PANJI, THE CULTURE HERO

A STRUCTURAL STUDY OF RELIGION IN JAVA KONINKUJK INSTITUUT VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE

TRANSLATION SERIES 3

W.H. RASSERS

PANJI, THE CULTURE HERO

A STRUCTURAL STUDY OF RELIGION IN JAVA

SECOND EDITION WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY P.E. DEJOSSEUN DEJONG

Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 1982 First edition 1959

e Copyright 1982 by Springer Science+ Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Leiden, the Netherlands in 1982.

AII rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereofin any form.

ISBN 978-94-017-6496-4 ISBN 978-94-017-6657-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-6657-9 WH. RASSERS AND HIS CRITICS

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION OF HIS COLLECTED ESSAYS

The first edition of Paiiji, the Culture Hero has been out of print for several years now, and the Koninklijk Instituut has frequently been asked whether a reprint was envisaged. In the light of critical comments on the volume we should, nevertheless, con• sider whether this is sufficient reason for re-issuing essays dating from the years between 1925 and 1940. In other words, we should enquire what is the value of Rassers' articles by the standards of present-day anthropology. When we do so, we should make a distinction between the first three, which original• ly appeared before, and the fourth, of a few years after 1935. The year 1935 was an important one in the history of Indo• nesianist studies carried out in the Netherlands, particularly at Leiden University: in May 1935 J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong, appointed to the Chair of "Indonesian and General Anthro• pology" pronounced his inaugural address, in which he outlined a programme for comparative studies within the "Indonesian Field of Ethnological Study" (1935/1977); a few months earlier, F.A.E. van Wouden's Ph.D. thesis, written under his supervision, was published. In this work van Wouden applied the principles being formulated by his supervisor to his study of "types of social structure in eastern Indonesia" (1935/1968). Van Wouden's book was, therefore, one step -many were to follow - towards fulfilling de J osselin de J ong's programme, which can be summarized as follows. Given the established fact that the Indonesian languages are related to one another, it is a reasonable assumption that the anthropologist may study Indo• nesia as a "field of ethnological study", i.e. an area "with a popu• lation which appears to be sufficiently homogeneous and unique to form a separate object of ethnological study, and which at the same time apparently reveals sufficient local shades of differences to make internal comparative research worth while". The anthro• pologist who undertakes this work should pay special attention to the phenomena which are to be considered "the structural VI core of numerous ancient Indonesian cultures in many parts of the Archipelago" U.P.B. de Josselin de Jong 1977:167, 168). The two "structural core" elements particularly relevant for our present discussion are double descent and asymmetrical con• nubium. It will be clear that Rassers' article of 1940 (the fourth chapter in this volume) adopts the same point of view. Referring to van Wouden's book, Rassers considers it a valuable aid "in the recon• struction of the type of society in which we must locate" the Javanese material culture and the associated myths which he is investigating (see pp. 274-279 in particular). In the earlier articles, of the period before 1935, no such elaborate reconstruction of early Javanese society is attempted: they interpret the belief and classification systems in terms of a simple moiety structure- what J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong (1977: 172) was later to include among the "structural core" elements, under the name of "socio-cosmic dualism". It is to the three earlier articles that we shall first turn our attention.

The critical comments on "The meaning of Javanese drama", "Siva and Buddha", and "The origin of the Javanese theatre", taken together, are as was to be expected from scholars writing thirty to forty years after these essays were originally published. The main objection is to Rassers' historicism: in the words of A.H. Johns (1964:91), "Rassers' propagation of the concept of a primeval dualism as determining the structure of virtually every expression of Javanese cui ture has been particularly harmful". Here, the critic is surely overstating his case. Rassers' demon• stration that "dualism" is the principal structuring feature of the culture elements he studied (e.g. the house, the kris, the theatre) can hardly be refuted, although one can entirely agree with Johns when he rejects the notion of a primeval dualism in a "hypothe• tical indigenous Ur-society". This is also the thrust of the long, perceptive review of the first edition of Paiiji, the Culture Hero by Rodney Needham, who first gives due praise to Rassers' "minute knowledge of Javanese institutions" and "considerable skill in internal analysis", but then criticizes the basic weakness of Rassers' approach as follows: "He thinks that the 'only' model for a dualistic sym• bolism is dual organization (more precisely, in fact, a two-section system), but this does not exist on Java, and cannot be shown historically to have existed there, so that it becomes necessary to reconstruct for the remote past a proto-J avanese society of which VII the classification is a faint and dispersed reflection" (Needham 1960: 175; italics added). Every present-day anthropologist and philologist will agree that Rassers adhered too strictly to the tenet of the Annee Sociologi• que group, that social classification, i.e. the division of society into distinct groups, is not one type of classification among others, but the basic type, the fons et origo of all others. A typi• cal phrase of Rassers' is to be found on p. 42 in this volume: "Wherever [such] a tribal division is found it has been possible to establish that the classification based on it extends to everything that exists ... " (italics added), with a footnote reference to Durkheim and Mauss's article "De quelques formes primitives de classification". However, one need not accept Needham's criticism on the grounds that the dual organization assumed by Rassers "cannot be shown historically to have existed" in Java, for this may be due to his, and our, lack of sufficient historical data. This brings us to a point of considerable interest, not only for an evaluation of Rassers' work, but for the logic of scholarly discourse in general. Between 1960 and 1963 the five volumes were published of Th. Pigeaud's java in the Fourteenth Century: in effect, a new edition and translation, with notes and commentaries, of the famous Old Javanese poem Nagara-kertagama. This work, of 1365 A.D., gives information on the lands and institutions of the kingdom of Majapahit by describing the ceremonial royal pro• gresses of the king through parts of his realm in 1359, 1360, 1361 and 1363. "Orderliness and classification are the marks of the poem" (Pigeaud 1962:3). In his commentary, Pigeaud repeatedly specified the basic clas• sificatory principle, namely "the fundamental duality idea" (1962:146). This idea becomes manifest in many ways, a few of which should be mentioned here. 1. In the composition of the poem itself, e.g.: "The [chapter describing the royal chase] is placed just about the middle of the poem. The Javanese conception of duality, by division into equal moieties, no doubt was an important factor in the composition" (1962:146). 2. In court etiquette: "As to the food and the manner of its being served two groups are distinguished. The first group, con• sisting of the Royal Family and the courtiers, were served with ritually pure food on gold plate ... The second group eating im• pure food from silver plate probably was formed by the country people" ( 1962: 309). VIII

3. In the structure of the kingdom as such. In Canto 1 7, "Janggala and Kadiri are mentioned together as name of the whole realm" (1962:41). This is elaborated on p. 122: "The reunion of Janggala (the districts on the lower course of the river Brantas) and Kadiri (on the upper Brantas ... ) that is mentioned in [Canto 40, stanza 4] ... was considered the crown of any great King's life-work". Pigeaud comments on "the Janggala• Kadiri antithesis" that it "probably was much older than the 11th century. The 14th century Majapahit view of it as a dynas• tic disintegration which came about in historical times was a late development of the primeval tribal conception of human society as forever splitting up into moieties" (1962:202). This is more happily phrased on p. 521, where the unfortunate term "tribal" is avoided: "Kahuripan (or Janggala) and Kadiri were the most important [provinces], probably more on account of an ancient division of the realm into moieties founded on primeval native belief than on economic grounds". In brief, the "dualism of the realm" (1962:524), basic to the Javanese perception of the state in the 14th century, was "prob• ably much older than the 11th century". If we finally pass from the state as a whole to the humbler level of the rural com• munities and the representatives of the outlying districts, the situation, as described, is enlightening enough to be recounted in some detail. 4. The commoners' organization and the administration of the kingdom. Canto 63 deals with the commoners' contribution to the expenses of court ceremonies. Two representatives of the contributing "rural communities" are mentioned, and "the tendency to have pairs is connected with the fundamental idea of cosmic and social duality" so frequently mentioned in the com• mentary. The two men who represented them "may have been representatives of two groups of common rural communities in East Java, whose inter-relation was of the same kind as the rela• tions existing between the Kadiri and the J anggala moieties of the realm" ( 1962: 17 4 ). Later in the Nagara-kertagama, the poet describes the great annual court festival, where law officers, lairds of manors, re• presentatives of the landed gentry and commoners come to pay homage. It is again two heralds or messengers (Ranadhikara and Mahadhikara) who introduce the "governors in the outlying dis• tricts" and the "rural communities" respectively, in Canto 88. In Canto 91, these two gandek or heralds again make their appear• ance, in a very curious passage: IX

"Arya (the Honourable) Ranadhikara is forgetful that there is a respectful announcement (to be made) to the Princes. Arya (the Honourable) Mahadhikara now is his companion, to• gether they speak: ..." (etc.; Pigeaud 1960: 108). Pigeaud elu• cidates this stanza as follows. "The description of their behaviour is suggestive of a ceremoni• ous address spoken by the two men together and answered by Royalty according to a tradition of long standing. As it is most improbable that the Honourable Ranadhikara really would forget his traditional duty the remark on his forgetfulness is the poet's (and the Court's) explanation of the two men acting and speak• ing together.... Evidently the strange double ceremony was puzzling already to 14th century Majapahit courtiers. Probably the real explanation of duplicated ceremonies is: originally the functionaries represented the two moieties of primeval tribal society" (Pigeaud 1962:323, 324 ). Even if we reject the expression "primeval tribal society" in favour of "early Javanese society" or a similar phrase, it cannot be denied that the elucidated Cantos 68 and 91 (texts in Pigeaud 1960:79, 80 and 108; commentary in Pigeaud 1962:201, 202 and 323, 324) are highly relevant for our discussion of Rassers, who associates present-day binary oppositions in Javanese culture with a binary form of social organization which "must have" existed in the (unspecified) past. In the first passage, we have to deal with the 14th century perception and explanation of a "dualism of the realm" as a whole, which "probably was much older than the 11th century". In Canto 91 two heralds or messengers, whom we encoun• tered in Canto 88 as introducing representatives of outlying districts and rural communities, act out a "duplicated ceremony" which was already "puzzling" to the 14th century courtiers, in• cluding the poet. Several paragraphs of the poem of A.D. 1365, in sum, contain references to contemporary or much earlier forms of a binary or dualistic social organization prevailing at various levels in the kingdom of Majapahit. This gives very strong support to Rassers' conjecture. Does this mean that, in my opinion, the criticisms directed at Rassers' works are unjustified? Of course not. It goes without saying -or, rather, it should have gone without saying- that Rassers too closely followed the reasoning favoured by the Annee Sociologique group that the social structure is the origin of, and the model for, all other structures. Given the data he so X meticulously gathered, a modern (i.e., post-1930) anthropologist might have argued that1 if we encounter binary oppositions in so many spheres of Javanese culture, it is a reasonable hypothesis that there is, unobserved, or was also social dualism in Java. In this case, the recent te-study of the Nagara-kertiigama would have confirmed this hypothesis. Rassers came very close to such an argument, but distorted it by his historicism. While recognizing the fault in his argument, we should also acknowledge his achievement. Rassers was right, but he was right for the wrong reasons.

When we turn from the first three essays in the present volume to the article "On the Javanese kris", first published in 1940, the contentious point is not so much "dualism" as double descent. This system is introduced on p. 277, when Rassers refers to van Wouden's then recently published thesis of 1935. Rassers agrees with van Wouden that various phenomena in the domain of social organization can best be explained as having "evolved from an original system reckoning with both patrilineal and matrilineal kinship" (p. 278), but adds the cautionary note: "A double uni• lineal kinship system ... does not any longer exist anywhere in a perfect state of preservation" (p. 279). Nevertheless, a typical criticism of this part of Rassers' argu• ment is as follows: "There are no genuine double unilateral systems any nearer than the eastern tip of Indonesia, more than 2,000 miles away from Java, in the islands off the coast of New Guinea ..." (Hildred Geertz 1965:295). One might rebut this by pointing out that "genuine" double descent systems have been recorded much closer to Java, e.g. in western Sumba and in southern Sumatra, but this whole argument is irrelevant, as it ignores the Field of Ethnological Study concept, and the mutual• ly interpretative studies of Indonesian societies which are based on it. A few explanatory notes will not be out of place here. As we observed at the beginning of this Introduction, a pro• gramme was formulated by J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong in 1935, and partly carried out by van Wouden in the same year, which entailed studying Indonesian societies as related to one another by concentrating on four "structural core" elements, one of which is double descent. The way such studies were carried out in practice was that the investigators used the "structural core" elements to explain the recorded occurrence of phenomena which, in themselves, appeared inexplicable. In casu, double descent could serve to explain the random distribution of various XI descent systems: "attention was drawn [e.g. by Wilken in 1912] to the fact that wherever there were still recognizable clan systems in Indonesia (especially in Sumatra and Eastern Indo• nesia), patrilineally organized peoples often had matrilineally organized neighbours. Within each individual people or tribe certain customs or terms which were contradictory to the pre• dominant method of tracing descent were repeatedly encoun• tered" U.P.B. de Josselin de Jong 1977:170). In other words, the Indonesianists of the group to which Rassers also belonged were not hunting for "genuine double unilateral systems", but were noting resemblances between features of the social organization of both patrilineal and matrilineal Indonesian societies (cognatically organized societies were, regrettably, neglected). While this may serve as a brief outline of the type of reasoning adopted by Rassers and his contemporaries, we should add that there has been a significant change of position among present-day anthropologists who carry out their research in the context of Indonesia as a Field of Ethnological (or, in modem parlance, Anthropological) Study. In the first place it has resulted from a recognition that the relationship between the social systems in the Field of Ethnological Study should be qualified as transfor• mation rather than resemblance. The distinction between the two has been expressed by Levi-Strauss's well-known aphorism: "If we have been able to make comparative studies respectable once more, ... we have been able to do so because we understand that resemblance as such does not exist: resemblance is only a special form of difference, namely one in which difference approaches zero" (Levi-Strauss 1971:32). As we saw when quoting from p. 279 of our present volume, Rassers was too honest a scholar not to admit that the resem• blances he expected to find were often defective, and it has been noted that van Wouden also "had no obsessive desire to find resemblances between the kinship systems of the Indonesian field of ethnological study" (P.E. de Josselin de Jong 1980a:321). Nevertheless, in that period one wished to account for the in• stances that a "structural core" element was only to be found in a deficient form or not at all. One way of doing so was by the supposition of its existence in an earlier phase. We have seen Rassers arguing thus in his first three essays. He also does so in his article "On the Javanese kris"; see p. 288, for example: " ... the present day Javanese kinship system has evolved from a double unilateral system ... ". XII

As the present generation of "F.A.S." ("Field of Anthropo• logical Study") Indonesianists has moved towards the investi• gation of "structural core" and other elements of culture as transformations, i.e. as phenomena which are comparable not only because they resemble, but also because they systematically differ from each other, they need no longer have recourse to con• jectural history. It is becoming clear that the principal way in which phenomena within the Field, which are manifestly different, may yet be com• pared is by investigating whether they are diverse manifestations of a common notional principle; for example, one might find that a manifestly patrilineal, or cognatic, society recognizes a patri- and a matri-principle, although that society need not have "genuine" (in the sense of organized) patrilineal and matrilineal groups. This brings us to the second main difference between the approach of the nineteen-thirties and -forties and of the present. It has been well described by David Moyer (1981:66): "The early Leidenaars argued for the equivalence of both principles in a double descent system. The later Leidenaars still acknowledge this equivalence but recognize that they may be manifest in different ways. This seems to have involved a tacit differentiation in the nature of the principles involved. That is to say, the later Leidenaars seem to regard the equivalence of the two descent principles as being at the level of ideas while their manifestation involves the conversion of these idea principles into vary£ng [italics added] sets of rules. This tacit use of what I have chosen to call idea principles and rule principles is markedly different from the early Leidenaars' apparently exclusive use of rule prin• ciples. " 1 It is noteworthy, by the way, that this "idea of the idea" is not entirely foreign to Rassers himself, who writes (p. 295) that "we are here ... in a transitional form which also attaches a certain, though decreased, value to the matrilineal principle". Obviously, however, the theoretical position of Indonesianists working in the Field of Anthropological Study tradition today differs from the one adopted by Rassers in 1940; it would be very strange if that were not the case. Nowadays anthropologists, of whatever persuasion, will not be willing to accept Rassers' statement "that the present day Javanese kinship system has evolved from a double unilateral system" (p. 288; italics added) without much stronger proof than he can offer. On the other hand I hope it is no less clear that if we interpret Rassers' findings about a matrilineal aspect in Javanese culture as evidence XIII

for the matrilineal "idea principle", rather than as the result of a conjectured evolution, we will realize their great value. Rassers' essays, collected in this volume, retain their value. Even though we must disagree with the way he resorts to conjectural history in the later as well as the earlier articles, we can profit from the themes he sets for investigation, from the many factual data he brings to light and related into a coherent structure, and from his approach in general: he places material objects in the context of belief systems, mythology, and social organization. Far from being outdated, they come very close to such a recent masterpiece as Levi-Strauss's La voie des masques. 2

P.E. DE JOSSELIN DEJONG

NOTES

1 A recent publication which considers the bilineal "idea principle" in a few unilineal and cognatic societies is, for example, P.E. de Josselin de Jong 1980b:224-227. 2 We have not discussed Ras 1973, although it is the most extensive criti• que of Rassers' work, because it deals principally with Rassers' Ph.D. thesis of 1922, De Pandji-roman. Of particular interest in the present context is that Rassers' critic also applies the Field of Anthropological Study approach when he offers an alternative interpretation of the kayon by making use of Ngaju-Dayak material.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Geertz, Hildred 1965 'Comment',Journal of Asian Studies XXIV-2:294-297. Johns, Anthony H. 1964 'The role of structural organisation and myth in Javanese historio• graphy',]ournal of Asian Studies XXIV-1:91-99. Josselin dejong,J.P.B. de 1935 De Maleische Archipel als Ethnologisch Studieveld, Leiden: J. Gins• berg. Translated as: 1977 'The Malay Archipelago as a field of ethnological study', in: P.E. de Josselin dejong (ed.), Structural Anthropology in the Netherlands, Translation Series 17 KITLV, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, pp. 164-182. Josselin dejong, P.E. de 1980a 'The concept of the field of ethnological study', in: James J. Fox (ed.), The Flow of Life, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp. 317-326, 355. 1980b Minangkabau and Negri Sembilan, Third impression. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. XIV

Levi-Strauss, Claude 1971 Mythologiques /: L'Homme Nu. Paris: Plon. Moyer, DavidS. n.d. 'Fifty years of W.D.O.: the growth of the idea of the "idea"', in: [1981] Gretchen A. Moyer, David S. Moyer, and P.E. de Josselin de Jong (eds.), The Nature of Structure, Leiden: ICA Publication No. 45, pp. 55-73. Needham, Rodney 1960 'Review of W.H. Rassers, Paiiji, the Culture Hero', American Anthropologist 62-1:174-176. Pigeaud, Th.G.Th. 1960 java in the 14th Century. Volume III: Translations. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1962 Volume IV: Commentaries and Recapitulation. The Hague: Marti• nus Nijhoff. Ras,JJ. 1973 'The Panji romance and W.H. Rassers' analysis', Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 129-4:411-456. Wouden, F.A.E. van 1935 Sociale Structuurtypen in de Groote Oost. Leiden: J. Ginsberg. Translated as: 1968 Types of Social Structure in Eastern Indonesia, Translation Series 11 KITLV, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. INTRODUCTION

W. H. RASSERS AND THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION

In 1925, when R. H. Lowie's Prfmitive Religion appeared, few anthropologists were yet aware of the true significance of the work of Durkheim and his collaborators. In the field of religious studies the problems seemed to be fairly straightforward and simple. Lowie rejected Tylor's theory, with its intellectualistic bias, and stressed the importance of the psychological point of view. He was in agreement with Durkheim and Soderblom in considering all religion as rooted in an awareness of a "dichotomy of the universe". But, in his opinion, this dichotomy does not co-incide with the distinction between the sacred and the profane, but it is a result of the "differential response to normal and abnormal stimuli, the spontaneous distinction thus created between Natural and Supernatural which does not require any pre• existing abstract formulation of 'nature' " (p. 322). As Lowie, like his teacher Boas, laid great stress on the role played by secondary associa• tions - i.a. in the field of "art, ritual, and mythology" - in the development of culture, the connection of ritual and mythology with other aspects of social life was no problem for him. We need not be surprised, that at that period, in 1925, Lowie did not advance any further, in spite of his being acquainted with Durkheim's work. It is more remarkable that his views on this point had not appreciably changed by 1934 (in the first edition of his Introduction to Cultural Anthropology) or even by 1944 (in the third impression of that book). Meanwhile Paul Radin had sharply criticised his predecessors (in Primitive Religion, its Nature and Origin, of 1937), particularly on XVI

the score of their treatment of religion as a completely independent complex of phenomena : "Their method has led to the treatment of religion as if it were completely divorced both from life and from the vicissitudes of the economic order in which each religion is so intimately embedded, and it has contributed, in no small degree, toward making the study of religion an artificial and subjective contemplation of verbalized facts and hypostasized events" (Preface p. vii). For these reasons, Radin devotes a chapter of his book to "The Economic Deter• minants". In other words, Radin's work was a step, hesitating though it may be, towards a more "functional" and "structural" outlook on culture. However, when the second edition of his book appeared in 1957, the author appeared to believe that nothing had happened in the last twenty years to cause him to revise or expand his views in any important respect. "On the whole my presentation of the religious beliefs and experiences of primitive peoples has stood the test of time amazingly well' (New Preface, p. v). I do not quote this remark in order to refute it. To the contrary, I am prepared to accept the authority of one so well-versed in anthro• pological literature for its truth. But then this can only mean that many readers have failed to give attention to the work of some very eminent writers during this 20 years' period. Beyond doubt A. R. Rad• cliffe-Brown and Claude Levi-Strauss are among the most important of these writers. They have both, in their own way, struck out in entirely new directions. Both not only recognized the problem of the interrelation of ritual, myth, and social structure as being of funda• mental importance, but also raised it to a higher scholarly level, one where neither amateur psychology nor pseudo-historical speculation about "origins" can be admitted. While Radcliffe-Brown continued using conventional research methods, at least to some extent, Levi-Strauss tries by revolutionary methods to achieve a drastic renovation of the anthropological study of religion. It is instructive to realize that the structural point of view, which linguists originally owed to Durkheim, is now working via XVII structural linguistics to stimulate a fresh expansion of anthropology. Radcliffe-Brown has shown the way, cautiously and with restraint. Levi-Strauss is now rushing forward, scattering new ideas and bold hypotheses as he goes. This pace has been kept up for a considerable length of time now, though Levi-Strauss's latest theories of myth are of recent years (see his The Structural Study of Myth of 1955, re-issued in a French version as Chapitre XI of his Anthropologie Structurale of 1958; and his La Geste d 'Asdiwal in L'Annuaire 1958-1959, P.cole Pratique des Hautes P.tudes, Section des Sciences Religieuses). Apparently this process of renovation has not yet been generally recognized as such. Nevertheless, it will probably, sooner or later, make an end to many old prejudices and misconceptions, to the detriment of some reputations, but to the re-establishment of others. Frank Hamilton Cushing, the noted Zuii.i specialist of the last decades of the 19th century, may well be an example of the latter. "There was a student of the Zuii.i Indians years ago, Frank Cushing", says Robert Redfield in The Little Community, Viewpoints for the Study of a Human Whole (p. 82), "who assumed the inside view so perfectly that he became in effect a Zuii.i Indian and was made, I believe, a Priest of The Bow in their religion. But after that he told outsiders nothing more about the Zuii.i". However, it was Cushing whom "it has become fashionable in recent years to belittle" (Levi• Strauss, Anthropologie Structurale, p. 318) who inspired Durkheim and Mauss to their famous work De quelques formes primitives de classification (Annee Sociologique VI, 1901-1902). In this connection Levi-Strauss wrote of him: The works of Frank Hamilton Cushing show "insight and sociological imagination which make him deserving of a seat on Morgan's right, as one of the great forerunners of social• structure studies. The gaps and inaccuracies in his descriptions, less serious than the indictment of having 'over-interpreted' some of his material, will be viewed in their true proportions when it is realized that, albeit in an unconscious fashion, Cushing was aiming less at giving an actual description of Zuni society than at elaborating a model (his famous seven-fold division) which could explain most of its processes XVIII and structure". (Anthropologie Struct"rale, p. 318, 319). This lack of unanimity on the importance of Cushing's work is, I believe, more significant than appears at first sight. It reveals a deeply-rooted contrast between the traditional methodological outlook, and an entirely new approach to the fundamental problems of our discipline, one which SQ far has hardly been granted any attention. I may illustrate the sharpness of this contrast by one other example. Until recently there was general agreement with the attacks, by Lowie and others, on the over-intellectualistic character of Tylor's theories; but Levi-Strauss's views are radically different. Although he acknow• ledges that the psychological interpretations of Tylor and others were amateurish, and had fallen behind the rapid development of scientific psychology, he praises them for having understood "that the problems in the anthropological study of religion pertain to intellectualistic psychology. With Hocart .... one can only regret that modern psycho• logy has all too often turned away from intellectual phenomena and preferred to study emotional life .... The framework of our logic ought to have been enlarged in order to allow it to include mental processes which seem to be different from ours, but are no less intellectual. Instead of doing so, one has tried to reduce them to inchoate and inexpressible sentiments. This method, known as religious phenomenology, has only too often proved dull and sterile" (Anthro• pologie Structurale, p. 227, 228). Faced with all these conflicting opinions on method and on other subjects, the reader may well get the impression that in this field of research no agreement has been reached on any point whatever - or even, that real scholarly research has scarcely begun. In fact, so eminent an anthropologist as E. E. Evans-Pritchard, who himself has contributed so much to a more profound understanding of the problems involved, has actually expressed himself on these lines (see his broad• cast talk on "Religion", in The Institutions of Primitive Society, p. 9). One may well wonder, therefore, whether in this field everything or nothing is antiquated. However, Evans-Pritchard himself does not go to such an extreme. His opinion is that, after all, we have progressed XIX during the last thirty years, in method as well as in factual knowledge. One of the most important achievements, in his opinion, is the awareness - which had already been attained by Durkheim and his collaborators in L'Annee Sociologiq1te- that religious facts have to be studied as social facts, in connection with other social facts; or, as it is expressed by Radcliffe-Brown and others: in connection with social structure. This point of view is sufficient to justify the new issue, in this volume, of the studies by the Dutch anthropologist, Dr W. H . Rassers, which can now be read in a language more generally known than Dutch. For Rassers was one of the first, if not the first, to demonstrate the unbreakable unity of myth, ritual, and social structure in one particular cultural environment. He did so by means of a masterly analysis of the available facts ; and even though the writer himself would undoubtedly formulate some of his conclusions in a different manner today, his work is essentially still up-to-date. In my opinion we owe a debt of gratitude to the Royal Institute of Linguistics, Geography and Anthropology for having enriched anthropological literature with this work, which so far was hardly known outside the Dutch language area.

]. P. B. DE JOSSELIN DE JONG. CONTENTS

Introduction to the second edition . V

Introduction...... XV

On the meaning of Javanese drama 1

Siva and Buddha in the East Indian Archipelago . 63

On the origin of the Javanese theatre 93

On the Javanese kris. 21 7

Glossary . . . . . 299

Plates