Bilingualism and Linguistic Politics in Adonara, East Flores
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Bilingualism and Linguistic Politics in Adonara, East Flores 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 Solor 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 Larantuka. To- Malay, the other translating in Rotinese” (Fox gether with the eastern end of Flores and the 1989: 70). islands of Solor and Lembata, 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), Kupang, 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 Indonesia, 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.