Sarah Weiss-Listening To An Earlier Java - Aesthetics, Gender, and The Music of Wayang in Central Java-KITLV Press (2007) PDF

LISTENING TO AN EARLIER JAVA
To
Rebecca and Rainer, my source
Benjamin and Samuel, my sustenance
Tony, my life and love
Cover: Photographs of Ibu Pringga taken by the author.

V E R H A N D E L I N G E N
VAN HET KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT
VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE
237
SARAH WEISS
LISTENING TO AN EARLIER JAVA
Aesthetics, gender, and the music of wayang

in Central Java
KITLV Press
Leiden
2006
Published by:
KITLV Press
Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
(Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies)
P.O. Box 9515
2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands
website: www.kitlv.nl
e-mail: kitlvpress@kitlv.nl
KITLV is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

(KNAW)
A CD-ROM (compatible for Mac or PC) with musical examples and transcriptions
of grimingan in each pathet is included with this book. The introduction and con-
tents of the CD-ROM can be found on the CD-ROM itself.
Cover: Creja ontwerpen, Leiderdorp
ISBN-10 90 6718 273 7

ISBN-13 978 90 6718 273 7
© 2006 Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner.
Printed in the Netherlands

Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction; Preliminary soundings 1

On the problems of being there: fieldwork at Central Javanese events 8
Refinement, restraint, rules, and rasa: music and politics in
Central Javanese courts 10
Listening back to an earlier Java: rasa, female gender players,
and grimingan 13
I Musical analysis and cultural analysis; Pathet, grimingan, and gender 19

On musical notation 20
Javanese gamelan music: some basics 21
Pathet and ‘the village’ 26
Grimingan: an introduction 30
Culturally bounded styles of analysis 32
Grimingan: hearing or imposing structure and form? 34
Comparing suluk and grimingan as played on the gender 37
The process of grimingan 39
Sameness in Javanese music performance contextualized 41
Finding pathet in grimingan 45
Conclusion 49
II Competing hegemonies; The discourse on Javanese gender 51

On Javanese power and potency 52
The paradigm of potency: the Javanese idea of (male) potency 55
Feminist strategies: parallel power structures 56
Feminist strategies: inserting women into the dominant male
paradigm 58
Feminist strategies: reinserting women into the discourse
on potency 60
Disempowerment and male bias 64
Competing and interacting hegemonies in Java 69
III Flaming wombs and female gender players; Orders, chaos, and gender in
Central Javanese myth 77
Nyai Lara Kidul: loyal consort and destroyer of Central
Javanese rulers 80
Chaotic love 82
Female gender players and the gendered interaction between chaos and
order 87
Myths and mundane realities 97
IV Javanese rasa; Gendering emotion and restraint 103

Javanese performance and rasa 106
Rasa in Javanese music theoretical texts 109
Javanese music theories in historical context 112
Location and difference: constructions of urban and rural
performance styles 114
Talking about difference: distinguishing male and female styles
of genderan 120
Interpreting difference: distinguishing male and female styles
of genderan 124
Gendered rasa: concluding marks 128
V Listening back 131

Connecting old and court wayang styles through aesthetics 138
The lakon Palasara in the Serat Sastramiruda 140
Transitions to marital bliss: on the significance of gapuran 143
Pain and pleasure of separation: the order and chaos of loyalty 151
Particularly Javanese additions to the Bharatayuddha 153
Conclusion; Final soundings 159
Glossary 163
Bibliography 167
Index 179
Acknowledgements
Like all extended projects, this book is the result of interaction with and help
from many people in multiple locations around the world. I would like first
to acknowledge my deep debt to the many Javanese musicians around the
world who have generously shared their knowledge and experience with
me, either in person or indirectly through their performances and writings. In
particular, I would like to thank the performers of old-style genderan whom I
had the opportunity to record: Ibu Gandasaruya, Ibu Gandasukasno, Bapak
Karnadihardja, Bapak Moro, Ibu Parjinem, Ibu Parto, Ibu Pringga, Ibu Sarju,
Bapak Suratno SKar, and the many dhalang they accompanied. In their own
ways, each was a keen interlocutor, a marvellous musician, and a thoughtful
social commentator; I am grateful to have spent time talking about Javanese
wayang and culture with them. Among the many teachers of gamelan per-
formance with whom I have had the honour of studying, I thank the multiply
talented, skilful, and generous Bapak I.M Harjito, Bapak Sudarsono, and
Bapak Midiyanto, and Ibu Tukinem. I would also like to thank the diverse
and interesting community of scholars of Javanese culture, musical and other-
wise, around the world. I have regularly been inspired and urged forward
by the constantly developing ideas, information, arguments, and analyses
that circulate amongst us. The community of scholars who work on Javanese
music, in particular, has a depth of history, experience, and sheer number
of practitioners that is rare amongst area-specialist groups involved in eth-
nomusicological enquiry. This relative crowding is invigorating, challenging
analysts to move beyond description into deep analysis.
Many institutions have fostered the development of this book. Ralph
Samuelson and the Asian Cultural Council funded the initial research. The
Faculty of Arts and Sciences at New York University, the Faculty of Arts at the
University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia, the College of Arts and Sciences
at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the Faculty of Arts and
Sciences at Harvard University, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yale
University each provided generous institutional support of various kinds.
The Indonesian institutions LIPI (Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia) and
STSI (Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia) Surakarta kindly agreed to support my
viii Acknowledgements
visa application for research in Central Java.

I thank the many colleagues who have read chapters, commented on oral
presentations, and just chatted about ideas over the years. I would especially
like to acknowledge: Marc Perlman who suggested I look into female-style
genderan; Sumarsam for his engagement with and interest in this project and
for his commitment to breaking intellectual boundaries; Andrew Weintraub
for his thoughtful commentary on many of the foundational issues in this
work; Lisa Gold, Susan Walton, Andy Sutton, René Lysloff, Ingrid Monson,
and Adelaida Reyes for interesting conversations about gender in Southeast
Asia; Judith Becker for her groundbreaking work on Javanese aesthetics and
musical processes; Ellen Koskoff for her inspired work on gender and music;
Stanley Boorman for inspiration and for helping to shepherd this project
into its original form; Harry Poeze, Director of the KITLV Press, for his quiet
confidence and meticulousness; Susi Moeimam, editor, and Marjan Groen,
lay-out editor, both at KITLV Press, for infinite good advice and support; and
the generous and thoughtful anonymous readers for the same institution.
Thanks also to Jim Hepokoski for indexing inspiration and to Pam Patterson
for help with the CD-ROM. Kay Shelemay, a force unto herself, began as a dis-
sertation advisor and has become an intellectual companion, a mentor, and a
life-long friend. Tony Day has suffered through every draft of every chapter;
his intellectual prowess, exhortations, cajolings, and rejoicings have sustained
me through the years, in many homes and at many universities. Without his
support, his steady belief in my ideas and this project, I feel sure I could never
have finished it. Despite all the aforementioned advice from many different
scholars and musicians, there are certain to be weaknesses and faults found in
and with this book. For these inadequacies I am solely responsible.
INTRODUCTION
Preliminary soundings
1 Surat and Senu were in the prayer house, intoning the call to subuh prayers,
their voices tuneful
in a Banten-style melody, crystal clear,
asalatu kerun min anum echoed forth.1
2 At the end of the adan everyone prayed,

all the santri prayed,
the elderly and the poorer santri.
Jayengraga signalled for the introduction to the prayer.
3 Right after the exhortation to prayer Jayengraga began what was necessary,
usali parelas
subeki, accompanied by the usual prayer movements,
ada-an imaman lillahi tangala.
4 Then Allahu akbar kabiran alkamdu

lillahi kasiran
wa subkanallah bukratin
wa asilan, followed by the reading of the patekah.
1 This passage from the Serat Centhini bears witness to the Islamic nature of Javanese culture in
the early nineteenth century. It also demonstrates how foreign words, no less than the sounds of
the natural and physical world, are seamlessly incorporated into the poetic sound play of Javanese
literary poetry. These verses would themselves have been sung and the singer’s voice would have
brought to aural life the sound of the Arabic phrases of worship as well as the utterings of the
birds and beasts, and the creaks and groans of the mechanical world. The Arabic words ‘asalatu
kerun min anum’ in verse 1, ‘prayer is better than sleep’, come from the early morning recita-
tions performed at subuh, the first of five offerings of prayer during the day in Islamic worship.
Similarly, the Javanized Arabic words in verses 3-4 come from Arabic prayers familiar to nine-
teenth-century Javanese Muslims. In verse 5, reference is made to patekah, the opening chapter of
the Koran and, with the words ‘pan ina anjalna’, to the popular koranic chapter Sura 97. The Surat
Watini mentioned in verse 5 is a Javanese version of the koranic sura known as ‘The Fig’. In verse
6, the kunut is a special litany read in the middle of the second unit of the morning prayer after
bowing and standing. Finally, the tahyat is the greeting one says while kneeling. In verse 7, both
dikir and slawatan refer to personalized recitation and prayers performed outside of the standard
worship order, the latter usually performed in groups with frame-drum accompaniment.
2 Listening to an earlier Java
5 After the recitation of the patekah,

pan ina anjalna.
At the end of the patekah
the Surat Watini was read.
6 Then they prostrated themselves and stood up while reciting the kunut,
and prostrated themselves with two enunciations of the tahyat,
in a calm and orderly manner.
Then they gave their final salam followed by praises to God.
7 The voices were all evenly pitched, enticingly melodious,

all over the village,
some were together, some on their own,
some still reciting dikir, and some already singing slawatan.
8 Others were already reciting their Arabic lessons with a resounding buzz,
others were still summoning the faithful to prayer.
The sounds of the prosperous, beautiful village,
mingled with the squeak-squeak of men shouldering their loads to market.
9 For at the time of subuh the entire village awoke,

everyone getting to work,
waking up they got out of bed
to peddle busily things to eat or go to market.
10 Some ground meal with a crunch-crunch, while those who smelted,

the instrument makers and copper smiths,
were not silent day or night,
giving pleasure to the prosperous village.
11 So that it seemed that at subuh, all the voices

awakened the dawn,
together with the farm animals making noise,
the horses, the water buffaloes, the cows, ducks and chickens.
12 The peacock sounded nyangungong and the doves cooed,

as did the Bengal wood doves,
and the fly catcher [sikatan] sang cinggoling,
and in the trees the lady cuckoo [kolik] sang out merrily.
13 Her mate loudly answered from the waringin tree again and again,
the colak bird was sung to by the kreyak bird,
the kuthilang answered the kedhasih bird,
the green parakeet and the starling gave answers to the mynah and the golden
oriole
14 Their voices in commotion, the sounds of the birds mingled

with the voices of those who were praying.
Introduction 3
It seemed as if the birds helped

those who were praying as well as those who were selling sweetcakes.2
Serat Centhini Canto 44 verses 1-14
This passage from the early nineteenth-century poem, the Serat Centhini
(circa 1814), recounts the early morning activities of the residents of a Central
Javanese village. It so happens that the day will be an auspicious one since
it will be marked by the final preparations for an important wedding in the
home of one of the village chiefs. In the verses cited above, however, antici-
pation of the frenzy of activities particular to the day cannot yet be felt. The
early morning routines of village life are described in detail: subuh prayers are
recited, sellers head to market, smithies begin work at their forges, breakfast
peddlers amble through neighbourhoods offering sweet cakes, birds and
domestic animals attend to their morning ablutions while chattering to their
mates. What is striking about these verses is the evocation of the sound world
of a Javanese dawn. Prayerful voices are tuneful or melodious. The buzzing of
the voices reciting Arabic lessons mingles with the squeaking of the yokes of
the merchants heading to market. The repetitive sounds of work such as the
grinding of meal or the smelting of ore accompany the conversations of ani-
mals and the twittering solicitations of birds – onomatopoetically experienced
through the text which would itself have been sung out loud. The articulation
of sounds propels the reader through the narrative in the same way that the
interactions of the sounds in the early morning urge the Javanese villagers on
with their morning activities.
Although they portray the dawning of a day in nineteenth-century Java,
the verses quoted above describe an aural experience that will seem familiar
to anyone who has recently awakened at daybreak in Central Java, even in the
midst of an urban twentieth-century kampung or neighbourhood. Of course,
one needs to imagine the addition of the rumblings of motorcycles and trucks,
the monologic contributions of electronically conveyed and amplified sounds,
the preening calls of grumpy urban roosters, the snorts and splashes of nearby
morning baths, and the cries of children heading off to national schools.
An intense focus on the sound of the world is characteristic of Javanese
culture even today, at least in the areas of Central Java with which I am famil-
iar. Almost more than visual experience, Javanese tend to use sound to con-
nect themselves to the world around them. Hearing about an event is at least
as good as being there, in part because it allows for copious comment and
critique that was not possible at the original event, but also because the ver-
2 All translations from the Serat Centhini are by Tony Day unless otherwise indicated.
bal re-enactment of the event is often presented with accurate, direct quotes
and amusing sound effects. The Javanese language is filled with surprisingly
effective onomatopoetic words. Conversations are often liberally sprinkled
with words newly created to capture the real or imagined aural experience
of a particular moment or action. ‘Glup’ was the word one person used to
describe to me the experience of losing her glasses into a well. The word
expressed both the sound of the glasses falling, irretrievably, into the water
far below and the surprise and resigned acceptance she felt.
Many of the names of instruments in Javanese musical ensembles are
taken from the sounds the instruments make. Kodhok ngorek, or frogs croaking,
describes both a fifteenth-century musical ensemble still used in the Javanese
royal courts and the one piece that is played on the instruments. The basic
melody, which also in part defines the structure of the piece, suggests the
metrical, if occasionally syncopated, pattern created when frogs call to one
another in the channels of rice paddies or in urban gutters after a torrential
rain. Even without verbal re-enactment, a sound itself can be communicative
and worthy of comment. Once, at a music lesson in which I was recording the
accompaniment for the vocal piece Jineman Glathik Glinding, the musicians
came to one of the several composed stops in the flow of the piece. As they
played the last note of the phrase, an itinerant peddler unknowingly chimed
in with his characteristic jangle of a fork against a plate that happened to reso-
nate at precisely the same pitch. Hilarious laughter and repeated imitations of
the coincidentally sonorous event ensued.
The cacophony of the Javanese world can be overwhelming to some, yet
it is highly valued by most Javanese people. The aural atmosphere of the
preparation for any kind of celebratory event should be ramé, or bustling and
lively (in Javanese). Multiple sound sources are integral to the creation of the
keraméan (keramaian, Indonesian) of the moment, including the combined air-
ing of heavily amplified radio or cassette music – often from several sources,
impromptu speeches, the sounds of hawkers, the increasingly organized
sounds of multiple groups of musicians as they set up and prepare to per-
form. Traditional Javanese gamelan music, or karawitan, is itself aurally ramé
in the sense that there are many musical events happening simultaneously
in the texture of the music. The listener’s ear is not drawn primarily to one
predominant melody and then to the accompaniment. The same can be said
of wayang kulit or shadow puppet performances in which the voice of the
puppeteer, or dhalang, can be alternately dominantly strident or mellifluously
intertwined with the subdued sounds of the accompanying ensemble, only
to be suddenly drowned out when he calls for a dramatic increase in musical
volume. Most dhalang prefer to have some musical accompaniment playing
at all times.
The visitor to Central Java might be surprised that in a postcolonial,
Introduction 5
modernized society with a sizeable urban middle-class interactively linked

to the internet, MTV, and other new media, rife with political, economic, and
cultural turmoil and change, a performance art with roots reaching back to
the twelfth century and beyond can draw cheering enthusiastic crowds num-
bering in the thousands, most of whom would only be able to hear, not see,
the performance. A wayang performance is generally an all night affair. The
dhalang is the primary performer throughout most of the eight-hour event. He
controls the flow of the performance while seated behind a light source and
screen onto which he casts the shadows of puppets while telling the story cho-
sen for the evening – often one crafted with reference to Javanese versions of
the Indic Mahabharata and Ramayana. The dhalang punctuates his narrative
with plot diversions, advice to local characters – businessmen, the hosts of
the events, his own musicians, local and national dignitaries – and tangential
philosophical musings all to the constant accompaniment of music that in the
past consisted of a traditional Central Javanese gamelan and, now, might con-
sist of a gamelan with the incorporation of new instruments and, often, other
Javanese musical ensembles.
When I arrived in the bustling yet paradoxically sleepy Central Javanese
city of Surakarta, also known as Solo, in June of 1990, I expected to spend
my time determining what was particularly female about an obscure musi-
cal style generally referred to as ‘the female style’ and used as part of the
accompaniment for what is referred to as old-style wayang, a performance
style that was in decline in the 1990s. The women and, occasionally, men
who performed in ‘the female style’ did so on an instrument called a gender, a
kind of metallophone with thirteen or fourteen bronze keys suspended over
resonators, an instrument with a luscious, deep, murmuring yet resonant
sound and an illustrious reputation as one of the premier instruments in the
Central Javanese gamelan ensemble. I had anticipated that my contribution
to Javanese music studies would be the description and analysis of a style of
performance that had, to that point, only been analysed in a student paper
by the scholar-musician Suratno, while my theoretical contribution would be
to the burgeoning discourse on gender and music and the comparative work
of Ellen Koskoff and others. Instead, as I met people who knew about the
wayang traditions associated with ‘the female style’ of accompaniment and
began to attend performances, I came to realize that I was actually investigat-
ing a musical tradition that was felt by some to be able to invoke through
sound alone the emotional and dramatic force of an entire wayang perform-
ance. Not too far into my research, I realized that this project was much more
than an exercise in preservationist ethnomusicology. Instead, I was probing
at the heart of what connects contemporary Javanese wayang performance’s
presents to its multiple pasts.
Up to this point I have been speaking about Java in a nearly monolithic
manner, as though the performing arts of this heavily populated island are
similar everywhere. This could not be further from the truth. Even within the
confines of the relatively small area known as Central Java, there are myriad
interpretations and variants on performance genres such as gamelan and
wayang kulit. While many of these variants have derived from idiosyncratic
habits and inventions of renowned performers, they are quickly absorbed
into the Central Javanese discourse on style as local area traditions, living on
well beyond the performing days of the instigating artists. That said, there are
certain elements that link the many local wayang traditions, some of which
are described in this chapter.3
The performance style with which I am most concerned is now called
old-style wayang. The term ‘old style’ itself engages in a kind of erasure of
older local variation as it was certainly practiced, since the Javanese who use
the term usually imply that it was once the style in which everyone used
to perform in the Surakarta-Klaten area of Central Java, north and east of
Yogyakarta.4 It is probable that temporal distance has blurred the local dif-
ferences that once existed, but everyone who refers to old-style wayang from
the Surakarta-Klaten area concurs as to the elements that are particular to it,
including the musical accompaniment. Still performed occasionally in the
twenty-first century, the old style itself was probably most current during
the first fifty years of the twentieth century. That said, most of the performers
with whom I worked had learned from teachers who, themselves, learned
from artists whose careers encompassed the last fifty years of the nineteenth
century. These connections indicate some kind of continuity in performance
practice for the tradition reaching back at least as far as the mid-nineteenth
century. After the nineteen fifties, musical and thematic innovations from
dhalang such as Ki Nartosabdho and new phenomena such as famous dhalang
reaching a regional and national audience aided by the rise of radio and
recording technology significantly altered the soundscape of Central Javanese
wayang performance. Javanese traditions, however, seem to allow a layering
of new performance possibilities onto older traditions without their oblitera-
tion or obsolescence, resulting in multiple, contemporaneous, hybrid forms, a
method of change that may well have been going on in Java for centuries.
Given the importance of sound in Javanese culture and the nearly constant
presence of music in the myriad forms of Javanese performance – new and
old – this should not have been surprising. Yet, the soundscape of Javanese
3 Jan Mrázek’s edited collection, Puppet theatre in contemporary Indonesia (2002), provides the
reader with a sense of the multitude of local styles and some of their diachronic and synchronic
interconnections.
4 The area of Yogyakarta has its own old style of wayang and musical accompaniment that
has been described by Tim Byard-Jones in his PhD thesis (1997).
Introduction 7
culture in general, and wayang kulit in particular, has been virtually ignored
in the large scholarly literature produced since the end of the nineteenth
century that has focused instead on the history, literature, language usage,
and colonial constructions of Javanese wayang, as well as the anthropologi-
cal manifestations of the presence and performative power of the dhalang or
puppeteer.
The sound that is at the centre of this study – female-style gender perform-
ance – is, ironically, unlikely to capture the attention of even the most attentive
observer, although it would have been slightly more prevalent in the days
prior to the amplification of the dhalang’s voice. At its loudest, when struck
vigorously with two padded mallets, the bronze slabs of the gender create
a resonant reverberation rather like a muted vibraphone. Located directly
behind the dhalang during a wayang performance, the murmurings of the
gender with its polyphonic melodic passages and modal gestures are really
part of a private conversation with the dhalang – gently reminding him of the
pitches he may need as he prepares his next song, keeping the rasa or mood
of the scene in his mind and helping him to evoke that rasa in the ears and
hearts of the listeners.
Conversations with musicians and dhalang made it abundantly clear that
the female style of gender performance is the same as ‘old’ and ‘village’ styles
of performance and that the style had been gender-neutral as recently as the
middle of the twentieth century. Understanding the style of performance as
old, rather than as female, changes the way in which it can be heard. As a
female style it is easy for Javanese listeners to adopt local stereotypes about
things that are gendered female and hear the style as a diluted, underedu-
cated, unrefined derivative form of the male-dominated, urban court style
performance. In hearing the style as coming from the village, similar stere-
otypical assessments hold. Oldness, implying continuity with some aspect of
Javanese history in any way, is generally revered. Thus, understanding the
style as old immediately changes local assessments of the value of the style
and, because of the parallel association with femaleness and rural life, simul-
taneously creates problems for Javanese listeners based on their assumptions
about the complicated relationships between oldness, refinement, learned-
ness, and maleness and the Central Javanese urban courts as source for all of
these attributes and practices.
The sound of the female or old style of musical accompaniment serves as an
aural bridge between the performance styles of today and a style of perform-
ance that reaches as far back as the middle of the nineteenth century in terms
of musical continuity. As I will argue in due course, female gender sounds also
resonate with Javanese aesthetic traditions that can be rediscovered in the first
written Javanese interpretation of the Bharatayuddha – the story of the final
battle between the two warring families of the Indic Mahabharata.
On the problems of being there: fieldwork at Central Javanese events
Anthropologists and ethnomusicologists find themselves in a conundrum

when they try to maintain both their commitment to poststructuralist and
postcolonial thinking and the traditional forms of ethnographic process in
which they engage and believe. It is difficult to evade a seeming arrogance
when claiming to represent or speak for persons other than oneself. There
is the inevitable exoticization of ‘subjects’ about whom one writes and the
hegemony invoked by the word ‘author’ itself with which to contend. The
desire to avoid these pitfalls is thwarted at every turn by the simple fact that
close documentation, analysis, and interpretation of local and historical per-
spectives is the only reasonable way to proceed. One must either manoeuvre
between the Scylla and Charybdis of fieldwork and representation or forego
any further inquiry.
My solution to the problems inherent in the process of representation and
interpretation in this study involves avoiding a monologic exegesis. I have
endeavoured to include extensive quotation from Javanese sources, oral and
written, historical and contemporary as well as from my own field notes and
analysis journals. The presence of these texts allows for others to reinterpret
both my own experiences and my representations of Javanese interpretation.
More important, I make no claims to providing the definitive description of
‘Javanese wayang’. Rather, I describe one particular style of wayang and some
of its accompaniment, as practiced by a small, but representative if diminish-
ing, group of performers in Central Java who harbour strong feelings about
the significance of what they do. The strength of their commitment to the
centrality of the performance aesthetics of old-style wayang, striking corre-
spondences found in Javanese literary sources, as well as supportive mate-
rial found in scholarly research and my own musical and cultural analysis
have convinced me that it is possible to use an interpretation of this style of
wayang kulit and its accompaniment to listen back into the aesthetics of an
earlier Java. This study intersects with historical ethnomusicological studies
such as Shelemay’s (1980) work on Falasha liturgy, Sapoznik’s (1999) work
on Klezmer, and Wong’s (2001) work on Thai wai khruu in that it uses present
musical practice as a lens through which to imagine, interpret, and ‘hear’ past
musical culture and aesthetics.
The hurly-burly of fieldwork in Java devours a person. The sheer physical
effort of travelling is nearly overwhelming for Javanese and foreigners alike.
The traversing of the inevitably long distances to chosen performances in the
heat and extraordinary traffic that hurtles from one side of Central Java to the
other, the inhaling of lungfuls of carbon monoxide-laden exhaust that swirls
around inside the hermetically sealed bus and taxi compartments in which
one usually travels, and the extreme sport of hanging on to the outside of the
Introduction 9
packed-to-capacity-last-possible bus to a particular village are tremendously

exciting but leave a person breathless, literally and figuratively. On the other
hand, this form of travel allows for true participant observation and an embod-
ied experience of Javanese fatalism in the regular communal calculation of the
centimetres that will remain between your vehicle and the wobbling truck
careening down the wrong side of the road whose driver has no intention of
either slowing down or moving over until he passes the oxen cart travelling in
front of him. Much deep sighing, mutterings of prayers, tsk-tsking, and wip-
ing of brows occurs after the suspense of the approaching truck has passed
only to well up again with the next life-threatening roadway adventure.
The temporary bonding effect of mortal fear does little to mediate the
relentless need to have on one’s public face in Java. Unlike life in big cities
around the world, it is not possible to be anonymous on a bus in rural Java.
The endless rounds of polite head noddings and circular conversations about
where one has been or is going and the possibility of distant relatedness
through mutual friends and relations is a constant for all travellers in Java.
After all of this, unless one has been specially invited, upon arrival one has
still to negotiate permission to record the performance to which one has so
arduously travelled. The process of this negotiation requires subtle attention
to the rasa of the event as one reads it at the moment.
The Javanese word rasa (feeling, taste, emotion) maintains multiple mean-
ings ranging from its association with Javanese Tantric and Islamic enlight-
enment and mysticism to mundane bodily and emotional sensations. It can
refer to the overall feeling of an event or moment and it is frequently used in
recountings to describe an individual’s experience of an event in Central Java.
From a musician’s perspective, if he meets an enemy or if the musicians with
whom he is playing are not in good form or not reasonably capable, he might
describe the event by saying that the rasa of the event was less than good. On
the other hand, especially for a host family, the arrival an unexpected guest or
an infrequently met friend, the confluence of good moods and good music can
render the experience as one with a positive rasa. Working with this basically
positive construction of the arrival of an unexpected foreigner, I managed to
suppress my sense of being an intruder to Javanese events, regularly arriv-
ing at wayang events in order to record gender players whom I hoped would
perform.
Arriving at the already bustling performance space alone, I caught sight of the
dhalang sitting in an open doorway laughing with one of the musicians. I observed
that the hosts were on the east side of the space near the front of the screen. I
stopped walking, wondering whether I should go through the awkward process
of introducing myself to the host, explaining my unexpected arrival, and asking
permission to record the performance – tape recorders and other research para-
phernalia hanging off me at all angles in an overt anticipation of his approval. By
the time I had finished this internal debate, the dhalang, noticing my tentativeness,
had begun walking towards me. He raised his eyebrows in the direction of the
host’s family, signalling that I should follow him. He greeted the father of the fam-
ily with an open smile. The host, eager to help the dhalang, also smiled with an easy
composure and reached his hand out to me. The dhalang introduced me as part of
his extended family: Sarah from America who was documenting his performances
for research. The host welcomed me and urged me to enjoy the performance and to
record as much as I wanted. He asked me, hopefully, if I would also be performing.
I declined, apologized, and turned to the dhalang awaiting his direction. Smiling
and with an avuncular manner, the dhalang invited me to join the performers to eat
something before I went to set up my equipment. (Sarah Weiss 2 July 1991: field
notes.)
With its emphasis on the process of life – one’s own and that of the others
around one – fieldwork induces an intoxicating, presentist focus that tends to
obscure the historical significance of what one experiences and learns. Indeed,
the realization that I was studying an ‘old’ tradition and that the gendering of
the style was a relatively new phenomenon came only gradually as I began
to spend less time rushing to all-night performances and more time in quiet
discussion at the homes of musicians and in thinking about the information
and sounds I had recorded. The interviews I had with many gender players
and dhalang often extended beyond three hours, occasionally including a
light meal or extensive snacks, and covered many aspects of performance
in Java. Sharp critical assessments of the skills and talents of various musi-
cians and puppeteers performing in Central Java and hushed commentary on
the machinations of Indonesian national political events peppered in-depth
discussion and heated debate on old-style wayang and gender performance.
Conversation often centred on the assumed linear relationship between the
‘refined,’ more restrained, music theory-informed urban and court styles and
the coarser, more emotional, less-developed in terms of music theoretical
knowledge, village styles. The word rasa was regularly used to evaluate the
performance characteristics of each style: the restraint and learned clarity of
the urban interpretations and the emotional exuberance of the village per-
formances.
Refinement, restraint, rules, and ‘rasa’: music and politics in Central Javanese courts
The reality of the dynamic nature of Central Javanese wayang performance is

obscured by the common construction – by Javanese and non-Javanese schol-
ars and performers alike – of the contemporary urban court style of wayang
and karawitan or gamelan music performance in general as ‘ancient’ and ‘pure,’
the ur-form that has gradually been diluted, derogated, and distorted through
Introduction 11
village and other alternative performance traditions. In the mid-eighteenth

century the courts now associated with high art and urban Central Javanese
performance traditions were but young upstart polities. Newly in power they
were in the business of making themselves regal. They set about borrowing
traditions including dance, music, metallurgy, fashions among many others
from older cultural centres in East and West Java whose political power had
diminished due to political and religious conquest (Carey 1999:270-82).
Over time, in pursuit of profit and power, the Dutch colonial authority
shifted its focus from the northern coastal regions of the island to the courts of
Central Java. By 1830, at the end of the Dipanegara War, the Dutch had man-
aged to insert themselves into each of the four Central Javanese courts (two
of which they themselves helped to create) to such an extent that they had
effectively placed puppet rulers on each throne. Javanese participated in this
gradual usurpation by the Dutch for a variety of reasons. Important for even
the compromised legitimacy of the rulers of these courts was the idea that the
Central Javanese courts were old and their traditions ancient. This was also
convenient for the Dutch colonialists for many reasons, not least because of
their endeavours to trace the roots of Javanese culture safely in ancient Indic,
as opposed to threateningly contemporary Islamic, culture. Confirming the
ancientness of the courts and their traditions enhanced the value of Javanese
culture for Dutch administrators, philologists, and theosophists who were
interested in connecting their colonial realm to the roots of a great Indo-
European tradition.
What is most interesting about the construction of the Central Javanese
court as centre and source for all Javanese culture is that this positioning
makes it impossible for court culture to have an historical past, one that can
be acknowledged to have developed and changed over time to the present.
All traditions must be understood as emerging from the court – as timeless
origination source – in order for them to legitimize the court. The history
of development and change in the performing arts, in particular, is difficult
to document primarily because admitting change and development flies in
the face of the perceived ancientness of both the performing tradition and
the court. In performing traditions in general, however, theorization and
codification take place well after the fact of creation and development. Central
Javanese performance traditions did not spring fully formed in the eighteenth
century with the rise of the Central Javanese courts. As noted above, many
court styles and traditions were imported from elsewhere in Java. The Central
Javanese courts have long maintained an old Javanese habit of inviting out-
siders to the court. People with special talents and training would gather at
the courts to share knowledge and serve the court for brief periods of time.
Dhalang with whom I worked in the early 1990s still remembered when their
fathers and grandfathers would be called for general gatherings of perform-
ers or called for individual service to the court. The shadow puppetry and
gamelan performance traditions of the Central Javanese courts grew and
developed as people from outside travelled into the courts and then out again
bringing with them styles and ideas from other places in Central Java and
beyond.5 Here I am not trying to diminish the role of the courts as preserver
and source for some Javanese traditions both throughout their history and
today even as the influence of the courts continues to decline. Rather, follow-
ing Carey (1999), my goal is to decentre somewhat the courts in recounting the
development of Central Javanese performance traditions, in particular with
respect to wayang. Realizing that there were relationships of both proximity
and distance between the Central Javanese courts and their outlying areas
emphasizes the importance of intercultural flows and the changing levels of
interdependence that operated both politically and culturally.
Nonetheless, the centralization of Javanese culture around the courts dur-
ing the colonial period resulted in the development of educated refinement as
one primary aesthetic for Central Javanese performance. Educated refinement
was obtained and demonstrated through the mastery of rules that codified
correct performance within certain parameters. For music, in particular, dem-
onstrating educated refinement involved the ability to perform and discuss
appropriate melodic and modal interpretation of musical works and the
ability to read and write musical notation. These were important aspects of a
seemingly esoteric knowledge that was cultivated in and around the courts
from the early nineteenth century onward.
For a court musician today and, to a lesser extent, for urban-based con-
servatory musicians, musical refinement is demonstrated through the per-
formative control gained by an understanding of music-theoretical rules and
knowledge pertaining to melody and pathet or mode. The Javanese word
for mode – pathet – is the same as one Javanese word for restraint (Robson
and Wibisono 2002:546-7). Emotional and the related musical restraint are
demonstrated through the refinement necessary to gain ‘esoteric’ knowledge.
Esoteric knowledge is something not everyone is capable of controlling or
even understanding since individuals have varying levels of refinement and
emotional control. The rather circular, if circuitous, nexus outlined above is
paralleled in constructions of Javanese personal behaviour such that people
who are refined demonstrate emotional and physical restraint, control over
intricate linguistic and social rules, and the capability to understand eso-
teric knowledge. Each of these abilities confirms the possibility of the others
(Keeler 1987; Anderson 1972). The manner and style with which one demon-
strates one’s refinement and control, indeed, the aesthetics of behaviour on
5 See Clara van Groenendael (1985:66-92) for detailed discussion of the relationship between
village and court performing traditions and musicians since the nineteenth century.
Introduction 13
many levels, is assessed by means of rasa.

Naturally not all Javanese perform equally well in terms of their capac-
ity for refinement, restraint, and esoteric knowledge, although it is generally
acknowledged that most Javanese are more skilled in all three than most for-
eigners and non-Central Javanese Indonesians. There are, of course, remark-
able exceptions on both sides. Amongst Central Javanese it is generally held
that most women are not as refined as men and that most village people are
not as refined as urban people who have the benefit of the influence of the
courts in near proximity (Keeler 1990). This is not to suggest that there are
not many extremely refined Javanese women and equally many ill-behaved
Javanese men.6 Instead, as many Javanese do, I am describing some basic
Javanese stereotypes and cultural assumptions without insisting on strict
boundaries or definitive categories.
The tendencies in Central Javanese culture that I have been describing
were enhanced through contact and sustained interaction with European
and nineteenth-century Wahabi Islamic constructions of male authority in
political and cultural affairs.7 It is clear that Javanese court culture, while
once populated by potent females prior to and during the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries, came gradually to be dominated by men and male
criteria through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Concurrently, many
of the developments associated with Central Javanese court culture came to
be gendered as male. In terms of musical culture, male court musicians were
interested in modal theory; they were skilled in reading and writing notation;
they were in possession of the internal restraint necessary for proper musical
interpretation. By default women and village musicians were not as capable
of, interested in, or exposed to these cultural standards and practices. And
yet, another set of musical practices and beliefs survived the transforming
masculinization of the colonial period.
Listening back to an earlier Java: ‘rasa’, female ‘gender’ players, and ‘grimingan’
The assertion that we can hear an earlier Java when we listen to old-style
wayang and female-style genderan comes directly from the mouths and minds
of contemporary performers themselves. They emphatically state that they
perform in the old-style, a style which their mothers, fathers, grandparents,
and older ancestors played and taught, sometimes in the villages, sometimes
in the courts. The knowledge of the longevity of their tradition is absorbed
6 See Suzanne Brenner’s (1995, 1998) discussion of alternate Javanese interpretations of the
refinement of men and women.
7 Aspects of this idea permeate, in different ways, the following works: Andaya 2000a; Stoler
1997; Florida 1996; Gouda 1993; Taylor 1983; Kumar 1980a, 1980b.
and conveyed through their own living and learning of the style, embodied
in a visceral manner that affirms and confirms the present relevance of their
own artistic pursuits and the continuity of it to that of their ancestors. The
history of the style, as I have earlier observed, certainly reaches back to the
beginning of the twentieth century as most of the performers involved in this
study learned directly from parents or other relatives who were born before
the end of the nineteenth century or at the beginning of the twentieth century.
By all reports those teachers learned in the same way from their own parents
and family. Thus, I have not specified an exact temporal period, preferring to
invoke the same kind of undelimited past described by the musicians in the
study, usually referred to in Indonesian or Javanese as dulu, lama, or kuna. That
said, I feel sure that, allowing for individual innovation and influence from
other styles over the period of a century, the aesthetic I am describing reflects
one that has been performed in some areas of Central Java near Surakarta
from at least the middle of the nineteenth century. Here are some of the com-
ments I collected from the musicians themselves.
In the past it was mostly women who played the gender because it was usually
the wife of the dhalang who was his main performer, that is, the gender player.
However, when a man played gender in the past, it was sure to be in the same style
as that of the women gender players because that was the style that was umum or
general. (Sudarsono 14 December 1990: personal communication.)
In male style there is no inner essence (intisari) nor are there any ornaments (sari-
sari, another Javanese word for flower). It is too simple. It can be notated and
it is more regular and ordered (diaturi). In the past my mother was my favorite
accompanist. Sadly, now I have to use a male player because there are no women
left who know my style. (Bapak Kestik (alm), dhalang, 9 July 1991: personal com-
munication.)
The rasa of male style grimingan in wayang is often lacking (Ibu Pringga 31 May
1991: personal communication).
Grimingan played in male or urban style (gaya laki, gaya kota) is not as good as that
played in old or female style. The feeling of the pathet does not come out. (Bapak
Mudjoko (alm), dhalang, November 1990: personal communication.)
There are generally three types of musical accompaniment used in the per-
formance of wayang: gendhing or musical pieces that require a full gamelan
ensemble; pathetan and sendhon or vocal pieces sung by the dhalang accompa-
nied by some combination of the soft-style elaborating instruments such as
the gender (metallophone with up to fourteen keys suspended over pitched-
resonators), the rebab (two-stringed, spiked fiddle), the gambang (twenty-one
keyed xylophone) and the suling (bamboo flute); and grimingan or music
played on the gender when no other musical accompaniment is requested by
the dhalang, used in order to keep the scale in the ear of the dhalang and the
Introduction 15
feeling of the pathet or mode in the ears and hearts of all attending the per-
formance. While some dhalang prefer to perform with no grimingan, claiming
they find it distracting, in the above quotes from performers who do appreci-
ate it, female-style grimingan is clearly felt to be more expressive of pathet and
rasa in wayang performance and female gender players are generally acknow-
ledged as more attentive to the needs, musical and dramatic, of the dhalang.
Wayang performance is often described as encapsulating the primary aes-
thetic of Javanese culture – defined as the negotiation of power and potency
of male rulers and revealed by a competition to demonstrate refinement,
restraint and seemingly effortless control over everything in the realm.8 The
dhalang himself, at least in performance, is claimed to represent a ruler’s
ultimate, behind-the-scenes control over the emotions and movements of the
puppets, musicians, and audience. Given this, how can we make sense of the
importance of the female gender player and the music she plays as reflected
in the quotes above?
Given the fact that it was once usual for a dhalang to marry his gender play-
er, a functionalist and economic rationale is possible. It is easier for a dhalang
to perform with a familiar accompanist; it is easier, for a variety of reasons, to
travel with one’s wife than someone else; and it is more economical to keep all
the profit earned at an event in the same family. I even heard one dhalang who
performed in the old-style invoke the usualness of this situation by inserting
into his narrative a joke about his ‘wife’ (estriné) when, by chance, his gender
player for the evening was momentarily replaced by a male performer who
could play in the old- or female-style (Bapak Gandasukasno 12 March 1991).
But these functional explanations alone cannot explain the significance the
dhalang and musicians quoted above accorded to the female style of gender
accompaniment, in particular its power to ensure a correct rasa for the wayang
performance.
Rasa is a complicated word in that it conveys multiple meanings simulta-
neously. Studies of Javanese aesthetics have observed the dual nature of rasa,
suggesting that the term is associated both with emotional release and with
restraint; with educated refinement and unreserved human response; with
controlled rightful order and cataclysmic chaos (Judith Becker 1993; Benamou
1998, 2002; Weiss 2003; Zoetmulder 1995). One aspect of rasa that has not been
fully explored is the gendering of rasa as both male and female. While the pre-
dictable pairing of maleness with refinement and femaleness with emotional
8 Anderson uses this idea throughout his analysis of wayang characters (1965) and then later
as a predominant background theme in his analysis of Javanese power (1972). Keeler’s (1987)
interpretation of the cultural status and community position of performing dhalang is rooted in
this aesthetic paradigm. Brandon’s characterization of wayang puppets (1970:38-51) and the
three stories he translates reveal this aesthetic paradigm to be important.
excess certainly functions, this alignment is not the only one represented in
Javanese myths and stories, in particular those in which fertility and continu-
ity of tradition are the subject. The myths told about female gender players
and other legendary Javanese women generally revolve around the pairing
of two sets of opposites, aspects of chaos and order – as in emotional release
and restraint – and maleness and femaleness. In these myths, order and chaos
are always gendered but neither is always male or female. The multiple inter-
sections between these pairings results in a generative, prosperity-ensuring
interaction (Pemberton 1994:197-216).
How, then, is it possible for this kind of dynamic interaction to be articu-
lated as an aesthetic? In the introduction to her Engendering song; Singing and
subjectivity in Prespa Albanian song, Jane Sugarman (1997) outlines and cri-
tiques two theoretical approaches often employed by ethnomusicologists in
their work on aesthetics: the identification of homologies reflected on many
levels in the culture (Judith Becker and Alton Becker 1981) and the documen-
tation and organization of what people say about performance commonly
referred to as ethnoaesthetics (Robertson 1979). Sugarman points out that
the former is too removed from practice and the latter too near for any kind
of comparative interpretation. In practice much ethnomusicological work
on aesthetics has combined the two approaches (Feld 1988; Turino 1993;
Rice 1994; Brinner 1995). Of course, with any approach to the description of
the aesthetics of a group there has to be at some level an assumed unity of
experience and perspective among the people who make up the group. This
is one of the problems Rice (2003) has been wrestling with in his subject-
centred musical ethnography. Although he does not articulate it in exactly
these terms, Rice argues that starting from the subject’s thoughts and expe-
riences – interaction with both the global and the local (place) and through
time – allows the ethnomusicologist to generate interpretation based on the
intersection between the group of individual experiences documented and
the composite that emerges from the comparison of them in context. His use
of the concept of metaphor resonates with the way in which the Beckers and
Feld have used the Piercian term, iconicity. In his analysis of Kaluli perfor-
mative culture, Feld (1988:92-4) describes an aesthetic as a cultural style that
repeats itself on many levels in a particular society.9 He suggests that there
is an iconicity of image and idea that is ‘naturally’ obvious to people from
within the culture, and, ideally, becomes so for outside interpreters of the
aesthetic (Feld 1988:93). Rice’s model adds lived experience to and removes
the timelessness from the approaches of scholars like the Beckers and Feld.
9 Feld bases his ideas about aesthetics on the work of Robert Armstrong (1971). Other eth-
nomusicologists whose work has been influenced by Robert Armstrong include Charles Keil
(1979) and Ron Emoff (2002).
Introduction 17
The words Javanese performers use to describe their understanding of

the sound and aesthetics of the female style of playing the gender, or gen-
deran and old-style wayang evoke both an ‘iconicity of image and idea that
is “naturally” obvious’ at many levels in Javanese culture – contemporary
and historical – as well as an intense independence of style that confirms the
non-totalizing multiplicity of local style in Java. I do not view this situation
as contradictory or problematic. Indeed, I use the tension between the two to
illuminate the lived experience of performers in a particular time and place, to
express the multiple layers of meaning in performing old-style wayang in the
last decades of the twentieth century, and to listen back to the reverberations
of earlier meanings. To set the scene for the remainder of this study, I close
this introduction with one description of the aesthetics of old-style wayang – a
composite that emerged from my comparison of the individual experiences in
cultural and historical context that are documented in this study.
In an iconic sense, the ‘naturalness’ of the physical, gendered pairing
of the dhalang with his wife/gender player is invoked and repeated in the
intimate intertwinings of the aural relationship between the dhalang’s voice
and the grimingan of the gender. It is woven into the narrative or dialogue
recounted by the dhalang and even in the structure some of the scenes, such as
the kedhatonan in which the king seeks reassurance in his endeavour from the
beauty and solidity of his palace and solace in the comfort of the embrace of
his queen.10 We can feel Feld’s ‘naturalness’ in the repetition of these pairings
from the broad stroke of a myth to the intimate aural conversation between
the recitations of the dhalang and the grimingan of the gender player. This is
the aesthetic that underlies the form and flow of old-style wayang, the aes-
thetic that is suggested to the ears of dhalang and musicians when they hear
the sound of what is today called female-style genderan. A wayang aesthetics
based primarily on aspects of male potency and power is a relatively new
phenomenon. The aesthetics of old-style wayang is based on an acknowledge-
ment of the inevitability of chaos and the striving of humans to overcome the
vicissitudes of its alternation with order in the search for some kind of predict-
able prosperity through a generative interaction between genders on many
levels. When dhalang and musicians hear female-style genderan today, they
are listening back to an earlier Java in which these ideas were prevalent. The
reader is invited, like the wayang hero Bima in his quest for mystical know-
ledge, to enter the ears of these performers of a vanishing tradition.11
10 The kedhatonan scene has lost much of its old, yet gained new, relevance in contemporary
performance (see Chapter V of this book, Pausacker 2002, and Sutton 1987).
11 See Soebardi 1975 for a translation of the nineteenth-century Surakartan poem in which the
Dewa Ruci story is related.
CHAPTER I
Musical analysis and cultural analysis

Pathet, grimingan, and gender
The Javanese musicians who participated in this study base their under-
standing of the importance of the female style of genderan and its location
in the old-style wayang tradition and Javanese culture in general on sound.
My thoughts about the gendering of this style of gender playing as feminine
started with several Javanese musicians insisting that they could identify the
gender of the performers simply by the sound of what they played. ‘The inner
essence of the style is feminine, the sound is feminine’1 is how one musician
described it when I urged him to muse on why the style in which he, him-
self, performed on the gender was called the female style. Understanding the
sound and process of this music is a logical point from which to begin since
it is from the sound that much Javanese interpretation starts.
To begin this book with a chapter on musical analysis might seem anti-
thetical to cultivating the mixed audience of non-specialist ethnomusicolo-
gists, Southeast Asianists, and others for whom this book is written, catering,
instead, to the rather smaller group of Javanese music experts. Musical analy-
sis, however, need not be written to exclude outsiders to the usual forms of
musical discourse. In this chapter I will introduce genderan to the reader and
briefly explain the process in which gender players engage as they perform
mood-sensitive music for at least four of the eight hours of music necessary
to accompany an old-style wayang. In the process I will suggest that this
music is the source for Javanese theories of mode as they have been codified
by urban court and conservatory musicians over the course of the twentieth
century.
1 ‘Intisariné putri, suarané putri’ was the way Bapak Karnadihardja put it while explaining
why he could never play exactly in the style of his mother and grandmother who had taught him
to play.
On musical notation
Musical analysis is always challenging because the analyst must explain a

non-verbal, temporal phenomenon in words. Musical notation is often an aid
to the analysis and interpretation of Western art music not only because it is
the code in which the music is now conveyed and preserved, but also because
it allows the analyst to demonstrate and indicate aspects of form, structure,
flow, and pitch without having to rely on verbal description. Musical nota-
tion itself, from any culture or era, is always an incomplete code, however.
One must know something of the performance practice in order to interpret
properly, make sense of, the sound indicated by the notation. The inexact-
ness of musical notation is jarring in a world in which the printed word is
highly regarded and generally viewed as authoritative. The misfit between
notation and sound has engendered myriad on-going debates about Western
music performance traditions from the beginning of music notation through
to contemporary composition. Similar issues and debates swirl through the
scholarly worlds of other music cultures with different notational systems.
Notation systems do enable easy communication with others who know
the code, in particular about anything that can be commonly understood
from looking at the notation. Familiarity with the code usually reflects some
kind of insider relationship to the music and the system. In addition, a nota-
tional system itself conveys certain expectations about the music it represents.
To notate music not usually represented in a particular notational system
fosters assumptions about the music as represented that might not be appro-
priate, hence skewing the interpretation of the music by someone who knows
the notational system but not the sound and style of the unfamiliar music
represented. Despite its ubiquity, the common assumption of its universality,
the strong likelihood that most music specialists might feel more comfortable
with a familiar code, and in particular because of the embedded assumptions
it conveys, Western music notation is not the most useful representational
form for the style of music that is at the centre of this study.
Javanese music has its own music notation. Interested in preserving
Central Javanese court musical culture, Dutch scholars and collectors worked
with Javanese court musicians to develop a notation system beginning in the
nineteenth century. Although various contour-pictorial methods were tried,2
by the early 1950s a cipher system, in which each note of the Javanese scale
was designated with a particular number and the numbers were grouped in
2 See Perlman 1991 for a discussion of nut ranté (chain notation) and other forms of notation
that were tried. See Sumarsam 1995 for further description of notation systems and extensive dis-
cussion of the cultural milieu of mutual exchange that engendered the development of Javanese
notational systems.
I Musical analysis and cultural analysis 21
measure-like units albeit without barlines, was determined to be the most

useful, in part because it could be produced on a type-writer. There are two
Javanese scales, the five-tone slendro and the seven-tone pelog. The numbers
1, 2, 3, 5, 6 are used for slendro and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 are used for pelog. The miss-
ing 4 in the slendro roster is meant to indicate a larger gap or interval between
pitches 3 and 5 than is heard between any of the other consecutive num-
bers. Of course, as gamelan ensembles are individually tuned, larger gaps
can occur between different pitches depending on the taste of the gamelan
maker. In general, however, it can be stated that in most gamelan ensembles,
the gap between 3 and 5 does represent an actual aural phenomenon at some
level. In this study I will only discuss the slendro scale.
Javanese gamelan music: some basics
Javanese gamelan music is cyclic, meaning that most pieces have internal
repeats. It is usual for a large piece to have at least two sections, and many
pieces are actually suites – strings of pieces related to each other by mode and
in decreasing relative size, each with internal repeats, connected together.
The sound of a large, deeply resonant, sometimes pitched, gong begins and
ends each section and its repeats. The cycles are subsequently subdivided
into quarters, eighths, and sixteenths in various ways. These subdivisions are
marked by the striking of various instruments, the sound of which confirms
location in the form or structure for musicians who know where they are and
can aid a musician who is lost.
The basic melody is played by a group of metallophones, instruments
with metal slabs tuned to the pitches of the slendro or pelog scale. In the case of
a slendro instrument the pitches are usually 6, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 1 in which the first
6 and 1 are about an octave lower than the second 6 and 1. The basic melody
is called balungan which means skeleton in Javanese.3 The bodily image of
a skeleton is useful as an analogy for understanding the layered texture of
Javanese music and its progression through time. If the basic melody is the
skeleton, then the instruments that mark arrivals at the quarter, eighth, or
sixteenth in the cycle are like the heart and lungs rhythmically keeping the
body alive, and the many instruments that elaborate the basic melody add
skin, hair, eye color, and even personality. The relationship of the melodies of
the elaborating instruments to the basic melody varies from simple doubling
to elaborate heterophonic phrases that move far away from the basic melody
3 Sumarsam (1995:144-60) suggests that the term balungan came to be used during the early
twentieth century, the period in which Javanese music was being theorized in response to
European notions of ‘high art’ music.
finally landing on concordant notes at moments of arrival, significant to the

basic cyclic form. There is abundant use of overlap and delay with respect to
the moments of arrival, in particular by the female singer or pasindhen, the
rebab or two-stringed spiked fiddle, and the suling or end-blown flute.
Inherently binary, the music is aurally organized in groups of four notes
as played by the balungan instruments. It is this melody and the subdivi-
sions of the cycle that the Javanese have chosen to notate. The parts for the
elaborating instruments are rarely written out except occasionally in the
teaching process and in the compendia of patterns and melodies compiled by
teacher/musicians like Martopangrawit in the middle part of the twentieth
century.4 It is extremely uncommon for any musician playing an elaborating
instrument to perform from a part that has been written out. If the musician
does not already know the piece, even a moderately inexperienced musician
will be able to derive some kind of part for his or her instrument by looking
at the notation for the balungan.
In a most basic form, the elaborating parts are composed of patterns that
lead to specific pitches. Here is notation for one phrase in a form called a
ladrang: 6) 5653 2126). The parentheses indicate the passing of the quarters of
the cycle and an instrument called a kenong, a tall-sided, racked gong, would
be sounded on each of the pitches followed by a parenthesis. The balungan
players would strike their instruments playing the numbers as written and
the elaborating instrumentalists would create their parts by selecting from
their musical imaginations patterns that lead from the end of one set of
four notes, called a gatra, to the end of the next. In our example this would
be a pattern leading from 6 to 3 and then a pattern leading from 3 to 6. An
accomplished performer will have numerous patterns to choose from and,
once it is chosen, will ornament the pattern with decorative melodic filigree.
The choice of pattern is determined by the mode or pathet of the piece or
internal section, the melodic choices of other musicians, and the aesthetic of
the individual performer. These are split-second choices that can almost feel
automatic; musicians often know the pieces so well they do not even have
to think about pattern choice. In pieces with which they are less familiar,
musicians may follow the notation and they will be especially attentive to
the choices of performers who do know the piece and the sound of the piece
as it is progressing, often changing melodic and even modal interpretation of
particular sections or phrases in the second or third time through the cycle.5
Mode has many meanings in musicological discourse ranging from defin-
ing a simple series of notes like a scale – such as major or minor – to defin-
4 See Martopangrawit 1973 for example.

5 For an extensive discussion on the competence and learning the process of performing
Javanese music see Brinner 1995.
ing a sound world in which certain melodic gestures and turns of phrases
are associated with one particular mode and evoke in the ear and heart of
the knowledgeable listener the affect and mood and possibly certain stories,
events, pictures, or other cultural products associated with that mode. Pathet
in Javanese music is somewhere in between these two extremes of possible
definitions for the word mode in English-language musical discourse. Every
Javanese piece is given a modal designation, although in some cases there
is disagreement. In the slendro scale most people agree that there are three
modes: pathet nem, pathet sanga, and pathet manyura. Over the last quarter of
the twentieth century, wayang performers developed a fourth mode called
pathet manyuri. As far as I know only music for battles and victory is com-
posed in this mode. Its relation to the other modes in slendro is similar to that
of the relationship between pathet sanga and pathet manyura. In other words,
the phrase that might be notated 1612 1615 in pathet sanga, would be notated
2123 2126 in pathet manyura and 3235 3231 in pathet manyuri. In each case the
contour of the pattern is the same, but the pitch on which the phrase begins is
successively one note higher. For a person playing an elaborating instrument,
the pattern s/he would play from pitch 2 to pitch 5 in the pathet sanga contour
could be conceptually the same as that played for the pattern from pitch 3
to pitch 6 in the manyura, simply transposed up one step. On an instrument
like the gender the performer can shift his or her hands one pitch to the right
and play the same pattern and contour. Of course, one might not choose to
do that for aesthetic reasons or because of some aspect of the piece which
requires a special interpretation at a particular moment, but it is theoretically
possible. To imagine this process in another way, what this means is that the
patterns one can play to pitch 2 in pathet sanga have the same contours as the
patterns one can play to pitch 3 in pathet manyura.
Most of the basic patterns in common usage are associated with the two
modes pathet sanga and pathet manyura. There are very few patterns specific
to the third mode in the slendro scale, pathet nem. Creating a part for one of
the elaborating instruments for a piece in pathet nem involves using those pat-
terns that are specific to pathet nem where they can be used and then choosing
patterns from pathet sanga and pathet manyura for the rest. How does the per-
former know whether to choose a pattern to 2 from sanga or manyura? These
decisions are based on the melodic context of the gatra and require that the
performer understand the character and usual gestures of both pathet sanga
and pathet manyura. It is generally the case that interpretation of pieces in
pathet nem is, if not more difficult, certainly more complex than in the other
slendro modes. However, in pathet sanga there are also pieces in which the
modal interpretation is moderately unclear and musicians often argue with
one another about the aesthetic merits of interpreting various sections in one
mode or another after they finish performing a work in which there is some
kind of modal ambiguity. It is rarely the case that modal interpretation for
pieces in pathet manyura is unclear. The relative levels of clarity in the inter-
pretive process for pieces in the different modes are reflected in the overall or
‘usual’ affect or rasa associated with the modes as they function with respect
to wayang kulit or shadow puppet performance.
A traditional wayang kulit performance in Central Java lasts for about
eight hours from 8:00 pm in the evening until subuh, the Islamic call to prayer
at dawn. The overnight performance is usually divided into three segments
determined by pathet. After an introductory musical suite of pieces in pathet
manyura, the Pathet Nem segment runs from about 8:30 pm until 12:30 am, the
Pathet Sanga segment from 12:30 am until 3:30 am, and the Pathet Manyura
segment from 3:30 until 5:30 am. In these large segments most of the musical
events are in the associated pathet. The ‘usual’ affect of the pathet in general
is an abstraction derived from the flow of the emotional development in the
wayang performance. In explaining this process, many Javanese resort to
analogies with the course of human life. I first heard this interpretation from
Midiyanto S. Putra, a dhalang and musician from Wonogiri, Central Java who
has lived many years in the United States as a teacher and performer. The
following exegesis is paraphrased from a lecture demonstration Midiyanto
presented to students at the University of Sydney during a wayang work-
shop in 1995.6
The flow of rasa or affect through a wayang performance develops like
that of a child growing into adulthood and then into old age. At the begin-
ning of one’s life one is confused, unable to solve problems or think clearly.
Problems arise and one can understand the problem but cannot imagine a
solution or even how to begin solving it. One has doubt about everything
due to the obscuring effect of inexperience. This is the feeling that is associat-
ed with the first section of the wayang, the Pathet Nem segment. It is the part
of the performance in which the problems in the evening’s story are laid out
by the dhalang and the puppet characters discuss the nature of the problems
and confer as to why they do not yet understand how to solve them. This
narrative confusion is paralleled by the modal confusion that characterizes
interpretation of musical pieces in pathet nem.
The middle of one’s life is characterized by vigorous action, humour, the
feeling that one can solve problems whatever they may be, readiness to take
on responsibility, and the realization that despite one’s extreme capability
and perspicacity there still remain problems for which one cannot derive a
solution. This mix of confidence and the acceptance of a lack of total clarity of
vision characterize the middle segment of a wayang in which there is a long
6 In a 1990 article Richard Schechner recounts a human comparison to the development of an

evening’s wayang performance, apparently also from Midiyanto.
clown scene revealing the foibles of humankind, various unrelated battles,

generally a lack of forward motion toward a solution of the original problem,
although there may be intermediate solutions to new secondary problems
that have cropped up as the characters have sought out a solution to the
original disturbance. This confidence and adult acceptance of temporary con-
fusion are reflected both by the modal clarity of many pieces in pathet sanga
and the reality of modal confusion in certain commonly played pieces.
The end of one’s life is characterized by wisdom and clarity of vision, but
also by a desire for regularity and, finally, an acceptance of the personal and
human failings with which one has wrestled throughout one’s life. This clar-
ity of perspective is reflected in the Pathet Manyura section of the wayang in
which the problems of the characters in the story are finally resolved to the
extent possible, the foibles in certain characters are discussed and analysed,
and wisdom in the form of lessons for the lives of the audience members
based on the story is dispensed by the dhalang through the puppets. Pieces
performed in pathet manyura both in the wayang and other repertoires have
virtually no modal inconsistencies, the interpretation of the melodies is a
clear and generally predictable process, and the pieces themselves are deli-
ciously fulfilling and, surprisingly, rarely tiresome even after one has been
playing them regularly for decades.7
When musicians mention the rasa of a particular piece, they are making
reference to at least two levels of affect. The first is to what I have called the
‘usual’ rasa of the pathet – the feelings associated with the intertwining of
the emotions associated with the different stages in the flow of life with the
emotional stages through which the characters travel during the course of
a wayang performance. The second is how the piece itself makes them feel
personally. Sometimes this reaction is related to the flow of the melody itself
and/or sometimes this is related to a particular memory the musician associ-
ates with the piece.
As one of the areas of musical performance that has been theorized in
the last half of the twentieth century, the ability to talk about modal theory
is highly regarded amongst most Central Javanese musicians. The ability to
engage with others in debating appropriate interpretations of particular sec-
tions using abstract assessments of modal trajectory such as, ‘in this pathet
pitch 3 is always kempyung’, rather than simplistic aesthetic statements such
7 Because of this interpretive clarity students generally begin learning to play the elaborating
instruments on pieces in pathet manyura. One does not really begin to appreciate the predictabil-
ity of pathet manyura pieces until one learns pieces in pathet nem. The ease with which one can
play a new piece in pathet manyura increases with every foray into pathet nem. So from a music
performance perspective, the wisdom and clarity one gains in terms of interpreting pieces in
pathet manyura does increase as one ages, paralleling the flow through both life and a wayang
performance.
as, ‘it sounds better if you do it like this,’ reveals immediately who is edu-
cated in the urban court- and conservatory-based musical theories and who
is not.8 Although the two kinds of statement express related aspects of musi-
cal aesthetics, the language used to explain the reasons indicates much about
status of the speakers given the high valuation of theoretical knowledge in
late twentieth-century Java. Notation itself, associated with the courts and
urban knowledge, is occasionally – although decreasingly so – a status mark-
er in that some performers who think of themselves as village musicians may
occasionally claim that they cannot read it, preferring instead to play by ear,
even if they do not know the piece.
‘Pathet’ and ‘the village’
The idea that village musicians do not, or even cannot, understand mode is
an issue that pervades nearly every discussion in which the topics of pathet
and village musicians occur together. That both urban and village musicians
affirm this statement vehemently suggests that it might be true. However,
while urban musicians may insist that understanding pathet is key to correct
interpretation of musical works, the fact that professional village and urban
musicians can play music together, occasionally in perfect aesthetic concord,
suggests that the debate about pathet is more complicated.
The following comments about pathet competency refer to urban and
village professional musicians. There are plenty of untrained musicians for
whom gamelan performance is a social activity. The musicians in this group,
in either urban or rural settings, are generally capable but not expert, relying
instead on the knowledge of a professional musician to guide them in their
interpretations and performance. There are three levels of capability in terms
of understanding and performing pathet. First and most distinct is the ability to
articulate reasons for why one should interpret a passage in a particular way
in performance. This level of pathet competency is revealed both in perform-
ance and in comments regarding the correctness of playing particular patterns
and gestures in certain places and the theoretical reasons for the choices.
Many but by no means all urban professional musicians have this capability.
Younger musicians who have gone to conservatory at either the high school
or tertiary levels will have command over this kind of knowledge.
8 Kempyung refers to the striking of two notes together in which the interval between them
is two pitches or two bars on one of the metallophones in a gamelan ensemble. The interval
between the two notes changes depending on the pitches played, but it is usually some kind of
fifth or sixth. For example, the striking of pitches 2 and 6 together in which the 2 is below the 6
is a kempyung as is the striking of 3 and 1 together in which the 3 is below the 1. Pitches 3 and 5
are between the 2 and the 6 while pitches 5 and 6 are between the 3 and the 1.
The second level of competency involves an intuitive understanding of

pathet learned through hours and hours of lived experience listening and
performing. Musicians with this level of competency may use sentences like
‘that doesn’t sound like pathet sanga’ as a kind of correction to another musi-
cian but they would not use theoretical statements about pitch relations, rely-
ing instead on demonstration to make their point. Most professional village
musicians operate in this manner as do some urban ones. In the learning of
new pieces, musicians with this kind of pathet competency draw from their
reserve of known pieces and predictable modal movements as they work
out an interpretation for the new piece. This is an aural version of the same
kind of process through which theoretically-minded musicians go when they
learn a new piece. The musical results may be the same, except in places
where there is modal ambiguity. In these situations, a musician with an aural
competency may resort to mbalung, which means creating a part that stays
close to the balungan melody. This process involves playing short patterns to
the second and fourth note of a gatra instead of rendering a modally clear
pattern played over the four notes of a gatra that might be aurally divergent
from the predominant mode but would be a preferable choice for those with
the theoretical knowledge of pathet. It is precisely this kind of performance
choice that is emblematic of the difference between urban and village musi-
cians in general.9 A more precise distinction would be between musicians
who have been educated in conservatory and those who have not, because
there are non-conservatory educated urban musicians who mbalung in places
where their conservatory-educated peers would not.
The third level of pathet competency is one in which the performer only
imitates other performers, without actually hearing mode. In performing an
unknown piece, this kind of performer will mbalung throughout. This kind
of interpretation is frustrating to professional village and urban musicians
alike and the performer will often be replaced if the politics of the move
can be negotiated and there is another who can play with more appropriate
interpretation.
Beside decisions regarding patterns and melodic gesture choice, issues
of tuning and sensitivity to the patterns others choose may also be related
to a performer’s knowledge of pathet. In the performance of rebab and vocal
parts one rarely plays notes that are precisely in tune with the gamelan
instruments. The negotiation of the tuning of particular notes within the
large intervals between pitches in the scale is called embat. Some performers
insist that certain notes be sharpened or flattened in particular modes. For
instance, the lowering of pitch 1 at the ends of descending phrases in pathet
sanga is one common, modally-determined tuning habit. Most often, this
9 Perlman 1994 discusses mbalung more extensively.

kind of tuning seems to be an aesthetic rather than a theoretical decision, and

traditions with respect to embat develop amongst people who normally play
music together in a certain place on a particular gamelan, the tuning of which
also impacts on group tuning habits. Sensitivity to other people’s pathet deci-
sions, particularly amongst those for whom theoretical knowledge is espe-
cially valued, can be as much a political as a musical act in which obeisance
to one’s musical elders may be reflected in modal interpretation.10
Pathet competency of individual musicians is determined not so much by
their residence in either an urban or rural environment, but rather by their
learning process: whether they have pursued formal education in music
or whether their musical knowledge has, instead, been developed entirely
through lived experience. In either case, a professional musician will be com-
petent to perform a wide variety of pieces with diverse groups of musicians
from either urban or rural areas. The primary difference lies with one’s rela-
tive ability to articulate theoretical rationales for modal decisions.
If knowledge of pathet is considered a primary skill – necessary to the
rendering of the appropriate musical aesthetic of a work – by educated urban
musicians, and if professional village and urban musicians can successfully
play music together, then everything that has been described in modal theory
must be something that rural professional musicians understand even if they
do not/cannot articulate it. At this point in the argument, advocates for the
primacy and centrality of court and urban locations to the development of
Central Javanese culture might suggest a linear relationship between modal
practice in urban and rural areas. They might argue that rural musicians
are simply imitating modal practice as it was conceived and is still done in
the courts, but without real understanding of the intricacies of the theory.
They might conclude that rural musicians play an impure version of what
is preserved and fostered in the urban high culture music. Indeed, many
musicians, urban and rural, with whom I discussed this problem felt that this
description of the relationship between urban and rural traditions accurately
reflects historical process and contemporary practice.
In what follows, however, I present an alternative interpretation, one that
has come about through my analysis of grimingan – the solo accompaniment
played on the gender during old-style wayang performances. I suggest that,
far from being unaware of pathet, professional village musicians who per-
form on the gender for this kind of wayang kulit actually create a music that
is expressive of the same kind of melodic gesture and modal affect of rasa
that has come to be codified as pathet theory. These performers understand
the sound of pathet but they do not usually articulate the theoretical rules. As
10 Brinner 1995 has an extended discussion of the political nature of musical choices and com-
petency.
they make the musical choices that enable them to perform grimingan, they
are demonstrating knowledge of pathet, albeit a form of non-verbal compre-
hension.
Let me state clearly that I am not arguing for the primacy of the village
tradition over that of the court in any kind of a linear historical development
or of female gender players over male players in terms of the ability to convey
rasa, although there are Javanese musicians who would argue vehemently
for and against both of these assertions. Whether the old style of gender per-
formance developed in the court or in the village is not important for this
study. This is, however, an interesting question that does not have a simple
unidirectional answer, for the oral and written traditions of transmission of
performing arts in Java continue to coexist and interact. As most Javanese
musicians who know about the old style of wayang will tell you, the style
in which the gender players involved in this study perform was once the
general style, one in which all gender players – male or female – performed,
whether they were rural or urban musicians. They will also tell you that it
was usually the case that women were gender players for wayang perform-
ances, although there were plenty of men who could, did, and do play gender
in the old style.
Old-style genderan is identified by a fluid interweaving of the melodies
played by the left and right hands. There is an incessant rippling of sound
alternating between the two hands of the player. The music seems virtually
continuous, as though the point of having two different parts played by two
hands is textural rather than melodic. Arrivals at important points in gen-
dhing, suluk, and grimingan phrases alike are often staggered. This staggering
effect reduces the impact of the modal nature of the melodic gestures. In
new-style genderan there is often a heavy feeling of pause in which motion in
both hands generally stop at significant arrival points in gendhing, suluk, and
grimingan. The distinction between the melodies of the two hands is appar-
ent and the modal nature of the pattern or phrase is heard with clarity. The
main point of the two hands playing together is the creation of polyphony,
two melodies designed to interact in accord with each other. Of course, in
my descriptions the differences between these styles are sharp and clear. In
practice, however, performers of each occasionally borrow from the other
since mature gender performance usually involves a musician finding his or
her own interpretation of the style(s) in which he or she is trained. The gen-
dering of these styles and the location of their praxis in either the city or the
village are new phenomena.
In arguing that old-style gender players, male or female, have an aural
understanding of pathet (as revealed through the analysis of their grimingan),
and that the music itself contains the source material for the theory of pathet,
I am shifting the debate about pathet and the construction of the history and
development of musical knowledge in Central Java. The debate can no longer

be constructed around assumptions about pathet capability based on essen-
tialized notions of gender or location (urban or rural). Instead, the discus-
sion has to be oriented toward a consideration of broader historical cultural
trends, enabling an analysis that locates the shift in Javanese construction of
the musical style from ungendered to gendered and general to village – that
is, not urban/court – in the context of two hundred years of gradual change
in the Javanese construction of gender and musical knowledge.
‘Grimingan’: an introduction
The performance had already begun when I turned into the area designated for
motorbike parking. Feeling the tingle of anticipatory excitement that even an
afternoon wayang kulit performance generates, I approached the stage looking
intently for Ibu Sarju, the gender player for the afternoon. She was nowhere to be
found. The gender box was empty except for an old gentleman with bright eyes
and no teeth who smiled invitingly at me as I approached from the back of the
performance area. He started when he saw that I was preparing to record the
performance. He looked frantically around for anyone who could play the gender.
I told him not to worry and that I would wait until Ibu Sarju arrived. He insisted
that I start recording straight away, sat down and began noodling on the gender.
His playing was soft, indistinct. The dhalang, Ki Bejonugraha, a brother of Ibu
Sarju, turned around to see who was playing. On seeing me he asked me to play. I
declined pointing to the recording equipment. His assistant leaned back from his
position behind the dhalang and pointed enthusiastically at the gender. Knowing
that they knew I could play enough genderan to get by, I searched for another
excuse, hoping to protect a decision made at the beginning of my research not
to play at any of the performances I recorded. I whispered weakly that I did not
know how to play the grimingan melodies. The assistant shook his head and said
that it did not matter, I could learn those later. For now, I should just play the gen-
deran for suluk pathetan slendro nem [the accompaniment for the unmetered, vocal
mood song, based on the mode or pathet slendro nem, that had just been sung by
the dhalang] slowly and quietly while waiting for the dodogan. Feeling the urgency
of the request, I switched off the tape recorder and moved forward, fingering the
tabuh (mallets). As I began the grambyangan [mode-defining melody] for slendro
nem, Ibu Sarju came into the performance space. She smiled and indicated that I
should continue. Chatting with some of her friends over the sounds of the per-
formance, she slowly wended her way to the gender box and I returned to my tape
recorder. (Weiss 23 April 1991: fieldnotes.)
Recording gender players accompanying wayang always involved negotiat-

ing myself into the small square of space behind the gender player, stowing
my shoes and other personal paraphernalia into some hideaway between
instruments, people, and small plates of snacks, and then setting up my tape
recorder and microphone with its low-tech, bulky, home-constructed stand in
as unobtrusive position as possible. The inevitable answering of a multitude

of fairly predictable questions about what I was doing at the performance
was always pleasurable, since the old-style performances I attended had
had relatively few foreign visitors over the years and people were genuinely
pleased that someone was there recording the event. Performers and audi-
ence members were usually less interested in my presence than in the fact
that I was focusing on the gender players and their music rather than on the
performance of the dhalang. A week or so after every performance, I usually
returned to the homes of both the dhalang and the gender player with copies
of the tapes I had made. The dhalang were generally surprised, if momentar-
ily miffed, and then amused that the most prominent sound on the tapes was
the gender. The gender players always listened with a critical ear, alternately
chastising and praising themselves as they appraised their performance in
relation to that of the dhalang.
While I recorded continuously through each performance, I was most
interested in the solo accompaniment that gender players created for moments
when the dhalang was narrating or conducting dialogue between the puppets.
Called grimingan, this enigmatic genre seemed to have no formal structure,
no generally accepted definition, and no one I asked was able to verbally
express how performers created the music, sections of which could go on
for as long as twenty minutes. Given that on average over four hours of an
eight-hour wayang performance were filled with the sound of grimingan and
that many people insisted that the sound of grimingan itself encapsulated
the whole affective experience of an evening’s performance, I was driven to
figure out how grimingan worked.
I was not surprised by the advice offered by the dhalang’s assistant in
the quote at the beginning of this section. This suggestion, in essence one
interpretation of how to play grimingan, had already been made to me by
various authorities on wayang. When I asked one conservatory musician
which melodies gender players use when playing grimingan for a wayang
performance, he responded,
Oh, anything, really (apa saja boleh), as long as it is in the right pathet. Sometimes
they play the genderan for pathetan or ada-ada [mood songs], repeating them after
the dhalang has finished singing them or sometimes they play gendhing. (February
1991.)11
Even in the understanding of the people who intimately know and live
wayang, grimingan is a special and difficult category to define or describe.
11 This, indeed, was the same advice offered to me when participating in shortened wayang
kulit performances in New York City in 1987 and 1988 with the New York Indonesian Consulate
Gamelan.
According to professional gender player Ibu Gandasaruya, grimingan is ‘half

gendhing and half ... what? (separo gendhing, separo ... apa, iya?).’ There she
stopped, unable to come up with a word or phrase that would describe
grimingan (13 February 1991). Ibu Pringga, also a professional gender player,
described grimingan, functionally, as simply the melodies played on the
gender to accompany the dhalang when he was speaking so that if he needed
to sing he would not come in on the wrong note (26 May 1991: personal
communication during a bus journey). Many people, in particular dhalang of
various ilk, described grimingan, perhaps poetically, as something that causes
the wayang puppets to live or come alive (Sabean 11 July 1991; Kris Sukardi
29 May 1991; Moro 7 April 1991; Sudarsono 11 November 1990; and many
others).
In one of the only pieces of writing (in any language) that deals explicitly
with grimingan, Suratno explores the origin and meaning of the word gri-
mingan with regard to wayang performance.
The term grimingan comes from the word griming with the ending an. The word
griming-griming means to feel tickled and rather itchy. According to Bapak R.
Sutrisno, grimingan means to be whispering (Javanese: glenikan). In a different
opinion from Bapak Naryacarita, grimingan is a vague or indistinct sound but
it can be heard. Bapak Gondosugeng explains that the meaning of grimingan is
a sound which can make your hair stand up on end. The meaning of grimingan
in the context of gamelan and wayang studies is the low, soft, sweet-sounding
playing of the gender used to accompany the dialogue [between the puppets] or
the narration of the dhalang which is not accompanied by gendhing [that is, other
music]. For example, [this happens in] the dialogue after a gendhing [or when there
is] narration from the dhalang after dialogue or [after a] suluk. (Suratno n.d.:1.)
Here, too, we find a mixture of the poetic and the functional. Nowhere, how-
ever, do we find an explanation of what is actually played or how the process
of creating solo accompaniment for almost four hours of dialogue and narra-
tion – interspersed throughout an eight hour performance – actually works.
Culturally bounded styles of analysis
Nearly every player I interviewed, as well as many observers, described gri-

mingan as a process whereby the gender player merely followed the feeling of
the scene. But how they followed the rasa remained unexplained. In response
to a question asking her what she thought about when she played grimingan,
Ibu Sarju made the point that it sometimes felt that her hands were finding
what to play by themselves. (Iya, saya itu, terasa itu tangannya, kok, dapat cari
sendiri, Sarju 11 July 1991). This state, where one’s hands look for and find the
flowerings of melody themselves, is part of being a mature player (matang).
It is related to being prigel or clever, able to learn quickly and do things com-
petently, and it is also related to the individual’s spirit (jiwa) or, in a construc-
tion generally accepted by Western interpreters, to the creative impulse of the
player. When one’s hands are ‘seeking and playing melodies by themselves’,
what is guiding them is not the mind (akal) but the spirit (jiwa). This explana-
tion was frequently suggested when I pressed for a reason as to why it was
that there was a difference between female and male gender players, even those
men who had learned from female teachers and played in what was clearly
identifiable as the old-style (Sarju 11 July 1991; Gandasaruya 14 February
1991; Moro 7 April 1991). These performers clearly felt and heard that there
was a difference based on gender as one important aspect of a individual’s
jiwa. Further, they stressed that even two women who were related and who
had a teacher/student relationship, such as that between Ibu Pringga and Ibu
Sarju (aunt and niece), would play differently (Pringga 29 May 1991; Sarju 11
July 1991). The notion of the individuality of a performer’s jiwa and the effect
this jiwa has on what is played is one Central Javanese way of describing crea-
tivity and the processes of variation or a kind of improvisation.
My most unsuccessful interview question, the one that I asked of all the
gender players often in more ways than they felt reasonable, was precisely
the one which they could not answer and the one to which I most urgently
needed a clear response. That question involved my wondering what they
were thinking about when they played grimingan. How did they construct
the melodies? I explained to them that when I listened to what they played
in a live performance, it was clear that they were not just repeating one
fixed melody over and over again as had so frequently been suggested to
me by both themselves and others. How were they deciding what to play
next? Were they improvising? (Was I ever able to describe the concept of
improvisation clearly in a way that was culturally translatable?) Were they
following a structure? How did they manipulate the grimingan melodies that
they played for me so concisely in recording sessions? I knew that these were
questions that would have been difficult even for a theoretically-minded jazz
musician to answer. I felt that the questions often confused the musicians to
whom I was speaking: sometimes they simply laughed at me and explained
all over again that it all had to do with the feeling, the rasa, of the scene and
what the puppets were saying.
At first I was frustrated by my apparent inability to ask the ‘right’ ques-
tions, which would then ‘cause’ the gender players to demonstrate step
by step how they imagined and played the melodies for their grimingan. I
wanted the gender players to explain what I was hearing – ‘Well, first I used
this bit of the suluk melody and then connected it to the cadential phrase,
leading on to the grimingan melody of the pathet but in an abbreviated form,’
and so on. This could not happen, though not because of miscommunication
between the gender players and me. They were answering the questions with
exactly the information they thought I needed. Neither the questions nor the
answers were wrong or inadequate. My desire to analyse and document the
flexible architecture and flow of grimingan was as culturally specific as the
musicians’ responses to my questions.
My own seeking and finding structure in a musical process which the
performers themselves do not articulate is rather like what urban Javanese
musicians and music theorists did when they derived modal theory from
these same sounds over the course of the twentieth century. Imposing a
foreign system on the music renders tacit knowledge – that which is felt,
known but not articulated, perhaps not even thought worth articulation – by
performers as something that can be understood by those outside the world
of the performance tradition.
I set about trying to find the structure that I thought I could hear in gri-
mingan by organizing recording sessions with as many gender players as I
could, in particular with those performers whom I had already or would
have occasion to record in live performance during an old-style wayang. I
did this in order to have a comparative sample from which to examine the
music. These sessions were usually conducted at the performers’ houses with
the performers alone or with interested family members congregated about,
comfortably perched in chairs or on straw mats seated with us on the floor.
Conversation ranged widely over topics such as music gossip, philosophy, or
often life in general. I often asked the performers to talk about their experi-
ences playing at wayang and asked them about the differences between old-
style wayang and the many other performance styles current at the time and
during their lifetimes. We talked about rasa and how grimingan conveys rasa
and who could play grimingan with correct rasa. As professional musicians
they were usually comfortable with performing music for a recording and
were interested in ensuring that the recordings were clean and that I under-
stood what they were doing.
‘Grimingan’: hearing or imposing structure and form?
Because most of Central Javanese music works in patterns and/or cycles

that can be repeated, I began my search for an understanding of the process
of creating grimingan by discarding the notion that grimingan was some kind
of free improvisation limited only by the individual’s context-influenced
interpretation of the mode. I could be criticized for exercising a traditional,
Western, first response to an unknown in my assuming that there is a struc-
ture and then ‘discovering’ and imposing one that may not necessarily be
there (or that may not be important to the performers). I found, however, that
when asked, Central Javanese performers do assert that grimingan has a kind
of structure or form. In fact, each gender player has in his or her repertory at
least two grimingan melodies for each slendro pathet.12 They can all play these
versions on request and when they do so, it is usually in a condensed form.
What they play can sound much like the gender accompaniment for suluk, or
mood song, in that particular pathet.13
Transcription and analysis reveal that while grimingan has structural or
formal elements, in live performance the form is not rigidly fixed. Instead, it
is best to describe the performance of grimingan as a process. While grimingan
exists in a condensed form in the minds of the gender players, in performance
the structure is determined by the performer’s understanding of how the dif-
ferent modally appropriate phrases can be manipulated to create a continuous
and sensitive accompaniment for the utterances of the dhalang. There are, thus,
two, integrally related and mutually enlightening, types of questions to ask of
grimingan. One type of question asks what is actually going on in grimingan
performance – how is grimingan constructed in process – and is concerned
with the minute detail of individual performances. The other type of ques-
tion probes the nature of grimingan, asking how it works as a genre within
Central Javanese music culture – examining the larger context of grimingan. It
is important to ask both types of question as a comprehensive analysis must
reflect interdependence between detail and large-scale concept.
During the recording sessions, I asked the gender players to imagine that
they were playing through a wayang performance. This habitually involved
commenting on the pieces that would require the performance of the full
ensemble, the gendhing, and the performance of the mood songs or suluk
and grimingan wherever it seemed comfortable and appropriate to them.14
I chose this format so that the grimingan selections could be heard in a con-
text that approximated the real feeling and flow of a wayang performance.
This strategy proved to be an effective one because all of the gender players
I recorded could perform in this kind of context. In the few instances when
12 There is no monophonic melody performed by either the voice or rebab. By melody here I
mean a series of phrases with a predictable order of ending pitches, much like the gender part for
a suluk but played solo. One of these melodies has the texture of suluk pathetan accompaniment
and is referred to by gender players as conveying the usual rasa or emotion of the pathet. The other
has a more regular pulse and a texture similar to the kind of energetic, emotion-charged suluk
called ada-ada. As with ada-ada, this kind of grimingan conveys a heightened level of excitement
including emotions ranging from fear and anger to battle-preparedness and victory.
13 Transcription of these grimingan segments from recording sessions reveals that the perform-
ers do have a fixed notion of these two grimingan melodies in each pathet, performing extremely
similar, although by no means exact, versions at different times, even in different years.
14 We generally began with ‘Pathetan Slendro Nem Wantah’ or ‘Ageng’, the first mood song per-
formed in an old-style wayang, leading on to ‘Ada-ada Girisa’, the second mood song, followed
by grimingan in slendro pathet nem and so forth.
I asked players to perform outside of a wayang-type context, their perform-

ances were stilted. One player even became confused and declared that she
could not hear what to play (anonymous April 1991).
In a wayang, particularly in the Slendro Nem section of the performance,
a gender player often has to play grimingan for twenty minutes or more
before the dhalang requests something else. In the recording sessions, after
they played their condensed versions of the grimingan melodies, I asked the
performers how they would fill in the rest of the time of the segment need-
ing accompaniment in live performance if they were to finish playing the
grimingan selection after three minutes. They usually replied that they would
just repeat what they had already played for me until the dhalang indicated
that they were to stop and play something else.
Ah, keep going back (Anu, kembali, kembali) (Gandasaruya 13 February 1991).
What I just played, it gets repeated over and over again (Ini tadi, diulangi, diulangi
terus) (Karnadihardja 7 August 1991).
Here, I thought, was a testable description of how the performers create

grimingan. Performers have a melody, perhaps like that of a suluk (given the
frequent advice to use suluk for grimingan), with a clear beginning and end
that they simply repeat several times until the dhalang calls for the next musi-
cal event. Analysis of my transcriptions, however, revealed a more compli-
cated process involving internal repetition, extension, elaboration, and other
manipulations of the phrases that make up the grimingan melodies.
In transcribing the selections from my field recordings I used the Javanese
cipher notation system as it has been adapted for indicating gender parts. This
involves the representation of the right- and left-hand parts simultaneously
with the right-hand part notated above and the left-hand part below a central
horizontal line. The line is continuous through each phrase. In the notation
of gender parts for gendhing, a phrase is usually sixteen or thirty-two regular
pulses long. In grimingan, however, there is no uniform phrase length, nor
is there a regular pulse. Instead, I have used breaks in the horizontal line
to indicate arrivals at a particular pitch destinations. Most of these arrivals
are succeeded by pauses of varying lengths. This pictoral representation of
musical pause reflects the way in which gender players perform the music
and allowed me to track how gender players expand and contract grimingan
phrases and structure in performance (see transcriptions on accompanying
CD-ROM).
Comparing ‘suluk’ and ‘grimingan’ as played on the ‘gender’
In an unmetered suluk all the musicians are either hearing or imagining the
melody that would be sung by the dhalang.15 The rebab follows the melody
of the singer closely, usually lagging behind ever-so-slightly and ornament-
ing with idiomatic gestures associated with both the specific pathet and the
practice of playing rebab itself. The gender and gambang play moderately
formulaic phrases. These phrases are constructed by the linking together of
certain idiomatic, short, pathet-determined patterns to indicate the melody’s
passing-through of various subordinate pitches. These are then connected to
other slightly longer patterns to indicate the anticipation and eventual arrival
at more significant points usually at the ends of phrases. The suling per-
forms pathet-derived melodic flourishes at the arrival of the most significant
pitches, primarily the last, in each phrase. For each pathet there is a cadential
or ending phrase that defines the pathet. This is called the grambyangan and
is also performed before an introduction to a suluk (and most gendhing) if the
mode is not already in the ears of the performers and, in a slightly extended
version, functions as the last phrase of each pathetan and suluk.16
The performance of suluk and pathetan requires negotiation and timing.
Everyone is following the melodic leader – the singer, or in his absence, the
rebab player – who has a large degree of freedom in interpreting the flow
and pace of these ametric melodies. In response to this, the gender, gambang,
and suling parts are not fixed. For the gender, as for all the accompanimental
instruments, each phrase is flexible to a great extent in both the beginning
and middle. This flexibility allows the possibility of expansion or contraction
of the sections of the phrases that lead to particular subordinate tones. This
process can be effected through the changing of the number of repetitions of
certain small units of melodic material or altering the overall pacing – slow-
ing down or speeding up of particular gestures, or expanding or contracting
the time waited in between subordinate arrivals. Once the melodic leader has
15 Through my discussions with gender players and other musicians as well as my own experi-
ence performing suluk accompaniments, I understand suluk melodies and their accompaniment
to be organized around a series of arrivals – phrases which begin in a particular way, pass
through other pitches and then arrive at, end on, other particular pitches. The vocal and accom-
panimental pathways taken to these arrivals are modally determined and the same pathway can
be found in more than one suluk in the same mode. The pattern in which these arrivals are strung
together is specific to a particular suluk. These arrivals are like subsidiary cadences in that, within
a given modal context, the way in which a phrase begins often (but not always) determines the
arrival tone to which it will travel. While each arrival may also determine the arrival that will
follow, this level of predictability is not as convincing as that within the phrases.
16 Up to this point I have been using the term suluk in a general sense to mean all mood songs.
In a performance context in which there is no dhalang and the melody is played solely on the
rebab, however, these pieces are called pathetan rather than suluk or suluk pathetan.
begun the final gesture of the phrase, the rest of the instrumentalists follow
suit and the phrase finishes with a certain regular predictability. The melodic
leader usually waits until the instruments have completed their staggered
arrivals at the phrase-ending pitch before he begins the next phrase. Each
performer will play his or her own idiosyncratic interpretation of the phras-
es. The accompaniment for the same suluk played in renditions by two gender
players will be recognizably similar but by no means the same. Differences
in style can be determined by teaching lineage, learning location, personal
aesthetics, and responses to the other people performing at the moment.
Grimingan is similar to suluk and pathetan in that phrases are organized by
linking together certain idiomatic, pathet-determined gestures. These are used
to indicate the passing-through of various subordinate, but pathet-important,
pitches while other, slightly longer patterns indicate the anticipation and
eventual arrival at more significant points such as the ends of phrases. The
primary difference is that no one ever performs the melody as happens in
suluk or the instrumental pathetan. The melody is only implied by the notes
passed through and the significant arrivals at the ends of phrases. Here the
word ‘implied’ suggests that the listener actually understands and hears the
pathet and so can intuit the tonal relationships that are to be expected.17 The
other difference is that grimingan is a solo performance. There is no need to
organize arrivals at particular pitches in conjunction with others. Instead, the
pacing is determined by the gender player’s interaction with the dhalang and
the story he is telling.
When performing in a recording session with no dhalang to accompany, the
gender players all performed their versions of pathet-specific grimingan melo-
dies in the most condensed forms. There was no need for expansion or con-
traction. The result is the same as when one asks a musician to play one of the
instrumental parts for a suluk as a solo. We can, thus, get a sense of the melodic
material from which the musician would draw in performance and the pac-
ing that he or she thinks is appropriate but not a real indication of how they
would perform the part, for that is always an interactive process. This was a
convenient outcome for my analytical goals, since it allowed me to determine
that there is indeed a melody, or better, a series of phrases with arrivals at
specific pitches that comprise grimingan in each pathet and that gender players
imagine and hear these in similar ways. Thus, when gender players refer to
grimingan, they have a musical entity in mind, one that is probably similar to
17 Because they grew up in a world in which the diatonic scale is predominant, one can make
a class of 180 American non-music major students sing in unison the last note of a diatonic scale
by stopping on the seventh note of a major scale or playing a dominant major-minor seventh
chord and asking them to sing the note that is next. Most of them cannot tell you why but their
ears ‘know’ what is next. For people who hear pathet as their musical organization system, there
is this same kind of aural inevitability when one hears certain pitch relationships.
a musician’s understanding of suluk. It is not just a free-form improvisation

in the mode. Likewise, when gender players talk about other musicians not
understanding grimingan, they are referring to real lacunae, from their own
perspectives, in those performers’ musical knowledge.
Because it is a solo genre and also because it has not been part of the urban
repertoire that has been intensively theorized and codified over the course
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there is great variation between
condensed versions of the grimingan melodies from different gender players.
Performers from the same family have more similarities in their renditions
of particular grimingan melodies than performers from differing locations
and learning environments. That said, through transcription of performances
from a variety of gender players from differing locations in the Surakarta
area, I have been able to identify and categorize overall structure, phrase
order, and internal arrival sequences that can be reasonably compared to one
another as similar. All gender players involved in this study could recognize
grimingan melodies when played by others. They knew in a few moments
whether or not the gender player was playing suluk accompaniment as gri-
mingan or true grimingan melodies.
The process of ‘grimingan’

The process of playing grimingan is similar to that in which the dhalang engages as
he develops the lakon [basic outline of the story or episode] he is performing. Each
of these processes is different from the interpretation of balungun because it need
not happen in a regulated time frame. The dhalang and the gender player are each
free to expand, contract, embed, nest, invert, repeat, disconnect, and integrate
ideas as they choose within their performance of each section of a particular story
or melody, as long as they occasionally arrive at places of expectation anticipated
by the audience. (Weiss 6 June 1991: fieldnotes.)
How exactly do gender players create grimingan for a twenty-minute dramatic

segment if the melody they have to work with is only about three minutes
long? The answer, it turns out, is not uniform. As suggested above, some
gender players really do just repeat the melody from beginning to end as
many times as necessary. Some gender players try to slow down the delivery
– expand the time in between notes – so that one complete statement of the
grimingan melody lasts for the entire scene. More usual, however, is for a
performer to repeat the internal phrases in some order, usually varying them
each time they repeat them.
Suppose, for example, a grimingan melody has four different phrases that
we can identify and label as A, B, C, and D. A performer will always start
with A, because it serves as the musical and modal bridge between the last
musical event and the grimingan segment. She may or may not ever return
to A in that particular segment of grimingan. However if she stops for some
reason – someone interrupts her or she pauses to light a cigarette – she will
return to A or something similar before moving on to other phrases. Then a
gender player might play several versions of phrase B, varying it by expand-
ing or contracting the time it takes to get to some of the internal arrivals,
much in the way someone playing the gender for a suluk will accommodate
their usual melodic material to the pace of the singer or rebab player. Our
phrase order might look something like: A-B-Bi-Bii . She might then change
to focus on the C phrase, decorating and ornamenting renditions of C in a
similar way leading to A-B-Bi-Bii-C-Ci-Cii for the overall phrase order. It
is also possible to cycle through alternations between B and C, sometimes
repeating particular versions before continuing on to the final phrase labeled
D, leading to an overall form such as: A-B-C-Bi-C-BiiCi-B-Cii-C-D.
Some gender players place a high value on playing the last phrase of the
particular grimingan melody just as the dhalang finishes the scene segment.
For instance, on hearing a recording of her own grimingan, one gender player,
Ibu Pringga, congratulated herself with the word, ‘Pas’, or ‘Right on the
mark’, as she heard herself wrap up the grimingan segment with the final
phrase of the melody just in time to anticipate the dhalang’s call for the next
musical event. Sometimes a performer will misjudge the pace of the dhalang
or she may simply tire of internal repeats and play the final phrase long
before the end of the scene. Often the gender player will take a brief break
at this point and then begin the grimingan melody again from the A phrase.
Many other strategies are possible. Described here are the methods that I
have come across most frequently in my analysis.
One technique used by many gender players is the occasional insertion
of other scene-appropriate music into the context of the grimingan melody,
interrupting and then returning to their usual process of elaboration on the
grimingan melody. If the tension level of a scene is suddenly raised – the
occurrence of an abrupt arrival of an emissary or the sound of an approach-
ing army – a gender player may switch to the other more emotionally-charged
grimingan melody in that pathet for a short while in order to convey the
increase in dramatic tension. There are certain dramatic moments, such as the
robust laughter of a king or other important character, that require a specific
comment from the gender. Performers also play a few phrases from a gendhing
or suluk usually associated with a particular character or event mentioned or
evoked by the dhalang or from a piece that foreshadows the next performance
event. Occasionally a gender player might even insert a few phrases of music
from a piece with an extra-performance meaning relevant to the perform-
ers alone. These kinds of alterations in the seamless aural texture woven by
the gender player are noticed only by those listening intently. People who
know what to expect – who possess enough musical knowledge to catch

the innuendo – enjoy the joke or note the skill of the musical comment, but it
is not necessary to understand all of the musical commentary to obtain full
enjoyment of the performance. This kind of musical comment on the gender is
like the subtle message that passes with merely a meaningful glance between
two people who know each other well.18
My description of the process of grimingan suggests that there can be
enormous differences between the performances of different musicians and
even different performances by the same musician. It is for this reason that I
have suggested that playing grimingan is a performative process. A process
is not as fixed an entity as a Javanese gendhing which itself is nowhere near
as fixed as a Beethoven symphony played by a live orchestra, which in turn,
pales in fixity to the repetitive performance of the same piece recorded on a
compact disc. The realization or creation of grimingan is determined by the
momentary synergy of the musician’s interpretation of the basic melodic
blocks or phrases, her approach to the problem of filling time with those
blocks, her response to the dhalang and the other musical and performative
stimuli of the moment. Yet, there is no doubt that gender players and dhalang
alike would recognize what was played by any of the players included in this
study as grimingan. Further, when I asked various gender players if what they
heard on the tapes that I played for them was the same as what they would
play, they all replied in the affirmative with a comment like: ‘It’s grimingan,
of course it is the same’.
Sameness in Javanese music performance contextualized
Depending on the context, sameness in Javanese music can be determined

by correspondence on any level ranging from that of minute detail to either
mid-scale or large-scale structure. Understanding sameness based on exact
detail is most obvious and, perhaps, familiar. Examples of Javanese teach-
ers correcting students at the slightest deviation from a melody as taught
or arguing with one another about the minute particulars of interpretation
for a specific moment in a gendhing are common. Here sameness describes a
rigorous exactitude.
The relationship between what is played by elaborating or panerusan
instruments such as the gender or the gambang in gendhing and the balungan
18 For the reader interested in a more extensive exploration of how this process works, this
book includes a CD-ROM containing transcription and formal analysis of seventeen versions of
a particular grimingan segment, performed by nine different gender players in various kinds of
recording situations.
melody can be described as a kind of mid-level structural sameness. The

balungan of a particular melody travels along a specific series of arrival points
that is the same each time the cycle is repeated (once the musicians have done
the work to settle on a particular version). The panerusan instruments must
connect with the balungan melody at the important arrival tones at the end
of each gatra. Beyond this, the panerusan player is free to choose from a vari-
ety of interpretations. Each time through the cycle a performer can choose
a different interpretation as long as the arrival points are the same and the
interpretation is modally appropriate.
On a larger scale, in an evening’s performance, be it a klenengan (an
event in which musicians gather simply for the purpose of playing music)
or a wayang, the basic structural arrival points in the evening, that is, the
progression from pathet nem through pathet sanga to pathet manyura, must be
observed. The choice of gendhing at the klenengan or how the story is filled
out in the wayang is not predetermined. That is what makes each perform-
ance unique or worthy of note. This flow through basically predictable, yet
unspecified, events is an example of large-scale similarity.
This idea suggests a subtle difference in the interpretation of cycles and
coincidences from that advanced by Judith Becker and Alton Becker in their
1979 publications. The elegant idea in the Beckers’ argument is that the
coincidences – in Central Javanese music, wayang stories and performances,
in Central Javanese life in general – are the most important element of the
process. They argue compellingly that the stroke of the gong is what the
Central Javanese ear is waiting for, the be-all and end-all of musical notes,
the ultimate punctuation mark (Judith Becker 1979; Alton Becker 1979). In
the context of the above discussion of sameness and in light of the comments
on the importance of finding one’s own jiwa-guided performance style, as
well as the interest which is focused on individual variations and interpreta-
tions amongst most groups of Central Javanese musicians, it seems to me
that the ‘punctuation points’ in performance – that is, the strokes of the gong
and other cycle dividing instruments such as kenong, kempul, and kethuk;
the arrivals at ends of gatra or the ends of phrases in grimingan; the arrivals
at particular stock moments in a wayang story – are only one half of the
main point. That there is much intense discussion among Central Javanese
musicians and performers on the nature of the interpretations of particular
wayang stories and gendhing suggests that, to the Central Javanese ear, there
is something beyond, something that is made possible by, coincidence.
What is clearly interesting and important to the Central Javanese perform-
ers and music aficionados is: Which path does one take to get to the arrival
points? The coincidences and arrival points provide a structure within which
to proceed, a structure that encourages the development of the process of
‘getting there’. The sameness is the structure – mid-level or large-scale –
and the interpretive process of realizing the piece within the structure is
the gendhing or the lakon (outline or balungan of a wayang story). Further, if
the gendhing or lakon is interpreted in a way that is aesthetically pleasing or
appropriate then the rasa may be found, captured, understood, or brought
to life.
Philip Kitley points to a similar kind of relationship between structure
and its realization in another Central Javanese art form, that of batik (waxed
and dyed, patterned cloth used for male and female clothing).
There has been a tendency in some Western scholarship on batik to dismiss the
observed variety in its composition as simply decorative and repetitive, and, in a
reductive fashion, to devise categorisations which radically simplify and [...] over-
look important features of batik design and batik making as reported by Javanese
craftworkers (Kitley 1992:2-3).
Kitley demonstrates that Javanese sources from the seventeenth through the
nineteenth centuries frequently mention batik as being associated with spe-
cific types of garment. There seems to be no tendency to group batik in terms
of the large-scale patterns. He suggests that the discussion of batik in colonial
historical sources ‘reveals two opposed aesthetics: a Javanese tendency to
proliferate and elaborate, and a Western tendency to pare away variety in an
endeavour to lay bare structural principles’.19
One assesses the quality of batik by looking at the refinement of the marks
on the cloth, the clearness of the colour, the intricacy and clarity of the detail
as it leads the eye from aggregations of the minute to the larger repeating
pattern. The important element for the Central Javanese is the quality of the
detail. If the detail did not lead to the larger patterns, or arrival points, then
the batik would not be valuable. Likewise, if only the larger patterns are
present, the batik is a poor piece of work. Irrespective of colonial attempts to
categorize batik, to a Javanese if the large patterns are similar, then the batik
are the ‘same’, but one with the more finely worked and clearer detail is bet-
ter or more valuable than the other.
Although I am by no means an expert in batik, I took time in June of 1993
to visit Pasar Triwindu in Surakarta, a permanent market in which an inter-
esting collection of used, new, useful, and tourist items are sold, among these
batik. I asked two of the used-batik sellers to show me some pieces that were
the same. They brought out several in which there was an obvious large-
pattern similarity. After making it clear that I was not going to buy, I asked
them if they would charge the same price for all of them, since they were
‘the same’. There ensued a heated discussion between the two women in
19 Kitley 1992:5. The relevance of this statement as a warning for my own analysis and discus-
sion of the process of grimingan is not lost on me as has been shown above.
ngoko or low Javanese regarding the relative quality of the pieces of cloth. In
the end they came to an agreement and ranked the three pieces, saying that
one was of much better quality, better detail, and clearer than the other two
(even though one of those two was almost new) and so they would ask twice
as much for the ‘good’ one. We concluded that although the pieces were the
same, in fact they were also different.
Perhaps this flexibility in Javanese assessments of sameness explains
why a musician can state that the performance of Gendhing Gambirsawit on
Thursday was the ‘same’ as the performance of Gendhing Gambirsawit on
Friday, except that the performers loved the performance on Friday and
thought that Thursday’s was nothing special at all, or why gender players can
insist that the music they can hear, which is quite different in surface detail
from their own grimingan, is actually the ‘same’.20 It is all in the way the
piece is worked out between the arrival points that makes it ‘happen’. The
structure provides a base from which to begin an interpretation, that is, an
understanding of what the particular realization of the gendhing, batik, event,
grimingan, is actually about. Thus, the Western view of two performances as
being radically different due to dissimilarity in detail and mid-level structure
may ignore a Central Javanese view of their underlying sameness. It may, at
the same time, devalue and underestimate the centrality of the process of
realization. Grimingan as a genre is possible only through the intersection and
interplay of similarity, difference, structure, and process.
We now understand that grimingan is actually a process, that there is a
method to its creation – that it is not simply a musician noodling around
on the gender in an unorganized manner. In addition, the kind of process I
have described for the playing of grimingan is one that is concordant with
the aesthetics of other Central Javanese expressive arts. But how does this
help us to shift the debate and assumptions about pathet capability as they
are understood in the music world of late twentieth-century Central Java?
Further, how might an answer to the previous question help us to under-
stand the gradual changes in the construction of Javanese gender and musical
knowledge over the past two hundred years?
In what follows I will briefly present some of the primary elements of pathet
theory as described by Javanese musician and theorist, R.L. Martopangrawit,
and then compare these to some grimingan pitch analysis. Despite protesta-
tions to the contrary by both Javanese male and female musicians, grimingan
reflects modal gesture in much the same way that suluk melodies do. It turns
out that the when gender players perform grimingan, the phrases they play
imply the rules of pathet as they have been codified by Javanese music theo-
20 See the description of Jayengraga and his friends performing Gendhing Gambirsawit from
the Serat Centhini in Chapter V.
rists. Female gender players do, albeit tacitly, understand pathet. Pathet rules
can be (and possibly were) derived from grimingan gesture and grimingan
as a process and genre has been around longer than the articulated rules of
music theory.
Finding ‘pathet’ in ‘grimingan’
‘As for pathet, I don’t understand it’, (Nek pathet, ora ngerti), was a common
statement from gender players when I quizzed them on the topic. They usu-
ally suggested that I go and ask a conservatory graduate to explain it to me
if I really wanted to know. When I tried to explain that I thought I could
hear the expression of pathet rules in their grimingan, gender players often
just shrugged their shoulders and turned to another point for discussion.
Unphased by their lack of interest in my agenda, I have persisted because
demonstrating that grimingan expresses pathet rules inverts many assump-
tions, common to both Javanese and non-Javanese musicians and musicolo-
gists, regarding musical knowledge and its sources, history, and develop-
ment. Further, asserting that female gender players can perform pathet, even if
they do not talk about it, removes a core element of the common, essentialist
argument that suggests women musicians are not able to understand, hear,
or play following pathet simply because they are women.
A good illustration of how Javanese theorists have approached the question
of pathet is provided by the Javanese musician and theorist Martopangrawit
who explores nearly every aspect of Javanese gamelan music in his Catatan
pengetahuan karawitan, ‘Notes on knowledge of gamelan music’ in two vol-
umes, originally published in Indonesian in 1972. These publications are pri-
mary, Javanese music theory texts.21 Martopangrawit presents an extensive
exegesis on the strong and weak pitches or tones of each pathet (1984:45-65).
By strong and weak tones, he is referring to the five notes in the slendro scale
and how they relate to one another in each pathet. All slendro scale pitches are
used in each pathet, but the strong tones in each pathet can be identified by the
facts that: important phrases end on them; they appear in strong rhythmic
locations in the middle of phrases; and, whatever the piece they are generally
heard more often than the weaker pitches in the pathet. The pathet-trained ear
can easily identify the pathet of a gendhing, suluk, or grimingan segment by
listening to the contour of the balungan melody and the patterns chosen by
the musicians playing the elaborating instruments.
Martopangrawit outlines the appropriate interpretation for each seleh or
21 Judith Becker and Alan Feinstein (1984-88) chose to begin their landmark English transla-
tion series of Javanese music texts with these Martopangrawit volumes.
ending note of a gatra as played by the gender in each pathet. The gender is
played with two mallets and an arrival at the end of a gatra is usually marked
by the simultaneous striking of two notes. Martopangrawit describes two
kinds of intervals that the gender can play at the end of a gatra: a kempyung
in which the two notes struck have two keys in between them and a gem-
byang in which the two notes struck have four keys in between them. (The
former pair usually has an interval of a fifth or some kind of sixth and the
latter always has an octave between them.) As Martopangrawit outlines it,
in pathet manyura pitches 6 and 1 at the end of a gatra are played as gembyang
and pitches 2 and 3 as kempyung with pitch 6 being the dhong tone, the pitch
to which musicians will orient themselves in the mode. In pathet sanga pitches
5 and 6 are played as gembyang and pitches 1 and 2 as kempyung with pitch 5
as the dhong tone. In pathet nem pitches 2 and 3 are gembyang and only pitch
5 is kempyung with pitch 2 as the dhong tone.22
Although Martopangrawit’s description is primarily for the interpreta-
tion of gatra in gendhing, the relative weakness and strength of pitches in
the modes is also heard in the suluk melodies and, significantly, in grimingan
melodies. There is clear modal correspondence between these genres in all
pathet. The melodic contours of the suluk in slendro pathet nem have a prepon-
derance of phrases that end on pitches 2, 3 and 5. Although the text changes,
the last three phrases of nearly every suluk in slendro pathet nem are virtually
the same melodically: the antepenultimate phrase starts on middle 5 and
descends to low 5; the penultimate moves to middle 2; and the last phrase
falls to low 3. These are followed by an instrumental ending that articulates
the movement from kempyung 5, through 6 in either gembyang or kempyung
to gembyang 2, that is particularly characteristic of pathet nem. It should be
pointed out that most players, male or female and in either the old or new
styles, will play the last low 2 in gembyang first and then, as a kind of caden-
tial flourish in kempyung. All of these phrases fall within the parameters of
pathet nem as described by Martopangrawit.
Grimingan in slendro pathet nem has a similar preponderance of phrases end-
ing on pitches 5, 3, and 2, the strong tones in pathet nem. Based on a compari-
son of seventeen examples by nine gender players, some in recording sessions
and some in live performance, there are recognizable mid-scale and large-
scale similarities between the performances. So much so that it is possible to
identify four different phrases, for the purposes of analysis labelled A, B, C,
and D. The A phrase is generally exactly the same as the performer’s version
of the final instrumental phrase in suluk in the same mode, ending on low 2
22 Pitch 6 is part of both pathet sanga and pathet manyura and so gatra ending with pitch 6 in
pathet nem should be treated with either the sanga or manyura interpretations depending on the
melodic context.
and then cycling back to pause on pitch 6 from which the other phrases can
begin. The B phrases generally begin with a short phrase to pitch 1 then gradu-
ally falling through 5 and low 3 to low 2 in gembyang and cycling through a
condensed version of the A phrase. The C phrases begin in a manner similar to
B gradually falling through 5 to low 3 but then diverging with a focus on pitch
6 in both kempyung and gembyang forms, finally moving through low 3 to low
2 in gembyang. The final D phrase begins with a repeated emphasis on pitch 1
moving to pitch 6, falling through 5 and low 3 to low 2 in gembyang and then,
much like the instrumental final of pathet nem suluk, from 5 through 6 to 2.
There is clear modal correspondence between phrase endings and melod-
ic pathways in suluk and grimingan in slendro pathet nem. Similar correlation
can be found between suluk and grimingan in the two other modes, slendro
pathet sanga and slendro pathet manyura. Grimingan in pathet sanga features the
distinctive movement from pitch 6 falling down through pitch 2 to pitch 1
that is characteristic of the penultimate several phrases of most suluk in pathet
sanga. Grimingan in pathet manyura features the distinctive movement from
pitch 1 falling down through pitch 3 to pitch 2, a pattern that is characteristic
of the penultimate several phrases in suluk in pathet manyura.
In each case the prominent pitches are those that are characteristic of the
modes as described by Martopangrawit, with one exception each in pathet
sanga and pathet manyura. Martopangrawit mentions pitches 5 and pitch 6
as important gembyang and dhong tones in pathet sanga and pathet manyura
respectively. As I have described them, the basic flow of grimingan phrases in
pathet sanga misses the emphasis on pitch 5 and that of pathet manyura misses
the emphasis on pitch 6, although these emphases can be heard in many suluk
melodies in pathet sanga and pathet manyura respectively. The reason for this
is that the pitch relations in the grimingan for pathet sanga and pathet manyura
reflect those found in the old melodies for two suluk: Pathetan Sanga Wantah
Lama and Pathetan Manyura Wantah Lama. The old suluk melodies in pathet
sanga generally focus on pitches 2 and 1 in kempyung and pitch 6 in gembyang,
while old melodies in manyura generally focus on pitches 3 and 2 in kempyung
and pitch 1 in gembyang. I say generally because in each case both of the pairs
of notes usually in kempyung can also appear in gembyang in the performance
of the old melodies. In other words, the strict rendering as kempyung of pitches
1 and 2 in pathet sanga and 2 and 3 in pathet manyura is something that has
come about more recently, posterior to the creation of the old melodies.
These old melodies were familiar to the gender players involved in my
study and they all either pointed out independently or agreed in conversation
that grimingan melodies in these two pathet were more similar to the melodies
of old-style than new-style suluk. In addition, many gender players told me
that while it was possible to play the gender parts for the new suluk melodies
in either the male or female – urban or village, new or old – styles, both of
which they readily demonstrated, the genderan for the old melodies for suluk
could only be played in the female, that is, old or village style.23 Grimingan
is relatively ‘old’ because of its distinctive connection to the old melodies for
suluk and the fact that grimingan melodies are usually performed in old-style
genderan. Only one of the nine performers with whom I worked was willing
to try to play grimingan in new-style genderan and he thought it sounded odd.
The others simply shook their heads and said it could not be done.
The acknowledged close relationship between grimingan melodies and the
old suluk melodies for pathet sanga and pathet manyura is interesting for our
understanding of pathet for several reasons. It suggests that, as reflected in the
theoretical writings of Martopangrawit, the codification of pathet that went on
over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries involved some minor
recasting of pathet sanga and pathet manyura, in particular the inclusion of one
more important tone each: an emphasis on pitch 5 in pathet sanga and pitch
6 in pathet manyura. These additions most probably reflect the importance of
those particular tones in the gendhing repertoire of the two pathet respectively.
Indeed, there is a preponderance of pieces in pathet sanga and pathet manyura
that have pitch 5 and pitch 6 respectively as the primary gong tone.24 Modal
movements in gendhing and suluk in pathet nem seemed not to have been
extensively modified in the process of the codification of pathet rules. The
subsequent creation of suluk melodies to reflect the importance of pitches 5
and 6 in pathet sanga and pathet manyura respectively – the lagu baru or new
melodies – seems an obvious addition to the suluk repertoire, especially since
these new melodies are far and away the mode pieces most frequently played
at klenengan where the focus is on gendhing repertory rather than wayang and
sung text, old or new. There is reasonable evidence to support this idea.
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the urban courts
there was a subtle and gradual shift in focus away from wayang repertoire to
the performance of music without theatre, klenengan. This shift paralleled the
creation of notational systems for Javanese music, the rise of the concept of
‘high art’ in Javanese musical performance, and the appearance of a new word
to describe ‘high art’ musical performance, that is, karawitan. Sumarsam has
written about the simultaneous development of these phenomena from the
mid-nineteenth century. He notes a dramatic increase in interest in karawitan
23 One of the major criticisms of the performance of female gender players is that they don’t
really understand when an arrival pitch should be gembyang or kempyung. For the knowledgeable
old-style player, I suggest that this has less to do with their ability to understand mode than the
fact that their impulses are based in the old understandings of pathet, as heard in the old suluk
melodies, that allow for both gembyang and kempyung interpretations of several important pitches
in pathet sanga and pathet manyura.
24 It would be interesting to study the relative ages of the gendhing with gong tones 5 in pathet
sanga and 6 in pathet manyura. I am unaware of any such study to date.
in the beginning of the twentieth century (Sumarsam 1995:102-30). He con-

nects these changes with elite Javanese interest in European intellectual ideas
and cultural trends. A large ensemble of musicians playing stately music in
the courts was much more comparable to Western orchestral performance
than the often rowdy performance of an all-night wayang. The performance
of karawitan suited the formal day-time and early evening ceremonial events
that Europeans attended in colonial Java. Wayang, itself, had already been
theorized to some degree in Kusumadilaga’s Serat Sastramiruda first pub-
lished in the Javanese-language newspaper Bramartani in 1877-1878 (Sears
1996a:95-115). In that text there is no mention of the theory of pathet outside
its function as a structural prop for wayang performance. This suggests that
the development of an articulated modal theory came after the middle of
the nineteenth century and was based on the shifts in performance practice
I have just described. It is reasonable that the newly articulated theories of
pathet would reflect the new court performance trends resulting in an empha-
sis on pathet as it functioned in karawitan – the high art music, the music most
familiar to those articulating the rules for pathet – instead of wayang.
Conclusion
Grimingan is a solo gender genre said to capture the rasa of the wayang per-
formance. The rasa resides in the pathet and pathet is evoked through the
sound of the grimingan. All Javanese performers – urban and rural – would
agree that the cultural location of the gender has changed: the gender was
once associated with wayang, with pathet, and with female performers; it is
now associated with karawitan, with pathet, and with male performers. Pathet
and gender are the linked constants in any construction. It is not coinciden-
tal that much of modern pathet theory as it is discussed and taught in the
conservatories and courts is based on gender practice. Cultural constructions
of performing pathet have also changed a little over time, moving from an
intuited working out based on the rasa of the moment to a demonstration of
an understanding of the rules inflected by rasa of the moment. Aesthetically
inspired performances of either kind of pathet are described as rasa-full. As
Bapak Moro, an old-style dhalang with court connections put it,
Actually, [the older gender players] feel the true rasa. Even though they don’t, how
to explain, yes, they don’t yet know about the high art of Central Javanese music
(karawitan), when you hear them play, it is as if they already understand.25
25 Sebenarnya, terasa bener-bener. Walaupun orang tidak bagaimana iya belum, belum me-
ngenal tentang seni karawitan tapi mendengar itu saja sudah dia merasa. (Moro 7 April 1991.)
These old-style performers have not had professional reasons to obtain the
knowledge of scholarly interpretations of pathet. That female musicians are
women has also nothing to do with whether or not they can understand
pathet. The grimingan they play is suffused with pathet and, if it is played
well, with rasa. As described briefly above, the articulated rules of pathet
share much with the modal gestures of grimingan. Grimingan is the perform-
ance genre most closely associated with female gender players and one that,
because of its association with the old suluk melodies, was a likely feature of
performance practice well before the articulation of the rules of pathet.
The gender has always been associated with pathet. What has changed
is the gender of the musicians most usually associated with the gender. To
understand how this change has come about it is necessary to move beyond
theories based on essentialist interpretations of musical skill and capabil-
ity. The changes discussed in this chapter reflect, in microcosm, large-scale
cultural shifts in Javanese society that have gradually occurred since the late
eighteenth century. In the following chapters I will explore the gendering
of rasa by examining how gender in Central Java has been described and
analysed. Then, after examining some of the mythological constructions of
gender and comparing these with stories and myths about famous gender
players, I will suggest that female gender players and the musical contexts in
which they play represent a tangible link with older constructions of gender
in Java. Developing an understanding of this cross-cultural pun – the inter-
section between gender and gender – provides significant insight into the
larger, and much debated, topic of gender in Java and why grimingan is so
central to it.
CHAPTER II
Competing hegemonies
The discourse on Javanese gender
To study gender is inevitably to study paradox; researchers interested in the cul-

tural and social systems that distinguish and organize men’s and women’s lives
are continually confronted with incongruities, ambiguities, and outright contradic-
tions in patterns of belief and practice, in image and reality (Eberhardt 1988:73).
I do not yet understand the paradoxical situation in which a sound that is clearly
feminine in the ears of Javanese performers, evokes an aesthetic that is clearly male
in the minds of those same performers (Weiss 10 October 1990: fieldnotes).
One of the predominant background themes of Javanese wayang stories

is the presence of competing drives to create, maintain, or destroy world
order. Success in these contests is ultimately possible only through the dem-
onstration of individual potency and skilful political manoeuvring. Both in
performance and as represented in the scholarship on wayang, it is typically
male characters who engage in these contestations.
The likelihood of individual success in any contest at any level can be
inferred from the elaborate ornamentation and overall shape of the puppets
as well as from the way the dhalang brings the puppets alive. It is the more
refined characters who are likely to win a contest and resolve a chaotic situa-
tion. The less refined a character is, the more likely he is to cause or embody
chaos. Puppets with round, wide-open eyes who look directly (or from sev-
eral directions) at others in a pugnacious manner, encumbered by large, often
hairy, bodies in hues of red or purple are coarse and unrefined and invariably
enter into battles or other contests that they will lose. Puppets with slender,
delicate, hairless bodies, almond-shaped, half-closed eyes with an indirect
and polite gaze, in hues of white, gold, or black are refined and destined to
win in nearly every contest on which they embark. Puppeteers inspire guf-
faws of laughter from the audience when they cause a moderately unrefined
character to blunder through the negotiations of Javanese language levels
necessary when speaking to individuals of higher social status. They can
also elicit sighs of satisfaction and admiration when they render the words
of a refined character perfectly, peppering the speech with elegant literary
references and turns of phrase. Naturally, the scale from refined to coarse is
highly nuanced, with many possible permutations and combinations. The
most refined of characters will have some kind of personal flaw while the
most coarse will have some redeeming quality thus ensuring that the stories
reflect the ethical complexities of human life. There is a handful of female
characters similarly arrayed along the continuum from refined to coarse. The
personalities of these female puppets are as familiar as those of the most com-
mon of male characters. That said, their presence in the panoply of wayang
characters does not mitigate the intense focus on male activities and issues in
both the performance of and scholarship on wayang.
Concerned to understand the unresolved dissonance between the male
focus of wayang and the importance of female-style genderan and grimingan
to the aesthetics of old-style wayang, I embarked on an exploration of the
ethnographic and historical literature on gender in Java. Much of the litera-
ture that is relevant to constructions of gender in Java is focused on power
and potency.
On Javanese power and potency
Power – where it comes from, how it is manifested, who has it, how it is used,
abused and subverted – has been a compelling topic for Western scholars of
Java, or Javanists, for more than a century. While it could be argued that there
is no more important or pervasive issue in human interaction, in studies of
Javanese culture the discussion of power and potency is prevalent occasion-
ally to the exclusion of other issues. This is certainly due, in part, to the fact
that potency and power are important topics in lived Javanese culture, in both
the present and the past. The premise of many of these studies is that there
is a resonance and reflection at all levels of culture and society of a perfectly
ordered universe, organized around a Southeast Asian god-king.1 Working
down by analogy to local kings and aristocracy, and then, in anthropological
and linguistic studies, to the details of negotiation and contestation of power
and potency by individuals in families and villages, scholars working within
this paradigm have tried to connect the cosmological to the minutiae of lived
life in the past and the present. These studies have not always focused on the
gender of the potency examined. The maleness of the potency has not usually
been specified. Rather, the descriptions of what is actually male potency are
assumed to be generic, describing ‘the Javanese’ or ‘Javanese culture’.
1 See Heine-Geldern 1956; Schrieke 1957; and Anderson 1972.

II Competing hegemonies 53
With the rise of feminist and then gender studies through the last quarter
of the twentieth century, scholars began to identify what was male-cen-
tric in the discourse on Javanese potency as being male-centric. Strategies
to remove or balance the male bias in the study of potency and power in
Java have generally fallen into three categories: scholars try to demonstrate
that Javanese women have their own, equally important, power structures
that are parallel and/or tangential to male structures; scholars try to insert
women into male power structures; or scholars try to reinsert women and
female power into the discourse on Javanese potency. The third strategy is
usually revealed through one of two different, but related, analytical per-
spectives: in one, Javanese women are demonstrated to be vibrant and pow-
erful in their own right, both in the past and the present, but they have been
ignored in past, male-centric scholarship; in the other, Javanese women are
shown to have been potent in the past – politically, socially, and symbolically
– but were then to have been edged out of power-wielding situations gradu-
ally, first through the rise of Islam, then by means of colonial interaction, and
subsequently through the constructions of gender and family prevalent in
the policies of Soeharto’s New Order government (1966-1998).2
If written in a compelling manner with good documentation, arguments
using any of these strategies can be persuasive. Yet, to some extent each
strategy forces an author to diminish or explain away various aspects of the
complexity of Javanese cultural contexts that are important for understand-
ing the whole. This effect is sometimes due to the process of developing a
linear trajectory in telling a narrative of gender in Java, but can also stem
from a two-dimensional, almost static perspective on the nature of Javanese
potency.
While searching for another, perhaps more encompassing, strategy for
describing the relative presence and absence of female power and potency in
both Javanese culture and the discourse on it, I came across Sherry Ortner’s
essay entitled ‘Gender hegemonies’ (Ortner 1996:146-78). Ortner’s topic is
prestige orders in which the multiple relationships between status, rank,
dominance, power, and gender are continually renegotiated in any given
culture. Following Raymond Williams’s discussion of hegemony,3 Ortner
(1996:147) suggests that:
2 These strategies resonate with those used by scholars in many other areas of study ranging
from literary studies and music to anthropology and history.
3 Williams suggests that hegemony goes beyond usual definitions of ‘culture’ and ‘ídeology’
in that it insists on relating the ‘whole social process’ to specific distributions of power and influ-
ence (Williams 1977:108-14). In any actual society, no matter how egalitarian or democratic, there
are lived and negotiated inequalities. Hegemony reflects both a society’s beliefs about and the
nitty-gritty, lived social process of power relations (Ortner 1996).
viewing prestige orders as hegemonies – that is, as culturally dominant and

relatively deeply embedded but nonetheless historically emergent, politically
constructed, and nontotalistic –is analytically quite liberating. It means that all the
pieces of a given ethnographic instance do not have either to fit together through
heroic analytic efforts or to be explained away. The loose ends, the contradictory
bits, the disconnected sections can be examined for their short-term and long-
term interactions with and implications for one another. This does not mean that
everything has equal analytic weight and plays the same sort of role in the overall
dynamic. There is an ordering – a ‘hegemony’ in the sense of a relative dominance
of some meanings and practices over others.
If we apply this kind of understanding to Java, it is possible to argue that all

kinds of power and potency in Javanese culture can coexist free of the stric-
tures imposed by the positions of the various analytical strategies mentioned
above. It makes it possible to acknowledge the predominance of a male-cen-
tric, cosmological construction of potency without diminishing the signifi-
cance of other systems and forms of power that operate simultaneously. It is
not necessary to determine that women once wielded equal power in similar
ways to men. One could argue that women possess a somehow different kind
of power or one could move beyond issues of power and potency as the focus
for an analysis. Similarly, it is not necessary to struggle to reinsert women
into the history of male potency except when relevant or interesting to do so.
Ortner’s focus on the fluid, emergent nature of hegemony demands inves-
tigation into the triangulated negotiations between coexisting power struc-
tures as they interact with other cultural phenomena and external forces such
as the introduction of new religions like Islam or Christianity or political and
philosophical ideas via colonialism or nationalism. Significantly, Ortner’s
perspective on power allows for the interaction between and influence of
hegemonic systems on one another without demanding linear, irreversible,
historical development in any of them. In what follows I examine some of the
significant scholarly works on gender and power in Java, briefly exploring
the hegemonic paradigm of male potency. Then I outline the different strate-
gies that have been employed to include female power and potency into that
discourse. Finally, I suggest alternatives to the non-emergent hegemony of
the ‘paradigm of male potency’. Overall, I try to show that a less static, more
interactive and more plural model of gender and power relations is not only
truer to the data we have on Javanese society, but it is also one that makes
more sense when we listen to grimingan in old-style wayang.
The paradigm of potency: the Javanese idea of (male) potency
Benedict Anderson’s (1972) much quoted and influential description of

power in Javanese culture is perhaps the best explication of what I call the
paradigm of Javanese potency. Although his was by no means the first to
codify Javanese notions of potency in this way, Anderson’s work has formed
the background for approaches taken by many later interpreters.4 Indeed, it
has become the dominant model for understanding historical and contem-
poraneous Javanese interaction and culture. In this model Javanese power
exists in a fixed quantity in the universe. An increase in power in one loca-
tion means a decrease in another. Power has no moral implications since it
exists beyond good and evil, beyond wealth or political situation. One is not
born to a position of power or lack thereof. An individual gains potency by
successfully drawing power – powerful people and objects – to him in an on-
going contest with other power centres (Anderson 1972). Anderson uses the
metaphor of a cone of light in his description of the flow of Javanese potency.
The illumination of the centre, the location of the potentate, is without
shadow or competing light source. With increasing distance from the centre,
however, there is less powerful illumination and the possibility of shadows
from alternative light sources arises.
Intertwined with Javanese interpretations of Tantric and Sufi Islamic
strategies for an individual’s reaching spiritual enlightenment, in this con-
struction personal power is gained not through physical strength or eco-
nomic might but through ascetic practices, such as self-denial of sleep, fast-
ing, self-imposed retreat from other humans, and meditation. Any act that
denies the physical self increases one’s power. As anthropologist Suzanne
Brenner aptly describes it, ‘the more self-discipline an individual has, the
more spiritual power he amasses, which in turn leads to further self-control
as well as the ability to master supernatural forces and the wills of other
human beings’ (Brenner 1998:147-8). A powerful person need not concern
himself with obtaining daily sustenance and cares little for financial deal-
ings as these things seem to flow towards him without his having to exert
any effort. Likewise, demonstrating largess through the bestowal of gifts
and favours is a common indicator of potency. This is possible because it is
his potency that draws ever more prosperity and order to an individual’s
domain. The assemblage of powerful objects around oneself is another way
to both increase and reflect one’s potency. One demonstrates power through
a calm or refined demeanour. ‘Powerful persons can thus be recognized from
their poise, restraint, and equanimity in all situations’ (Brenner 1998:148).
4 See Schrieke 1957 and Heine-Geldern 1956 for two earlier examples of significant sociologi-
cal work on Javanese power and potency.
In the first book-length, anthropological study on wayang, Javanese

shadows, Javanese selves (1987), Ward Keeler adopts the concept, similar to
Anderson’s ‘cone of light’, of the ‘dissembled centre’ as a metaphor for the
flow of power and potency in the wayang world, a cultural context that he
and many others argue epitomizes Javanese culture itself. In this model, the
most potent figure in any context sits at the centre of an unending series of
concentric and tangential circles made up of other, smaller centres of power
whose obedience to the larger centre decreases with distance but also with
the fluctuation of the potency of the centre. Although he does not describe
it as such, Keeler’s metaphor reflects the after-effects of colonialism on the
construction of Central Javanese maleness, that is, powerful Javanese men
had to concede their potency in the colonial situation.
The studies of both Anderson and Keeler demonstrate cosmological con-
structions of power operating in everyday Javanese life. Such an approach to
the study of Javanese culture is reasonable given the presence, in everyday
Javanese conversation and constructions of the world, of cosmological fig-
ures and ideas ranging from sources such as Mahabharata and Ramayana
to Javanese autochthonous mythico-historical figures and stories.5 From
the perspective of trying to understand the aesthetics of the relationship
between female-style genderan and old-style wayang, the real problem with
the studies of Anderson and Keeler is their unacknowledged male-centrism.
The ‘cone of light’ and the ‘dissembled centre’ are static images that, despite
the sensitive ethnographic detail of Keeler, represent only one possibility for
power relations. As others have argued, there is a need to explain the lived
experience of those who have been left out of the paradigm: women in par-
ticular, but also non-aristocratic men and others for whom idealized potency
was either not of primary importance or unattainable.6 In efforts to address
the male-centrism of the dominant paradigm, analysts began to focus on the
collection of ethnographic data in order to come to interpretations based on
Javanese experience, working from the ground up instead of working down
to individuals from impersonal cosmological theories.
Feminist strategies: parallel power structures
It is the case that women in Central Java usually control the family finances.
They often have their own means of income and their husbands do usually
empty their pockets into the purses of their wives. Thinking of the (cultur-
5 See Anderson 1965; Jordaan 1984, 1987; Clara van Groenendael 1985; Keeler 1987; Pemberton
1994; and many others.
6 See Hatley 1990; Djajadiningrat-Nieuwenhuis 1987; Weiss 1998; and Brenner 1998; among
others.
ally constructed) financially dependent status of women in their own cul-

tures and imagining that every culture would value control over finance,
Western observers have generally assumed that Central Javanese women
are comparatively more powerful in this respect than their counterparts in
Western societies. Hildred Geertz (1961:122) describes the financial prowess
of Javanese women in a passage from her well-known study, The Javanese
family, in the following way:
Javanese women sometimes jokingly remark that all they know about day in and
day out is lombok and tempe (Spanish pepper and soybean cake, the two essential
accompaniments of the Javanese meal), but actually there is little of the man’s
world that they cannot participate in and still less that they do not know about. In
the rice-growing cycle, there are certain tasks traditionally performed by women.
After the harvest, in which men rarely engage, the rice is brought home by the
women; and frequently its disposal, including complex financial transactions,
is also in their hands. The market is dominated by women, and even the rich,
successful wholesalers are as often women as men. Women own and dispose of
property as freely and competently as men.
Falling within the genre of a kinship study, and well before the onset of
feminist and gender studies, Hildred Geertz does not set out to demonstrate
that female potency is different from but equal to male potency in Javanese
culture, but she cannot avoid doing so as she describes economic and familial
relationships between men and women. Scholars such as Jennifer Alexander
(1987) and Lenore Manderson (1983), among others, do actively seek to dem-
onstrate female potency and control in particular cultural situations – both
traditional and recently modernized – that are parallel to the potency of the
dominant paradigm. By illustrating the decline of female power structures
in industrialized situations, others such as Diane Wolf (1992) suggest the
(previous) existence of parallel power structures. Suzanne Brenner’s 1998
study of the batik industry and the women who once controlled it deals
with the problem of parallel power structures by demonstrating the intersec-
tions between the dominant paradigm and those of the merchant families
involved in the industry. In their different ways and with different agendas
these scholars argue against the male-centrism of the dominant paradigm by
articulating the presence of parallel female power structures.
The articulation of parallel power structures engendered critical assess-
ments. The financial control and independence enjoyed by women – and the
relative cultural power these confer – can also be interpreted from alterna-
tive perspectives. While acknowledging that women controlled the family
finances, it has been pointed out that for the Central Javanese this is not
a power that is highly valued within the dominant paradigm of potency
(Keeler 1987, 1990; Hildred Geertz 1961). Indeed, from the perspective of
that ideology, it is considered extremely unrefined to handle money or to
deal with the inconveniences of budgeting and bargaining. Engaging in these

activities prevents men from expressing their potency through largess and
from demonstrating their power without exerting themselves. It is precisely
the control of money that is scorned by men. As Shelly Errington (1990:4-7)
explains in her introduction to Power and difference; Gender in island Southeast
Asia, in this construction, financial control is devalued to the point where it
falls into the domain of women who have no potency to protect.
Errington’s interpretation is sensitive to some local constructions of
gender and gender role as they exist in the dominant paradigm, yet, the
argument for dismissing female potency and parallel power structures sum-
marily is also flawed. How do we explain Nancy Florida’s description of the
fifty-one concubines and two queens of Paku Buwana IX (reigned 1861-1893)
as ‘powerful, wealthy, and ambitious, with alliance networks reaching from
the court deep into the countryside’ (Florida 1996:213)? The wealth of these
women and their ability to produce and control more of it both demonstrated
and enhanced the potency of the ruler. How can we make sense of Suzanne
Brenner’s demonstration of the conversion of women’s wealth into status in
her analysis of the rise and gradual decline of the Solonese batik industry?
How is the control over money different from the control over possessions
and people (much of which can be bought or influenced with money)?
From an analytical perspective, deflating the value of Javanese women’s
control and power and dismissing the idea of parallel power structures
simply because they are undervalued within the dominant paradigm does
not help explain the lived experience of female power and prestige based on
this kind of control nor the prestige garnered through the accrual of wealth
into a family primarily through the work of women. Of the studies in which
the authors invoke some kind of parallel power structure, only Brenner has
explored the intersections between female power and the dominant male
paradigm. In none of these studies does the author problematize the static
nature of the power structures she describes. The implied stasis of both the
dominant and parallel power structures inhibits an understanding of the
emergent nature of all power structures and a recognition of the vigorous
interaction that goes on between them, an interaction that is crucial to under-
standing the aesthetics of female-style genderan and old-style wayang.
Feminist strategies: inserting women into the dominant male paradigm
In an effort to avoid the analytical problem generated by the presence of

powerful women who are excluded from the male-centric paradigm without
a viable parallel power structure of their own, Errington (1990:40) suggests
an alternative strategy. Having previously demonstrated that it is impossible
to avoid the dominant paradigm, she argues that women in Southeast Asia
may be allowed access to paradigmatic power; female access to male potency
structures is not forbidden as it is in some cultures; rather, it is simply not
usual for women to wield ‘male’ potency.
This ‘strategy of insertion’ is a useful way of looking at some women in
Central Java. One example is that of the female dhalang or puppeteer for the
Central Javanese shadow puppet theatre, a genre usually performed by men
and in which aspects ‘essential’ to Central Javanese culture are thought to be
represented. In this male role, women have the same kind of power that male
dhalang do. In her research with Nyai Suharni Sabdawati, a female dhalang
from Kedhung Banteng, Central Java, Helen Pausacker (1982:8) recounts the
hectic pace of life in which the performer balances the running of a thriv-
ing general goods shop and a small transport service with several all-night
wayang performances a month, not to mention rehearsals and daily main-
tenance of her own house and family. In her role as dhalang, however, Nyai
Suharni does not become male, rather she has simply added to the usual
female Javanese activities in taking on a role habitually performed by men
in Javanese culture.7
From analysts focusing on these ‘exceptional’ women, we learn the valu-
able fact that in Southeast Asia potency is not gendered absolutely. There is
flexibility in the gendering of roles. Yet, the insertion strategy is an attempt to
explain the occurrence of potent women without disrupting or interrogating
the dominant paradigm. Without devaluing the phenomenon of women suc-
cessfully fulfilling roles that are culturally gendered male, however, it is fair
to say that to focus solely on this kind of unusual ‘female’ power tells us little
about the potency or status of women doing usual women’s things.8
7 I wonder if there some kind of vestigial respect accorded to women who take on prestigious
‘male’ roles when they return to their gendered-as-female roles. One always respects a male
dhalang since, even in his home, he maintains an aura of dhalangness and maleness. Is this the
same for female dhalang? Pausacker (1982:9) indicates that given the enormous personal charisma
and energy of Nyai Suharni it might be difficult to forget her dhalangness in daily life. However,
she also indicates that Nyai Suharni feels the dissonance of leading two lives with different foci,
implying that she herself feels the weight of balancing two different sets of assumptions about
her role. The difference between performing life and daily life does not seem to be as great for
male dhalang (see Keeler 1987). Male ludruk performers and East Javanese nggremo dancers who
cross-dress do not maintain their public construction as female when they take off their costume
(Suyanto SKar 10 July 1996: personal communication).
8 For example, in her essays (1980a and 1980b) on the diary of a female warrior, a member of
the prajurit estri in the court of Mangkunegara II (KITLV Or No. 231, dating from 1781-1791), Ann
Kumar (1980b:101) uses this female poetic composition for ‘reconstruction of the Mangkunegara’s
role in Surakarta politics and the motivations behind his actions’. She contributes to a clearer
understanding of crisis in 1790 in which the Mangkunegara vacillated between choosing an alli-
ance with the Paku Buwana IV or with VOC and in the end chose both in succession. Although
she does not choose to do so, Kumar might also have used this cryptic source, written from the
Feminist strategies: reinserting women into the discourse on potency
There is much evidence, in early colonial documents and more especially

in the contemporaneous Javanese ones, that Central Javanese women func-
tioned as part of the power structure in the courts not only through marriage
and childbirth but also in political and religious capacities in their own right.
It is clear from eighteenth and nineteenth century documents discussed
below that Javanese women were potent and powerful in their society. The
reinsertion strategy alerts us to the fact that, for the Javanese, the paradigm of
male potency has not always been predominant to the exclusion of all others.
Evidence of these potent women who were integral to court life, poets and
politicians as well as wives and daughters, provides a framework within
which to understand and assess the role of and importance attributed to the
female gender player as well as the sound of her music in the aesthetics of
old-style wayang.
The first stage in reinserting women into historical discourse has been to
focus on them. Instead of writing on ‘the Javanese,’ researchers investigated
Javanese women in particular.9 This was done in an effort to identify what
was usual for women in general before beginning the task of determining
whether a particularly powerful or interesting woman might have been unu-
sual. Given that literacy in Java was not widespread before the twentieth cen-
tury, with books and reading the domain of the courts (where both men and
women were literate), the priyayi or local aristocracy, and pesantren or Islamic
schools and retreats (a male domain), most of the information that has been
collected pertains to women of high rank. It is important to remember, how-
ever, that the divide between court and village was certainly porous in both
directions, with craftspeople and artisans being taken into court service for a
specified unit of time after which they could choose to return to their homes
and royal wives returning at regular intervals to their home villages.
Elsbeth Locher-Scholten and Anke Niehof’s Indonesian women in focus;
Past and present notions (1987) was the first volume devoted solely to the topic
of Indonesian women in particular.10 In their article in the Locher-Scholten
perspective of a woman deeply involved in the court activities and lover of the Mangkunegara,
to interrogate many of the assumptions we have about the relationships between women and
men in the courts and the construction of gender roles in eighteenth-century Surakarta.
9 See Brakel-Papenhuijzen 1992; Carey and Houben 1987; Florida 1996; Kumar 1980a,1980b;
and Schrieke 1957 to name only a few of the many sources for a discussion of women in East
Javanese and Central Javanese courts throughout history.
10 Sears 1996b is the next significant collected volume on the same topic. Ong and Peletz
1995 focus on gender in the greater, but related, geographical area of Southeast Asia. It should
be noted that many colonial documents record the presence of women and female roles as do
the many travel reports such as Augusta de Wit’s 1912 Java; Facts and fancies (see De Wit 1987).
and Niehof collection, Carey and Houben explore the social, political, and
economic role of women at the Central Javanese courts in the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries. Carey and Houben recount that prior to their
being married, Central Javanese women of the courts were entitled to rice
allowances and cash stipends almost equal in amounts to those of their male
siblings. At marriage, the rice stipend was stopped but usually the cash con-
tinued.11 Similar to their role in many Western dynasties, Central Javanese
women served as links between the ruler and other influential families as
well as legitimizers and preservers of dynasties.12 Often having to journey far
from their homes in outlying regions to join their husbands at court, rulers’
wives frequently brought their own regional styles and traditions with them,
including the artisans, jewellers, goldsmiths, and tailors to help maintain
these. These immigrants contributed to the constant renovation of life and
cultural style in the courts (Carey and Houben 1987:24-30). While most of the
official wives of courtiers came from other noble courts, many of the unof-
ficial wives heralded from villages, and the children of these unofficial wives
were often, in turn, married to local officials back home, thus completing a
circle of cultural exchange and hybridization.
Under Javanese-Islamic law, women were allowed to inherit, own, and
redistribute property. There are many examples of court women endowing
land (pradikan) for the benefit of men who devoted their lives to the study of
religion or offering money for students to travel to Mecca. Women were also
active as writers and as sponsors of texts (Carey and Houben 1987; Kumar
1980a; Ricklefs 1998). Court women also were responsible for the raising
of their own and other court children. In essence, this role made them the
guardians of adat or Javanese traditions in the court, since much of this cul-
tural information, including appropriate usage of language levels, was and
is conveyed from the mother to the child in the first ten years of the child’s
life (Hildred Geertz 1961; Keeler 1990; Ricklefs 1998).
In the courts at Surakarta and Yogyakarta were also employed the prajurit
estri, a corps of female soldiers who served as body guards for the ruler. The
nyai keparak or female retainers served in the inner chambers of the ruler and
were his only attendants after the male servants and officials were banished
from the inner court each night (Carey and Houben 1987:18). There were
The difference is the particular focus on women and female roles in the later scholarly research.
Barbara Andaya (2000a:1-26, 2000b:215-30) outlines the development of a gendered focus in
scholarship on Southeast Asia in her edited volume.
11 Daughters of rulers who held the title of Raden Ayu, or princess, were able to pass on their
title to three generations of daughters (Carey and Houben 1987:24).
12 Although they frequently married for the political gain of their families, women had the
right to divorce their husbands on the grounds of ill-treatment and other transgressions (Carey
and Houben 1987:27).
forty-eight nyai keparak; ‘each had her own officers and they were com-
manded by a lurah para nyai or head official retainer who had the court rank
of Tumenggung and a sizeable apanage grant from the court’. Many of these
women court officials and prajurit estri, not to mention the many wives of the
rulers, were heavily involved in trading and marketing activities. One of the
court female officials was personally responsible for all the crown jewels and
gold (Carey and Houben 1987:18-23).
The tradition of having the ruler surrounded only by women in his
inner court reflects the nexus of the practical and symbolic roles of women
in Javanese cultures. On the one hand these women filled myriad practical
roles in the course of everyday court life and politics yet their presence also
symbolized the important connection between the ruler and the powerful
and dangerous goddess of the South Sea, Ratu Kidul or Nyai Lara Kidul.
Unpredictable in her favours, Ratu Kidul was, and is still, considered the
protector of the kingdom of Mataram (the area which corresponds roughly to
what is now Central Java), and the mystical spouse of its rulers. In the Babad
Tanah Jawi,13 both Senopati (reigned 1584-1601) and Sultan Agung (reigned
1613-1646) are described visiting her underwater court in Java’s most danger-
ous body of water, the South Sea. Nyai Lara Kidul’s palace is peopled only
by female spirits – usually the spirits of people who have been struck down
during epidemics on land (believed to have been caused by the Goddess). The
Central Javanese rulers’ journeys to the undersea palace always involve mysti-
cal sexual union with Nyai Lara Kidul but also extended periods of training
in politics and the mystical science of being a king (Olthof 1941:78-9 cited in
Carey and Houben 1987:16; Ricklefs 1998:10-2). These undersea activities ‘con-
firm the literally intimate connections between the Goddess, sexuality, mysti-
cism and kingship’ (Ricklefs 1998:11) in Javanese cosmological constructions.
Each year in the past and still to the present, in order to retain her
affections, placate her dangerous powers, and reinforce the mystical union
between the goddess and the Central Javanese courts, ceremonies are per-
formed and special offerings made. It is the King’s special obligation to
control and protect against the ravages that can be caused by his undersea
lover. In Yogyakarta this involves sailing a variety of offerings out on a raft
into the South Sea while the ruler buries certain personal offerings including
fingernails and hair clippings and the performance of the sacred dance the
Bedhaya Semang. In Surakarta, the primary ritual associated with the god-
dess is the performance of the Bedhaya Ketawang, a classical dance performed
13 The Babad Tanah Jawi is a history of the kingdom of Mataram from mythical times to the late
seventeenth century. Although there were several rewritings, following Brandes, Schrieke sug-
gests that the first time the Babad Tanah Jawi acquired a relatively fixed form was the late seven-
teenth or early eighteenth century. See Schrieke 1957:401, note 7 for discussion and sources.
by nine of the ruler’s bedhaya dancers who are all young ladies of royal
ancestry. The dance recreates the original meeting between Ratu Kidul and
Senopati and includes the presentation of offerings of particular foods, cloth-
ing, flowers, and other ritualized items. A successful performance causes
one of the dancers to fall into trance, possessed by Nyai Lara Kidul herself.
The dancer is revived and invited into the ruler’s chambers for further
re-enactment of the original meeting between the King and Queen of the
South Seas. With this, the ruler demonstrates in a tangible way his continuing
union with the sea goddess and, thus, his legitimate claim to the throne.14
The strategy of reinserting women in the history of Java through the docu-
mentation of their presence uncovered a plethora of potent roles available to
women. These include confirming legitimacy of rule for husbands; control
over personal property such as inherited land and control and maintenance
over court property; serving as political liaisons between kingdoms; primary
teachers of children, thus ensuring the transmission of culture. These were
all critical roles played by court women prior to and in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. As demonstrated by Ricklefs (1998) in The seen and
unseen worlds in Java 1726-1749, it was a world in which literary old-Javanese
– the aesthetics of which reach back to the twelfth-century Javanese version
of the Bharatayuddha – was still very much alive and understood; women
poets like Ratu Paku Buwana – wife of Paku Buwana II (then of the palace
in Kartasura) – were empowered to manipulate court politics, religion, and
magic (Ricklefs 1998). The aesthetics of old-style wayang were formed in this
same early colonial court world. They reflect the importance of women and
female roles not merely as complementary to men and male roles in binary
sense, or symbolic, but as efficacious actors integral to the proper running of
court political, cultural, and ritual life (Ricklefs 1998).
There is no question that Javanese women were active in the courts, oper-
ating both within and outside of the dominant power structures. Reading
historical documents certainly illuminates women and women’s roles in
Java’s past, but several questions remain. If we now know they were there,
why were women left out of so many scholarly analyses and how should we
understand any perceived change in their roles and access to potency?
14 Ann Kumar (2000) describes other characters from the pantheon of female figures con-
nected to various aspects of Javanese religion. See Brakel-Papenhuijzen 1992; Carey and Houben
1987; De Cock-Wheatley 1929; Hostetler 1982; Jordaan 1984; and Ricklefs 1998 for information on
Nyai Lara Kidul.
Disempowerment and male bias
The Dutch colonial process in Java involved the gradual usurpation of all
Javanese political and most economic power by the end of the Dipanegara
War in 1830. Heather Sutherland (1979:viii) offers a description of the colo-
nial process and the Javanese response. The Dutch gained control in Central
Java by slowly subverting the power of the indigenous rulers and the priyayi
or courtiers. Thus:
independent chiefs and court officials were transformed into subordinate allies,
compradors and ultimately into political and bureaucratic instruments of an alien
regime. In the process the priyayi lost their military functions and were restricted
in their economic activity; they became dependent more upon the new power in
Batavia than on their ability to work with local forces. Bound by colonial con-
straints, unable to respond vigorously to economic and related social change, the
native officials of the late nineteenth century were an uprooted elite whose refined
and over-elaborate cultural life was probably more a result of impotence than of
specifically Javanese traits.
Sutherland argues that one aspect of this ‘refined and over-elaborate life’
in Java was an emphasis on defining and organizing everything that was
specifically Javanese. It was as if, in defining themselves and their world,
ordering and organizing it and codifying the rules about how to be Javanese,
priyayi men sought to regain some semblance of the power and control they
lost to the Dutch through colonialism (Sutherland 1979). Although it charac-
terizes the results, Sutherland’s analysis is two-dimensional in that only one
cause and one effect are identified. The formalization of Javanese culture in
the nineteenth century was a complex, transcultural effort to apply Western
ideas about culture and cultural preservation to Java by Javanese elite men
who clearly demonstrated their continuing potency by organizing new tech-
niques of exercising power.
In his discussion of Central Javanese culture in the nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries, Sumarsam (1995:100) also criticizes the view that develop-
ments in Javanese culture during the nineteenth century reflected the politi-
cal impotence of the courts. He suggests that the description of Javanese arts
as involuted or over-refined fails to account for the complex backgrounds of
political and cultural life in nineteenth-century colonial Java.
Nineteenth-century Javanese court culture should not be viewed only as the con-
sequence of an ‘inward focus’ of court activity but also as an ‘outward expression’
of court attempts to accommodate the diversity of society. More importantly, the
development of Javanese culture should be understood as a result of complex
interactions in the multi-class and multi-ethnic population of Java: Javanese (aris-
tocrats and common folk), Dutch, Indos, and Chinese. Such interactions involved
competing and conflicting models of culture, religion, and ideology. The heteroge-
neous court culture was the result of a cultural consensus between the colonizers
and their Javanese subjects.
Concentrating on Javanese culture writ large, and despite their different

sensitivities to nineteenth century Javanese life, Sutherland and Sumarsam
speak of a generic, ungendered Javanese culture. The activities and situations
described in their work as having been affected by colonial process are those
commonly associated with Javanese men. From our discussion, however,
it is clear that it is not possible to argue that the reason why women were
left out of colonial and subsequent scholarly discourse is because they were
not involved in political machinations and other important aspects of court.
It must be the case that women were affected by the major social changes
caused by Dutch colonialism. Women in the courts would have felt the
changes in the balance of power just as surely as did the men.15
Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the Dutch colonial admin-
istration in Java was largely a male organization (Taylor 1983; Stoler 1997).
While they were aware of the court intrigues, cabals, and rivalries that went
on, not to mention the troublesome powerful wives who operated in the
Javanese courts (Florida 1996; Ricklefs 1998), the aim of colonial administra-
tors was to establish simplified and legitimate structures of power in which
men loyal to the Dutch held power. The Dutch chose to construct the Javanese
men who held the titles of ruler or official as the people in whom Javanese
political power rested, monolithically. They chose to ignore the complex,
transgendered power relations and the more subtle Central Javanese con-
struction of the ruler’s power as reflected in the multitude of successful but
smaller reigns, personal and political, of those surrounding him.16
Frances Gouda (1993) explores the European gendering of roles in colo-
nial Java in her ‘The gendered rhetoric of colonialism and anti-colonialism in
twentieth century Indonesia’. She states that while the Dutch colonials may
have held a low opinion of native women, they hardly held a higher opin-
ion of native men. Indeed, they often represented native women ‘symboli-
cally as the silent suffering victims of barbaric cultures in need of European
progress, enlightenment, and technology’ (Gouda 1993:19). Steeped in their
own national history of the struggle to protect Holland from the ravages of
15 Elsewhere (Weiss 1998) I have argued that the reason why women have been left out of
the analysis has more to do with the interpretations of the Dutch and the perspectives of later
Western scholars than a fixed construction of women and men by Central Javanese themselves.
16 Ann Stoler (1996, 1997; Stoler and Cooper 1997) describes the increasing association of
women with domesticity through the nineteenth century in both Europe and its colonies. She
argues the relegation of women to the ‘domestic sphere’ ‘de-politicized’ them both as a group
and as individuals.
nature not to mention the larger political forces of Europe, the Dutch could
not but collectively remember their own negative experiences with ‘patrimo-
nialism and feudal privileges’. The Javanese aristocracy was, thus, alien in
two senses, because it was Asian and because it was ‘feudal’.
The colonizers’ vision of women in need of protection – whether their own wives
and daughters or indigenous women – often merged with a more ambivalent
perception of their other colonial charges, i.e. native men, and colonial officials’
language was suffused with symbolic characterizations of women, whether white
or brown, and indigenous men as emotional, irrational, irresponsible, naive, lazy,
or self-indulgent. Colonials often depicted indigenous men as capricious and
overgrown children, who delighted in nothing but wayang and gambling and
were haunted by superstitions and fear of ghosts. At the same time, conforming
to the flipside of Victorian sensibilities, they tended to portray both white women
and the colonized women they knew most intimately – nyai who supposedly
‘mediated’ between cultures of East and West – as caring only about ephemeral
pleasures or not being educated enough to have an interest in any aspect of life
beyond the domestic realm. [...] They imposed on the colonized, Asian world the
shape of their own culture and European perceptions of gender differences [...]
in order to make that world recognizable, intelligible, habitable, and natural as
defined by a Western lexicon. (Gouda 1993:19-20.)
Thus, Gouda argues, the Dutch colonial construction of women in their own
culture made it difficult for them to imagine Javanese women as politically
potent, primarily because all natives were re-gendered as ‘female’ in a sub-
ordinate, Western sense. Although the Dutch held the indigenous men in
scarcely greater esteem than they did indigenous women, because of their
own cultural expectations and the fact that the titular heads in eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century Javanese courts tended to be male, the Dutch focused
their attention, negotiations, and influence on Central Javanese men. As the
colonial interaction progressed, Javanese men – rulers and officials – became
first the allies and then the pawns of the colonial regime; court women,
however powerful and influential they were within their own context, did
not merit this dubious privilege. This does not mean that women instantly
lost power and influence in the developing situation between the Dutch and
the Javanese. Rather, as their power was not regularly recognized by the
Europeans and – because of the demands of the emerging situations – by
Javanese men, women’s power was eroded to the point where Carey and
Houben can make the comment that ‘priyayi [or aristocratic] women in Java,
at least up to the end of the Java War (1825-1830), enjoyed a good deal more
freedom than their sisters later in the century and certainly had more scope
to make their mark on areas later regarded as quintessential male preserves,
namely military affairs and politics’ (Carey and Houben 1987:33).
Yet, the determinism of this kind of linear analysis, in which women
get edged out of power because of the colonial construction of gender and
gender roles, and a concomitant singular colonial focus on Javanese men, is
troubling, primarily because it leaves out the agency of the Javanese, male
and female alike. But the premise is also not borne out in a totalistic manner.
It is not the case that by the middle of the nineteenth century Javanese court
women were entirely disempowered. For instance, the Dutch habitually
tried their best to manipulate the succession to the various Javanese ruling
positions. Dutch commissioners were dispatched to carry out the Governors-
General’s wishes with respect to succession issues. Once in the court cities
and dealing with the intricacies of Javanese political machinations, these
commissioners often found themselves unable to enact the suggestions of the
Governors-General (Houben 1994:191-255). The debate about the successor to
the throne after Paku Buwana VII, ruler of the main court in Surakarta, lasted
for more than two decades (1834-1858). It was thought that through her mar-
riage, Princess Raden Ayu Sekarkedhaton, the daughter of Paku Bawana
VII, would legitimate a successor to the throne. Although she was subject to
heavy lobbying by the Dutch and multiple offers for marriage from available
and would-be members of the court and rulers-to-be, Sekarkedhaton stead-
fastly refused them all. Instead, she became a noted intellectual writer.17
Raden Ajeng Kartini (1879-1904), who attended a Dutch school until
puberty, was the daughter of a liberal minded Javanese aristocrat. After the
cessation of her formal studies and while in seclusion awaiting her arranged
marriage, Kartini wrote multiple letters to her many Dutch friends. Kartini
has been hailed as the first Javanese feminist despite/in spite of her capitula-
tion to traditional constructions of aristocratic roles for women (Tiwon 1996,
among others), but also as an exemplar of the perfect Indonesian woman/
wife, submissive, docile, and correct in behaviour but still working inexora-
bly for the benefit of greater Indonesian society from within her family and
home. The latter construction was prominent in Soeharto’s New Order desig-
nation of correct roles and behaviour for women and families (Suryakusuma
1996; Sears 1996b). Whether a feminist subjugated by strictures of traditional
society or a heroine dedicated to developing Indonesian national culture,
there is no question that Kartini was a force to be reckoned with. Although
she died at the young age of twenty-five, she spearheaded the development
of a school in Jepara for local children and an organization to promote native
17 See Day 2002a; Florida 1996; and Houben 1994. Houben (1994:191-9) has an extended dis-
cussion of the possible suitors and the various reasons for her rejection of them, some relating to
matters of heart, some to Sekarkedhaton’s own interest in sharing the throne, and some to her
own father’s parries against the Dutch. After the succession of the elderly Paku Buwana VIII,
Florida describes Sekarkedhaton’s final rejection of the Paku Buwana IX’s long-term advances as
a crucial moment in the development of the Javanese literary genre the piwulang estri, or lessons
on how to be proper wives and women. See discussion of this below.
artisans and crafts. Through her Dutch contacts she was an important native
voice in the ongoing debates about colonial policy at the turn of the century.
The multiple, contradictory interpretations of her complex life and its sig-
nificance demonstrate her ‘potency’ in a sense that transcends an either/or
construction of male/female power.
I briefly mention these two women living at different points in Javanese
history to suggest that if women have been gradually edged out of power in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it has not been a monolithic process.
Raden Ayu Sekarkedhaton and Raden Ajeng Kartini should not be seen as
the exceptions that prove the rule of declining female influence. Instead, I
believe, their respective life accomplishments and political efficacy demon-
strate that Javanese female potency continued (and continues) not so much
in competition with or inside of Javanese male potency but, following Ortner,
as a strongly continuing ‘contradictory bit’ that can be examined for its short-
and long-term interactions with and implications for our understanding of
how power works in Java.
Scholarly reinsertion strategies assert that women were gradually edged
out of potent positions and/or were left out of scholarly analysis. In order
to use a strategy like this and allow for Javanese agency, the analyst must
assume that something in the power structures within Javanese culture shift-
ed through colonial interaction. But if, as Anderson suggests, the paradigm
of potency reflects a pre-Western notion of power as it existed in Javanese
culture, male potency was already highly valued prior to interaction with
colonial European ideas and people.18 Yet, Carey and Houben (1987) suggest
that women had once been, but were no longer, as effective as men in con-
trolling the inner workings of kingdoms and courts. The evidence does seem
to suggest that the balance of power between Javanese men and women
changed subtly as Javanese political and economic autonomy dissipated.19
How, then, should we characterize this shift in the relationship between
gender and power, and the concomitant recasting of gender representation,
18 Anderson (1972:3) states that given the longevity of colonial interaction in Java, in order to
understand Javanese politics it is necessary to imagine what Javanese power might have been
like before it began to lose internal logic and coherence due to interaction with external forces.
Despite the stasis and fixity implied in Anderson’s construction of Javanese power prior to con-
tact with the West, not to mention the etic perspective on the supposed loss of logic and increas-
ing incoherence of Javanese politics, it is a valuable starting point for analysis of hegemonic
power structures in Java.
19 Anthony Reid (1988) makes the argument that in general, from early history into the
mid-nineteenth century, women in Southeast Asia wielded more control – financial, political,
and sexual – than either women in the West or Southeast Asian women in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. See Chapter III for a brief discussion of some of the Central Javanese women
who once ruled kingdoms in Javanese history. See also Carey and Houben (1987:15-7) for a brief
discussion of some of these ruling women.
in Java through the course of colonial interaction?

There seems to be no question that Javanese society was ever egalitar-
ian. Javanese men and women were never equal: female concubines were
given to neighbouring rulers as presents; daughters, not sons, were traded to
far kingdoms for pledges of allegiance; Raden Ayu Sekarkedhaton was not
herself an eligible successor to the throne of her father despite that fact that
women had occasionally been rulers of Javanese realms. Stoler and Cooper
(1997:1) remind us that ‘Europe’s colonies were never empty spaces to be
made over in Europe’s image or fashioned in its interests; nor, indeed, were
European states self-contained entities that at one point projected themselves
overseas’. Javanese gender identities may not have been as fixed as those
constructed by some of the colonial contingent for the Javanese world.20
Yet, as they observed, negotiated with, and were imposed upon by the male
Dutch colonials, Javanese rulers certainly absorbed some aspects of colonial
attitudes about the nature of women and men.21 The dynamic and emerging
relationships between a colonized culture and that of its colonizer were and
continue to be dialogic and complex. The male-centred focus of Dutch colo-
nial culture may have enhanced similar tendencies in Javanese culture, while
at the same time an orientation towards men and male power may well have
decreased access to avenues of power for women. In acknowledging a shift,
however, it is important that we do not view the shift as totalistic, linear, or
even necessarily permanent. Shifts in gender roles and relationships over
time do not remove previous constructions of gender permanently. Although
they may be obscured or even radically altered in contemporary lived life,
former constructions of gender and the relationships between genders may
be maintained, recounted, and reconstructed through aesthetic traditions
(Pausacker 2002; Weintraub 2002).
Competing and interacting hegemonies in Java
In her essay on prestige systems and hegemony discussed at the beginning

of this chapter, Ortner presents two case studies, one on the theoretically
egalitarian society in the Andaman Islands and the other on the theoretically
rigidly patriarchal society in the Hawaiian Islands. In each case she examines
contradictions that enable her to demonstrate that an emerging, non-static
20 As few Dutch women were encouraged to move to the colonies until the turn of the twen-
tieth century, many Dutch colonials kept native women as mistresses and some of lower rank
actually married Javanese women. These women were known as nyai and their children fell into
the complicated category of Indo or Eurasian (see Stoler 1995, 1996; Taylor 1983)
21 See Stoler and Cooper 1997; Bayly and Kolff 1986 for multiple perspectives on the effects of
colonizing on European communities both inside and outside of the colonies.
hegemony is a more effective model for understanding the nature of gender

relations in cultures precisely because it reveals the presence of powerful
men in a predominantly egalitarian society and powerful women in a pre-
dominantly patriarchal society.
In the case of Java, the syncretic nature of Javanese culture has long been
recognized. Hinduism and Indic notions of kingship and community organi-
zation intermingled with Sufi Islamic concepts of the relationship of the indi-
vidual to God and community and indigenous Javanese/Malay animistic
interpretations of the relationship of human community to its surroundings.
Like many of the indigenous religions in Southeast Asia, the animism prac-
ticed in Java prior to the gradual introduction of Hinduism was organized
around certain binary oppositions including: male/female; mountain/ocean;
outer/inner; high/low (Judith Becker 1979, 1993). The most interesting
aspect of these binarisms seems to be that neither element is more important
than the other. Rather, they are mutually activating, both necessary in order
for prosperity and community harmony to be maintained.22 The Hinduism
that travelled through Southeast Asia did not present the indigenous rulers
with any radical changes in constructions of power. Anderson’s description
of Javanese potency resonates with the pre-Indic ‘man of prowess’ described
by O.W. Wolters (1999:93-5, 112-3). A leader would have risen to power by
dint of his own capabilities and charisma rather than birthright (Wolters
1999:114). The man of prowess easily absorbed comparable Hindu construc-
tions of power – the personal connections and mutual indebtedness neces-
sary to maintain power and the recognition of chaos and community disor-
der as signs of its decay. As discussed variously by Judith Becker (1993) and
Mark Woodward (1989), the Hinduism practiced in Java shared many traits
with the Sufi Islam that began to flood into the archipelago in the thirteenth
century, including the unification of opposing dualities as the pinnacle of
religious worship.23 Nevertheless, despite the gradualness of the absorption
of foreign elements and the easy assimilation of comparable cultural and
religious characteristics, the transition from an animist to primarily Hindu
and then to primarily Islamic society involved prolonged periods of cultural
contestation and occasional upheaval.
At the beginnings of the Western colonial effort there were, and there
still are, Javanese practitioners of each of these religions – people possessed
of the accompanying world views, including perspectives on gender role
and relations, in singular or hybridized form. European colonists arrived on
the shores of an old, in some places cosmopolitan, Southeast Asian trading
22 See Chapter III for more on this and Pemberton 1994.

23 See Zoetmulder 1995 for an extended comparison of Javanese textual interpretations of
Islam and Hinduism.
power that had weathered many incursions, cultural and military, largely
through gradual absorption of new ideas that resonated with those already
operative.24 The political and cultural changes wrought through interaction
with Europeans during the colonial era, at least before the Dipanegara war
in1830, were certainly enormous but we cannot assume they were any great-
er or, occasionally, more shattering for Javanese people than those wrought
by the gradual and then explosive shift from Hinduism to Islam in the
fourteenth through seventeenth centuries, for instance. We happen to know
more about the changes that occurred in Java during the colonial period than
any other period of history largely because of colonial record-keeping and a
corresponding increase in interest in the study and preservation of Javanese
written texts. When people living the hegemony of Western patriarchy and
all its attendant constructions of gender and value arrived in Java as a trad-
ing, military, and cultural force, they met with people living an already
hybrid hegemony, perhaps with several simultaneous hegemonies, accompa-
nied by complicated and layered constructions of gender and value that, as
is so often the case, allowed for simultaneously contradictory realizations.25
Acknowledging this multiplicity of hegemonic possibility increases the sites
of inquiry that must be investigated before a decision can be made regarding
a particular cultural phenomenon. For instance, if a reduction in Javanese
women’s access to power and efficacy can be observed to correspond directly
with increased exposure to colonial constructions of gender roles, it might
also be related to a concurrent, and certainly related, significant increase in
Islamic piety during the mid-nineteenth century.26
Andaya has traced the effects of the arrival of Islam to Southeast Asia
on the status and roles of women from the thirteenth century onward. She
(Andaya 2000b:252) argues that:
[t]he acceptance, albeit in a modified form, of ‘seclusion’ in areas that adopted
Islam built on much older cultural attitudes in which notions of ‘inside’ and
‘inner’ were associated with femaleness. A parallel concept was the belief that
masculine virility had to be constantly proven. A prime means of demonstrating
this was through the accumulation of women, themselves seen as a source of
24 See Judith Becker 1993 for an analysis of the relationship between Sufi Islam and Tantrism;
see also Zoetmulder 1995 for comparison of Javanese textual interpretations of Sufi and Hindu
mysticism; see Woodward 1989 for analysis Javanese Islamic practice and similarities to previ-
ously practiced Hindu worship.
25 For instance, there are devout Muslims in Java who regularly worship at the graves of
famous Javanese rulers awaiting ‘signs’ and enlightenment, practicing kebatinan or Javanese
mysticism (which is itself an interesting mix of Javanese animism and Javanese interpretations
of Sufi Islamic and Hindu philosophy) (see Brenner 1998 and Woodward 1989).
26 A rise in Islamic piety could itself be a response to colonial pressure. The construction
of gender roles and value in Islamic patriarchy partially resonate with those of Western patri-
archy.
sacral potency. The introduction of Indian and Islamic ideas that helped concep-
tualize femaleness in terms of sexual modesty and social withdrawal supported
the gender hierarchy that infused evolving state systems.
While she does argue that there was real, if gradual, linear change in gender
roles and construction due to the introduction of Islam in Southeast Asia,
Andaya indicates that the Islamic interpretation of women as spiritually
weak and in need of protection was continuously contested and ‘tempered’
by indigenous cultural patterns in which even elite women were economi-
cally and politically active. In other words, Islamic constructions of gender
and gender roles were dominant in specific situations and at various times,
present all of the time, but not to the exclusion of other available construc-
tions. The rise and decline of interest in and focus on Islamic piety and the
related constructions of gender roles in Java depended on political and cul-
tural trends more than on what might be described as an increasingly rigor-
ous interpretation of Islamic religious values from the period of its introduc-
tion in Java to the present.
Florida examines the effects on gender relations due to an upwelling of
Islamic piety in Central Java in the mid-nineteenth century. In her study of
‘women’s didactic literature’ Florida (1996) looks at the representation of
gender relations described in several Central Javanese, nineteenth-century
texts such as Menak Cina, Candrarini, or the Darma Duhita.27 She points out
that in contrast to earlier texts in which sexual encounters are depicted as
vigorous ‘battles between the sexes’ where the sides are equally matched in
pitched battle, the later nineteenth-century texts tend to represent a battle
already won. In piwulang estri or lessons for women written by men, women
are instructed in wifely virtues and ‘how to be good (that is, perfectly pleas-
ing and submissive) wives – and especially co-wives – to Javanese nobles,
that is, to the authors of the texts’ (Florida 1996:210). Florida (1996:210) con-
tinues:
[t]he crux of the lesson is that the conjugal relationship demands of women com-
plete and total submission to their polygamous husbands’ authority and desires.
Willingly surrendering herself body and soul to her husband, the perfect wife, it
is said, should not be averse to whatever her husband wishes – even should his
pleasure be flailing wives alive.
Florida (1996:212) proposes that the change in the way in which sex and
27 The Menak Cina was written in Surakarta in the late eighteenth century; the Candrarini
was composed in Surakarta in 1863; and Florida does not cite a date or provenance for Darma
Duhita. All three of these are found compiled in the Serat Wira Iswara of Pakubawana IX (Florida
1996:210).
sexual relations were represented in nineteenth-century texts must be under-

stood ‘against a background of the military and political impotence of royal
men in late-nineteenth-century Java’. Among other things, Florida attributes
the rapid proliferation of these texts, at least in the Surakarta court of Paku
Buwana IX (reigned 1861-1893), to the king’s lack of conjugal success on
several fronts and ‘an elite male anxiety before the threat of the dangerous
potency of their women, that is, before the living reality of their women
undermining the fantasy of domestic harmony under male domination’
(Florida 1996:213). The king had fifty-three wives whom Florida (1996:213)
describes as ‘spunky, intelligent, powerful, wealthy and ambitious [...] with
effective alliance networks which often extended deep into the countryside,
far beyond the palace walls’. Rather than assume that the lessons in the piwu-
lang estri recorded a factual description of the way in which women were
expected to (and how the ‘good’ ones did) behave, Florida brings a feminist,
cultural-historical perspective to the information and draws out something
much more interesting than a reaffirmation of the standard understanding of
male/female relations in Central Java during the nineteenth century. Florida
suggests that through these texts royal men were trying to re-construct
women so that they fulfilled the fantasies of royal men with regard to their
own potency, thus reflecting a situation that was the opposite of the actual
nature of gender relations in the court.
While Florida describes these piwulang estri as deriving from male fanta-
sies, it is certainly possible to see these texts as a response to the impotence
men experienced with respect to their political and economic situation.
Following Sutherland, one aristocratic response to the political situation
was to establish clear, rule-bound definitions of everything that was ‘Central
Javanese,’ thereby demonstrating control and possession of the domain that
no one else could claim. To teach women that they must be submissive to
their husbands meant that men would be able to control women as another
element in their Central Javanese world. This not only provided a way to
control what was clearly, following Florida, an independently potent and
wilful group – the women of the court – but it also reconstructed women in
light of Central Javanese interpretations of both correct Islamic conduct for
and European attitudes towards women.28
In another related essay, the two poems discussed in Anderson’s (1990)
‘Professional dreams; Reflections on two Javanese classics’ are representa-
tive of competing hegemonies coexisting in nineteenth century Java. He
28 From the perspective of those employing the strategies of parallel power structures or
reinsertion, it could be also argued that the very fact that there was this proliferation of texts
concerned with the appropriate behaviour of women during this anxious time of slipping control
is proof that women were indeed powerful in the courts and elsewhere.
compares the Serat Centhini (1814), an encyclopaedic, overflowing, and sexu-

ally exuberant listing of Central Javanese things and ideas as seen through
the adventures of a wandering santri (pious Muslim) and some musicians
and dancers, with the Suluk Gatholoco (1874), a tale of two Islamic wander-
ers, metaphorically described as a penis and a scrotum, who are searching
for the mystical knowledge of how to be a perfect male. One of Anderson’s
ideas is that each of these manuscripts represents the times and attitudes,
in particular in the representation of sexuality and gender, of the historical
contexts in which they were written. That is, the Serat Centhini could not have
been completed any later than it was as it describes in great detail the ‘per-
fect Java’, the old Java, a last minute fantasizing of pre-colonial Java, just as
the sardonic Suluk Gatholoco could not have been written before the political
changes wrought by late colonialism. In light of this, it is possible to under-
stand the Serat Centhini as part of the trend, noted above, for Central Javanese
men to strive to control everything that was Central Javanese, in this case in
the form of an encyclopaedic listing of things, attitudes, and activities which
can be identified as Central Javanese.29 Similarly, the Suluk Gatholoco can be
understood as coming out of the related but later nineteenth-century trend
for Central Javanese men to focus on themselves and their sexual potency in
reaction to a lack of any real political potency, a turning inward to search for
the individual, perfect male. In the context of my argument in this chapter,
however, the two texts have more in common with each other than Anderson
argues.
The representation of sex and sexual interaction in these two texts also
reflects the changes in gender construction through the nineteenth century
suggested by Florida. The Serat Centhini is full of passages in which sexual
encounters are described (I use Florida’s words above) as equal, pitched,
vigorous battles between the sexes. Sex is depicted as a natural expression
of the exuberance of the moment, a general, uncontrolled reaction to beauti-
ful music or dancing or a beautiful person. The exuberance is released and
there is no contest for dominance as there is in the Suluk Gatholoco. Men and
women participate with equal enjoyment and although women are ‘taken’ by
men, so are men ‘taken’ by men and men provoked by women. There is even
a passage wherein village women sit around and discuss in great, sarcastic
detail the problems penises can cause for men and how they, the women, will
have to help the men assuage their problems.30 Sex and sexuality are light,
playful things that both men and women control and enjoy.
By the time we get to the Suluk Gatholoco, sex is not something which is
29 See Day and Derks 1999 and Day and Reynolds 2000 for discussion of the Serat Centhini as
a Central Javanese response to English colonial information collection.
30 See Soerja Soeparta 1912: Canto 37, verses 154-337, especially 154-200.
enjoyed by everyone at moments of great exuberance but rather a ghastly

experience for Gatholoco and one woman only, in which ‘stink, heat, slime,
blood, frustration, pregnancy, and childbirth’ (Anderson 1990:294) are fea-
tured. ‘It is also quite clear that sexual activity has a single purpose: the pro-
creative reproduction of a new Gatholoco, Perfect Male in embryo, ready one
day to replace his father in Java’s religious war’ (Anderson 1990:294). The
woman in the Suluk Gatholoco is as submissive as the characters described in
the piwulang estri should be. Nevertheless she is a powerful, if negative and
disgusting, force that must be controlled by Gatholoco.31 In both of these
nineteenth century interpretations of Central Javanese culture by Central
Javanese authors, women are depicted as powerful, sexually and otherwise,
albeit at opposite extremes on the continuum of ways of being a sexual
female. Despite their apparent differences, both texts represent an interactive
and contested world of gender relations. Anderson’s assertion that these two
texts could not have been written at different times suggests an irreversible
linear progression in gender construction and representation. The possibility
of alternative, competing hegemonies allows for a reading of the two texts
that brings out their similarities and removes the implied fixity of linear
development. It also encourages a reading of gender constructions that is
less linear and more interactive, one that more realistically reflects Javanese
lived-experience.
Ortner (1996:171) writes that while it is usual ‘for a given ideology or pat-
tern of practices to be hegemonic, hegemony is never total’; in relations of
power there is always room for negotiation and change – hegemony is his-
torically emergent. In the case of the Hawaiian Islands described by Ortner
(1996), the overthrow of kapu represented the success of a counter hegemony,
one that more accurately reflected the lived experience of Hawaiian women
and men, invigorated but not generated by interaction with Western sailors.
Throughout the rise of Islam and colonialism in Java, there has been no real
overthrow of any particular hegemony. All the local and introduced hegem-
onic systems and their attendant patterns of practice with respect to gender
and gender roles – animistic binarisms, Islamic male-centrism mixed with Sufi
ecstatic unification of opposites, Hindu notions of order and chaos, Western
patriarchy and individualism complicated by the later addition of feminism
– continued to operate simultaneously. Indeed, that is precisely why the study
of gender in Java reveals so many seemingly paradoxical situations.
This examination of some of the complexities of Javanese gender con-
struction, along with the scholarly strategies that have been used in their
analysis, provide us with a clearer sociological and historical context for the
31 I am grateful to Tony Day for pointing out the relationship between these two texts and
their relevance to the process I describe in this chapter.
examination of gender constructions in the aesthetics of female-style gender-

an and old-style wayang. We are now ready to delve into some of the stories
and myths that female gender players and other Javanese musicians related
to me during our conversations in Java. An exploration of these fascinating
tales will bring us even closer to the gendered sounds of an earlier Java.
CHAPTER III
Flaming wombs and female gender players

Order, chaos, and gender in
Central Javanese myth
Late in the night after a three-tape recording session in which Ibu Pringga had
performed grimingan and suluk accompaniments on the gender in all pathet,
her husband, Bapak Kris Sukardi, joined us. Seated around the gender on
straw mats we sipped hot, sweet jasmine tea, nibbled on shrimp crackers, and
talked about performance opportunities for female gender players. It turned
out that, at that time, Ibu Pringga usually had five or six events a month in
three different kinds of venue. She regularly performed as accompanist for
her brothers and some of their sons, members of the family who had chosen
to follow in the family profession pursuing careers as dhalang. She was often
asked to perform with groups of musicians who intended to participate in
competitions or lomba. These unisex groups, usually comprised of women or
men from a neighbourhood or work organization, were of varying degrees
of skill ranging from rank beginner to reasonably good. The competitions
for which they prepared were an outgrowth of the former New Order gov-
ernment’s (1966-1998) drive to organize community interest in ‘appropri-
ate’ art forms while keeping people busy and focused on group rather than
individual pursuits. At competition time, the leaders of these groups often
sought professional musicians to perform on instruments such as gender and
rebab, the mastery of which entailed more commitment than the three-hours
of weekly rehearsal that most of the participants devoted to their musical
development.1 Less frequently, perhaps twice a year, Bu Pringga was asked
to perform on the gender at the kraton, the main palace in the city, home of the
ruler of Surakarta, Paku Buwana XI.
‘She’s just like Nyai Jlamprang when she plays at the palace’, quipped
Pak Kris, as he munched on a cracker. I had been intending to ask Bu Pringga
1 Having become a part of life for many, these groups continue to practice and perform after
the fall of Soeharto’s government in 1998.
about the gender player Nyai Jlamprang at one of our meetings and so I
encouraged Pak Kris to explain his reference. He said that he could only tell
the story of the famous gender player Nyai Jlamprang as he knew it, com-
piled from the versions of other storytellers and several books that he had
encountered. As he settled down to recount the story, Bu Pringga leaned back
against a pillar and listened with interest. The story as Pak Kris told it to me
is as follows.
During the reign of Paku Buwana IV, there was a terrible epidemic. People struck
ill in the morning were dead in the evening. Those who became ill in the evening
were dead by the next morning. Scores of people fell victim to the terrible disease.
One of those struck down was a gender player who served in the court of Paku
Buwana IV. Her name was Nyai Jlamprang.
It was believed that the spirits of all those who died in that epidemic were taken
by the Goddess of the South Seas, Nyai Lara Kidul (who had caused the epidemic),
so that she could populate her undersea kingdom. When Nyai Jlamprang arrived,
she met with Nyai Lara Kidul who asked Nyai Jlamprang how she had served
previously in the kingdom of Paku Buwana IV.
Nyai Jlamprang answered in a straight-forward manner that she had been a
gender player for Paku Buwana IV and that she wished to be returned there imme-
diately. Nyai Lara Kidul, herself a gender player, thought that it would be good to
have another woman who could play gender in her underwater realm. She endeav-
oured to persuade Nyai Jlamprang that life would be good if she stayed. She told
Nyai Jlamprang that serving in the court of Nyai Lara Kidul would be the same as
serving in the court of Paku Buwana IV because, after all, Nyai Lara Kidul was his
most important mistress. Nyai Jlamprang could see him everyday.
Sensing that she had not yet been sufficiently enticing, Nyai Lara Kidul began
to teach Nyai Jlamprang to play the gender part for Gendhing Ladrang Gadhung
Mlati.2 Nyai Jlamprang, who was very clever, quickly learned the piece offered by
Nyai Lara Kidul, but still insisted that she wished to return to the service of Paku
Buwana IV.
Understanding that she had not been able to persuade Nyai Jlamprang to stay
with her, Nyai Lara Kidul conceded and allowed Nyai Jlamprang to return to her
world. Before leaving, Nyai Jlamprang was given turmeric and ginger as provi-
sions for the journey back.
Like a wayang, these events occurred in the time of one full night in the king-
dom of Paku Buwana IV. Nyai Jlamprang’s family had finished the ritual washing
of her body with flower-scented water. As they prepared to take her to the burial
ground, suddenly Nyai Jlamprang’s body shuddered ever so slightly and she
awakened. Her family was stunned and frightened yet happy to see that Nyai
Jlamprang had returned to life. As she sat up, Nyai Jlamprang found that the pro-
visions supplied for her journey had miraculously turned into gold and silver.
When Paku Buwana IV heard that Nyai Jlamprang had awakened from the
2 At this point in his narrative, Pak Kris stopped to be sure that I knew that Gendhing Ladrang
Gadhung Mlati is one of the sacred pieces still performed at the kraton in Surakarta.
III Flaming wombs and female ‘gender’ players 79
dead, he called her for an audience so that he could question her. She explained
that she had been called by Nyai Lara Kidul to become a servant at the court in
her undersea kingdom. Nyai Jlamprang explained that she had been loyal to Paku
Buwana IV and that she had learned the genderan for Gendhing Ladrang Gadhung
Mlati. Paku Buwana IV urged Nyai Jlamprang to play the piece and he was duly
impressed.
To this day, because of its associations with Nyai Lara Kidul,3 the kingdom of
the South Seas, and Nyai Jlamprang’s amazing experience, the performance of
Gendhing Ladrang Gadhung Mlati is considered a serious event and is preceded by
the presentation of offerings and the burning of incense.4
After finishing his version of the story of Nyai Jlamprang, Pak Kris Sukardi
smacked his lips appreciatively at the thought of all the gold and silver Nyai
Jlamprang brought home to her family. He teased Bu Pringga, pointing out
that she had never brought home that much even though she had performed
at the kraton many times. She laughed and teased back, suggesting that his
own resemblance to the Paku Buwana was perhaps questionable as well.
I was struck by Pak Kris’s analogy of the events in the Nyai Jlamprang
story to the experience a female gender player at a wayang. Like a wayang,
the events in the story are said to have taken place during a single night. Nyai
Jlamprang dies and by the next morning, as her family prepares her body for
burial, she awakens. During the night Nyai Jlamprang works continuously
in an effort to gain her release. Refusing all delights and temptations offered
by Nyai Lara Kidul except the gift of a new musical work, Nyai Jlamprang
neither eats nor drinks during her stay. When she finishes her night-long
ordeal, her provisions have turned to gold and silver, in essence she has
been paid for her efforts. In the telling of this story, Pak Kris made sure that I
understood the gold and silver were a great boon, ‘think of all the food that
could be bought for that amount of gold and silver’ (Kris Sukardi 29 May
1991). The analogy with a night’s wayang performance and the fact that it is
a female gender player, Nyai Jlamprang, who brings back the sacred music
from Nyai Lara Kidul – herself a gender player in this version of the story
– directly connect the endeavours of old-style wayang musicians like Bu
Pringga and the dhalang in her family to one of the most mysterious, power-
ful, and important characters in Central Javanese mythology.
3 At this point Pak Kris stopped to make sure that I knew that Nyai Lara Kidul continued to
be the consort of the ruler of Surakarta, at that point Paku Buwana XI.
4 Kris Sukardi 20 April and 29 May 1991.
Nyai Lara Kidul: loyal consort and destroyer of Central Javanese rulers
Nyai Lara Kidul, Goddess of the South Seas, consort and advisor of the rulers
of Mataram (now greater Central Java), ensurer and destroyer of ruler and
realm, is a complicated figure. Nyai Lara Kidul is sometimes regenerative. In
some myths she is associated with the waxing and waning of the moon and the
rejuvenation of cycles of prosperity and agricultural growth.5 Nyai Lara Kidul
is also capable of great destruction, causing plagues of smallpox and stealing
the souls of those who die to populate her own kingdom as in the story of
Nyai Jlamprang. She can work against the ruler just as easily as she can advise
him. She is associated with demons, death, and the dangerous sea, yet she also
empowers those whose right it is to rule Java, bestows life and wealth, and
nurtures prosperity on land. Nyai Lara Kidul’s vacillation between the sea and
the land, her role as adviser and protector of rulers and also devastator of their
realms and reigns, suggests that the juxtaposition between order and chaos,
although clearly marked in Java, is not one of rigid opposition.
In studies of Javanese culture, whether the focus is on cosmology or daily
life, much has been made of the prevalence of binariness and complementary
pairs. The work of early Dutch structural anthropologists such F.D.E. van
Ossenbruggen (1918) and Th.G.Th. Pigeaud (1929), that of Javanese anthro-
pologists such as Koentjaraningrat (1985), and the more recent scholarship
by Americans Alton Becker (1979) and Judith Becker (1979) (and their joint
article of 1981) are a few notable examples of this emphasis. Binary or dyadic
relations have been identified on every level of Javanese culture from the cos-
mological to the agricultural, from the mythological to the musical. Exegetes
have observed simple dyads such as the pairing of the mountains and the sea,
male and female, kris (ornamental dagger) and batik (dyed cloth), musical
instrument and voice. They have also noticed pairings of pairs and their inter-
secting point such as north and south, east and west reckoned from the centre,
acknowledging the possibility of five in an otherwise binary system. The
regularity of opposition between paired constituents has inspired, in the work
of many scholars, a tacit assumption of balanced stasis between pairs. But the
multiple, conflicting, constantly shifting roles of Nyai Lara Kidul insist that
we re-examine the relationship between binary pairs in Javanese culture.
The magical and unpredictable powers of Nyai Lara Kidul can bring
either good fortune and prosperity or destruction. Yet, it is only through
5 Roy Jordaan (1984:112) argues convincingly that Nyai Lara Kidul is a serpent/fertility deity
as well as being related to Dewi Sri and the process of rice production. He also makes some
interesting connections between Nini Towong, previously a figure with soothsaying capabili-
ties associated with rain now downgraded to a character in a children’s game, and Nyai Lara
Kidul.
interaction with the potentially dangerous and chaotic Nyai Lara Kidul that
those who would rule in Central Java can be assured that they are acknow-
ledged as rulers and that order will persist in the realm during their reign.
If they fall from her favour, order will decay. The interaction between Nyai
Lara Kidul and the rulers could be constructed as an assertion of order over
chaos, the will of the ruler of land over the ruler of the sea. But, it is the rulers
who seek guidance, prostrate themselves, and make offerings to Nyai Lara
Kidul so that she will deign to confer suzerainty on those who would rule.
To apply gender to these relationships makes it even more complicated. This
is not a simple construction of male order-and-power over female chaos-and-
submission. Instead, the existence of an interaction between the two binary
pairs – maleness and femaleness, chaos and order – is what is important.
The gendered interaction between the predictable and the unpredictable, the
controllable and the uncontrollable, generates the hoped-for result. Happily,
this leaves humans some degree of control over the more predictable ele-
ments in the interaction, resulting, for instance, in the rituals associated with
Nyai Lara Kidul. If the offerings and those presenting them are appropriate
and correct, then it is likely that Nyai Lara Kidul will support the ruler on
his throne.6
Similar kinds of ambiguous interrelationships are found in other Javanese
myths. In what follows I briefly re-examine the stories of some significant
Javanese female figures and the male characters with whom they interact. I
do this not simply to argue for the presence of potent female characters in
Javanese mythology for their presence, and the important, complementary
nature of these figures with respect to their male counterparts has long been
observed. Instead, my interest is to examine the nature of the complementa-
rity itself. In these stories, we will see that it is not enough simply to notice
that the elements of the male/female pair interact. These constituents also
interact with another pair, that of chaos and order. It is only when these
pairs of pairs intersect, often in a coincidental or accidental manner,7 that
the desired outcome of the interaction is made possible. In other words, the
complementarity between pairs and between pair members is not a given. It
is emergent, dynamic, interactive and, subsequently, generative.8
6 See Chapter II for a brief description of the kinds of rituals and offerings associated with
the propitiation of Nyai Lara Kidul in Central Java. See also Jordaan 1984; Brakel-Papenhuijzen
1992; Judith Becker 1993 for more on the offerings habitually presented to Nyai Lara Kidul and
their significance.
7 See Judith Becker 1979 and Alton Becker 1979 for more on the significance of coincidence in
Javanese culture, in particular the performing arts.
8 See Errington 1990 and Judith Becker 1979 for different perspectives on the relationship
between the constituent elements of pairs. Errington views them as complementary in this part
of Southeast Asia, Becker as oppositional. Both the oppositional and complementary perspec-
What is surprising in these stories is that the gendering of chaos is not

always female. Judging from many recent scholarly characterizations of
Javanese men and women, the assumption is that order is male and chaos
is female. Order is naturally more highly valued than chaos. This ranking is
apparent, for example, in discussions of refinement in Javanese speech and
physical behaviour, as well as prescriptions for access to particular kinds of
knowledge associated with court culture, ‘modern’ education, and male gen-
der – all aspects of Javanese culture that have only gradually been elevated
to such prominent status since the middle of the nineteenth century.9
Chaotic love
Origin myths usually recount an interaction between the sexes, and the
Javanese rice origin story is no exception. Dewi Srilowati is a goddess who
falls through the heavens in a vessel when it is accidentally dropped by the
clumsy Batara Guru, the ruler of the heavenly realm. The vessel falls into
the mouth of a serpent, a notable symbol of fertility in Java and throughout
Southeast Asia. After the vessel emerges from the mouth of the serpent,
Srilowati emerges from the vessel, and Batara Guru falls madly in love with
her. Observing propriety and not sure she is inclined toward the clumsy
Guru, Srilowati denies him everything and sets a series of tasks that must be
overcome before she will begin considering his desire for her. When, at long
last, the smitten Guru has finished his tasks, Srilowati is accidentally killed
by her would-be lover. She is inadvertently struck in the head as Batara Guru
leans down to prostrate himself in front of her. Tumbling from the realm of
the gods, the corpse of the goddess happens to fall into the earthly realm of
tives can be accommodated if we view the relationship between the constituent parts of the
pair as interactive and emergent. Given this perspective, it is possible to understand Nyai Lara
Kidul, Queen of the Southern Ocean, both as the loyal consort to the rulers of Central Java and
as the dangerous, opportunistic, independent ruler; similarly, a market woman can be both a suc-
cessful, sharp-tongued batik merchant in control of every aspect of a business interaction and a
subservient wife in the ‘realm’ of her husband without the slightest experience of discontinuity.
9 See Brenner (1995:32, 1998) for discussion of this tendency. Brenner also describes conversa-
tions she had with Javanese people in which men were described as incapable of restraining their
desires while women were able to delay gratification and able to control themselves in public.
Brenner (1995:32) suggests that ‘this conception of the nature of the sexes underlies key roles that
men and women play in the household, and that it forms the basis for their practices in other
spheres of social life‘. The inability to deny desire makes it impossible for Central Javanese men
to operate in the marketplace where there is always a plethora of women and other delicious
things in which to indulge. According to Brenner, it also explains why many men are required
to hand over their earnings directly to their wives in many Central Javanese households. This
construction of lived gender resonates with the gendering of roles in the stories of Batara Guru
and his consorts.
King Mikukuh, whose people are suffering from famine. Miraculously and
in response to their collective misfortune, Srilowati’s corpse grows a variety
of Javanese crops, the most important of which is the rice that spouts from
her head.10
Dewi Srilowati is often compared with Batara Guru’s primary consort, the
goddess Uma, who also experiences an accidental event while flying with
Batara Guru. Uma is transformed into an ogress called Durga when, while
soaring in the heavens, she spurns Guru’s inappropriately timed and amo-
rous advances, causing his seed to spill into the ocean. This seed becomes
the ogre-child Kala, who is raised on earth by Uma, now Durga, who has
been banished from the heavenly realm. Once he is grown and looking
for something to eat, Kala seeks advice from Batara Guru. Batara Guru is
reminded of the spilt seed by one of his ministers and, perhaps in an attempt
to atone for his accidental and neglectful paternity, permits Kala to eat rocks
and other inedible, naturally occurring objects. While sampling the earth’s
inorganic matter, Kala accidentally discovers the delicious taste of human
flesh. In a fit of belated paternal kindness, Kala is given permission to prey
on humans who fall into certain categories. These include, among others,
those who are left in dangerous positions genealogically – for instance, single
children or children who are of one gender with two siblings of the other
gender – and those who have committed infractions against an elaborate
and highly variable code regarding daily activities. People in these positions
must be cleansed and returned to safety before Kala begins to ‘eat them’, a
metaphor for the experience of some kind of bad luck, such as financial loss
or serious illness. The cleansing takes place during a ritual called ruwatan, an
event often performed with an accompanying wayang in which Kala’s life is
recounted through the enactment of the Murwakala story. The cleansing of the
subject is completed while Kala is simultaneously pacified with other offer-
ings, thus ensuring the safety of those who have been exorcised.11
In both of these stories Batara Guru, god of the heavens, spawns tem-
porary chaos with his inability to control his amorous urges.12 In each tale
the female character represents calm, measured, and appropriate behaviour
10 This version is paraphrased from Pemberton’s description of the Srilowati story (1994:206)
as told to him by a dhukun (shaman) who regularly officiated at weddings and other fertility ritu-
als including those associated with rice production. See also Headley 2000a, 2000b; Carey and
Houben 1987; Jordaan 1984, 1987; Lind 1975; Schrieke 1957 for more on Javanese fertility myths
and practices, the relationship between the Dewi Srilowati and the Sri/Sadana myths, and con-
nections between Nyai Lara Kidul and rice and fertility, including connections to snakes and skin
disease.
11 See Headley’s (2000a) extended study of the Murwakala in which he explores ruwatan and
its connections to Javanese mythology, exorcism, and other rituals. He also provides an extensive
list of those who need to be exorcised in a ruwatan.
12 Pemberton (1994:206-10) notes the role of excessive love in ensuring Javanese fertility.
while Guru flails about causing extreme damage that ultimately impacts
on the human realm. The chaotic moment that causes the death of Dewi
Srilowati brings relief to the human world, since she is the source of agri-
cultural prosperity that represents the end of famine. Uma is not killed, but
she is transformed into Durga, mother to Kala, the demon who gradually
becomes a threat to human existence. While this might seem to be a nega-
tive result with respect to human life, Batara Guru does provide a way for
humans to thwart his ravenous son. The ritual to exorcise Kala provides an
opportunity to rehearse primary community values and individual responsi-
bilities in the context of ensuring the ritual safety and the general prosperity
of those involved.13 While many aspects of both these tales, in particular the
role of coincidence and accidental effect, present themselves as potentially
significant for the analysis of Javanese myth in general, for our purposes the
key elements are the powerfully generative interactions between male and
female figures as they represent or bring about chaos and order.
The generative results of the death of Dewi Srilowati recall the story of
the two siblings Sri and Sadana, children of King Mahapunggung. Bonded
by incestuous, if platonic, love the siblings run away to thwart their father’s
attempts to marry the younger Sadana to a princess and the older Sri to an
ogre prince from another realm.14 During the ensuing chase in which they
are pursued by an army of ogres, Sri and Sadana are run to their deaths.
Just as this occurs, Sri turns into a rice paddy snake and Sadana turns into
a swallow-like bird, the former a symbol of fertility and the latter a symbol
of wealth. Albeit in the pursuit of theoretically unproductive, in fact never
consummated, love the chaos that ensues from the excessiveness of their love
for one another – one that disturbs the usual order of marrying out of the
immediate family – is in the end symbolic of prosperity represented by the
commingling of fertility and wealth. The connection of these siblings with
Javanese mythical prosperity is so strong that in some versions of the story
there is a merging of Sri with Dewi Srilowati, both of whom become associ-
ated with rice and fertility.15
13 In the Murwakala play can be found an origin story for the first gender player, Nyai Sruni.
She is really one of the godly male companions of Batara Guru, usually Narada or Brahma, who
has been transformed into a female musician. She descends to earth to accompany Batara Guru
as he performs the first wayang in his effort to solve the problems caused by his son Kala.
14 See Headley 2000a for discussion of older sister/younger brother alliance and its impor-
tance to Javanese ritual, in particular ruwatan.
15 See Pemberton 1994 for discussion of the combination of Dewi Srilowati and Sri in the ‘world
of Sri’. See Pemberton 1994; Headley 2000a, 2000b; Lind 1975; Jordaan 1984, 1987 for discussion of
some of the permutations of these tales and their significance in Javanese mythology, cosmology,
and ritual life. See Headley 2000a for discussion of other types of generative pairs such as brother
and sister (especially older sister/younger brother) in connection with Kala.
As in the continuing relationship between Nyai Lara Kidul and the rulers
of Mataram/Central Java, the interaction between gendered chaos and order
often appears in Javanese stories involving royal succession. Some of these
stories feature magically ‘hot’ women, whose wombs metaphorically flame,
singeing all who try to ‘enter’ except he who is destined to rule. Of course,
only unusually potent men were able to quell these fiery women. Dhedhes,
the thirteenth-century Queen of Singosari, was one such woman. Despite the
best efforts of many princes, it was only the non-aristocratic Ken Arok who
was able to withstand Dhedhes’s magical heat and thereby affirm his right to
rule the East Javanese kingdom of Tumapel-Singosari.16
Scholarship on these women in possession of flaming wombs has focused
on their role in conferring the legitimacy on whoever was able to quench
their magical heat. In this construction these women are a test, a legitimizing
impediment to the right to rule. The focus of the analysis is always the linear
trajectory of the male ruler towards his throne. In the context of our discus-
sion about the interrelationships between gender, order, and chaos, however,
another interpretation of the process can be posed.
These women metaphorically represent the teeming chaos that surrounds
the competition for supremacy amongst humans – in particular those with
designs on ruling positions. Order is restored to the realm, competition is
quelled, by the potent men able to control the chaos of the realm as demon-
strated by their ability to quench the magical fire of powerful women. Here
chaos is female and order is male. In the tales of the consorts of Batara Guru
chaos, represented as excessive sexual desire and greed, is clearly gendered
male – Guru, the ogre prince and his army – while appropriate, refined,
orderly behaviour is gendered female. In the Sri/Sadana story excessive
desire is exhibited by both Sri and Sadana, paired with the implied order of
appropriate marriage bonding, that is, non-incestuous pairing. In all these
stories, therefore, a similar kind of interaction between gender, chaos, and
order is key to the correct outcome of events. The fact that chaos and order
are not permanently aligned with one gender or the other suggests that there
is no hierarchy of valuation operating between order and chaos or between
maleness and femaleness.17
16 See Carey and Houben 1987 for discussion and analysis of magically hot women. In the Serat
Baron Sakendher, the last Princess of Pajajaran in West Java – the seventeenth-century Tanuraga
– is a woman with a magically hot womb. She conceives a child who eventually becomes the first
Dutch Governor-General of Java. Sartono Kartodirdjo (1988:229) traces the intricate history that
brings several foreign rulers to Java only to have them submit to and then aid a Javanese ruler in
his quest to oust another interloper. Sartono Kartodirdjo suggests that the Baron Sakendher story
was a way of justifying the presence of foreigners on Java and making sense of their strength
while restoring equilibrium to the cosmic-magical world.
17 In his discussion of Mpu Tantular’s kakawin poem, Arjunawijaya, Peter Worsley (1991:179-
82) locates the intelligibility of the narrative for its audience in its direct referencing of common
It turns out that the generative nature of the intersection between order
and chaos is also an important feature of some Javanese ritual activities.
Pemberton (1994) examines a variety of the rituals associated with ensuring
fertility in both human and agricultural endeavour in Central Java. He analy-
ses two important Central Javanese ritual processes, rebutan and slametan.
The former generally occur at village cleansing ceremonies (bersih desa) and
the latter, in some form, occur at most Central Javanese ritual celebrations
from births and circumcisions to housewarmings and birthdays. Rebut means
to seize or snatch away and rebutan describes the exciting moment in which
a gathered group ravenously and uncontrollably pulls apart an offering of
food (usually large) amassed and displayed by the group itself. While a
slametan also involves offerings of food collected from everyone in the com-
munity, this communal feast is an orderly process in which the food prepared
is evenly divided and redistributed to those who prepared it so that they
can eat a small bit at the event and then return home with the remainder. In
essence, according to Pemberton, a slametan is an ordered preparation, pre-
sentation, and distribution of surplus while a rebutan is similar except that it
is uncontrolled. These two rituals do not always occur at the same event and
the interaction between the effects of the events as they occur in the course of
the ritual life of a village or group is felt over several years, not immediately.
These two forms of distribution are mutually activating, either without the
other in the long term being insufficient for ensuring regeneration and fertil-
ity.18 This interaction between controlled exchange and uncontrolled snatch-
ing is paralleled in many of the practices enacted by the bride and bride-
groom in the process of their marriage.19 Gender is not directly considered
by Pemberton and so, without further research, it is difficult to determine the
role that gender may play in the processes of rebutan and slametan. One thing
practices and institutions in fourteenth-century Java. He identifies one major narrative motif as
the association of political authority and proper maintenance of society with the tender intimacy
and sexual contact between the ruler and his wife, suggesting that this would have been a famil-
iar interactive connection to both the poet and his audience. This pairing of the intimacy of royal
husband and wife with enduring political authority is another example a Javanese emphasis on
gendered interaction for the maintenance of order and control over chaos.
18 Pemberton 1994:246. See this same source for an extended discussion of the methik ceremo-
ny in which a small doll ‘Sri’ is made from the first sheaves of rice harvested in order to receive
offerings and to ensure the continuance of prosperity in the next harvest, at which time the doll
is exuberantly torn apart by children in a representation of the spreading of the rice seed. See
Pemberton 1994; Headley 2000a; Jordaan 1987 for discussion of the game of Nyi Pohatji and its
relation to the Sri/methik ceremony.
19 See Pemberton (1994:210-3) for description of the fate of kembang mayar plants tossed into
an intersection after a marriage, destined to be run over and dispersed in all directions; eggs or
the seed of life crushed by the bride and groom and left to ooze into the earth; bridegrooms’
scatterings of seeds into the lap of brides as well as other symbolically fertile actions that involve
chaotic dispersal paired with controlled exchange.
is clear from his data: both men and women are involved in the preparation
of these ritual processes, which usually occur at events in which gender, fer-
tility, and prosperity are significant elements – marriage, circumcision, har-
vest rituals, and various kinds of cleansing ceremonies. The unmanageable
excess of desire in rebutan and the careful, measured process of the slametan
recall the differences between Dewi Srilowati or Uma and Batara Guru. The
generative interaction between rebutan and slametan parallels the interactions
between Batara Guru and his consorts, between Dhedhes and Ken Arok,
between Nyai Lara Kidul and the rulers of Mataram. Fertility and prosperity
in its many guises are generated by the interaction of gendered chaos and
order. Significantly, similar kinds of relationships between gendered chaos
and order can also be found in stories about female gender players and their
dhalang husbands.
Female ‘gender’ players and the gendered interaction between chaos and order
After hearing Pak Kris’s enthusiastic rendition of the story of Nyai Jlamprang,
I began collecting stories about female gender players from anyone I bumped
into who had one to tell. It turns out that the themes and narratives of the sto-
ries about female gender players parallel many of those found in the stories
of other Javanese mythical women. Bapak Naryacarita is an old-style dhalang
and historian of Javanese performance culture, well-known to scholars of
Javanese wayang. One evening at his home in Makam Haji, Kartasura (about
10 kilometers west of Surakarta proper) I asked Pak Narya if he knew the
story of the Nyai Panjang Mas, the wife of the famous dhalang who served
in the court of the most famous ruler of Mataram, Sultan Agung (1613-1646).
Pak Narya looked interested, and nodding his head sagely, assured me that
he did indeed know the story. He wondered if I knew that Kyai Panjang Mas
had had two wives? I shook my head indicating that I had not known of
the two wives. Looking as if he already knew this to be the case, Pak Narya
peered at me with his penetrating eyes and said with utmost gravity, ‘I am
descended from the first son of Nyai Panjang Mas, the second wife, but let
me first tell you of Kyai Panjang Mas and his first wife’.20
Before Kyai Panjang Mas began to serve in the court of the Sultan Agung, Kyai
Lebdajiwa, for that was his name at the time, was married, appropriately, to a
talented gender player. Kyai Lebdajiwa and his wife performed frequently in
the villages of the kingdom of Mataram for they were extremely popular. There
was only one problem. Kyai Lebdajiwa was unable to consummate his marriage
20 Kyai is a Javanese honorific applied to educated and/or emiment men, and also for revered
heirlooms (pusaka). Most dhalang are referred to as Kyai when they are performing.
because his wife was so talented and so powerful that she had a flaming womb.
One evening, on one of his many expeditions into the villages within his domain,
the Sultan came upon Kyai Lebdajiwa in performance. The Sultan fell instantly in
love with Kyai Lebdajiwa’s wife, the gender player, and he was suitably awed by
the performance of Kyai Lebdajiwa. Both were immediately ordered to appear at
the court and to enter service there. Lebdajiwa was appointed dhalang of the court.
After this the Sultan asked for Lebdajiwa’s wife. Lebdajiwa agreed immediately
because he was scared of her magical heat. In exchange, Lebdajiwa was given a
girl, already skilled at playing the gender, but still young enough for her talent to
be moulded and shaped by Kyai Lebdajiwa.21
Although he loses his wife, Kyai Lebdajiwa comes out as an extremely potent
figure in this story, second only to the Sultan himself, as Pak Narya pointed
out to me. The fact that Kyai Lebdajiwa was powerful enough to use (con-
trol) this spiritually ‘hot ‘ woman as his gender player is enough to confirm
his considerable abilities as a dhalang. That he could not consummate his
marriage to the gender player is appropriate because, if he had been able to,
he might have become a threat to the succession of rulers, as was Ken Arok
when he quenched the magical heat of Dhedhes. Kyai Lebdajiwa and his
wife were obviously powerful performers; they were so popular that the
Sultan decided to come and watch them. While they could perform they
were unsuitable as husband and wife. Kyai Lebdajiwa’s wife could only be
married, bodily, to a man with comparable potency – the Sultan.
Another story featuring the compelling intensity of performance between
a dhalang and a gender player is found in the Babad Demak, a section of the
Babad Tanah Jawi. The Babad Tanah Jawi is a history of the extended family that
ruled a succession of kingdoms located in Central Java from the beginning
of the seventeenth century to the present time. The text probably dates from
some time in the seventeenth century. The versions I will paraphrase here,
however, are based on a late-eighteenth century recension.22 This particular
story occurs at the beginning of the Babad Tanah Jawi, near the start of the
Central Javanese ruling family’s rise to power, during the time of the com-
petition between the coastal kingdom of Demak – located in north-western
Central Java – and the nascent kingdom of Pajang, located in the heartland
of the region, near Kartasura. This period was marked by the competition
between a declining Demak and Pajang as it rose to power.
At this time, there was holy man by the name of Kyai Ageng Sela. There
21 Naryacarita 5 April 1991.

22 This story is paraphrased from a prose synopsis of the story written at the Mangkunegaran
and published in the Netherlands (Olthof 1941) subsequently translated into Indonesian by
Slamet Riyadi and Suwaji (1981) as the Babad Demak and published by the Indonesian Department
of Education and Culture.
are two stories commonly associated this man. The first is that he captured
lightening and imprisoned it within an iron cage; the second concerns a
pusaka or sacred court heirloom in the form of a small gong or kempul (bendhé)
– Ki Bicak, named for the small village in which it was found.
Kyai Ageng Sela fled Demak after a disagreement with the Sultan. He retired to
Sela village where he practiced asceticism. One night, as he lay half-awake in his
room, he heard a voice that told him that soon he would receive a sacred kempul.
This gong would be useful for determining the outcome of battles. The gong
should be struck prior to a battle. If no sound came out, then the battle would be
lost. If, on the other hand, it sang out loudly and clearly when struck, the battle
would be won. This small gong would become a sacred heirloom of the king. Kyai
Ageng Sela got up immediately and prepared to find the kempul.
In the village of Bicak there lived a dhalang by the name of Ki Bicak or Dhalang
Bicak. He was extremely poor and so, in an effort to improve his lot in life, went
off to meditate near the edge of a lake named Madirda that was left behind by Aji
Saka.23 The lake was located on Mount Gara.
While meditating, Ki Bicak had a dream in which he meets his father who tells
him, ‘In this pool there is a kempul which once upon a time was called Panca Janya.
Take it immediately and make your fortune with it. Everything is assured’.
Ki Bicak awoke startled and remembered his dream. He walked to the edge of
the lake and looked down. There, in the clear water, appeared something as big
as a large turtle. He was certain that this was really the kempul. Ki Bicak entered
into the water, retrieved the gong, and took it home. He told the story to his wife
and then gave her the kempul. As a result of this find, Ki Bicak became a well-to-do
man. He rapidly became an extremely popular and successful dhalang.
The news of this extraordinary dhalang and his beautiful, talented, gender-play-
ing wife reached Sela. Kyai Ageng Sela was desirous of seeing the dhalang and his
wife perform.
Kyai Ageng planned to disguise himself and ordered ten of his men to go to
Bicak in advance. Kyai Ageng Sela bathed and dressed. He departed and sub-
sequently arrived in the village. Dhalang Bicak was performing a story from the
Bharatayuddha, the Death of Abimanyu. Just after the scene about the death of
Abimanyu’s two wives [after they hear of his death] Gendhing Bendhet [?Gendhing
Bondhet] was played. [The dhalang called for] sirepan and began narrating over the
sound of only the rebab, gambang, kethuk, kenong, and gender. The wilet of the gender
sounded forth. Graceful and attractive were all of the sounds played by the wife
of the dhalang. This caused the onlookers to become aroused. Her face was yellow,
round, and attractive. This also caused people’s emotions to heat up. Because of
the large number of people watching, there was a big commotion, pushing and
shoving such that it was no longer possible to see her [only to hear her]. Those
who were not strong could not contain themselves [emotionally or physically].
Kyai Ageng Sela was watching from the back. He wanted to see the wife of
Dhalang Bicak himself and so he forgot his principles. He lost control in the enor-
23 In Javanese Islamic legendary history, Aji Saka came to Java from India bringing the alpha-
bet and chasing out the evil spirits which had previously lived there [my footnote].
mity of his desire. In any case, it was the wish of Hyang Sukma [God]. Dhalang
Bicak was to meet his fate. Kyai Ageng Sela let fly with his spear Kyai Plered
[another sacred, court heirloom of the ruling family of Central Java]. He hurled it
at the dhalang, striking his side and [the dhalang] died. Kyai Ageng Sela took the
gamelan [including the kempul, Ki Bicak], the puppets, and the wife. The next day
when Kyai Ageng Sela looked at everything that he had taken, his desire for the
wife of the man whose life he had taken was already gone.
Kyai Ageng Sela felt no remorse about the death of the dhalang. He said to his
followers, ‘Hey, my boys, I don’t want any of this except for the kempul’.
Kyai Ageng Sela then took the kempul and went to meet Kalijaga [one of the
eight sacred wali (saints) who brought Islam to Java] to have a discussion, to con-
firm his vision as correct, and to affirm the kempul as a pusaka. (Translated from
Slamet Riyadi and Suwaji 1981:388-97, Cantos 60-61.)
The main point of this story is to demonstrate the authenticity of a particular

court pusaka and, thereby, to connect the family that possesses it to the rulers
of Mataram. In the time of the intense competition between Demak and
Pajang, the question of which court would emerge as the primary power
centre was unclear. In Java, potent things are both a source and an attribute
of power. In this story both Kyai Ageng Sela and Dhalang Bicak are drawn
through dreams to the same pusaka and each experiences the effects of its
power. This object travels to the Central Javanese court where it has an
important function in predicting the outcome of battles. The fact that two
people have visions regarding the gong is proof that it is sacred. That this
magical and powerful (not to mention useful) object finds its way into the
possession of the Javanese royal family adds to and confirms the family’s
power and political authority.
The dhalang and the gender player are mediators who convey the gong to
the point in time at which it can be taken by an emissary to its ‘proper’ loca-
tion, the court of the ruling family. If Dhalang Bicak had not found the kempul
and become prosperous, popular, and famous, Kyai Ageng Sela might never
have found the kempul. If his wife had not played so beautifully and enticingly
– the sound of her genderan causing people to lose control – Kyai Ageng Sela,
seized by the rasa of the moment, would not have killed the dhalang and
taken control of the pusaka kempul. The text suggests that it was the dhalang’s
fate to find the gong and then lose his life. Since the murder was in service
to the greater goal of affirming the Central Javanese court as ruling centre,
Kyai Ageng Sela feels no remorse for his deed, committed with another of the
court’s sacred possessions, Kyai Plered. The violence of the dhalang’s death
is like that of Batara Guru’s killing of Dewi Srilowati: it is coincidental to a
chaotic moment that precedes and produces a beneficent result.
The stories of the first wife of Kyai Panjang Mas and the wife of Dhalang
Bicak resonate with stories about other significant Javanese marriages. It is
possible to see a generative interaction between gender, order, and chaos

operating in these stories. In the case of the flaming-wombed, first wife of
Kyai Panjang Mas, the analogy to Dhedhes is direct and uncomplicated.
The talent (bakat) possessed by the gender player is associated with and rep-
resented by her flaming womb. Kyai Lebdajiwa (later Kyai Panjang Mas)
as court dhalang is a venerated member in the genealogy of the Mataram
elite. The connection of so powerful a dhalang with the court of the Sultan
Agung strengthens the political order in the same way as the possession of
the magical kempul Ki Bicak. Kyai Lebdajiwa’s access to a potent woman is
possible because of their equal power as performers. Kyai Panjang Mas’s
artistic and creative power as a dhalang is demonstrated through his ability
to use this magically hot woman as his accompanist, but he is unable to have
a generative relationship with her because of her magical heat. The eventual
usurpation of his authority over her by the Sultan of Mataram is predictable
since Kyai Lebdajiwa is no Ken Arok.
Unlike Kyai Lebdajiwa, the Dhalang Bicak has a perfectly appropriate wife.
She is as talented as he is and together they create wayang performances,
which are compelling enough, in ways we will examine in the next chapter, to
cause erotic, ecstatic, eventually chaotic response in those not potent enough
to withstand it. At one of the most heart-rending and affecting moments in the
performance of the dhalang’s telling of ‘the Death of Abimanyu ‘ – a time when
emotions are already heightened to an extreme – the dhalang calls for a sirepan
or reduced sound in the ensemble, enabling him to narrate the emotional event
accompanied primarily by the sound of the gender. The sound of the gender,
suddenly audible, is described as graceful and attractive. The interaction of
the sound of the gender and the words of the dhalang are obviously compel-
ling for those absorbed in the performance, as many, who are not strong, lose
control – physically, sexually, emotionally. Even the potent Kyai Ageng Sela
is driven to possess – to seize – the music, the performers, the story, and, as
soon as he discovers it, the kempul. His growing desire for these things causes
an uncontrollable reaction. He kills the dhalang and claims the rest in the hub-
bub that results from his thrust of the pusaka spear Kyai Plered. Kyai Ageng’s
loss of control is caused by his own desire for the gender player and the sound
she creates, but we may imagine that it is also affected by his comprehension
of the scene that is just then unfolding in the dhalang’s performance, when
Abimanyu’s two wives take their lives as a result of Abimanyu’s death. The
powerful interaction between the dhalang and the gender player, in a musical
and narrative sense (since the context of the Abimanyu story draws attention
to their relationships as man and wife), gives rise to the chaotic moment that
ensures the successful arrival of the pusaka kempul Ki Bicak to the family of
Central Javanese rulers whose goal is to demonstrate that Pajang is to be the
new centre of the realm. No longer compelling because she is not performing
and, furthermore, has been separated from the performance presence of the
dhalang, Kyai Ageng Sela realizes that the gender player is not as attractive
as she was the night before and he immediately gives her up to focus on the
intended prize of the evening’s events, the magical kempul. What is striking in
this story and different from any of the stories we have encountered, neither the
chaos nor the order is gendered. Instead, the representation of the interaction
between genders, through musical and narrative performance, brings about a
chaotic event that contributes to the genealogical stability of Mataram.
Dramatic separation of gender-playing wives from dhalang husbands is a
theme that ties many of these stories together. The second wife of Kyai Panjang
Mas, Nyai Panjang Mas – the wife he received from Sultan Agung in exchange
for his first wife – is also separated from her husband with the result that
the Central Javanese wayang tradition was greatly enhanced and preserved
despite enduring events that had tradition-shattering potential. As Pak Narya
recounted it to me, their separation occurred because of war and kidnapping.
The young gender player who was given to Kyai Lebdajiwa in exchange for his
magically hot, first wife married Kyai Lebdajiwa and became Nyai Panjang Mas
when Kyai Lebdajiwa received his title. Kyai Lebdajiwa became Kyai Panjang Mas
after a visit to Nyai Lara Kidul’s kingdom in the South Java Sea when he returned
with a golden platter (a panjang mas). He taught Nyai Panjang Mas everything he
knew concerning wayang and karawitan [music played on a gamelan ensemble].
She learned to accompany Kyai Panjang Mas with excellence and she also became
the first female dhalang. She was responsible for preserving the knowledge of
gamelan and karawitan as it is known in Surakarta and Yogyakarta [that is, the area
of old Mataram] today.
During the coup against Sultan Mangkurat [1646-1677], son of Sultan Agung,
Nyai Panjang Mas and her two sons were abducted by the rebels and taken to East
Java. Nyai Panjang Mas performed frequently while in East Java, keeping alive the
Mataram tradition in herself as well as teaching her sons and other local children the
arts of wayang and karawitan. After the loss of his wife by kidnapping, Kyai Panjang
Mas married another gender player, but apparently there were no children.
Nyai Panjang Mas was released by her East Javanese captors when her sons
were nearly grown. On her return to Mataram, she carried a collection of wayang
stories, those which are now called lakon timor, eastern stories or lakon perempuan,
women’s stories. She is also said to have introduced one of the clowns used in
Central Javanese wayang today.24
24 Several people told me that these lakon timuran/perempuan stories have more structure
(balungan) than other published story outlines (lakon). That is, more of the detail and procedure
for the evening’s events are specified, and because there is less time left for improvisation, the
dhalang does not have to worry that he will not have enough material with which to fill up night
until dawn. It has been suggested to me that this is actually an insidious verification of the
Central Javanese perception of women’s lesser abilities in language usage since it is in improvisa-
tion of story and thought that the dhalang’s abilities are displayed. This is only true if we assess
the story and the abilities of Nyai Panjang Mas from a contemporary, male-centric perspective.
Although the story is told differently in the Serat Sastramiruda,25 according

to Pak Narya, prior to the return of Nyai Panjang Mas from her captors in
the East, Central Javanese dhalang used only three clowns: Semar, Petruk and
Gareng. When Nyai Panjang Mas was in East Java, she taught her children
and other students to use the two clowns who were popular there, Semar and
Bagong.26 When she returned to Central Java, Nyai Panjang Mas brought with
her stories that included Bagong in the clown family. Bapak Naryacarita’s
summary statement on the issue of the clowns was that because Surakarta is
in the middle between East Java and the rest of Central Java, it is appropriate
that dhalang from this area use all four clowns. ‘It’s like the marriage between
Kyai and Nyai Panjang Mas’, he stated definitively, ‘the merging of Central
and East Javanese tradition’.27 Bapak Naryacarita finished his tale with a
brief description of the fate of the famous sons of Kyai Panjang Mas.
Nyai Panjang Mas sent one son to follow in the footsteps of Kyai Panjang Mas
and serve in the court of the descendants of the Sultan and she kept one son with
her. This is the son who later entered service in the palace that was subsequently
built in Kartasura. She asked to be given land as compensation for the loss of her
husband and this was granted by the Sultan. I am descended from the first son,
the one who followed in the footsteps of his father, Kyai Panjang Mas, and entered
into the service of the Sultans of Mataram.28
The representation of Nyai Panjang Mas here is as a preserver and bearer of culture, ensuring
the continuity of the line of performers from Kyai Panjang Mas and Sultan Agung to the present.
From a perspective which acknowledges this older construction of female achievement as valu-
able, the fact that she brought back new versions of lakon only enhances her importance. Further,
if she is credited with teaching her sons and many others the art of wayang language usage, she
must have been an able performer herself.
25 The Serat Sastramiruda is a treatise on wayang, published serially in the Surakarta newspaper
Bramartani in 1877-1878. The text takes the form of a dialogue between a teacher and a student.
See Chapter V for discussion of this text.
26 Whether Bagong was originally a clown figure used in East Java or one invented by Nyai
Panjang Mas is not clear from either the Serat Sastramiruda or the tale as told by Bapak Naryacarita.
27 In the story of Nyai Panjang Mas there are echoes of one traditional way in which regional
cultures were transmitted to the courts of Central Java. Before the radical reduction of indigenous
autonomy brought about by end of the Dipanagara War in 1830, one way in which regional rulers
could pay homage and gain favor with the rulers of the Central Javanese realms was the pre-
sentation of women as wives or concubines. These women, usually familiar with court life and
trained in the arts, brought their regional cultures into the center of the Central Javanese courts.
The Dutch put an end to this kind of homage and cultural exchange after 1830. Through his work
with Indonesian cultures outside of Central Java, Philip Yampolsky has noticed that the musics
from everywhere in Java except Central Java have sounds and ideas that are more closely related
to each other than any of them are related to the traditions of Central Java. It is possible that
this divergence began as the Central Javanese, denied any real political exchange with outside
courts, concentrated on developing their own performing arts, creating an aura of uniqueness for
Central Javanese culture as a reaction to the pressures of colonial rule (Philip Yampolsky 1993:
personal communication).
28 Naryacarita 5 April 1991.
Pak Narya stopped speaking and drew a genealogy that traced his ancestry to
the first son of Kyai Panjang Mas. He made sure I had the correct spelling of all
the names in the list. As I wrote, he sat nodding his head while thoughtfully,
and somewhat reverently, repeating the list of names. Pak Narya is not alone
in his desire to demonstrate both the continuity of, and his connection to, the
elite ranks of the wayang world in Central Java. As the only sons of the most
famous dhalang of the most powerful Sultan, these are the talented dhalang to
whom generations of dhalang in Central Java have traced their ancestry.
The woman who eventually became Nyai Panjang Mas was not magi-
cally hot. Although abducted by the warrior Trunajaya, Nyai Panjang Mas
maintained her control and dignity as demonstrated through her role as a
teacher. She helped to prevent the dissolution of the wayang performance
tradition of Mataram, later that of the area of Central Java. In their quest to
destroy Mataram, the excessive, uncontrollable actions of the abductor and
his army interact with Nyai Panjang Mas’s systematic approach to teaching
her children and any others interested the performance of wayang as she
has learned and played it. The interaction of this chaotic abduction and her
controlled response – similar to the interaction between Dewi Srilowati and
Batara Guru that results in the production of rice – generates the tradition
that connects to the ‘old style’ of Central Javanese wayang (whatever its
origins and antiquity) to the many continually emerging styles of today.29
Left in the hands of Kyai Panjang Mas who retreated to the south coast with
the Sultan, the Central Javanese tradition as it is known today might never
have emerged. As Pak Narya observes above, the Central Javanese style
is actually a mixture of the East Javanese and Mataram forms of wayang
practice. Significantly, this story features the interaction between male and
female forces, in this case male chaos – in the actions of the victorious sacker
Trunajaya – and female order – in the calm, generative Nyai Panjang Mas.
Trunajaya’s indiscriminate plundering of ‘an offering’ – in this case the
knowledge of an important performing tradition embodied in Nyai Panjang
Mas – and her diligent, careful teaching of the knowledge about wayang to
students throughout Central and East Java reflect the juxtaposition between
rebutan and slametan.30 The violent dispersal and the careful transfer of, in
this case, knowledge, ensures the prosperity and continuation of a Javanese
performance tradition.
Looking back at the story of Nyai Jlamprang from the beginning of this
29 See Mrázek 2002 for multiple examples of the underlying continuities amid rapid and plen-
tiful change found in a wide range of Javanese wayang styles, in particular chapters by Mrázek,
Keeler, Cohen, Weintraub, Suratno, Lysloff, and Pausacker.
30 Looking back, of course, the ‘chaos’ of the magically hot first wife of Kyai Panjang Mas also
engendered the situation in which Nyai Panjang Mas was trained, thus enabling the develop-
ment and maintenance of the tradition and it offshoots.
chapter, we can now detect parallels with the tale of Nyai Panjang Mas. Both
involve the separation of the gender player from her primary male counter-
part and then her subsequent return to both him and Central Java with new
performance material, in Nyai Jlamprang’s case the musical piece Ladrang
Gadhung Mlati. It is interesting that Nyai Jlamprang is represented as an
embodiment of neither order nor chaos. Instead, like the wife of Dhalang
Bicak, she is a mediator between the two.31 She is struck down by Nyai Lara
Kidul, dangerous consort to Paku Buwana IV, and abducted to live and per-
form in her captor’s undersea realm. She steadfastly refuses, demonstrating
the loyalty of a gender player to the dhalang. Tempted with beautiful gender
music and delicious treats, Nyai Jlamprang evades all attempts to sway her
decision to return. In the end Nyai Lara Kidul, embodiment of regenerative
chaos, relinquishes her grip on the life of Nyai Jlamprang who returns to the
Paku Buwana, embodiment of ordered control. This particular interaction
between order and chaos generates sacred music for the court of Surakarta
and reconfirms the reign of the ruler to whom she returned. This music is
brought out of chaos, the undersea realm of Nyai Lara Kidul, to a place of
controlled order, the court of Paku Buwana – a gift from a passionate, dif-
ficult, and chaotic consort to her multi-generational ‘lover’, the rulers of
Central Java who crave her favour. Nyai Jlamprang mediates between the
two realms, just as, in performance, she effects the connection between nar-
ration and music, a connection that, we will see in the next chapter, is the
source of the rasa of the performance event.
The representation of Nyai Lara Kidul as a gender player herself also inter-
sects with various aspects of the stories of the gender players recounted here
in several ways. She is simultaneously creator and destroyer, representing
both order and chaos. She kills and then abducts the soul of Nyai Jlamprang,
separating her from her artistic male counterpart (not a husband in this
case), but also allows her to return to him with a musical gift that confirms
the commitment of both Nyai Jlamprang and herself, as gender player, to the
reign and person of the Paku Buwana (despite her destruction of many other
31 See Van Bemmelen et al. (1992) for a variety of perspectives on women and mediation in
Indonesia. The idea of female gender players as mediators is compelling. The role of mediator
is embodied in the performance of the female gender players with whom I worked. According
to the many musicians and performers I questioned about this, gender players mediate between
the audience and the dhalang, enhancing the mood of the scene, conveying the significance and
the meaning of the scene through music. The gender player should interpret, bring clarity to,
follow the mood (rasa) of the story that the dhalang is telling. This musical interpretation of the
emotional elements of the story is important because it enhances the mood and helps the listen-
ers understand what is happening. With respect to their capacity as mediators, many people felt
that female gender players were more attentive to the performance of the dhalang than male gender
players during a wayang performance and, therefore, better mediators between the dhalang and
the audience. See Chapter IV for further discussion of mediation and female gender players.
subjects of his kingdom). To my knowledge, it is only in this origin story for

the piece Ladrang Gadhung Mlati that Nyai Lara Kidul’s musical abilities are
mentioned. It is true that Ladrang Gadhung Mlati does feature the gender: the
introductory passage is extensive, difficult, and is always performed on the
gender. One could argue that only a gender player could teach Nyai Jlamprang
such a difficult piece, but this kind of matter-of-fact realism is not the stuff
of Javanese myth. Instead, the representation of Nyai Lara Kidul as gender
player parallels that of the ruler as dhalang, an image often found in Javanese
texts over many centuries in which interpretations of Sufi and Tantric paths
to enlightenment and of history and culture intersect.32 The invocation of the
relationship between the dhalang and the gender player confirms, signifies,
and enhances the pairing of Nyai Lara Kidul and the successive generations
of Central Javanese rulers. Their regenerative bond is reflected in the pair-
ing of the dhalang and his gender player as an elemental aspect of prosperity
and fertility. This connection to the authority of rule in Central Java confirms
the place of wayang at the centre of the aesthetic tradition in which the
interaction of gendered chaos and order, represented on many levels from
the relations of the ruler and his consort to the origin of rice, is paramount.
The mingling of the sounds of the dhalang’s voice and the gender is an aural
representation of the visual, generative pairing of the performers themselves
and of the multiple, iconic constructions of Javanese fertility and prosperity
found in the wayang repertoire.33
32 See Zoetmulder 1995; Anderson 1965, 1972; Judith Becker 1993; Keeler 1987; Schrieke 1957;
Woodward 1989; Cohen 2002; Weiss 2003, among others for comment and comparison. See also
Wolters 1999 for comparison with other Southeast Asian cosmological/religious systems con-
cerning the idea of the God-King.
33 Carel Poensen (1836-1919), a missionary in East Java between 1860-1891, relates the origin
story for wayang krucil – a form of puppet theatre in which the puppets are made of painted wood
– in his study of the many types of East Javanese puppet theatre. In the story, a woodcarver and
his wife live by a river. While washing her rice, the wife is bothered by a floating log that persist-
ently returns on the river’s current to impede her work. She finally pulls the log out of the river,
drops it on the bank, and goes home. Soon after, she dreams of a weeping male voice begging her
to get him out of the log. She and her husband return to the riverbank and the husband cuts into
the log from whence he rescues a wooden puppet in the shape of Panji Sepuh. They subsequently
discover that the name of the puppet is Kyai Gandrung. The Javanese word gandrung refers to
the feeling of intense longing or lovesickness. They place the puppet on the bench in their house.
Several nights later the wife once again dreams. This time she meets a weeping woman who
begs to be let out of the tree so that she can rejoin her husband. Upon waking, the wife tells her
husband and they go to the tree in their yard. The husband cuts out a piece of the trunk and
discovers a beautiful female puppet. They place the female puppet next to the male puppet
retrieved earlier. The reunion is confirmed when the husband builds the two puppets a wooden
box or kotak in which to live. A kotak is a box used to store puppets in many puppetry traditions
in Java. In both dreams the puppets waiting to be rescued assured the wife that they would serve
her and her husband forever. The woodcutter soon fills the chest with many other krucil puppets.
The puppets were kept in the village of Pagung, in the Regency of Kediri, East Java, and handed
Myths and mundane realities
The understanding of the multiple relationships between female gender play-

er and the dhalang that I have been developing finds little support in standard
Western scholarly representations of female gender players. Keeler (1987:181),
for example, remarks that dhalang use their wives as musicians so that they
do not have to hire a gender player, the musician on whom the dhalang most
depends. Kunst (1973:177) states simply that it is the supple wrist joints of
women and the economic considerations of keeping the ensemble of per-
formers, and hence the performance fees, in the family, which are the driving
reasons behind a dhalang choosing a female relation as gender player.
The observations of Kunst and Keeler reflect some of the everyday reali-
ties of the life and practice of wayang performers. As noted by Keeler, the
dhalang’s wife is usually the one who deals with the organizational aspects
of performance events. She often negotiates, on behalf of the dhalang, the
fees to be paid and the number of meals to be served to the performers
during the event, and she can be instrumental in ensuring that the requi-
site permissions be sought from local and area authorities. When a dhalang
performs with his own troupe, it is often his gender-playing wife who keeps
the peace amongst musicians, gently chastising those who arrive late, fall
asleep, or fail to concentrate on the performance in some other way. More
than one introduction to a gendhing has been loudly, even irritably, chimed
on the gender while smirking musicians more proximately located physic-
ally prod the momentarily irresponsible, sleeping rebab player into melodic
action (Weiss 1993).
The idea that women are better gender players than men for some per-
formance styles because their wrists are more supple was suggested to me
by many performers, including both men and women, especially male gender
players who were possibly a little out of practice. Having observed many
male gender players perform, suppleness is clearly not something that is sin-
gular to female gender players.34 Suppleness of bodies can also be observed
in Javanese dance. The sinuous quality of the hand and neck movements of
down from father to son until they came into the hands of a dhalang who could use them to
perform. Thereafter, the puppets, Kyai and his wife, Nyai Gandrung, have been the first puppets
to be brought out at every wayang krucil performance (Poensen 1873:139-42). The male puppet
misses his wife and she misses her husband. Together they are both gandrung. These puppets are
symbolically significant for wayang krucil performance. Their gendered longing for one another
in the origin story resonates with the gendered interaction that occurs on many levels in Central
Javanese wayang kulit, in particular that of the female gender player and the dhalang.
34 The intricate and extremely ornate performance style of Pak Martopangrawit of Surakarta
is just one example of a male gender player whose wrists were surely as supple as any female
gender player, even a well-practiced one.
gambyong and other female dance roles can be similarly observed in the alusan
or refined male dances.35 Significantly, in what appears to be a relatively
recent gendering of the affect of this kind of embodied refinement, alusan
male roles are now often danced by women, while men tend to concentrate
on more vigorous and active male representations.36 There now seems to be
a Javanese cultural tendency to equate suppleness with femaleness.37
Beyond their wrists, in performance practice female gender players do
not actively embody the characteristics of Javanese female sexuality. Seated
behind the dhalang and nestled in the box created by the usual placement of
the three gender, the gender player is only visible from the shoulders up. In
stark contrast to the elaborate formality of the dhalang’s dress and the slightly
more subdued, often matching, outfits of the other musicians in the group,
the female gender player is not usually dressed in anything more elaborate
than neat, every-day traditional dress, occasionally with the adornment of a
necklace or bracelet. The observer’s attention is not drawn to her physical
appearance. Like Javanese wives in traditional households, however, she is
the unobtrusive force that makes everything flow appropriately, seemingly
without effort on the part of anyone.
Although her roles as primary supporting musician, broker, and wife
render her subordinate socially in many ways to the dhalang, there is noth-
ing submissive about female gender players in my observation. Similar to
Nancy Florida’s description of the feisty, independent, and politically capa-
ble women of the eighteenth and nineteenth-century Central Javanese courts,
and different from the New Order constructions of femaleness and the role
of Ibu as mother and wife that resonate with the attitudes promulgated in
the nineteenth-century piwulang estri, female gender players behave as though
they are in charge. Although they usually do it with great subtlety, I have
seen female gender players disagree with and even contradict the dhalang and
other men in public. Once they arrive on the scene, they become a centre, a
35 The gambyong dance, traditionally a solo dance by a woman with children (representing
fecundity), but also danced by groups of young women, is associated with fertility and is often
performed at weddings.
36 Brakel-Papenhuijzen (1995:59) notes that there are some dances, such as Menak Koncar, in
which female and male alusan styles are fused as part of the choreography, indicating that the
gendering of dance moves is both present and malleable, that is, not fixed biologically.
37 The connotation of suppleness with female activity could also be linked to other kinds of
female activities such as weaving and batik production. But what about the suppleness of the
wrists of the men who design the intricate designs found on batik cloth or the delicate filigree
cut into and painted on wayang kulit puppets, not to mention the suppleness necessary to make
those same puppets move without human intervention, crafts and skills traditionally associated
with men? I suspect the gendering of suppleness and intricacy as female is likely something that
has happened over the course of the twentieth century. Alusness is not traditionally gendered
either male or female (see Clifford Geertz 1960 and Brakel-Papenhuijzen 1995).
force to be reckoned with, a source of advice and comment. This role is quite
different from the other female performers involved in wayang – the pasin-
dhen or female soloist.
There are usually four or five pasindhen at a wayang performance. A skilled
pasindhen demonstrates the none-too-subtle merging of musical and physical
eroticisms for the pleasure of the audience and the musicians. While less-
skilled performers may accentuate their flirtatiousness to the raucous delight
of the crowd, even the most musically skilled and socially conservative singer
is subjected to jocular, sexually-suggestive teasing from the dhalang, the other
performers, and even the audience during performance. Everyone at wayang
performances is aware of the varying levels of sexual-suggestiveness of the
apparel of the different pasindhen and many moan aloud at the sound of the
melodic interpretations rendered by particularly skilled singers.38 Although
it is rare for anyone to respond as did Kyai Ageng Sela and the audience of
the dhalang Bicak on the night of his death, I have observed performances in
which an already rowdy crowd was more than a little agitated by the sing-
ers’ performances. Of course not every female singer fills the role in the same
way, nor does every gender player. The individual personalities involved are
also important to the constructing of the persona of female singer or gender
player. That said, the sexually enticing, star-status force of the pasindhen is
distinctly different from the subtle power of the female gender player.
The rise of the pasindhen in the performance of wayang and other Central
Javanese genres coincides with the demise of the female gender player and
the popularity of the old-style wayang tradition.39 It was suggested to me
by several Central Javanese musicians – male and female – that this was
because it made economic sense for women who want to be musicians to
become pasindhen since they could earn much more for one evening’s per-
formance than even a good gender player can make in two or three. While
this is undoubtedly part of the explanation, it is dangerous to rely on simple
economic explanations alone, especially when it is clear that female gender
players were once depicted with all of the old tropes of female potency, and
38 See Weintraub 1996, 1997, 2004 on the phenomenon of superstar pasindhen in Sundanese
wayang golek. See Walton 1996 on the role and status of Central Javanese pasindhen. See Sutton
1987 for development of the pasindhen as singer from role of singer/dancer or talèdhèk in Central
Java. See Supanggah 2003 for discussion of the genre called Campur sari in which the role of the
female (and male) singers is elevated beyond that of the dhalang on occasion and in which there is
a fusion of many different genres of music from Indonesian dangdut and western pop or jazz with
multiple old and new Javanese genres. See Mrázek 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002 for extensive discussion
of innovations in wayang over the course of the period 1990-2001.
39 The decline of the female gender playing tradition in Cirebon has had major musical impli-
cations. The gender has nearly stopped being played altogether, with the accompanying tradition
shifted onto the panerus, a metallophone like the Central Javanese saron but played with a cush-
ioned beater (anonymous reader for the KITLV Press, July 2003).
their interactions with male dhalang represented as a version of an aesthetic

found on many levels or Javanese culture.
Ibu Pringga was one person who felt that fewer women were interested
in becoming female gender players because being a pasindhen was so much
more lucrative. She also pointed out that the musically-inclined girls who
might otherwise carry on the tradition of the female gender player were more
inclined to follow their brothers into the conservatories, seeking tertiary edu-
cation and degrees that would allow them to teach music. When I asked her
why she thought this trend was developing she said she did not really know
but thought that it was perhaps more modern to go to school than to learn
from one’s family and follow in the old tradition.40
Another perspective suggests that changes in construction of gender roles
and relations through the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Florida
1996; Andaya 2000a) have made the female gender player seem incongruous,
while the pasindhen more ably fills modulating constructions of femininity.
From one perspective, the pasindhen seems modern, sexy, flirtatious, desir-
able, and controllable. From another, she is a feminine counterpart to the
masculinity of the dhalang at a wayang performance. She is the delicious
consort of the dhalang – who is admired and awed for being able to command
her presence – who can control her as a object to be heard and observed by
others and use her to his (and her) own profit. Their relationship in perform-
ance is reminiscent, if more sexually blatant, of that between the dhalang and
the female gender player. One construction of femaleness has been laid over
another such that the older aesthetic is present, reconstructed as an undercur-
rent, in the new.41
The idea that the aesthetics of old-style wayang endure at some level in
contemporary wayang practice will seem obvious to some and surprising to
others. It forces us to assume that culture exists: generations of people located
in the same place, and self-identifying as part of the same group, maintain
various kinds of connectedness to one another through time. This brings real
relevance to the investigation of past aesthetic traditions. To my knowledge
there is no written Javanese source that articulates the particulars of the aes-
thetics of old-style wayang42 and so we must start with sounds and words of
the living practitioners and work backwards. My interpretation of the stories
40 All of Bu Pringga’s musical sons have attended conservatory. In performance, however, her
youngest son can play the gender in the same style as his mother.
41 The changing aesthetics of contemporary wayang performance in Central Java reflect the
emergent nature of the Javanese understanding of the interaction between maleness and female-
ness. It is important to recognize, however, that older, seemingly outmoded, notions do not
necessarily disappear into the ether, never to return. Rather, as elemental cultural ideas, they
continue to operate, absorbing and adjusting to new ideas and trends.
42 The Serat Sastramiruda is one possible exception and will discussed in Chapter V.
about female gender players and their interconnections with characters and
events in other Javanese myths has shed some light on the significance of the
relationship between the dhalang and the female gender player to the aesthetic
of old-style wayang in terms of the representation of generativeness and
prosperity. The flexible combination of the constituent parts of two dyads
– male and female, order and chaos – grounds the aesthetic. But how do we
get from the meta-theoretical and mythical to the performative? How does
my description of the aesthetic of old-style wayang help us to understand it
in performance?
The aesthetic I have described as iconic on many levels in Javanese cul-
ture, as embodied in the relationship between the old-style dhalang and the
female gender player, is intricately bound up with rasa. Dhalang Bicak was
murdered because his performance with his gender-playing wife captured,
seized the rasa of the moment, revealed the rasa of the story, completing the
aesthetic experience for the observers, and causing them to have various
kinds of extreme emotional response. Rasa is enigmatic, however. What is
rasa and how does one seize it? What is the relationship between rasa and the
aesthetics of old-style wayang as I have described it? In the following chapter
I explore the nature of Javanese rasa and, through Javanese comments about
female-style genderan, examine the intersections between rasa and the aes-
thetics of old-style wayang.
CHAPTER IV
Javanese rasa
Gendering emotion and restraint
They played so together [runtut] that the feeling of the gendhing [rasané gendhing]
was obtained.
So they played on and on.
They played the gendhing for a long time.
Then it sped up and moved into the inggah section.
The longer it lasted, the more intimate with one another [gulet] the individual
renditions became;
they seized [rebut] the thrill of satisfaction.
The musicians were all sexually aroused,
eager and randy, feeling [rasa-rasa] as if they couldn’t stand it any longer.
The quickened tempo could last no longer, then the final cadence came, followed
by the sendhon.
Then the rebab chirped on high
accompanied by the suluk, suling, gambang, and gender.
The musicians were transported [nganyut] by the loveliness as they finished the
last phrase
of the pathetan Sarayuda.
With a bem on the kendhang and the gong it ended.
Kulawirya sighed and giggled uncontrollably
saying: Well we played it, didn’t we!

If only by chance,
that was really Gendhing Gambirsawit.
The musicians agreed in a chorus and all felt
that they had reached the ultimate object of their desire and that the feeling
[raosing] of the gendhing had carried them off.
Nothing else was so peaceful
in their minds as the gendhing ...
(Serat Centhini, Canto 44, verses 112-117.)
The essence of the gendhing is contained in the sacred knowledge [elmu] of its rasa.
(Serat Centhini, translated by and quoted from Sumarsam 1995: 236.)
The word rasa is ubiquitous in Javanese conversations. People habitually use it

to describe the atmosphere at social events, their experience of conversations,
their experience of the taste of edible things. In most cases the word is used
to refer to an individual’s physical or emotional experience of something. The
everyday use of the word rasa is, however, linked to an elaborate theoretical
discourse that refers to Javanese religious and aesthetic traditions.
Javanese theories of rasa are mostly based in religious philosophy and
doctrine. The term comes to Java via Sanskrit and medieval Indian Tantrism.
Javanese religion, however, is a complicated mix of Tantrism, Sufi Islam, and
indigenous animism. Whether Javanese religion has been more greatly influ-
enced by Sufi Islam or Hinduism has been debated for more than a century.
Woodward (1989) argues against the predominance of an underlying Hindu-
Buddhist philosophy and suggests that many aspects of Javanese ritual and
belief can be interpreted within the doctrine of Sufi Islam. Judith Becker
asserts that ‘Sufi and Tantric doctrines concerning meditative practices and
music often overlap and both provide a satisfactory comprehensive explana-
tory frame for a range of Javanese spiritual practices’. She points out that, ‘in
Java, as in India, the Tantric theory of rasa assumed an independent existence
and became an aesthetic incorporated into the general cultural milieu, no
longer specifically associated with Tantrism’, suggesting that this is one of the
reasons why it has been possible for rasa to assume an Islamic aura in Java
(Judith Becker 1993:4-5).
Javanese rasa maintains multiple meanings, combining Sanskrit associa-
tions of bodily sensation with the non-corporeal realization of deep feeling
or clarity of the heart commonly associated with Javanese Islamic mysticism.
Judith Becker has noted that, in Javanese descriptions, rasa can mean enlight-
enment itself or it can be the path to enlightment.1 Founded in the mid-1930s,
Sumarah is one of the many mystical movements in Indonesia that bases its
teachings on indigenous Javanese spiritual wisdom, in particular a philoso-
phy of rasa. In his analysis of the Sumarah interpretation of rasa, Paul Stange
(1984:127) suggests that,
the special potency of the concept of rasa stems in part from the spectrum of
meanings attached to it. Because rasa links the physical sense of taste and touch to
emotions, the refined feeling of the heart, and the deepest mystical apprehension
of the ultimate, it provides a continuum which links surface meanings to which
1 Judith Becker also noted that this same double role can be found in various Indian rasa
traditions (May 2002: personal communication).
IV Javanese ‘rasa’ 105
anyone can relate to inner levels of experience which normally, at least within our
context, appear discontinuous.
The idea of rasa as a continuum connecting deep mystical understandings to

the surface sensations of bodily experience is extremely useful in trying to
understand the multiple aspects of rasa that are important to Central Javanese
musical aesthetics. The passages at the beginning of this chapter are both
drawn from the Serat Centhini – an encyclopaedic recounting of Javanese
culture related through the travels and experiences of some quirky Javanese
characters, compiled in 1814 (Soerja Soeparta 1912). The nearly ecstatic experi-
ence of the musicians who manage to capture the rasa of Gendhing Gambirsawit
coexists with the advice that the sacred knowledge of its rasa is essential to
understanding a gendhing. With respect to music, the word rasa describes both
the expression of uninhibited emotion wrought through the performance of
music (Stange’s physical sensation/surface levels) and the possession of deep
knowledge and understanding gained through the study and interpretation
of deep musical ideas (Stange’s mystical appreciation of the ultimate/inner
levels). Far from being mutually exclusive, these two aspects of rasa are inte-
grally related to one another. The deep knowledge of the gendhing allows
the performers to capture and perform the rasa of the piece. This, in turn,
causes some of the performers to have an experience that is described in terms
similar to those used for the representation of religious ecstasy in both literary
and oral sources. The synergy between opposites – that between surface and
inner levels or the gradual development of deep knowledge and the thrill of
performative moment – inspires the musicians and ensures the efficacy of the
performance. The subtle tension felt between restraint and release or depth
and surface seems to be important to many aspects of Javanese interaction.
An ongoing, mutually-affirming contestation between the desire to express
and the desire to restrain emotion and personal desire seems to operate in
Java on many levels ranging from both casual and formal interpersonal inter-
action2 to the structuring of culturally important events,3 the interpretation
of and reaction to current events, and the elemental aspects of various philo-
sophical systems.4 What I mean by this is that the relationship between the
2 See Keeler 1987; Alton Becker 1995; compare the phenomenon of latah in which, when
startled, some Javanese blurt out obscenities, crudely comment on other individuals, or move
in culturally inappropriate ways, breaking many of the restrictive rules for appropriate social
interaction and providing a moment of unrestrained hilarity for those who observe the event
(Bartholomew 2000 and Winzeler 1995).
3 The relationship between slametan and rebutan discussed in Chapter III is relevant here
(Pemberton 1994).
4 Compare the relationship between inner and outer aspects of lahir and batin important in
both Javanese kebatinan and the Javanese practice of Islam. See Judith Becker 1993 and Zoetmulder
1995 for examples of the relationship between the expression of emotion and restraint in Java.
expression and restraint of emotion is not an either/or proposition. Restraint

of emotion, cultural appropriateness, and personal control are affirmed
through the possibility of the expression of emotion, cultural inappropriate-
ness, and lack of control. The reverse is also true. Depending on the situa-
tion, differing levels of restraint are appropriate: amongst long-time friends,
between children of the same age, appropriate behaviour may involve less,
or different kinds of, restraint. The relationship between a more powerful
person and his/her subordinate involves restraint from the subordinate but
allows expression of emotion or comparatively coarse response from the
more powerful person should he or she think it advantageous to exploit this
inequality. In other words, on a daily basis Javanese people actively negoti-
ate the relationships between the expression and restraint of emotion and
desire in processes that echo both of the two descriptions of understanding
or expressing rasa noted at the beginning of the chapter.
Javanese performance and ‘rasa’
A similar kind of contestation between the desire to express and the desire
to restrain emotion is also operative in musical and other performance. The
discourse on rasa in Javanese performance identifies and develops aspects
of both ends of Stange’s continuum of rasa.5 Two substantial works on per-
formance aesthetics and rasa in Central Java performance are: Judith Becker’s
Gamelan stories; Tantrism, Islam, and aesthetics in Central Java (1993) and Marc
Benamou’s 1998 PhD dissertation entitled Rasa in Javanese musical aesthetics.
Judith Becker’s primary concern is an exploration of the development of
Tantrism in medieval (tenth to fifteenth century C.E.) Java and its deep, com-
plex, and continuing relationship with Javanese religious and aesthetic tradi-
tions well into the twentieth century. Judith Becker uses examples ranging
from medieval interpretations of the significance of gamelan and gamelan
performance at court rituals to Javanese commentary on a twentieth-cen-
tury treatise linking Javanese mystical knowledge and practice with musical
theory in her effort to demonstrate the ongoing nature of Tantric influence in
Javanese culture. She ably dismantles the idea that the Hindu/Indic elements
in Javanese culture were (re)introduced to Java in the mid-nineteenth to late-
nineteenth century through the influence of nineteenth-century Theosophist
tradition and Dutch colonial researchers in an effort, among other reasons,
to quell what they viewed as the growing influence of an unpredictable
Javanese Islam. While acknowledging that the mystical practices of Javanese
Sufi Islam can be easily mapped onto those of Tantrism, Judith Becker
5 See Zoetmulder 1995; Judith Becker 1993; Benamou 1998, 2002; Weiss 2003.
demonstrates that the Javanese aesthetic tradition of rasa is directly related to

the Tantric aesthetic of rasa and suggests that this knowledge can help clarify
the significance of some, otherwise confusing, present-day, Javanese court
performance traditions.
Benamou’s thesis is a wide-ranging analysis of the myriad ways in which
rasa permeates Javanese culture with particular emphasis on its uses as a
criterion for assessment of the performance of vocal music in Central Java.
Benamou’s study is language-based in that he is interested in the way in
which people use words to describe what they hear and how they feel about
it. His concern is primarily taxonomical. After placing rasa within its larg-
est cultural parameters ranging from quality and ability to the faculty of
perception, Benamou begins a systematic description of the Javanese clas-
sification of the rasa of gendhing or musical works. Moving through a discus-
sion of cultural aesthetics in which he outlines the ways in which Javanese
concepts and processes of veneration, interiority, and suitability are enacted
and assessed, Benamou connects these broader cultural aesthetic notions to
the assessment of musical performance. Based on discussions with Javanese
musicians, Benamou’s analysis is focused on what people say about musical
performance, in particular how they categorize the efforts and results of indi-
vidual and group performances. If Judith Becker’s work is based in religious
theory, written words, and historical interpretation, Benamou’s is located in
the description of live music by performing musicians and spoken words.
Elsewhere I have argued that the rasa as cultural aesthetic criterion dis-
cussed by Benamou and the rasa as literary/religious/mystical phenomenon
analysed by Judith Becker can be linked through the idea and process of
embodiment (Weiss 2003). In that article I suggest that for Javanese per-
formance to be assessed as convincing, effective, or full of rasa, something
from inside the performer(s) – some mixture of uninhibited emotion and
deep knowledge – must be felt by the performers and, subsequently, by the
audience. These seemingly oppositional aspects of the rasa do not contradict
each other so much as express two realizations of the phenomenon that is
rasa. Javanese performers of any type must create an interpretation that is
individual but appropriate, contextually correct and related to the ‘usual’
interpretation of the work but somehow inspired and particular, reflective
of the energizing relationship between deep knowledge and uninhibited
emotion. In performance, rasa is the force that reflects the unification of the
performer with the performed.6 While in some instances rasa may be enlight-
6 With the idea of unification I am invoking Javanese/Islamic mystical practice and theory in
which images of the unification of two separate entities leads the way to enlightenment. Writers
often suggest the analogy between the sword and the sheath or the dhalang and his puppets. See
Weiss 2003 for more examples and analysis.
enment, more usually finding rasa will lead to enlightenment.7 Rasa is the
connection between human endeavour and enlightenment, and embodiment
is the process through which rasa is achieved or obtained. It is precisely this
connective function which is described by Stange’s continuum of rasa, link-
ing the bodily sensations with the feeling of the heart, and which joins deep
understanding and knowledge with uninhibited emotion. Through embodi-
ment, Javanese performers achieve effective and rasa-full performances that
communicate the dynamic and dialectical relationship between uninhibited
emotion and deep knowledge or the two aspects of rasa.
If musicians, dancers, and teachers often use vocabulary and imagery
inspired by descriptions of mystical enlightenment to describe learning and
performing Javanese arts, the nearly ecstatic reaction through embodied per-
formance described in the passage from the Serat Centhini above is not an eve-
ryday occurrence. In every day practice, teachers may invoke the process of
enlightenment – in which the student must ‘empty’ himself before the piece,
read enlightenment, can enter – by commenting that the rasa of a piece has not
yet entered the student.8 These kind of comments are usually made when a
student can perform the dance moves or play the patterns on his instrument
but isn’t quite comfortable or convincingly performing the work.9 The idea of
embodiment and the possibility of ecstatic experience form the distant back-
ground for the everyday discourse on Javanese performance aesthetics.
What makes musical performance an interesting lens through which
to view Javanese interpretations of rasa is that the synergistic relationship
between the two kinds of rasa is both articulated and observable. A brief
consideration of some Javanese music theory texts reveals that although
there is primarily discussion about or attention paid to the rasa of restraint,
in musical performance restraint without expression of emotion and emotion
without expression of restraint are both identified as unfulfilling in terms of
obtaining the true rasa of the performed work.
7 See Martopangrawit 1984 below.

8 Rasanya belum masuk (The feeling of the piece has not yet entered [the performer]) is the
way I have heard many Javanese performer/teachers describe a student’s performance in which
s/he was able to play the notes or dance the steps but somehow was still unable to convey the
spirit of the piece to the audience (Personal communications from Wakidjo 1990; Sudarsono 1991;
Tukinem 1991; Sumarsam 1999; Harjito 2002). Of course, ‘the rasa has not yet entered’ could
also refer to the piece not entering the students mind, that is, the student has not remembered
the piece properly. In my experience, this problem tends to be referred to as ‘belum hafal’ or the
student has not yet memorized the basics of the piece. Rasa tends to be reserved for discussing a
complete performance that has the potential to move someone.
9 I have heard numerous teachers (Harjito 1987; Tukinem 1991; Wakidjo 1991; Sudarsono
1991, 1997; Sumarsam 1995; Midiyanto 1995, 2000) make this kind of comment multiple times
either in lessons of my own or in observing other students’s – Javanese and non-Javanese – les-
sons and performances.
‘Rasa’ in Javanese music theoretical texts
Javanese music theoretical writings are straightforward about the practical

aspects of performance and those musical aspects that can be notated – how
the cycles work, the hierarchies of subdivisions, the roles of the different
instruments. Ambiguity creeps in when theorists start to talk about the pro-
cess of garapan, interpretation or the realization of the instrumental parts that
are not usually notated known as panerusan, elaborating, or front-row instru-
ments.10 To nggarap, to realize, to interpret a musical piece on a particular
instrument, involves understanding the limitations and conventions of both
the instrument and the piece, and then, with autonomy, creativity, and the
flexibility to interact musically with others in the immediacy of the perform-
ance, creating a part for oneself to play within those limits.11 Interpretive
process has been the subject of much discussion and debate among Western
and Central Javanese scholars of Central Javanese karawitan. Perhaps the
reason interpretation has attracted so much attention is because, while some
aspects of interpretation are obvious, notatable, and hence documentable, the
rest of the process is rarely documented and is quite enigmatic.12
From an ethnomusicological perspective, it would be possible to notate
and document all of the interpretive parts of a performance of any particular
gendhing using either Javanese or Western notation. If there were a transcrip-
tion that accurately captured the nuances of a particular performance, much
of the information conveyed would be specific to that one performance. Only
some aspects such as basic melodic contour choices, modal interpretation,
and formal transitions would be generalizable to other performances of the
same piece. This is primarily so because it is very unlikely that other perform-
ers would ever use the transcription as a score for their own performance,
both because it is not common practice and because to do so destroys the aes-
thetics of immediacy and interaction. As is clear from the Serat Centhini above
but also from observing any performance of Javanese karawitan, interaction
between players, the ability to respond flexibly to the performance situation,
and the possibility of independence of interpretation within bounds are all
highly valued aspects of the aesthetic of performance in Central Java (Brinner
1995). It is this immediacy, the spontaneity, of performance that makes the
10 These include the rebab, gender, gender panerus, gambang, suling, pasindhen, and siter or celem-
pung.
11 As it specifically includes the interactive process, this definition is broader than that used
by some theorists of Javanese music. Brinner (1995:64-5) also acknowledges the importance
of interpretive decisions during performance. See Chapter I for description of the elaborating
instruments’ musical processes.
12 While this same comment could be made about many musics, it is particularly true of
Central Javanese music. See Perlman 2004 for insights into garapan.
process of interpretation in Central Javanese karawitan so engaging for both

performers and analysts.
In many Javanese music theoretical writings, the process of successful
interpretation is presented through esoteric comments that evoke the inter-
connections between performance and religion. It is in these sections that
rasa is usually referenced. The renowned musician, theorist, and teacher
Martopangrawit (1984) wrote a practical treatise on Javanese music theory
– replete with fingerings, patterns, and diagrams for understanding what
might even be termed a ‘scientific’ approach to the music. He spends some
time examining the process of garapan in terms of identifying which melodic
interpretations are appropriate for particular phrases of balungan melody. But
he never tells the reader how to nggarap, that is, to actually do interpretation
in the process of performance. While mastering the information contained in
Martopangrawit’s writings would already entail taking many steps towards
learning how to nggarap, exact imitation of his suggestions in live perform-
ance would not enable the performer to engage with the spontaneity of
interaction in performance choice that is guided by a deep understanding of
the piece and musical language in general. Although one might begin the pro-
cess of understanding garapan through figuring out which chunks or patterns
can be used in particular modally-constrained melodic moments, if one stops
development at this point, the results in performance are stilted and unpleas-
ant. Some teachers do teach using patterns and then identify all the different
places where the pattern can be used, although they stress that this should
never be the end point in a performer’s development (Harjito October 1987:
personal communication). Martopangrawit ends his text with the following
sandi asma or concealed name verse in which he urges musicians to strive
for the enlightenment that comes from understanding the secrets of musical
performance – an enlightenment that is brought about through the process
of garapan.13
Strive to understand the wisdom contained in gendhing,
be diligent in feeling its irama,
its development and treatment;
feel the essence of the lagu,
know where lies the origin of pathet,
seek there
the meaning of lagu, feel it until your soul
is made clear, bright, and your vision unclouded –
a clarity that penetrates the universe (Martopangrawit 1984:242).
13 Taken together, the first syllables of each line in Javanese spell out Mar-ta-pa-ngra-wit ing
Su-ra-kar-ta, Martapangrawit in Surakarta. Marsudiya kawruh jroning gendhing, taberiya ngrasakké
irama, pangolahé lan garapé, ngrasakna wosing lagu, witing pathet saka ing ngendi, ing kono golekana,
surasaning lagu, rarasen nganti kajiwa, karya padhang narawang nora mblerengi, tatas nembus bawana.
This poem is Martopangrawit’s final statement on the topic of interpreta-

tion and musical performance in general; thus, there is no discussion of his
intended meaning or the implied connections to Javanese religious thought
and aesthetics. Javanese teachers often adopt this pedagogical technique,
believing that in some things, if one has to ask what it all means, then one
probably is not ready to understand it.
Another theorist, Sindoesawarno, suggests that listeners feel the wilet
(here used to imply the idea of garapan) of the performative moment and that
each moment is individual.14 He subtly invokes an experience verging on
the ecstatic, similar to that felt by the musicians in the passage from the Serat
Centhini above, when he suggests that wilet, or the interpretation a particular
musician chooses at the moment in the context of performance consisting of
the multiple choices of others, can cause the soul of the listener to tremble.
The life and movement of wilet is felt sincerely by musicians and listeners alike.
For this reason, wilet is always individual. The essential characteristic of wilet is
that it can cause the soul of the listener to tremble and that it lends charm and
grace to the lagu [melody]. (Sindoesawarno 1984:396.)
Each of these theorists invokes images or ideas from Javanese/Islamic mys-

tical practice or discourse in his description of moving or effective musical
performance. If we consider these quotes in the context of the scene from
the Serat Centhini quoted at the beginning of this chapter, Sindoesawarno’s
‘soul trembling’ experienced through the hearing or performing of wilet
suggests performances in which the rasa of the piece is actually captured,
and the emotion of the piece is expressed without inhibition by the musi-
cians who know and understand (possess deep knowledge of) the life of the
wilet. Martopangrawit’s poem suggests that to achieve deep understanding
the student must study and embody the rules of restraint, that is, pathet,15
14 Here he captures the importance of the interactive aspects of performance. Although the
term is often used in a technical way to describe the particular melodic ornaments a performer
chooses when working within one kind of pattern, for instance to describe the multiple ways to
get to pitch 2 at a particular performative moment, here Sindoesawarno uses the word wilet in a
manner similar to the meaning of garapan as I have been using it.
15 According to Martopangrawit (1984:45-7), the meaning of pathet will depend on who you
ask.
‘If you ask a dhalang what pathet means, he might answer that pathet refers to a “period of time.”
For, in wayang performances, gendhing of a particular pathet are associated with a particular
time period (that is, the division of the play) which is referred to as “pathet”. In fact, the pathet
of a gendhing may be determined by the “pathet” – division of the play – in which it is used. For
example, a gendhing that is actually in pathet manyura but is played during “pathet nem” (that is,
the section of the play [generally between 9 pm and 1 am] when gendhing in pathet nem are usu-
ally played), will be considered as pathet nem as well.
If we ask a man who likes to perform songs what ‘pathet’ is, we will probably get a different
because it is only through a deep understanding of those rules that a ‘clarity

that penetrates the universe’ will be revealed. This clarity, brought about by
deep knowledge, invokes an ecstatic experience similar to the expression of
uninhibited emotion. In the process of garapan, one cannot simply play by
following the rules, one must interpret with rasa, that is, both kinds of musi-
cal rasa – the rasa of restraint and the rasa of expressed emotion. The rasa of
restraint interacts with the rasa of expressed emotion in order to make the
listener’s soul tremble.
Javanese music theories in historical context
While the two theoretical works I have just discussed were written in the
middle of the twentieth century, they are in the tradition of the systemiza-
tion of Javanese knowledge begun during the colonial period. I have already
referred to some of the historical changes that have taken place in the intel-
lectual life of Central Java from the early nineteenth century to the present.
I will touch on them briefly again as I examine the connections between rasa
and gender in understanding of the aesthetics of old-style wayang.
European-style education for the Javanese, Indo-European, and Chinese
elites encouraged European modes of thought and discourse, thus radically
affecting intellectual life and political agendas in Java (Sumarsam 1995). The
Indonesian nationalist movement was only the most obvious result of these
changes. Equally dramatic, but earlier and less visible, were the emerging
forces that encouraged the Central Javanese to analyse and describe life and
aspects of their own culture in what could be called ‘scientific’ terms. In the
performing arts, wayang and, especially, gamelan were brought under scien-
tific scrutiny and description.16
Sumarsam traces the development of theories of gamelan performance
from colonial to the postcolonial and contemporary times. His detailed study
documents the phases of intellectual effort: the Dutch-inspired concern for
capturing the essence of the tuning systems of gamelan instruments; the
answer. He will say that pathet is “key” in the sense in which it is used in Western music. Thus,
when he wants to perform a song, he need only find the key (that is, pathet) that accommodates
the range of his voice. If we ask this same question of a practicing gamelan musician, such as
myself, we will get the following explanation. Pathet is performance practice or treatment (garap),
and to change pathet means to change treatment.’
16 Ki Dewantara’s call in 1935 to upgrade the study of Central Javanese music to a science and
the debate on the establishment of Central Javanese performance culture as national, Indonesian
performance culture were two other contributing factors in this process. This occurred at a
conference held by the Java Institute on the study of karawitan. See Perlman 1994:68 for further
discussion as well as Sumarsam 1995:105-60 and Judith Becker 1980.
development of a series of possible notation systems, the collecting of musi-

cal works in notated volumes, and the effects of notation on the musical cul-
ture; debates on how to describe the structures of the music; and, the amass-
ing and organizing of definitions of key words and concepts. Sumarsam
demonstrates the increasing sophistication and resultant change in focus
and interpretation which occurred and continues to occur as more Central
Javanese performing musicians become involved in the discourse about
gamelan, adding their understanding to that of the observing theorists.17
The culture of heightened attention to correctness and refinement that
developed concurrently in the courts throughout the colonial period and
into the twentieth century in Central Java was extended into the perform-
ing arts as well.18 Javanese ideas used to describe and demonstrate political
and individual potency and their resonance with other activities such as the
performance of music and wayang kulit were articulated. As with the related
shift in the gendering of gender performance described in Chapter III, these
aspects of Javanese culture had not previously been considered to be prima-
rily associated with men. Indeed, women played a large role in the musical
life of the courts (see Kumar 1980a and Sutton 1984) and in performance in
the villages.19 Because of the context of their development, these activities
came gradually to be perceived as part of a male domain as the process of
the articulation of theory and the recording of these ideas in manuscripts and
publications, activities pursued largely by urban men, progressed. It should
be noted that women were not intentionally excluded from this discourse. It
is more accurate to acknowledge simply that they tended not to be involved.
Among the tangible results of the codification process are: pakem or collections
of short synopses of wayang stories in which the ‘proper’ sequences of events
for wayang performances are proscribed; the development of a written music
notation and theory, including descriptions of correct pitch relations and com-
17 I will not include a detailed history of the development of Central Javanese music theory
and discourse as this is already available in two other works. Sumarsam’s 1995 book is devoted
to this topic and Perlman 1994 has a brief but detailed summary.
18 Sumarsam’s perspective on the change in intellectual climate in mid-colonial to late-colo-
nial Java differs from Heather Sutherland’s in that his analysis empowers Javanese intellectuals
as co-creators of the developing interest in codification of Javaneseness. Nevertheless, whether
the cause was a cultural turn inward, following Sutherland 1979, or the ‘complex interactions in
the multi-class and multi-ethnic population of Java’ (Sumarsam 1995), it seems there was some
kind of palpable cultural shift in which the aesthetic of correct Javaneseness, already important
in language and movement, was enhanced.
19 Even in the late twentieth century, the kraton in Surakarta sometimes called upon the skill
and talent of women musicians in the area for the accompaniment of wayang performances. For
example, in August of 1991 the kraton presented a wayang for which Ibu Gandasaruya and Ibu
Parto were asked to play. Unfortunately, this performance took place just after I left the field and
so I was unable to record, observe, or enjoy it.
binations; compilations of musical works presented in correct pathet order;

and an enhanced valuation of the rasa of restraint, sensitive to the ordering
gestures of music theory, in particular pathet theory, in the aesthetics of musi-
cal performance. The development of modal or pathet (Javanese: restraint)
theory during and after this time is significant for the discussion of aesthetics
and rasa since control over the intricacies of pathet theory as demonstrated
through performance is now a primary if flexible gauge for the evaluation of
musical performance in the urban arena where there is a direct association
between the knowledge and articulation of modal and other musical rules.20
It should be noted that the creation of these books did not signify a com-
plete reinvention of performance traditions. Ideas about the flow of events in
a wayang performance or about pathet existed in multiple forms in perform-
ance practice long before the drive to articulate and codify them. Although
we cannot know precisely, it is reasonable to assume that, as with the
articulation of most music theories, the standards prescribed in these texts
represented ‘usual’ procedures and practices, those preferred by the people
compiling the books, who were the performers and theorists with court and
other urban connections.21 Of course, the simple existence of the texts did not
dictate that performance practice around Central Java change immediately.
Instead, the real impact of these codifying gestures was a subtle and gradual
one caused by the long-term effects of the knowledge that these ideas existed
in a written, generalized format as an ‘authoritative’ source.
Location and difference: constructions of urban and rural performance styles
The authority of the published pakem (handbooks of wayang repertoire) was

enhanced in the early 1920s by the development of schools for dhalang hosted
and sponsored by the courts in Surakarta and Yogyakarta. For centuries
20 Among certain groups of urban musicians, performances in which modal rules are violated
or in which certain performers play without attention to modal practice are usually deemed
unrefined and lacking in correct rasa. This is primarily because the drive to codify musical
practice sprang from Javanese interaction with Dutch scholars in a colonial context that took
place almost exclusively in the urban and court centres. Please note the neutrality of the term
‘interaction.’ I use this term expressly to avoid suggesting that the Dutch compelled the Javanese
to articulate a music theory or that the Javanese were simply responding to Dutch interest rather
than also generating interest themselves. Sumarsam (1995) develops a convincing case for the
agency of the Javanese elite in the colonial context (see below). Day (2002a) argues for recognition
of the agency of colonized peoples in co-creating colonial contexts.
21 My discussion of the latent presence of pathet, as it is described in Javanese modal theory, in
the gestures and overall formal patterns of female/old-style grimingan in Chapter I supports the
idea that the codified structures for wayang and the notations of musical pieces described what
was already being done in some places rather than introduce new styles and traditions. The rules
for pathet already existed in performance practice prior to the articulation of the rules in theory.
before this, however, there had been on-going exchange of people, products,
ideas, and performance between rural outlying areas and the more urban cen-
tres in Java (Carey 1999; Ricklefs 1998; Clara van Groenendael 1985) as well
as between performers from adjacent rural areas.22 Popular village dhalang
regularly journeyed to the city. Several dhalang I interviewed described the
way information and performance ideas circulated in the ‘old days’ when
at certain times of the year, often in the month of Sura (first month of the
Muslim calendar), the popular dhalang of the time would be summoned to
convene at the court in order to perform at particular court rituals (Clara van
Groenendael 1985:58-92). It was a time for exchange of ideas and information
and learning new things from one another (Clara van Groenendael 1985:80-
92; Naryacarita April 1991: personal communication).23
Clara van Groenendael notes that the opening of the court-sponsored
schools for dhalang in the 1920s brought numerous popular performers to the
urban area. These rural dhalang, despite their skill and obvious performance
success, discovered that much of what they had learned from their fathers
and grandfathers was severely corrupted since no one from recent genera-
tions knew the archaic poetic language of kawi from which much of the lan-
guage of wayang performance was derived (Clara van Groenendael 1985:31-
6). This suggests that, despite their increasing availability, the use of pakem
and other sources books by performers outside of the cities before and dur-
ing the early part of the twentieth century was limited at best. That said, the
authority conveyed by these books and those who wrote them drew many
successful performers to study in the city, to authenticate their knowledge,
whether or not their audiences demanded it.24 The drive – individual and
community – to learn the correct versions of suluk and other texts associated
with the performance of wayang can be attributed in part to the traditional
construction of the dhalang as a learned member of the community, trained
22 This is evident in the obvious satisfaction some performers take in recounting how they
were chosen to serve the court or, conversely, the vigour with which others describe their delight
in maintaining their distance and independence, despite numerous requests from the courts to
join their ranks.
23 Dhalang Bapak Naryacarita, the late Bapak Mudjoko, and Bapak Moro all mentioned this to
me in the course of our discussions as did Bapak Kris Sukardi. They were describing the experi-
ences of their fathers and grandfathers although Bapak Naryacarita indicated that he has been
repeatedly asked to come to the kraton in Surakarta and Bapak Mudjoko had given several public
performances at the kraton.
24 Sumarsam (1995:52-3) recounts the comments of dhalang Ibu Nyatacarita who was a court
dhalang during the reign of Pakubuwana X (1893-1939) in which she talks not only about the
gathering of the dhalang to learn and exchange ideas but also the experience of receiving ideas
about story and character development from the premiere court dhalang, such as Kusumadilaga,
author of the Serat Sastramiruda, a standardizing process that favoured the court-based structural
and musical performance trends that were being codified and circulated in written form.
in religious and literary thought, in part to heightened awareness of and

interest in rediscovering the Sanskritic origins of the Old Javanese texts used
in wayang performance (Naryacarita April 1991: personal communication).
This interest was raised initially by Dutch scholars and Theosophists who
sought to connect contemporaneous nineteenth-century Javanese culture
with its Hindu-Buddhist roots.25
The authority conveyed by the written word and through the authenticat-
ing process of study in the courts and court-sponsored schools contributed to
a gradual shift in performance practice. Performance styles refocused, mov-
ing away from the particularity of local tradition or individual styles toward
an accommodation of the newly established ‘norms.’ Of course, not every
dhalang traveled to the city to study at the dhalang schools, nor did every
performer directly change his style to accommodate the norms. Given the
number of Central Javanese village dhalang who still perform in completely
idiosyncratic styles,26 it is clear that many continued performing as they
always had done and trained their children and grandchildren in their own
traditions and styles. Yet, there has, of course, always been a distinct caché
associated with court performance traditions and those who perform them
(Clara van Groenendael 1985:66-79). The rural cringe often still palpable in
performers today was surely always part of the experience of traveling from
one’s local village to the more cosmopolitan, crowded urban and court are-
nas where the court dhalang would analyze wayang stories with rural dhalang
and then ‘kembul nadhah – [a moment] when the teachers would eat a meal
with the simple folk (wong cilik) [...] and they would be given money for their
trip home’ (Nyatacarita quoted in Sumarsam 1995:53).27
Central Javanese musicians today often make a sharp distinction between
urban and rural performance styles. More than one city-based musician
scoffed at me for being interested in village-style music, a style they described
25 Raising public awareness of the Sanskritic/Hindu origins of popular performance tradi-

tions was also a way to decrease the political impact of Javanese interest in rural Islamic activism
that had been on the rise and had been affecting urban court life since the end of the eighteenth
century (Day 1982). Sumarsam (1995:89-95) describes a noticeable decline in interest in Islamic
ritual in the Central Javanese courts by the middle of the nineteenth century. Florida (1996) and
others note a simultaneous increase in Islamic activity in village pesantren or Islamic schools and
an increase in individual piety in court practice.
26 Compare with some of the data collected about the idiosyncratic, non-systematic nature
of East Javanese wayang performance collected by the researchers on the Sekolah Tinggi Seni
Indonesia (STSI), Proyek Wayang Jawa Timuran (Day 2002b). Performers in East Java are
immersed in their own debate about the influence of Central Javanese wayang style on East
Javanese performers and the relative authenticity of their own performance traditions. The data
from this project remains unpublished but is available at the library at STSI – Surakarta.
27 See Soebardi 1975 for translation of the Serat Cabolèk in which contestation between city and
village lifestyles and values forms the background for the action of the story.
as disorganized and or unrefined (Weiss 2002). Likewise, more than one vil-
lage-based musician initially demurred when I asked to record a perform-
ance, often suggesting that it would be better to record someone from the
city (Weiss 1998). Many of the performers who expressed sharp, evaluative
opinions on the differences between urban and rural performance styles
were from rural areas themselves and had travelled to the Central Javanese
cities to enrol in either the performing arts high schools or universities in
which the pedagogy of performance is approached through both practical
and theoretical study. They made these statements without concealing their
roots in, or their connections through family traditions to, village perform-
ance styles (Weiss 2002). What is interesting is that the differences in per-
formance styles are for the most part determined by the level of integration
between theoretical and performative knowledge demonstrated by a musi-
cian. These differences are primarily articulated as geographic ones – urban
or rural – irrespective of whether the performers or speakers come from
rural or urban backgrounds. The knowledge of music theory itself is linked
to the urban environment and the styles of performance found there and,
because of the history of its development, this knowledge, while unmarked,
is associated most readily with male musical intellectuals and is now associ-
ated with court and conservatory instrumental performers who were, until
recently, a mostly male group. The rural/urban distinction pervades much of
the discussion about rasa. There are some common generalizations that urban
musicians regularly make regarding city and village styles.
The city style is more refined than the village style. Village musicians don’t under-
stand pathet, [when interpreting a melody] they just follow the balungan. The rasa
is not there when they play. (Wakidjo 15 April 1991: personal communication.)
Village-style is crazy (gila). The rasa is lost when they play like that. (Off hand
comment from a city musician invited to perform at a wedding with a village
group run by the father of a friend, April 1991.)
When village people play, they play from here [pointing to his heart with enthu-
siasm]. They don’t follow rules, they follow the feeling. The rasa is still natural or
unschooled [masih alam]. In the city, people know the rules of pathet and follow
them. The rasa is different. (Sudarsono 25 October 1990: personal communication.)
These quotes reflect a range of perspectives that can be summarized in the

following way. Differences between village and urban styles of gamelan
performance exist and the differences focus on rasa in performance process.
But the more salient point is that the musicians do not seem to have a simple,
unified hierarchy in mind when they make statements about other musi-
cians and styles. There can be rasa in village performances but that rasa is
unschooled, commonly described as unrefined,28 since the musicians are not

trained in pathet theory and its applications in performance. These sentiments
reference the association of refinement with court and urban culture and also
with the personal control and refinement it takes to command deep, mysti-
cal knowledge of any sort, in this case music theory. Hence the relationship
between knowledge of music theory and refinement simultaneously connotes
both urbanity and religious enlightment, two states of being that might not
always be constructed as intersecting. While there are some who do, most city
musicians do not disparage village performers and performance completely
as many of them have their musical roots in village traditions. This does not
prevent them from ridiculing, subtly or not, village performance when they
engage with it and are confronted with the differences in a visceral way in the
presence of urban musicians or foreign researchers.
Village musicians negotiate the differences between village and urban
musical styles in several ways. There are some village musicians who idol-
ize city musicians, dismissing their own style as unlearned and masih bodoh
(literally, still stupid) while cringing in recording sessions, repeatedly assert-
ing that they know nothing in comparison to the urban musician. There are
others who feign this kind of submissive pose occasionally when talking
to urban musicians or interested foreigners. For these musicians, however,
self-deprecation is only verbal. More than one competent village musician
used this pose in the beginning of an interview or before a performance as
a kind of requisite kowtowing before launching into confident discussion or
performance of his or her own style with a clear sense of a positive self-evalu-
ation. Still other village musicians proclaim vigorously that anybody who
hasn’t grown up playing music will never get the real rasa and, therefore,
will never be as good a musician as someone who is masih alam (‘natural’ or
unschooled) (Weiss 1998, 2002). There are urban musicians who see them-
selves as the rightful bearers of the ‘essential Central Javanese style’ – the
refined music of the courts.29 There are others who nostalgically long for
what they hear as the ‘true Central Javanese’ sound, the style of the village.
There are others, still, who operate in the urban context but who choose to
28 See Chapter II for discussion of refinement and Brenner 1998.

29 More than one musician described the intisari or inner essence of Central Javanese music
and culture as residing in court traditions. This is related to the Western-influenced, Central
Javanese concept and cult of adi luhung or exalted beauty in which the art forms of the Central
Javanese courts are designated ‘high’ or ‘classical’ arts, parallel to similar notions in Western
thought. For further discussion of this idea see Sumarsam 1995 and Florida 1987. See Carey 1999
for a convincing discussion in which he states that the cultural centring of the courts in Central
Java is a construction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, one that does not reflect accu-
rately the relationships between bombastic and culturally-isolated, backward Central Javanese
courts and high-cultured remnants of the Majapahit empire in East Java throughout the sixteenth
to early nineteenth centuries.
perform eclectically, in their own style, a modified form of what they learned
from their parents or grandparents in the villages where they grew up. There
are also people who offer more than one representation of themselves as
performers, modulating between urban or village depending on the context.
In other words, there is both positive and negative valuation of village and
urban styles in both locations.
If there is a certain ambivalence expressed about the quality of village
gamelan performance in general, the same cannot be said about village-style
genderan. Dhalang Midiyanto S. Putra pointed out that it was rare for urban
musicians to ridicule village gender players, in particular the female perform-
ers. He indicated that while the village style of genderan might sometimes be
referred to as coarse or unschooled, the same critics would often emphasized
its rasa-full nature as a positive attribute (Midiyanto 21 January 1995: per-
sonal communication). On the whole there is a generally high appreciation
of village-style genderan.
Village-style genderan has the real rasa (Kestik 9 July 1991: personal communica-
tion).
Most performers have a clear sense that the genderan called village-style is
also the ‘old’ style.
Before, in the past, when a musician – male or female – played the gender, s/he
played in the old style, what we now call the female style (Gandasukasno 21 April
1991: personal communication).
In the past it was mostly women who played the gender because it was usually
the wife of the dhalang who was his main performer, that is the gender player.
However, when a man played gender in the past, it was sure to be in the same style
as that of the women gender players because that was the style that was umum or
common. (Sudarsono 14 December 1990: personal communication.)
The now common practice of gendering old-style genderan as female causes

some difficulty for professional male musicians who play in this style, espe-
cially when they are asked to describe the style in which they perform.
When I asked Pak Karnadihardja if he played in the female style, he replied that
he could never play in the female style. He said that although he wished he could,
he was not capable of playing in the true female style because he was a man. Even
though he had learned from listening to his mother and grandmother, he could
only attempt to imitate (meniru) their skill and ability (ketrampilan). He said, how-
ever, that his style was similar (mirip) to that of his mother, indeed more similar
to hers than any other performer’s. (Karnadihardjo 7 August 1991: personal com-
munication.)
Later in the same meeting I asked Pak Karna about the differences between
old and new styles of gender performance. He replied that he himself could
play in both but that he was most comfortable performing in the old style that
had been taught to him by his mother, a style that had been played by many
of his ancestors. With the gendering of the style removed, Bapak Karna was
comfortable calling the old style his own. The terms ‘old’ and ‘female’ and
‘village’ actually describe the same style of gender performance. These terms
are binarily contrasted with the terms used to describe the other style of gen-
der performance habitually known as male, city, and, occasionally, new style.
Talking about difference: distinguishing male and female styles of ‘genderan’
It is the gendering of the two styles that is most relevant to this study, for it is
in the differences people hear between the ‘male’ and ‘female’ styles that the
complex relationships between aesthetics, rasa, and gender are revealed.30
A lecturer at the music conservatory in Surakarta, Central Java asked me rather
disdainfully why it was that I wanted to record male gender players from the vil-
lage. Knowing that I had already recorded several female gender players (from
both the city and the village) he assured me that men from the village played
in the same way as female gender players. Why then, I persisted, was the style
in which they played called the female style (gaya perempuan) if some men also
played in the same way? He answered patly, ‘because they play using their own
rules’ (aturan). (anonymous March 1991.)
This comment begs the question, What is particularly female about mak-
ing up one’s own rules? It turns out that much of the Javanese commentary
about the differences between male and female styles of genderan is linked to
the issue of rules and how performers relate to them.
When Central Javanese musicians talk about female-style gender perform-
ance they usually describe it as the antithesis of male style. If female style is
full of kembangan or elaborate melodic flowerings, male style is decidedly less
ornamented. In male style the left and right hands bear equally the rhythmic
distribution, frequently reaching arrival points together.31
When women play they use lots of melodic ornamentation. When men play they
do not use any, there is no filling-in.32 (Pringga 29 May 1991.)
30 Of course, the differences people hear between male and female styles are the same as those
that they hear between urban and village styles or new and old styles.
31 This does not include the style many players use while playing in irama rangkep in which
there are frequent overlappings in arrivals.
32 See comment from Bapak Kestik below regarding differences between male and female
styles of genderan.
During the wayang on 2 July 1991, Ibu Pringga played continuously through-
out the night, ceaselessly stringing together kembangan (melodic flowerings). At
times, eyelids drooping heavily, her body leaning ever so slightly to the left, she
appeared to sleep, but she never stopped playing. (Weiss 2 July 1991: fieldnotes.)
In the female style the left hand usually plays elaborate melodies that span
a wide range on the gender and the right hand plays intricate time-keeping
patterns that also provide a textural layer to the accompaniment. The two
hands rarely reach arrival points together in an orderly fashion. This lack of
coordination between parts at arrival points has an effect on the clarity of
expression of the modal intent of the pattern and, to some listeners, repre-
sents a lack of adherence to the rules of pathet. In addition, the wide-ranging,
syncopated melodies in the left hand break away from the measured, mini-
malist and conjunct motion that is prevalent in male-style genderan and so
can be heard as disorganized by some.
According to many musicians both female and male, village and city,
because the melodies are not overly ornamented in male style, the listener
can more fully appreciate the melodic and modal intentions, the subtleties
of the performer’s attention to the modal rules as pertains to performance
conventions. According to most players, the interpretations of idiomatic pat-
terns and melodies on the gender, the gestures that imply the rules of pathet,
are clearer in male style.33
In male style the modal interpretation is generally always clear. In the female
style, because they do not always follow the rules, sometimes the mode is not as
clear. (Sudarsono 10 December 1990.)
The pathet is hidden (disembunyi) in female style (Suratno June 1991).
There is a variety of reasons given to explain this difference, the relative lack
of melodic ornamentation in male-style genderan. These range from an over-
riding concern for modal clarity to conjecture on the relative suppleness of
male wrists. Whatever the reasons for the perception of a lack of ornamen-
tation and however beautifully they may play, when male gender players
accompany wayang, according to most of the people who have an opinion on
this issue, they do not create the overflowing, ceaseless melodic texture that
women habitually generate. The atmosphere that they create is neither as
richly textured nor, according to some, as evocative of the feeling of the story
spun out by the dhalang as that of female performers. Because of this and the
possibility that a male player will occasionally stop to eat and smoke or may
33 Implied here are the concepts cengkok (movement from one arrival point to another), wiletan
(melodies used for the cengkok), and garapan (interpretation of these melodies).
be obliged to break concentration for an exchange of pleasantries with pass-

ing visitors, male players are not thought to be as attentive to the needs of the
dhalang or the progress of the performance as female players.34
When women play gender they are diligent and zealous, knowledgeable, enthusi-
astic, they play continuously. If a man is playing, he will stop and eat or smoke. If
a man is playing, dhalang do not like it because they do not use special melodies
for grimingan. (Kris Sukardi 29 May 1991.)
For fans of old-style wayang, through the continuousness, and the resultant
apparent rule-lessness, of their playing, as well as their frequent use of spe-
cial grimingan melodies, the style of female gender players is more appropri-
ate accompaniment than male-style genderan.
The issues of knowledge of the rules of pathet and institutional learning
are intertwined in the commentary on male and female styles of genderan
from both rural and urban musicians. Many conservatory-educated urban
male performers steeped in the rules of pathet enjoy discussing their deeply
knowledgeable, even scholarly, performances after the fact. Attendance
at any of the monthly klenengan or other musical gatherings in Surakarta
offers the opportunity to observe musicians vigorously discussing various
interpretations of pieces in which the modal implications of the melody are
not immediately clear. In this context, this kind of knowledge and ability is
highly valued. The importance of this kind of knowledge is powerful enough
to provoke male players who may have only a limited understanding of the
intricacies of the pathet system to apologize for this lack in conversation with
those who do possess it. They often assert that they are not yet complete
musicians (durung mateng, literally, not yet ripe) or that they hope to study
and become so in the future.
Female gender players are rarely able to discuss their reasons for choosing
a particular melodic or modal interpretation beyond the idea of following the
feeling or rasa, and their descriptions of their learning process reveals noth-
ing systematic or scholarly and no hankering for such.
In response to a question about how she learned to play the gender, Ibu Gandasaruya
replied, ‘Just from listening [while someone plays] and imitating’ (nguping waé,
niru) (Gandasaruya 13 February 1991).
When I play, I just follow the rasa (Gandasukasno 21 April 1991).
34 It should be pointed out that there are and have been male urban musicians who play/ed
in an extremely elaborate style, full of kembangan. Bapak Martopangrawit is just one example.
In the case of a male performer, this kind of playing is perceived as eclectic; in that of a female
performer it is perceived as a gendered style marker that also intersects with some Javanese
constructions of male and female roles.
When I asked Ibu Gandasaruya if she followed the rules of pathet when playing
gender, pounding her finger on her chest she responded by saying that she fol-
lowed the rules of rasa that she felt inside (Weiss 13 February 1991: fieldnotes).
When I asked Ibu Sarju how she learned to play the gender, she replied that she
learned her genderan for wayang from listening to her Aunt, Ibu Pringga. She said
that she did not use notation when she was learning, ‘I’m a village person, right?
[my knowledge is] still natural or unschooled. I just use my ears. My hands know
what to do by themselves.’ (Weiss 11 July 1991: fieldnotes.)
These performers seldom use theoretical or abstract terms such as cengkok

or wiletan. The word pathet, as they use it, is associated with emotions, feel-
ing, and mood, with the rasa of the expression of emotion not its restraint, in
particular as it relates to the progression through an evening’s performance
of a wayang story. They pride themselves on the fact that they have learned
everything they know by ear through listening to other musicians and hear-
ing performance. That they are masih alam and have not studied musical rules
and notation in a systematic manner does not serve to devalue their assess-
ment of their own capabilities and, in their interpretation of the differences
between male and female gender players these things tend to be assets.35
Indeed, some have suggested that the performative results of studious learn-
ing and deep knowledge can occasionally be stiff or awkward or otherwise
unfulfilling.
In conversation on the bus going to the wayang in Klaten, Ibu Pringga told me
that she thought that sometimes musicians who graduated from the conserva-
tories played the gender in what she felt was a stiff or kaku style. When I asked
her why she thought this was the case, she suggested that perhaps the students
thought too hard about what they played (pikirannya terlalu keras, nek main).
(Pringga 26 May 1991.)
Indeed, most conservatory musicians can play well, but often the essence is miss-
ing, inside the music is empty. In the past my mother was my favourite accompa-
nist. Sadly, now I have to use a male player because there are no women left who
know my style.36 (Kestik 9 July 1991.)
35 Most of the female gender players with whom I worked insisted on the fact that I recognize
that they were unschooled, that their knowledge and ability were obtained entirely through their
ears and feelings, and that this was something that was to be highly valued. There is still a certain
amount of condescension from skilled village musicians who ‘live’ wayang towards the gradu-
ates of the government music conservatories who are called ‘experts’ on wayang after a brief
four-year study period. This healthy scepticism is rapidly dying out as more young musicians
from the villages go to the conservatories seeking both legitimization as musicians and better or
more regular paying jobs with the government.
36 Bapak Kestik 9 July 1991 made this comment while chatting with me at a performance at
Taman Budaya Surakarta, TBS, the public performance space near the conservatory in Surakarta.
Ibu Pringga’s comment reflects her perspective on the importance of flow,

interaction, and naturalness in the aesthetics of gender accompaniment.
Bapak Kestik’s comment reflects nostalgia not only for his mother and their
former performance life but also for the aesthetics of the old style of wayang
and its accompaniment associated, for him, with his mother but also with
female musicians.
The issue of notation, iconic with urban musical traditions and literacy,
often arises in the process of distinguishing male and female styles of gender-
an. Although many can read basic musical notation, women musicians rarely
admit to possessing the ability to read notation of any kind. It is commonly
believed that female-style genderan, unlike that of male urban players, cannot
be notated with any accuracy.
The difference between the male and female styles of gender performance is that
male style can be notated. Female-style genderan cannot be written down. If a
woman is playing, her attitude is playful and flirtatious. It comes out of the heart.
Men cannot play like this. (Gandasaruya 14 March 1991.)
In male style there is no inner essence (intisari) nor are there any ornaments (sari-
sari, another Javanese word for flower). It is too simple. It can be notated and it is
more regular and ordered (diaturi). (Kestik 9 July 1991.)
In actuality, neither style can be notated accurately with the cipher notation
system commonly used for Central Javanese music.37 But the alignment
of male-style genderan with notation is significant in that it confirms the
distance of female-style genderan from those aspects of the urban tradition
that are associated specifically with maleness – modal knowledge, scholarly
attention to the rules of interpretation, and notation.
Interpreting difference: distinguishing male and female styles of ‘genderan’
It is generally true that female style genderan tends to be more diisi or filled
in and elaborated with what are referred to as kembangan or flowerings, than
male style. However, the way in which the styles are described verbally
We were watching a wayang competition in which performers from STSI were competing
amongst themselves and with others from outside the institution. While he was impressed with
the dhalang in general, he said he thought the gender accompaniment was perfunctory (tidak
cukup, hanya semacam seharusnya). When I asked him to explain he made the statement above.
37 The notation generally insists on a four-square, one-to-one or one-to-two relationship
between the left and right hands. It is rare for any performer, male or female, to play in this manner,
known as kembang tiba, for more than a few consecutive cengkok. (Kembang tiba refers to the style
of gender playing in which there is one note for each hand on each of the sixteen pulses in a basic
pattern. There is no syncopation and no ornamentation in between the basic notes of the pattern.)
encourages us to imagine that the two styles – male and female – are diametri-
cally opposed. Nothing could be further from the truth.38 Ornamentation and
elaboration are integral to mature and aesthetically pleasing performance.
Consequently, everyone ornaments, fills in, elaborates, and develops. These
are some of the important processes that are included in nggarap or interpret-
ing a piece. There is, however, a difference in the way in which musicians
understand and develop their skills in ornamentation and elaboration. The
ornamentation that conservatory students are encouraged to develop is tem-
pered by their need and concern to reveal the mode of the piece through their
performance, the limitations on interpretation placed by their class teachers,
and the understanding that a refined, controlled performance is more highly
valued in the conservatory context than an exuberantly ornamented one. In
the performance of some musicians this can lead to a simplified texture with
fewer kembangan. For the unschooled musician, the only barriers to ornamen-
tation and mature expression of self through style are those arising from one’s
own capability and taste as determined by learning context.39 This perceived
difference in ornamentation is partly determined by the nature of the per-
formance contexts with which these particular styles are usually associated.
Female style genderan is especially suited to accompany the performance of
old-style wayang in which dhalang require that there be continuous musical
support underneath their verbal performance. This need demands performers
who are able to provide this support particularly in the sections of the per-
formance in which there is no other musical activity but also in the perform-
ance of ensemble pieces to round out the musical texture.40 Continuousness
through ornamentation is decidedly a gendered style marker.41
38 Bapak Martopangrawit, male court musician, conservatory teacher and music theorist, is
renowned for the elaborate fillings-in of patterns in his genderan. Nevertheless, his performance
style, to my knowledge, has never been criticized as unrefined, modally unclear , or sounding
like he came from the village. The same is often said of many other highly-respected, urban male
performers.
39 Perhaps the question to ask is whether these village performers hear the flowerings or kem-
bangan as elaboration, as they now talk about it, or whether they hear it simply as melodies the
way they should be played in a mature style.
40 It is considered essential to have a gender in the performance of most kinds of gamelan
performance. In the unlikely situation that it is only possible to have one of the front row instru-
ments performed, Central Javanese musicians will usually choose the gender.
41 The idea that female gender players perform more continuously in wayang performance
does seem to be true. The many hours of recorded performance I collected reveal that female
gender players do occasionally pause, sometimes to speak in a hushed voice to another musician,
to laugh at some of the dialogue between the puppets or the banter between the dhalang and
the musicians, to light a cigarette, to have a brief sip of tea or water or to shift leg positions, and
only very rarely, due to a lapse in wakefulness. These pauses, rarely more than two minutes, are
usually under forty-five seconds. In fact, female gender players do play virtually continuously
throughout the eight hours of a performance. Male players performing in either village or urban
If it is true that female gender players are relatively more diligent and,
thus, more supportive of the dhalang in a wayang performance (in terms of
the amount of music they actually play), the question of whether or not they
are more attentive to the mood of the scene created by the dhalang – thus
creating a rich atmosphere more evocative of the feeling of the story – is less
clear. Within the limitations of the possibilities for grimingan or the music
played on the gender during recitations by the dhalang, female gender players
tend to be more responsive to and interactive with the process and feeling
of the performance than male players in the following ways. They anticipate
the ends of scenes or scene sections more often than male players, manipulat-
ing their grimingan to cadence with the dhalang’s call for a new piece rather
than having to stop abruptly, interrupting the flow of the melodic phrases.
Because they play more continuously, the sound of the gender is more totally
integrated into the general soundscape and texture of the performance. They
tend to avoid causing the feeling of interruption and sudden emptiness in
the sound texture that occurs when any gender player stops and then starts
again in the accompaniment of wayang.42 Some female players talk of spe-
cial things they do when particular feelings or actions are indicated by the
dhalang. The reasons why female gender players are considered and consider
themselves to be more attentive to the needs of the dhalang are also bound
up with the interrelatedness of the style in which they play, the cultural
expectations of the role they are filling, and their own engagement with the
performance style of the dhalang.
The criticism that village and female gender players simply do not under-
stand the rules of mode was, judging from the comments above, almost
universal. Central Javanese musicians – village, urban, male, and female
– all agree. It is important to put this general agreement about female musi-
cians not understanding mode in context. Most of the criticisms of female
players’ modal interpretation concern their performance of gendhing. They
occasionally will play with the balungan melody (mbalung) rather than fol-
lowing the rules of mode as is the preference in urban musical contexts.43 In
style do stop more often than female players. Male players can stop for as long as ten minutes
during the clown scene in the Pathet Sanga section of the wayang. They sometimes stop to eat
when one of the various small meals offered periodically through the night to the members of
the gamelan come through, although they certainly eat less than other male performers.
42 When they do stop, female gender players tend to be sensitive to where in the grimingan
melody they stop. Although no one verbalizes this, there seems to be a kind of cadential phrase
for each mode after which female gender players feel it is alright to stop. Male players do not tend
to observe this as rigorously although they do seem to follow this pattern sometimes. See the
attached CD-ROM for transcriptions of grimingan and coordinated audio clips that will illustrate
these points.
43 See Perlman 1998 for discussion of the relationship between genderan and balungan in vil-
lage performance.
performances by professional female-gender players, if they occur at all, these

situations generally only happen if the direction in which the balungan leads
is different from that which the mode demands. When this happens it tends
to last only for a gatra (four-beat phrase) or two, rarely for the entire piece.
There are many other performance situations in which female gender players
must demonstrate their modal knowledge, in particular, in the performance
of accompaniment for suluk and grimingan. The rare criticisms regarding
female gender players’ accompaniment for suluk tend to focus on the addi-
tion of unnecessary elaboration and filling-in of the spaces in between vocal
phrases that can disrupt the flow of the singer. I have heard no criticisms of
grimingan performed by female gender players except for a second-hand com-
ment from one dhalang who simply does not like to have any but perfunctory
sounds from the gender while he is performing.
In other words, in practice the rule-lessness of female-style genderan refers
primarily to the way the style is perceived in urban, klenengan, or concert-style
performance repertoires and contexts in which the preferred aesthetic for
gender performance is one of reserved, spare refinement indicated by phrases
that end with both hands together on pitch pairs that demonstrate deep
knowledge of the rules of pathet. It is not by accident that this has been pre-
cisely the milieu in which the gendering of style has been fostered. The gender
has always been associated with pathet, either in its old construction with
the emotion and mood of pathet in wayang performance or in its newer con-
struction as the model system for the performative interpretation of musical
works. Both constructions of the gender and its relationship to pathet operate
simultaneously in late-twentieth and early twenty-first century performance
practice. Whereas women are more often the performers associated with the
older forms of gender performance and men are more often associated with
the newer forms, both women and men play in each style.
All of this leads us back to the question, still unanswered, of what is
particularly feminine about apparent rule-lessness in musical performance.
Numerous studies of women in Javanese culture have documented that in
general women have a different relationship to the culture of refinement
and correct behaviour than men (Keeler 1983, 1987, 1990; Hildred Geertz
1961; Brenner 1995, 1998; among others). From one perspective, rule-lessness
encapsulates perceived differences between male and female performers by
intersecting with common cultural constructions of Javanese men and women.
Rule-lessness represents a lack of emotional control – the personal control and
self-discipline necessary to learn the rules in both musical performance and
life. Yet, in spite of the now dominant association of rasa with learned, schol-
arly, restrained musical interpretation, the repeated assertions that female style
genderan is full of the ‘true’ rasa of wayang encourages us to hear rule-lessness
differently. ‘Rule-lessness’ can instead be understood as a marker of emo-
tional expression on a continuum that leads to the ecstatic emotional release

achieved by the performers of Gendhing Gambirsawit in the passage from the
Serat Centhini at the beginning of this chapter.44 As in that excerpt, the delight-
ful experience of rule-lessness of female-style genderan is contained, mediated
by the conventions of the performance tradition. We understand that uncon-
trolled performance, full of emotional expression, is as unfulfilling as totally
controlled performance dominated by correct adherence to the modal rules but
with attention to nothing else. In each case the rasa of the performance is not
attained. The only way to obtain, seize, be seized by, the rasa of a performance
is for the performers to push to the musical interpretive edge where the rasa of
the expression of emotion meets the rasa of the restraint of emotion. It is here
that the rasa obtained by female gender players intersects with that obtained by
the inspired, educated male gender players in the urban tradition. As demon-
strated in Chapter I the rules of pathet or at least those of old-style pathet are
implied in the special grimingan melodies performed by female players and
are iconic with old-female-village-style genderan. Despite the fact that these
performers do not articulate ‘the rules’ in a scholarly sense in conversation,
the rules are operating subliminally in the music that they play. Female gender
players’ inarticulateness about the rules of pathet is immaterial in performance
where following the rasa, playing from their hearts as they call it, involves per-
forming melodies that are constructed in – form part of the basis of – the pathet
system, as it existed prior to its articulation, theorization, and codification as a
collection of rules and preferences for the interpretation of gendhing.
Gendered ‘rasa’: concluding remarks
It should be clear by now that rasa is not a unitary concept, and seizing the
rasa in a particular performance is a complex process. As we learn from
Martopangrawit and Sindoesawarno, in order for a musical performance to be
aesthetically fulfilling, deep knowledge represented as the rasa of restraint must
be fused with an inarticulate, untheorizable experience, the rasa of expressed
emotion. The rasa of restraint is not the antithesis to the rasa of expressed emo-
tion in musical performance. It is perhaps more appropriate to view these two
rasa in the context of Javanese mystical discourse in which these two aspects
of musical rasa are felt to be mutually enacting or enlivening.45
44 In the same scene, the musicians decide to play a piece on an ensemble of instruments the
use of which is forbidden at that particular time, another example of performative emotionality
engendering the disregard of ‘rules.’
45 Compare this to the discussion of chaos and order, maleness and femaleness in
Chapter III.
Because of its association with scholarly endeavour and ascetic practice,

the development of music-theoretical discourse and the codification of musi-
cal practice, in effect, masculinised urban performance with respect to village
performance, which, subsequently, became gendered as feminine. The gen-
dering of these two styles runs deeper than this secondary and more recent
construction, however. The village/old gender style is also constructed as
feminine and associated with women because they were and are primarily
the musicians who played the gender, in particular for their dhalang husbands.
The gendered association of women with village/old style genderan also runs
deeper than this functionalist interpretation of the husband-wife pair com-
mon in old-style wayang performance. That said, the pairing of husband and
wife in old-style performance does function as a visual representation of the
pairing of aesthetic elements of rasa.
Throughout this chapter I have been referring to the rasa of restraint
and the rasa of expressed emotion as separate but interactive elements of
musical rasa. The development of pathet theory and music rules in general
has not diminished the codependence of these two aspects of musical rasa.
Consideration of Javanese music theorists’ perspectives on rasa-full, mature,
satisfying performance and comments and perspectives on the differences
between male and female styles of genderan suggest that these two aspects of
rasa are also gendered. In contemporary Java, the rasa of restraint and order
is clearly associated with the maleness of the courts and urban areas, with
the maleness of the culture of books and literacy, and the emphasis men
place on correct, rule-governed behavior in certain situations.46 The rasa of
expressed emotion is less clearly associated with any particular Javanese cul-
tural milieu, but it maintains a distinct association between the emotionality
Javanese attribute to women and the ‘femaleness’ of being less capable of
or concerned with cultural and linguistic rules and restraint in social situa-
tions. In performance, too much of either the restraint or the release of emo-
tion – read masculineness or feminineness – ensures that the musicians will
not seize or be seized by the rasa of the piece, rendering the result less than
aesthetically fulfilling. Returning to the connections between religious and
musical aesthetics, these two gendered aspects of musical rasa are mutually
enlivening, causing the performance to come to life as well. Affirming the
importance of the representation of the codependence of the masculine and
46 Of course, by this I am not suggesting that Javanese women were or are illiterate as a
group or that they are incapable of participating in literary culture. For examples of literary
court women in the eighteenth century see Kumar 1980a, 1980b; Florida 1996; Ricklefs 1998. It is
worth asking whether literate women of a ‘traditional’ sort were displaced by men during the
colonial nineteenth century. The Javanese nationalist heroine, Kartini, symbolizes the emergence
of a new kind of literate woman at the beginning of the twentieth century, but she is, in fact, only
one woman in a long line of literary women in Java.
the feminine in aesthetics recalls the mutual activation between maleness

and femaleness, chaos and order, restraint and expression of emotion neces-
sary for invoking the generative, gendered interactions I have described and
analysed in Chapter III.
Recognizing the gendering of the musical aspects of rasa is significant for
understanding the relationship of the dhalang and the female gender player in
the aesthetic world of old-style wayang. The stories of gender players high-
light the interaction of the dhalang husband and his wife the gender player.
The sound of his voice intertwining, mingling with her genderan causes the
chaotic moment that confirms the correct line of rulers (as in the story of Ki
Bicak or that of the first wife of Kyai Panjang Mas); similarly, the chaotic rup-
ture of their partnership insures that Central Javanese performance traditions
are developed and maintained (as in the story of Nyai Jlamprang or Nyai
Panjang Mas). The dhalang and gender player pair reflects in an embodied
way the relationship between the male and female aspects of rasa. Their
interaction in performance – as a couple, as musicians, in performed sound
– represents the generative and gendered interaction that underlies many of
the Javanese rituals and myths of prosperity and success, an aesthetic tradi-
tion that runs deep into early Javanese history.
From one perspective, identifying the merging of male and female ele-
ments in the creation myths and other prosperity-ensuring activities of a
group of people is nothing new. What makes the Javanese case significant
is the intersection between the mythological and the aesthetic discourses
and the fact that this nexus is present in a recorded form at least as early as
the first Old Javanese-language version of the Indic Bharatayuddha finished
in 1157 C.E. and now extant in more than 90 separate sources of varying
age and derivation (none of which is the original twelfth-century source;
Supomo 1993:8-46). It turns out that most of the additions that were made
to this text as it was originally translated from Sanskrit into Old Javanese
and then recopied over the years involve the insertion of female characters
into scenes in which they did not originally appear (Supomo 1993:29-37).
These interpolations created an enhanced focus on the tensions caused by
desire for unification, aesthetic and physical, between male and female
characters in the poem and their respective realms, the battlefield and the
palace. In the following chapter I will explore some of these Javanese inser-
tions in the Bharatayuddha and suggest, without being able to delineate its
entire cultural history, that the aesthetic produced and represented through
the interaction between male dhalang and female gender players in old-style
wayang performance resonates with these kinds of Javanese additions to the
Bharatayuddha, which dated from the twelfth century C.E.
CHAPTER V
Listening back
Before we begin to ‘listen back’ to an earlier Java, let us recall where the argu-
ment has taken us thus far. Over the course of this book I have suggested
reasons for the historical divergence between what are today called old-style
wayang and court/conservatory-style wayang. In focusing on the gendering
and cultural location of the styles – old, female, village and new, male, urban
– in this process, I have highlighted changes in Javanese constructions of
gender and gender relations from the early nineteenth century through the
twentieth, connecting broad cultural shifts with their effects on specific per-
formance traditions. Up until this point, I have grouped court-style wayang
with the other urban styles – conservatory styles and the styles of popular
dhalang working outside the academy – that were developed as practition-
ers experimented with and continually adjusted performance traditions to
contemporaneous tastes through the course of the twentieth century.1 The
first official schools for the development and teaching of the philosophies and
pedagogy of the field of pedhalangan (the study of dhalang pedagogy and per-
formance) emerged under the auspices of the courts (Sears 1996a). Because of
this and the general acknowledgement, whether contested or accepted, of the
centrality of the court to the Javanese wayang world in various ways, there is
an implied continuity between court-style wayang and dhalang pedagogy as it
has developed in the conservatories throughout the twentieth century. While
there are real performative connections between these urban styles, they
have gradually diverged. If the innovations developed in the conservatories
through the twentieth century originally gained credibility through this con-
nection, court-style wayang and performers now maintain cultural relevancy
in a similar manner. It is necessary to acknowledge the separations that have
grown (perhaps have always existed on some levels) between court style,
1 Development in performance practice is neither linear nor monolithic since every prac-
titioner, at any point in time, is working within an individualized matrix of family, local, and
wider-reaching styles, inflecting the absorption of aspects of all these multiple styles with per-
sonal taste, ability, and imagination. The relationships between these styles throughout their
development and divergence are complex.
132 Listening to an earier Java
conservatory style in its various guises, and the innovative popular styles of
wayang that continue to emerge (Mrázek 2002). Court style, as defined and
articulated in a source like the mid-nineteenth-century Serat Sastramiruda, is
further removed from Humardani’s wayang padat (developed through the
mid-twentieth century at STSI Surakarta, a collapsed wayang form in which
a full-eight hour performance is completed in just three or four hours) or the
hugely popular performances of Ki Manteb Sudarsono and others described
by Mrázek (2002) than it is from the now-village-based, old-style wayang.2
Old-style wayang and female genderan represent neither a coarse corrup-
tion of the classical court style as it was codified in the nineteenth century
and developed in the early twentieth nor the purest, most authentic vestige
of what is left of the ‘true’ Javanese style. Those who argue for either of
these positions immutably fix one or several Javanese wayang traditions in
a particular historical moment, disallowing the change, development, and
interaction that are inherent aspects of wayang performance over time in
every one of its manifestations. They also diminish the importance of the
many acknowledged connections between old-style wayang and court-style
wayang that exist despite the rhetoric about their differences. It is necessary
to point out that, whatever their historical importance and popularity, neither
of these styles is particularly popular any longer, nor does either represent
what most Javanese would consider contemporary practice at the beginning
of the twenty-first century.3 The work of Jan Mrázek (1998, 1999, 2000) and
others (Mrázek 2002) on Javanese wayang at the end of the twentieth cen-
tury reveals on-going and extraordinary change and innovation on the part
of Javanese performers of wayang broadly defined. Old-style wayang and
court-style wayang seem decidedly musty, or even antique, from the perspec-
tive of the innovative ‘now’ of the Javanese wayang world.
The fact of the matter is that old-style wayang and court-style wayang are
really more similar than different. Depending on preferences of the individual
performers, in general they have similar narrative structures, use similar lit-
erary material as the basis for performed stories, often incorporate similar
instrumental pieces usually taken from the repertoire of old wayang pieces,
rarely use newly-created puppets, employ many of the same suluk or mood
songs, often in approximately the same order, and eschew many of the hybrid-
izations and additions used by dhalang who are considered modern and, often,
popular. The dhalang from both old-style and court-style tradition tend to be
2 That said, it is still possible for Mrázek to construct a generalized description of wayang
that resonates equally well with the whole range of wayang styles (Mrázek 2002:i-vii).
3 It is clear from Clara van Groenendael (1985:44-92) that both styles were popular and
widespread over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and that the
styles themselves are continuous with similar earlier traditions from the early to mid-nineteenth
century.
more interested in the discourse of wayang narration and puppet discussion

– often focusing on the wisdom that can be conveyed to the listener through
performance – than the acrobatics of puppet manipulation, although most
dhalang would recognize that the best performers are capable of both. The
court and the old styles of wayang, as different as they are perceived to be,
are related representatives of what could, perhaps, be called a Javanese clas-
sical wayang style. Similar to its use in the marketing of recorded music, the
word ‘classical’ here describes performance genres that are culturally revered
because of their relative antiquity and generally esteemed cultural worth
(often identified by the length of time and talent it takes to master them), as
well as the fact that they are rarified and maintain limited popular appeal, yet
rally ardent support from some in the contemporary world.
Other scholars have argued that court and village styles were once more
closely aligned than they are now. In her Shadows of empire; Colonial discourse
and Javanese tales, Sears (1996a) has suggested that in the nineteenth century
the differences between the styles, while difficult to determine specifically,
were probably not as great as they are constructed in today’s discourse on
wayang performance.4 Sears suggests that it was with the establishment of
dhalang schools in Central Java, beginning in 1923 with the Padhasuka school
for dhalang at the kraton in Surakarta, that the differences between court and
village traditions actually began to be distinguished in a systematic way (Sears
1996a:148-51). She concludes that prior to the development of these schools,
court-style and village-style wayang were equally eccentric. The process of
distinguishing elements and stylistic aspects as representative of court style
made that constellation of aspects simultaneously desirable yet unattainable
to ordinary performers. In his Javanese shadow plays, Javanese selves, Keeler
makes a related point by suggesting that the very idea of a correct version
of any aspect of performance suits a court-biased view of wayang, ‘one that
makes wayang beholden to the court’s efforts to establish norms in [Central]
Javanese culture, particularly in the arts’ (Keeler 1987:184). The implication
behind each of these interpretations is that the imposition of a conceptual
distance between the court and village styles was politically driven and not
simply an articulation of aesthetic difference. Further, the long-standing5
4 Sears explores the history of the development of Central Javanese wayang traditions
through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Interested in the interaction between the Dutch
scholarly and intellectual traditions and the development of the construction of wayang per-
formance as it is known today, Sears articulates the importance of the link between the ‘fixing’ of
Central Javanese wayang tradition in the courts and Dutch scholarship.
5 This practice may already have been well-established as early as the seventeenth century,
since it was during the reign of Sultan Agung that Kyai Panjang Mas, then Kyai Lebdajiwa, was
invited to perform at the court after he had been observed performing in a village. See the story
of the first wife of Kyai Panjang Mas in Chapter III.
court practice of inviting successful and popular village dhalang to the court
to perform, some of whom were asked to take on the duty and rank of a court
dhalang, suggests that it was as often as not the village dhalang who were
participating in defining the performance styles of the court in the past.6 The
gradual separation of court style from popular styles, a process begun first
with the articulation and codification of the rules for ‘correct’ wayang per-
formance in the mid-nineteenth century, ultimately caused its stagnation, an
unintended result of the increased reverence for the court style.
Sears and Keeler do not actively distinguish, as I have done above,
between the conservatory and popular urban styles and the classicalized
court style. This distinction is worth making because as a classical art, court-
style wayang is constrained in several ways that conservatory and popular
styles are not. Since it is elevated as ‘exemplary’, performers representing the
court style feel bound to adhere to its ‘rules’. Keeler recounts the problems
of audience retention for dhalang who perform ‘by the rules’: there is often
no one left in the audience by midnight, only one third of the way through
the performance (Keeler 1987:184). Several dhalang told me that a performer
must strike a balance between pleasing the audience and his own principles
regarding innovation and continuity in the performance context. Bapak
Midiyanto pointed out that while he could perform in a traditionalist or
court style, when he did so, he often chose to extend certain clown scenes for
the pleasure of the audience – as might be done in a less traditional perform-
ance – in order to make them pay attention to the lessons and philosophy
that he as dhalang wanted to communicate (Weiss 1998:324). Bapak Kestik
commented on the problems traditionalist dhalang face keeping the philo-
sophical and poetic elements in the performance because so many people
just wanted to see the battles and the clowns. He pointed out that the only
place dhalang felt they could be conservative in their performance was when
invited to perform at the court. There it was expected that a dhalang would
conform to the more traditional structure and style (Kestik June 1991: person-
al communication). On the other hand, for court-appointed dhalang, vested
with the responsibility of preserving the court style, the proximity of fantas-
tically popular urban dhalang and the paucity of performance opportunities
sponsored by the court, not to mention the poor remuneration when such
6 The comments of many of Sears’s research associates suggest that, prior to the development
of the court dhalang schools, the courts served as places where dhalang from all over Java, extend-
ing as far west as Banyumas and as far east as Surabaya, could meet to exchange information
about stories, style, and music. The court served as a place where well-known performers met
and gained the knowledge and/or refinement that comes from sharing information among col-
leagues. The indication is that the two styles, village and court, really developed concurrently,
mutually influencing one another, until the opening of the court schools (Sears 1996a:116-20).
Compare the descriptions from Clara van Groenendael 1985 discussed in Chapter IV.
opportunities do arise, present difficulties. Their commitment to court tradi-

tion prevents them from engaging in innovations while it inhibits sponsors
from seeking to engage them for performance (both because of the aura of
the court and the fact that they are known not to be innovative or popular).7
The differences between court and other urban wayang styles are masked if
we treat them as one group. Recognizing these differences is significant if we
are to understand the underlying aesthetic connections between codified-
court style and old-style wayang.
The relationship of village dhalang to their performance tradition is con-
siderably less contested than that of court dhalang with whom they share
stylistic connections and roots. If court style has stagnated and is no longer
compelling to contemporary audiences, the same is only partially true for
old/village wayang. Village/old-style dhalang have surely been as inter-
ested in audience numbers and performance opportunities as any of their
urban counterparts over the years. They were not, however, as constrained
to conserve one particular style nor were they working in as competitive or
as rapidly modernizing an environment as court dhalang. They could choose
to engage with the levels of innovation and change going on in the cities,
but performance opportunities continued to materialize whether or not they
embraced the modernizations.8 Village performers develop patrons over the
course of their careers, often drawing their first clientele from relationships
forged by their fathers and grandfathers.9 These long-term family connec-
tions encourage the maintenance of regular village-style performance oppor-
tunities, partly through loyalty and partly because importing an urban act is
expensive and in some cases unimaginable given family traditions regarding
local performers.10 Thus, performance opportunities for village/old-style
dhalang have remained pretty constant, at least for the dhalang and musicians
7 Despite a small group of elitist fans, adherence to the more conservative performance
‘rules’ in every performance is a difficult choice for the dhalang with an interest in mass appeal,
especially given the fact economic support for the infrastructure that supports ‘classical’ per-
formance in the West is not highly developed in Central Java.
8 When I asked one young village dhalang whether he wanted to perform regularly in the city,
he said that he thought they were coming up with some crazy ideas that he might try one day,
but he had his audiences to think about (Bejonugraha April 1991). It was obvious that he was not
caught up with the ambition to become the next ‘star’ dhalang. In casual discussion before and
after performances dhalang Ki Suparno, Ki Puspacarito, and Ki Gandasukasno all suggested in
their own ways that some of the things that urban dhalang were doing were amazing but often
a bit crazy. And, while they thought it would be nice to have such big audiences, they were not
interested in trying to imitate urban innovations. To do so would be to disappoint their own
sponsors and audiences with whom they had long-standing relationships.
9 Suparno, Naryacarita, Pringga, and Gandasukasno all mentioned this several times in dis-
cussions.
10 For a family to break tradition and import an urban dhalang requires a cultural leap into
the middle-class (a leap that is often driven, at least in rural Java, by having children who have
with whom I worked. Their style has not stagnated because skilful and ulti-
mately successful performers continually practice moderate levels of innova-
tion within a traditionalist context, enough to keep their performances fresh
for themselves and their audiences. There is less innovation than is expected
from popular urban performers, but more than is possible for court perform-
ers working to maintain a particular, now old-fashioned, interpretation of a
style.11
The presence of the female gender player is an important and primary
difference between court- and old- or village-style wayang as they existed
in the last decade of the twentieth century. In village-style performance the
female gender player is still very much central to the performance, still part
of the lived-tradition of old-style wayang. In court style they are less essen-
tial, although several of the female gender players with whom I worked had
been called occasionally to perform in the court. While some of their female
ancestors had been abdi dalam or servants of the courts, none of the gender
players involved in this study had any permanent connection to the court.
This change in the status of the female gender player, however, has emerged
through the course of the twentieth century with the developing focus on
men as musical performers and theorists. The stories about Nyai Jlamprang,
Nyai Lara Kidul, and the two wives of Kyai Panjang Mas demonstrate that
female gender players were once integral to court wayang performance prior
to the twentieth century.12 Thus, while the presence of female gender players
in the annals of court history and mythology renders them relevant to per-
formance situations in the past, they are at best vestigial to the maintenance
of wayang tradition in the courts in the present. But how, exactly, are the
mythical record of the female gender player and the contemporary activity of
female players connected to one another?
One important way of determining the interconnections between court-
and old-style wayang is to examine the roots of codified court style. It is here
that we can identify shared aesthetic themes, in particular those that gradu-
ally lost their centrality to the court style as its proponents tried to maintain
both popular relevance and conservative exemplariness over the course of
the twentieth century. These aesthetic themes were further masked or even
lost in the urban styles that developed under or in opposition to the influence
moved to the city or at least studied there), something that does not necessarily happen in every
village family.
11 I do not mean to imply that only urban dhalang are innovative. Innovative village dhalang
often develop performance opportunities beyond their local area, frequently becoming known
in urban areas as a good dhalang from a particular area. If it endures, this fame often blurs their
identity as village dhalang.
12 The story of the wife of dhalang Ki Bicak indicates that the female gender player is central to
the aesthetic but not valued as an individual. But then again, neither was her husband.
of court-style wayang through the same period. In what follows I will sug-
gest that the structure and style of the wayang story recounted in the Serat
Sastramiruda (Kusumadilaga 1981), a mid-nineteenth-century court manual
on the history and performance of Central Javanese wayang kulit, codified
a performance style that was popular at the time or at least one generally
accepted by those who were compiling the book in a social context in which
there was still an on-going exchange between village and court performers.
It turns out that in the story presented as an exemplary lakon or outline for
a wayang performance in the Sastramiruda manual there are elements that
resonate with the Javanese creation myths, the prosperity-ensuring gestures,
and the aesthetic of generative interaction between gendered order and
chaos described in Chapters III and IV. As a way of demonstrating the deep
resonance of this aesthetic, I will present a comparison of some key scenes
described in the Serat Sastramiruda and similar scenes from Supomo’s edited
English translation of the Bharatayuddha in Old Javanese, the earliest sources
for which date from the twelfth century. Demonstrating strands of aesthetic
continuity from the twelfth century through the early twentieth century ena-
bles the similarities between court- and old-style wayang to come into view.
The dialectic between their evident similarities and the energetic and heart-
felt discourse on their differences provides clues to interpreting a significant
Javanese aesthetic tradition, one which has implications for our understand-
ing of the historical relationship between court and village traditions prior to,
during, and after the colonial period.
I should point out that the Central Javanese wayang in every tradition
has a clear connection to the various Javanese-language versions of the
Bharatayuddha. According to the evidence in Probohardjono’s Serat sulukan
slendro, 47 percent or 18 of the 38 common suluk texts used in contemporary
performance come from the Bharatayuddha in either its kakawin or macapat
versions.13 The story itself is rarely performed by dhalang; a full performance
is a significant event for a dhalang, usually lasting over a period of three of
four nights and frequently involving ascetic preparation of some kind.14 It
is in the Bharatayuddha, the culminating series of episodes in the struggle
between the Pandawa and the Kurawa, that the foibles and human faults
of the characters in the entire Mahabharata epic must be painfully exor-
cised and atoned for. Many Central Javanese perceive the characters in the
13 Kakawin is epic poetry written in Old Javanese or Kawi and macapat is verse in literary
modern Javanese consisting of stanzas with varying last syllable vowel patterns. Seven texts
come from the kakawin versions and one from a macapat version. Some ten others from the
Bharatayuddha are in what Probohardjono identifies as kawi miring, verses in various forms of cor-
rupted Old Javanese (Probohardjono 1984). This information was compiled by browsing through
Probohardjono’s text.
14 Naryacarita April 1991.
Mahabharata to represent the full range of all possible human characteristics.

It is common for people who know wayang to be able to assess the character
of someone they meet by matching it with a character of the Mahabharata,
often choosing characters who are obscure and rarely used in performance.15
Novels and books by Indonesians and non-Indonesians have been written
about the significance of the wayang to Central Javanese and, by virtue of
the many Central Javanese in the government, to the whole of Indonesia as
well.16
Connecting old and court wayang styles through aesthetics
The aesthetic tradition I have described over the course of the last two chap-
ters and which I now suggest links the old and court wayang styles is not, to
my knowledge, articulated as such in any source, Javanese or otherwise. My
formulation of this aesthetic derives from my attempts to place the discourse
about and practice of old-style wayang, in particular the sound and practice
of female-style grimingan, in its larger cultural context. Ideas regarding the
relationship between chaos, order, and their generative interaction with
genders in stories and creation myths as well as in some traditional cultural
practices such as slametan and rebutan resonate with the stories told about
gender players, including the representation of the relationship between
dhalang and female gender player. Disentangling the themes and understand-
ing the colonial and post-colonial context of rhetorical arguments regarding
the terms ‘old’, ‘female’, and ‘village’ has allowed us to understand how the
terms came to describe one and the same style of accompaniment and to
assess the differing values ascribed to these terms.
In trying to understand the relative antiquity of court-style wayang and
the nature of its relationship to the aesthetics of old-style wayang I came
across Kusumadilaga’s mid-nineteenth-century Serat Sastramiruda. In this
manual, organized as a conversation constructed entirely of questions from
15 Although I have observed this phenomenon many times, I never bothered to note who was
compared to whom at the time. Consequently, I cannot cite a specific example. Nevertheless,
when I asked Suyanto SKar (a dhalang and lecturer at STSI Surakarta, writing a Master’s thesis
in the School of Asian Studies/Centre for Performance Studies at the University of Sydney 1995-
1996) about this phenomenon, he laughed sagely and said that he often analysed people through
analogy with characters in the Mahabharata. He said that he could always find a character to
match everyone he met and that he knew many people who did the same thing (Suyanto SKar
17 September 1996).
16 See Koch 1978; Keeler 1987; Anderson 1965, 1972 to mention only a few. In contemporary
Indonesian news weeklies, Indonesian writers frequently use the metaphor of the ‘dhalang
behind the screen’ when they want to refer to the controlling, covert influence of a powerful
person who is unacknowledged in public discourse.
a student and answers from a great teacher, the author/teacher articulates an

appropriate procedure for wayang performance. He does this first through
explaining the significance and history of many aspects of wayang perform-
ance and then through the presentation of a sample lakon or wayang story.
Kusumadilaga’s Serat Sastramiruda tells us much about how the author
thought wayang ‘should’ be performed and the text appeared at the begin-
ning of the gradual codification of what are now considered the basic struc-
tural, procedural, and musical elements of Central Javanese wayang in its
many traditional forms. Written before the development of the court wayang
schools and just prior to the rapid increase in the production of pakem or
wayang story outlines, the Serat Sastramiruda in fact points to the style in
which wayang was being performed at the time the treatise was written. As
such it offers us a way of listening back to early court-style wayang.
Kusumadilaga did not create the structural, textual, and musical ideas that
he describes as ‘correct’ in his discussion regarding the history and perform-
ance practice of wayang kulit. The fact that the structure he described is still
viable as the basis for many aspects of contemporary performance suggests
that he did not simply invent the structure out of whole cloth himself. Rather,
the elements he described were a cleaned-up representation of performance
styles that were already successful and popular with dhalang and audiences
at that point in time.17 We can easily imagine that the codification process for
wayang was similar to the manner in which pathet theory was later wrought
from the practice of pathet in performance, an articulation and refinement of
the ‘usual’ way of doing things.18
17 It is interesting that many aspects of contemporary, late twentieth-century, court/con-

servatory wayang performance that are usually described or assumed in both the scholarly
literature and in performers’ discussions are missing from Kusumadilaga’s prescriptions. For
example, the rigorous categorization of certain suluk for particular scenes is not as determined
in Kusumadilaga’s rendition of the lakon Palasara as it is in pedagogical texts such as the Serat
sulukan slendro of Probohardjono (1984). In Kusumadilaga’s Pathet Nem section, sendhon Kloloran
is used at least twice (Kusumadilaga 1981:202-3). In contemporary practice this suluk is used only
once for the removal of the puppets at the end of the kedhatonan scene (Probohardjono 1984:453).
Each time a suluk is necessary in the Pathet Sanga section, Kusumadilaga simply suggests using
suluk pathet sanga or suluk greget sahut sanga, that is, a pathetan in mode sanga or an ada-ada in
mode sanga, indicating that the choice of melody and text in each of these categories should be
determined by the dhalang in the context of the performance. Another example: the suluk (send-
hon) Sastradatan is generally used today only once for the transition from a gendhing to dialogue
when a scene takes place in Ngamarta in the Pathet Manyura section of a wayang. It is called for at
least ten times in the Pathet Manyura section described by Kusumadilaga (1981:232-4, 236, 250-1,
256-7, 259, and 263). Further, the musical entrance to the Pathet Manyura section is marked, not
by Pathetan Manyura Wantah as suggested by Probohardjono, but by suluk (ada-ada) greget sahut
manyura cilik (Kusumadilaga 1981:231). It is clear that the process of codification became articu-
lated and precise after the composition of the Serat Sastramiruda.
18 It might be argued that this is an invalid assumption because what is done today might
simply reflect the order set by Kusumadilaga. This argument ignores the fact that dhalang were
The ‘lakon’ Palasara in the Serat Sastramiruda
The story that Kusumadilaga chooses for his exemplary lakon is interesting
because the events in the story recounting the birth of Wiyasa – grandfather
to both the Pandawa and Kurawa families – can be seen to reflect the impor-
tance of the interaction of gendered chaos and order as explored in Chapter
III, an interaction, I have argued, that forms the core of the aesthetics of old-
style wayang.
Now your servant understands the meaning and intention of a dhalang when, in a
wayang performance, he implants the kayon [tree of life puppet] into the middle of
the screen, that is, as a sign to the musicians [that there will be a change of scene].
If your excellency will allow it, could I request an example of a wayang purwa
story with the scenes in order and as is done by the dhalang who are servants of
the palace. (Kusumadilaga 1981:190.)
It is this question from the student Sastramiruda that prompts his teacher,
Kusumadilaga, to tell the story of Palasara in wayang form, including instruc-
tions for musical pieces or gendhing and mood songs or suluk, entrances and
exits of puppets, the main points of dialogue between them, and paragraphs
of suggested narration. The statement that the story is told in the style of the
dhalang who are the servants of the kraton or court has the effect of aligning
this codification of wayang performance within the style that would come
to be identified as court style despite the fact that it contains aspects that
are common among most forms of Javanese wayang. In his exemplary lakon
Kusumadilaga recounts the events and marriages that lead to the birth of the
grandfather of the Pandawa and the Kurawa brothers – cousins who become
enemies and competitors in the final battle of the Mahabharata, known as
the Bharatayuddha.19 The following synopsis of the story has been com-
piled and translated from the Serat Sastramiruda (Kusumadilaga 1981) and
Sudibyoprono (1991).
and are concerned primarily with producing ‘good’ performances, those that capture the atten-
tion of an audience (however that may be defined at the moment). A dhalang’s personal prosper-
ity and fame depends on this as well as his ability to reflect the prosperity of the people and
villages who hire him. There is nothing in the literature or the oral histories of wayang to suggest
that sometime in the middle to late nineteenth century dhalang radically changed their perform-
ances in response to Kusumadilaga’s treatise.
19 Kusumadilaga’s choice to retell an ‘ancient’ story reflects a response to a European interest
in origins. It was written not long after Ranggawarsita’s Pustaka Raja Purwa that was offered to
the Dutch as a history of the origins of the Javanese (see Day 1982). Kusumadilaga may also have
seen this story as an appropriate series of events on which to base the codification of the Central
Javanese wayang tradition for it narrates the moment at which the ancestral lines of the Pandawa
and Kurawa brothers first come together. This story marks the beginning of the most important
relationships in the Central Javanese versions of the Mahabharata.
Palasara is born in the palace of Tabelosuket, then he is taken by his father to

Saptaharga and in that place given the name of Palasara, which means magical
weapon. Palasara is refined and full of enthusiasm, quiet and knowledgeable; he
has compassion for all living beings, is an accomplished ascetic, and has great
knowledge of medicine and curing.
Palasara goes to a place to meditate. At that time a god decides to test him, turns
himself into a sparrow, and builds a nest on Palasara’s head. The god stays there
until his eggs hatch. When their ‘mother’ flies away, the baby birds call for her with
a pitiful sound. Palasara begins to feel sorry for them and he rises to follow their
mother. He continues until the mother escapes by crossing the river Gangga.
At this same time Dewi Durgandini is suffering from a terrible sickness that
causes her skin to have a horrible odor. She is in the process of trying to get rid
of the disease by engaging in a form of meditation that involves serving other
people, in this instance, helping people across the river. Palasara and his retain-
ers20 are helped across the river by Dewi Durgandini. During the trip Palasara
cures her disease, leaving no trace. He throws the remnants of the disease into the
river and Palasara and Dewi Durgandini decide to marry.
The boat that had been travelling calmly across the river is suddenly hit by a
strong current and is broken up. They are all carried downstream hanging onto
a big piece of the boat. Fortunately, they land safely and Dewi Durgandini asks
Palasara to build a palace in a calm place to which they give the name Gajahwoya.
Palasara becomes the king of the area.
They give birth to a son named Wiyasa, who later becomes the grandfather
of the Pandawa and the Kurawa brothers. The remnants of Dewi Durgandini’s
sickness and the broken boat become people. Her diseased skin is eaten by a crab
who subsequently becomes pregnant and gives birth to a child named Dewa
Rakatawati. The larva of the sickness becomes a person named Setatama. The
smell of the sickness becomes a warrior named Gandawana. The unfortunate-
ness (mala penyakit) of the sickness is eaten by a fish who becomes pregnant and
then gives birth to a person named Rajamala.21 The front of the broken-up boat
becomes a knight named Kencakarupa and the stern of the boat becomes the prin-
cess Rupakenca. The six offspring confront Dewi Durgandini and Palasara and are
received as adopted children.
Meanwhile Durgandana, the brother of Durgandini, has been sent out to find
her. When he reaches the palace of Palasara, he wants to wage war with him until
he learns of Palasara’s connection with Dewi Durgandini. Subsequently, all are
accepted into the family of Durgandana.
At the same time, in the country of Astina, Bhisma is born to a mother who
has no milk. His father Prabu Santanu is forced to take Bhisma to someone who
can give him milk. He finds Dewi Durgandini. Wiyasa and Bhisma become milk-
brothers.
20 These retainers or punakawan are the three well-known brothers – Petruk, Gareng, and
Bagong – and their god-clown father, Semar, who provide humor and a human element in
Central Java wayang kulit performances.
21 This is also the name of the boat belonging to the Surakarta king Pakubuwana VII (reigned
1830-1858) that is on display in the Radyapustaka Museum in Surakarta.
Once Wiyasa is weaned, he is brought to the kingdom of Palasara’s father.

Palasara then returns to a life of meditation, while Dewi Durgandini marries
Prabu Santanu and they return to Astina.
It is not difficult to detect in this wayang story many of the themes we have
been examining in earlier chapters. Durgandini suffers from a terrible skin
disease.22 While in the process of trying to cure herself through the ascetic
act of performing good deeds, Durgandini has an accidental meeting with
Palasara who magically cures her. They fall passionately in love. Their love
suffers an abrupt, destructive and chaotic, yet prosperity-ensuring moment
when their boat is thrashed about and destroyed by a strong current. They
land safely and proceed to set up a palace, but the remains of Durgandini’s
skin disease and the boat have been scattered in a chaotic manner because
of a fast-flowing current.23 Miraculously, having been thus dispersed, these
remains return as children, symbols of fertility and prosperity amidst the dif-
ficulties of life, who claim Durgandini and Palasara as their parents. Further,
the child physically born by Durgandini, Wiyasa, is the common ancestor of
the families on both sides of the Bharatayuddha war.
Both Palasara and Durgandini are engaged in the ascetic act of aiding
others. While neither the male or female character represents chaos, they are
beset by chaos in the natural form of the river current. This chaotic moment
ensures that the two ascetics actually settle down to care for their large
family, in particular the important Wiyasa and his adoptive milk-brother,
Bhisma, in an appropriate or orderly way. Their meeting sets in motion
the events that lead to birth of the Pandawa and Kurawa brothers, the key
families in Javanese-Indic cosmology. Their meeting and union appear to be
solely for the purpose of ensuring the birth of the grandfather of these war-
ring clans. This is evident in the fact that once their most important offspring
and his milk-brother have been weaned, Palasara returns to his premarital,
meditative pursuits and Durgandini, now healed, marries into another fam-
ily. In this story, chaos inspires prosperity-ensuring order in the temporary
but significant union of Palasara and Durgandini. Whether or not the Serat
Sastramiruda was intended for a Dutch scholarly audience, as has been
argued by Sears (1996a:13, 100), or a Central Javanese one, the Palasara story
has retained important aspects of what could be called common Central
22 Jordaan (1984, 1987) has linked skin disease with fertility and prosperity in Indonesia and
other Southeast Asian cultures. According to Jordaan, in some stories Nyai Lara Kidul is said to
be suffering from a skin disease.
23 Compare this with the scattering of food or signs of prosperity in a rebutan. Compare also
with the inadvertant, yet prosperity-inducing death of Dewi Srilowati at the moment Bhatara
Guru’s crown strikes her and she falls to the famished earth, after which abundant crops spring
from her body.
Javanese representations of the process of life and prosperity as engendered

and gendered by the conjunction of order and chaos.
Of course, it would be possible to analyse the Palasara story primarily
through the lens of male potency. Palasara is a man of great esteem even at
his young age. He is already spending long periods of time in meditation
and is strong enough for the gods to want to test him. He is endowed with
special, potent knowledge and the refined gift of tolerance. He is tested by
the gods and proves his merit. He marries and sires a child, thus demonstrat-
ing his sexual potency. His offspring turns out to be the grandfather of the
families who will fight the doomed war involving all of mankind. As soon as
Palasara has sired this important child and ensured that his mate and family
will be looked after properly, he returns to the engrossing activity of medita-
tion and eventually enters Nirvana or heaven, thus achieving the greatest
spiritual potency possible.24
To interpret this story featuring its primarily male aspects is certainly
viable, but to do so ignores the generative interaction of maleness and
femaleness with chaos and order and the presence and role of a potent and
prosperity-ensuring female, Durgandini – aspects which are an important
part of many Central Javanese myths, stories, rituals and practices.25 Simply
focusing on the recurring moments of the confirmation of, or concern for,
male potency in a wayang story is similar to understanding a gendhing as a
series of arrival points rather than the realization of the path between them.26
To continue the analogy with the interpretation of a balungan melody, to leave
out the process of the interaction between maleness and femaleness from the
analysis of these stories ignores the performance or the enactment of the flow
between the moments of arrival in the development of the story.
Transitions to marital bliss: on the significance of ‘gapuran’
In the Serat Sastramiruda, Kusumadilaga indicates that the enjoyment of a

wayang kulit performance is based, among other things, on understand-
ing and feeling the progress through a story and a structure. Kusumadilaga
rues the fact that so many dhalang performing at the time of his discussion
with Sastramiruda ignore any proper structure or flow. In his lakon of the
Palasara story, Kusumadilaga outlines many of the scenes and structures
24 A similar kind of reward is offered to Arjuna in the story Arjunawiwaha or Mintaraga in the
wayang tradition.
25 See Chapter III.
26 See Chapter I.
that are still acknowledged as conventional among performers today.27 The

outline is organized in three large sections identified by pathet. The pathet
sections move from an audience scene in which king and aides discuss
problems and their solutions through transition scenes to battle scenes. The
similarities between conventional performance structures as they are taught
in conservatory and the lakon in the Serat Sastramiruda continue throughout.
It is tempting to conclude that the concern for order and structure so promi-
nent in Kusumadilaga’s text is a Javanese response to Dutch intellectual
pressure in the colonial period. However, when we compare the structural
elements outlined by Kusumadilaga with the earliest Javanized versions of
the Bharatayuddha,28 similar structures and emphases are already apparent.
In what follows I will explore and compare the transitional scenes preced-
ing two kedhatonan scenes: one from the Serat Sastramiruda and one from
Supomo’s 1993 edited text of the Old Javanese Bharatayuddha.
In most wayang performances, after the first audience scene in which the
primary problem of the play is described, the king moves to consult with and
seek solace from his wife in what is called the kedhatonan scene. The transition
to the domestic scene is often highly elaborate. During the transition, called
gapuran, it is common for the king to pause and admire certain attributes of
his palace. Usually the king stops to admire the gateway (gapura) into his
palace and his own demeanour and dress are described in intricate detail.
As he retires to the inner sanctum of his palace, these descriptions function
as a form of consolation for the king and also as a moment of refocusing for
both the king and the audience. The transition scene normally ends with
sumptuous descriptions of his many glorious consorts, his dutiful servants
and, in particular, his beloved and exceptionally beautiful wife. In some of
the modern styles of Central Javanese wayang, the transition from the first
scene to the kedhatonan is often turned into a variety show with songs from
various pathet sung by the pasindhen, songs from other cultural areas such as
East Java and Sunda, songs from different musical traditions such as dangdut
and campur sari, and lengthy dialogue between the two humorous female
servants – plump Limbuk, for whom the scene is now named Limbukan, and
her scrawny mother, Cangik.29
27 The scene types suggested by Kusumadilaga continue to be discussed by dhalang and are
featured in pedagogical books on pedhalangan such as Probohardjono 1984 and many others.
28 The oldest written Javanese version of the Mahabharata was in Old Javanese and was written
in the middle of the twelfth century. It is no longer extant, but there is written record of its existence.
‘At least one and a half centuries after the first recorded recital of the Wirataparwa, a court poet,
Mpu Sedah, composed a kakawin that was based on the Mahabharata’ (Supomo 1993:7).
29 I have seen performances in which this transitional scene, often called the Limbukan because
it features the female clown pair Cangik and her daughter Limbuk, has lasted as long as an hour,
in effect replacing the kedhatonan.
In the first audience scene of the lakon Palasara, the king of Wiratha, Prabu
Basukeswara, meets with his son Durgandana and his patih or chief advisor
to discuss the disappearance of his daughter Durgandini, who has been lost
for one month. Just as they are debating the merits of Durgandana’s continu-
ing his search, a representative of the kingdom of Madenda arrives with a
letter asking for the hand of Durgandini. This request inspires the king of
Wiratha to pronounce that whoever finds Durgandini first shall marry her.
A limit of 40 days is set for the search. Once the messenger departs with the
news, the king bids farewell to his son, who sets off in search of his sister
with renewed vigour (Kusumadilaga 1981:55-71, 191-200).
The king then moves toward the inner palace, where he longs to meet
with his wife to discuss the developments in the first scene. Kusumadilaga
(1981:71-2, 200-2) provides the following narration for the dhalang:
At that point the King returned to the inner palace, descending directly from the
audience hall, accompanied by the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, bedaya srimpi who
carried the objects of state, symbols of the greatness of the king, and flanked by
a line of women on the left and right, four women on a side with beautiful coun-
tenances – interesting figures, carefully coiffed hair, firm waists, bouncy breasts,
tiny toes on [smooth] soles, svelte bodies, beautiful clothing, clear [eyed] like
the surface of water, guaranteed to make people crazy with love. The progress
of the king stopped at the first gate into the palace. His walk was like a hungry
tiger, the movements of his hands like a peacock dancing, sure that there would
not be a flaw. Sri Bupati of Wiratha, when he sat in the meeting hall he wore his
regal state attire – golden diadem in three layers with glimmering edges; wearing
a mask of kencana flowers tied in the style of an elephant’s tail full of glittering
diamonds; suspended by golden supports with beautiful shining [decorative]
wings; kebomenggah flowers behind his ears; bejewelled earings; ear ornaments in
the surengpati arrangement; arm bands with the naga mangsa motif; anklets of clear
beads; a pair of pyramidal rings; shoulder-cloth painted with gold; waist-belt
with bound edges; silk pants with flower binding; kris with a case in the ladrang
style and a handle in the same style; with metal plating of kemalon merah, the kris
was decorated with a fine regularity; nagaraja anklets; foot ornaments edged with
sprays of jewels, glittering. Sheltered in a carriage decorated with gold plating, it
is as if his majesty is a bridegroom in procession.
Because his clothes were completely golden and bejewelled, when the king
walked it was as if he were surrounded by flashes of lightning and [the sound] of
thunder. The glow of his face was blinding. It was as if he had lost the character
of a human and appeared as the God of the Sun, descended to rove the world
accompanied by his heavenly nymphs.
Thus was the progress of King Basukeswara when he entered the palace, one
footstep walking forward and then one footstep pausing, remembering in his
heart his daughter who was lost without a trace from the palace. Because of this,
His Majesty stopped for a second to leave the difficulties of his heart, standing
facing the portal [of the inner palace] long enough to console himself. For a long
time the king gazed at the decorations of many colors painted on the doors of the
ceremonial arches. The gateway seemed as if it was as big as Mount Mahameru.

Its height was taller than the pucang and coconut trees at the peak, [the doors
placed] like two droplets of water, not too big, not too small, as big as a red kapuh
fruit struck by the rays of the sun as if it were a twin of the Lord Sun.
The top of the archway was made of bronze; the supports of iron balitun. The
copper roof was painted sky blue, the windows decorated with paired carving,
the steps of silver, the floor of red jewels, the doors of clear glass painted with
male and female lovers.30 If the doors were opened, the two lovers promised to
meet again. When the door closed it was as if the bridal couple were joined, bliss-
fully, together.
At the side of the gates was placed a statue of a raksasa [monster] with eyes
of diamonds, his nose bored through reaching to his ears. In the tunnel [from
ear to nose] was kept a pair of bees who were given the names Bremana and
Bremani. Bremana was the male and Bremani was the female. The raksasa’s hair
was of patterned metal and his moustache of wire. He held a club and shield.
Accompanying the opening and closing of the door of the gateway was the sound
of the bees buzzing furiously as if they had the intention of pouncing. [This was so
much the case] that anyone who [heard and] saw him might think that the mon-
ster was alive. It was the intention of the builder of the raksasa to make him seem
like Cikarabala and Balaupata, the gods who guard the stone door at the gateway
to the kingdom of the gods.
To the left and right of the gateway were forests and fields planted with trees
and flowers. There were many bird statues, made to look like the originals. Truly
expert was the one who made these replicas, so much so that it seemed it was a
real forest.
The Wiratha palace was clean, the ground was covered with fine sand. The
water was from a source that was channelled into the palace through a reservoir.
The water in the channel smelled sweetly because it was scented with the perfume
and flowers of the sacred srimpi dancers. Indeed, in the palace of Wiratha, there
was not a scent that disappointed one.
Accompanied by an Ayak-ayakan in pathet slendro nem, the king sits down

and sends servants to fetch his wife. Then at the sound of Gendhing udan asih
(rain of love), the female servants, Limbuk, and finally the queen emerge
and sit down in order. The queen is described as descending from the blood
of royalty, and while her face usually shines with extreme beauty, she is cur-
rently ill, suffering from the month-long loss of her daughter. The king and
queen discuss the situation and the possible solutions brought about by their
own son’s searching and the decree of the king. They reassure one another
and then rise to retire to their private quarters after burning incense to insure
the safety of those in the palace. Even though the king is already pure, he
prays and meditates. We leave the king and queen together in the palace,
seeking comfort, conjugal delight in each other, and wisdom about the way
30 The identity of this painted couple hinges on the uncertain meaning of the word kamandaka.
See Gericke and Roorda 1901:533.
to proceed, while the scene changes to continue the development of the story
(translated and paraphrased from Kusumadilaga 1981:73-5, 202-5).
In the scenes I have just described we become gradually aware of the
splendour of the palace and of the king himself. As he progresses through to
the inner palace, heavily burdened with the woes of his present situation, he
pauses to console himself, first by admiring the glory of his residence, then
through intimate discussions with his wife. That the king stops to admire
the portal is significant, for it represents the boundary between two oppos-
ing forces which draw simultaneously at the heart and mind of this king in
particular, but also of any ruler. Facing one direction, he is urged to journey
away from the inner palace towards his responsibilities as leader of the king-
dom, to make the decisions that will lead him to face the perils that await
him, to meet his duties with full consciousness and honour. The gateway
marks the line at which these insistent worldly responsibilities become pre-
dominant. Facing the other direction, he is drawn inward: the gateway is the
opening into the divine and delicious love of his wife, his circle of intimates,
the resplendent inner palace where he can luxuriate in the love and honour
offered him by his family, simultaneously protecting them with his love and
sustained by their love and respect for him. Here he finds emotional support
and advice as well as sexual and aesthetic pleasure.
If we now turn to Supomo’s translation of the Old Javanese Bharatayuddha,
one is continually struck by the structural similarities between segments of
the story (as well as the overall structure of the whole poem) and that of
contemporary wayang lakon. Battles that build and then end inconclusively,
as might usually occur in a Pathet Nem section of a wayang, are followed by
moments of meditation or retreat as might occur in a Pathet Sanga section.
Periods of quietude or meditation then tumble chaotically into more signifi-
cant battles where one side or another gains a decisive victory, and then lead
inexorably on towards the terrible final battle as usually occurs in a Pathet
Manyura section of a wayang.31
31 The basic skeleton or balungan of a Central Javanese wayang lakon is built in three sections,
each corresponding to a particular mode. Each section has several ‘stock’ scenes which usually
occur, although dhalang are always manipulating the structure according to story line, audience
expectation, and their own innovations in performance style. The basic skeleton has the follow-
ing structure:
Slendro Nem: first audience scene; Limbukan (replacing the gapuran and the kedhatonan); departure
of the troops; audience scene in another palace; the prang gagal or failed battle. Slendro Sanga:
meditation scene; clown scene; prang kembang or flower battle in which there are some victories
but the problem of the story is not yet solved; scene in which the plot of the story is further expli-
cated. Slendro Manyura: scene in which the plot is moved toward its close; several battle scenes;
and a victory. It should be noted that there is not necessarily a forward, consecutive thrust to
the unfolding of the scenes in relation to one another. The structure of each mode section is mir-
rored in the structure of the whole story in terms of the ebb and flow of tension and release. This
In the Bharatayuddha the Pandawa brothers and the Kurawa clan fight to
settle the feud that has been raging between the families for twelve years
– as a result of the insulting expulsion of the Pandawa from their rightful
place in the kingdom of Hastina by their cousins, the Kurawa. Despite the
long feud, Yudhisthira as leader with his four Pandawa brothers and their
allies agree that they should try to prevent the war and so seek reconciliation
with the Kurawa. They decide to use Kresna, the respected friend and coun-
sellor of both the feuding families, as a mediator. Duryodhana, king of the
Kurawa, remains adamant in his refusal to give back to the Pandawa their
part of the kingdom. At nightfall he and his allies plot to kill the messenger,
but Kresna is warned and assumes his most terrifying divine shape as the
god Wishnu, embodiment of all gods and categories of nature. He resumes
his human form, leaves the assembly to say goodbye to Kunti, mother of the
Pandawa, and returns to the Pandawa camp. After Kresna reports his failure,
the Pandawa decide that they have tried all means except brute force to solve
the dispute and they resolve to challenge Duryodhana. Commanders are
designated on both sides and the battles begin. As the commanders fall, new
ones are consecrated, each one having to make uncomfortable choices since
most of those involved in the dispute are related by blood or satria (warrior)
loyalty to one another. Deceptions and breaches of loyalty of all kinds are
practiced by both sides in order to win. Wives, mothers, and sisters advise
and mourn and then traipse through the battlefields searching for the bodies
of their loved ones. When they find them they beseech their dead to wait for
them, then they kill themselves in order to follow into the glorious realm of
the afterlife. Although they lose most of their children in valiant battle, the
Pandawa brothers survive the fight and Yudhisthira is proclaimed a world
conqueror (Zoetmulder 1974:74-7; Sudibyoprono 1991; Supomo 1993).
The following translation from the Bharatayuddha Canto 5 is an example
of a kedhatonan-type scene which is similar to that quoted from the Serat
Sastramiruda above. This scene in the Bharatayuddha occurs in about the same
place in the structure of the story as would a kedhatonan scene in any wayang
performance. The basic problem of the story has been exposed, Kresna has
come to ask for reconciliation without war, and the king who has to deal with
the problem, Duryodhana, has retired to the comforts of the palace and his
wife to contemplate the solutions and the decisions which must be made. In
this scene, the palace itself is not as elaborately described as it is in the Serat
Sastramiruda, rather, the activities and emotions of the people within the
palace are the focus. Nevertheless, as in the scene with King Basukeswara,
kind of flux in the flow of tension is also felt in the individual scenes and in their relation to one
another and the whole in the Bharatayuddha. In other words both the over-arching structure and
that of the individual scenes of the epic themselves imply the shape of a wayang lakon.
the same prosperous, fertile, reassuring, and compelling mood is created.

Kresna has left the Kurawa camp having come, unsuccessfully, to implore
them not to begin the war. After this disturbing departure, King Duryodhana
retires in distress to his quarters in Queen Banowati’s32 abode. After the day
has cooled, along with Duryodhana’s despair, and the beauty of the night is
awakened, Canto 5 begins:
1. The moon’s enchanting radiance so enhanced the splendour of the palace,
that the golden pavilion which seemed to flare into the sky was now quite beyond
compare. Its walls, moreover, were formed of various jewels strung together like
embroidered flowers. It was here that Banowati and king Duryodhana lay sleep-
ing, enraptured by love.
2. To the west was a well-arranged garden complete with a golden pavilion; the
sands in the yard, sparkling brightly, were made of corals mixed with beautiful
pearls; the walls of its fences were of opals and sapphires, the lotuses, of luminous
emeralds; the gates were inlaid with blazing diamonds, while the head-monster
sculptures were of gleaming crystals.
3. There the jewels among women were vying with each other in the moon-
light, admiring the beauty of the moon. Truly, the ladies of the inner court were
as elegant as poems written on panels; so sweet that their every movement and
gesture aroused desire and love, as tantalizing as mangosteens collected during
the spring, seasoned with pandanus petals covered with drawings.
4. At their ease, some played a whispering game, as they revelled in the moon-
light. Suddenly a maiden was overcome by emotion that inflamed her passion.
Then a maid-servant acting as a medium of love, came forward to speak words
of affection. Under the pretext of whispering the message passed on in the game,
she murmured the laments of an impassioned lover.
5. Others were sitting side by side, playing a coin-passing game, jovially hold-
ing the coin in turn. And the maiden, whose love was blossoming, found a way
to pass on the message – to accomplish her purpose, she did not pass the coin
she received from the other woman but, pretending to pass the coin, she calmly
handed her beautiful love poems.
6. Then the maiden wounded by the arrows of the God of Love went off to lie
under a wungu tree, and was lulled to sleep by her servant who comforted her as
she massaged her tired feet. Moreover, the servant was skilful in weaving into her
song the seductive words of the lover who aroused her mistress’ passion. This was
why her heart was broken, like shattered glass falling onto stones.
7. Others whiled away time pleasantly by playing delightful gamelan music in
the moonlight. But the moon suddenly disappeared like a lamp extinguished by
illicit lovers; the all-encompassing darkness of the night was like that of the bed
chamber of eager lovers enjoying the pleasures of love; only the stars twinkled like
the weary eyes of a maiden just deflowered.
8. In the stillness of the middle of the night, the sound of the Brahmins hum-
ming the sacred ‘aum’ was as pleasing as the drone of bees seeking flowers cast
32 Supomo uses the spelling of Bhanumati for the name of the wife of Duryodhana. I have
chosen to spell it Banowati as this is contemporary practice in Central Java.
aside by lovers; the melodious tinkling of bells together with the clashing of
jayaghanta cymbals were as haunting as the sound of gending and curing cymbals
during the first menstruation ceremony for a pretty girl performed by the maid-
servants.
9. The night vanished as suddenly as a man must sever his attachment without
regard for his beloved, and the morning star shone brightly at the same time as
the illicit lover left. The booming sound of the pounding mallet could be likened
to the signal from the accomplice of the lover loath to depart, and the sounds of
the crowing cocks rang out like the laments of the love-lorn woman. (Supomo
1993:171-2.)
In Canto 6 the mysterious and pleasurable sounds and smells of the previ-
ous evening are revealed, the anxiety of the moment before a battle returns
as the people of the court recover in the beautiful morning light, yet the jew-
els, beautiful ornaments, and natural wonders shimmer even more clearly
(Canto 6.4).
4. The jewels gleaming on the gates of the palace became even brighter. The
trees no longer reminded the women exposing their hair to the morning dew of
shadow puppets; the forms of the casurina trees that had been heard sighing all
night long could now be distinguished; and the waterfall that made a soft sound
like the murmur of people in the assembly was now clearly visible. (Supomo
1993:171.)
The departure of the night is described as similar to that of a man leaving his
lover, imitating the determination needed to leave such irresistible delights.
The author, too, drags his attention from the brightness of the morning and
begs the reader to turn to the cleansing activities of the king of the Kurawa
(Kuru) as he prepares to depart from his quarters to the main audience hall.33
Although the king departs in a brilliant procession, the reluctance he and the
poet feel for the leaving belies the grandeur. Canto 6 continues as follows:
6. The sun beamed brightly, like the lips of a lover smiling at his beloved,
enhancing the magnificence of the design of the entrancing jewelled pavilion. The
walls moreover were made of mirrors, which was said to be the reason that the
bees bumped against them, when they saw the reflection of the kamuning flowers
on the other side.
7. At that time, furthermore, a fine rain together with a fragrant breeze came
to cleanse the splendid diamond pavilion which became dazzlingly bright. The
gleaming pinnacle of the pavilion was like a decoy for beautiful, thin clouds, for it
resembled the slough of the moon which remains behind after the moon passes.
8. But let us tell no more of the bright morning and turn instead to the king
of the Kurus who had come out from the inner court. After bathing and adorn-
33 In wayang, the departure scene after the kedhatonan scene is known as the kapalan.
ing himself in his customary fashion, he made preparations to go to Widura’s

residence to issue an invitation to Krsna [Kresna], in the company of the noble
Yuyutsu, Krpa, Sakuni, and Karna.
9. The king arrived there quickly and was received by Krsna and Widura.
Having addressed each other cordially, he then invited Krsna to come to the audi-
ence hall. Shortly thereafter, he set off in the company of a magnificent entourage,
while the booming sound of the music leading the procession called beautiful
people to come out from their houses. (Supomo 1993:172.)
The parallels between the descriptions of the pleasures experienced and com-
forts derived by King Duryodhana and King Basukeswara in their respective
inner palaces, despite being separated by seven hundred years, are unmis-
takable. That each ruler knows he will have to leave to face the challenges
and duties of his position with honour is felt through the description of the
reluctance each feels at the unavoidable prospect of leaving. (In both sources,
the inner palace is associated with women and femaleness. It is a place where
bonds are formed between women/femaleness and men/maleness and where
well-being and prosperity are generated.) The interaction between the king
and his wife in the gapuran and kedhatonan scenes connects with the aesthetic
of gendered order and chaos on several levels. By describing the king as he
stops to admire his palace and possessions on the way to seek counsel with his
wife, the dhalang’s narration allows us to feel the order and prosperity that is
generated by the union between the king and the queen. This glorious centre
in which the masculine and the feminine intermingle in the creation of a com-
plete and prosperous whole serves to confirm the significance of the union of
the royal pair but also to state the source of stability and strength for the king
as he faces the challenges of his reign. The inner, female realm of the court
interacts, through the meeting of the king with his queen, with the male chaos
that is unfolding as armies and competing rulers from distant realms converge.
The irony is that the order and rightness that the king can bring to the world is
nurtured primarily in his palace amongst his female family members whom he
must leave in order to do his duty. It is the inevitability of the hero’s having to
break away from his pleasurable duty to his family to confront the obligations
of his honor and leadership around which many Javanese stories turn.
Pain and pleasure of separation: the order and chaos of loyalty
An even more emotional departure appears in the Old Javanese version of the
Bharatayuddha as Salya leaves Setyawati for what is certain to be his own death.
King Salya is asked by Nakula, his nephew, to be the commander of the armies
of Duryodhana after the death of King Karna. King Salya had been against the
war from the beginning because, linked to the Kurawa as he is, he knows he
would have to side against the Pandawa who are also his relatives. After the
battle in which Karna is killed, Salya returns to his quarters, which are,
exactly like a palace. Although it was originally an open field, it now looks
enchanting with all the newly erected buildings. A fence served as the outer walls
and its entrance, complete with a canopy, looked like a town gate. The arrange-
ment of the encampment resembles that of an audience courtyard of a palace.
(Supomo 1993:228.)
After imagining the setting as one of a palace and its gate, the poet tells us of
Salya who is oblivious to the edible delights offered him upon his entry into
the inner palace, moving directly to meet with his beloved Setyawati with
whom he discusses the day’s events.34 Nakula arrives and prostrates himself,
begging for Salya to accept the role of commander of King Duryodhana’s
armies. Salya accepts because he cannot refuse, and after Nakula leaves,
Setyawati tries to kill herself because she feels she is not brave enough to fol-
low Salya to the battlefield after his death and immolate herself. Salya reas-
sures her, insisting that he will not die, for how could he bear to be separated
from her. Canto 38 continues,
8. ‘In short, how could I bear to be separated from you? I would only desire
death if you yourself were to die. However, for as long as your beauty remains,
how can I stop loving you? Would a bee leave flowers to fly to the moon?’
9. Thus the king spoke, comforting her skilfully with loving words, interspersed
with lyrics and songs, as well as jokes and passionate words of endearment, so
that they achieved the most sensuous enjoyment of sexual union in accordance
with the kamatantra. Then he continued to console her, to still her anxiety, and sang
her soothingly to sleep.
10. The queen was absorbed in their love-making, and now she was weary,
exhausted, and trembling. Moreover, she had not slept for a long while, and so,
unaware, her eyes dimmed. ‘I must not fall asleep’, she said, for she was afraid
that the king would leave her. But now she was oblivious to the world about her,
happily dreaming of bathing in the river of the gods.
11. Then, while she was asleep, using his arm as a pillow, the bell struck the
seventh hour, as if to awaken him. The king awoke, but he was worried that the
queen sleeping on his arm, might be awakened too, and he could imagine how
she would cling to him, lamenting and weeping.
12. This was why he moved aside and gently freed his arm from under her.
But his outer garment was still beneath her, twisting around her awkwardly, so
without regret he swiftly cut it with his kris, and rearranged the remainder of the
garment that trailed on the bed, covering her with it.
13. Grief-stricken, he departed reluctantly and came back time and again to kiss
34 Even though this occurs in the middle of the text, as noted before, this version of the
Bharatayuddha is structured as many wayang lakon within a larger wayang lakon. This retreat of
Salya’s is again similar to a kedhatonan scene.
her. He placed his quid and chewed betel-leaves in her hand, and striving after her
love, he placed his writing board at her breast like a doll. His tears were the tears
of the doll which was crying because it had been left behind.
14. Its laments, in the form of a poem, had been written on it, as it lay sorrow-
fully [on her breast]. ‘Tell your mother that I, your father, have left her secretly.
“He said that he was going into battle, mother, and that he would make every
effort to enhance your beauty, for he would be ashamed if Ratih would not pay
homage to you as a temple of love”.’
15. Thus was the short message he wrote on the writing board. Then he put to
rights her loosened hairknot, placing wiraga flowers in it, and putting back the
scattered hair-decoration of campaka and jasmine flowers, but its radiance, thus
restored, now seemed to restrain and prevent him from leaving.
16. Moreover, her appearance looked even more enchanting, unearthly and
divine, while the lights that shone brightly as if serving her, enhanced her beauty.
So filled with pity and compassion, the king was heartbroken and distracted. His
mind was confused, terribly disturbed, as he was torn by passion and love.
17. Finally he left, all the while glancing back, sighing and murmuring. His
deep love for the queen prompted his tears, which he brushed aside time and
again. He walked slowly, as if being restrained, pausing at every step, and he
would not have proceeded into battle had he not wished to be faithful to his word.
(Supomo 1993:233-4.)
When Salya finally emerges from the inner palace the armies have already
been waiting patiently for a long time. They proceed to the battlefield and, as
was predicted, Salya dies. It is in this departure scene that the painful choice
between love, family – the connection with things female – and the honour
and duties of a warrior or satriya is most clearly described. Were it not for his
duty to his word, Salya would not have left Setyawati for what was certainly
going to be his doom.
Particularly Javanese additions to the Bharatayuddha
One of the most interesting aspects about these two scenes from the Old
Javanese Bharatayuddha is that neither of them occurs in Indian versions of the
story. These and several other scenes in which women or family are the focus
are Javanese additions to this portion of the Mahabharata. Supomo(1993:33)
has already noticed that,
[i]t is this introduction of women into the battle scenes in the Bharatayuddha
which constitutes the most significant [Javanese] departure from the Mahabharata.
They are brought into the picture not to be involved in the real fighting, let alone
to affect the conduct of the war, but there is no doubt that their presence gives the
present kakawin a new complexion that differs greatly from the scene of the great
war as depicted in the Mahabharata.
In Canto 9.13-9.14, Kunti the mother of the Pandawa brothers and aunt of the
Kurawa brothers, who usually stays in the Kurawa-controlled kingdom of
Hastina, journeys to visit the Pandawa, staying with them at Kuruksetra. In
Canto 12.1-12.4, King Wiratha and his queen mourn the death of their sons.
In Canto 14.4 one of the wives of the slain Abimanyu, Ksitisundari, prepares
herself, through a long lamentation, to follow him. In Canto 19.13-19.19
Hidimbi laments the death of her son Gathotkaca, takes leave of Dropadi
and Kunti, two other important mothers in the story, and then leaps into the
fire. In Canto 44.1-45.2 Setyawati searches through the battlefield until she
finds Salya’s body and then stabs herself to join him in heaven. After Dropadi
laments the deaths of her sons and blames Kresna in Canto 51.1-51.12, Kresna
tries to console her but with no effect. Wiyasa appears and gives her the
power to observe her sons in heaven. The only other significant Javanese
additions to the poem are the beginning and ending cantos which locate the
story in Java as well as a few transitional verses connecting events which
are not connected in the Indic versions used by the poets who Javanized the
story (Supomo 1993:14-21).
In her ‘Dying by fire and kris; Speaking to women in the realm of death’,
Linda Connor (1995) suggests a reason for this addition of such scenes to an
Indic text which had previously been almost totally concerned with men and
their deaths and victories on the battle field.35 Connor is curious about the
ritualized death of wives after their husbands are killed. She reassesses the
colonial and later Western interpretations of this ritual and points out that in
Javanese and Balinese texts in which there is widow sacrifice, the words sati
and bela are given as titles to a woman who has killed or will kill herself to
follow her dead husband or lover. They do not describe the process or the
ritual, which is now associated with the word as it has come into scholarly
use, as in the anglicized suttee. Connor suggests that passages such as the
one in Supomo’s translation of the Bharatayuddha in which Ksitisundari takes
leave of her women friends and follows Abimanyu in death by leaping on
his funeral pyre,
alert us to the possibility that a woman’s decision to kill herself on the death of a
loved one may not merely be a transplant of some purportedly monolithic Indian
institution of Sati. Rather, it belongs to locally constructed realms of heroic action
in which both men and women were active. (Connor 1995:7-8.)
Connor suggests that the most salient feeling expressed by key characters
is the agony of separation. For men the way to resolve this is to fight on in
a more wild fashion, committing death-defying feats of bravery, occasion-
35 This was a conference paper presented to the Third International Bali Studies Workshop at
the University of Sydney, 3-7 July 1995.
ally ending in death. For women and men the reunion through a journey to
another realm, in order to follow and join the loved one, is the solution to the
agony of separation. ‘The deaths effected the transition of social relationships
from this world to another, rather than a total annihilation’ (Connor 1995:10).
Connor notices these same images of following and reunion in kakawin texts
thought to be composed at a date which is later than the Bharatayuddha text
used for this study. Despite this, however, there seems to be no evidence that
Javanese and Balinese women actually were expected to immolate them-
selves when their husbands and lovers were killed. Instead, Connor suggests
that a more generalized concept of self-destruction to defend the honour of
ruler and realm was long part of the political culture of Java and Bali, one not
necessarily associated with females only. Connor mentions the mass Balinese
ritual suicides of 1906 and 1908 as recent examples of this kind of emotional
and decisive act.36
Connor’s focus is on the addition of extended laments and subsequent
death scenes of women stricken with despair at the loss of their loved ones.
The parallel addition of intimate family scenes in both palatial homes and
temporary, but comforting and comfortable, battlefield residences can be
understood to strengthen the intensity of this agony of separation for both
men and women, by representing the choice these satriya warriors must
make between duty to their role as satriya and duty to their family in tangi-
ble terms while on the battlefield. This allows the reader/reciter/listener to
experience these choices and inevitable departures in a more immediate way,
enhancing the resultant empathy as well as reinforcing a locally constructed
perspective on the nature of the relationships between women and men, loy-
alty and duty, inside and outside.
In his paper ‘War and death as domestic bliss; Locating the dominant
in the Old Javanese Bharatayuddha’, Tony Day (1996) discusses the conflict
between dogma and feeling as represented in the Salya/Setyawati vignette
36 Connor also notices that a related kind of death, suicides of women who were to be paid
as tribute, took place in the Majapahit sphere. Women who were used as tribute were critical to
the political process. ‘The presence of princesses from conquered realms was a material realiza-
tion of the subsidiary status of client states. [...] There was likely to be contestation about their
exact position in the ruler’s hierarchy of consorts, for the status of the woman in the court at
the ruling centre mirrored the status of the realm from which she originated.’ (Connor 1995:13.)
Women who were given as tribute after their realm had been vanquished could not expect that
they would be guaranteed a high position in the new court. ‘These women did sometimes choose
to kill themselves rather than be taken as hanyang at a conqueror’s court’ (Connor 1995:14). The
interpretation of these kinds of death have varied over time and in local construction, particular-
ly in a society where women were not only political pawns but also queens who wielded power
over their husbands, brothers, and sons. Whether the agony of separation is caused, healed, or
prevented by this kind of death, one of the most significant aspects is the intense emotion with
which they are associated.
in the Bharatayuddha episode in the context of Raymond Williams’s concept

of a hegemony as a lived system of meanings and values (see also Day
2002a:236-51).37 Day (1996:8-9) suggests that,
the ‘dominant’ as represented in the poem embraces powerfully contradictory
sets of values, one associated with the concepts and institutions of Indic male
kingship, the other with women, sexual politics, ‘beauty,’ and family loyalty. The
contradictions between these two value systems are resolved but not eliminated
through the domestification of war and death, so that engaging in the former and
suffering the latter in fulfilment of the kesatriya code of conduct is rewarded with
sexual bliss in the embrace of the family in the afterlife. [...] Sexual desire and
family love are shown to be essential to as well as dangerous for the bonds of
loyalty which bind courtiers to kings, servants to masters, wives to husbands. The
Javanese interpolations in the [Bharatayuddha] particularly evoke and illustrate
the emotional makeup of such relationships. The attention paid in the Javanese
version of the story to Salya’s sexual passion for Setyawati, then to her passionate
reunion with him in death, must be understood in part as a representation of the
kind of emotional intensity which should inhere in every master-servant relation-
ship. [...] The story of Salya and Setyawati expresses contradictions which are
internal to the definition of the hegemonic in the poem.
Day suggests that the instability caused by the need to choose between these
two contradictory sets of values is part of the aesthetic power of the poem,
‘awakening both sexual desire and a passion for right conduct in the reader’
(Day 1996:8). It is important to realize that the enactment of these two sets of
values is not gender-specific, since both men and women can embody sexual
passion and passion for right conduct. However, these sets of values them-
selves are associated with particular genders. Sexual passion is associated
with home, prosperity, fertility, and family, with the realm in which women
are located. Passion for right conduct is associated with loyalty to the ideals
of satriya, the proper way of being especially in the society of men. It is the
interaction between maleness and femaleness, the pull of both worlds and
sets of values on individuals that, in Central Javanese stories, propels a myth,
lakon, or individual life. The Javanese additions to the Bharatayuddha con-
struct a dynamic tension in the gendered relationship between loyalty and
duty. Failure to follow duty always yields chaos. This same dynamic tension
resonates in the myths told today about Central Javanese fertility and pros-
perity, the harvest and marriage rituals, the myths told about female gender
players and Central Javanese interpretations of their role during discussions
about female gender players and female-style genderan.
The flow and dynamic tension of scenes in the Bharatayuddha is reflected
37 Day’s paper was presented in at the Forty-eighth Annual Meeting of the Association for
Asian Studies, Honolulu Hawaii, 11-14 April 1996.
in the structure of scenes with similar function as described in the Serat

Sastramiruda. Gendered interaction between chaos and order is present but
functions on different levels in the texts. The ache of dual loyalties to separate
but mutually-confirming, gendered realms that permeates the Bharatayuddha
reveals the interaction at the level of events that shake humanity, while the
interaction between Durgandini and Palasara and the generative chaos they
endure, followed by their ensuing prosperity, seems to function on the level
of the individual, until we remember that their child is the grandfather of
the clans whose victories and follies lead to the same Bharatayuddha and
its pan-human consequences. There is clearly a continuity between the rules
of wayang performance as codified in the Serat Sastramiruda and the stories,
themes, and plot structure of the Bharatayuddha. This continuity strongly
suggests, if it does not prove, that ‘old’ and ‘court’ wayang are linked to one
another across centuries of social and political change in Java. My reading of
the Old Javanese Bharatayuddha also allows us to listen to the music of the
female gender player in a way that leads us ‘back’ to a much older aesthetic.
The gender player’s music evokes the rasa of the moment and the story as
the dhalang performs. Her genderan is associated with emotion and feeling
– passion and anger, pensiveness and decisiveness, love and despair. In the
Central Javanese interpretations and interpolations of the Mahabharata, from
which nearly all of the wayang stories are drawn, emotion and feeling as well
as opulence, confirmation of male potency, and the beautiful – in both human
and literary form – are located in the domain of the female. This domain is
the palace, the home, the source of male solace, the location of loyalty and
prosperity to which the satriya feels eternally and happily bound and from
which he must inevitably wrench himself in order fulfill his noble pledge.38
Although she plays constantly, the moments in which the female style of
genderan is most noticeable39 are when the dhalang is speaking dialogue or
narration and there is no other musical sound. The sounds of the gender and
the dhalang’s voice, the emotions and the ideas they evoke together – associ-
ated with Central Javanese interpretations of gendered interaction – become
the focus; action and movement recede. The source of the words is realized
in the human, male form of the dhalang; the source of the emotions is realized
in the human, female form of the gender player performing mode-specific
(also mood-specific) melodies that delicately support and intertwine with
the utterances of the dhalang. The continuousness of her playing reflects her
constant loyalty to the needs and the moods of the dhalang. These attributes
parallel the loyalty and support of a queen in her own palace wherein her
38 It is also the place in which the lakon begins and to which it returns. See Alton Becker (1979).
39 These moments are also the places in which the unique repertoire of grimingan melodies
discussed in Chapter I are used.
satriya seeks solace and emerges rejuvenated, reassured, and from whence
he travels buoyed by the constancy of her devotion. The aural interplay
between the female sound of the gender and the male sound of the dhalang’s
voice replicates the generative interaction of femaleness and maleness, the
tension between the desire for sexual passion and home and the desire for
noble, right conduct in the stories told during the wayang performance. The
interaction between the femaleness of the gender player and the maleness of
dhalang is equivalent to, echoes, and further develops the underlying prin-
ciple of the older Central Javanese aesthetic I have described. In a wayang
accompanied by a female gender player and performed by a male dhalang,
this aesthetic is expressed repeatedly on multiple levels I have described.40
This conclusion also argues for seeing a close connection between ‘court’
and ‘village’ traditions of shadow puppet theatre in colonial Java. From what
we can discern, court and village traditions began to separate in the middle
of the nineteenth century, well after the onset of the colonial experience for
the Javanese but soon after the colonization of Javanese cultural produc-
tion in Central Java. As the two styles moved away from one another, the
divergent cultural contexts of the performers affected the kinds of changes
that occurred. The urban, colonial, and increasingly erudite context of court
wayang encouraged ideas of form, process, theory, and structure to develop
and adherence to the rules regarding these aspects became primary aesthetic
markers. The role of the individual performer in expressing the aesthetic
of gendered generative interaction faded gradually, although the aesthetic
remained strongly inscribed in the order and content of the prescribed scenes.
Because they performed outside of the colonized context of the courts, vil-
lage performers were not as influenced by these trends, and so retained the
aesthetic of a gendered, generative interaction as central to their performance
practice. Within the context of this understanding of cultural change in colo-
nial Java, the explanations and rationalizations performers use to describe
their preference for female-style genderan lose their ad hoc defensive tone and
emerge as meaningful statements that can help us to listen back to the histori-
cal origins of wayang performance and its aesthetic in Central Java.
40 Compare with Feld’s (1988) concept of the ‘feelingfully’ synonymous discussed in the
Introduction.
CONCLUSION
Final soundings
Understanding the aesthetics of a particular time and culture, historical or

contemporary, presents numerous challenges and problems. As it is always
an interpretive process, it is easy to disagree simply by pointing out an
example that does not fit. Aesthetic systems are not monolithic as they are
always emergent and reflect generalized ideas as well as those of individual
practitioners. The aesthetic continuities that I have outlined in this book recur
in different Javanese genres over periods of centuries and as such cannot
be dismissed out of hand. It has only been possible to discern the signifi-
cance of the aesthetic I have described by approaching the topic from many
angles. Understanding the shifting nature of gender relations through time,
assessing Javanese reactions to colonial and more contemporary ideas and
philosophies, has made it possible to connect the range of comments about
female gender players and the music they play with major aesthetic shifts
and trends that have occurred since the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Contextualizing old-style wayang and female-style genderan in the historical
arc of Javanese interaction with Indic and Islamic aesthetics1 and stories, in
particular the hybrid nature of Javanese rasa, encourages us to put the kinds
of changes observed in Javanese wayang performance over the course of the
twentieth century in perspective.
What does the identification of this kind of aesthetic continuity, through
multiple cultural upheavals over several historical epochs, mean? It certainly
suggests, contrary to scholarly trends in the 1990s, that there is such a thing
as culture, that culture exists beyond any individual’s interpretation of the
moment.2 With respect to Javanese wayang, the identification of this kind of
1 See Judith Becker 1993; Weiss 2003; Ricklefs 1998 for further discussion of the interconnec-
tions between Indic and Islamic aesthetic and stylistic traditions.
2 After receiving much attention in the 1940s and 1950s with the work of researchers like
Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and many others, culture lost importance as a focus for investi-
gation for researchers working outside of anthropology. In the 1980s the work of Clifford Geertz
emphatically confirmed the significance of culture to understanding societies for anthropolo-
gists. In the 1990s anthropologists subsequently abandoned culture to a great degree, focusing
instead on postcolonialism, globalization, and other theoretically trans-cultural concepts. The
aesthetic continuity encourages us to examine contemporary performance

more carefully, looking, not simply for the discontinuities caused by innova-
tions, hybridizations, and the ‘impact’ of the West, but also for how these
performances might express continuities, in aesthetic terms, that are still
active in the performance tradition, in particular through the examination of
innovations that endure.
With respect to analysis of gender in Java, this study has moved beyond
any of the strategies previously used for analyzing gender relations outlined
in Chapter II. In the aesthetic that I have described, male and female aspects
are equally necessary to the generation of the prosperity that is the desired
result, be it the arrival of rice through the inadvertent death of Dewi Srilowati
by Bhatara Guru’s crown or the arrival of a pusaka court heirloom to its proper
place through the riveting performance of wayang by Ki Bicak and his wife.
This idea of binary interaction is related to but different from the binariness
of Javanese gender relations described by Schrieke and other Dutch structur-
alist scholars in which representations of the two genders tend to be equal
and non-interactive, while the hierarchy of male over female is maintained.
The key to my interpretation is the importance of interaction between gen-
ders and the intersection of the genders with what I have called ‘order’ and
‘chaos’. I have outlined interactions between the genders, chaos, and order
in myths; in interpretations of the natural world and its relationship to the
humans who live in it; in machinations to maintain or secure political stabil-
ity; and in the performance of music and wayang. What we have here is not a
gendered structure, but a male/female dialectic that has been a dynamic force
for cultural creation throughout Javanese history.
A primary aspect of any analysis is the construction of systems. We sys-
tematize to reveal the implied order in what we observe and intuit. While this
structure clarifies and crystallizes our understanding of the elements that have
been observed, the interactions between the elements is obscured. If we talk
about Javanese aesthetics, however, process is what participants in the creation
and reception of the aesthetic experience, not structure (Weiss 2003; Brinner
1995). To focus solely on the structure of a dance, a conversation, an event, a
text, etcetera, is to miss the process of its performative creation. In terms of
understanding Javanese gender constructions, it is important to notice that the
pairings of male with chaos, female with order, male with order, and female
1990s were also the period in which scholars in economics and political science finally turned
to local elements or ‘culture’ as they endeavored to discover why, given similar postcolonial
starting points, some nations thrived and others foundered. Harrison and Huntington (2000) is
an edited volume in which multiple authors explore the role of culture in development success
and failure, demonstrating a ‘new’ analytical angle for economists and political scientists. I am
contributing to an ongoing debate about the nature and significance of ‘culture’ in the study of
society and history.
Conclusion 161
with chaos are shifting and susceptible to reconfiguration. This fluidity helps
to contextualize and explain the kinds of diametrically opposed constructions
of gender relations that have been observed by anthropologists (Brenner 1998;
Hildred Geertz 1961). Whether gender hegemonies are contested or accepted
in a particular situation does not put an end to their ever-changing nature, a
quality that is captured in female-style genderan.
This study of Javanese aesthetics reveals that it is in the interstices of
structure that meaning is made. In the performance of a Javanese musical
piece, the arrival points in the melody form the structure of the piece, but the
process of getting to those arrival points is what brings the gendhing alive,
allows the musicians to create a compelling performance. Similarly, it is not
the presence or order of the scenes of a wayang that make the performance.
It is the interpretation of the scenes, the interaction between the dhalang and
the musicians and the audience, the process of building and getting from
one scene to the next that is important. The aesthetic of gendered, genera-
tive interaction, between characters, scenes, and performers, observed and
described in a range of circumstances in this study, is the product and guid-
ing principle of ‘old’, ‘village’, and ‘court’ wayang styles in Central Java.
I have crossed the boundaries of several disciplines in this study. Historical
and anthropological approaches intersect with gender studies, ethnomusi-
cological analysis, and ethnographic methods. The dangers of disturbing
disciplinary boundaries are well-known, but the study of aesthetic tradi-
tions demands this kind of interdisciplinary approach. Isolating female-style
genderan as a women’s musical tradition, only contemplating the historical
constructions of gender, or ignoring the early interpolations and additions
to Javanese versions of the Bharatayuddha would have limited our ability to
grasp the cultural and historical significance of the musical data. The conclu-
sions that I have drawn also invite a response from scholars whose interests
lie outside Javanese performance studies. As ethnomusicologists increasing
probe the musics of diasporic communities, the kind of interdisciplinary, his-
torically based analysis I have attempted will enable us to discern significant
aesthetic connections between communities living on opposite sides of the
world or far-removed from one another in time.3 As specialists interested in
the intersections between gender and music move beyond the worthy task
of documenting the presence of women in performing traditions around the
world, exploration of the connections between the ethnographic present and
the aesthetics of the past will enable us to discern the importance, not just of
gender, but of gendered interaction, to the development and maintenance of
musical tradition.4 We cannot hear the actual sounds of Java in the twelfth
3 The essays in Ingrid Monson’s The African diaspora (2003) move in this direction.
4 Ellen Koskoff (2001) and Jane Sugarman (1997) both engage with related kinds of cross-
century, but we can ‘listen back’ when we understand what we are still hear-
ing about the past in the sounds of the present.
disciplinary questions. Aesthetics and gender in historical and contemporary contexts are primary
concerns in each of these studies as they are in Rice (1994) and Shelemay (1980, 1998, 2002).
Glossary
balungan Melodic skeleton of a gendhing as played by the balungan

instruments of the gamelan; the group members who play
the balungan melody.
batik Fabric dyed with different colours in which each dying is
preceded by an application of wax on the areas that will not
be dyed by a particular colour.
Bharatayuddha Final battle of the Kurawa and Pandawa clans as depicted in
the Indic epic Mahabharata; one of the first parts of this epic
to have been translated into Javanese and indigenized.
dhalang Puppeteer for a wayang kulit performance.
dhong tone Home pitch of a pathet.
gambang Five-octave xylophone used in Javanese gamelan.
gamelan Central Javanese ensemble of mostly bronze gong-type
instruments and including rebab, gambang, siter, celempung,
suling, and voices. The ensemble is often used to accompany
dance and shadow puppet performance.
garapan The in-performance working-out of a part for a panerusan
instrument; the interpretation or realization of a particular
balungan melody in a particular performance.
gatra Smallest complete phrase in Javanese music; a four-note
grouping as played on the balungan instruments.
gembyang An interval struck on a gender in which four other keys
separate the struck notes; interval is usually some kind of
octave.
gender A ten to fourteen-keyed metallophone with slabs suspended
over pitched resonators. When conveying this meaning the
word, pronounced with a hard ‘g’, always appears in italics.
When gender appears unitalicized it refers to biological sex
or the cultural construction thereof.
genderan Music played on the gender.
gendhing Musical piece performed on a gamelan.
164 Glossary
grambyangan Musical phrase played on either the rebab or the gender intro-
ducing basic melodic and modal gestures for each pathet;
used before the performance of a gendhing or other musical
event.
grimingan Solo accompaniment played on the gender during wayang
performances.
karawitan The art of Javanese gamelan and vocal music.
kembangan A melodic flowering or ornamented elaboration played on
gender; from kembang (Javanese), flower.
kempul Small, hanging, pitched gong used to mark medial points
inside kenong phrases.
kempyung An interval struck on a gender in which two other keys sepa-
rate the struck notes; interval is usually some kind of fifth or
sixth.
kenong Large, racked, pitched gong used to mark phrases within
gong cycles at the quarter, half, third-quarter, and gong
points, or, in some forms, at the half and gong points; also
the musical phrase that occurs between two kenong strokes.
kethuk Small, racked gong, often paired with another higher pitched,
racked gong called kempyang; subdivides the flow of the
gendhing into shorter phrases.
klenengan Javanese gamelan music performed for its own sake and not
for the accompaniment of another performative activity; the
event at which such music will be performed.
kraton Palace or court.
Kyai General esteem-showing title for men and male-gendered
items. It is of equal status to the female honorific of Nyai. The
term is often used by dhalang as a title.
ladrang Common musical form in which each of four phrases is com-
posed of eight balungan beats, marked off by a kenong.
lakon The outline or ‘balungan’ of a wayang story.
lomba Competition; many music and other performance groups
participate in competitions organized both by the govern-
ment at various levels and by independent organizations.
Mahabharata An Indian epic which forms a major part of the repertoire
performed in wayang kulit and in other Javanese literary and
performance genres.
Nyai General esteem-showing title for women and female-gen-
dered items. It is of equal status to the male honorific of
Kyai. Often used as a title for female performers. During
the colonial period the term was also used to designate the
Indonesian female partner/wife of a European man.
Glossary 165
pakem A compendium or manual of wayang stories, plot-outlines,

and performance ideas.
panerusan Select group of instruments from the Javanese gamelan
whose role is more improvisatory and interactive than that of
the balungan. The group includes the gender, gender panerus,
gambang, siter, celempung, suling, rebab, and pasindhen.
pasindhen Female soloist in a Javanese gamelan performance. There are
usually several at any given performance.
pathet Modal classification system for gendhing. There are three
modes in each scale, slendro and pelog. When the word
appears with a capital P it refers to one of the three sections
of a wayang performance.
pathetan Mood song for a wayang kulit performance in which the
dhalang sings accompanied by rebab, gender, gambang, and
suling. The same pieces, performed without voice, may be
used before and after other performances involving Javanese
gamelan instruments.
pelog Seven-note Javanese scale; one half of a full Javanese gamelan
ensemble is tuned in pelog.
rasa Mood or emotion, the feeling of an event or an interaction.
rebab Two-stringed, spiked fiddle used in the Javanese gamelan.
rebutan A Javanese ritual event in which wealth is randomly dis-
persed as members of a group rush to seize part of a commu-
nal offering for themselves. It is contrasted with slametan.
ruwatan A shadow play performance given as an exorcism, often
performed to protect a child who is in danger because of his
or her birth order.
sirepan A sudden diminishing of volume and numbers of perform-
ers in the middle of gendhing usually to increase the audibil-
ity of the dhalang’s narrative.
slametan A Javanese ritual event in which wealth is symbolically
dispersed in an orderly manner as a communal offering is
carefully divided such that each person takes home an equal
share. It is contrasted with rebutan.
slendro Five-note Javanese scale; one half of a full Javanese gamelan
ensemble is tuned in slendro.
suling Bamboo flute used in the Javanese gamelan.
suluk, sulukan General term for the songs sung by the dhalang.
wayang kulit Shadow puppet performance using flat leather puppets, usu-
ally presenting Javanese interpretations of Indic Mahabharata
and Ramayana stories. The word wayang appearing by itself
can refer to an individual puppet or can often be used as a
shortened form of the term wayang kulit.
166 Glossary
wiletan Having to do with garapan or the interpretation of musical

phrases/pieces; also the basic contour of an interpretation
for a musical phrase or piece.
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Index
Abimanyu, Death of 89, 91, 154-5 Bagong (clown) 93

adi luhung 118 balungan
aesthetic(s) analogy to human body 21
and interpretation 159-60 and pathet 22
and rasa 12-3, 104-5, 103-30 relationship to melodies played by
and behaviour 12-3 other instruments 21
and sameness 42-4 relationship to parts played by
and restraint 12, 104-6 panerusan 22
continuity and culture 159-60 Basukeswara, Prabu 145, 148, 151
experiencing 105, 109 Batara Guru 82-3
in ethnomusicological analysis 16 batik see sameness
Kaluli 16 Becker, Alton 16, 42, 80
of gendered, generative interaction Becker, Judith 16, 42, 70, 80-1 104, 106-7
81, 84, 86-7, 90-101, 157-8, 160-1 Bedaya Ketawang 62-3
of grimingan and Nyai Lara Kidul 62-3
of old Java in wayang 157-8 Bejonugraha, Ki 135
of old-style wayang 17, 100-1, 135 Bemmelen, Sita van 95
connecting court and old-style Benamou, Marc 106-7
wayang through 138-9 Bharatayuddha
see also gapuran; kedhatonan and female gender players 157-8
of wayang 15, 17, 133-4 Javanese additions to, many scenes
refinement in music 12 with women 153-7
as primary aesthetic in court in Javanese interpretation of 7, 137, 140,
twentieth century 12 142, 144, 147-8, 151-3
Ageng Sela, Kyai 88-90, 92, 99 see also gapuran; kedhatonan
see also genderan and genderan, Bicak, Ki 89-90
female-style kempul pusaka 89-92
Agung, Sultan 87, 92 wife of 88-91
Andaya, Barbara 71-2 binariness in Java 70, 80-1
Anderson, Benedict 55-6, 68, 70, 73-5 and chaos and order 81
arrivals and Dutch structuralists 80
and coincidence 42 complementarity 81
and interpreting myths 143 Brenner, Suzanne 55, 57-8, 82
as structure 160-1 Brinner, Benjamin 28, 109
between 42-3 Buwana II, Ratu Paku 63
Buwana IX, Paku 58, 73
Babad Demak 88-90
Babad Tanah Jawi 88-9 Carey, Peter 60-1, 68
180 Index
cengkok 121, 123-4 as source for ‘high art’ genres 7, 11,

chaos and order 81, 94-5 48, 118
and aesthetic of instability 156 as preservers of tradition 12
and female gender players 94-5 shift in focus from wayang to
with male dhalang 157-8 karawitan/klenengan music 48-9
and gender 82, 85, 156-7 construction of/importation of
and generativeness 86 traditions 11, 115, 118
and loyalty 151-5 dhalang invited to 11-2, 115-6
and preservation of knowledge 94-5 dhalang schools 116, 131, 133
and prosperity 81, 84, 96, 143 Dutch manipulation of 11
and rebutan and slametan 86-7 music culture gendered as male 13
and royal succession 80-1, 85 perceived as ‘ancient’ 11
see also myths -style wayang see wayang
Clara van Groenendael, Victoria 115-6 succession, royal 80-1
coincidence 81 and chaos and order 85
and arrival 42 value for Dutch colonial
and chaos 90 administration 11
and sameness 42 women edged out of power through
and structure 42-3 colonial process 65-7
colonial administration, Dutch women’s social and political roles
and codification of Javanese 61-3, 113
knowledge 114 culture, Javanese
and male bias 65-6 Islamic nature of 1
and religion 106-7 syncretic nature of 70
control over courts not complete 67-8 worldviews in 70-1
Raden Ayu Kartini 67-8 cyclicity
Raden Ayu Sekarkedhaton 67 in Javanese music 21
disempowerment of Javanese 64-7
gendering of Javanese as feminine Day, Tony 3, 155-6
65-6 Dewantara, Ki 112
interest in ‘ancient’ elements of dhalang
Javanese culture 140 and aesthetics of Bharatayuddha 157-8
Islamic piety increase as response female 59
to 71 interaction with grimingan 40-1
women edged out of power by 65-7, married to gender player 15, 17
112-3 perspectives on urban popular style
complementarity 135-6
as dynamic, interactive, and representing Javanese ruler 15, 96
gendered 81 schools, court 131, 133
Connor, Linda 154-5 successful, always innovating and
continuousness (in grimingan), gender- responding 136, 139-40
ing of 121-2, 125-6 with female gender player, represent-
courts, Javanese ing prosperity/fertility 96-7
and Nyai Lara Kidul 81 Dhedes, Queen of Singosari 85, 91
and refinement 7 Dipanegara war 71, 93
enhanced focus on rules 113 disorganization, gendering of 121
and music 113 Durga see Uma/Durga
Index 181
Durgandini, Dewi 141-3, 145, 157 colonial constructions, absorption of

and illness 142 65-9
Durgandana 141, 145 emergent, not static 54
Duryodhana 148-9, 151-2 living with multiple hegemonies 71-2,
75
Eberhardt, Nancy 51 constructions of 65-9, 100-1, 131
Errington, Shelly 58, 59, 81-2 Islamic constructions, absorption of
embat 27-8 72
ethnographic process 8 shifting constructions of sexual
and postcolonial thought 8 relations 74-5
and structuralist thought 8 shifting male/female relationships
65-9
family finances hegemony 53-4, 69-76, 161
female control over 56-7 New Order constructions of 98
Feld, Steven 16 scholarly studies of
feminist strategies in scholarship see colonial period 65-9
potency in Java strategies for including women in
field work discourse 53, 55-63
in Java 8-9, 30-1 see also potency, paradigm of male
in relation to ethnography 8-10 gender
negotiating permissions 9-10 and pathet 46-9
recording grimingan 34 relationship to dhalang in wayang
unsuccessful questions 33 performance 7
flaming womb 85, 87-9, 91 shifting cultural location and gender
and legitimacy 85 association 49-50, 127
and talent 87-8, 91 gender players, female
Florida, Nancy 58, 72 and aesthetics of Bharatayuddha 157-8
women’s didactic literature 72-3 and chaos and order 89-96, 98
sexual encounters in 72 and dhalang 96-7, 126
form, Javanese musical representing prosperity/fertility
ladrang 22 96-7
grimingan 34-5, 44 and economics 99-100
and pathet knowledge 44-5, 50, 122-4,
Gadhung Mlati, Ladrang 78-9, 95-6 126
Gambirsawit, Gendhing 44, 103, 105, 128 and rasa 49-50
Gandasaruya, Ibu 32, 36, 113, 122-3 and rulelessness 127-30
Gandasukasno, Bapak 119 and sexuality/sensuality 98-9
Gandasukasno, Ibu 122 as mediators between chaos and
gamelan see karawitan order 95
garapan 109-10, 111-2 change in status over time 136
and enlightenment 110-1 first wife of Kyai Panjang Mas see
gapuran (wayang scene) 143-4, 147, 151 Panjang Mas, Kyai
in Bharatayuddha 147-151 Ibu Gandasukasno see Gandasukasno
in Serat Sastramiruda 143-7 Ibu Gandasaruya see Gandasaruya,
Geertz, Hildred 57 Ibu
gender in Java Ibu Nyatacarita see Nyatacarita, Ibu
chaos and order 81-2, 85, 95, 160-1 Ibu Parjinem see Parjinem, Ibu
182 Index
Ibu Parto see Parto, Ibu as interpretive process 43

Ibu Pringga see Pringga, Ibu Glathik Glinding, Jineman 4
Ibu Sarju see Sarju, Ibu god-king, concept in Southeast Asia 52
myths 78-101 Gouda, Frances 65
Nyai Jlamprang see Jlamprang, Nyai grambyangan see pathet, cadential phrase
Nyai Lara Kidul see Lara Kidul, Nyai grimingan 30, 32-3, 39-41
Nyai Panjang Mas see Panjang Mas, aesthetics see genderan, female-style,
Nyai aesthetics
Nyai Sruni see Sruni, Nyai analysis 32-4, 40
wife of Ki Bicak see Bicak, Ki and form 34-5
wrists and suppleness 97 condensed or compact form 35, 40-1
gender players old/village/male and individuality 41
and pathet knowledge 44-5 and jiwa 33
and rasa 49-50 and pathet see pathet
Bapak Karnadihardja see and sameness 44
Karnadihardja, Bapak and suluk 37-8
Bapak Moro see Moro, Bapak lagu lama 48-9
Bapak Suratno see Suratno, Bapak as process 31-2, 35, 39, 41
genderan as solo performance 38-40
and chaos 90-1 as source for theories of mode or
gendering of 19, 120-30 pathet 19, 114, 121
male style 120 definition of 14-5
new style see male style hearing structure 34
old style 119, 132 interaction with dhalang 40-1
not corruption of court style 132 new-style/male-style sound 29
see also village style not improvisation 38
styles closer than descriptions imply not theorized 39
125 old-style sound 29
transcription 36 old/village style relationship to court
village style 119, 132 style 29
genderan, female-style 5, 119-24 pathet rules implicit in 114
aesthetics of recording sessions 35-6
continuousness 121-2, 124-6 transcription and analysis 35-6
flow 124 two melodies/affects in each pathet
interaction 124 35, 40
kembangan 124-6
naturalness 124 Harjito, I.M. 110
ornamentation 120-1, 124-6 hegemony see gender in Java
high evaluation in context of male- Houben, Vincent 60-1, 68
centric focus of wayang 52
longevity of tradition 13-4 iconicity 16
nearly inaudible to audience 6 and Javanese understandings of
not corruption of court style 132 female-style genderan 17
relation to old and village styles of intisari 14, 19, 118, 124
genderan 7
gendhing Jlamprang, Nyai 78-9, 94-5
and rasa 43, 103 overnight adventure analogized to
wayang performance 79
Index 183
Kala 83, 84 and prosperity 80-1, 96

karawitan connection with Javanese royalty 62,
as aurally ramé 4 80-1
as high art 48 latah 105
binary nature of 22 Lebdajiwa, Kyai see Panjang Mas, Kyai
court and village styles compared love 82
116-8 loyalty 95, 135, 148, 151-57
klenengan music more central to music and duty, conflict between 151-7
theorists than wayang music 48-9
types used in wayang performance Mahabharata
14-5 in Javanese wayang 5, 137-8, 137-8,
village style 119 140, 144, 153, 157
Karna 151-2 Mahapunggung, King 84
Karnadihardja, Bapak 19, 36, 119 Mangkurat, Sultan 92
Kartini, Raden Ayu 67-8 man-of-prowess 70
kedhatonan 17, 139, 144, 147-8, 150-2 Manteb Sudarsono, Ki 132
and Limbukan 144 Martopangrawit 22, 44-7, 49, 97, 110-1,
Bharatayuddha and Serat Sastramiruda 122, 125, 128
compared 151, 157-8 and pathet theory 44-7, 49, 111-2
on the battlefield in Bharatayuddha masih alam 118, 123
148-51 masih bodoh 118
Keeler, Ward 56, 97, 133-4 mbalung 27, 126
kempul see Bicak, Ki Midiyanto S. Putra 24, 119, 134
Ken Arok 85 Mikukuh, King 83
Kestik, Bapak 14, 119, 123, 134 modal theory see pathet, theory
knowledge mode see pathet
constructions of 112-3 Moro, Bapak 115
deep and embodied 105-8 Mudjoko, Bapak 14, 115
musical 104 Murwakala 83-4
codification of 114 and Nyai Sruni 84
debate about 29, 113 music, Javanese see karawitan
non-involvement of women 113 myths
Kodhok ngorek 4 female gender players, about 16
Koskoff, Ellen 5 gender 81
Kresna 148-9, 151, 154 order and chaos in 16, 81, 143
Kris Sukardi, Bapak 78-9 prosperity 16
Kumar, Ann 59-60, 113 restraint 79, 83
Kunst, Jaap 97
Kurawa 137, 140-2, 148-51, 154 Nartosabdho, Ki see wayang, innovations
Kusumadilaga see Serat Sastramiruda Naryacarita, Bapak 87, 92-4, 115-6
and Nyai Panjang Mas 93-4
lahir/batin 105 notation, musical
lakon timuran/perempuan 92 Javanese 20-1, 109, 124
Lara Kidul, Nyai 62-3, 79-82, 92, 95-6 Western 20
and chaos 81 Nyatacarita, Ibu 115-6
and illness 78, 80, 142
and moon 80 old-style wayang 5
184 Index
aesthetics of 17, 100-1, 157-8 in wayang performance 24

gendered generative interaction 81, negative assessment of village
84, 86-7, 90-101, 157-8 musician’s competency 28
and court-style wayang similar 132-3, alternative view 28-30
157-8 playing without theory 28
and patrons 135-6 theory 25
definition of 6 developed 114
dhalang interested in narration 132-3 valuation of the ability to talk
not corruption of court style 132 about 25
performance decisions and rules 134-6 ‘usual’ affect 24
oldness, Javanese cultural valuation of 7 see also slendro nem, slendro sanga,
ornamentation, gendering of 120-1, slendro manyura
125-6 Pausacker, Helen 59
Ortner, Sherry 53-4, 69, 75 Pemberton, John 83-4, 86-7
performance and eroticism
pakem, development of 113-6 and chaos 89, 91
Palasara see Serat Sastramiruda wife of Ki Bicak 89-91
Pandawa 137, 140-2, 148, 152, 154 Perlman, Marc 109
panerusan 109 pesinden see pasindhen
Panjang Mas, Kyai 94 piwulang estri 72-3
as Lebdajiwa, Kyai 87-8, 91-2 postcolonial society 4-5
first wife of 87-8, 92 potency in Java 54, 56-76
Panjang Mas, Nyai 87, 94-5, analytical strategies for describing
and order in chaos 92-5 female potency 57-64
participant-observation 9 inserting women into male power
Parto, Ibu 113 structures 58-9
pasindhen parallel female power structures
and economics 99-100 57-8
and sexuality 99 reinserting women into discourse
pathet 12, 22-4, 111-2 on potency 60-4
and emotion 123 and asceticism 55-6
and gender 23 and colonial experience 64-9
and grimingan 35, 38, 44-9, 113-4 and male-bias 64-7
and rasa 123 and cone of light metaphor 56
and village musicians 26 and dissembled centre metaphor 56
as hidden in female-style genderan 121 and Hinduism 55
aural understanding and female/old/ and objects 90
village-style gender players 29 and restraint 55
cadential phrase, grambyangan 37 and self-control 55-6
competency and Tantrism 55
conservatory musicians 26-7 confirmed through marriage in royal
court musicians 28 ranks 63
essentialised notions of gender and disempowerment by Dutch 64-7
location 30 female potency 57
professional urban and rural high rank and literacy 60-1
musicians 26-9 powerful women analysed as
discussion about 122 exceptional 59-60
in slendro 46 male-centrism unacknowledged 56
Index 185
male potency as generic 52-3 musical and pathet 12

not gendered absolutely 59 urban and rural style compared see
paradigm of male potency 55-6 court and village style compared
and powerful women 58-9 (above)
prajurit estri 61-2 see also aesthetics
prosperity see chaos and order Reid, Anthony 68
Pringga, Ibu 14, 32, 77, 100, 120-1, 124 restraint
and Nyai Jlamprang 77 and rasa 105
in myths 79, 83
Ramayana musical 12
in Javanese wayang 5 see also aesthetics
ramé, keraméan (Jv), keramaian (In) 4 personal 82, 106
Ranggawarsita, Pustaka Raja Purwa 140 Rice, Tim 16
rasa 15, 101, 104-30 ruwatan 83
and conservatory musicians 117
and grimingan 32 Salya 151-6
and music theory 109-14 sameness
and musical performance 103, 107-8 aesthetics 42-4
and mystical understanding 105 and balungan 42
and old-style gender players 49-50 and batik 43-4
and performance, assessment 108 and structure 42-3
and restraint 127 and wayang 42
and religion, Tantrism, Sufi Islam in Java 41-5
104-7 Sapoznik, Henry 8
connecting performance and religion Sarju, Ibu 123
110-1 Sears, Laurie 133-4
definition of 15 Sekarkedhaton, Raden Ayu 67
emotion, restraint and expression of Serat Baron Sakendher 85
contestation 105-7, 112, 128-30 Serat Cabolek 116
embodiment in learning 108 Serat Centhini 1-3, 74, 103-5, 108, 109,
gendering of 15-6, 128-30 111
human endeavour and enlightenment Serat Sastramiruda 49, 93, 115, 132, 136-9,
108 140-8
in wayang 7, 24, 101 codification of wayang with exem-
of events 9-10, 104 plary lakon Palasara 140-8
of musical piece 25, 103, 105 description of what already
theories of 104-5 existed, not newly created 139-40
urban and rural distinctions 117-8 Kusumadilaga 137-40, 143-5, 147
rebut 103 lakon Palasara 140-148, 157
rebutan 86, 94, 105 see also gapuran; kedhatonan
refinement Setyawati 151-6
and alusan dance 98 Shelemay, Kay 8
and gender 13 Sindoesawarno 111-2, 128
and the courts 7, 118 slametan 86, 94, 105
and order 82 slendro manyura 23-4
and wayang characters 51-2 analogy to life trajectory in wayang 25
court and village style compared grimingan 47
117-8 in Serat Sastramiruda 139
186 Index
slendro manyuri 23 Sumarsam 48-9, 112-3, 115

slendro nem 23, 139 power in colonized Javanese courts
analogy to life trajectory in wayang 24 64-5
and modal mixture 23 Supomo 137, 144, 147-54
grimingan 46-7 Surakarta 5
in Serat Sastramiruda 139 Suratno 5, 32, 121
slendro sanga 23, 139 Sutherland, Heather 64
analogy to life trajectory in wayang Sutton, R. Anderson 113
24
and modal mixture 23-4 talent
grimingan 47 and chaos 91
in Serat Sastramiruda 139 Tanuraga 85
Solo see Surakarta Theosophy 106
sound Trunajaya 94
in Javanese literary poetry 1
of dhalang and gender player together Uma/Durga 83-4, 87
as aural representation of prosperity
and fertility 96-7, 157-8 village-style wayang see old-style
of gender in performance 6 wayang
of Javanese dawn 3
of Javanese wayang 7 wayang krucil 96-7
onomatopoetic words in Javanese and gendered longing 97
language 4 wayang (wayang kulit)
Srilowati, Dewi 82-4, 87, 94, 142 and rules
and Sri/Sadana 84 rules center the court in discourse
Sri/Sadana 84 133
and methik ceremony codification of 140-8
Sruni, Nyai, original gender player 84 connections to past 5
Stange, Paul 104-6 court style
Structuralists, Dutch see binariness in and old-style wayang similar 132-3,
Java 157-8
subject-centered ethnomusicology 16 as ancient and pure 10-1
succession, royal codified 132, 136-9
and Nyai Lara Kidul 80-1, 85 dhalang interested in narration 132-3
Sudarsono, Bapak 14, 32, 108, 117, 119, not the same as urban popular style
121 134-5
Sugarman, Jane 16 village style comparisons 116-7
Suharni Sabdawati, Nyai 59 description of 5
suluk 35, 103 emotional development over course of
and gambang 37 performance 24
and gender 37 grimingan gives life to puppets 32
and grimingan 37-8 innovations in 1950s by Nartosabdho,
and suling 37 Ki 6
court versions 115 local, individual variants 5
in Serat Sastramiruda 139-40 male-centric focus in performance
lagu lama 47-9 51-2
performance process 37-8 musical accompaniment 14-5
Suluk Gatholoco 74-5 padat 132
Index 187
regional and national audiences 6 Wolf, Diane 57

theorized 49, 131-3 Wolters, O.W. 70
see also old-style wayang; aesthetics Wong, Deborah 8
Weiss, Sarah 107-8 Woodward, Mark 70, 104
Widiyanto see Midiyanto S. Putra Worsley, Peter 85-6
wilet 111-2
Wiyasa 140-2, 154 Yampolsky, Philip 93

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LISTENING TO AN EARLIER JAVA

Cover: Photographs of Ibu Pringga taken by the author.

LISTENING TO AN EARLIER JAVA

Aesthetics, gender, and the music of wayang

KITLV is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

Cover: Creja ontwerpen, Leiderdorp

ISBN-10 90 6718 273 7

© 2006 Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde

Printed in the Netherlands

Introduction; Preliminary soundings 1

I Musical analysis and cultural analysis; Pathet, grimingan, and gender 19

II Competing hegemonies; The discourse on Javanese gender 51

IV Javanese rasa; Gendering emotion and restraint 103

V Listening back 131

Conclusion; Final soundings 159

visa application for research in Central Java.

2 At the end of the adan everyone prayed,

4 Then Allahu akbar kabiran alkamdu

5 After the recitation of the patekah,

7 The voices were all evenly pitched, enticingly melodious,

9 For at the time of subuh the entire village awoke,

10 Some ground meal with a crunch-crunch, while those who smelted,

11 So that it seemed that at subuh, all the voices

12 The peacock sounded nyangungong and the doves cooed,

14 Their voices in commotion, the sounds of the birds mingled

It seemed as if the birds helped

Serat Centhini Canto 44 verses 1-14

modernized society with a sizeable urban middle-class interactively linked

On the problems of being there: fieldwork at Central Javanese events

Anthropologists and ethnomusicologists find themselves in a conundrum

packed-to-capacity-last-possible bus to a particular village are tremendously

The reality of the dynamic nature of Central Javanese wayang performance is

village and other alternative performance traditions. In the mid-eighteenth

many levels, is assessed by means of rasa.

The words Javanese performers use to describe their understanding of

Musical analysis and cultural analysis

Musical analysis is always challenging because the analyst must explain a

measure-like units albeit without barlines, was determined to be the most

Javanese gamelan music: some basics

finally landing on concordant notes at moments of arrival, significant to the

4 See Martopangrawit 1973 for example.

6 In a 1990 article Richard Schechner recounts a human comparison to the development of an

clown scene revealing the foibles of humankind, various unrelated battles,

‘Pathet’ and ‘the village’

The second level of competency involves an intuitive understanding of

9 Perlman 1994 discusses mbalung more extensively.

kind of tuning seems to be an aesthetic rather than a theoretical decision, and

development of musical knowledge in Central Java. The debate can no longer

Recording gender players accompanying wayang always involved negotiat-

as unobtrusive position as possible. The inevitable answering of a multitude

According to professional gender player Ibu Gandasaruya, grimingan is ‘half

Culturally bounded styles of analysis

Nearly every player I interviewed, as well as many observers, described gri-

‘Grimingan’: hearing or imposing structure and form?

Because most of Central Javanese music works in patterns and/or cycles

I asked players to perform outside of a wayang-type context, their perform-

Here, I thought, was a testable description of how the performers create

Comparing ‘suluk’ and ‘grimingan’ as played on the ‘gender’

a musician’s understanding of suluk. It is not just a free-form improvisation

The process of ‘grimingan’

How exactly do gender players create grimingan for a twenty-minute dramatic

know what to expect – who possess enough musical knowledge to catch

Sameness in Javanese music performance contextualized