Wim van Zanten, Music of the Baduy People of Western Java: Singing is a Medicine
Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: Despite its descriptive approach, this Music of the Baduy People of Western Java: Singing is a Medicine asks a question to ponder in its concluding part."How will Baduy people be able to use their music as a medicine in the coming years?"(p.272).In the attempts to understand the music practice of an indigenous group called Baduy, Wim van Zanten contextualizes the above question in the social and ecological changes in the past decades driven by economic development and the government-sponsored tourist promotion.This small ethnic group, who persists Islamization, practice an ascetic life, customary rules, and religion called sunda wiwitan, is facing the increase of population, the shortage of agricultural land for shifting cultivation, the stipulation of their village to become a tourist site, and the coming of modern technology such as car, motorbike and cell phone.Numbering about 12,000 in 2016, Baduy people mainly live in several hamlets in the village of Kanékés in Banten Province of Indonesia, where they form inner and outer Baduy areas; while some of them reside in a neighbouring village.Even though it is forbidden by their religion, some members of the outer Baduy have used electronic device like cell phone.The significant threat to the sustainability of Baduy modest life, however, is a land shortage for non-irrigated rice field that has been 1 7/14/23, 10:49 AM
Source: Moussons
Author: Alan Darmawan
Institutions: University of London, SOAS University of London
Language: English
Subfield: Music
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4361759207