1 Barbara Hatley, "Cultural Expression," in Indonesia's New Order, ed., Hal Hill (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), 263.
2 The term "New Order" is used to distinguish President Suharto's government from Sukarno's government. Sukarno's "Old Order" ended in 1965. Both governments heavily rely on the Pancasila and political conformity. There are various distinctions b etween the two governments. One distinction that has affected the material culture is the banning of the Communist Party after the failed coup of 1965 which distanced much of the arts, in particular modern art, from the social and political problems of Indonesian society. The second distinction between the Old and New Order governments that largely affected material cultural expression is Suharto's opening-up of Indonesia to the international economic market, which brought with it Western mass media. Such exposure to mass media and Western secular values, with its emphasis on the individual, challenged Indonesian notions of the individual within Indonesian society.
3 Old Sanskrit in origin, this motto was taken from an 11th century coat of arms of a royal Javanese household. Borrowing from an old Javanese symbol, especially a Sanskrit one, reveals the syncretic nature and Java-centrism apparent in the central governm ent. "Unity in Diversity" has been included in the state ideology since Sukarno declared Indonesia's Independence on August 17, 1945. It is a national symbol of Indonesia's multi-cultural population.
4 Virginia Matheson Hooker in Culture and Society in New Order Indonesia states that "in the widest sense, culture embraces spiritual life, values, morality, education, and political processes." (1993), 2.
5 The term "recontextualization" in the field of art history theorizes that art and ethnographic museums often divorce an indigenous object from its original historical and cultural context. This newly decontextualized object then can be given a new histor ical and cultural context. For the purpose of this paper, I have used the term to argue that regional material objects in Indonesia can be subsumed and given a context within the national culture. Therefore, the original meaning and function, as well as the object's place in history, have been altered.
6 In the context of this paper, "material culture" implies all culturally specific plastic forms of expression (e.g., painting, weaving, sculpture) created in the region. I am reluctant to use the term "art". Although the term is increasingly used in Indo nesia, it is not clear to me if it is used as freely as in the West.
7 Paul Taylor, "Introduction" in Fragile Traditions: Indonesian Art in Jeopardy, ed. P. Taylor (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994); Shelly Errington, "Unraveling Narratives" in Fragile Traditions: Indonesian Art in Jeopardy; James Cli fford, "On Collecting Art and Culture" in The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 215-252; and Hatley, "Cultural Expression," 216-262.
8 The idea or understanding of cultural aesthetics can generally be defined as a community's mutual and habituated sense of what is beautiful and what is ugly.
9 In this paper, I use the terms "traditional art" and "material culture" to denote material objects created in the outer regions of Indonesia. Although traditional arts also includes the refined arts of Hindic Java through the 16th century, I am limiting the subject to those marginalized areas, mainly the outer islands and smaller villages of Java.
10 The term "selective tradition" was initially coined in the Marxist cultural theory of R. Williams, "Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory" in Problems of Materialism and Culture (London: Verso, 1980), 39. Although a term used to expre ss the theoretical behavior of the Modernist museum in the West, I find his definition of the process of selective tradition to be quite applicable to the process of assimilation of regional cultures into the Indonesian national culture.
11 In Postmodernist art historical and cultural theory, the "other" denotes marginalized peoples either ignored or dominated by a mainstream and elitist culture. Historically the "other" consisted of colonized natives dominated by European colonizers. I us e the term "other" here to imply that the Indonesian central government on Java marginalizes and dominates its outer regions.
12 Christine Kreps, "Museum Mindedness in Indonesia," SEASPAN 9, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 7-10. Kreps employs this term to suggest that Western museum practices of rational categorizing, collecting and redefining of cultural objects established a partic ular mindset and theoretical framework. She calls this framework and mindset "museum-mindedness."
13 "Gaze" in art historical terms generally refers to the dominance of the white male objectification of the female body in art. I employ this term to imply that the domestic and international gaze objectifies and influences the direction of traditional art forms in Indonesia. For more information about the "gaze" as discussed in art history please see John Berger, The Look of Things: selected Essays and Articles (New York,: Penguin, 1972).
14 Aside from the amazing demographic preponderance of Javanese (multiple ethnic groups) in the country, the great flowering of Indic culture occurred on Java. The trade expansion with the Portuguese and Dutch was centered on Java's north coast. Additionall y, the rise of nationalism and subsequent revolution against the Dutch took place initially on Java.
15 Through personal conversations with Indonesians in Bali, Sulawesi and Java, it is my impression that many Indonesians throughout Indonesia feel that Java has heavily influenced the rest of the country, both in terms of behavior and traditional structures of politics. Many jokes about the President of Indonesia refer to him as the Javanese Raja.
16 Clifford Geertz, "The Year of Living Culturally," The New Republic (October. 21, 1991): 36.
17 Hatley, "Cultural Expression," 253.
18 "Fossilize" in this case refers to the ideas of traditional life and customs as backward. In Indonesia, if something is considered "backward" it is not as viable as the system of modernity. In this case modernity is a sign of development presented to t he international community. Kessler, "Archaism and Modernity in Malay Political Culture"; and Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger, eds., Invention of Tradition (New York: Cambridge University, 1983). The authors painstakingly argue that traditiona l "pasts" are invented contemporary creations of both ethnic and national projects.
19 Clifford Geertz, "Popular Art and the Javanese Tradition," Indonesia 50 (October 1990): 79.
20 David Brown, "Immanent Domains: Cultural Worth in Bone, South Sulawesi" Social Analysis no. 35 (April 1994): 84.
21 Hatley, "Cultural Expression," 217; and Kessler, "Archaism and Modernity in Malay Political Culture," 136.
22 "Regional/local cultures" possess their own unique history, values, language, concepts of politics, and sometimes cosmic and world views apart from the hegemonic culture I defined earlier. Culturally specific aspects such as animism and mysticism often o ppose the state ideology because they do not conform to the official national definition of religion. For further clarification see sections on Pancasila and Cultural Policy.
23 Kessler, "Archaism and Modernity in Malay Political Culture," 133.
24 Kessler, "Archaism and Modernity in Malay Political Culture," 133.
25 For more information regarding this topic see Virginia Matheson Hooker, ed., Culture and Society in New Order Indonesia (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1993).
26 Hooker, Culture and Society in New Order Indonesia , 135.
27 Kenneth Hall, Maritime Trade and state Development in Early Southeast Asia (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1985), 88.
28 Personal communication with Uri Tadmor, Indonesian language instructor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
29 In the last decade, certain pre-religions or agamas have been unofficially accepted into the Pancasila religious categories. For instance the Torajan pre-Christian and Muslim religion of Aluk to Dolo, and the Kejawen pre-Islamic tradition of mysti cism on Java. For a concise, discussion on the Kejawen in the central government see Margot Lyon, "Mystical Biography: Suharto and the Kejawen in the Political Domain," in Search of Cross-Cultural Understanding, ed. Andrew McIntyre, Monash Papers on Southeast Asia, no. 28 (Clayton, Australia: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1993), 211-238.
30 Virginia Matheson Hooker, ed., "Glossary" in Culture and Society in New Order Indonesia, 1993, xix.
31 The requirement to claim a religion was reinforced and became mandatory after the communist insurgency of 1965. Every Indonesian must claim a religion or be suspected of harboring communist political views. After 1965, the Chinese changed their names in to either Indonesian or Christian names. The Chinese were thought to be a major factor in the spread of communism in the early decades. Religious affiliation is placed on one's ID cards.
32 Both Dutch and Indonesian governments advocated missionary work. Missionaries were not allowed to go into already established Muslim areas. The missionaries in the early twentieth century either burned or confiscated almost all material cultures that ap peared to possess a sacral purpose, for example, ancestor figures of Nias and Toraja. These objects were deemed in opposition to Christianity. Large collections of confiscated objects became permanent holdings of the major museums in the West.
33 James Clifford, "Introduction: The Pure Products Go Crazy," in The Predicament of Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 17.
34 The deeper implications of Pancasila will not be expressed here. For a detailed, and short reading see Amyn Sajoo, Pluralism in Old Societies and New States (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1994), 31-42.
36 Paul Taylor, "Collecting Icons of Power and Identity: Transformation of Indonesian Material Culture in the Museum Context" Cultural Dynamics 17, no.1 (Fall 1995): 117. This is a play on words. The motto "Unity in Diversity" is here reversed to suggest the diversity of the many local cultures are incorporated into the unified whole of the nation state.
39 Haryati Soebadio, Cultural Policy in Indonesia (Paris: UNESCO, 1985), 13-14.
40 Soebadio, Cultural Policy in Indonesia, 18-19.
41 Taylor, "Introduction"; and Takaishi Fujii, "Approach to New Values" in Art and the Future: Collected Papers of the First International Conference on Art and the Future, ed. Margaret Alisjahbana, (Bali: Art Center Toyabungkah, 1978), 65.
42 Hatley, "Cultural Expression," 218.
43 Bambang Soebadio, Sejerah Direktorat Permusiuman (Jakarta: Departmen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, 1987), 87; and Indonesia Departmen Pedidikan dan Kebudayaan, Cultural Policy of Indonesia, (Paris: UNESCO, 1973), 25.
44 Departmen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaam , Cultural Policy of Indonesia (Paris: UNESCO, 1985).
45 Geertz has described this "Javanology" as the revivified scholarly enterprise of applying "scientific" methods of analysis to "indigenous" cultural phenomena: "The scholarly studies consist mainly of efforts to demonstrate the compatibility of the concep tions incarnate in classical art forms (dance, drama, music, textiles, and most especially the shadow play) with those of modern physics, genetics, psychology, or medicine; attempts to develop 'Javanese economics', 'Javanese jurisprudence', 'Javanese peda gogy', 'Javanese linguistics', or 'Javanese psychoanalysis', out of the same materials; evaluations of Javanese folk therapies, excavations of pre-Islamic Javanese archaeological sites, interpretations of Javanese history...." Geertz, "Popular Art and t he Javanese Tradition," 89.
46 Barbara Arendt quoted in Geertz, "The Year of Living Culturally," 34. For a history and psychology of early Colonial collecting practices see Carol Breckenridge, "The Aesthetic and Politics of Colonial Collecting: India at World Fairs" Society for Com parative Study of Society and History, 56, no. 3 (1989): 195-216. Breckenridge traces Western collecting behavior as beginning out of a need to rationalize and scientifically categorize material culture.
47 Susan Vogel, "Introduction" in Art/Artifact exhibition catalogue (New York: Center for African Art, 1988), 13.
48 In this sense "Us" refers to the cultural community the viewer associates themselves with. "Them" suggests an outsider, not of the "Us" community. In relation to European museum exhibitions, "Us" refers to the European culture influenced by old colonial ideologies that distinguished racially between "Us" the colonizer, and "Them" the colonized.
49 John Young, "Artworks and Artworlds" British Journal of Aesthetics, 35, (October 1995). Young discusses theoretical problems of distinguishing what is or is not art. Historically, a small elite group of art history experts distinguished what was "art". "Arthood" of an object depended upon arbitrary and personal criteria. Since material cultures have been collected, the distinction between art object and artifact has been vague. The dichotomy of art/artifact continues to be debated between art history and ethnography.
50 James Clifford, "On Ethnographic Surrealism," in The Predicament of Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 135.
51 Ann Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995).
52 For more detailed discussion on this idea see: Rasheed Araeen, "From Primitivism to Ethnic Arts," in The Myth of Primitivism, ed. Susan Hiller (London: Routledge, 1993),159-182; and Annie E. Coombes, "Ethnography and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities," in The Myth of Primitivism: Perspectives on Art ed. Susan Hiller (London: Routledge, 1994), 190-213).
53 Araeen, "Primitivism to Ethnic Arts," 160.
54 Edward Said coined the phrase "Empire era ideology" in Culture and Imperialism, (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1993).
55 Taylor, "Collecting Icons," 112.
56 In regards to previous methods of collecting, exhibiting, etc., Taylor suggests that current practices have been decolonized. In other words, the practices have been reevaluated and those deemed detrimental to an interregional or cross-cultural exchange h ave been changed.
57 Taylor, "Collecting Icons," 112.
58 Sally Price, Primitive Art in Civilized Places (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
59 In the exhibition catalog Primitivism in 20th Century Art the "primitive" art pieces that inspired modern art are labeled not by the artist or function but by the collector.
60 By the mid 17th century, Islam was the primary religion in Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi. Islamic tenets forbid the representation of recognizable living figures, and the adherence to syncretic religious elements of Hindu or Buddhism. Although mysticism sti ll persists today, the monuments created by the earlier dynasties of religiously syncretic Java were abandoned and left to the jungle until the late 19th century.
61 The Dutch did not originally begin the restoration of Borobudur temple in Central Java. The English governor Raffles, during his short tenure as British governor, unearthed Borobudur. The Dutch did, however, continue Raffles' archeological work on Borobu dur, as well as other unearthed complexes, including on the island of Sumatra. The research was written in the Dutch, German, and English Languages.
62 Taylor, "Collecting Icons," 110. A local and/or Indonesian cultural framework was combined with Western museum practices.
63 Mattiebelle Gettinger, Splendid Symbols: Textiles and Tradition in Indonesia (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Paul Taylor and Lorraine Aragon, Beyond the Java Sea: Art of Indonesia's Outer Islands exhibition catalog (Washin gton: Smithsonian 1991).
64 Taylor, "Collecting Icons," 111.
65 Kreps, "Museum Mindedness in Indonesia," 7-9; and Ivan Karp, "Introduction" in Exhibiting Cultures: the Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, eds. Ivan Karp and Lavine, Steven (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Inst. Press, 1991), 1-16.
66 The exhibitions consist of those items acquired during, and after the Colonial era. The objects displayed are items previously considered "primitive". In other words objects thought to be created for function over form. For various methods of appropriati on used by the Dutch see Sally Price, Primitive Art in Civilized Places (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).
67 Price, Primitive Art in Civilized Places.
68 Theory of authenticity is too involved to discuss in the confines of this paper. For the purpose of this paper, authenticity depends on an object existing as a unique form. Authentication requires that object be created and used for a specific purpose. Duplicates made for the tourist trade are deemed not authentic; they are relegated to the status of craft. Although art museums maintain a certain tendency to decontextualize objects, the actual act of an object functioning in a ritual imbues the piece with power. This contradictory demand of authenticity incorporates notions of expectations that impose immobility on an object. Evolution of style or materials is unacceptable. For further information on how ideas of authenticity affect tradition al arts, rituals, exhibitions and the art market refer to: Brian Wallis, ed., Art After Modernism (New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1995); Spencer Crew and James Sims, "Locating Authenticity: Fragments of a Dialogue" in Exhibiting C ultures: The Poetics and politics of Museum Display (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), 159-175.
71 There are several classes in Museology taught in the academies, and the system of conservation is getting better. However, the central government is not allotting much revenue for museums. Private foundations often take up the task.
72 Paul Taylor, "The Nusantara Concept of Culture," in Fragile Traditions: Indonesian Art in Jeopardy, ed. P. Taylor (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), 71.
73 James Clifford, "On Collecting Art and Culture," The Predicament of Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 222-225.
74 It is ironic that the missionaries carried out their own versions of cultural genocide. The introduction of Christianity created dissonance for the local cultures who found they had to alter their perceptions of material objects which previously held gre at spiritual power. For instance the Torajan Tau-tau, or ancestor sculptures, no longer house the spirit of the deceased. Now the Tau-tau is merely an effigy. The missionaries also carried out extensive persecution exercises in which much of the local material culture was burned. That which survived became either the property of the colonial museums or was exported to Europe.
75 Other tools of unification are the national language of Bahasa Indonesia; the depiction of various regional cultural aspects, such as costume, dance, local architecture, on the national paper currency; and short television documentaries highlighting parti cular cultural expressions from around Indonesia's 27 provinces.
76 For a more detailed study of the contents and history of the Ternate Palace Museum see Taylor, "The Nusantara Concept of Culture," 83-86; and National Museums of Singapore, ed., Directory of the Museums of ASEAN (Singapore, 1988).
77 The use of "palace" here is quite intentional. Although the palace is now a museum, the building continues to function in its original role as the center of local life. Many local people continue to view the palace in its original context.
78 David Brown, "Immanent Domains: Cultural Worth in Bone, South Sulawesi,"Social Analysis , no. 35 (April 1994) : 84-101. According to Brown, oral traditions of regions such as Bone, in South Sulawesi, state the first regalia was given by the God-ru lers. The collection is considered supernatural residue. Regalia of Java, Sulawesi and possibly other regions, originally possessed keris (a dagger used in several regions of Indonesia, namely Bali, Java, and Sulawesi. Keris" are believed to possess supernatural power that may be manipulated by the owner). At times, as in the case of the Ternate Palace, there is conflict between the state, which claims ownership of the regalia, and villagers who maintain that they are the rightful heirs.
79 Taylor, "The Nusantara Concept of Culture," 71-74.
80 The Kraton (palace) in Yogjakarta remains a special case. Although lacking concrete political power, its religious duties are still performed, its royal gamelan orchestras continue to play for the officials of state, and it remains the residence o f the royal family. The central Javanese palaces were given special status after Independence for their loyal support of the revolution.
81 For more information on the Kerajaan (sultanate) system, see A.C. Milner, Kerajaan: Malaya Sultanate on the Eve of Colonialism, The Association for Asian Studies monograph, no. 40 (Arizona: The Association for Asian Studies, University of Ar izona Press, 1982).
82 Ministry of Culture. "Indonesian Cultural Policy" (1973): 19; and Taylor, "Collecting Icons," 81-83.
83 Kreps, "Museum Mindedness in Indonesia," 5.
84 Rita Smith Kipp and Susan Rogers, "Introduction: Indonesian Religions in Society," in Indonesian Religion in Transition, eds. Rita Smith Kipp and Susan Rogers (Tucson: University of Arizona,1987), 1-29; and Toby Alice Volkman, "Mortuary Tourism i n Tana Toraja," in Indonesian Religion in Transition, eds. Rita Smith Kipp and Susan Rogers (Tucson: University of Arizona,1987), 161-192. Often, elements of traditional culture are politically placed under the label of "adat". This practice has been very useful in preserving many traditional practices deemed by world religions as paganism. One of the main reasons traditional material objects may be displayed in authentic ways in the regional museums is because of the tricky definition of < I>adat. Adat, in the simplest terms, encompasses all the pre-Islamic custom and ritual of a culture. This traditional component has recently been dissected by the world religions. Indonesian Islam and Christianity have separated those eleme nts of adat deemed religious and those that are traditional custom. The adat elements are preserved; the religious elements are recontextualized.
85 Patrick Guiness, "Local Society and Culture" in Indonesia's New Order , ed., Hal Hill (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), 282.
86 Shinji Yamoshita "Manipulating Ethnic Traditions: The Funeral Ceremony, Tourism, and Television among the Toraja of Sulawesi" Indonesia 58 (October 1994): 80.
87 Ministry of Culture, Apa dan Siapa itu Indonesia (Jakarta: 1975), 43.
88 The catalog does not go into detail over various obstacles experienced in the building of the park. One can assume that some of the obstacles were the student protests instigated against the state's controversial appropriation and use of this land. The land disputes became a deeper debate of class issues as the land used for the park was to be zoned for landowners to farm.
89 Ministry of Culture, Apa dan Siapa itu Indonesia, 43. The catalog suggests that every province is represented in the park. This is not quite true. In response to being excluded from the park, Andanao has created its own "mini-zation" of itself, d isplaying its traditional cultural wealth.
90 Ministry of Culture, Apa dan Siapa itu Indonesia, 43-50. In the 1970's the state implemented the Cultural Tourism Policy. The policy focused on the economic value of tourism in Indonesia. Policies of tourism, as a topic of research, cannot be ad equately discussed in this paper. For further reading on tourism's impact on indigenous culture see Kathleen Adams, "Making-up the Toraja? The Appropriation of Tourism, Anthropology, and Museums for Politics in Upland Sulawesi, Indonesia" Ethnology 34 (Spring 1995): 143-53; and Miriam Kahn, "Heterotopic Dissonance in the Museum Representation of Pacific Island Cultures" American Anthropologist 97 (1995): 324-338.
91 Crew and Simms, "Locating Authenticity," 174.
92 Patrick Guiness. "Local Society and Culture," 300-302.
93 Patrick Guiness. "Local Society and Culture," 281. Through personal communication with several Balinese dancers in the city of Ubud in 1996 I received the consensus that dances had indeed changed due, in large part, to an attempt to preserve the ritual f rom the effects of tourism. In the 1970's, a welcoming dance, initially reserved for temple ritual, was performed for the tourist. A dissonance occurred and a new non-religious welcoming dance was created and performed by specially trained dancers. Iro nically, the pure ritual form has been usurped in the ritual by this new form of dance.
94 Secularization occurs when the original function of a ritual object is removed. For example, Statues of the Catholic Virgin and Christ were not created for a museum. The "art" was created for a specific, spiritual location. Inside the church, the statue s retained their supernatural meaning and function. As soon as these objects are removed from their intended location, their meaning is altered. The object is now serving a secular purpose as a non-spiritual object within a secular context of museum or gallery.
95 Williams, "Base and Superstructure," 39.
96 Theron Nunez, "Tourist Studies in Anthropological Perspective," in Hosts and Guests (Penn: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), 207-216.
97 Max Stanton, "The Polynesian Cultural Center," in Hosts and Guests (Pennsylvania: University Pennsylvania Press, 1977), 196.
98 Max Stanton, "The Polynesian Cultural Center," 196.
99 S.T. Alisjahbana, Indonesia in the Modern World (New Delhi: Office for Asian Affairs, Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1961).