Bilingualism and Linguistic Politics in , East

Nancy Melissa Lutz (Southern Illinois University)

Introduction time. Perhaps the explanation which When I first began fieldwork on the island mostsuccessfully quieted my inquiries, though, of Adonara in September 1980, I had initially was the pragmatic statement that I could not planned to focus on ritual language, specifi- possibly learn bahasa adat until I had mas- cally the language of bridewealth negotiations tered conversational Lamaholot. and marriage exchange. When I arrived in As time went on, and I dutifully worked on Adonara, everyone I spoke with greed that this mastering Lamaholot, it became clear that some- was a good research topic, as marriage was thing else was going on nevertheless. I at- seen as the ‘social glue’ that held the society tended many rituals, and heard a lot of formal together. Data on ritual language, however, was speaking, but not always in bahasa adat. In nonforthcoming. Initially, this puzzled me, as fact, most public discourse was either in Indo- the earlier experience of James Fox on the is- nesian or in conversational Lamaholot. And I land of Roti, and of my contemporaries Janet realized that, to fully study ritual language in Hoskins and Joel Kuipers on the island of Adonara, I needed to attend not only to the Sumba, as well as Doug Lewis on the island of stylized paired discourse of bahasa adat, but Flores, had shown that local peoples were only to all language forms which occurred in a ritual too happy to talk about ritual language, and context. indeed had often steered the researchers to- In the article which originally inspired my wards ritual language and away from their origi- interest in ritual language, James Fox notes that nal research topics. Why was my experience, “for a Rotinese, the pleasure of life is talk — therefore, so different? Explanations were not simply an idle chatter that passes time, but equally enigmatic. “Bahasa adat,” I was told, the more formal taking of sides in endless dis- was (a) only for insiders, (b) only for men, (c) pute, argument, and repartee or the rivaling of performed late at night when it was inappropri- one another in eloquent and balanced phrases ate for young women to be attending, or (d) on ceremonial occasions” (Fox 1989: 65). Bini, just wasn’t being performed at the moment, as or Rotinese compositions in parallel verse, oc- the appropriate ceremonies hadn’t come up. cur in “circumstances of formal social interac- Certainly in the case of marriage negotiations, tion”, including “greetings, farewells, petitions, this was true: no one among the people I had courtship, negotiations, and all the ceremonies met had any relatives who were in the process of Rotinese life” (Fox 1989: 74). These ritual of nagi belis, or negotiating bridewealth, at the language forms often combine elements from different Rotinese dialects, but, according to 1989: 70). This political continuity, I would ar- Fox, rarely mix Rotinese with Indonesian/Malay. gue, may also encourage linguistic continuity, “Ritual language,” notes Fox, remains remark- at least in the realm of political speaking. And ably impermeable to [Indonesian/] Malay” (Fox this may contrast with other societies in the 1989: 81). Ceremonial occasions on Roti do region, such as Adonara, where there has been occur, though, which combine Rotinese and less continuity in traditional political leader- Indonesian. Christian church services, for ex- ship and therefore less continuity as well in ample, may consist of “readings from the Bible the forms of political speaking. with translations in Rotinese, Malay songs, and long sermons, often in Malay, with long para- The island of Adonara phrases in Rotinese, or interspersed Malay and Adonara is a small island in the Ar- Rotinese, or even a cacophony of two simulta- chipelago, located off the eastern tip of the is- neous sermons, with one preacher speaking land of Flores near the city of . To- Malay, the other translating in Rotinese” (Fox gether with the eastern end of Flores and the 1989: 70). islands of Solor and , Adonara is part Of interest to me, in comparison to of the kabupaten (regency) of Flores Timur. Adonara, is the willingness to intermix Rotinese The capital seat for this kabupaten is located and Indonesian/Malay in Christian church ser- in Larantuka. Adonara itself is divided into two vices in Roti, but not in other ceremonial con- subdistricts or kecamatan: Adonara Barat texts where bini would be appropriate. Local (West Adonara), with its kecamatan seat at domain politics, in particular, seem integrally Vure, across from Larantuka; and Adonara linked to domain dialects and to the appropri- Timur (East Adonara), with its kecamatan seat ate formal speech forms there of. This occurs, at Waiwerang, on the south coast of Adonara. moreover, despite the relative fluency of Areally, Adonara is quite small, with a to- Rotinese speakers in Indonesian. The island tal land area of 481 square kilometers. By the of Roti was already certified as literate in Indo- early 1980’s, though, its population was pro- nesian by the late 1950’s, and the use of basa jected to reach about 80,000 (Wayong 1979), , or Kupang Malay, had been common and this was in line with the population esti- long before this time (Fox 1989: 69). Indone- mates I received from government officials in sian has long been readily available, therefore, Adonara. (Accurate population figures for as a resource for formal speaking. A key factor Adonara are difficult to calculate, due to the for not using Indonesian in formal speaking, large extent of external labor migration.) Nev- however, may be linked to the continuing role ertheless, the figure of 80,000 gives a popula- (at least in the 1970’s) of traditional domains tion density for Adonara of 166.3 persons per and their ritual-political leaders in Rotinese square kilometer. While such a population den- political speaking. “There exist at present [i.e. sity would not be excessive in an agriculturally in the 1970’s],” notes Fox, “virtually the same intensive area like Java, in a swidden-based local political domains as existed in 1656. These savanna area like Adonara, it is ecologically domains are afforded administrative existence catastrophic. within the bureaucratic structure of the Repub- Traditional agricultural practices of corn, lic of , their lords are acknowledged dry-rice, and cassava cultivation have increas- as administrative officials, and their courts ingly given way to erosion and declining crop retain jurisdiction over most civil disputes” (Fox yields, and Adonarese farmers have increas- ingly turned to cash crops like coconut (which tional mass media, especially television. is predominantly sold dried in the form of co- The acceleration in communication tech- pra) and to external labor migration. In the early nologies through the 1980’s was very evident 1980’s, I calculated that approximately forty to me over the course of several periods of percent of Adonarese men between the ages fieldwork in Adonara. In 1980, when I first be- of eighteen and sixty were away from their vil- gan fieldwork, a few teachers and civil servants lages (usually working on coconut and oil palm had short-wave radios, but the only other avail- plantations in Sabah, Malaysia) at any given able mass media were a few magazines or news- point in time, and this figure continued to in- papers which people would bring in from out- crease through the 1980’s. Indeed, combined side, and the occasional film or video. Even with the increasing success of the government cassette recorders were unusal in 1980, and education system, by 1992, the number of many villagers were ambivalent about my tape- Adonarese households which consisted only recording (and thus ‘documenting’ or making of women and young children, and increasingly ‘permanent’) what they saw and preferrred to only of older women, was striking. Even for see as evanescent speech events. young men who want to remain in Adonara, By 1985, many people, especially return- employment opportunities are limited, especially ing labor migrants, had cassette recorders, and if their families do not own extensive amounts ritual events like funerary wailing, ordinations, of land. and government ceremonies were not only tape-recorded by local enthusiasts, but also Bilingualism and language use broadcast over makeshift public address sys- Ironically, one of the primary results of la- tems. Rather than being ambivalent about my bor migration to Malaysia has been to increase academic interest in tape-recording and ‘docu- the level of bilingualism and linguistic fluency mentation’, dokumentasi was all the rage, and in (Malay/) Indonesian. This is a somewhat villagers often chastized me for having a small different dynamic than the increase in bilingual- tape-recorder, preferring me to use their giant ism because of education, sincemost of the boom-boxes. (This often worked to my research Sabah migrants are unskilled, semi-literate or advantage, as local villagers would put their illiterate peasants, whereas those persons who microphones much closer to the speakers or succed in the Indonesian educational system, mourners than I ever would have dared, thus especially those graduating from high school producing better recordings.). Televisions were and continuing on to post-secondary educa- limited, however, to a few families in Waiwerang, tion, are usually the children of prosperous, and reception was usually terrible. People high-ranking families or civil servants. would leave their televisions on with the sound Labor migration, and also educational mi- down in the event that pictures might emerge gration (since even the government high from the more frequent static, but moments of school, orSMA, is located off of the island of good reception were few and far between. Adonara in Larantuka) also create extralocal By 1992, however, with the increase in ex- experiences of transnationalism or tent and reliability of rural electrification, tele- transregionalism. Even for people still living in visions were fairly common in Adonara, and Adonara, the experience of translocality has satellite dishes had begun to spring up been reinforced in the 1990’s by increasing ac- throughout the countryside. Villagers re- cess to multiple forms of national and interna- counted how they had followed the Gulf War every day on TV, with separate viewing groups ued by the Dutch and the Japanese. Schools in for supporters of the United States and Saddam the area, which were run by European Catholic Hussein. , were also conducted in Malay. Adonarese viewers’ participation in the The use of Malay was mandated during the Gulf War through TV highlights their growing Japanese Occupation, when Japanese military identification with global culture (see Lutz 1996), and administrative personnel penetrated more a fact which I believe has linguistic ramifica- forcefully into the region’s interior areas, con- tions as well. While globally, the most common ducting military patrols, demanding resources, language of satellite television broadcasting is and conscripting local men for forced labor undoubtedly English, Adonarese viewers pre- projects. Malay/Indonesian in Adonara be- dominantly turn to Indonesian/Malay-lan- came a language of domination, and its impact guage channels. They thus participate, through in the island’s interior villages was felt more their viewing, in an Indonesian/Malay-lan- widely and deeply under the Japanese than it guage world, augmenting their perception, if had been under the Dutch. not their usage, of Indonesian as an extralocal After Indonesian independence, Indone- language of power. sian became the national language, but in re- As I have argued elsewhere (Lutz 1986), mote areas like Adonara, it continued to be seen the and its Malay pre- as a language of extralocal power and author- cursors in Adonara have historically been seen ity. Few national or local government adminis- as languages of extralocal authority and state trators were actually from Adonara, and even power. The use of Malay as a village headmen (kepala desa) were increas- along the coasts has a long historical prece- ingly picked from local figures known to be dent. As Metzner has noted, the Strait of Flores, supporters of the central government. This which lies between the islands of Flores and policy was implemented even more strongly Adonara, has “from time immemorial...been an after 1965, and by the 1980’s, many local offi- important north-south trade route frequented cials were former or present members of ABRI by Malay seafarers” (Metzner 1982: 64), and (the Indonesian Armed Forces). Larantuka was an important stopping point and Although bilingualism in Indonesian and export port. Malay-speaking slavers also raided Lamaholot (the local language of Flores Timur) along the coasts of Adonara and Flores Timur, has increased steadily in Adonara, even in the and in the 15th and 16th centuries, the region early 1990’s, Indonesian was only rarely the was considered a dependency of Ternate (Le local-context language of choice. Adonarese Roux 1929: 14, note 2). The ‘kingdoms’ villagers for the most part preferred to speak in (kerajaan) of Flores Timur were externally-ori- Lamaholot, and would mainly use Indonesian ented coastal polities which were usually more when talking to outsiders or when in Indone- strongly tied to other coastal polities than to sian-language contexts such as government their own interior peoples. To the villagers of offices, schools, Catholic churches, or Islamic the interior, therefore, Malay was seen as a lan- mosques (where the personnel or officials in guage of external commerce and extralocal charge might also be outsiders to Adonara). political affairs. As noted above, and unlike the situation With the advent of Portuguese settlement described for Roti, government officials in in the region, Malay took on a new role as a Adonara (at least in the 1980’s and early 1990’s) colonial lingua franca, a role which was contin- were only rarely traditional ritual-political lead- ers. Speech events over which they presided, self-defined Adonarese identity of farmers and therefore, rarely used ritual language, or bahasa warriers, and the warfare dance especially was adat. While social events such as wedding re- the high point of the entire ceremony. Linguis- ceptions often interjected conversational tically, the ceremony was conducted entirely Lamaholot into an Indonesian-language cer- in Indonesian. The introductions, the speeches, emonial frame, and religious events like ordi- and the commentaries on the performances nations had well-set precedents for incorpo- were all conducted in formal standardized In- rating Lamaholot texts in bahasa adat into the donesian. No attempts were made to incorpo- predominantly Indonesian-language Catholic rate Lamaholot, either through the adaptation liturgy, government-sponsored events like of Lamaholot speaking styles or through the school graduations, national holiday com- translation of sections of the speeches for mem- memorations, and village development contest bers of the audience who did not speak Indo- (lomba desa) ceremonies were more purely In- nesian. The use of Indonesian placed the cer- donesian-language speech events. emony linguistically and ideologically in an Indonesian national context, creating a dis- Bahasa Protocol course on education and on culture that incor- The first such event that I witnessed in porated Adonara into the nation of Indonesia. 1980, for example, was a ceremony in As Indonesian national discourse, the Waiwerang held in honor of the visit of the speeches were aimed at those members of the Provincial Head of Education and Culture from audience who understood Indonesian, mem- Kupang. Having just worked for a year at the bers of the national speech community of In- Indonesian Consulate General in San Francisco, donesia. Non-Indonesian speakers were also what struck me most about this ceremony was included, but in a more passive, subordinate its ‘modularity’ and replicability (cf. Anderson way. For non-Indonesian speakers, the 1991), the fact that this ceremony could have speeches were much like other forms of formal- been held anywhere in Indonesia — in Jakarta, ized ritual language — authoritative discourses in Waiwerang, or at the Indonesian Consulate whose meaning lay not in the intelligibility of General in San Francisco — and would have their content, but in the power expressed by been virtually identical in its language, its sym- their speakers (cf. Asad 1979, Bloch 1977). It bols, and its program. should also be noted, however, that this event The program consisted of a host of digni- was in many ways a ‘performance’ for the ben- taries, both local and visiting, high school efit of the central State. As well as an occasion youths in white skirts and trousers, flag rais- to honor the visiting dignitaries, local officials ing, an enthusiastic rendition of Indonesia were eager to show that their allegiances were Raya (the national anthem), formal speeches, ‘Indonesian’, and that they were fully conver- and ‘entertainment’ (hiburan) — in this case sant in the language and in the symbols of the consisting of two ‘traditional’ dances, a female- Indonesian nation-state. performed harvest dance and a male-performed Mastery of bahasa protocol (‘protocol warfare dance.Neither of the dances, residents language’) is one way in which Adonarese later told me, were performed any more, though government officials show their allegiance to, one person noted that the warfare dance was and identification with, the nation of Indone- sometimes performed before soccer matches. sia. Another ceremony, which I tape-recorded Nevertheless, they were seen to encapsulate a in 1985, distinctively shows this ritual/political language genre.The occasion was a village honorable Head of the development contest (lomba desa) evaluation conducted by the (N.T.T.) provincial-level Kantor Bangdes Village evaluation team in the village of Kiwan’ona. Development Office for the As part of the evaluation, the village head (kepala desa) of Kiwan’ona delivered a formal kabupaten Flores Timur, report (laporan) summarizing village statistics kabupaten (regency) of Flores Timur, and the efforts they had made towards village development. His speech was given in Indo- yang terhormat Ketua tim penilai P.K.K. nesian (as was the entire evaluation process), the honorable Head of the P.K.K. evaluation in a very clipped, ‘military’ style (although he himself was not a member of ABRI, the Indo- kabupaten Flores Timur team nesian Armed Forces) while he stood rigidly for the kabupaten of Flores Timur erect, speaking into a stationary microphone in the community meeting hall (balai desa). As atau yang mewakili, or the following transcription shows, the first sev- her representative, eral minutes of his ‘report’ are consumed by elaborate introductions: yang terhormat Bapak Camat the Laporan Kepala Desa Kiwan’ona honorable camat (subdistrict head) of Report of the Village Head of Kiwan’ona Adonara Timur, Adonara pada acara penilaian on Timur (East Adonara), the occasion of the evaluation of the yang terhormat Ibu Ketua the lomba desa tingkat Propinsi honorable Head of the. Provincial-level village competition for tim penggerak P.K.K. P.K.K. Nusa Tenggara Timur Nusa implementation team for the Tenggara Timur kecamatan Adonara Timur, pada tanggal 30 juni 1985: on kecamatan (subdistrict) of Adonara Timur, June 30, 1985: singkatnya hadiran sekalian in Yang terhormat Bapak Ketua tim penilai brief, everyone present, The honorable Head of the evaluation team yang saya hormati: whom lomba desa tingkat Propinsi for I respect: the Provincial-level village competition Puji dan syukur kepada Praise Nusa Tenggara Timur beserta rombongan, and thanks be to for Nusa Tenggara Timur and his party, Tuhan yang Maha Esa yang terhormat Bapak Kepala the Almighty God seluruh lewotana the karena atas perkenannya... entire village because it is at His pleasure... juga staf pemerintahan desa: and the village government staff: Although the context of this speech was Bahwa hari senin remah local (since it was held in the village of Monday night Kiwan’ona), it was national in its orientations, and its primary audience (in significance, if not karena telori remah in numbers) was the visiting provincial-level because it was three nights ago evaulation team. Thus, in the choice and genre mungkin kita hae toi’ero kae of language that was used, this speech was maybe we all know already ideologically as well as linguistically Indone- a na roi wa uli or sian. perhaps some don’t yet know At the time that this speech was given, bahwa hari telori remah that this particular Village Head was extraordinarily three nights ago popular in Kiwan’ona. A native of Kiwan’ona, tite - papan nama tite lali our he was fluent in Lamaholot as well as Indone- - our sign down there sian, and he was very skilled in mediating the no’on Sepuluh Program P.K.K. often conflicting demands of village and cen- along with the Ten P.K.K. Programs (sign) tral State. An interesting example of his skills na’an ne raran to’u located at mediation, in this case expressed linguisti- there on the road cally (and, I believe, subconsciously), is shown Jalan Asas Tunggal on in another speech which he gave, also in Asas Tunggal Street Kiwan’ona in the summer of 1985, which was (praga’a) lalu..uh..ya..lalu data. also a formal laporan (‘report’). Here he was (______) and..uh..yeah..and was broken. serving in his capacity as Kepala Desa at the Go Selasa pagi Tuesday opening of a formal dispute resolution session morning I between Kiwan’ona and a neighboring village Go dilaporkan I over an act of vandalism which had damaged was told about two of Kiwan’ona’s signs. Elders from both keadaan ini. this villages were present, as were many residents situation. of Kiwan’ona. The Village Head’s opening re- Go lodo periksa I marks on this occasion were as follows: (note: went down to inspect Lamaholot words are underlined) lalu go gere, then I went back up, Niti, uh...tenu’e lewo to’u kae Go membuat undangan and This, uh...elders of the village I issued a summons weru’in suku pito kae heads secara mendadak. of the seven clan groups immediately. lake belen noble men wae belen noble women Conflicts of discourse and authority from the local context and to have denied his This speech is interesting both in its local ties and local identity. By combining the choices of language and in its choices of for- two formats and the two roles, therefore, he mat. While it was stylistically a formal laporan stayed within the bounds of his two authori- (thus placing it within the realm of Indonesian- ties, speaking in his capacity as Kepala Desa oriented political discourse), its cadence and but linguistically reinforcing his local ties and paired structure conform closely to the styliza- affiliations. tions of Lamaholot ritual speech. The first four This ‘problem’, however, arose only be- lines, for example, are standard formulae for cause he was not also a traditional ritual-politi- beginning a Lamaholot ritual text, and the cal leader. Unlike the situation in Roti, in paired structure continues even into the Indo- Adonara, politics has bifurcated into nesian-language portions of the speech. All ‘goverment’ and local arenas. Leaders in one deictics, moreover — references either to him- arena are rarely also leaders in the other. Both self or to the immediacies of the village locality linguistically and politically, therefore, this can — are in Lamaholot, even when they are the lead to conflicts of discourse and authority. only Lamaholot words in otherwise Indonesian Interestingly, within the same dispute resolu- language sentences. By combining the two lan- tion session described above, these conflicts guages and two formats, I would argue, the became audibly apparent. As the proceedings Village Head is garnering two legitimacies: In- continued, different speakers from the two donesian-oriented legitimacy as a government- sides stated their cases. The elders from appointed Village Head, and local legitimacy Kiwan’ona wanted to fine the vandalism ac- as a spokesperson for Kiwan’ona. Through his cording to adat; their arguments were entirely use of two languages and two oratorical styles, presented in traditional ritual speaking. The he is linguistically combining two political roles other village, however, who felt the adat fines which in other contexts might be seen as op- were too weighty, wanted to take the matter to posed, and by his skillful combination, he ac- the Indonesian state police; their arguments, crues the authority and legitimacy of both roles. presented by younger men who were fluent in His linguistic combinations here are almost Indonesian, were entirely in Indonesian. Reso- mandated by the ambiguities of his position as lution of this issue was unfortunately not as a relatively young man (in his 40’s) but Kepala fluid or congenial as the Kepala Desa’s bilin- Desa. As Village Head, he is the highest (Indo- gual prefaces; whatever the outcome in prac- nesian) government official in Kiwan’ona; as a tice, however, the point to be made for this pa- relatively young man, however, in the adat per is that the performances themselves were world, he is still subordinate to the village el- linguistically iconic of the languages of poli- ders. As a younger man without traditional tics in contemporary Adonara. ritual-political office, moreover, he has no right In Adonara today, extralocality and the to preside over dispute resolutions conducted power of the Indonesian state are increasingly according to adat; for him to give an entirely felt at the village level. Because these dynam- Lamaholot ritual speech, therefore, would have ics are expressed linguistically as well as politi- been presumptuous on his part and insulting cally, bilingualism in Adonara has political rami- to the village elders. To stay strictly in his In- fications. It is not yet possible in Adonara to donesian government role as Kepala Desa, speak Indonesian at the village level without however, would have been to distance himself denying one’s linguistic heritage; because of Acknowledgements I would like to acknowlege my apprecia- the association of Indonesian with extralocal tion to LIPI, the Indonesian Institute of Sci- power and affiliation, moreover, to speak Indo- ences, and to the Pusat Pembinaan dan nesian in Adonara is also to deny local roots Penembangan Bahasa, Jakarta, for sponsoring and affiliations. Perhaps as the population be- my fieldwork in Adonara.Research funds were comes increasingly fluent in Indonesian, these provided by the Social Science Research Coun- dynamics will become less contentious; cil, Fulbright-Hays, and theWenner-Gren Foun- through the 1980s and 1990’s, however, lan- dation for Anthropological Research, whose guage choice was still a vehicle for conflicting support is also gratefullyacknowledged. My political stances and affiliations. Nevertheless, thanks also to Drs. John Gumperz and Herbert as the politics of languages change, so too will Phillips, my dissertation advisors, and to the the languages of politics. From bahasa adat to Anthropology Department of Southern Illinois bahasa protocol, ceremonial language forms University at Edwardsville,which has provided in Adonara as throughout Nusa Tenggara a congenial environment and facilities in which Timur will continue to evolve, creating new and to write this paper. Finally,my love and thanks dynamic speech forms, like the speech given go to the families who supported me in by Kiwan’ona’s Kepala Desa. Adonara, especially the Okas and the Lamanepas. Terima kasih ara- ara. References Cited

Anderson, B. 1991 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised edition. New York: Verso. Asad, T. 1979 ‘Anthropology and the Analysis of Ideology’, Man (N.S.) 14(4): 607-627. Bloch, M. 1977 ‘The Past and the Present in the Present’, Man (N.S.) 12(2): 278-29 Fox, J. ‘Our Ancestors Spoke in Pairs: Rotinese Views of Language, Dialect, and Code’, dalam R. Bauman and J. Sherzer (eds.) Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking. Second edition. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hal. 65-85. LeRoux, C.C.F.M. 1929 De Elcano’s tocht door den archipel met Magalhaes schip ‘Victoria’. Feestbundel Uitgegeven door het Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen bij gelegenheid van zijn 150-Jarig Bestaan 1778- 1928. Vol. 2. Weltevreden: Kolff. Lutz, N. 1996 Localizing Global Culture in Adonara, Eastern Indonesia’. Paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies meetings, Honolulu, April 14, 1996. 1986 Authoritative Discourse: Language and Ideology in Adonara, Eastern Indonesia. Ph.D. dissertation, Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. Metzner, J. 1982 Agriculture and Population Pressure in Sikka, Isle of Flores. Canberra: The Australian National University Wayong, P. (ed) 1979 Nama-Nama Geografi. Jilid 7: Nusa Tenggara Timur. Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Pusat Penelitian Sejarah dan Budaya.