Kutai sacred ceremony shows how to serve

Kutai sacred ceremony shows how to serve

Pandaya, The Jakarta Post, Tenggarong, East Kalimantan

The clock struck 8 p.m. The last guests briskly filed into the
Old Palace verandah, where about 100 people were seated on
carpets.

In the eastern section of the long verandah was a gamelan
orchestra. Three rows of palace relatives in colorful traditional
court dress were seated nearby. In the western section were
aristocrats solemnly seated among the younger members of the
royal family.

In the center was a beautifully decorated chamber with two
empty thrones facing a mat on which an array of offerings were
laid. In the middle of everything stood Tiang Ayu, a tall wooden
stick with a yellow ribbon and a cord tied around its neck.

About a dozen Dayak tribeswomen in yellow (the court's
official color) traditional dress and bare-chested men in tribal
attire were seated around mat. The women were dancers and one of
the men was a mantra-chanting shaman.

The gamelan orchestra began playing, filling the spacious room
with an ancient melody that transported the audience back to the
13th century. That was when the Kutai Kartanegara Hindu kingdom
sent a delegation to learn gamelan from the Majapahit kingdom in
Java, according to folklore.

So began the Pelas, a sacred ritual held as part of Erau, a
cultural festival as old as the Kutai Kartanegara sultanate.
Originally, Erau was held to coronate a king but over the course
of time it has been transformed into a folk festival.

The Dayak dancers, all relatives, perform the Gambuh -- a
sacred court dance performed only at special ceremonies. The
dance basically consists of scenes that symbolize the cleansing
the palace of evil spirits, inviting in the spirit of Sri Gambuh
Pengeran Ganjur for spiritual protection and entertaining the
sultan.

One of the more dynamic movements, which symbolizes the
cleansing of the palace of evil spirit, is performed by a woman
who dances in circles around the mat, occasionally shooting a
burning arrow into the air.

Then a pengeran, the most senior official in the court's
administrative hierarchy, appears and dances with the female
dancers. This is done to attract the spirit of Sri Gambuh
Pengeran Ganjur.

The ritual culminates with Sultan Aji Muhammad Salehuddin II,
77, reaffirming in the name of God his vow to shepherd his
subjects to prosperity.

He then stands up, steps onto the mat, holds the ribbon and
the cord tied around the Tiang Ayu in both his hands and steps
on a gong. At the same moment the bang of a gun in the palace
yard shatters the silence, indicating the sultan's pledge has
been accepted by God and the masses.

Then the sultan slowly turns his back and returns to his seat
under the throne, holding loosely in his right hand the yellow
ribbon and in his left the cord. As he sits, the shaman begins to
chant and the sultan stands up and repeats the ritual two more
times.

The frail sultan and his wife prefer to sit on the carpet with
other palace members rather than on the thrones, as a symbol of
their commitment to building a more egalitarian society.

Tiang Ayu, in the Kutai cosmology, links God and mankind, with
the sultan, who is committed to serving both, acting as the
mediator.

"When Tiang Ayu is erected to mark the start of Erau, the
sultan is being reminded that he is a servant of his subjects,"
said Aji Pengeran Hario Atmo Kesumo, a senior court official in
charge of cultural affairs. "Then the sultan must treat the voice
of the people as the voice of God."

The Ganjur dance is associated with Tiang Ayu and the court
ritual, and therefore the sacred dance cannot be performed
outside the palace.

"The dance is essentially to entertain the king and Sang Yang
Wisnu, guardian of the universe," Atmo Kesumo said.

The two-hour ceremony ends with male and female Dayak shamans
escorting the sultan back to his room.

The ritual, like many others that the court is striving to
preserve, is a showcase of Kutai's highly tolerant culture, which
blends elements of Hinduism, Islam and animism. Hinduism, the
religion of the early Kutai kingdoms, is a minority religion now
embraced by 1,200 people in Kutai Kartanegara, according to
official statistics.

The majority of Kutai Kartanegara's 471,300 population is
Muslim (386,985), followed by Protestant (21,821), Catholic
(6,688) and Buddhist (1,947). The regency is a mixture of the
indigenous (Kutai, Benuaq, Tunjung, Bahau, Modang, Kenyah, Punan
and Kayan) and migrants (mostly from Java and Sulawesi).

"Even though the majority of Kutai Kartanegara's population
has embraced Islam, we maintain the Hindu and animist flares in
rituals as an integral part of Kutai's indigenous tradition,"
said Atmo Kesumo.

"We need to preserve our culture to allow the younger
generation to learn history without any distortions," he told The
Jakarta Post.