MALU DALAM PANTUN MELAYU

Kertas Kerja: Seminar Antarabangsa Pantun

 Youetta de Jager dilahirkan di Alkmaar, Netherlands. Beliau memulakan alam persekolahannya sebagai pelajar di Academy of Fine Arts, Brede pada tahun 1982. Setahun kemudian beliau mempelajari bahasa dan budaya Indonesia dan Kritikan Sastera di Universiti Leiden. Pada tahun 1992, beliau mula mengasah bakat beliau menulis sajak. Sajak beliau diterbitkan dalam `Kawatberichten’, dan pada tahun 1995 dimuatkan pula dalam jilid kumpulan `Layangan’ yang diterbitkan dengan kerjasama beberapa orang penyair keturunan Eurasia. Pada tahun 2000 beliau memenangi Dunya Poetry Award (Anugerah Puisi Dunya), dan pada bulan Mei 2002, kumpulan puisi beberapa orang penyair antarabangsa telah dipersembahkan di majlis Poetry Park sempena Festival Dunya di Rotterdam. 

 ABSTRAK

 Melistari Tradisi: Gambaran Awal Penggunaan Semasa Pantun dan Fungsi Pantun oleh Penduduk Molukan di Belanda Orang Melayu Molukan berhijrah ke negeri Belanda sebaik sahaja berakhirnya Perang Dunia Kedua. Sungguhpun begitu mereka masih berharap untuk pulang ke sebuah negara republik Molukan yang merdeka dan bertahun-tahun lamanya mereka bersiap sedia untuk kepulangan itu. Mereka terus mengekalkan impian dan tradisi mereka. Bahasa, ritual, adat resam dan kepercayaan dijaga rapi sungguhpun berlaku beberapa perubahan yang tidak dapat dielakkan. Sejauh manakah orang Melayu Molukan ini berjaya mengekalkan tradisi, dan apakah peranan, misalnya warisan sastera seperti pantun, dalam proses ini? Apakah bentuk dan fungsi pantun, apakah tema dan pesanan yang dibawanya, dan siapakah mereka yang melestarikan pantun itu? Dan mungkin yang lebih menarik, mengapa? Penulis akan membicarakan majlis sosial, bentuk dan fungsi pantun di Belanda berdasarkan wawancara beliau dengan penulis pantun, dengan memberi tumpuan pada pandangan penyair. Penulis sendiri telah menulis beberapa pantun dalam bahasa Belanda terutamanya kerana beliau tertarik dengan kesusasteraan semasa belajar dahulu. Rangkap catur larik (quatran) kini kurang dihargai sebagai bentuk sastera di Belanda jika dibandingkan dengan puisi bebas misalnya. Ia lebih banyak digunakan dagu dan puisi kanak-kanak dan di majlis perayaan hari lahir St. Nicholas pada malam 5 Disember. Dalam kertas ini penulis akan memberi tumpuan kepada pengkayaan pantun dalam sesebuah masyarakat penghijrah dan kemungkinan adanya pengaruh kesusasteraan dan persekitaran budaya Belanda. 

 KEEPING TRADITIONS ALIVE : A PRELIMINARY OUTLINE OF THE CONTEMPORARY USE AND SOCIAL FUNCTION OF PANTUN AMONG MOLUCCANS IN THE NETHERLANDS YOUETTA de Jager 

 Introduction 

 First, I must say that I am very honoured that I was invited to be here at the Persidangan Pantun. Second, I have to admit that I have no pretentions to being a scholar, like most of you are. I am here mainly as a poet and writer, so what I will present to you are for the most part questions, not answers, from a poets’ point of view. However, these questions might very well be a start for a more thorough study of this subject. That is why I chose as my title: ‘a preliminary outline’, which is, indeed, very preliminary, because it merely presents the point of view of a poet who writes pantun in the Netherlands, and no scientific check has been done yet concerning the issues discussed here. It is merely a look into how much the genre still works for a poet, and thus lives on in an environment where the quatrain in itself does not have so much status as a literary genre, and actually mainly refers to nursery rhymes. For this article I interviewed a lady who is actively involved in writing pantun, and related genres as a primary school teacher. She started teaching in particular for the Moluccan children, but as the number of Moluccan children in primary schools is decreasing in the area, because people are spreading more and more throughout the country, she is teaching Moluccan songs and language to children of other descent. They are learning Moluccan words and songs with pleasure because it is something special to them. This lady, let us call her M., lives in a small village in the rural East of the Netherlands, close to the German border. In this area values like sense of community, and being a good neighbour to each other are still highly appreciated, and, thus, the character of this area differs very much from the urbanized centre and West of the Netherlands. 

Shortly after World War II the Moluccan people who had served in the Dutch colonial army in the Netherlands Indies started to migrate to the Netherlands. Some had first stayed for a while in Papua New Guinea, as had M’s family. Her mother’s family comes from Wai, that of her father from Banda. M. herself was born in Ceram and grew up later in Ambon. In the Netherlands they lived in one of the compounds, where the Moluccan families were housed during the 1960s and where most of them still preferred to stay until the 1970s/and early 1980s. Pantun : lost and then found again First feeling, then writing So far M.’s background. Let us turn now to poetry and inspiration. When she was a young girl in Ambon, M. heard a man walking by the house singing a beautiful melody. Her mother heard it too and told her that ‘this man has been working very hard, and is tired’. She knew that by the melody, and not by the words. On another occasion they heard another man singing a song impregnated with melancholy, and the mother said she could tell by the melody that this man was grieving because his son was leaving and they had to part. This genre is called marareu which is, in a way, comparable to the Blues. Apart from the marareu the Moluccans also delight in kroncongan, which is like the Javanese kroncong, although it is, as they find themselves, more melodious in character. Like both of these genres, the pantun as M. knows it is also strongly related to music. M.’s mother and aunt sang pantun which are believed to be very old and to have originated from Malaysia. Usually the pantun conveyed an ethical or moral message. For these pantun there were several traditional melodies, which embody the feeling of the message very strongly, like in the marareu. In this sense words are not even necessary to convey the feelings of a person. Besides that, M.’s mother and aunt were still able to freely improvise when using pantun. They also used pantun in dialogue. This was considered a very indirect, but nevertheless extremely strong method to get children to do what parents wanted them to do, like doing the dishes, for example. In this kind of pantun the moral value was strongly dominant. Perhaps it was all the stronger because the flow of normal dialogue was discontinued and this marked the moment. Remnants like ‘dengar-dengaran orang tua’ (= obey your parents) are still echoed in the nursery rhymes and songs M. writes. This ability to improvise and the use of pantun in daily language has gradually vanished over the generations. Only the first generation was able to use pantun in this way. M. herself said that she usually carries pen and paper in order to make notes before a performance. The written pantun has taken the place of the improvised pantun. 

However, feeling comes first, and is followed by the act of writing. So, we might conclude that feeling is the main source of inspiration for pantun. What about form? The pantun discussed here consist of 4 lines, divided into two pairs. These pantun may consist either of two pairs of improvised lines, or one pair of lines, followed by an expression. The pantun which is sung consists of a [refrain] which is repeated and interchanged with couplets of improvised pantun. The language used for pantun is Moluccan Malay. People do not write in Dutch. Only the National Support Point for the Education of Moluccans [Landelijk Steunpunt Educatie Molukkers] has published some pantun in Dutch for teaching aids. The use of Malay may be one of the reasons why it is so difficult for people to improvise: they have to think over the words they will use, because of their language environment. For every poet it is very hard to write in another language, and it becomes even harder if a poet does not interact with this language daily, to really get the feel of it. Most of the Moluccans have learned Malay, but they do live in a Dutch-speaking environment. As a consequence some people complain about not having adequately learned either of these two languages. One can imagine that it is even harder then to improvise in whatever language you would choose. M. herself felt that it is hard to find the right words to express her personal feelings, living in a Dutch-speaking environment. But there is yet another reason which makes the preference for the use of Malay at least interesting. M. made an interesting remark about the use of a foreign language for pantun. During her stay in Papua New Guinea, she once overheard people singing pantun in a language she could not understand. Although she could grasp the meaning of the pantun and recognized the melody, the words sounded strange to her. Only later, after asking, she realized that the song she heard was a Moluccan song, but the words were in Pidgin English. 

Now why would Moluccans in the Netherlands prefer the use of Malay for pantun even though their knowledge of Malay is not sufficient to be able to improvise freely? Is that because Dutch is considered unfit for this genre, because it sounds strange, or may there be other reasons? What about function? As we have seen pantun are usually sung, and were originally used in common dialogue too, in order to achieve a stronger effect in child rearing. The main function of pantun was to convey a message of cultural values or social norms. The marareu is also called the melancholy pantun, whereas the actual pantun discussed here is primarily cheerful. Pantun are commonly used on special festive occasions, like birthdays and weddings, called ‘bedindang’. People will also sing at funerals, but on these occasions they would use known melodies from hymns and write a Moluccan text to fit the occasion. M.’s aunt used to say: ‘Singing is praying for two.’ M. told that there has been a period when the pantun had receded into the background. But during the 1970s the family started to use pantun at birthdays and weddings. These pantun are either fully improvised or written beforehand for the occasion, sometimes even shortly before the performance. M. herself often carries a pen and some paper with her, and she writes either in the car or at the party. The main reason for this is that she felt she needs time to think about the right words in Malay. Wedding party or birthday pantuns have a playful character, and are improvised on the spot by the guests themselves. 

Often people have prepared some notes at home, which will be handed out at the party. The pantuns are sung together, often using known melodies, mostly the traditional ones. Guests comment on the party and catering. If there is insufficient food, or something else about which the guests may be discontented, one can expect people will comment on this, albeit indirectly. Sometimes at a wedding a boy may express his feelings for a girl he likes in pantun, but then he runs the risk of being publicly renounced by her, also in pantun. People will make fun of each other, and of the situation, expressing annoyance in a playful and indirect way, thereby trying to outwit each other. The birthday pantun allows even more freedom. It is looser and easier because on these occasions only known family members are present. Wedding parties are considered occasions where one should be more indirect, because of the presence of more than one family. The language may be indirect, but people will immediately know the meaning. One pantun will be answered by another, so people communicate with each other using pantun. It is a way to express the bond with family members, the sense of togetherness, and a surviving bond with the homeland they had left behind. The subjects may vary from the playful hints about the occasion and love, to nostalgia for the Moluccas, referring also to the current situation. It seems that the main function of pantun has shifted from the educational value, conveying social and cultural values, to a means of expressing a shared identity. This is illustrated even more by the use of pantun within the family circle only. Preliminary conclusions or some questions to start off with Tradition re-invented? We have seen that the pantun is strongly associated with music, playfulness and festive occasions, with nostalgia, and at this moment also with the bond with family members who are far away in the Moluccas, hoping that they be safe and sound. In this way the pantun has become a symbol for group identity, and in an ever stricter sense family identity. Following a period in which the pantun seemed to be forgotten, in the 1970s people consciously started to use pantun at festive occasions. 

The first generation had still been able to improvise on the spot, as did the second generation, but to a lesser extent. One of the main causes for this might be the language. But it is also this language which is preferred for the pantun. This may be an even stronger indication that the pantun has become a means of expressing Moluccan identity. Not using the Dutch language may also be a statement. How about the younger generation, then? Apart from the weddings and birthdays, the pantun seems to have been forgotten. Younger people who play in a band will write pantun though. The melodies chosen can either be traditional, or people will let themselves be inspired by popular melodies and songs. In secondary school teachers may have some influence in communicating the value of pantun. The rest of the younger generation shows little interest in the subject of pantun. The genre is mainly associated with older people. The pantun improvised on the spot seems to have disappeared, as did the pantun in daily discourse. One of the main causes for this may be the fact that fluency in Malay is felt to be insufficient. In order to be able to write poetry in a certain language, a poet has to be in touch with the feel of the language and to be able to associate with it in a positive way. Even though the feeling precedes the act of writing, thinking about the words too long is an obstacle in writing poetry. The act of writing and consciously weighing up words itself renders the pantun even more distant from its original improvised form. Perhaps it makes the pantun shift in a sense into the Western writing tradition. 

Pantun is not considered to be a higher form of art. It could become a form of art, when re-discovered or re-invented and used in new ways to communicate in a larger circle. Nowadays the pantun mainly functions as a means to confirm social cohesion within a group of migrants, whose descendants are gradually finding their way in a new society. In a way one could say that the pantun tradition has been re-invented, and could be reinvented in future as an acknowledged form of art. Why not? M. excused herself several times for the fact that her work was of little literary value. For me, though, it was enough to know that the pantun has value to the people who use it to communicate their message. Shifting contexts bring about changes in the function of objects, in this case pantun. An artist who uses an object in an acknowledged context of art, merely gives the object another function. It has artistic value, but that may also be a mere temporary instance. So I want to conclude by saying that someone might re-invent pantun again some day. There is always the possibility. And I hope that this point of view told you something new about pantun in migrant societies