J. Fox In memoriam Professor Koentjaraningrat (15 June 1923 - 23 March 1999) In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 157 (2001), no: 2, Leiden, 239-245 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 06:08:43AM via free access JAMES J. FOX In Memoriam Professor Koentjaraningrat 15 June 1923 - 23 March 1999 Professor Dr Koentjaraningrat was born on the 15th of June 1923 in Yogya- karta, the only son of R.M. Emawan Brotokoesoemo and R.A. Pratitis Tirto- tenoyo. Since his father served as a member of the Paku Alam court, Koentjaraningrat was raised within the intimacy of court circles with a deep sense of the Javanese language. Yet, at home he was expected to speak Dutch with his parents. His mpther, who took responsibility for his initial schooling, was intent on his obtaining a Dutch edücation and for some years tried to limit his involvement with the traditions of the court. He began school at the Europeesche Lagere School in Yogyakarta and went on through Middelbare Uitgebreid Lager Onderwijs and Algemeen Middelbare School. During the Japanese occupation, he moved to Jakarta to finish the last year of high school but returned to Yogyakarta to escort books from the National Library in Jakarta, where he worked, for safekeeping in Yogyakarta. Because of the political situation, he was forced to remain in Yogyakarta. He enrolled as a student at the University of Gadjah Mada and did various teaching assign- ments, including a brief spell at Taman Siswa. At Gadjah Mada, he studied Indonesian literature. Koentjaraningrat had a great love of the arts and a personal interest in Javanese dancing. When his parents moved to Jakarta, he was able to take up Javanese classical dancing at the Sanggar Tari in.Tejokusuman, Yogyakarta. He became both a choreographer and a noted dancer. Friends remember his performances. As a student at Gadjah Mada during the independence struggle, Koentja- raningrat joined the Corps Mahasiswa and was sent to assist Brigade 29 first in Kediri and then in Mojoagung. His main assignment, while with Brigade 29, was to teach English and history. Shortly after his return to Yogyakarta, Brigade 29 joined the side of the communists in Madiun and everyone whom he had taught was killed in the battle with Siliwangi. After his graduation, Koentjaraningrat moved to Jakarta, where he taught cultural history at SMA Boedi Oetomo and continued his study at Uni- versitas Indonesia for the doctorandus degree in Language and Literature. He graduated in 1952 and stayed on in the Faculty of Arts as an assistant to G.J. Held, who was, at the time, Professor of Anthropology. Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 06:08:43AM via free access Professor Koentjaraningrat t Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 06:08:43AM via free access In Memoriam Professor Koentjaraningrat 241 In 1954 Koentjaraningrat was offered a Fulbright Scholarship to study anthropology at Yale University, but before leaving for the United States, he became formally engaged to Kustiani Sarwono, the woman with whom he would spend the rest of his life. His wife to be was a graduate of Boedi Oetomo whom he later met in the Faculty of Arts in Jakarta. They were engaged on the 29th of April 1954, before Koentjaraningrat left Jakarta, and were married, in a formal Javanese ceremony, in Jakarta on the 13th of August 1955, while Koentjaraningrat was already in New Haven. Koentja- raningrat was represented at his wedding by a keris he had received from his father. 'Stien' then joined 'Pak Koen' in the United States and the two became an inseparable pair in life and work. On her arrival in the States, Pak Koen arranged a week's honeymoon in New York which, as Stien recalls it, con- sisted of a succession of concerts and operas, including Wagner's Parsifal. At Yale, through the prompting of G.P. Murdoch, Koentjaraningrat was put to work on adding information on Indonesia to the Human Relations Area Files. In 1956, Pak Koen received an MA degree. His thesis, A Prelim- inary Description of the Javanese Kinship System, which Stien typed, was pub- lished the following year as a Cultural Series Report by the Southeast Asia Studies Program at Yale University. In the samè year, Koentjaraningrat also published a long forty-page paper on 'Artistic and Intellectual Expression in Indonesia' in the Area Handbook on Indonesia. These defining publications were the first in a long and productive career of anthropological writing. On his return from Yale, Pak Koen began work immediately on his PhD . under the supervision of Professor Elisabeth Allard. He completed his thesis, Beberapa Metode Antrhopologi dalam Penjelidikanl Masjarakat dan Kebudajaan di Indonesia (Various Anthropological Methods in the Study of Indonesian Society and Culture), in 1958 and immediately took up a position as lecturer in anthropology at the University of Indonesia. At the same time, hè was made an 'extraordinary' lecturer in anthropology at Gadjah Mada University. His life's task of establishing - and indeed creating - the discipline of anthro- pology in Indonesia had begun. In 1962, after a year's sabbatical at the Uni- versity of Pittsburgh, Pak Koen was made professor of anthropology at the University of Indonesia. From the outset, Pak Koen set himself the task of establishing the discip- line of anthropology in universities throughout Indonesia. The University of Indonesia became the base for his training program, with the most promis- ing students at other universities invited to Jakarta to continue their anthro- pological study. Pak Koen would regularly travel to other universities to lec- ture, but he would also send his graduates to teach the basic anthropology curriculum they had learned at the University of Indonesia. The universities included in this network were the University of North Sumatra in Medan, Padjadjaran in Bandung, Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, Udayana in Denpasar, Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 06:08:43AM via free access 242 James J. Fox Hasanuddin in Ujung Pandang, Sam Ratulangie in Menado; and Cendera- wasih in Jayapura. Development of an ethnographic understanding of Indo- nesia's diverse cultures with an emphasis on> their contemporary situation was at the core of Pak Koen's curriculum. Anthropologists in each of the uni- versities where he taught were encouraged to develop their distinct character and regional ethnographic specialization. His view of the discipline reflected his experience in the United States. He was particularly concerned to foster the development of a broadly based dis- cipline. He thus went to considerable lengths to see that students were sent overseas for further study and he was determined that they obtain specific training in different anthropological subdisciplines in order to enrich the field as a whole. He also sent his students to study in Japan, Thailand, Malay- sia and the Philippines, to return to Indonesia to teach on the cultures of these countries. When he began his teaching career, there was a great need for introduct- ory books on anthropology in the Indonesian language. Pak Koen's first undertaking was tp produce the material he needed for teaching. In a period of just over fifteen years, while teaching at several universities across the country, Pak Koen produced a succession of major textbooks for anthropo- logy and social science research in general: Pengantar Antropologi (1959), Tokoh-Tokoh Antropologi (1964), Beberapa Pokok Antropologi Sosial (1967), Atlas Etnografi Sedunia (1969), Metodologi Penelitian Masyarakat (1973), and Bunga- Rampai Kebudayaan, Mentalitet dan Pembangunan (1974). Most of these publications were frequently reprinted. Often for the new reprint, Pak Koen would revise, expand and update his work. Thus his Pengantar Antropologi (Introduction to Anthropology) was only 115 pages when it was first published in 1959, but by the time of the fifth reprint, which appearedin 1974, the volume had grown to 223 pages. The volume was then revised and published under the title Pengantar Ilmu Antropologi. It continued to grow, so that by the time of the eighth reprinting of the new edition in 1990, it came to 391 pages. In 1996, Pak Koen did a further revision and changed the name of his text to its original, Pengantar Antropologi. This new edition was published in two volumes with a total of over 430 pages. Beberapa Pokok Antropologi Sosial (Fundamental Topics in Social Anthro- pology) began with 278 pages when it was published in 1967, but grew to 317 pages by the time of the 7th edition in 1990. His Metodologi Penelitian Masya- rakat (Methodology for Social Research), first published in 1973, had gone through fourteen reprints by 1997 and is likely to continue to be reprinted. Pak Koen's Sejarah Teori Antropologi (History of Anthropological Theory) was published in stages: Volume I in 1980 as a substantial revision and expansion of Tokoh-Tokoh Antropologi (1964); Volume II a decade later in 1990. , Many of the volumes that Pak Koert edited were also of considerable sig- Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 06:08:43AM via free access In Memoriam Professor Koentjaraningrat 243 nificance for the development of anthropology in Indonesia. Earlyin the 1960s Pak Koen took the initiative to promote an understanding of the local populations of Irian Jaya. He himself did fieldwork in Irian and, throughout his career, he continued to publish and support anthropological research on Irian. Together with his close colleague Harsja Bachtiar, he published the vol- ume Penduduk Irian Barat (1963). Later he collaborated with colleagues in the Netherlands, J. van Baar and K.W. Galis, in producing West Irian; A Biblio- graphy (1984), and in his retirement he edited a large compendium volume, Irian Jaya; Membangun Masyarakat Majemuk (1994).