A Young Nation State within Ancient Civilization
The houses are in lines. Hatch roofs are in shapes of saddle or mountain peaks, with names related to the shapes. Gutters are made of bamboo, joined to enclosed and touch one another to other gutter across the neighborhood street. Under which, a free semi open space formed; where the children happily shower during the rainy season, or plays with their friends as parents watch from inside the house or terraces.
It was around the fourth millennium of Kali Yuga. The calendar was lunisolar Caka Sunda, and people recognize it as ‘wesiyuga’ - the age of metal. Beyond the horizon, another calendar began its age – they called it 1st century AD. A huge economic change took place because of the opening of a new maritime route, led to an economic boom when the trade between the Roman empire and India was at its peak[1]. 400 years of busy trade and maritime exploration in the western part of Sunda islands boosted the community development in a thriving young kingdom called Salakanagara. The young nation-state was changing its political system from mandala[2] to kingdom, and struggling to compete with surrounding neighbors. It strengthen its maritime vanguard to tame the pirates, open diplomatic relations with the Han in China and the Kushan in India; while striving to maintain and develop its role in the maritime trade route. Stretched from western Java, with all the islands around Sunda Strait - to southern coast of Sumatera, “Salakanagara” (means kota perak in Bahasa Indonesia: city of silver); as its name suggests, has silver, gold, iron and other metal as basic trade commodity.
Along with other Austronesian-language speaker, people in Salakanagara are bound with old tradition and philosophy based on faith upon ancestor worship and animism. Everyday life is very simple, but social conduct and routines are all centered to the ceremonies and rituals with symbols, offerings, and taboos. Jatisunda[3] - how the belief called, regulates the governmental administration, religiosity, and living ethics; based upon functionalization of human being’s congenital body and soul. People live with legends and stories about the great Mt. Sunda, and the many little remain volcanoes which blessed the land with abundance and fertile soil. Preservation of soil highly protected by respect to the powerful mother-earth, and a belief upon spirits. The very same beliefs also make some plateau communities live as half-nomads, thus make possible for the “guriang tanah” (spirit of the ground) to remain exist and regenerate.
Dry and wet paddy-field spreads all around the kingdom, indicates the existence of communities and settlements. Harvest and planting phase are highly considered sacred. The rice deity Shri, or locally called Nyi Pohaci Sanghyang Sri; is a highly praised goddess who rules life with her control over foodstuffs and death. Having both earth and celestial power, she is the goddess of the underworld and the moon, which enables her to control the monsoon and thus the time of rice ripening. With her power upon the cycle of life – which manifests in the plant and harvest time of rice, Nyi Pohaci plays a great role within the life in the community. Her name represents the founder of the first settlement and the smooth surface of disrupted earth suitable for construction or agriculture. She is also “anginsari” (the eye of the wind) – act as the central point for spatial orientation.[4]
It is only natural for the people, to consider womanhood as something sacred. Why? Because Sri also stands for rice, and her place is in the “goah” (lit. womb, a name for rice storage) – that makes a structure a home. It is the very center and the heart of a structure, the most female space; from which then it gradually shifts to other space to include the house and the yard as a whole – with male spaces that related to nature hierarchically subordinate to it.[5] Thus this, with other concepts revolving around the faith of Nyi Pohaci – shapes and enclosed the everyday-life of people in Salakanagara.
Space into Place
Baeu bangeut Nyi Pohaci,
Bade dek dicandak dibawa
Dirawu, dipangku ku paibuan
Dilungsur linggih
Calik ka Nyi Pohaci
Durung bebek pancur iman
Nu sasiki matak mahi
Nu sabangsal nu matak nyesa
Sri nu diteuteupkeunana
Sri un neuteupkeunana
(Come Nyi Pohaci,
You shall be taken, you shall be carried,
You shall be upheld,
You shall be seated in the lap of the community of women,
Invited to take your seat by Nyi Pohaci
Fountain of faith, it is not full
One grain shall be enough,
One unhulled grain shall be sufficient
Sri it is who is placed
Sri it is who places.)
For the simple life in Salakanagara, food is the center of culture. The cycle of rice represents a cycle of life, and this cycle is the center of faith. An evolving myth permeates, like a drop of water on a piece of dry cloth. Faith, based on a gratitude and hope upon the ground and the earth – forms a very strong devotion and dependence to the generous Nyi Pohaci and Her rules. This way of life – typically in highland plateau and flatland in the riverbanks, are common to those who reside and practice the ladang culture[6]. This is the center and the heart of life, from which then it influenced the other communities in the coastal area. For just as important it is to the social conduct in everyday life, the very same faith and cosmology applies for how people regard and act toward space.
Settlements are places. Settlements are spaces which became places. Determined by Nyi Pohaci herself, a settlement represents her grace – where the earth could bear fruits and perfect grains are born. Thus, the land where a settlement grows is a sacred land, from which people get their life; and for which they should present gratitude and offerings. People dwelled and people developed. With the maritime routes, hard nature, traders and pirates- coastal communities are traders and the vanguard naval armies. They developed the trading methods, secured the peripheries and made connections to other people with other cultures. Blessed by the fertile soil, nicer nature and security advantages – upland communities developed more on cultural activity and producing rice. There are people with sawah culture[7], they were more settle. The others follow a more hardcore faith of “guriang tanah”, and thus developed the ladang culture[8]. These upland communities who address themselves as “women community” are those who thrive and developed the faith, culture and art. They lived in highland plateaus or along the river, to where they could find a really good soil for the ladangs. Their settlements are always more secluded, with simple houses, buildings and social spaces covered with symbols and significance.
Everything has its own place. This phrase might approximately depict how the space becoming place there. Up on high hilly land, laid “makam karuhun” (graveyard of ancestors) where the village founders are buried, bind individuals to the community and earth. Enclosed the graveyard, is the sacred forest, from which the upstream sprung and the river flows to the village. It represents “hulu-dayeuh - lemah” (lit. means ‘upstream-downstream – earth) or “lemah-cai[9]” (lit. earth-water); means birthplace – or where the life begins. It is honored and conserved, protected by “adat[10]”.
Then it is just normal to call old Bandung city as “dayeuh kolot” (lit. old downstream); as it being a settlement, follows the same concept as old settlement
For the respect of the earth as mother, the land where they take things for their life, limits are important. There are limits for their daily life, limits for their places, and limits for their settlement. Physically, of course it appears as enclosures: fences around, or even only flag points on several important place including the cemetery. Mentally, it ruled by adat. Thus happen accordingly, spaces becoming places worth for agriculture and living.
A Sacred Ground of Nyi Pohaci, and Riung Mungpulung
Winding cloud marches in cavalcade, over a silvery-blue afternoon sky. The sun is low, the breeze is colder, while the horizon gleaming in pinky-orange sprays. Sound of rice pestles heard in distant, the air is light and clear, while a solemn silence creeps along streets and alleyways. On thin translucent breath, scent of incence from a brazier slithers slowly and bursts in puffy white smoke. Women and men walk in procession with offerings. At the end of the path, a large open field full of harvest paddy, arranged in piles. It’s not lawn, it’s not square, it is only an empty field. Yet it’s not simply a regular field, it’s not just a field. It is a sacred ground, belongs and presented to the great goddess - mother of rice and guardian of moon.
This empty field; is a place to held ceremony or ritual for many occasions like new or full moon, seed or harvest time. Open and free, it can be reach from many streets and alleyways leads to houses. No fences, no walls and no roof; but it’s enclosed by housing compounds around and important buildings.
When people interact and active as a communal society, the space where they act in specific time together thus became a place, a social space which then contains social spirit of the people and their social activity. There, around the land where today’s Bandung sits; old locality shaped its influence to the space in early developing urban space.
“Berdekatannya mendirikan rumah karena masih terikat oleh “riung mungpulung”, … hubungan keluarga terjalin dengan erat dengan saling mencicipi masakan yang diantar dari dapur ke dapur. (The house are built adjacent one another because they bind by “riung mungpulung”, … fraternal-like relationship firmly established with some habit of tasting food which being brought from kitchen to kitchen.” ~Edi S. Ekadjati~
“Riung mungpulung: bari ngariung, urang mulung”
In times they gather in one place, with food
dishes and snacks, rice and vegetables,
water or tea, coffee and rice wine
placed in the center or distributed around
They eat, they chat, they laugh and tell stories
Old couple to their grandchildren,
Girls and boys, ladies to husbands
Neighbors to neighbors
priests, puun and caretaker
Eat and drink and tell stories,
From small groups to larger ones
From terraces to the sacred ground
Riung mungpulung: while gather, I scavenge. Longing of food brought by rice-oriented culture deeply penetrates this social habit. It is a need for gather to eat, and for eat to gather. It is always a feast, a festivity regards like other ritual and ceremonies. Food is as sacred as the origin of it. Along with it, interaction was being kept like fraternal relation. Thus, over time, the space in which the activity performed became place of interaction, place of riung mungpulung.
[1] Paul M. Munoz, “Early Kingdoms of the Indonesian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula” (2006) p. 72
[2] The term “mandala” proposed by O.W. Wolters as a metaphor to designate either a sphere of influence (recognizable territory without clear boundaries) or a specific territory in Southeast Asian history – see O.W. Wolters, “History, Culture and Religion in Southeast Asian Perspectives (1999) p.141.
[3] As written in “Carita Parahiyangan” manuscript.
[4] Eisha Niyogi De, “Trans-status subject: Gender in the Globalization of South and Southeast Asia” p.90
[5] Reimar Schefold, P. Nas, “Indonesian House: Survey of Vernacular Architecture in Western Indonesia” p.539
[6] See Glossary (B 3-4)
[7] See Glossary (B 5-6)
[8] See Glossary (B 3-4)
[9] See Glossary (C 1)
[10] See Glossary (B 7)
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