The Music of the Mandailing People of North Sumatra

By Margaret J. Kartomi

The drum ensemble and solo music of the Mandailing people in the south-west corner - South Tapanuli area - of North Sumatra. As in the neighbouring Angkola area, the music belongs to a tradition which developed in the centuries before the Muslim religion and Dutch colonial power entered the area. Muslim Padri forces from Minangkabau to the south invaded from about 1821, and the whole area was eventually converted to Islam, with a few small Christian and pele begu ("animist") pockets. The Dutch military first entered the area in 1821 and took administrative power from 1835.

Before that, petty chieftains (raja) ruled over the complexes of hamlets, which were inhabited by various marga (clans), such as Lubis, Nasution, Lintang and Hasibuan. Sibaso (shamans) controlled the system of pele begu rituals, which served to honour, above all, the supernatural beings (ancestral and Nature spirits), the raja and the clan elders (namora natoras). Vestiges of these rituals and associated beliefs are still apparent among many of the Mandailing, especially on occasions of small and large-scale deele ceremonies, including housewarmings (horja manaiki bagas), weddings (horja boru tu aek), funerals, and occasions when a shaman is called upon to cure the sick, or to seek clairvoyant knowledge. Raja descendants still sometimes officiate at ceremonies.

The majority of Mandailing people today, however, are Muslim, unlike the mainly Christian Batak areas to the northeast. There are only a few Christian pockets in Mandailing, with a larger Christian area in Angkola. Some local Muslims disapprove of the pre-Muslim music and dance, and encourage, instead, the performance of Muslim music stemming from Egypt and the Arab countries, such as zikir-rapano and nasit. Zikir songs accompanied by frame drums (rapano) are set to religious verse in Arabic or Mandailing Angkola language and with Middle-Eastern influence melodies. Since about 1976, pilgrims (haji) returning from Mecca have brought back cassette recordings of nasit, and arranged for troupes of girls to be taught to perform it. They dance in various formations to their drum accompaniment of solo and choral Middle-Eastern songs, in Arabic or Indonesian language, and accompany themselves or large and small frame drums (sampring and bemercing) and a mambo drum.

The Mandailing region divides into three main areas. The fairly rugged, mountainous Mandailing na Menek (literally, ‘Small Mandailing‘) area in the south comprises the Muarasipongi and Kotanopan districts. Here, some villages have lost their expertise in the traditional Mandailing culture; but the relatively isolated village where it is still alive and well. Some Pakatan emigrants to the city of Medan have formed an art troupes in that city, including the Gunung Kalabu group of musicians and dancers, all of whom are originally from Pakantan. Some villages have a revived interest in the old culture, mainly through the activities of an enlightened village head, as in Tamiang village, or a Mandailing-born city benefactor, such as in Huta Na Godang.

Villages situated on the rich alluvial plains of Mandailing Godang (literally, ‘Great Mandailing‘) to the north have generally not preserved or revived the traditional culture, and consume mainly Muslims and Middle-Eastern music and Western popular music. However, a gordang sembilan ("nine drum") ensemble and a gondang ("two drum") ensemble are still occasionally played there in the town of Panyabungan. Great Mandailing is flanked by the administrative capital - Padang Sidempuan, inhabited by mixed Mandailing and Angkola (Sipirok) people, whose area extends to the northeast and east, including Portibi in Padang Lawas, where a number of ancient temples are situated.

In Pakantan, and among Pakantan emigrants to Medan, three types of ceremonial orchestra are still distinguished. Usually they are played in a sopo godang, a wall-less pavilion. All three orchestras consist of a pair of bronze gongs, a pair of cymbals, a set of gong kettles and an optional male voice. The only difference between the ensembles, apart from repertoire and social use, is the drum component. The gordang ensemble have nine drums graded in size from large to small. The gordang lima ensemble have five graded drums. And the gondang ensemble has a pair of small drums.

In the largest ensemble, the nine drums are grouped into four pairs, consisting of a larger "female" (induk) and smaller "male" (jantan) drum, plus the ninth (smallest) drum which is named enek-enek meaning "child". In traditional practice, this large ensemble was reserved for ceremonies given by the raja, or, more recently, his descendants, and only after at least one buffalo had been sacrificed. In the past centuries, over a hundred buffaloes were sometimes slaughtered for a raja ceremony. The gordang sembilan ensemble was also played at "funerals" of the raja of the jungle - the tiger.

The five-drum ensemble gordang lima also consists of pairs of drums - two female-male pairs and anenek-enek, with a magically powerful buzzer of shredded bamboo attached. Used in the past by the shaman at ceremonies held in front of his home, its music assisted the shaman while dancing to enter a state of trance in order to contact the spirits and obtain clairvoyant information. In most areas today, it is obsolete.

Unlike the thunderous-sounding sets of one-headed gordang drums, the gondang‘s pair of two-headed drums produces a softer more "refined" (asok) sound. Although it possesses the lowest social status of the three ensemble types, being associated mainly with house-warmings, weddings, funerals, and other ceremonies of non-raja families, the gondang produces the most elegant balance of ensemble sound. Its relatively subdued dynamic level allows the full use of the solo human voice, which tends to be drowned out when accompanied by the larger ensembles. It is also the cheapest and easiest to make or acquire, and is by far the most widely spread and used of the three ensemble types throughout Mandailing and Angkola. Gondang drums are regarded as being especially potent for mystical purposes. Thus, only the gondang was allowed to play the five especially sacred pieces, such as "Jolo-Jolo Turun", which was played to open sacred ceremonies, and especially to help cure a sick person, and "Ideng-Ideng" ("Pray that the spirits settle in"), which was also played at ceremonies, and especially when a child is born. It is also the normal type of accompaniment for the solo song repertoire, consisting of jeir - songs of praising a raja or elder, ile-ile - songs with a sad text, onang-onang songs with a happy text, andung-andung - songs of blessing (for example, on a bridal couple) by a sibaso, unggut-unggut or sikambang (a coastal term) -with their narrative, love or mystical verse, and sitogol - loud singing to lessen one‘s fear when alone in the jungle.

A fourth ensemble type consists of bamboo percussion instruments called gondang buluh ("bamboo drums"), plus optional cymbals, gong, kettles and the solo human voice. Four bamboo strings, slit out from the surface of the bamboo body, are raised on bridges and beaten with a pair of small sticks to produce several pitch levels. There are no bowed strings.

A number of win instruments and a xylophone may be played on more intimate occasions, either solo or to accompany singing. Wind instruments, including the suling, sordam, salung, sarune, ole-ole, sinkadu, tulilla and saleot, were traditionally used to express one‘s intimate emotions, or for self-entertainment, as when girls call their fiancés in the evenings or when someone rests in the fields, or works in the jungle or coffee plantations.

On singing of long legends (turi-turian), of which there are eight main ones in South Tapanuli (for example, "Raja Gorga di Langit"). Special singers performed these epics at weddings and funerals, sometimes singing every night for a week. Lullabies (mabuai or marddo) are formal chants sung by old men at weddings to give advice to the bridal couple (mangatahon pangupa boru).

Gordang Sambilan, the Nine Great Drums of the Mandailing People

The Mandailing people is one of the ethnic group from the Province of North Sumatra. They have been mistaken for Bataks in Indonesia and as ‘foreign Malays‘ in Malaysia. The homeland of the Mandailing are in the district (kapupaten) of Mandailing Natal (MADINA for short), the southernmost part of the North Sumatran province. The province of North Sumatra borders that of West Sumatra.

The Mandailing are a clan-based and an egalitarian society governed by an indigenous institution of governance called Na Mora Na Toras (the nobles and the elders). The Gordang Sambilan (the Nine Great Drums) of the Mandailing people forms a component of this system of governance and social interaction called Dalian na Tolu (the three threshold).

Gordang Sambilan is the cultural heritage of the Mandailing people, and there is nothing like it among the other ethnic groups in Malaysia as well as Indonesia. The sacred ceremonial music of the Gordang Sambilan has invincible powers by which the Mandailings call upon the ancestors to give assistance through a shaman called Sibaso.

In the past, Gordang Sambilan ensembles are found in each of the village republics of the Mandailing homeland. The sacred musical instruments were kept in the Sopo Godang, where the council meetings of the Na Mora Na Toras (the nobles and the elders) convened, or place in a special structure called Sopo Gordang (the drum‘s house) near the Bagas Godang (the Raja‘s/nobleman‘s dwelling). The Gordang Sambilan is only used for customary rites as well as to celebrate the Eidul Fitri, the end of the fasting month of Ramadhan.

The instrument of Gordang Sambilan comprised nine drums graded in size from large to small. The largest being about 1.8 meters long, 0.52 meters wide at the top end and 0.50 meters wide at the bottom end. The resonator is made of a whole tree trunk and covered with cow hide and tied with rattan. A stick is used to beat the drums. Each drum in the ensemble has its own name, but the names are not standardised throughout Mandailing. In keeping with the Mandailing tradition of ‘democracy‘, each village republic has the freedom to name their drums differently.

The Gordang Sambilan ensemble is complemented by two big agung (gongs). The biggest gong is called ogung boru-boru (the female gong) and the smaller bong is called agung jantan (the male gong). Other smaller sets of gong also accompany the ensemble, one called doal dan three much smaller gongs called lemsapong or mong-mongan. Gordang Sambilan is also accompanied by a bamboo flute called sarune or saleot, and a pair of small symbols called tali sasayat.

During the period of animism, the Gordang Sambilan was employed to evoke the spirits of the Mandailing ancestors to come to the rescue of Mandailing society. The ceremony was called paturuan Sibaso (to call upon the spirits to put the Sibaso into trance). The purpose is to summon the ancestors to come to the assistance of the Mandailing people, when afflicted by a plague, for example. Gordang Sambilan was also employed to bring down the rain during drought and to stop the rain when bad weather caused hardship to people.

When the Gordang Sambilan is used in a wedding ceremony, it is called Orja Godang Markaroan Boru and in a burial ceremony, it is called Orja Mambulungi. Permission has to be obtained from the Na Mora Na Toras and from the Raja (the nobleman) as both these ceremonies are viewed as personal and private affairs.

The petition is submitted before the audience of the Na Mora Na Toras, the Raja and the applicant. As a requirement, the applicant must also offer a male adult buffalo for slaughter. If these requirements are not met, the performance of the Gordang Sambilan will not be allowed.

For the burial ceremony (Orja Manbulungi), only two of the nine drums are used, and these drums are called Jangat. But in the context of the ceremony itself the drums are called Bombat.

The performance of the Gordang Sambilan in customary rites is accompanied by adat (customary) paraphernalia including flags called Tonggol, ceremonial umbrella called Payung Raranagan and an assortment of arms from swords to spears called Podang and Sijabut Tombak respectively.

Gordang Sambilan is also played to accompany the dance called Sarama. The dancer sometimes gets into a trance because the spirits of the ancestors enters the dancer. Similarly with the players of the Gordang Sambilan.

Of late, apart from using the Gordang Sambilan as a sacred musical instrument, the Mandailing people have started performing it as a traditional art form that is now popular in Indonesia. The Mandailing migrants to Malaysia have started playing Gordang Sambilan in social events. Gordang Sambilan was introduced into Europe and America when two Indonesian contingents promoting ‘Indonesian‘ traditional art form performed the Gordang Sambilan in the two continents.

Seen as a traditional art form, Gordang Sambilan is now used outside the context of Mandailing adapt (customs), and is employed to received dignitaries, celebrate national events, social gatherings and welcome Edul Fitri, marking the end of the fasting Month of Ramadhan.

Source: www.kabar-irian.info
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