EPIC ADVENTURES Heroic Narrative in the Oral Performance Traditions of Four Continents Edited by Jan Jansen and Henk M. J. Maier LIT Front cover: Illustration from Babad Jipang, Leiden University Library, LOR 3186, p. 8. Jaka Penulup, the younger blowpipe hunter, dated 1255 AJ/1839 AD. Layout: Vocking in Vorm, Utrecht Gedruckt auf alterungsbestandigem Werkdruckpapier entsprechend ANSI Z3948 DIN ISO 9706 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de. ISBN 3-8258-6758-7 LIT VERLAG Munster 2004 Grevener Str.lFresnostr. 2 48159 Munster Tel. 0251-23 50 91 Fax 0251-23 1972 e-Mail:
[email protected] http://www.lit-verlag.de Distributed in North America by: Transaction Publishers Tel.: (732) 445 - 2280 Rutgers University Fax: (732) 445 - 3138 Transaction Publishers 35 Berrue Circle for orders (U. S. only): N_ B.... awict (U.S.A.)•ud Loadoa (U.K.) Piscataway. NJ 08854 toll free (888) 999 - 6778 THE SLEEPING GIANT: DYNAMICS OF A BUGIS EPIC (SOUTH SULAWESI, INDONESIA) Sirtjo Koolhof This essay has its origin in an invitation by one of the organizers of the conference that stood at the base of this book. He invited me to prepare a paper for a conference about 'Death of the Epic'.' Having worked on a corpus of epic texts, called La Galigo which, from the moment of its first reference in (western) publications in the early 19th century has been seen as being in decline, if not dead, I was certainly interested in his proposal.