Tulila & Markusip

Reviews for "Tulila: Musik Bujukan Mandailing"

by Abdur-Razzaq Lubis/Areca Books

Tulila: Muzik Bujukan Mandailing. Edi Nasution. Penang, Malaysia: Areca Books, 2007. xx + 180 pp., photographs, maps, figures, musical ex., bibliography, index. ISBN: 978-983-42834-4-5, RM35.00.

Tulila: Muzik Bujukan Mandailing (Tulila: Mandailing seduction music) is Edi Nasution’s Indonesian-language study of markusip, a disappearing, late-night, rural courtship tradition among West Sumatra’s Mandailing. In markusip, a love-struck pemuda (young man) braves nocturnal risks of the jungle to sneak up to a young woman’s dormitory (bagas podoman), where he leans his shoulder against its thin outer wall, and tries to rouse an anak gadis (young woman) from sleep with faint melodies played on a slender, fourhole, bamboo, reed instrument called tulila, sung quatrains of ende-ende, and prods from a palm-leaf stem through a small hole in the wall called a lubang markusip. His hope is that the anak gadis will awaken and engage him in whispered conversation, the very meaning of markusip.

Readers of Indonesian will welcome this contribution by an indigenous author to the small but growing body of ethnomusicological literature on Southeast Asia’s lesser-known musical practices. Tulila’s scope is broader than its title suggests. Its five chapters unite tulila performance with various facets of aposoan (the idealized life of Mandailing youths in their premarriage years), broader markusip courtship traditions, and post-courtship engagement rituals (patobang hata). Nasution is a Mandailing ethnomusicologist, native to the region, and an insider to the society he describes, though we do not learn much about his personal connection to markusip or the communities in which this study is based. Mandailing lands are comprised of two regions, and their political subdivisions, called huta, are linked by the northward-flowing Batang Gadis River. They have traditionally been dominated by two principal marga “clans”: the Lubis marga of the mountainous, upper Mandailing Julu to the south, and the Nasution marga of the swampy lowlands and foothills of lower Mandailing Godang to the north. Nasution’s fieldwork took place in the former, his native Julu, as it was the only area where he encountered extant tulila activity. His methodologies include interviewing numbers of Mandailing (including tulila players, community leaders, cultural guardians, and young people), learning how to construct and play tulila, Reviews 133 transcribing and analyzing his field recordings, and writing ethnographic descriptions that are rich and replete with local terms and concepts, and which comprise a significant portion of this book.

Chapter 2 introduces Mandailing history, territory and culture, touching upon its origin myths, premodern alphabet and texts, surviving antiquities, legends, traditional rulers, and clan system, as well as its performance genres, instruments, ensembles, songs, and dances: much of what constitutes a Mandailing identity.

A central undertaking of this book, advanced in this chapter and later in chapter 5, is to correlate tulila to dalian na tolu, a canon of Mandailing concepts and practices governing kinship relations, gender roles, and social stratification—glossed in Indonesian as tumpuan yang tiga, or “three pillars.” According to Nasution, the “pillars” symbolize roles performed

by three clan-based groups who interact in a traditional wedding engagement, and meanings they embody. He uses a triangular paradigm to illustrate their relationships; clockwise from the vertex are the mora who “give away” the young woman, the anak boru who “receive” her, and the kahanggi who deal with the arrangements.

Chapter 3 covers a diverse range of topics, and contains an abundance of ethnographic information, though its organization is not particularly coherent. It begins with a rich description of a markusip outing and texts showing how pemuda and anak gadis interact through ende-ende. This is followed by a hodgepodge of explorations of tulila: what it expresses and communicates, how it entertains, its relationships to Mandailing language, poetry, traditions, symbols, and beliefs, and comparisons between markusip in different historical eras. In a section on tulila and si pelebegu, Nasution shows how a pre-Islamic belief system that still guides Muslim Mandailing society informs tulila construction and playing techniques.

Through si pelebegu, the pemuda imbues his instrument with love magic in order to stir sadness in the anak gadis when she hears it played, and capture her heart. We learn that this enchanting quality is obtained by harvesting the bamboo when “sorrowful” sounds fill the air—such as the shrieks of a soaring eagle or the mournful cries of a grieving family—or by placing the bamboo in a coffin alongside a corpse as it awaits burial. Discussions of ende-ende poetry, here and elsewhere in the book, do not convey to the reader how it sounds. And they might have benefited from comparisons to other genres in the region, whether in regard to the use of parable, floral symbols, and nonlexical syllables to heighten expressive delivery (which calls to mind the Malaysian dondang sayang, the Deli-style senandung, and southwest Thailand’s phleng tanyong), or contrasts in rhyme schemes between hata andung (a literary idiom) and hata somal (a common vernacular) forms. A discussion of customary norms, baso and sangko (67– 68), helpfully illuminates the importance Mandailing attach to 134 Asian Music: Winter/Spring 2014 guarding the clandestine nature of markusip (so as not to challenge moral standards), but might have fit more appropriately in chapter 2.

Chapter 4 deals with tulila construction, learning methods, and playing techniques. It explains how a thin, wild variety of bamboo, bulu sorik, is selected, cured, and fashioned into a four-hole instrument, with accompanying illustrations of carving methods and tulila in various sizes and builds. Tulila is learned through imitation and repetition, and its pedagogy is discussed in terms of its all-male mentorship system that comprises several age groups: (1) elders who possess broad knowledge of Mandailing traditions; (2) older “young at heart” men who pay evening visits to the boys’ dormitory to bring them amusing stories and life lessons; and (3) the boys’ older peers who have already gone on markusip outings, or who have a particular talent for the courtship arts. Two musical transcriptions provided here (92) represent sung syllables used to convey a tulila melody from teacher to student, for the latter to memorize. As boys learn, they are free to develop an individual style through melodic variation and ornamentation, though readers are not given an idea of how these might sound.

Chapter 5 contains transcriptions and analyses of tulila melodies based on recordings of two elder Julu performers, rendered in common Western staff notation, and five-line fingering tablature. Nasution’s first concerns are with melodic contours of brief phrases, and their arrangement in sequences. He then shows how each discrete formal section has a corresponding identification to both a “pillar” of dalian na tolu, and one of the five pitches (including the highest, unstopped note). To compensate for the disparity between three pillars and five pitches/sections, he includes the patobang hata engagement ritual alongside dalian na tolu, matching it to the “opening” pitch (the first-hole pangindik) and introductory melody. In addition, he refers to a Mandailing saying, opat ganjil lima gonop (four odd/five even, or four incomplete/five perfect), to explain the enigmatic fifth pitch, whose absence would leave an pemuda and anak gadis feeling uncomfortable, as if something were missing—just as a ceremonial betel nut platter at a patobang hata ritual would be perceived as incomplete without its five requisite ingredients: Piper betel, areca nut, lime, gambier, and tobacco.

While Tulila is a commendable effort, it has a number of deficiencies that should be noted. Its perspective is largely male, with very little attention given to the anak gadis. The ethnographic writing paints a somewhat general and ahistorical portrait of Mandailing. Its organization and focus can seem confounding. A whole section of melodic transcriptions (109– 13) is marred by a sloppy manuscript that makes it difficult to distinguish some pitches on the staff. An especially frustrating omission is the lack of a glossary of Reviews 135 Mandailing terms, which appear so abundantly in the text. Most surprisingly perhaps, there is no mention of neighboring ethnic groups who share similar social practices, such as the Batak or Minangkabau, or any effort to contextualize tulila within the greater region. However, solely for its insights into markusip ractices and Mandailing society, this book is a worthwhile addition to the growing ethnomusicological literature of the region.

Original article by Lawrence Ross, The Graduate Center, City University of New York Featured in Asian Music, Volume 45, Number 1, Winter/Spring 2014, pp. 132-135 (Article)

Source: http://arecabooks.com/reviews-tulila-muzik-bujukan-mandailing/

Young courting in Mandailing

“Flutings of Love”

One newspaper reviews  Tulila: Muzik Bujukan Mandailing, Edi Nasution’s important account of his experience with an increasingly rare source of music.

by Himanshu Bhatt

Tulila: Muzik Bujukan Mandailing

Edi playing the tulila

IT may seem to be just a simple little instrument made out of plain bamboo, but it produces the sweetest of sounds when played.

The thin tulila flute has produced some of the most passionate and romantic music to come out of the remote region of Mandailing on the western coast of Sumatra.

Today, the knowledge of making the flute and the technique of playing it have become endangered, as only a handful of communities still know how to do these things.

A fascination for the flute gripped ethno-musicologist Edi Nasution, a Mandailing himself, to research the origins and special features of the music the little strip of wood could produce.

Edi’s research, which he started in preparation for his student thesis at the Universitas Sumatera Utara in 1995, is now published in a book called Tulila: Muzik Bujukan Mandailing.

What makes the research precious is that the tradition of making and playing the tulila is expected to become extinct by 2010.

“In this era of globalisation, a large portion of our traditional culture is on the brink of disappearing,” says Edi.

The tulila music repertoire is inspired by the sounds of nature

The awareness consumed Edi to travel around 18 districts in Mandailing to document and chronicle the unwritten legacy of this folk instrument.

Edi found that the tulila tradition developed a rather complex repertoire of music that was largely inspired by sounds of nature, as its music emulates the buzz of insects, the chirping of birds and the rustle of the wind.

“What makes the bamboo flute particularly distinctive is that it was, until a few decades back, commonly used by men to court women,” Edi explains.

It was common for men to play the flute while reciting improvised pantun (rhymes) in the vernacular language.

Played over hundreds of years, the hand-made tulila flute is a cultural unique feature as it evolved to fuse the art of music among common people.

“There are today about 40,000 Mandailings, descendents of migrants since the 19th century, still living in Malaysia,” says Abdur-Razzaq Lubis, the Malaysia-Singapore representative of the Mandailing All Clans Assembly.

Many cultural traits, including the Mandailing dialect, have dwindled tremendously in Malaysia over the past few decades, he adds.

“The research done by Edi is significant to us in Malaysia as there is still some Mandailing music, like the gordang sambilan, being practised here.”

Edi’s efforts triggered an Asian university to express interest in recording the existing repertoire of the tulila tradition before it disappears.

The story of the tulila and its impending demise as an art form and a cultural practice is a reminder to all Malaysians of how fragile and precious the cultural treasures we still have are.

Tulila: Muzik Bujukan Mandailing is available at major bookstores.

Review previously published in New Straits Times, February 3, 2008

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source: http://arecabooks.com/fluting-of-love-by-himanshu-bhatt/

Elope

'Mangalojongkon Boru': a tradition 
of elopement in Mandailing

Already a human nature, that they were made ​​by the Creator (God) with two different sexes, namely 'si lian' (‘men’) and 'si taing' (‘women’). When they are small often play together in the fields and garden, on the edge of the river and the forest, or even in their own hometown. But as an adult ('Aqeel-baliq') they no longer get along intimate childhood as constrained by social norms (customary).  If in Mandailing, according to the old tradition, a young man sleeping with peers in a 'sopo podoman' which they made themselves on the edge of the village where they lived, while a girl also sleeping with peers (women) in 'bagas podoman' that usually belonging to an elderly widow (called 'mabalu') because her husband had died.

As a young man who has a raging desire to always be making love - affection (love) with the opposite sex with a love affair in secret, a young man will usually conduct 'mangkusip' on 'bagas podoman' a girl who craves at the time midnight. With the help of a wind instrument called 'tulila', he hopes to be wake her idol's heart so that they can whisper dialogue (called 'markusip') on the still night. Not infrequently, even though she had been awakened from his sleep being disturbed 'tulila' which sounds a bit like the sound of the ‘mosquito’, but he remained silent while enjoying the melodic 'tulila' melodious-woo. 

Not long afterwards, perhaps because his heart was touched by sound 'tulila' or may also be due to feelings of sympathy and compassion (‘pity’), then the girls usually give a response (called 'mangalus' ) of the 'bagas podoman' by way of whispering to inquire purpose and the purpose of the youth 'mangkusip'. When in fact the girl had already knew that the young man wanted in a relationship with him. If the girls want to accept the young man as her lover, then a date in the evening activities ('markusip') that continued once or twice a week until finally they both agree to live together (being husband and wife). To that end, usually the girl request the young man that - quiverful immediately came to apply to her parent and extended family. May be, the proposal not be accepted (rejected) with a wide variety of reasons by parents and extended family girl. Nevertheless, there is still a recourse for both of them to realize their desire to be husband and wife, namely ‘kawin lari’ ('elope') which in the language of (indigenous) Mandailing called 'marlojong' or 'mangalojongkon boru'.

In the tradition (custom) 'marlojong' is usually the only girl carrying supplies (clothes) as only needed and that his departure was accompanied by one or two people (girls) best friends (called 'pandongani'). But before going together to the young man's parents house, usually the girl who will 'marlojong' it will left a message (letter) in 'bagas podoman' to let him go where and with whom. When they got home the boy 's parents, too soon the young man's parents - quiverful gather nearby to deliberate on issues of their boys who had brought a girl into their home to be his future wife. The results of the deliberations that usually they agreed to send a special envoy to the house of the girl's parents to convey the 'Hata Bou: Mandokon Ulang Agoan' (‘message from the boy 's mother that the girl's parents and family no longer need to feel lost or looking for girl have been safely in the young man's parents house’). 

After the girl 's were in the parents house of the youth and cultural activities ‘MandokonUlang Agoan (Hata Bou) was already done in the girl's parent's house, then in the young man's parents usually also held a special activity for the young people called ‘marburangir’ or ‘paboru- boruon’ at night after evening prayers (shalat Isya). In the event these young people, the girl as ‘bride’ (called ‘paboru-boruon’) introduced to the local youth, while her future husband it should not be there. This activity is called ‘marburangir’ for in the event youth is provided ‘burangir’ (‘betel leaf’) and completeness (ie ‘sontang’, ‘soda’, and ‘pining’) as ‘custom food’ (in ‘marburangir’ customary among young people) among them while chatting on a beautiful evening and and it's a fun activity for all young people. 

To create a festive atmosphere and full familiarity among them at night, not infrequently one or two of the local youth asked the girl (bride) to make ‘burangir’ (called ‘maniktiktik burangir’) specifically for him, or to any other girl he liked, who was also present there, even more so to the ‘pandangoni’ of the bride, who is also beautiful when young men would often be asked, even those scrambling to make a request ‘manitik burangir’ as a way to be able to meet in person and at the same also to tease him. In the course of young indigenous ‘marburangir’ this, the young people are often using ‘ende-ende’ (also called ‘pantun’) and ‘uling-kulingan anca’ (‘guessing game’) to reveal their hearts and feelings when interacting (communicating) the each other. ‘Marbungir’ or ‘paboru-boruon’ activity usually lasts for three consecutive nights until late at night, can even last for seven nights in a row for ‘nobility’ (called ‘na mora-mora’ or ‘raja-raja’) in Mandailing. After completing the activities 'marburangir' this, then held traditional wedding ceremony (called 'markaroan' or 'marbagas') ranging from morning to evening.

Ideally something like that expected from the end of an event 'mangalojongkon boru'. However, not infrequently it can create 'hostility' protracted among families of both parties. And for those people who likes to describe 'feud between the two families' is a very unusual incident by saying: "Ulang do pasitik sotik mang get marsitampulan !" 

Until now, the tradition of 'marlojong' is still ongoing in Mandailing. But unfortunately, the events 'marlojong' is sometimes addressed by applying criminal law heritage Dutch colonial power, where any act that violates the laws and regulations (‘err’) should still go to jail, for example one is like a case of an elderly woman in Prabumulih-Lampung regency caught stealing 'singkong' ('cassava') to fill the hungry stomach but was sentenced for 2.5 years. According to the Minister of Justice and Human Rights Patrialis Akbar, the Code of Penal ('KUHP') are now less reflects the sense of justice and the soul of Indonesia, because the Criminal Code itself is a legacy of the Dutch colonial power in the past. In this case, "Changing the legacy of the Dutch Criminal Code is an urgent program to be conducted by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. Patrialis Akbar also assured to include 'customary law' in the Criminal Code. Because customary law is a reflection of the soul of Indonesia, especially for people who have embraced for generations. It is true, that the supposed rules of law which is adequate for real life in society ('living law') such as customary law 'Mandokon Ulang Agoan' ('Hata Bou') to address issues such as the case of 'mangalojongkon boru', which from one side sometimes still seen as criminal offense. Although the 'tulang' or 'mora' ('uncle') of the girls had a big hand as 'na pagodang-godangna' so he often request 'batang boban' ('dowry') were higher to the family of the young man for those girls were like 'sere saulu ni kudo '('gold for at the head of a horse). His family (boy and families) does not need to worry because 'tola do marutang sapanjang adat' (possible owed ​​by custom), as the saying goes "hata-dupang dupang, hata-hata do panggayar utang". That is, 'the words' can be used as a means of paying the debt. In connection with that, events 'marlojong' ('mangalojongkon boru') in Mandailing more appropriately addressed by performing traditional ceremonies ‘Mandokon Ulang Agoan’ (‘Hata Bou’) is ‘local wisdom’ as a heritage of the Mandailing people.

Gandoang. March, 04, 2014.

Edi Nasution

~o0o~

Book Reviews

Tulila: Muzik Bujukan Mandailing by Edi Nasution (review)

Lawrence Ross

From: Asian Music 

Volume 45, Number 1, Winter/Spring 2014 

pp. 132-135 | 10.1353/amu.2013.0022
by The University of Texas Press

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Tulila: Muzik Bujukan Mandailing ('Tulila: Mandailing seduction music') is Edi Nasution’s Indonesian-language study of markusip, a disappearing, late-night, rural courtship tradition among West Sumatra’s Mandailing. In markusip, a love-struck pemuda (young man) braves nocturnal risks of the jungle to sneak up to a young woman’s dormitory (bagas podoman), where he leans his shoulder against its thin outer wall, and tries to rouse an anak gadis (young woman) from sleep with faint melodies played on a slender, fourhole, bamboo, reed instrument called tulila, sung quatrains of ende-ende, and prods from a palm-leaf stem through a small hole in the wall called a lubang markusip. His hope is that the anak gadis will awaken and engage him in whispered conversation, the very meaning of markusip.

Readers of Indonesian will welcome this contribution by an indigenous author to the small but growing body of ethnomusicological literature on Southeast Asia’s lesser-known musical practices. Tulila’s scope is broader than its title suggests. Its five chapters unite tulila performance with various facets of aposoan (the idealized life of Mandailing youths in their premarriage years), broader markusip courtship traditions, and post-courtship engagement rituals (patobang hata). Nasution is a Mandailing ethnomusicologist, native to the region, and an insider to the society he describes, though we do not learn much about his personal connection to markusip or the communities in which this study is based. Mandailing lands are comprised of two regions, and their political subdivisions, called huta, are linked by the northward-flowing Batang Gadis River. They have traditionally been dominated by two principal marga (“clans”): the Lubis marga of the mountainous, upper Mandailing Julu to the south, and the Nasution marga of the swampy lowlands and foothills of lower Mandailing Godang to the north. Nasution’s fieldwork took place in the former, his native Julu, as it was the only area where he encountered extant tulila activity. His methodologies include interviewing numbers of Mandailing (including tulila players, community leaders, cultural guardians, and young people), learning how to construct and play tulila, transcribing and analyzing his field recordings, and writing ethnographic descriptions that are rich and replete with local terms and concepts, and which comprise a significant portion of this book.

Chapter 2 introduces Mandailing history, territory and culture, touching upon its origin myths, premodern alphabet and texts, surviving antiquities, legends, traditional rulers, and clan system, as well as its performance genres, instruments, ensembles, songs, and dances: much of what constitutes a Mandailing identity. A central undertaking of this book, advanced in this chapter and later in chapter 5, is to correlate tulila to dalian na tolu, a canon of Mandailing concepts and practices governing kinship relations, gender roles, and social stratification—glossed in Indonesian as 'tumpuan yang tiga', or “three pillars”. According to Nasution, the “pillars” symbolize roles performed by three clan-based groups who interact in a traditional wedding engagement, and meanings they embody. He uses a triangular paradigm to illustrate their relationships; clockwise from the vertex are themora who “give away” the young woman, the anak boru who “receive” her, and the kahanggi who deal with the arrangements.

Chapter 3 covers a diverse range of topics, and contains an abundance of ethnographic information, though its organization is not particularly coherent. It begins with a rich description of a markusip outing and texts showing how pemuda and anak gadis interact through ende-ende. This is followed by a hodgepodge of explorations oftulila: what it expresses and communicates, how it entertains, its relationships to Mandailing language, poetry, traditions, symbols, and beliefs, and comparisons between markusip in different historical eras. In a section ontulila and si pelebegu, Nasution shows how a pre-Islamic belief system that still guides Muslim Mandailing society informs tulila construction and playing techniques. Through si pelebegu, the pemuda imbues his instrument with love magic in order to stir sadness in the anak gadis when she hears it played, and capture her heart. We learn that this enchanting quality is obtained by harvesting the bamboo when “sorrowful” sounds fill the air—such as the shrieks of a soaring eagle or the mournful cries of a grieving family—or by...

source: 

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/asian_music/v045/45.1.ross.pdf

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/asian_music/toc/amu.45.1.html