CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter covers the
background of study, problem of study, object of study, scope and limitation of study,
significance of study and difinition of key term.
1.1 Background The
complete Javanese wedding ritual, which originated in Kraton Surakarta, Central Java, still exist in its
graceful form. It is surprising since in this modern era many customs “from traditional
times” such as keeping “keris” and other
indigenous forms of magical powerseem to be discarded, anyhow, the wedding ritual is still alive. Hardjowirogo
highlights this with the following observation:
“But strangely enough, one particularfield,
namely the wedding ceremony, is not
being ignored but on the contrary, its details from ritual bathing to formal wows to the customary wedding, now
performed, so accurately that on can say
here has occurred a renaissance, a rebirth in people’s awareness of the authenticity of the wedding ritual
(Hardjowirogo, 1980:112).
If we talk about ceremonies, there are at
least two features of them that are significant.
First, they consist of organized, formal, and “standard” steps. Second, there is someone who is in charge of
organizing the ceremony and lead it run. The person is called a Master of Ceremony, usually
abbreviated to MC.
In spite of the complete steps ofa Javanese
wedding ceremony (from now on refers to
as JWC), in the old day, people did not always see any specific person who explicitly stood before the guests and
acted as the Master of Ceremony (MC).
Someone, either the wedding
beautician ofanother experienced person could organize the process of the ceremony, but she
or he did not necessarily speak in literary
terms and clearly in front of the
audience. If there happened to be someone
doing the duty of an MC, he would only mention the proceedings briefly far from what’ve see today.
According to the late R.Ng Yasadipura, the
most esteemed MC in Surakarta pa ace,
manners and customs in the palace, such as tingalan jumenengan(the anniversary of the crowing)are
organized by the melody of the gamelanorchestra.
Each step in the ceremony is represented and guided by a particular accompanying song. For example
Ladrang Srikaton raras pelog pathet barang
is the sign of the appealing of the king, while Kajongan accompanies the leaving. So, the ceremony goes m it self
without any MC.
A wedding ceremony outside the kraton follows
its customs as closely as possible ,
both in its procedure as well asin the songs. By doing so it is hoped that the bride and groom will get full attention
from the audience and thus indirectly receive
their blessings.
Different from the kratonwedding, however, is
that wedding ceremony outside the
kratonengages an MC to ensure that the ceremony proceeds properly.
The MC, that is called
Panatacara, uses Javanese to convene the ceremony.
If we now attend a JWC amount the established
families a panatacarais always present,
a person who not only arranges the procession but also gives playby-play
narrative commentary that lasts through the whole ceremony. This commentary is produced in the conventional
language and tone of a Javanese puppeteer
dhalang, and usually makes use of a loudspeaker. The commentary with poetic portrayals, according to
Yasadipura started recently, 1972 (Pemberton, 1994;235). The presence of the panatacaradoes
not lesson nor disturb the wedding
beautician’s role, whose secondary duty by keeping mum is to lead rites along the precession. It even helps tomake all
the rites urn well.
Unlike wedding receptions in western
countries, which usually are merry celebration
after the church ceremony, the Javanese wedding activities after the religious part is completed have to engage in
many more traditional rites. It starts with
upacara panggihi.e., the rite in which the bride and bridegroom meet in the yard of the bride’s house. After the couple is
seated onthe beautifully decorated love
seat-throne the ceremony proceeds to upacara sungkeman (ngabekten) in which they show heir respect and obedience to
both parents. Dhahar saklimah or spoon
feeding each ether one dish then follows it. Afterwards, upacara kacarkuciris
done, the one in which the groom pours some yellow rice mixed coins onto the bride’s lap. The last rite before the
closing is the so-called upacara kirab.
In this rite, the guests so that
the couple can be seen more closely The bridal group is lead by the subhamanggala, i.e.
someone dressed in traditional costume and
acting as a commander-in-chief. Following him is a couple of yudamanggala, young good-looking men wearing the same
costumes, who are then followed by patah
sakembaran, i.e. a pair of very young girls who also wear traditional costumes and walk preceding the bridal couple.
The couple is escorted by putri dhomas,
i.e. the well-dressed beautiful young girls supposedly representing eight hundred beautiful girls.
Each of
those rites is not meaningless but symbolizes something and has a deep meaning. It is the duty of the panatacara
to explain what each rite means or symbolizes.
In explaining them and also in the part which is called panyandra or portraying everything, the language used is
conventional ngoko(basic level) but full
of figures of speech using middle Javanese lexicon. Therefore a panatacara must have appropriate mastery of Javanese
speech levels and figurative language.
Besides, he must also know the
particular Javanese traditional music for a wedding ceremony, the kinds of dances usually
performed on such an occasion, the
symbolic, objects, and symbolism in the ceremony.
According to the late KRMH Yasadipura, a
panatacara should not use long sentences
and high sounding words. Onthe contrary, he had better use simple words. He must, however avoid vulgar
dirty words and those that are offensive.
In short, the panatacaramust possess good manners, morality, and language appropriateness. Apart from those
requirements, in reality, it is hard for a panatacara not to use high sounding words at
all since with such words they can impress
the audience. Besides, they are, indeed, intended to express certain thoughts and ideas used in a Javanese Wedding
Ceremonies. Those expressions termed as
panyandraor narration poetically portrays certain significant events, the bride and groom, and alsoother people in
the ceremony.
The language used by panatacara can be roughly
divided into two styles.
The first is nonfigurative high
and basic level Javanese, and the second is high and basic level Javanese with the predominant
use of figurative expressions. The two
quotations below are the examples for each.
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