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Wet rice cultivation in Indonesia Chapter three
Concluding, we will define adat as:
‘a set of sacred rules which are to be maintained’ (Wessing, 1977:296)
3.2.4 Integrating the concepts of identity, tradition and adat
For traditional rural communities on Java that have wet rice cultivation as the main source of
their existence, the three concepts of identity, tradition and adat do play a crucial role.
Moreover, they are interrelated with each other. Adat, the combination of sacred rules,
cannot exist without tradition. At the same tradition cannot exist without identity.
To explain that separating the three concepts is not possible, we will shortly describe
the ceremony carried out just before a sawah is being cultivated with the seed. Indeed,
identity, tradition and adat, all come together in this small and private ceremony. The
ceremony is an analysis from a custom of the Kasepuhan from West-Java.
The Kasepuhan call this small ceremony before the women go sowing on the field tebar.
The main reason for this is to get the blessings of rice goddess Dewi Sri. Farmers reserve a
small part of the sawah for this, until the moment of harvesting.
First, the family that owns the sawah prays to Dewi Sri. Then,
they burn some incense in a little tray of straw, standing on a
stick. The head of family then lays a first rice branch, pointing
to the south. This is because the Kasepuhan believe that there
is a relation between the wind direction of the south and the
female. The next rice branch is pointing to the north, which
stand for the male. According to the Kasepuhan, the husband
is responsible for the income of the family; the wife is
responsible for fertility and taking care of the family. Only a
combination of the two can be successful. The third and a
fourth rice branch are pointing to the east and west. This
stands for the direction where the sun rises and sets. In the
middle, where the incense stands, the female, the male, and
the sun are coming together. The incense stands in the new
rice field, the water, and the fertile soil.
Figure 3.2: a Kasepuhan member carries out a traditional custom called ‘tebar’
In short, for the Kasepuhan, everything comes together during the ceremony of tebar. It is
the most important symbolic construction, connected to their vision of the universe. This is
their way of life, their identity, a key ritual of their traditions, and one of the rules of adat. In
the next paragraph, we will focus in more detail on these symbolic aspects.
3.3 Symbolic aspects within wet rice cultivation
3.3.1 Explaining the holistic view with cosmology
The analysis of the meaning of cosmology to rural communities in Indonesia is somewhat
problematic. A researcher from a modern country should be highly rationalistic in his or her
way of reasoning: as science demands, the researcher has to prove and explain the
existence of phenomena. If the opposite is the case – proving and explaining a phenomenon
appears to be impossible – the conclusion in scientific research is that it does not exist. As
Aragon states, many anthropologists reject others’ cosmological ideas as empirically
impossible, yet accept them as symbolically or culturally ‘true’ for the native (Aragon,
2003:132). Thus, what might be rational for rural communities might be irrational to a
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