Sumbanese princess marries American in traditional pomp

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): What does a princess in this day and age do when she decides to marry? She goes and gets married, of course, except that the wedding is less lavish and more modest.

When Maria Angeli Dalisay Malo Djakababa, 30, the first granddaughter of the late Raja Yoseph Malo Danggadora of Rara, West Sumba, decided to marry, she did not realize that this would also be the moment when her past would catch up with her. She was like any other Indonesian youngster who was brought up mainly in cosmopolitan Jakarta by a Sumbanese father and a mother from the Philippines, who went to an American university to get a degree in business management.

With so much going on in her life, Maria found just enough time to return to vacation in the sandalwood island of Sumba which is also famous for its fragrant cinnamon forests. She had heard numerous stories about slavery, human sacrifices and head- hunting among the people of Sumba, a vast majority of whom still live by animistic beliefs, ritually keeping the balance between Merapu, the gods of the sky above, and Nyale, the sea goddess of the world below. But in her mind they remained just that; stories told to her by others.

She was too busy studying and then trying to find a job to care too much about what was happening on the hot, dry island south of Komodo that seems to exist by itself, apart from the main chain of islands in the Indian Ocean.

The firstborn of the only son of the Raja says that she feels so modern, so at home in New York.

"I always thought I would have a quiet wedding with only close relatives at my side," she told The Jakarta Post during one of the traditional ceremonies that took place in full regalia at her home in Permata Hijau, South Jakarta.

All that changed when one day she found Cliff, now her husband, down on his knees proposing to her. Without having given much thought earlier to what it meant to be Sumbanese, Maria said that her entire background floated past her and she heard herself exclaim, "Oh my God, how does Cliff fit into all this?"

When Maria and Cliff called Jakarta from the U.S. to inform the family that they wanted to marry, her father, Cornelius Malo Djakababa, roared: "Whoever heard of giving his daughter away on the telephone?"

Although this is a family that has been modernizing itself since the turn of the last century, it still believes that there is a way of doing things. The main aim of man, the Sumbanese believe, is to maintain a peaceful and fruitful relationship with the marapu, or ancestral spirits.

Observing all the customs and rules and performing necessary rituals is to keep the dead happy so that the living can get on with life.

It is believed that the living can never experience harmony and prosperity if their ancestors are restless and unhappy. The exchange of many gifts at marriages is symbolic of the prosperity that is wished for the newlyweds. Marriages are performed not just for individual pleasure but also symbolize the continuity of life, fertility and healthy harvests. The exchange of animals between the two families involved in a wedding represents worldly riches, while the generous gifts made of the beautifully embroidered ikat stands for merging, blending, bonding -- just like the tying and dying of threads and colors weaved into cloth.

After being told the deeper meaning of marriage, Maria started to look forward to the wedding ceremonies. Being a practical person, she was concerned about wasteful expenditure. But when she was told by an army of aunts that this was to be the first grand wedding in the family after 40 years, she gave up. At some point she started to even enjoy all the fuss that was made over her.

"I had always been daddy's little princess but today everybody makes me feel like one. And I am enjoying it thoroughly," Maria said with stars in her eyes.

When Cliff arrived with his American family in Jakarta, he was led to Maria's house and told to knock on the door through a mediator, to give his name and purpose of his visit. And only after the girl's family was convinced of Cliff's noble intention and accepted the mamoli, a miniature replica of a woman's womb in gold brought by him as a gift, did the gongs beat once more, the drums rolled on and Sumbanese dancers performed in gay abandon.

It is not enough in traditional societies for only the boy and the girl to know each other. The two families have to accept each other as well and to mediate in the future between the couple in times of both misunderstandings and joy.

Since Maria's family is Catholic, a church wedding took place in Jakarta and another one at Weetabula Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Sumba last Saturday when she, the pride of her family and one of Sumba's best daughters, was showered with blessings and prayers that are meant to follow her wherever she goes.

The culmination of the week-long celebrations take place on Sunday, when the moon has not quite waned, and the newlywed couple will enter the ancestral village of Puurkarudi on the border of Rara on foot to light candles at the door of the hidden world of the late Raja of Rara and his wife. In return, water will be sprinkled upon the newlyweds as a sign of blessing from the ancestor, gone but not forgotten.

Djakababa, a Jakarta-based businessman and hotelier, insists this is the real spirit behind all the dance and drama of Sumba where life is considered incomplete without the blessing of elders, whether they are dead or still alive.