Music, Identities, and Interreligious Relationships at the Lingsar Festival in Lombok, Indonesia

International Journal of Interreligious and Intercultural Studies (IJIIS) ISSN: 2654-2706, Volume 2, Number 1, April 2019 MUSIC, IDENTITIES, AND INTERRELIGIOUS RELATIONSHIPS AT THE LINGSAR FESTIVAL IN LOMBOK, INDONESIA David Harnish Department of Music, University of San Diego, California, USA <[email protected]> Abstract When the final procession was readied at the Lingsar temple festival in 1988, I was surprised to see a leader of the Muslim Sasak faction, Suparman, holding hands with the leader of the Hindu Balinese assemblage, Anak Agung Gede Biarsah, at the front of the line of participants. In earlier conversations, they had both expressed interethnic distrust and proclaimed that their group held the inner position while the other was outer and insubstantial to festival events. And yet, there they were walking hand-in-hand and leading the final procession together as if there were no problems whatsoever. What I was witnessing – as I later realized – was the collapse of contestation into interethnic unity, and what produced this unity was the previ- ous days’ rites and performing arts, which all worked in various ways to construct a bridge to the ancestors, impose a spiritual order and balance on the proceedings and participants, and form a comprehensive union that gradually became palpable. Ultimately, it is this union of complementary dualities (Sasak/Balinese, human/divine, inside/outside, even traditional/ modern) that generates the fertility that legitimizes the festival. Though many elements have changed since the 1980s, the goal of union has not. Without it, the festival would either dis- continue or radically transform. Introduction heroes, and to reconsider belief, Festivals, particularly those relationships, one’s self and community culturally embedded or religious in and belonging, and so forth. Sometimes nature, break the flow of time (see the event or its music compels such Falassi 1987), allow for special actions, or induces unity between behaviors, and offer possibilities to dyadic religious groups, as recounted relive histories and legends/culture in the quote above. The performing 27 Music, Identities, and Interreligious Relationships at the Lingsar Festival in Lombok, Indonesia arts at the Lingsar festival, an event insisted that the “ritual” (or otherwise that likely spans 400 years, structure performed) music and the rites within the event and color nearly every stage the festival are “tetap sama”(the and development over the five days of same as always) (see Harnish 2005). I the festival. They offer a promise of believed them. Over decades and after transformation and a pathway between many more encounters witnessing human and divine, past and present, the festival and its participants, it and Sasak and Balinese (the two parties gradually became clear that things sharing Lingsar). No recurring festival sometimes change, that every festival (annual or otherwise) is ever exactly is a renegotiation between the players, the same twice; there are too many their understanding (sometimes new agents and variables for close mimicry. understanding) of the past and with There are, of course, templates or contemporary forces. Most all festivals maps for how festivals should unfold, need to address now – this moment, and leaders and participants intend this year – while still fulfilling historic to follow them. But, move forward missions. Compromises are made one year and they have changed their and certain aspects – rites, music, perspectives or feelings, new leaders or interpretations, experiences – change. participants are in place, the weather is But, some things also stay the same (or different, musicians are sick and can’t nearly so), such as the roles of music attend, or some happening – political and dance, not only as context-sensitive changes or social tensions – has altered structuring agents but in transforming relationships between participants, and time, place, and identity and restoring a suddenly the festival is different. From new unity – again and again. Festivals a hermeneutical or phenomenology may be mechanisms for communities perspective, duplication is neither to define or redefine themselves and possible nor desirable. At Lingsar and it is the performing arts that articulate elsewhere, it is individual and collective that definition. A festival is “an agency that both sustains and shapes the assemblage of texts” (Geertz 1973), and festival in new ways year-after-year. the participating community has the I first attended the Lingsar festival, opportunity to tell “a story about itself called by the Balinese Pujawali and for itself” (Sciorra 1995: 65). (“Worship Return”), in 1983; after This paper is a long-view visiting the Lingsar temple and ethnography of sorts and examines the interviewing leaders and participants structuring and transformative powers multiple times over years and attending of music, but also looks at histories of festivals in 1987 and 1988, I wrote my change and at individual actions while dissertation (1991). My interlocutors focusing on the interface between 28 David Harnish music, musicians, and epiphenomenal years (and over 200 years in the west) connections. The Lingsar temple, until Sasak leaders invited the Dutch to its festival and rites, were once a intervene, and Dutch forces defeated the demonstration of the power of the Balinese in 1894 and then colonized the Balinese kings to provide sufficient island. The many thousands of Balinese rainwater, and thus represented noble remained in Lombok, which they power and the promise of fertility (see considered their home. The fact that Gerdin 1982 and Harnish 2001 and Lombok and Sasak Muslims were ruled 2006), themes that have been sustained by Hindus/non-Muslims is a subtext over time. Today, the festival is more at the festival and much contemporary democratic, national, and Muslim and life on the island (see Hägerdal 2001). Hindu, consisting of a series of intra- Balinese and Sasak have respective and inter-group rites. I strongly feel that legends. For Balinese, divine forces leaders and musicians play the most invited a prince in East Bali to come to important roles in constructing events, Lombok and directly to Lingsar, and their sequence and their outcomes, to restore righteousness to the island’s and in affecting the environment and governance; the legend has rationalized everyone within earshot. Music is the Balinese occupation and continued inescapable at festivals. One can never presence in Lombok. The Sasak legend separate, however, festival from its of origins is explained in the section participants, both past and present. below. While each wants to claim the Festivals, both political and spiritual, festival (and temple and temple lands) are public barometers for measuring for themselves, the ritual and political socio-religious and political change. reality is that they need each other; and, by the end of each festival, participants Interreligious Relationships at transcend division and feel a sense Lingsar of interreligious unity. The following Lingsar is unique in conjoining section will explore further how that some 20,000 Sasak Muslims and happens. Balinese Hindus in time, place and In 1894 – let alone the 1600s worship. Ideally a festival connects when the temple was reportedly first participants to a common origin point built – there were not many differences in time. That point of time, however, is between local Balinese Hindus and contentious. Sasak are considered the Sasak Muslims; “Hinduism” and indigenous population and the Balinese “Islam” were not politicized and are migrants from neighboring Bali. these groups practiced a similar adat Balinese came and occupied Lombok, (customary ritual practice and law) displacing Sasak kingdoms for 150 that connected people to the land, 29 Music, Identities, and Interreligious Relationships at the Lingsar Festival in Lombok, Indonesia their ancestors, and each other. Islamic and Balinese joined them for some leaders were different, however, and worship there and also in the many many Sasak went on the Haj in the late processions over the five festival days. 19th century (and throughout the 20th and In addition was the culminating rite 21st centuries), and came back seeking of the main festival day (full moon of to separate adat from agama (world the 6th month in the Balinese calendar, religion-Islam), to divide society and the 7th month of the Sasak calendar), use Islam to rally against the Hindu Perang Topat; this involves two sides Balinese occupiers. During Dutch in outer courtyards hurling topat (rice colonization and early independence squares wrapped in banana leaves) years the festival continued with less at each other for up to 30 minutes. fanfare. But, for the Balinese, the For ten generations, there have been meaning of the temple changed. The Sasak pamangku (customary priests) original Pura Lingsar (Lingsar Temple, officiating at Lingsar. Nearly always, now called Pura Lingsar Barat – West they were subordinate to the Balinese Lingsar Temple) had been dedicated to rajas and Krama Pura (temple celebrating the Balinese victory over organization). Indonesian independence Sasak and was largely restricted to provided an opportunity to assert families of upper castes only. With the independence from the Balinese and construction of a “new” Pura Lingsar counter-narratives to the Lingsar history sometime between 1860-70, gradually and festival meanings. all Balinese could enter the gaduh (or The 1960s were tumultuous and gadoh, the upper/inner

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