Musicology Australia

ISSN: 0814-5857 (Print) 1949-453X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmus20

Traditional and Modern Forms of Pencak Silat in

Indonesia: The Suku Mamak in Riau

Margaret Kartomi

To cite this article: Margaret Kartomi (2011) Traditional and Modern Forms of Pencak
Silat in Indonesia: The Suku Mamak in Riau, Musicology Australia, 33:1, 47-68, DOI:
10.1080/08145857.2011.580716

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2011.580716

Published online: 29 Jun 2011.

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Musicology Australia
Vol. 33, No. 1, July 2011, 47–68

Traditional and Modern Forms of Pencak Silat in

Indonesia: The Suku Mamak in Riau
MARGARET KARTOMI

Monash University, School of Music—Conservatorium, Australia

Pencak silat (‘the art of self defence’) is a contemporary umbrella term used in Indonesia and Malaysia and
other parts of Southeast Asia to designate the hundreds of traditional and modern martial art genres that are
performed either solo or as a duel, and with or without musical accompaniment. The two components of the
term designate the two parts of the one pencak silat genre: pencak, a performance art, and silat, a fighting and
self defence art, with the latter sometimes involving the use of weapons such as a sword or dagger. The forms
are associated with a range of local legends, religious concepts and philosophies, religions, and systems of
customary law (adat), and are components of traditional education. This article explores traditional and
modern forms of Pencak silat of the Suku Mamak in Riau, in which the collaborative roles of musicians,
musical instruments and other participants are analysed. The article argues that the modern state-
appropriated forms have developed in similar fashion throughout the Indonesian archipelago.

This article discusses the performance, cosmology and history of the art of self-defence
(pencak silat [I, M]),1 which developed among many Malay groups in Indonesia and other
parts of Southeast Asia since approximately the last millennium.2 After focusing on the
fight-dancing and music of one of its many forms, the article discusses the cosmological
philosophy behind its movements and techniques, analyses the collaborative processes in its
transmission and the production of a performance, this time focusing on the period, and
presents three theories of its origin. After describing a pencak silat event in the 1980s, the
article returns to a discussion of the collaborative processes in the art’s transmission and the
production of a performance after the Indonesian Revolution (1945–1949), when it was
appropriated by the state and broke into its three modern forms: a stage art (Pencak Silat
Seni, ‘artistic art of self defence’), a form of sport (Pencak Silat Olah Raga, ‘the sport of self-
defence’), and a form of exercise for the masses Silat Perisai Diri, ‘self-shielding art’). As
will become apparent, these modern, state-appropriated forms have developed in similar
fashion throughout the Indonesian archipelago.3

1 I ¼ Indonesian, M ¼ Malay, Minang. ¼ Minangkabau, Ar. ¼ Arabic. Non-English words without

attribution are Indonesian.
2 Traditional pencak silat is also practised in Malay-speaking areas of Malaysia, southern Thailand, and some
other parts of Southeast Asia. Maryono estimates that there are more than 800 schools and 260 styles of
pencak silat throughout Indonesia, and Wilson counted 20 named styles in West Java; see O’ong Maryono,
‘Pencak Silat in the Indonesian Archipelago’, Rapid Journal 4/2 (Book 12) (1999), 38–9; and Ian Douglas
Wilson, ‘The Politics of Inner Power: The Practice of Pencak Silat in West Java (PhD thesis, Murdoch
University, 2003), 39. Shamsuddin counted more than 150 variants in Malaysia; see Sheikh Shamsuddin, The
Malay Art of Self-defense: Silat Seni Gayong (Berkeley, Calif: North Atlantic Books, 2005).
3 Most of the data in this article were gleaned from guru silat (masters) whom I met in many ethnic groups
during my ethnomusicological field trips throughout Sumatra and other parts of Indonesia and Malaysia in
1972–2010, especially the Suku Mamak master, Pak Kuning Harum Bunga Tanjung. Others were a pair of
Minangkabau tiger-capturing shamans (pawang) and pencak silat masters, Bp Djabur Datuak Radjo Taduang
and Bp Halimar Datuak Radjo, whom I met in Solok in 1972, and the west-coast Minangkabau guru/
ISSN 0814-5857 print/ISSN 1949-453X online
Ó 2011 Musicological Society of Australia
DOI: 10.1080/08145857.2011.580716
http://www.informaworld.com
48 Musicology Australia vol. 33, no. 1, 2011

A great variety of forms of pencak silat developed in different areas of Indonesia in pre-
colonial and post-sixteenth-century colonial Dutch times, very few of which have been
discussed in the literature.4 Many Indonesians employ the compound term pencak silat to
denote a performance that begins with a martial arts display and ends with an exciting fight
between a pair, or pairs, of protagonists. After a display of the slow sparring movements
with artful stylistic embellishments (gerak bunga [M, I], gerak bungo [Minang.]) in the
pencak part of a performance, they learn the techniques of open hand combat between a
pair, or pairs, of protagonists in the second and final part, called silat.
The performance described below was presented by members of Riau’s semi-nomadic,
forest-dwelling Suku Mamak people whose ancestors had served as the designated
providers of music, dance and pencak silat at the nearby palace of the former sultan of
Indragiri, near the present-day town of Rengat on the Indragiri River. While they are
wandering in the forest it is, of course, impractical for them to carry musical instruments
around with them, so they perform a style of the art of self-defence in which music is
optional. For the palace, however, the Suku Mamak developed a relatively elaborate
performance style, which shares many movements, musical attributes, and cosmological
connotations with performances in other former Malay palaces in Sumatra, and it also has
some unique features deriving from the Suku Mamak’s forest environment. The following
section describes a performance in the style they developed for the former palace.5

Part 1: A Traditional Pencak Silat Evening in a Suku Mamak Forest Village

Around 4:00 pm on 14 November 1984, a group of semi-nomadic Suku Mamak people were
preparing to hold a series of healing ceremonies for a female patient with swollen chin lymph
nodes. The ritual events took place in a slightly sandy arena outside a Suku Mamak timber
home with plaited bamboo walls built on stilts in the shady, isolated forest village of Talang
Jerinjing, southwest of the town of Rengat on the Indragiri River in the province of Riau.
The ceremony was to include a lesson for novices and a performance led by a shaman
(kumantan) who was also a guru silat, the late Pak Kuning Harum Bunga Tanjung (alias Pak
Kuning). Two pairs of fighter-dancers (pesilat) and three musicians were preparing themselves
for the performance while the hosts and elders were organizing the ceremony and making
offerings to the spirits, and some of the women were preparing the ensuing feast. Garnering
the power of a silat performance was seen as a way of treating the patient, as the beauty of the
fight-dancing and music could attract the benign spirits of the ancestors and the natural
environment to come down and bless the patient and all those present.
Before the event, a group of 12 novices had gathered on the side of the arena and made
their formal greetings to Pak Kuning, who was preparing to give them a lesson in the art of

shaman Pak M. Noerdin in Kampuang Salido, Painan Timur, Kecamatan Empat Surai in 1986. I was also
informed by Barendregt’s interviews with Mahaguru Darwis Sultan Sulaiman from Solok, West Sumatra; see
Bart Barendregt, ‘De beweging in Silat Minang, Randai en Tarian Pencak’ [‘Movement in Silat Minang,
Randai and Pencak Dancing’] (MA thesis, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, 1994; and Bart Barendregt, ‘Written by
the Hand of Allah; Pencak Silat of Minangkabau, West Sumatra’, Odeion: The Performing Arts World-wide 12
(1995), 131–44.
4 Probably the scholarly neglect of the art of self-defence is due to the fact that it lies on the cusp of music and
dance, and therefore requires of the researcher descriptive and analytical skills in both fields, which is challenging.
5 This account is based on my field notes and photographs of a daytime pencak silat performance in Talang
Jerinjing, Riau, in November 1984, plus my and Barendregt’s photographs of similar performances by
Minangkabau performers in Solok, Painan, and Johor, Malaysia.
 M. Kartomi, Forms of Pencak Silat in Indonesia 49

self-defence. First he spoke to the novices about the nature of pencak silat, explaining how
the techniques that he taught are actually the outer form of the ‘inner force’ (tenaga dalam),
a Buddhist-Hindu concept that improves one’s moral and physical fitness and knowledge
of etiquette, and helps the fighter-dancers recognize danger and acquire the ability to
sidestep a physical attack in a performance. Then he gave them some lessons in pencak
performance, correcting their stances and movements as they performed the routines. By
now a number of men and boys had assembled around the outdoor arena for this
performance event, and some women and children were watching them admiringly from
the balcony of the home. For protection from the evil spirits Pak Kuning threw rice grains
over his host, the pesilat, musicians, elders, and members of the audience.
Pak Kuning then began the performance session by singing an evocation to the spirits,
including spirits of the king and queen of the forest (raja macan)—the tiger patrons of
pencak silat. The pair of pesilat took centre-stage and began the pencak section of the
performance, opening with a local variant of the sembah (salutation) movement, with one
performer raising his right hand and crooking his left hand on his hip. With averted gaze,
the pair squatted on their feet and raised both hands to forehead level as they performed a
graceful gesture of respect to the benign spirits and the audience. On crouched legs they
stepped slowly around a clockwise circular formation (Figure 1), then around an
anticlockwise circle. Then they crouched down on one leg and extended the other leg to the
front with both hands outstretched. All the while they performed the elegant, ornamental
stretching movements (gerak bunga) of the fingers, hands and arms that form the basis of
the slow, controlled pencak section of the performance. They performed several of the short
sequences of movements (jurus) that they would also employ in the ensuing silat section.

Figure 1. A Pair of Suku Mamak Fighter-dancers Move Slowly around a Circle in the Initial Pencak Section
of a Performance.
Note: Photograph by H. Kartomi in Talang Jerinjing, Riau, 1984.
50 Musicology Australia vol. 33, no. 1, 2011

Figure 2. A Pair of Suku Mamak Gendang (Drum) Players Performing Interlocking Rhythms with Each Other
in a Silat Performance.
Note: Photograph by H. Kartomi in Talang Jerinjing, 1984.

During the sembah, the pair of pesilat began to collaborate with three instrumentalists. They
were playing a pair of locally made, two-headed drums (gendang) and a gong (tetawak), which
was an heirloom given them by the former palace. (On this occasion the ensemble dispensed
with the optional oboe [su’une], which has a coconut-leaf double reed, a wooden tube with a
lower flair, and six small front finger holes.) Locking their drums into place with their left legs
for ease in playing, the drummers played cyclic, interlocking rhythms on a pair of cylindrical,
double-headed drums, with the larger ‘mother drum’ (gendang ibu; Figure 2) producing the
peningka (‘lead rhythm’) and the smaller gendang anak (‘child drum’), the penyelalu (‘continuing
rhythm’).6 In their slow but rhythmically arresting opening flourish, the drummers followed
the fighter-dancers’ circling movements and the player of the 28-cm-diameter brass tetawak
(Figure 3) struck its boss on every sixteenth beat then damped the sound by placing his left
hand on the rim, as in Transcription A. In slow tempo sections he beat it on every twenty-
third beat as in Transcription B (or every sixteenth beat as in Transcription C), and in fast
sections he beat it on every eighth beat as in Transcription D.
Then the silat fighting section began, featuring a succession of ‘lulls’ and ‘storms’ in the
interactions between the two fighter-dancers. First they assumed a basic stance called
berlabeh7 in which they lowered their bodies and rested their weight on their knees while
holding one hand in front of their chests, as in Figure 4. With the smoothly gliding steps
(langkah) that are the mark of an accomplished fight-dancer, they performed some more

6 The larger drum in the performance measured approximately 60 cm in length by 35 cm in diameter, and the
smaller drum approximately 45 cm in length and 30 cm in diameter.
7 The equivalent term in Minangkabau is balabeh (see Barendregt, ‘Written by the Hand of Allah’) and closely
resembles the Suku Mamak berlabeh stance.
 M. Kartomi, Forms of Pencak Silat in Indonesia 51

Figure 3. A Suku Mamak Musician Playing the Gong in a Silat Performance.

Note: Photograph by H. Kartomi in Talang Jerinjing, 1984.

short sequences of movements (jurus), of which there are a total of around fourteen.8 Each
pesilat stepped smoothly and gracefully toward and away from his opponent, changing his
whole body stance with each step, sometimes attacking unexpectedly and forcing his
opponent to devise a spontaneous response. Their offensives and basic rolling moves were
simple, their kicks were swift and firm, and their ornamental hand and arm movements
(bunga) were elegantly executed.
The drummers depicted the lulls with interlocking, regular-rhythmic passages as they
prepared for the sudden ‘storms’ that burst out at lightning speed. As the pesilat began to
attack each other, the musicians played fast, explosively loud, jagged drum rhythms,
reverting to a soft interlocking section as the attacks subsided.
The pair of pesilat then warily approached each other in a clockwise and then an
anticlockwise circle formation, raised both hands, and one of them prepared to attack, as in
Figure 5.
The other fight-dancer warded off the attack and counter-attacked by hitting, kicking,
then throwing his opponent, sometimes locking him into a fixed position, or parrying, and

8 Pak Kuning, personal communication, 1984.

52 Musicology Australia vol. 33, no. 1, 2011

side-stepping.9 The drummers played passages of continuously interlocking rhythms that

matched the growing tension between the pair as each tried to outwit and physically
overcome the other. One pesilat attacked from the berlabeh position, punching his fist

9 This method resembles the Minangkabau silat teaching method discussed in Barendregt, ‘Written by the
Hand of Allah’, 120–1.
 M. Kartomi, Forms of Pencak Silat in Indonesia 53

toward his opponent, who resisted it by raising his left palm at right angles.10 Then one
tripped the other up, making him fall to the ground, but he responded by kicking his
opponent in the groin, which forced him to somersault away. Sometimes the musicians
simply played louder and more furiously to match the mounting tension occasioned by the
pesilat’s attacks and counter-attacks, but at other times they deliberately tried to confuse the
combatants, mainly to make an episode more exciting for the audience and to assert
themselves as collaborators. Sometimes they sonically distracted one pesilat while warning
the other in order to avoid an attack that he could see coming. The combatants needed to
use all their ingenuity to improvise solutions to problems as they arose, usually by
performing a surprise move, such as back-flipping, or somersaulting away. The drummers

10 In different areas, the basic berlabeh stance varies; for example, the balabeh alang babega in Minangkabau,
which resembles the hovering of a preying eagle (alang, elang) (Barendregt, ‘Written by the Hand of Allah’,
121).
54 Musicology Australia vol. 33, no. 1, 2011

Figure 4. The Berlabeh/Balabeh Posture Performed by Pak Darwis Sultan Sulaiman.

Note: Photograph by Barendregt in Solok (no date), reproduced with permission from Barendregt, ‘Written
by the Hand of Allah’, 122.

Figure 5. A Pair of Pesilat Move around in a Circle before One Suddenly Attacks.
Note: Photograph by H. Kartomi in Kampuang Salido, Painan Timur, West Sumatra, 1984.
 M. Kartomi, Forms of Pencak Silat in Indonesia 55

marked such moves as these by sharp jagged rhythms that spurred the combatants on to
present more surprises, as in Transcription D.
One protagonist then further increased the level of tension by brandishing a keris (short
Malay dagger) before his opponent, who then produced and brandished his weapon, deftly
manoeuvring his opponent into a compromising position under his keris.11 As the
excitement built up to fever pitch, the men and women in the audience spurred the pesilat
on by calling out admiring or amusing comments. There was a lull in the proceedings as
the pesilat reverted to a calm circling formation in a clockwise then an anticlockwise
direction, accompanied by soft, interlocking drumming (Transcription C). Then one man
would suddenly attack again and the other would counter-attack, with the musicians
varying the musical rhythms, tempo and dynamic levels to match.
As Pak Kuning explained,12 each pesilat aimed to attack and win some skirmishes, but
not all of them, for etiquette requires that each fight-dancer maintain good relations with
his opponent. Moreover, the pair is expected to perform so well that the benign spirits will
be attracted to attend, and if the artists perform at a séance to help heal a patient, they are
required to contribute to the healing process by providing the right spiritual atmosphere
through their music and dance. The pesilat are expected to provide an interesting
performance by continually building up and resolving the level of the artistic tension, and to
impress the onlookers with an exciting, structurally balanced artistic event.

Pencak Silat in Society: The Semi-nomadic Suku Mamak

Over centuries past, various styles of pencak silat were taught and practised for self-survival and
defence of one’s family and sultan at all levels of Malay society.13 In mainland Sumatra most
of the people lived at subsistence level, either as nomads in the forests, as semi-nomads—such
as the Suku Mamak discussed above—who divided their time between collecting products in
the forests and slash-and-burn agriculture on the edge of the forest, or as sedentary farmers
living in villages near their king’s or chieftain’s palace. To this day, the small population of
nomads and semi-nomads prefer to live in relative isolation in the forest so as to evade contact
with government or commercial groups who may interfere with their lives, or who in earlier
times would capture them as slaves. They prefer to live close to nature where they feel free to
venerate the spirits that inhabit the rocks, trees, animals and other natural phenomena as well
as the spirits of their ancestors. Until the demise of the traditional Malay sultans in the
eighteenth to twentieth centuries, the first two groups provided their rulers with products that
they collected in the forest in return for bartered goods such as salt, and the rulers used or sold
the products in the lucrative trade circuits to which they belonged, while the third group
provided staple foods and other basic goods and services.14
Not only at Indragiri but also at other riverine palaces in Riau in the colonial era
(approximately seventeenth to mid-twentieth centuries), the kings placed a special value on
the local nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples. Besides collecting valuable forest products
they supplied them with ritual specialists whose shamanic chants, prayers and ritual pencak
silat and other performances helped solve problems such as healing a sick patient, capturing

11 Weapons used in other areas include a rencong (short Acehnese dagger), sword, knife, sickle, or machete.
12 Personal communication, 1984.
13 Sultans are Muslim and kings are Hindu/Buddhist.
14 Leonard Y. Andaya, Leaves of the Same Tree: Trade and Ethnicity in the Straits of Melaka (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2008), 49–81.
56 Musicology Australia vol. 33, no. 1, 2011

tigers and other wild animals, winning battles, or vanquishing a rival in love.15 Several
Riau-Malay kings appointed special groups of nomads or semi-nomads to serve as their
trusted musicians who maintained and played the royal nobat ensembles, the kings’ most
powerful heirlooms and symbols of sovereignty. Their shamans made liberal use of music,
dance and self-defence displays in their séances and at the royal and commoner rituals on
the occasion of a wedding, funeral, or other rites of passage.16 The sultans of Indragiri
designated the ancestors of the above-mentioned Suku Mamak group as their official
providers of the performing arts, who were entrusted with the task of making, maintaining
and playing the nobat drum ensemble and teaching and performing the martial arts.17

Traditional Malay Pencak Silat: Its Origins and Cosmology

What are the origins of Malay pencak silat? There are at least three theories.18 One holds
that it developed as part of the generation and spread of the Old Malay culture, language,
and indigenous religion from the time of Sumatra’s Buddhist-Hindu kingdom of Sriwijaya
(seventh to eleventh centuries CE). Another holds that it is even older, for its established
terms and rationale are closely associated with Southeast Sumatrans’ ancient indigenous
religious beliefs, which are based on the idea that not only people but also animals, trees,
mountains, the sun, moon, stars, and other phenomena of the natural universe possess
consciousness, have subjective characteristics, and are interconnected in the one reality.
Several pencak silat movements are named after the movements of animals, which is not
surprising as the people believe that, like humans, tigers and chimpanzees have a culture,
and birds have a language of communication. All natural phenomena, including live and
deceased humans, feel pleasure and pain, and contain spirits; and it behoves humans to
revere and maintain relations with the spirits of nature and the ancestors. These beliefs are
still dominant among groups of people who prefer to live relatively isolated lives wandering
in the forests, such as the Suku Mamak discussed above, or as nomads living in houseboats
at sea (Suku Laut [‘Sea Tribes’]); and vestiges of them also still remain in the consciousness
of the adherents of world religions in the rest of Sumatra, including the Muslim majority
and Christian minority. Adherents of this theory also hold that some Hindu and Buddhist
celestial beings (e.g. the Hindu god Siva, known as Batara Guru) were added to the
pantheon of venerated indigenous spirits from the time of Sriwijaya.
Over the centuries, Sumatra’s kingdoms came into contact not only with adherents of
Buddhism and Hinduism but also Islam (from the early to late second millennium) and a
few came into contact at different periods with Confucianism or Christianity. Thus in
many areas of Sumatra, Muslim terms and phrases such as Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim
(‘In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Compassionate’) and references to Muslim
saints or spirits have been added to the invocations, cosmology and pedagogy of pencak
silat. Most of the nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples escaped efforts made to convert
them, yet some of the terms used in their ritual languages indicate that they too have had

15 Pak Kuning, personal communication, 1984.

16 In Riau, not only did the sultan at Rengat on the Indragiri river have a special relationship with the above-
mentioned Suku Mamak, but the sultan at Siak on the Siak river had a close relationship with the semi-
nomadic Sakai people, and the sultan at Pelalawan on the Kampar river with the semi-nomadic Petalangan
people.
17 Encik Oemar Syarif, personal communication, 1982.
18 The theories were explained to me by some pencak silat masters, including the above-mentioned Pak Kuning.
 M. Kartomi, Forms of Pencak Silat in Indonesia 57

contact with members of the Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim kingdoms with whom their
ancestors engaged in barter.
A third theory holds that pencak silat is indirectly related to the hand and armed combat
used in petty wars, in which magic charms and songs expressing reverence for the spirits are
all-important. As the belletristic Malay literature and oral traditions (hikayat) indicate, the
inhabitants of Sumatra were frequently involved in fighting local wars over the past
millennium and a half, albeit mostly between small numbers of combatants on each side.
They fought wars over land rights, external threats, matters of royal prestige, aristocratic
rivalry in love, and possession of pusaka (heirlooms, including certain musical instruments)
and other magically potent objects. All Malay boys were therefore expected to learn the art
of self-defence, including the preliminary spiritual and physical exercises, the artistic
movements and formations, the sparring techniques against an opponent, and the
cosmological associations that were attributed to the art and all other aspects of living. The
rulers rewarded the most proficient fighters by making them generals (panglima) and
admirals (laksamana), and using the ordinary fighters in the army and navy forces when
necessary to protect the kingdom and its trading activities.
All the theories portray pencak silat as an exclusively male art. The Malay hikayat tell of
the military and amorous exploits of many male heroes and occasionally refer to heroines,
but they mostly portray their female characters as helpless beauties and mothers who need
male heroes to protect them and their children against marauders and criminals. Thus, the
traditional art of self-defence is taught by male master teachers (guru besar silat, or guru
silat) to male novice pupils. They absorb the cosmological meaning and terms of the art and
imitate the master’s movements en masse.

The Spread of Malay Culture, Tiger Movements, and Pencak Silat

Pencak silat is one of the Malay customs associated with the birth or development of the
Old Malay language in southeast Sumatra during the first millennium CE. As the
archaeological evidence shows, the cradle of the Old Malay language and culture was
located in the lower reaches of the Musi River in the Buddhist-Hindu kingdom of
Sriwijaya (approximately seventh to thirteenth centuries CE), with its capital in or near
present-day Palembang until the eleventh century, and thenceforth near Jambi, the centre
of the Malayu kingdom on the Batang Hari River,19 whence it spread north to Riau and
other areas of Sumatra and the Malay peninsula. As the Old Malay language spread, it
subdivided into its many lingual varieties around coastal Sumatra, the coasts of many other
Indonesian islands, peninsular Malaya, Thailand, and other parts of Southeast Asia.
From time immemorial, all young Malay boys have been required to learn pencak silat as
a tool of traditional education in philosophy and religion and for self-defence in a
historically warring environment. Malay oral epics dating back to the sixteenth century
emphasize the need for Malay boys to learn the martial art of pencak silat (e.g. the Sejarah
Melayu [‘Malay Annals’]).20 The art also spread throughout Riau, the coastal areas of
Sumatra, and even in the lingually non-Malay Batak Mandailing area that neighbours
Minangkabau, as we shall see below. It also became an essential symbol of male Malay
identity in Minangkabau where the people speak a variety of Malay, although the language

19 Andaya, Leaves of the Same Tree, 11.

20 C.C. Brown (trans.), Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals (Kuala Lumpur: OUP, 1970), 83.
58 Musicology Australia vol. 33, no. 1, 2011

underwent substantial adaptation from the fourteenth century, and the people regard
themselves as a separate ethnic group.21
Many traditional silat master teachers (guru besar silat [M, I]) possess the mystical
powers of a shaman as well as advanced practical self-defence skills and pedagogical ability.
They teach their trainee fighter-dancers that pencak silat is not just a martial art but also a
philosophy that is based on their ancestors’ Buddhist and Hindu beliefs and veneration of
the spirits of nature. They transmit certain secretive combat techniques that are based on
deep observation of animal behaviour and the elements of nature—fire, air, water, and
earth, as in the case of the irama serama angin (‘magic wind rhythm’) performed by both
Suku Mamak and Mandailing musicians.22
Barendregt has hypothesized that the early development of silat education in West
Sumatra was ‘bound up with the belief in tiger spirits. The raja macan, king of tigers, was
the patron of all silat students . . . Some Minangkabau regard the tiger as the founding
father of some silat styles’.23 I also found evidence in support of this view in several parts of
Riau, West and North Sumatra, above all among the Suku Mamak nomads in mainland
Riau, who are in frequent contact with the tiger.
Suku Mamak pesilat say that they continue to model their fighting-art movements on those
of wild animals, especially the king and queen of the forest, the tiger. The aforementioned silat
master (guru besar) Pak Kuning, who was venerated for his mystical ‘tiger knowledge’ (ilmu
macan), informed me that he had befriended a succession of tigers in the forest, and that he
had learnt several stances and movements while observing them playfully pouncing and
cornering their prey. From the slow, stealthy ‘long steps of a tiger’ (langkah panjang macan)
and ‘the tiger attacks movement’ (gerak serangan macan) he developed silat movements such as
gerak serangan macan (‘the tiger attacks’) and the slow, stealthy ‘long steps of a tiger’ (langkah
panjang macan). He also taught his followers the ‘white bird’ (burung putih) and ‘descending
python’ (ular sawa barendam) movements and told them about the powerful steps that the
ancestors learned from ‘elephant knowledge’ (ilmu gajah) and observation. He said that a
pesilat’s main aim is to anticipate, evade and sidestep his opponent’s attack by performing agile
hand and foot movements, tumbling, striking, kicking, and blocking. So as not to give away
their secrets, his followers avoid looking directly at their opponent, averting their gaze to the
ground or the arena as they perform.
The government sees the Suku Mamak as belum beragama (‘not yet subscribing to a
religion’) because their indigenous religious beliefs are based on nature and ancestral spirit
veneration, not on the five world religions that are recognized by the government (i.e.
Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism/Confucianism and Hinduism). The Suharto
regime (1965–1998) recognized only five religions, and this policy has not changed at the
time of writing.24 Since that time, when Minangkabau Sufi brotherhoods began to be
formed, Minangkabau masters adapted pencak silat to their new beliefs,25 while retaining
vestiges of the old religion. Like the Suku Mamak, when the Minangkabau guru silat teach
the philosophy of the art, they emphasize the indigenous belief in the need to venerate

21 Andaya, Leaves of the Same Tree, 82–3.

22 For a recording of the Serama Datu (‘magic shaman’) rhythm, see item 7, side B of Margaret Kartomi, The
Mandailing People of North Sumatra, Musicaphone Baerenreiter BM 30 SL 2568 (LP record with musical
transcriptions, analyses and commentary, 1983).
23 Barendregt, ‘Written by the Hand of Allah’, 117.
24 When the government in the Suharto era insisted that all Indonesians must belong to one of five established
religions, it classified the religions of each ethno-linguistic group.
25 Barendregt, ‘Written by the Hand of Allah’, 118.
 M. Kartomi, Forms of Pencak Silat in Indonesia 59

Nature and the ancestors in order to gain inner strength (tenaga dalam, a Hindu-Buddhist
concept),26 but unlike the Suku Mamak they also emphasize the importance of a Sufi-
oriented education and acquisition of the esoteric knowledge of the litany (ilmu tassawuf,
Ar.), and their mantra address the Prophet Muhammad and other Muslim prophets. Both
groups teach that pencak silat is an important means of promoting good social behaviour
and etiquette, and both practise similar basic procedures, movements and use of musical
instruments, but they practise distinctive forms of the art.

Collaboration in and Transmission of Traditional Performances

As exemplified in the performance described above, a traditional pencak silat performance
requires collaboration at five levels: between the master and the trainee or lead fighter-
dancers, the pair(s) of fighter-dancers themselves, the pesilat and the musicians, the artists
and the ceremonial event organizers, and the whole group of presenters with the audience
(see Figure 6).
At the first level of collaboration, a respected guru besar silat master passes on the
techniques of attack and defence to his pesilat novices or followers, making sure that they
understand the importance of the moral philosophy that comes with the skills, and he
collaborates with his pesilat followers as organizer and director of rehearsals and
philosophical introductions to performances (Figure 6a).
At the second level, the pair(s) of pesilat fighter-dancers become adversarial collaborators
to produce an excellent performance. Through experience they learn to foreshadow,
recognize, and sidestep a dangerous attack (silat). They apply a variety of methods for
dealing with unpredictable situations, usually launching an attack as the best form of
defence, anticipating an attack from the opponent, and creatively improvising a method of
escape from danger, such as when punched (Figure 7) or tripped up (Figure 8).
At the third level, the collaboration occurs between the pair(s) of pesilat and any
accompanying musicians, who minimally comprise a pair of drummers, plus optional
players of melodic instruments such as an oboe, flute, bowed string instrument, gong-
chime, or colotomic instruments, for example, a gong or two.27 The most commonly used
melodic instrument is the oboe, which contributes to the excitement by adding a melodic
build up to the drum climaxes at strategic moments. The collaboration between the pesilat
and the musicians is intense; they follow their opponent’s every move musically. Although
the lead drummer usually decides when to begin and end a performance and marks it with a
rhythmic signal, he needs closely to follow and match the pesilat pairs’ movements
musically. The pair of drummers frequently increase the tension by playing interlocking
passages in strict quadruple metre and building up to a fast, loud climax, but they interrupt
the flow to mark the unpredictable high points in the action by producing a sharp, loud

26 Ibid., 117. The concepts of inner strength and divine self associated with pencak silat in the Solok area of
Minangkabau are discussed in Barendregt, ‘Written by the Hand of Allah’, 117–28. Their philosophical
discourse and terminology derives from Sufi-oriented sects (tariqat [Ar.], tarekat [I, M]) that influenced the
art from the sixteenth century when the Minangkabau began to accept Islam. For example, they refer to the
‘seven divine philosophies of man, i.e., sight, hearing, speech, knowledge, physical strength, vital strength and
will (filsafat Tuhan dalam diri kita [‘‘God’s philosophy in us’’])’ (Barendregt, ‘Written by the Hand of Allah’,
117–19).
27 In some Suku Mamak pencak performances, a pair of hanging gongs are played in colotomic (punctuating)
fashion every eight or four beats (as in Transcription C), and in fast silat scenes they serve as a tempo-keeper,
played on every second beat.
60 Musicology Australia vol. 33, no. 1, 2011

Figure 6. Models of Collaboration in the Presentation of Traditional Pencak Silat Performances.

 M. Kartomi, Forms of Pencak Silat in Indonesia 61

Figure 7. A Pesilat Attacks with a Punch, Whereupon his Opponent Resists by Raising his Left Arm.
Note: Photograph by H. Kartomi: Muar, Melaka, Malaysia, 1975.

Figure 8. After Being Tripped Up and Falling to the Ground, a Pesilat Kicks his Opponent in the Groin and
Makes him Somersault Away.
Note: Photograph by H. Kartomi: Muar, Melaka, Malaysia, 1975.
62 Musicology Australia vol. 33, no. 1, 2011

drum clap when a pesilat hits or kicks his opponent (see Figure 8), and they match their
build-ups of tension and release by changing the dynamic level and tempo. Both the pesilat
and the musicians collaborate to produce an adventurous, improvisatory performance, but
each knows his place in the hierarchy. The pesilat always lead the musicians. The second
drummer (penyelalu, ‘follower’) takes his cues from the lead drummer (the peningka),28 and
the first drummer takes the lead over any other instrumentalists present. Most pesilat find
that music magnifies the excitement of the combat for both the performers and the
audience. However, some pesilat prefer to perform their mock-combat without any music,
which they find distracting as they try to concentrate on the dangers of the fight.
At the fourth level, the master guru besar and his pesilat followers collaborate with the
elders and hosts in presenting performances to the guests and audience at a healing
ceremony, or—in Muslim areas—a wedding, circumcision, other life event celebration,
holy day celebration such as Idul Fitri (the festival celebrating the end of the fasting month,
Ramadan), or a national holiday celebration (e.g. Indonesian Independence Day, 17
August). Usually the elders of a community lead the village organization of men and
women who provide the basic resources for silat education, practice and performance
activity. They also serve to maintain the social consensus that pencak silat is a valuable
pursuit for all young men.
Finally the guru and the team of pesilat and musicians collaborate to entertain their
audience at a performance. The pesilat pair, or pairs, begin and end each episode by
performing locally varied sembah (an elegant salutation) of respect to each other and
members of their audience, seen and unseen. The musicians also aim to entertain the
audience by surreptitiously intervening in the fighting by beating out a sharp drum sound
or rhythm at a crucial moment in order to confuse or distract one or the other of the
fighters and even to issue warnings of an impending attack. Their motive is not to support
their preferred winner but to increase the challenge to the fighters and to make the ups and
downs of their display more entertaining for the onlookers.

Part 2: Major Changes in the Collaborative Processes of Pencak Silat’s Transmission

and Performance Style since the 1940s
During and after World War II, a series of major changes occurred in the function, practice
and meaning of the art, and as a consequence in the collaborative processes involved in its
inter-generational transmission and performance styles. Following their invasion of the
Dutch East Indies in 1942, the Japanese ordered the occupied Indonesian people to
subscribe to the Japanese wartime slogan ‘Asia for Asians’ (as opposed to Asia for the
Dutch) and to show pride in their ancient culture and arts. Thus, professional pencak silat
artists performed in public shows along with items of traditional dance, music and drama.29
The Japanese also offered pencak silat as part of combat training to youths in the Fatherland

28 For a detailed, comparative music-technical discussion of the fusion of penyelalu and peningka drum rhythms
among the Malay Petalangan people in Riau, see Ashley Turner, ‘Belian as a Symbol of Cosmic
Reunification’, in Metaphor: A Musical Dimension, ed. Jamie C. Kassler (Sydney: Currency Press, 1991),
135–7.
29 For example, pencak silat exercises were included in a sandiwara drama presentation that was written and
directed by Japanese artists, as reported in Asia Raya, 1 March 1945; see Ethan Mark, ‘Intellectual Life and
the Media’, in The Encyclopedia of Indonesia in the Pacific War, ed. W.B. Horton and D. Kwarta (Leiden: Brill,
2010), 374. ‘From the start of the occupation, the Japanese paid great attention to cultural means to change
people’s minds and win their hearts’ (Mark, ‘Intellectual Life and the Media’, 389). ‘Education was
 M. Kartomi, Forms of Pencak Silat in Indonesia 63

Voluntary Defence Force (PETA, Tentara Sukarela Pembela Tanah Air) established in
1943. When primary and secondary schools were reopened after the invasion, however, the
new curriculum only emphasized Japanese physical education (including military training
and taiso gymnastics), not pencak silat.30
After Sukarno declared Indonesia’s Independence in 1945, a new collaborative
stakeholder began to become involved, the Indonesian government. From 1948, when
the first national pencak silat body was founded in Bandung, the government subjected the
art to major changes for political purposes and nation-building. Eventually international
pencak silat organizations were established that focused on the sporting aspects and paid
only limited attention to the genre’s traditional philosophy, pedagogy and forms. Silat
teaching for ‘civil defence’ was officially encouraged at the first national Sporting Games
held in Surakarta.
During Suharto’s New Order regime (1965–1998), military and government officials
developed the bureaucratic structures of the Indonesian Pencak Silat Association (IPSI)
through which the teaching method was thoroughly standardized.31 However, it did not
achieve its aim of including the art of self defence in the national curriculum.32 Under the
auspices of IPSI, the art was split in three directions, involving different models of
collaboration. One emphasized the genre as a performing art (Pencak Silat Seni) with
competitions and festivals of arts organized for its pinnacle artists, another as a sport
(Pencak Silat Olah Raga) with formal games organized for its pinnacle performers, and yet
another as a mass physical exercise (Silat Perisai Diri [lit. ‘silat to shield oneself’]). On the
whole, the first and last models retained musical accompaniment in their performances, but
the second—the sporting model—sometimes dispensed with music entirely as it was
converted from its status as an art form into a sport.
In the first modern model, Pencak Silat Seni, three levels of collaboration occur, with
government-organized competitions and festivals replacing the traditionally organized
village celebrations, as in Figure 6a. The first level of collaboration operates between a
recognized master/guru besar and the pairs of student pesilat in art institutions such as the
Sekolah Seni Indonesia (formerly the Akademi Seni Karawitan Indonesia Arts Academy)
in Padang Panjang, West Sumatra. However, the participants are much less mystically and
religiously inclined than when taught in traditional style in the villages, and the guru besar
silat may serve mainly as a dance trainer and choreographer. Secondly there is an adversarial
yet artistic collaboration between the pair of pencak artists, the collaboration being less
improvisatory and more choreographed than in the traditional styles. Thirdly the
collaboration operates between the pair of artists and the musicians, who tend, however, to
perform fixed popular numbers and to improvise very little, if at all. From 2000, some
Pencak Silat Tradisi (traditional pencak silat) festivals were organized in which performances
without any music at all were showcased and the competitive appeal dispensed with
altogether.33

considered as one of the most important means of indoctrinating people as members of the Greater East Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere’ (Mark, ‘Intellectual Life and the Media’, 320).
30 Mark, ‘Intellectual Life and the Media’, 323.
31 Lee Wilson, ‘Jurus, Jazz Riffs and the Constitution of a National Martial Art in Indonesia’, Body and Society
15/3 (2009), 95–6 and 107–8.
32 Ibid., 3–5.
33 This development has been described by Uwe Paetzold in an unpublished paper delivered at the International
Council for Traditional Music conference in Sheffield in 2005.
64 Musicology Australia vol. 33, no. 1, 2011

In the modern sport model called Pencak Silat Olah Raga (Figure 6c), the collaborations
also occur at three levels: between the silat sport trainers, the athlete practitioners, and the
sport organizations at the regional, national, and international levels. Although IPSI included
performing arts-style pencak in its pedagogical activities, sporting competitions took
precedence. As a result, many new moves were introduced including ‘high kicking
techniques . . . or landing punches and kicks to designated areas of their opponent’s body’,
the aim being to develop one’s strength and fighting skills and above all to win in a
competition.34 This, along with the fact that music was excluded from the sport, was a major
departure from traditional pencak silat. From the 1970s, international pencak silat organizations
were formed that aimed to spread an interest in pencak silat’s physical properties and
techniques internationally, and to present their athletes at international Games.
The internationalization of the sport accelerated in 1980, when the main international
pencak silat organization, PERSILAT (Persekutuan Pencak Silat Antarabangsa), was
founded. Comprising 39 member nations in Asia, Australasia, Europe, and North America
in 2009, it aims to promote pencak silat outside its source region of Southeast Asia.35 Since
its internationalization, scores of pencak silat organizations have been operating in most
countries of Asia, Australasia, North America and a few other countries in Europe and
beyond. Since 1982 silat athletes have competed in the biennial Pencak Silat World
Championships, and from 1987 in the Southeast Asian Games. Athletes also participate in
the Pencak Silat European Championships, the Pencak Silat Asia-Pacific Championships,
and the Open Championships. In early 2010, a well-known silat master, Bp Waheed,
toured the United States, where he taught silat tuo (old silat), silat Minangkabau and silat
harimau (tiger silat), as recorded on the website, where movements of a wild Sumatran tiger
and her two cubs are caught on film.36
In the sporting arena, Pencak Silat Olah Raga internationalized its activities in such a
way as to allow individuals of either gender to take part, using the same collaborative model
as in male performances shown in Figure 6c. However, male and female fighter-dancers
normally perform separately, following the segregated gender practices of many other
performing arts in urban areas of Indonesia’s increasingly modernist or orthodox Muslim
society. Female participation in this traditionally male art grew significantly from the
1990s, as shown in some Internet videoclips.37 One clip shows a pair of female pesilat using
jurusan that suit the female body, avoiding attacks on the breasts, and wearing a traditional-
style costume that protects and covers the body.38 After opening their Sundanese-style
pencak section with a low sembah and a wide spatial orientation, their silat section featured
several rounds of low-grounded, open-hand combat at a fast pace, with formations moving
to the back, front and both sides of the arena, and featuring the avoidance techniques of
rolling on the floor and kicking. Music was retained in this example of Pencak Silat Olah
Raga, played on a Sundanese oboe (tarompet) in the local pentatonic salendro tonality and a
set of truncated conical Sundanese drums, closely followed the frequent changes of tempo
from slow to very fast, and drum claps to mark the main hits and kicks. As in Suku Mamak

34 Wilson, ‘Jurus, Jazz Riffs’, 106–7.

35 Persilat, (Accessed 1 March 2010) 5www.persilat.org4.
36 International Silat Federation of America & Indonesia, (Accessed 28 March 2010) 5www.
internationalsilatfederation.com4.
37 Pencak Silat (women) from Indonesia, (Accessed 2 April 2010) 5http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v¼DKKDp5X0zDY4.
38 The women wear a high-necked, long-sleeved, black trouser suit with a loose cut and a colourful sarong to
knee length, leaving hands, face and feet bare.
 M. Kartomi, Forms of Pencak Silat in Indonesia 65

and other traditional practices, the musicians produced sharp drum sounds to distract one
pesilat as the other attacked, or to confuse or frighten one or both fighters.
In the third modern model—the standardized mass exercises called Silat Perisai Diri
(‘self-shielding silat’)—the pencak silat trainers or instructors (who are sometimes minimally
trained) collaborate with large numbers of government employees or school children whom
they teach and supervise in regular early morning exercise sessions held in a square or yard
(Figure 6d).39 As the sequences of silat exercises were performed either to recorded music
by absent musicians or to no music at all, the all-important collaboration between pesilat
and musicians in traditional performances was of course entirely lacking, although
technicians were usually employed to play back the pre-recorded music. Under Suharto’s
New Order, government policy aimed to keep its employees and schoolchildren fit (and
politically compliant40) by having the instructors, who were no longer guided by the art’s
philosophical and religious traditions, teach them to perform the easier movements at early
morning ceremonies. Since Suharto’s fall, the practice has become much less widespread
throughout Indonesia.
At present the traditional forms of the art are taught in less and less communities as the
cities and towns expand and take over the ever-diminishing rural areas. Efforts to revive the
traditional pedagogical method are rarely successful given the lack of funding and
the pressures to teach large classes efficiently. The losses are greatest among the nomadic
and semi-nomadic peoples. From the late 1970s, many Suku Mamak and other nomadic
groups retired further and further into the forests, with their habitat under constant threat
from extensive illegal logging. The depletion of the forests forced many to move to the
outskirts of towns, where a traditional form of pencak silat was preserved in Talang Jerinjing
but fell into disuse elsewhere.

Conclusion
This article has described a traditional silat performance by a people who in 1984 were still
dividing their time between a nomadic lifestyle for most of the year and a sedentary
existence—growing garden products on the edge of the forest—for the rest of the year.
Their performance style features movements based on their ancestors’ observations of the
movements and strategies of wild animals: tigers, crocodiles, snakes, elephants, birds, and
so forth, with which they needed to learn to live and even befriend as far as possible, but
also to treat self-defensively in case they marauded against them. While in the forest they
displayed advanced combat techniques in their pencak silat performances but they often
dispensed with the music because of the impracticality of carrying heavy instruments
around with them. In the Talang Jerinjing performance described above, however, the role
of music is important, influenced as it is by their Malay confreres in the Indragiri palace,
where mutual interaction between the fighter-dancers and musicians creates a special
tension and complexity.
The art of self-defence occurs in many variant forms in virtually all Malay ethno-lingual
groups in Sumatra and many other parts of Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and
Malaysia. A master-teacher of the art (guru besar silat or guru silat) usually presides over a

39 Silat Perisai Diri was founded by R.M. Soebandiman Dirdjoatmodjo in 1955 in Surabaya. Branches of
Keluarga Silat Perisai Diri (‘The Silat Self Defence Family’) were subsequently established in several
countries.
40 As argued by Paetzold (2005).
66 Musicology Australia vol. 33, no. 1, 2011

performance by a pair of fighter-dancers (pesilat) at a traditional celebration or pencak silat

competition. The performance usually comprises two parts: a slow sparring display with
artful, embellishing movements (gerak bunga [M, I], gerak bungo [Minang.]), followed by
exciting episodes of open-hand combat between a pair, or pairs, of pesilat, who sometimes
use weapons such as a keris (dagger) or a knife. The first part is usually called pencak and the
last part silat (M, I) or equivalent local terms,41 with the compound term pencak silat
denoting the combination of the martial dance display and the fight-dancing section.42
Malaysians, on the other hand, tend to use the term silat seni (‘artistic silat’) for the dance
display and silat or silat gayong (‘fist or weapon strike silat’) for the fighting section.
If the pesilat choose to perform in silence or cannot find any musicians to accompany
them, the level of excitement generated among the performers and audience may be
relatively subdued. If musicians are present, however, they accompany the sparring of the
fighter-dancers by improvising and anticipating, or reinforcing, the usual range of surprise
moves between the standard routines, although occasionally they take the initiative and
spur the pesilat on as they spar. In some cases the drummers may even intervene in the
pesilat’s actions as they respond musically to their attacks and counterattacks. The
musicians often play only a pair of double-headed drums (gendang), to which they may add
a melodic instrument (usually an oboe, a sarunai [M]) and optional gong[s]).
A prototype of pencak silat probably developed into its many variants and spread with
the expansion of the Malay language in Sumatra and beyond during the first millennium
CE. Arguably, the Suku Mamak people—who live nomadic or semi-nomadic lives in small
isolated settlements in the forest—preserve one of the oldest forms of the art in the Malay-
speaking world, while the settled Minangkabau people have developed techniques and
forms that exemplify the addition of layers of Sufi Muslim meaning that is several centuries
old. Thus, many ethno-linguistic groups in Malay-speaking areas of Southeast Asia have
developed their forms of the art.
However, the key everywhere to its successful practice and transmission lies in the
collaboration between the master teacher-mystic, his pairs of pesilat followers,
the musicians, the elders and religious leaders who provide the resources and organize
the performances, and—not least—the members of the audience. All work together
toward the common goal of producing and enjoying a performance that is satisfying on
communal, spiritual and artistic levels. Only with such community collaboration can
novices acquire the philosophical understanding, knowledge of movement routines,
elegance of movement, fighting skills, and the ability to improvise responses to an
opponent and signals from musicians. Only then can they coordinate all the factors that
contribute to the ideal ethical, religious way of life of a silat adept. The many traditional
forms of pencak silat that were still strong until the 1980s are still practised in forest lands,
but so many areas have been logged that many groups who once lived in or on the edges of
the forest can no longer maintain a living, with the result that fewer areas practise the
traditional forms of the art.

41 In verbal practice, however, the distinction between pencak as a preliminary artistic display and silat as a
combat-oriented art is not always clearly made, for in some areas a two-part performance is simply called silat,
or the local variant silék (Minang.). Pencak also has locally variant names, such as penca in West Java, pancak
bungo or kembang silat (‘embellished pencak’ [Minang.]), or moncak or poncak in Batak Mandailing and Batak
Angkola in Sumatra.
42 The usage of the term pencak silat was not standardized until the IPSI was founded in 1948.
 M. Kartomi, Forms of Pencak Silat in Indonesia 67

Since governments intervened from around 1948, a new kind of collaboration was
required between different sets of stakeholders. The practitioners were divided into two
groups—those who gravitated towards silat as a performing art (Pencak Silat Seni), and
those who valued it as a sporting activity (Pencak Silat Olah Raga)—developments that led
to art competitions and festivals on the one hand and competitive games on the other.
‘Artistic’ Pencak Silat performances resulted from collaboration between the trainer/
choreographer(s) (no longer the master-mystic), the pairs of pesilat students (no longer the
followers), the musicians (if present), the art competition or festival organizers (no longer
the elders), and the members of the audience, including live observers and owners of
recorded performances. These developments represent radical changes away from the
traditional practice and pedagogy. They de-emphasize the pesilat’s ability to improvise
creative solutions to unexpected dangerous situations, the mystical or religious and ethical
benefits of performance, but they encourage adaptation to new kinds of live performance
situations and on the media, and sometimes limit variability in order to present a unified
style believed to represent an ethno-linguistic group’s identity.
The modern sporting varieties of the art of self-defence have doubtless contributed to
Indonesia’s reputation as a sporting nation. However, in abolishing the art’s musical
component and drastically reducing its cultural meaning, including its dance and musical
aspects, it has in fact changed pencak silat so radically that for some traditionalists it can no
longer qualify as an aesthetically pleasing art of self-defence that delights the eye and ear
with its elegantly ornamented dance and musical elements, for it ignores the deep cultural
meaning and environmental links of its progenitor, the art of self-defence—pencak silat—of
the Malay world.

Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the descendants of the Indragiri royal family whom H. Kartomi and I met in Rengat in 1984,
especially Tengku Hamat (son-in-law of the last Sultan, Mahmud Indragiri) and Encik Oemar Syarif (the Datuk
Temenggung [Minister]), for informing us about the style of pencak silat performed in the former palace, and for
introducing us to their loyal Suku Mamak artist supporters who spend part of each year in the Talang Jerinjing
hamlet on the edge of the nearby forest in Kecamatan Rengat. I am particularly grateful to the Suku Mamak pencak
silat master and shaman (kumantan), Pak Kuning Harum Bunga Tanjung, and his fighter-dancers and musicians
who explained and allowed us to record their pencak silat performance in Talang Jerinjing, and who prefer to
remain nameless. My research was partly funded by the Australian Research Council and the School of Music—
Conservatorium at Monash University and was assisted by the Indonesian Department of Education and Culture
in Pakan Baru, Riau. The preparation of this article was ably assisted by Bronia Kornhauser. My husband, Mas
Kartomi, was my helpful companion on our field trip and took the photographs (apart from Barendregt’s
photograph, Figure 4) presented in this article.

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Author Biography
Margaret Kartomi is Professor of Music at Monash University. Her most recent book, Musical Journeys in
Sumatra, is forthcoming with the University of Illinois Press.
Email: Margaret.kartomi@monash.edu.au