The Bissu are more than men dressed in women's clothes

The Bissu are more than men dressed in women's clothes

Text by Mehru Jaffer, photos by P.J. Leo

JAKARTA (JP): In ancient, precolonial times when god was
neither one nor male, when women actively participated in the
economic realm and had control over their earnings, virginity was
not considered as precious as gold dust, adultery was not worthy
of note, both women and men were chieftains and, above all, many
women were custodians of the spiritual domain.

The Bissu community of South Sulawesi are perhaps left over
from those times. Four out of its twenty surviving members
visited Jakarta recently to participate in a two-day seminar
organized by the Japan Foundation. They told audiences it was not
shameful to be proud of one's traditions; traditions that are now
threatened by a blanket concept of morality.

The Bissu cannot be compared to banci (transvestites). They do
not dress provocatively to attract sexual attention, or entertain
people with lewd singing and dancing to earn a living. The Bissu
are linked with the importance given to women in ancient
societies in regard to the spiritual well-being of communities.
These societies were not organized only for the advantage of men.
In fact, some men thought it honorable to cross-dress and
preferred to behave in an effeminate way for they were unaware of
the need to present the themselves as macho sex symbols. Their
identification with the feminine was simply to reinforce the
belief that femininity was the vehicle to the world of spirits.

These male/feminine shamans lived in the third realm of
spirituality, between earth nor heaven, and played an important
religious role in society. In South Sulawesi, the Bissu dressed
up in the same way as female members of the Bugis royal family
and presided over all the courtly sacred rituals. They were
highly respected for their spiritual powers and were custodians
of all the kingdom's heirlooms.

The king always consulted the head of the Bissu community
before making an important decision and sought blessings from the
gods only through the Bissu. The Bissu, in fact, performed a
similar role as the male kodi from Sumba, the basir of the Ngaju
Dayak of Kalimantan, the manang bali of the Iban in Borneo, all
of whom were reputed with the power to communicate with unseen
agents through religious rituals performable only after dressing
in women's clothing.

However, the palace lost its place at the center of society,
and the Europeans from monotheistic societies who poured into the
traditional space also brought with them an unequal power
relationship between men and women, called "man over woman".

As a result, the place of the third sex, once woven so
discretely within the cultural setting of ancient society, began
to tatter and reduced the nonconforming gender behavior of some
men and all their spiritual potency to academic research.

Leonard Y. Andaya, author of The Bissu: The study of a Third
Generation in Indonesia writes about biological males who had
assumed the dress, occupations, mannerisms and sexual comportment
of females. This third sex group functioned outside societal
norms, had suprahuman powers of intercession with the sacred and
was regarded as being neither male nor female nor a composite of
both. It was their ambiguous status that located them beyond the
more conventional sexual and gender dualism of society and it
became a sign associated with the primal creative force, whose
sex was also unknown.

It was not just colonialist missionaries but also local
patriarchs that forced this population to conform to the two-sex,
two-gender model.

From the mid-1960s, the Bissu were banned from performing
their rites and rituals and their temples were reduced to rubble
due to neglect. Many are rumored to have been killed.

However, unable to defy the dictates of their instinct, 20
Bissu survive today. "For over three decades we were forced into
hiding, pretending to be what we were not," said one of them,
still unable to speak Bahasa Indonesia. Most of the Bissu
communicate with each other in their own ancient language. Their
feelings and thoughts were translated for the audience at the
seminar by an interpreter.

While doing jobs like cutting hair in beauty salons to earn
money, these people spend the rest of their time reciting ancient
prayers and keeping alive their sacred rites and rituals.

They are grateful to be out of hiding now and are happy to
give public performances. Their main objective is to continue
mediating between man and the gods even in these high-tech,
modern but also troubled times. Their dream is to earn enough
money to be able to rebuild the sacred space of their temple of
worship.

And considering the thunderous response their solemn but
colorful performances of sacred ceremonies and trance dances
received in Jakarta, the Bissu have the possibility of
multiplying into a thriving community. That is, if the moralists
and the self-styled guardians of good and bad behavior leave them
alone.