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THE LINGSAR Pujawali festival uniquely joins together two ethnic groups—migrant Hindu Balinese and Muslim Sasak—and is a cultural site of both struggle and reconciliation. A combination of activated myth narratives, participant foreknowledge and expectation, sequenced liturgies, expanding music repertoires and structural homologies, intermingling arts, and released energies interact to create the atmosphere that allows for both intraethnic and interethnic union. Through the power of the performing arts, Balinese and traditional Sasak spiritual and political values are constructed for self and group engagement. Identity formation is a key element as participants negotiate notions of ethnicity, history and modernity , and locate themselves and their party within the event. The festival has had to adapt to new times. Officials have been the major agents of change. They have responded to external forces—government intervention , national agendas, political and religious organizations—and made decisions on performance programs, ritual actions, and, in the case of the Sasak, rationales for participation. While “preservation” and “tradition” are exalted, some music and dance forms seemingly out of step with life or ideology were modified or marginalized . This book has recounted several significant changes over the past two decades, each one negotiated through a complex agency and reflecting a shift in identification. The increasing Islamic orientation of the Sasak can still be accommodated, though further distance between the realms of traditional custom and faith will advance the festival’s transformation from religious to cultural and 207 C h a p t e r E i g h t The Final Gong presentational. Indeed, the music changes among the Sasak demonstrate a transition from agama to budaya. From among the many socioreligous venues historically established for direct Hindu-Muslim interaction, only Lingsar has been maintained as an interface. After the mid-1960s slaughter, Waktu Telu culture sharply contracted and Sasak participation at Lingsar was quickly challenged by reformist forces. Through the agency of Sasak and particularly Balinese individuals (some via the Krama Pura), Sasak were able to continue their involvement, but it came at a cost that would be exacted later: participation would mostly become a cultural obligation detached from religion. I believe that this one change can explain many others arising in performing arts, myths, and agendas—even among the Balinese. The festival is not, however, in any danger of disappearing. On the contrary, it remains vital, is central to most participants’ beliefs, and has managed to survive and even thrive in contemporary Lombok. Despite government imposition, it has not become “folklorcized” to legitimize state culture (see Wong 2001:249 and Turino 1993:231); officials and participants still construct performance spaces and meanings. The compromises that have been made may have further empowered participant positions. This chapter summarizes and reorders the data from earlier chapters, blending discourses that contextualize and explicate meanings of performing arts/rites with those that address negotiations of sociocultural change and resulting impacts on the arts. RITUAL STRUCTURE AND ARTICULATION OF MEANING The temple organizes a complex of beliefs and values. Lingsar is the navel temple of the Balinese, akin to the mother temple of Besakih in Bali, and considered the source of fertility and rainwater for both groups. It is one of the last major holy places of the Waktu Telu, and still attracts a number of Sasak from throughout Lombok who maintain “traditional” or “localized” beliefs. It is a main forum in which to request cures or boons and to pray for success in business or for happiness ; it represents the mythic center of natural and ancestral powers of the island. The myths illuminate how players organize events to explicate particular units of meaning, how the units are based upon cosmological notions and values of the past, and how they address contemporary sociopolitical problems. The accounts explain the Balinese/Sasak relationship, how they view and try to dominate the other by placing themselves in the superior political position—which, by extension, speaks to which group has the legitimate claim over the temple, its festival and its land. This position states that it is their group that discovered Lingsar, their group that directs the festival, and their deities that control prosperity. The histories of Lingsar are embedded into the elements and functions of the performing arts. Music, in particular, tells the stories of Lingsar. Music interlocks with other activated sets of symbolism—offerings, rites of the priests, incense, dance, and ritual objects like parasols, penyor, and lamak—to 208 \ C h a p t e...

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