Endearing or En-daring?:

By Yoonhee Kang

In Petalangan honey-collecting chants (menumbai), bees are described as a pretty young girl who falls in love with a bee-shaman (juagan), a performer of the ritual. I attempt to analyze 1) how the process of Menumbai ritual is romanticized in relation to the actual working process of collecting honey, and 2) what kinds of linguistic features and devices are used to encode love in its songs. By focusing on Petalangan cultural specific discourses on love as a metapragmatic dimension of the Menumbai performance, this paper aims to call an attention to affective dimensions of language ideology in general.

1. Introduction

What do people do with words? I will begin by analyzing the sentence, “I love you.” This sentence describes and expresses the speaker‘s feeling of love toward the addressee. According to Speech Act Theory, the expressive speech act has nothing to do with the “world,” because the utterance of one‘s psychological state does not have any contextual effect in the world (Searle, 1979:11)[1]. As a critique of this universalized perspective of Speech Act Theory, I argue for cultural and contextual differences in the meanings and functions of speech acts by analyzing Petalangan honey-collecting chants.

 Petalangan people practice the honey-collecting ritual called menumbai when they harvest honey from bee-nested trees. Menumbai literally means “enchanting bees with songs” (Turner, 1997). Petalangan people believe that the ritual engenders magic that protects the honey-collectors from being stung by the bees. Given that the menumbai songs are mostly love songs, I will discuss the functions and meanings of the performance of the songs. What do people do with the love songs? Why do people believe the love songs can be magic?

I will address the following questions in this paper:

First, how do the ritual songs encode love? By analyzing the textual organization of the ritual songs, I will discuss what kinds of conventional linguistic devices and rhetoric are employed to express love.

Second, why do people perform the love songs to collect honey?. I will demonstrate that expressive speech acts can be used as “directives”-” the attempts by the speaker to get the hearer to do something” (Searle, 1979:13). My concern involves the Petalangan metapragmatic dimension that makes possible the link between expressive speech and directive speech. Third, what are the instrumental functions of the love songs?. I will demonstrate how the ritual songs are related to the actual working process of collecting honey. Rejecting the simple dichotomy between expressive and pragmatic speech acts, I will argue for the multiple and contextual meanings and functions of the performance of the ritual songs.

The ritual that I analyze in this paper was documented in March 1999, while I was conducting ethnographic field research among the Petalangan people of Riau in Indonesia from 1998 to 1999.

2. Ethnographic Background of Menumbai Ritual

Petalangan people are one of the indigenous ethnic groups in the Kampar river hinterlands of Sumatra, Indonesia. As an isolated and remote group, Petalangans engage in dry rice cultivation and fishing, and they remain dependent on forest products for their livelihoods. Honey is one of these important forest products, which people sell in nearby towns. Bee-nested trees in the forest, which are called sialang, are not private property, but the public property of each clan2. The clan leaders strictly regulate the collection and distribution of honey.

The collection of honey requires a specific ritual called menumbai, meaning “enchanting bees with songs” (Turner, 1997). In Petalangan beliefs, honey and sialang trees belong to forest spirits and not to human beings. Therefore, the practice of ritual songs is analogous to requesting permission to harvest the honey.

The performer of the menumbai songs is called juagan or dukun robah, meaning “bee-shaman.”  then the wild beehives of the sialang tree are discovered to be full of honey, the clan leaders organize a work team to collect it. The team consists of a bee-shaman who climbs the tree and the assistants who collect the honey on the ground3 as the juagan gets buckets of honey down from the branches.

Menumbai ritual always takes place in the darkness of a moonless night, because if the bees see light they go wild and sting people. The ritual begins with the juagan‘s recitation of magic spells. After he recites the magic spells quietly, he slaps the tree trunk and waits for an answer from the bees. The deep humming reply from thousands of bees indicates ‘permission‘ for him to climb the tree.

Upon receiving an answer from the bees, the juagan starts to recite the menumbai ritual songs, and then climbs the tree and reaches the bee-nests. As he continues singing, he brushes the bee nests with a fire torch, and the spellbound bees fall with sparks of fire down to the ground. After all the bees are removed from the nests, the jua-gan takes the beeswax and lowers it by means of a rope and bucket to the ground where his assistants and clan leaders are waiting.

3. How to Encode Love in the Menumbai Ritual Songs

3.1. Lineal Organization of the Performance

During the menumbai ritual, 32 types of pantun are recited. Pantun is a traditional quatrain of Malay poetry that displays an alternate rhyme pattern. Semantically, each pantun consists of two metaphorical statements that are placed in parallel so that in combination they indicate a single hidden meaning.

The performance of menumbai ritual songs projects a series of imaginary scenes of interactions between juagan and bees. For example, Song 1 is performed before juagan climbs the tree.

(1) Song 1: Before climbing the tree.

1.	Popat-popat tana ibu	1.	Flatten-flatten the noisy land
2.	Mai popat di tana tombang	2.	Let‘s flatten the dented land
3.	Nonap-nonap Cik Dayang tidou	3.	Sleep-sleep Miss Beauty
4.	Juagan mudo di pangkal sialang	4.	Young juagan is at the bottom

     
As one typical form of pantun, it shows a rhyme in “ibu” and “tidou,” “tombang” and “sialang.” Semantically, the image of “flattening the land down” in the first two lines parallels with the scene of the “sleeping Miss Beauty” in the last two lines. By addressing bees as “Miss Beauty,” and himself as “Young juagan,” this scene portrays the first scene of juagan‘s “getting permission” to see the girl. Given the pantun is conventionally considered a prevalent style used in courtship, its structure also enhances the images of romantic relationship in the menumbai songs.

As he climbs up the tree and works on the branches, juagan continues singing menumbai songs until he finishes his work. The main themes of the performance are 1) requesting permission to visit a girl, 2) approaching the girl‘s room, 3) meeting with the girl, and 4) saying good-bye. This series of imaginary scenes in menumbai songs is analogous to a type of social visit in Petalangan daily life.

3.2. Terms of Endearment and Performance Frame

Terms of address are an important means for framing sets of relationships between figures  projected in a performance. In menumbai ritual, juagan addresses the bees with nicknames, such as “Miss

Beauty” in Song 1, “Itam Mani,” “Sweet and Black,” in Song 2, and “Putih Kuning,” “White and Yellow,” in Song 3.

(2) Nicknames

a. Song 2

1.	Masak bua kombang mani	1.	Ripened fruit, blossomed sweet
2.	Masak sabutie dijaut ungko	2.	Ripened Sabutie (fruit), a monkey snatches
3.	Kami batumo nan Itam Mani	3.	We meet Sweet and Black
4.	Mangulang da‘a ke muko	4.	Blood boils up to the face

b. Song 3

1.	Anak buayo mudik mendu	1.	Baby crocodile goes upstream
2.	Iyak sampai di pelabuhan	2.	Iyak (bird) arrives at the harbor
3.	Putih kuning bukakan baju	3.	White and Yellow, open clothes
4.	Abang menengok betubuhan	4.	Brother looks at the body

These nicknames are iconic indexes that address a pretty girl, referring to specific attributes of the addressee‘s physical appearance. “Sweet and Black” (Song 2) refers to a “dark skinned but cute person,” while “White and Yellow” (Song 3) refers to a pretty girl who has white and bright skin. Implicating a speaker‘s positive assessments of an addressee as “beautiful” or “sweet,” these epithets serve as terms of endearment.

(3) Song 4: Kinship terms

1.	Apo tensu kayu di imbo	1.	What are trees for in the forest
2.	Maiko buat papan benaik	2.	Let‘s come here to make a panel to climb
3.	Adik bongsu jangan baibo	3.	Youngest sister, don‘t be sad
4.	Kolam esok naik balik	4.	Next night [I will] return to climb

Other conventional terms used in the songs are “abang” and “adik,” typical address terms for boyfriend and girlfriend. Note that these terms originally refer to the “elder sibling” and “younger sibling” relationship, which extends to a romantic relationship4.  In Song 4, for example, the bees are even called “adik bongsu,” “the youngest sister,” a person who is most cherished in the family. The analogy between lovers‘ and siblings‘ relationships is based on their similar affection of mutual care, such as love and compassion5. The terms “abang” and “adik” thus have an iconic property by evoking the conventional social roles and expectations of the similarly iconic relationship between siblings as care-givers and care-receivers. The menumbai ritual songs convey these affective meanings by invoking specific iconic relationships embedded in conventional address terms.

3.3. Embodied Emotions: Descriptions of the Performer‘s Perceptual Experiences

Menumbai ritual songs entail affective meanings through the visual descriptions of a speaker‘s perceptual experiences. In Song 3, for instance, the erotic implication of line 3‘s “Open clothes” is accompanied by the description of the speaker‘s perceptual experiences in line 4‘s, “Brother looks at the body.”.

Expression of love also draws on the description of the speaker‘s bodily sensations, which always appear with the description of associated events where the addressee is involved. The speaker‘s bodily senses and his interactions with the addressee emerge in cause-effect pairs. In Song 2, by saying “Blood boils up to the face,” the performer conveys his excitement. The description of the event in line 3, “We meet Black and Sweet,” provides cause for the speaker‘s physiological changes. Expression of love is not built upon the abstract statement of the mental states of the participants, but rather on the concrete description of the speaker‘s bodily experiences in his interactions with the addressee.

4. Pragmatics of Love in the Menumbai Ritual: Back to the Context

4.1. Why Lovers?: Metapragmatic Dimensions of Language Practice

The textual organization of the menumbai ritual projects the participants as lovers through the resource of Petalangan social conventions. The analogy of the romantic relationship in the menumbai ritual, however, is not based on similarities, but rather on the “expansion” or “transferance” of meaning (Tambiah, 1973). In this sense, these terms are not referential but “creative” or “performative” (Silverstein, 1976). By using the mutual address terms of “abang” and “adik,” juagan attempts to formulate his relationship to the bees as that of a lover in order to achieve his desired end of safely harvesting the honey. The menumbai ritual is believed to persuasively transfer the desirable properties of the relationship between lovers to the relationship between the bee-shaman and the bees.

Then, why lovers? Petalangans‘ cultural notions of love explain the metalinguistic dimension of Petalangan language practice. In Petalangan society, people conceive and perceive love as an exchange, frequently represented by that between love and material rewards. Expressions of love can be directives, because they evoke social bonds and roles embedded in relationships. A bee-shaman wants to formulate his relationship with the bees as one of lovers in order to serve his desires for the safe harvest of honey. People believe that his performance of love songs can create sentimental bonds with the bees, which are realized in an exchange between the bee-shaman‘s performance and the bees‘ offering of honey.

4.2. Intralinguistic Context: “I” and “You”

How, then, do songs bring magical effects in the immediate pragmatic context? In terms of intralinguistic context, the shaman‘s recitation of the magic spell before the public performance of the ritual songs links the iconic relationships in the performance frame to the present participants in the interactive frame (cf. Hanks, 1990).

This magic spell contextualizes the whole ritual by naming the interlocutors and by defining their relationships. In the spell, the bee- shaman names the bee as “White Fly Maddened by Light” and the bee sting as “Fatima‘s broken needle.”

(4) Monto robah (Bee-spell)

1.	Bismillahiramahirrohim	1.	In the name of God
2.	Apo kejadian lobah,	2.	What‘s becoming of the bees?
3.	Lalat Putih Soi Majnun	3.	White Fly Maddened by Light
4.	Apo kejadian songat,	4.	What‘s becoming of the sting?
5.	Ja‘um patah Siti Fatima	5.	Siti Fatima (girl)‘s broken needle.
6.	Lobah jangan dibagi meamuk	6.	Bees, do not be allowed to be furious
7.	Lobah jangan dibagi menyongat	7.	Bees, do not be allowed to sting
8.	Songat engkau daku	8.	A sting on your chin
9.	Menyongat kataku	9.	“Sting” I say
10.	ba‘u engkau menyongat,	10.	then, you sting,
11.	kini songat engkau daku	11.	this time a sting on your chin.
12.	Aku tau kejadian engkau	12.	I know what becomes of you.
13.	Ampo padi kejadian engkau	13.	Empty husk is what becomes of you.
14.	Nan bone tinggal di aku	14.	What is truly left to me is
15.	nan ampo jatuh melayang	15.	empty husk falling down
16.	ke langit langkah tujuh	16.	to the seven layered sky
17.	awan gemawan	17.	where lots of clouds,
18.	di situlah engkau.	18.	that is where you are.
19.	Kemano aku su‘u	19.	Wherever I command
20.	ke situlah engkau po‘i,	20.	that is where you go.
21.	engkau jangan menyulap kepado aku iko	21.	You, don‘t conjure this me
22.	Engkau pulang ke asal,	22.	You go back to the place
23.	engkau mulo jadi	23.	where you came into being,
24.	Aku pulang ke asal,	24.	I go back to the place
25.	aku mulo jadi	25.	where I came into being.
26.	Begitulah ca‘onyo kito basahabat	26.	This is the way we keep friendship
27.	sonjak dahulu sampai kini	27.	from long ago until now.
28.	Bokat lailahaillahllah	28.	Please bless me, Allah is the only God

The usage of “I” and “you” in the magic spell provides an “interactive frame” where the interlocutors appear not as lovers, but as the shaman who orders and the bees who are subordinate to the shaman. Given that the second person pronoun “engkau” is only used to address a young child or to attempt to insult an adult7, using this pronoun locates the speaker as a higher or more powerful subject who can order and control the bees, as shown in lines 8 through 23. Embedded in the interactive frame of the magic spell, the public performance of the love songs becomes magic to order the bees not to disturb the shaman.

4.3. Extralinguistic Context: Menumbai Songs and Working Process

In the extralinguistic context, menumbai songs serve to indicate the shaman‘s working process to other working crew members.8 The audience on the ground cannot see the bee-shaman, who is working at the top of the tree in the moonless darkness. Given that the expressive meanings of the menumbai ritual songs are through the descriptions of the bee-shaman‘s perceptual experiences, the menumbai can indicate the shaman‘s current position and activities that are otherwise not visually accessible to the crew on the ground.

For example, in Song 2, line 4‘s “blood boils up to the face,” expresses the shaman‘s excitement at “meeting Sweet and Black,” while it also indexes that the shaman is approaching the bee-nests. Likewise, Song 3 is performed when the bee-shaman begins to brush the nests to lure the bees away. Here “White and Yellow” describes the honey contained in the nest, while Line 3‘s “Open clothes” implies that the shaman is about to “open the bee-nests” to get the “white and yellow” honey.

When the shaman is about to finish his work and go back to the bottom of the tree, he sings Song 4, saying, “don‘t be sad.” The expression of sorrow and regret upon parting also signals the beeshaman‘s current activity-climbing down the tree. By romanticizing the relationship between the shaman and the bees, each song of the menumbai ritual also indicates the bee-shaman‘s current work process to the crew on the ground.

5. Conclusion: Menumbai Ritual as a Multi-layered Communicative Practice

In conclusion, expressions of love in menumbai songs can function as “directives” by evoking social bonds and roles between interlocutors, which are symbolized by the exchange between the performance and honey. The love songs also serve to indicate the honey-collector‘s working process in the immediate pragmatic context. Culturally-specific ways of encoding love in Petalangan society, such as descriptions of bodily perceptions or sensations instead of abstract statements of mental states, enable the bee-shaman in the tree to communicate his current activities to other workers on the ground. Unlike the universalized perspective of “one sentence-one meaning” in Speech Act Theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1979), the analysis of Petalangan menumbai ritual reveals the multiple meanings and functions of the performance.

Furthermore, by refuting the individualistic perspectives of Speech Act Theory (cf. Rosaldo, 1982),9 Petalangan honey-collecting chants demonstrate the importance of social conventions and contextual constraints in explaining the performance of the ritual. Understanding the performance of Petalangan honey-collecting chants requires local knowledge of the “world,” including Petalangan discourses of love, social role expectations, and the sentiments embedded in a specific social relationship. In addition, the Petalangans‘? local understandings of “words,” such as those of specific genre conventions, and their beliefs in the creative power of words, become the metapragmatic dimension of the performance of the menumbai ritual. The conventional forms of expression of love frame the juagan and the bees as lovers in the hope that this naming practice can transfer the desirable properties of a romantic relationship to the relationship of the bee-shaman and the bees, based on Petalangan beliefs in the creative power of words.

Glossary

abang: Elder brother, boyfriend, or husband
adik: Younger sibling, girlfriend, or wife
juagan: Title for a honey-collector. Also called “dukun loba” (bee-shaman)
menumbai: Enchanting bees with songs (lit.) Petalangan honeycollecting ritual
pantun: A traditional quatrain of Malay poetry
sialang: Bee-nested trees
tukang sambut: Receiving workers (lit.). Members of the honey-collecting crew on the ground. They make a “jalan,” a road (lit.), a ladder to climb up a bee-nested tree, and they collect honey on the ground as a juagan lowers it by means of a rope and bucket from the branches of sialang tree.

References

• Austin, John. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Brown, Michael F. 1984. The role of words in Aguaruna hunting magic. American Ethnologist 11: 545-558.
• Hanks, Wiliam. F. 1990. Referential Practice: Language and Lived Space among theMaya. Chicago: University of Chicago.
• Kang, Yoonhee. 2000. Addressing the invisible world: indexicality, iconicity, and the cultural concept of self in Belian, a Petalangan healing ritual in Indonesia. Presented at the 8th Symposium About Language and Society—Austin. April 7-9, 2000.
• Kipp, Rita Smith. 1986. Terms of endearment: Karo Batak lovers as siblings. American Ethnologist 13: 632-645.
• Rosaldo, Michelle Z. 1982. The things we do with words: Ilongot speech acts and speech act theory in philosophy. Language in Society 11: 203-237.
• Searle, John. 1979. Expression and Meanings: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Silverstein, Michael. 1976. Shifters, linguistic categories, and cultural description. In Meaning in Anthropology, K. H. Basso and H. A. Selby (eds.) Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 11-55.
• Tambiah, Stanley, J. 1973 Form and meaning of magical acts: a point of view. In Modes of Thought, R. Horton and R. Finnegan (eds.) London: Faber and Faber. 199-229. Turner, Ashley.1997. Cultural survival: Identity and the performing arts of Kampar‘s Suku Petalangan. Bijdragen: Tot de Taal-, Land-, en Volkenkunde 153, 4. 648-671.

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By Yoonhee Kang, Yale University

Credit photo : www.yoonkeekang.net

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