Sasak Concepts of Being
4. Personal Competence as a Being
(1) Ilmu as the power of healing and harms
The hot ilmu and the cold ilmu
In the Sasak context of health concerns, ilmu can be transliterated as the power of hurts or healing that affects the human body, health, and emotions. In Reragi, ilmu is broadly divided into two categories: ilmu of fire (ilmu api) and ilmu of water (ilmu aik), or put in other words, hot ilmu (ilmu beneng) and cold ilmu (ilmu nyet), and black ilmu (ilmu bedeng) and white ilmu (ilmu putek), respectively.
In Lombok, as in many societies in Indonesia and the Malay world, the heat is typically associated with sorcery or other forms of harm while the coldness is considered as the healing and protective power against those. In the Sasak context,
the coolness (mel) or being neither extremely hot or cold is essential to health as observed by Telle (2002, 2007, 2009) and Hay (2001: 218), and as echoed by people in Regagi.
The hot ilmu may include hypnotism (serep) by which one might sneak into houses and steal properties, love magic (senggeger) by which one might poison food to target someone in mind to be in love with him/her or others, and black magic (seher; In./Ar. sihir) by which one might kill or leave crucial health damage on the targeted person. The cold ilmu includes any protective or detoxifying power against the hot ilmu.
In this context of healing, people regard that the ilmu of heat and coldness battles against each other, and that the ilmu of higher competence wins the battle. If the cold ilmu successfully defeats the hot ilmu, the person in pain or sickness can heal. In other contexts of healing, the cold ilmu can refer to any therapy for illnesses and pains unrelated to the hot ilmu, such as massage for the body pain.
The mastery of ilmu must be unspoken, but the matter of who has what kind of ilmu is a public secret in Reragi, and that the villagers learn to be cautious with and sometimes ask help from those who have ilmu. People whisper the names of supposed masters of sorcery, love magic, and other kinds of potential harms as
‘knowing the hot ilmu (tok ilmu beneng),’ and more publicly mention the master of the cold ilmu as a healer (belian) or ‘user of the formula’ (tukang jampi).
In my interviews with healers and non-specialist villagers, I collected 79 names of those capable persons who are known to have abilities to enforce either or both of the hot and cold ilmu. In other cases, some people in Reragi also refer to a
few of the local Ustad as the master of the cold ilmu and rely on their prayers as a healing formula.
Although people habitually distinguish the hot and cold ilmu, some healers in Reragi emphasize that the matter of harms and healing is the matter of personal intentions who enforces or asks to apply the ilmu. Paman Si, a farmer and a renowned healer in his early twenties, describes that there is no bad ilmu and there are only wicked intentions.12 For instance, while hypnotism can be used as a method of manipulating others to succeed in stealing and robbery, it can be used for easing the severe pain of an ill person into sleep.
(2) Ilmu as personal competence
The power, words, and formula of healing
This sub-section explores more abstract conceptions of ilmu in the Sasak healing practices. In her medical anthropological study, Hay explores the Sasak concept of ilmu as a secret knowledge for health concerns (see Hay 2001: 159-168). Although my observation in Reragi disagrees to some specific details of analysis of local narratives of ilmu by Hay, it corresponds to her overarching definition of ilmu as a tangible, limited, hidden, agentive entity of learned knowledge that individuals own and succeed as ‘their wealth, their protection, and their pride’ (2001: 167).
In general, ‘ilmu’ as Indonesian and Malay terms can be translated into English as ‘knowledge’ or information. Citing Ferzacca (1996), Hay further notes that the term ilmu began to refer to scientific or academic knowledge in urban Java
12 As it was the case for Inaq Po, some people in Reragi are regarded as socially senior regardless of the biological age.
(2001: 159). As of 2018 in Lombok, most Sasak residents are bilingual in Sasak and Indonesian, and ilmu refers to this general sense of knowledge in the broader
contexts of public education. Nonetheless, ilmu in the context of local health concerns is not shareable, and it is something that enters and becomes integrated within one’s entire body and being (Hay 2001: 164).
Hay elaborates on this point by regarding ilmu and puji-puji (mantra) almost interchangeably, and asserting that the incantations are never written down not only because most people in her field village are illiterate but also because ‘ilmu must enter (tama) a person to be potent’ (2001: 164) and thus there is no use of writing.
To my knowledge, however, puji-puji are the words used in the formula of enforcing ilmu (both hot an cold) and are not equivalent of ilmu itself. Reragi villagers generally find no necessity and avoid to write or speak puji-puji to secure the secrecy of ilmu. However, some of the informants did not hesitate to teach me theirs, and one woman let me take a picture of her smartphone screen showing the typed puji-puji she learned from her grandfather who is a massage therapist (belian urut).
The formula for healing and protection is locally referred to as jampi.13 Jampi is the specific act of enforcing the cold ilmu by way of whispering the words of puji-puji for cure or protection of sick persons. The healers apply the matching jampi for the ill person by breathing onto the spot of the upper forehead (semanget) or breathing into other materials such as water, betel leaves and food to be absorbed by the sick person from the mouth or the skin (Figure 3.5). Various forces of
13 See Hay (2009), for analysis of jampi in the field of psychological anthropology.
healing and harms are supposed to permeate through the semanget spot on the upper forehead.14
Figure 3.5 A healer and a client. The healer (left) breathes the formula on the upper forehead (semanget) of the client (right) who asked the treatment of his headache. Lombok, 15 October 2015 (photograph by author).
Ilmu as the personal competence of healing
In any case, unlike the ordinary preventive self-care behaviors against harms such as spitting on the ground and bringing cloves of garlic, significantly, the mastery of jampi and the ownership of ilmu are in the limited domain of specialists. One of the preconditions is the family lineage, meaning that there must be the owner of the specific ilmu in older family members or extended ancestry.
In general, one learns the spells of puji-puji and the ways of formulating jampi from a healer in their family lineage while the healer is alive. When healers
14 See Chapters 4 – 5, for the descriptions in which informants mention the semanget.
sense that they are nearing their end, they typically allow those as the heritage for their close family members, including children, children-in-law or grandchildren, depending on their judgment of trustworthiness of their offsprings.15
On the other hand, it is often the case that those who directly learned the spells and formula from a highly capable person do not inherit ilmu as the whole competence but do so only partially. Instead, ilmu as the high competence of healing can be transmitted directly to another offspring who was born after the death of the healer and thus did not have a chance to learn specific jampi (Figure 3.6). In the context of cross-generational transmission, ilmu embodies the personal competence of healing as a whole, which operates itself beyond the control of the owner.
Figure 3.6 An example model of transmissions of jampi (healing formula) and ilmu (personal competence). The heir of ilmu does not need to learn from others how to enact jampi to enforce the ilmu. (Illustration by the author.)
15 In the respect that the healing formula and the personal competence of ilmu transmit between persons and enter bodies as an alieanable essence, the Sasak personhood can be considered in terms of dividual (Marriott 1976).
healer with ilmu
jampi a, b jampi c, d
jampi a jampi b jampi c jampi d
(teaching while alive)
heir of the whole ilmu
(3) Ilmu as a being
Ilmu as an agency coming in and out of persons
The reason why individuals cannot seek ilmu in the way they seek information or education lies in another precondition of its ownership.
In Reragi, people do not have a choice in obtaining what kind of ilmu to what extent, although they might train and prepare themselves to be capable of receiving it through meditation and other forms of self-empowerment. Instead, it is ilmu itself that chooses the person to enter into.
The prime candidates for the ownership of ilmu must be capable of enduring absorption of the ilmu into themselves, according to Paman Nawa. This point is echoed by healers’ narratives of the severe sickness and pain, bodily changes and behavioral restrictions that they received when ilmu entered (tama) them.
For instance, Paman Nawa, the renowned healer of all kinds, describes the moment when he was 17 years old that he met his late great-grandfather and a big, thick book entered his body while his body was paralyzed. Since then, Paman Nawa finds himself highly sensitive toward the sunshine and wears long-sleeves to go out anywhere.
Paman Si, also a healer of all kinds, claims that he was gifted with a jewel as a key (seserek; In., kunci) to ilmu while he intuitionally knocked one of the rocks at nearby creeks.16 Since then, Paman Si understands that he must not travel out of the island or otherwise his ilmu will be gone.
16 On this experience of receiving ilmu, Paman Si regards that jinn keeps the ilmu of ancestors in the secure place until the right person appears.
People in Reragi thus understand ilmu, the personal competence of healing or harms, as an entity that comes in and out of the human body-self with its autonomy and agency. This existential quality of ilmu is pertinent not only in the specific context of its transmission between particular persons but also in the broader context of people’s health and vulnerability.
As I mentioned previously, victims of the hot ilmu can heal when the cold ilmu defeats the hot ilmu. As local healers elaborate on this, it is not the humans (manusia) using ilmu that fight, but it is the hot ilmu and the cold ilmu itself that battles against each other.
For instance, to detoxify the black magic causing severe abdominal pain with an iron nail, the cold ilmu enters the target victim so that the hot ilmu or its material substance (the pin) will come out of his/her body. When a healer enforces his or her cold ilmu by enacting the matching healing formula of jampi, and its power surpasses the harming force of hot ilmu, the hot ilmu would go away (lalo), the nail would be excreted, and the abdominal pain would vanish.17
The perceived mobility of ilmu that comes in and out of persons is also evident in the local interpretations of illnesses of ketemuq (encounter) in which people accidentally come across the force of ilmu. For instance, if figure A enforces curse to figure B who also owns higher competence of ilmu with which (s)he can shield (ende; In., tameng) him/herself against it, figure C who happened to be
17 Similar mechanisms of jampi are also illustrated in Hay (2001; 2009) and Bennett (2004).
situated defenselessly nearby B might be involved in the battle and become sick beyond the intention of A and B (Figure 3.7).18
Figure 3.7 An example model of the illness of coming across a person’s ilmu. If the targeted person of curse has higher competence than the source person, the ilmu of the target will repel the force of harm. Unrelated, defenseless individuals are at risk of being involved and becoming sick if they are nearby the target at the moment of battle. (Illustration by the author.)
In the respect that Reragi villagers find themselves vulnerable to the illnesses of coming across someone else’s ilmu, there should be no exaggeration in saying that ilmu is considered as an agentive force. This point is underpinned by the healers’
narratives for their experiences of ilmu entering themselves, and their explanations of the battle between ilmu that go beyond their intentions and control. At the same time, as we have seen in this section, ilmu is understood as a person’s talent, knowledge and strength of healing and harms, which can be inherited in the family lineage.
18 The point that an individual with enough ilmu can repel the curse is also observed by Hay (2001: 121).
sender/source of hot ilmu
the targeted person with high competence
A
B
C unintended victim without competence the trajectory
of ilmu as a force of harm
Those aspects of ilmu demonstrate that in the Sasak sensorial experiences of vulnerability and strength, one’s competence operates itself as an autonomous being.
This personal competence is not confined to the self of the person in suffering and healing, and conversely, one’s essence extends to the body of others in space and over time. Regarding that, I conclude this chapter by remarking on further
implications of the sensed intersubjectivity of the Sasak body-self that extends to the social construal of the maternal-infant relation and its complications.