Folklore and Tradition in Javanese Society

Abstract

lectual force in early Java and responsible for the high civilization reached there before the Westerners came and the colonial era began. Recent investigations indicate however that the Javanese had an autochthonous culture older than Hinduism; many of its unique concepts of social organization and of the individual's place in it are still retained.1 Pre-Hindu traditions survive in the dance, the theater, music, and sculpture. Traditional Javanese society is paternal, aristocratic, and stratified, with most of the people living in villages which supported the courts and nobility. Hereditary village elders, governing by common consent, and aristocracy, which represented royal control, held political authority beyond the courts. Kings, aristocrats, and peasants lived in a highly integrated order, in which the dominant cultural ideals were the customs and traditions of the villagers and the code of chivalry and etiquette of the Javanese knights. The peasant's social horizon was limited by the traditions and unwritten legal precepts of his community, but he regarded the aristocrat's mode of living as the epitome of refinement and chivalry. Knowledge of classical Javanese literature and the theater was regarded as indispensable to a well-developed personality, to a satisfactory education and to the art of refined and restrained living. In many ways, the Javanese knight's culture was also part of the peasant's life, for the shadow and puppet play, wayang, and the dance taught the proper facial expressions, correct posture, and modes of address of the cultural ideal, the Javanese noble whom the village rendered service.2 The identification of the knightly culture with music, the theater, and the dance is a measure of the integration of the traditional Javanese world view, which is also evident in the fivefold division of society, in which each division was believed to be closely connected with a higher cosmic unity and identified with a trade or profession, a lucky day of the five-day week, a color, and a personality trait. Every peasant, merchant, or wine tapper had a color, a metal, and a direction of the wind, which were