deeds: shedding blood in fight. Fighting indicates disharmonious life and thus, it should not be done. Earthquake becomes reminder for these people to repent from the wrong deeds they do: conducting disharmonious relationship. Such philosophy of earthquake reflected by the story disregards sex, race, and class differences as sources of compartmentalization; instead, relationship and compassion are possible, even fostered, for any creatures and creations as they are all equal parts of the “ecological web” (Gaard, 1993; Merchant, 1992). Their respect to the animal character living down below them is fundamental to their belief of the significance of harmonious life among themselves as well as with the environment.

The Ecofeminist Spirituality of Atu Belah and Mujang Munang – Darah Muning The Legend of Atu Belah (Gayo, Sumatera) tells about a mother who was confused because her spoiled children asked for some meat to eat. She did not have any meat, and so, she allowed the upset kids to get some grasshoppers that their father collected and kept in the barn. The careless children loosed all the grasshoppers that the father struggled hard to collect. When the father returned, he was furious and lost his temper, so he cut his wife’s breasts for their food that evening. The poor woman, bloody, tearful and in despair, ran into Atu Belah, the giant rock which would swallow anyone as his prey. The woman sang softly, ”atu belah, atu bertangkup ngesawah pejaying temasa dahulu” (the rock that opens and closes, our old contract has come to its time). And the giant rock opened and the women got into the middle of it. The two children happened to witness their mother waling into the middle of the rock and got swallowed by it. When it happened, the Earth quaked and was stormy as it witnessed Atu Belah swallowing a person. When the woman was fully absorbed in the rock, except some part of her long hair that was left outside, the earthquake and storm stopped and the nature became calm. The older son picked a piece of the mother’s hair to be used as protection for him and his brother. The legend of Bujang Munang – Darah Muning (Nanga Serawai, West Borneo) is a story of Bujang Munang, the son of Darah Muning. When he was little, his mother got angry with him and she hit him with a small piece of wood that wounded his head. When he grew up, he left his mother to look for his father. He was a handsome young man, who then met a beautiful young woman. They fell in love, but they did not realize that the woman was actually Darah Muning, the mother. When they found out about the fact, it was too late as they already married to each other. None of them wanted to separate from each other and this caused the gods’ anger. Following the elders’ advice, they built the posa, a high platform for them to put offerings for the gods. When building the posa, Bujang Munang accidentally dropped the axe and it fell over his penis. Darah Muning held her husband’s penis in attempt to stop the blood that was streaming from the wound. Unfortunately, the gods viewed that action as indecency and got furious. The bright sky suddenly turned dark and continuous lightning and thunder rumbled in the sky. When the storm stopped and the sky got bright again, the people found that Bujang Munang, Darah Muning, and the posa had turned into stones. Both legends follow the same patterns: [1] Storm and thunder are two of the natural disasters that happened. In both stories, storm and thunder become the setting of the story. The storm backgrounds the woman’s surrender to nature in Atu Belah. In Bujang Munang–Darah Muning, the storm foregrounds the gods’ punishment to the couple. [2] The natural disasters happen because of human improper deeds. The woman in Atu Belah is persecuted by her husband for the sake of the children and storm takes place when the nature saves her from desperate helplessness. In the legend of Bujang Munang–DarahMuning, the disaster happens to cover up the incest relation of the mother and the son. [3] Natural disasters become inseparable part of the solution of human improper actions. The rock in Atu Belah plays as the savior of the savagely violated woman. On the other hand, the storm in the legend of Bujang Munang–Darah Muning becomes the manifestation of the gods’ anger. The storm is used to shade of the improper deeds of the couple: incest. The mutilation of the woman’s breast in Atu Belah symbolizes unfairness in many folds. Firstly, literally, it is violence to women. Symbolically, breast is the source of life, so when it is mutilated, it is violence to the source of life. The desperate woman’s submissiveness to the rock obviously indicates the nature’s understanding of a woman’s suffering. Moreover, the woman’s soft song, ”atu belah, atu bertangkup ngesawah pejaying temasa dahulu” (the rock that opens and closes, our old contract has come to its time), explicates the understanding. The storm that comes along the rock’s swallowing the woman symbolizes the nature’s re-emphasis that when they destroy the nature, the same way as when the man cut the woman’s breasts, the nature will cry as the woman does. The storm reflects the tears of suffering characters. Besides that, the storm accompanies the act of saving the woman into the middle of the rock. That shows that nature and woman interchangeably save each other due to the bond they have. Thus, the story reflects the idea that there is always closeness and bonds between woman and nature, such connection that spiritual ecologist uses to encourage the reconnection of people with the larger web of life (Merchant, 1992, p.113). On the other hand, the nature and the mother, together, still leave a bit hope of protection by the symbol of the left piece of hair that the older son picked from between the crack of rock. It closely connotes to the agreed notion of the nature as the protector of life. It only requires human understanding of the language that it speaks. The son’s willingness to pick the “hair” indicates the human’s willingness to respond to the protection that the nature offers to them. The harmony of life that is destroyed by Bujang Munang–Darah Muning’s selfishness in the name of “love” has ended up with punishment. The couple cares only what they want to possess and that results on the god’s anger. Darah Muning’s good intention to help her husband-son with the wound is misunderstood by the gods as pornographic action. This tells that the good intention is not understood because the couple’s resistance to respect the gods. That may sound revengeful, but a closer look to the structure of relation will show that when disrespect is present, harmony is absent. Peace does not happen in the relationship and it is represented by the storm. Bujang Munang and Darah Muning do not feel peace as they found out about their incest relationship, but they refused to give up their love. Even though love is important and prior to everything, when it is a love of selfishness, which is improper, it destroys harmony. Disharmony is what ecofeminist does not encourage as disharmony only ruins the web of life.

D. Conclusion Superficially, those stories may sound cruel to women and nature. Looking at the details of the stories, the symbols used there are encouraging partnership ethic of human beings and the environment. Two of the myths from Tengger, a community dwelling in the mountainside of Bromo Mountain, East Java, and from Nias, Nias Island tell stories about earthquakes. Both reveal the people’s ideas of how partnership ethic towards nature as they respectfully perceiving natural disaster as significant for their well-beings. In addition, the stories encourage the ethic of partnership as nature receives equal position and the same opportunities to be. The legends, Atu Belah and Bujang Munang – Darah Muning, tell the importance of harmonious life between human beings and the environment. Women’s bond to the nature is the basis of respectful attitude that every human beings should have towards each other as well as the non-human ones. Making use of the folktales’ function as cultural-bond and mnemonic device, the interpretation of the tales become positively potential means of transferring the ethic of partnership to alter the ethic of domination of patriarchy to younger generation.

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