Abstract
Lexically, the word scape is referred to a specific analogical view of something visible to people on the ground. In cultural studies, the scape is interpreted beyond a physical and visible context. It is a blend of both tangible and intangible cultural dimensions such as music/soundscape and dancescape. Bajau-Sama communities on the East Coast of Sabah and Bajau Laut in the Philippines live harmoniously in an environment where the living of the spiritual world is significant and vital. Balancing the people in the physical and spiritual world through rituals as efficacies are to be performed according to the bonding through inheritance of heirloom for many generations. All scheduled ritual performances not only are fulfilling the agreement between the physical and the spiritual world, but it also produces sounds and movements which add to the scapes of these communities’ world. Music and dance performances in these rituals are identic to the soundscape and dancescape with many types of specific ritual music and dances, i.e., igal soundscape and igal dancescape. The male and female music sounds, dance movements, and phrases in different kind of rituals are not only fulfilling the “manifest functions” but also signify the “latent functions”. Based on the observations of a few rituals among these communities in Semporna, Sabah and Sitangkai Island, Philippines; this paper analyses the scapes of Bajau as both tangible and intangible. This paper will also discuss the significance of these scapes in sustaining Bajau-Sama identity of these areas particularly to Malaysia and the Philippines. Keywords: Bajau-Sama, ritual, celebrations, igal music and dance, identity, Malaysia, the Philippines
Highlights
Music plays different important roles. It works as an agent of social service and entertains all kinds of people
In some communities, music plays different important roles
Spiritual worlds is deemed dangerous if the communities did not make certain arrangements; in order to balance the two worlds, Sama-Bajau perform ritual performances are fulfilling the agreement between the physical and the spiritual worlds, but they believe that through igal-soundscape and igal-dancescape they create an environment that pleases the spirits so that life will always be balanced (Hussin, John Baptist, & Pugh-Kitingan, 2018, pp. 181-204)
Summary
Music plays different important roles. It works as an agent of social service and entertains all kinds of people. Within the Bajau community share commonalities in the way, dancers are performed based the different options of musical tunes during the ritual ceremony of the offering of newly harvested rice (magpaibahau or magduwata) and to please the ancestral spirits (magpa-igal) or offerings for sea-spirits (pagkanduli).
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