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.