Waiting for Carita Pantun’s Documentation Generation

Waiting For

“Carita Pantun’s”

Documentation Generation

Pantun Kaenti narrator from Baduy, Banten, Circa 1910, KITLV 5283

Mang Ayi Basajan, a juru pantun from Subang Regency, narrated the “Ciung Wanara” story at a Sundanese pantun performance at the Ajip Rosidi Library Building on July 7, 2020. (Photo: Dadan Sutisna).

In 1518, the scribe of Sanghyang Siksa Kandang Karesian, an ancient Sundanese manuscript in the form of didactic prose, mentioned four titles of carita pantun. He wrote exactly like this, “Hayang nyaho in the rhyme ma: Langgalarang, Banyakcatra, Siliwangi, Haturwangi, prepantun tanya” (If you want to know about carita pantun: Langgalarang, Banyakcatra, Siliwangi, Haturwangi, ask the juru pantun (pantun master or poet). Based on this text, carita pantun is considered as the oldest original Sundanese literature which came in the form of an oral tradition.

C. M. Pleyte (1911) estimates that Sundanese carita pantun had existed long before the Hindu era. Meanwhile, Wim van Zanten (1987) suspects that the writing of the pantun had been done since the 16th century. Until now (in 2021), pantun is still performed by juru pantun in sacred rituals related to rice planting/harvesting, marriage, circumcision, and ruwatan, as can be found in several Kasepuhan Banten Kidul and Baduy, Lebak Regency, Banten. However, the numbers continue to decline and there is a fear that this classical form of art is going extinct.

The carita pantun spread throughout the Tatar Sunda (Sundanese Folklore) is completely different from the Malay pantun. Pantun in Malay repertoire is a type of short poem, which in Sundanese society is equivalent to a susualan or a sisindiran (satire). Meanwhile, the Sundanese carita pantun is a relatively long story, in the form of an octosyllabic metered poem, which is spoken and sung by the juru pantun (poet) to the accompaniment of harp music that he plays himself. In its development, the rhythm of the harp would be accompanied by tarawangsa, kecrek, flute, gamelan, and even pesinden (female singers). Maybe it’s just carita pantung from Baduy which until now has only been sung by a poet who mantun (performs) while strumming a ninestringed harp himself. The effort to document carita pantung has been attempted since the end of the 19th century. Hawe Setiawan and Atep Kurnia (2018) believe that Raden Aria Bratadiwidjaja from Ciamis was the first person to record the carita pantun of Lutung Kasarung in 1845, which was spoken verbatim by juru pantun Aki Kriawacana. The handwritten manuscript is now a collection of the Leiden Library. Then in 1882, Tjakrakusumah from Rangkasbitung, recorded a synopsis of the story of the carita pantun Kuda Malela which he obtained from a juru pantun from Baduy. The manuscript is now stored in the National Library. In 1891, Jacobs and Meijer published a transcription of the carita pantung Ciung Wanara. In 1905, Pleyte published Raden

“Ciung Wanara” is one of the stories that characterise the Sundanese people. – Dadan Sutisna

Moending Laja Di Koesoema and Loetoeng Kasaroeng. Others have also made effort to record, transcribe, publish, and adapt carita pantun for different mediums such as Eringa (1949), Ajip Rosidi (1970-1974), Kartini et al. (1990), Andrew N. Weintraub (1990), Jakob Sumardjo (2013), and Wim van Zanten (1987–2021).

However, until now, it is not clear how many stories of Sundanese carita pantun have been documented. Hawe Setiawan and Atep Kurnia in the Sundanese Culture Lecture (2018) chapter Panorama Pantun Sunda, mention that there are about 70-120 titles of pantun that have been recorded. Meanwhile, Wim van Zanten in Music of the Baduy People of Western Java; Singing Is a Medicine (2021) states that it is safer to limit that only 60 titles are known, referring to Eringa’s (1949) research, even then it’s unknown how many of those are well documented. Moreover, the four titles mentioned in Sanghyang Siksa Kandang Karesian are no longer known. What’s sad is that the recordings of carita pantung done by Ajip Rosidi no longer exist, not at the Ajip Rosidi Library in Bandung nor the Leiden University/ KITLV Library in the Netherlands.

Lutung Kasarung

Among the few Sundanese carita pantun that have been recorded, transcribed, published, it seems that only Lutung Kasarung is the most popular and boasts various versions that have been translated into various genres. Pudentia MPSS (1992) mentions that from the history of the reception of the text, the story of Lutung Kasarung has been transformed not only in the form of cross-cultural (from Sundanese to Dutch, Indonesian, Javanese, and English) but also across forms and medium (from oral to written, from written pantun to prose, poetry, opera,

novel, fairy tale and even film). It is also necessary to add the form of wawacan, gending karesnen, and tembang cianjuran.

Some researchers say that the story of Lutung Kasarung is considered a sacred story by the juru pantun or by those who support it. There seems to be a paradox here, that Lutung Kasarung is the most popular carita pantun and that it has transcended the pantun form too, but it is also considered sacred. Danasasmita and Djatisunda (1986) for example, say that the story of Lutung Kasarung in the Baduy area, Banten, is considered sacred because it talks about how to care for rice. When carrying out the Sundanese Poetry and Folklore Research Project, Ajip Rosidi (1973) also stated that not all juru pantun want to tell the story of Lutung Kasarung. However, he still managed to record it from Ki Sajin, a juru pantun from Baduy in 1973 and published it in the same year. Wim van Zanten (2021) also managed to record the audio of Lutung Kasarung from the same juru pantun in January 1977. Indeed, carita pantun should be considered part of “religion” (for Baduy people) and not part of “art”, and he has received permission from the Baduy to record Lutung Kasarung.

After that, it seems that there has been no attempt to document carita pantun from the juru pantun who are still living in Banten or West Java. Meanwhile, the threat of the extinction of the carita pantun is getting more and more real, as the number of juru pantun continues to shrink from year to year. Has anyone inherited the carita pantun that Ajip Rosidi recorded in the 1970s?

Methodological Difficulty

In “Introduction” to Carita Buyut Orenyeng (1974), Ajip Rosidi revealed his difficulties in transcribing the carita pantun delivered by Ki Sajin from Baduy. In fact, he cancelled the rajah (the “prayer” part of a rhyme) in the Carita Lutung Kasarung version which was published a year earlier, due to transcription errors. Wim van Zanten (2021) also experienced the same problem. Perhaps the difficulty in understanding it was caused because the sentence structure in the Sundanese dialect of Baduy which is different from common Sundanese.

Said Ajip, “That’s why I’m not going to include a summary of the story this time because I have to admit that the summary of the story of Lutung Kasarung that I made the other day is mostly based on the reconstruction of my own imagination. Many parts do not connect or are not logical, so I made them logical and the connections. Of course, this is unacceptable.”

Concerning language, Ayatrohaedi in Carita Pantun: [The] “Historical Romance” [of] Sundanese Oral Literature (1993), states that the language used in carita pantun is the language of the “present” which slightly deviates from the initial language used when the carita pantun was first spoken. However, pantun such as Paksi Keuling and Lutung Kasarung from Baduy show that the influence of Arabic and European languages is almost untraceable. There are no names of prophets, angels, or figures from the Islamic world present in these stories. Neither does Arabic and European vocabulary.

There are still many things that have not been revealed about carita pantun, in terms of the text and especially the sociological or anthropological side of the people who support it. In fact, until now, there has not been found a single study that focuses on the stories of the remaining juru pantun as an active actor in teaching, preserving, and passing on knowledge about carita pantun. Although, perhaps, the Sundanese carita pantun can only be designated as intangible cultural heritage (WBTb) from the Sundanese Folklore (Tatar Sunda) from West Java and Banten, unlike the Malay pantun which has been recognised by UNESCO in 2020 as a WBTb (World Intangible Cultural Heritage) from Indonesia and Malaysia. [Niduparas Erlang, novelist]