In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

23 chapter 2 Two Interludes and Some Family History + Interlude I: Jamila’s Musical Pedigree O, Jamila, Jamila, da bintang filem oh, Jamila, Jamila, darling of indian India film Boru ni kalifah, parumaen ni da Daughter of the kalifah, daughterpandita in-law of the puacher Tung godang do halak sega dibahen so many hearts are broken because of ho da Jamila you, Jamila Dirimpu anak boru they think you’re still a young girl Hape naung ina-ina turns out you’re already an old broad O, Jamila oh, Jamila it was a running joke in the sitohang family that you could always pick out Bapak and know that he was a drum maker from the village merely by looking at his pants. even when leaving the family complex in the afternoon, he would often make the rounds with one pant leg hovering around his knee. looking at Bapak sitting on the porch of the house in harian, talking animatedly with friends or family members, it was easy to link the rolled-up pant leg with the wood chips and unfinished drums that littered the area. his unorthodox dress code fit the physical labor of hollowing out logs and shaping lutes, and marked his profession as a master drummer and instrument maker.1 six hours away, however, sitting in the guest room of his children’s house in the busy city of Medan, the rolled-up pant leg no longer indexed Bapak’s profession and simply added to his peculiar charisma: the village, present for a time in the city. considering the six-hour trip he had just finished, not to mention that Bapak was never as much himself in the city as he was in the village, i should not have expected the definitive version of the song that i was hoping for. in fact, i only got one or two verses out of him, with some misremembered words, before he stopped playing his hasapi and pulled antiphonal histories / 24 up his legs beneath him, effectively squatting, village style, on the fancy but uncomfortable guest room chair. When i first arrived in sumatra in 1996, most of the sitohang family lived in a small village on the shores of lake toba in inland sumatra, the traditional homeland of the toba people. By 2004, however—the time of Bapak’s city visit—the family had dispersed throughout indonesia. of the family’s twelve children, only the fifth son now lives in the family village of harian, with his wife and infant son. the rest live in Medan, the busy capital of north sumatra, in Jakarta, indonesia’s capital, or in other sizeable cities throughout the archipelago. the success of the sitohang family in seeking out new places and experiences, a remarkable achievement considering that many of their village schoolmates still work in the rice field, is due in part to their father’s expertise in toba traditional music. Guntur sitohang (whom all of his children, including adopted ones like me, call by the indonesian word for “father,” Bapak) is widely regarded as one of the best traditional musicians in the regency of samosir. at age eighty, he is still frequently pursued as an ensemble leader, drummer, or sarune (t: wooden oboe) player of the more prestigious of the two toba ceremonial groups, the gondang sabangunan ensemble.2 his early experience as a composer of toba popular songs, his involvement, through music, in most aspects of toba traditional culture, his status as one of a handful of musicians still skilled in instrument-making, his previous professions as both a government-appointed school-teacher and a traditional onion and rice farmer, and his charisma, humor and knack for explanation makes Bapak a favorite collaborator of information-seekers of all kinds, including government officials, professors, indonesian and foreign PhD students, and smithsonian Folkway’s Philip yampolsky.3 Bapak also has the happiness of a fortunate choice of a spouse in tiamsa boru4 habeahan (“oma” to her eleven children), who, besides flawlessly running a house filled with family, friends, drums, dogs, chickens, and visiting scholars, is also a musician and can usually help and correct whoever is playing. as a singer and mainstay of the church choir, oma can supply many of the forgotten verses of Bapak’s songs. she also anchors the sitohang children to their natal village—although Bapak moved to harian from samosir island as a young man, oma’s family has lived on harian’s gentle hills as long as...

Share