Osing Living In Seclusion Amid Modernization

At a distance, the tone of traditional music was could be clearly heard on a clear evening in the ethnic Osing people's hamlet of Kemiren near Banyuwangi, East Java. The sounds were in near perfect harmony with an Osing language song. "The barong (mask) dance is beginning, let's go and watch it," said Karti, 50, a local food stall waitress, to The Jakarta Post in the Osing tongue.

A family living at the foot of the Ijen mountain range presented the barong performance at several weddings. Hundreds of people from Kemiren and nearby Kinjo and Boyolali villages thronged to the festive home located amid paddy fields to enjoy Osing-style dances and vocal arts offered by the Trisno Budoyo troupe.

The Osing are one of the minority ethnic groups still surviving in East Java. This group is spread over several areas in and around Banyuwangi, a city 300 kilometers east of Surabaya.

Banyuwangi regency has three officially recognized ethnic groups: the Osing, Javanese and Madurese. Osing people are mainly found in Kemiren village, West Banyuwangi, 7 kilometers from the city center, totaling 2,400 out of its 1.4-million population, and in Aliyan village, 14
kilometers from the city hub, constituting almost half of its 4,800 population.

The people speak in the Osing dialect of Javanese, which is said to have been directly descended from the royal family of Blambangan, a small kingdom in East Java around the 18th century.

Established by King Wiraraja, Blambangan was part of the Majapahit empire. After the fall of Majapahit, Blambangan became an arena of struggle for its conquest by small monarchies in Bali, Pasuruan and Islamic Mataram.

The power struggle was not yet over when Blambangan, famous for its fertile land (Blambangan being derived from the word balumbung or lumbung meaning a granary), turned into a target of Dutch colonizers through their VOC (Dutch East Indies Company). This ensnared position made the
people of Blambangan resistant to external forces, so that they sided with none of them, an attitude locally termed osing or using (independent).

The VOC's unrelenting attempts to control Blambangan faced opposition from Blambangan's community leader, Mas Rempeg, believed to be a reincarnation of Prince Agung Willis of Blambangan. Though Mas Rempeg's rebellion was finally put down by the VOC, the war caused the deaths of VOC officers
Lieut. Van Shaar, Major Gobies and Lieut. Kornet Tienne.

The big battle in 1771-1772 forced the population of Blambangan to take refuge on mountain slopes and cross to Bali, many of whom still live in those areas. Curiously, the murky past of Blambangan continued to be experienced by Osing descendants and the Banyuwangi area in general.
In 1965, for instance, a lot of people in this easternmost city of East Java just across a narrow strait from Bali, were killed following accusations that they were communist sympathizers. One popular communist song at that time, Genjer-genjer (a vegetable), was written by a Banyuwangi citizen.

More tragedy struck in 1998, when a rumor spread about the prevalence of black magic in the area. People in Banyuwangi, many of whom supposedly possess supernatural powers, became a target of murder. Some 150 citizens accused of using black magic for evil purposes were hacked
to death by an unidentified group of people dressed up like ninja warriors. "The incidents have made the Osing people increasingly alienated," Hasnan Singodimayan,75, an Osing community leader, explained to The Jakarta Post.

Osing's Tough Reawakening

In 2002, attempts were made to bury the past. On the the 232nd anniversary of Banyuwangi, Syamsul Hadi, then regent of Banyuwangi, tried to revive the city's Osing traditions. He made Osing the official language of the area and included it in the school curriculum. He also changed the
city's symbol from a snake with the head of Javanese shadow-puppet hero Gatotkaca into an Osing Gandrung dancer.

At first the Osing reawakening was warmly welcomed by the local community. The Osing language began to be spoken by non-Osing people in Banyuwangi. Hasan Ali, an Osing figure, launched a dictionary of this regional tongue, which is close to old Javanese and Balinese. The main
difference is that Osing has no language caste system in speech and writing, unlike Javanese and Balinese.

"The Osing ethnic character is getting more noticeable with the more widespread use of this language," said Hasnan Singodimayan. Osing folk arts were presented as the region's official
performances at national events in Banyuwangi. The ethnic group has diverse rituals related to the life cycle (from marriage to pregnancy) and community affairs (from offerings to spirits to harvest festivities) as well as traditional dances. According to East Java cultural
observer Ayu Sutarto, there are 32 Osing cultural ceremonies, 18 of which are art performances.

There have been some rejections of the culture, however, particularly in areas with more dominant Javanese and Madurese populations. "Several schools have refused the inclusion of Osing in
their curriculum," said a teacher in South Banyuwangi, who declined to be identified.

Ahmad Fauzi, 24, a youth of Osing descent working as an Osing radio broadcaster in Banyuwangi, said his peers had begun to give up speaking Osing. "They choose to speak Bahasa Indonesian or its Jakarta dialect," said Fauzi, who lives in the Osing village of Kalipuro. Fauzi noted the loss of many folk arts, such as Angklung Carok (a bamboo music contest) and Jaranan (the horse
dance), which used to be performed at Independence Day celebrations.

Even in Osing ethnic centers like Kemiren, the original atmosphere has changed, with an ever decreasing number of traditional houses. There are three types of Osing house: Tikel Badung, Baresan and Cerogan. They are made entirely of wood and without nails or cement, with front verandahs to for entertaining guests. Their kitchens have broad bamboo tables where family members dine.

Aekanu Hariyono of the Banyuwangi Tourism Office said that present government policy was not suitable for the promotion of this community. He said by determining Kemiren as a tourism village, the Osing culture had been segmented. "The village should be left in its original state while its art performances are continuously boosted," Aekanu said.

He had been inviting guests to witness Osing customs as "a humane way of letting the community grow naturally." Endeavors to preserve the high cultural values of the Osing people go on, hopefully avoiding the mistakes of the past.***