Guidebooks to East Kalimantan encourage tourists to visit Dayak villages, but most villages are farther inland. Many tourists make their way to the Benuaq Dayak village of Tanjung Isuy, where they can also see dances performed and stay in simple lodgings. But a trip to Tanjung Isuy usually requires at least an overnight stay. Pampang's strategic location vis-a-vis Samarinda is thus a critical element of its attractiveness as a tourism venue. In Samarinda there is already a range of hotels-including upscale ones with telephones, hot water, and western-style baths-available to accommodate tourists who seek that level of comfort. Private cars can be easily hired to take visitors to Pampang and back in an afternoon.
In the present era of Indonesian identity politics, Dayaks, like many other minority
groups, have realized that much may be gained by working together to solve shared problems and by fostering a common Dayak identity. However, developing a common identity is no easy challenge for members of various subgroups. To facilitate their struggle, some Dayaks have established nongovernmental organizations that crosscut subgroup loyalties. One example is the East Kalimantan Dayak Association (Persekutuan Dayak Kalimantan Timur), the province's largest indigenous interest group. That association was founded in 1993 in response to a perceived need for an organization that could foster a broad sense of oneness among Dayaks. Nevertheless allegiances to subgroups remain strong, and a growing number of organizations now raise funds and propose development projects on behalf of particular subgroups. As many consider tourism a phenomenon of great economic promise, different subgroups are working to ensure that "their" people and traditions find representation in the industry. Incipient competition between groups has already led to informal debates over who has the most "interesting" dances, who has "lost" their culture, and, in some cases, to the redesign of "traditional dress" in ways to make it more spectacular than that of other subgroups. During an open-mike session that followed the swearing in of a group of new subdistrict heads that I attended in the district seat of Melak in 1999, one Dayak man seized the opportunity to ask the governor to finance the construction of a longhouse, "like the one they have in Pampang," to attract tourists to his region.
In Pampang, the traditional law chief remarked to me proudly that he envisioned his village as a place where all Dayak traditions would someday be represented and pointed out that performers had already begun to incorporate non-- Kenyah dances in the culture show. Yet other Dayaks are now floating proposals for establishing their own culture villages which, if they come into being, will be located even closer to Samarinda than Pampang and able to compete with the Kenyah for the tourist market. The irony, of course, is that all of these new "culture villages," Pampang included, will be located far from the Dayaks' home communities upriver.
Writing of the development of tourism elsewhere in Indonesia, Kathleen Adams (1997:174) has noted that an unanticipated consequence of tourism promotion has been intensified interethnic competition, rivalry, and suspicion among some South Sulawesi groups. She argues for the importance of attending to regional political boundaries in researching Indonesian tourism. Given the recent bloodshed between Dayaks and migrants to Kalimantan in the west and central provinces, her point is well-taken. In this regard, too, I mentioned earlier that non-Dayak people living close to Pampang have established carving shops on the road into the village. On one occasion, I spotted a member of another ethnic group attempting to sell Kenyah-style beadwork to tourists at Pampang's longhouse. Although tolerated at present, these kinds of entrepreneurial activities may ultimately sour relations between Dayaks and migrants in the environs of Pampang. Further, in addition to the consequences of tourism for interethnic relations, I would suggest that it is important for scholars to examine how tourism development might lead to intragroup rivalries that ultimately influence whether and how ethnic identities, such as a pan-Dayak one, can develop and be sustained in turbulent times.
Conclusions
The establishment of Pampang Culture Village offers some indigenous peoples new opportunities to participate in a development scheme that may, with careful planning, garner benefits for themselves and for their community. However, fostering tourism in areas associated with traditional societies involves confronting a host of structural and cultural challenges (Brown 1999). As one official has already noted, "care is needed in cultivating Dayak cultural arts as a tourist object, because, on the one hand, the Dayak tribe has to progress, and, on the other, Dayak traditional culture is a tourist draw. In developing tourism in East Kalimantan, especially as it relates to Dayak culture, both of these concerns must be equally addressed" (Kaltim Post 1994c:8).
A similar concern was voiced nearly a decade ago, when Kalimantan's Parade of Roses contingent returned home from California. One of the delegation leaders was queried about whether the experience had exploited Dayaks and was merely another example of "letting them remain 'primitive' only because of the desire for authentic culture." The delegation leader, herself an indigenous activist, replied: "What I have seen happen to the Dayak Tribe is an inclination to exhibit their physical characteristics-the long ears and the tattoos-- without raising their [human resources] quality. Like teaching them how to dance, how to carve, and other skills. [What is needed] is the development of human resources, not the exploitation of their bodies" (Kaltim Post 1994b:8). She called the interviewer's attention to Pampang specifically, asking "Is what the government means by human resources development only to take them to Java or outside the country or to invite tourists to look at their dances?" Many indigenous observers would ask the same question today. Whatever the answer, it is clear that residents of Pampang will continue to insist that the management of their foray into tourism remains in indigenous hands, preventing non-Dayak local elites from capitalizing on Kenyah "otherness" (van der Berghe 1995). Too, they will work to ensure that their culture show, which they consider a means for artistic expression, maintenance of tradition, and economic advancement, never degenerates into mere show culture.
References Cited
Adams, Kathleen
1997 Touting Touristic "Primadonas": Tourism, Ethnicity, and National Integration in Sulawesi, Indonesia. In Tourism, Ethnicity, and the State in Asian and Pacific Societies. Michel Picard and Robert Wood, eds., Pp. 155-180. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Boon, James
1977 The Anthropological Romance of Bali. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1990 Affinities and Extremes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Brown, Denise
1999 Mayas and Tourists in the Maya World. Human Organization 58;295-304.
Catchpole, Karen
1999 Welcome to the Jungle. Escape: The Global Guide for the Adventurous Traveler, April:43-49, 50.
Conley, William
1976 The Kalimantan Kenyah: A Study of Tribal Conversion in Terms of Dynamic Cultural Themes. Nutley, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.
Dyson, Larentius
1992 Pampang: Profil Desa Tradisional Dayak dengan Penghuni Aneka Sub Etnik. Kaltim Post, February 18:4.
Freund, Ken
1996 A 20-day, 1,200 Mile Endurance Test Through the Jungles of Borneo. Four Wheeler, December:26-28.
Husain, Waris
1993a Desa Budaya Pampang Sebagai Obyek Pariwisata (Bagian I). Suara Kaltim, September 27:8.
1993b Desa Budaya Pampang Sebagai Obyek Pariwisata (Bagian II). Suara Kaltim, September 28:8.
Kaltim Post
1994a Bangga Menjadi Orang Dayak. Kaltim Post, January 11:8.
1994b Saya Tidak Setuju, Masyarakat Dayak Dijadikan Museum Hidup. Kaltim Post, January 29:7.
1994c Desa Budaya Dayak "Pampang" Terlantar. October 28:4.
1994d Perlu Kehati-hatian Garap Budaya Dayak. Kaltim Post, August 4:8.
1996a Diakui, Pampang Belum Mengigit. Kaltim Post, July 15:13.
1996b Produk Kerajinan Pampang Prospektif Dikembangkan Kaltim Post, December 17:5.
2000 Tempat Wisata di Samarinda Berantakan. Kaltim Post, Mard 6:3.
Laden, Rina
1992 Apa Yang Dapat Dijumpai di Desa Pampang. Kaltim Post, March 17:6.
Masperger, Mark
1995 Tourism and Cultural Change in Small-Scale Societies. Human Organization 54:87-94.
Pemberton, John
1994 On the Subject of Java, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Picard, Michel
1997 Cultural Tourism, Nation-Building, and Regional Culture: The Making of a Balinese Identity. In Tourism, Ethnicity, and the State in Asian and Pacific Societies. Michel Picard and Robert Wood, eds., Pp. 181-214. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Picard, Michel, and Robert Wood, eds.
1997 Tourism, Ethnicity, and the State in Asian and Pacific Societies. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Schiller, Anne
1997 Small Sacrifices: Religious Change and Cultural Identity Among the Ngaju of Indonesia. New York: Oxford University Press.
2001 Talking Heads: Capturing Dayak Deathways on Film. American Ethnologist 28:32-55.
2002 How to Hold a "Tiwah": The Potency of the Dead and Deathways Among Ngaju Dayaks. In The Potent Dead: Ancestors, Saints, and Heroes in Contemporary Indonesia. Anthony Reid and Henri Chambert-Loir, eds. Sydney: Allen and Unwin for Asian Studies Association of Australia.
Schrauwers, Alfred
1998 Returning to the "Origin": Church and State in the Ethnogenesis of the "To Pamona." In Southeast Asian Identities: Culture and the Politics of Representation in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Joel Kahn, ed. Pp. 203-226. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Suara Kaltim
1992 Palas Tahun Pampang Tertunda. Suara Kaltim, September 29:7.
Suara Pembaruan 1993 Perjalanan Panjang Masyarakat Pampang. Suara Pembaruan, September 24:1,16.
van der Berghe, Pierre
1995 Marketing Mayas: Ethnic Tourism Promotion in Mexico. Annals of Tourism Research 22:568-588.
Vickers, Adrian
1989 Bali: A Paradise Created. Berkeley, Calif.: Periplus Editions.
*)Anne Schiller is associate professor of anthropology at North Carolina State University. My research in East Kalimantan was supported by a Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Award. I would like to thank the people of Pampang for their kind assistance throughout the research period, in particular Dra. Djalung Ule, and Drs. Rina Laden for access to her newspaper archives. My previous field studies on related topics among Dayak peoples were funded with grants from the National Geographic Society (1996), the Wenner-Gren Foundation (1982, 1991), the Association for Asian Studies (1994, 1991), the Sigma-Xi Scientific Society (1982), North Carolina State University (1995), and a Fulbright-- Hays Doctoral Research Abroad Award (1982-83). All translations from Indonesian language texts are my own. I am grateful to Sarah Banks for suggestions concerning comparative sources during the preparation of this manuscript.
Source: Pampang culture village and international tourism in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo' Human Organization, Winter 2001 by Schiller, Anne
Showing posts with label pampang. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pampang. Show all posts
Friday, August 31, 2007
Pampang 3: A Visitor's Guide to Pampang
Sunday is the most important day of the week in Pampang Culture Village. Every Sunday afternoon, after church services are finished and the midday meal is past, many of the villages' men, women, and children make their way to the longhouse to begin preparations for the afternoon show. Some of the men gather to the right of the performance area, where they will chant for the audience during intervals between dances. Some female residents arrive carrying baskets of beadwork, ornate baby carriers (bening aban) highly prized by collectors, or perhaps simply vegetables and fruit. The women offering handicrafts for sale position themselves in a row along the front left interior of the longhouse and lay their assortment of trinkets, including necklaces, key chains, and door ornaments, on cloths on the floor. Sometimes a few old men appear and set up beside them. Rather than beadwork, the men exhibit dance swords, goatskin vests, and rattan hats. Fruit and vegetable vendors keep separate from the handicraft dealers. They remove themselves to a far back corner, where they display freshly harvested produce on rattan mats.
As 2:00 P.M. nears, tourists begin to arrive from Samarinda. They debark from banged-up public minivans or, occasionally, from sedans. Others make the journey by motorcycle. Once inside the longhouse they purchase tickets-about 30 cents each-and are invited to sign a guest book. Near the ticket seller's table a conspicuous sign informs visitors, in English and in Indonesian, that for a fee of about one U.S. dollar they can have their picture taken with a "long-eared Dayak" or a "Dayak in traditional dress." Some guests stroll over to examine the wares for sale. Others quickly find a place on one of the benches that face the back wall, which forms the set. Village children in various stages of costume peek out from a dressing area where they are being assisted by older performers. A pair of musicians tune up their traditional stringed instruments, called sampe, and test for volume on an antiquated sound system hauled inside for the show. Even the village dogs manage to ascend into the longhouse to investigate. They chase their rivals around the legs of startled visitors and slink among the benches, until a kick from an annoyed dancer sends them scrambling away.
Precisely on the hour, the master-of-ceremonies-a man wearing a traditional rattan cap or a costumed young woman-takes a place at the microphone. The master of ceremonies' remarks are delivered in Indonesian. After welcoming visitors, he or she asks the minister or another respected villager to lead the audience in prayer. Then the show begins in earnest. Six to nine dances are performed each week. The majority are adapted from Kenyah tradition, but one or two are borrowed from other Dayak groups. Some dances are performed by a single individual or couple, others by a group of women, several are executed by teenage girls and boys, some involve the participation of very young children. The most popular ones, judging from audience reactions, are the punan leto or "war dance," the anyam tall or "weaving dance," and the leleng, a group dance. In the first, a pair of rivals fight over the affection of a maiden who dances atop a gong. The disappointed suitor returns with reinforcements who attack en masse, only to be vanquished once again. In the second dance, a group of girls perform an intricate choreography that involves grasping colored ribbons suspended from a carved hornbill that is attached to the ceiling. The girls braid and unbraid the ribbons to demonstrate "the unity of the Dayak Tribe." As the master of ceremonies describes it: "We Dayaks come from different tribes, with different languages. But we are really one. The different colors represent different tribes. We all live together in harmony in Pampang Culture Village." The leleng is an audience participation dance that closes the show. It is performed only after the minister has delivered a second prayer and visitors have been thanked and wished a safe journey home. In all, the show lasts about an hour.
As tourists prepare to leave, they often pause to have a picture taken of themselves standing amid the dancers. Then they gather their souvenirs and head for the vehicles that will carry them back to Samarinda. Villagers remove their headdresses and goatskin vests, vendors gather up unsold goods. Over the loudspeaker, the master-of-ceremonies announces the day's take, to be divided later among performers. These remarks are delivered in Kenyan, rather than in Indonesian, so that only villagers can understand.
Dancing into the Future
Many residents insist that culture tourism in Pampang will enable them to have more comfortable lives and offer their children a better future. In addition to their Sunday performances and sales, other opportunities for villagers to earn money are also presented by their association with the culture village. Hotels, travel agents, other private businesses and government offices sometimes book private shows. An hour-long production similar to the one just described costs Rp. 400,000 ($1.00 = approx. Rp. 7,000 at the time of research). A longer performance, including a ceremonial greeting for guests on the field in front of the longhouse, costs Rp.700,000. Troupes of dancers are available to perform at wedding receptions, and Pampang's residents were recently featured at a publicity event for a new shopping mall in Samarinda. Proceeds from the dances are divided among performers and organizers. Money made from the sale of handicrafts belongs to the artisans just as fees paid by the tourists belong to the individuals who have their picture taken. The average yearly income of a family in Pampang is about $80, and the money earned by participating in a show or selling one's craftwork is meaningful. With profits from the sale of a single beaded key chain, for example, a villager can purchase a couple of packets of local coffee powder, roundtrip transportation on a public minivan to Samarinda, or three small fish caught by the family of Buginese migrants that runs a store just outside Pampang's gate.
The development of tourism in Pampang also increases the possibility the government will provide other forms of assistance. As previously noted, from time to time local offices of the Ministry of Tourism embark on projects intended to enhance Pampang's attractiveness. In 1996, for example, that office paid for several new buildings to be erected on the main village path, including a branch office, another small building that could be used as a museum, and a guest house for the governor should he visit. However, with no funds set aside for upkeep, the buildings soon began to fall into disrepair. Today they are on temporary loan to the school principal as housing.
In early 1999, Pampang's longhouse underwent more renovations, also with tourism department funds. The formerly plain back wall is now overlaid with dramatic carvings painted in vibrant colors. It is a work at once fanciful and aristocratic. The focal point is a commanding representation of a powerfully built man in a loincloth standing atop a large Chinese vase. Rhinoceros hornbills, an important symbol of Kenyah people, are depicted above his head, and tigers stand watch at his feet. The head carver on the project explained that: "The jar represents a porcelain vase, the kind our ancestors prized. The strength of the Kenyah people is collected in that jar. All our good ideas, our courage, are mixed inside. A customary law chief stands guard at the top. He makes wise decisions for the Kenyah." The carver mentioned that he had actually had the head traditional law chief of the Kenyah in mind while he carved, and intended to represent that individual specifically, because he has been so active in developing Pampang for tourism.
But beyond these longhouse carvings-and a new tiled outhouse-there is little evidence of improvements to Pampang's physical circumstances. A telephone line has yet to reach the village, so it is difficult to make arrangements for special dance performances. There is no water supply except the small river that flows behind the village. Like settlers in the 1970s, Pampang's residents today continue to make their way to the river to bathe and haul out buckets of drinking water. Although electricity has reached Pampang, there are no lights along the road out of the village. And, by early 2000, that road had once again fallen into a terrible state. It became so bad, in fact, that even the tourism office staff members assigned to visit on Sundays to count the number of tourists no longer attended. A local newspaper described Pampang's plight in an editorial, entitled "Disarrayed Tourism Venues in Samarinda" (Kaltim Post 2000), and claimed that Pampang "wasn't fit to be visited." Yet according to representatives of the municipal tourism office, now responsible for "improving" Pampang, development there is only now getting underway. Blueprints and plans have been drawn up for a cultural complex that will include an auditorium and museum, golf course, artificial lake with paddle boats, and a palm-tree-lined "Pampang Boulevard" to replace the rutted road. The office hopes to construct the complex with help from the World Bank.
It is clear that Pampang's residents require government support to improve village infrastructure much beyond its present circumstances. By making the village more accommodating to tourists, they hope to improve their own standard of living. As the data presented here indicates, however, assistance continues to be sporadic. Disappointed expectations on the part of some villagers have already led to resentment concerning whether they should be expected to shoulder the burden of operating the culture village. The extent of the municipal tourism office's role in the management of Pampang also remains unclear, leaving open the potential for misunderstanding, or worse. For example, the introduction of wages for work related to tourism may lead to disputes over the disbursement of project monies. As noted earlier, Kenyah society is organized hierarchically and decisions regarding the public good are usually made by members of a village's aristocratic strata (Conley 1976). However, during the most recent renovation of the longhouse, some carvers became upset over the lack of clarity on the part of some leaders regarding whether, when, and how much they would eventually be paid. One threatened to tear down his carvings if a thorough accounting was not forthcoming.
An expanding tourist sector may change economic and social relations among villagers in other ways, also. While the majority of Pampang's families reside in simple wooden plank housing, some are building large stone or ironwood homes with money earned by relatives who work in professional or managerial positions in Samarinda or elsewhere. These homes will certainly be the most attractive accommodations for overnight paying guests, should the demand arise. The issue of who should instruct Pampang's youngest dancers is also contentious. As one senior dancer pointed out to me, an authority on "authentic" Kenyah dance might be unable to choreograph new dances nor be willing to vary the show in ways that would maintain tourists' interest and make them want to visit again. Finally, efforts to encourage Pampang's villagers to devote more time to handicraft production may yield diminishing returns. Beadwork souvenirs are widely and cheaply available in Samarinda, where they are produced by cottage crafters from a variety of ethnicities. And non-Dayak carvers have already set up shops just beyond Pampang's gate, producing pieces patterned after the native style.
As 2:00 P.M. nears, tourists begin to arrive from Samarinda. They debark from banged-up public minivans or, occasionally, from sedans. Others make the journey by motorcycle. Once inside the longhouse they purchase tickets-about 30 cents each-and are invited to sign a guest book. Near the ticket seller's table a conspicuous sign informs visitors, in English and in Indonesian, that for a fee of about one U.S. dollar they can have their picture taken with a "long-eared Dayak" or a "Dayak in traditional dress." Some guests stroll over to examine the wares for sale. Others quickly find a place on one of the benches that face the back wall, which forms the set. Village children in various stages of costume peek out from a dressing area where they are being assisted by older performers. A pair of musicians tune up their traditional stringed instruments, called sampe, and test for volume on an antiquated sound system hauled inside for the show. Even the village dogs manage to ascend into the longhouse to investigate. They chase their rivals around the legs of startled visitors and slink among the benches, until a kick from an annoyed dancer sends them scrambling away.
Precisely on the hour, the master-of-ceremonies-a man wearing a traditional rattan cap or a costumed young woman-takes a place at the microphone. The master of ceremonies' remarks are delivered in Indonesian. After welcoming visitors, he or she asks the minister or another respected villager to lead the audience in prayer. Then the show begins in earnest. Six to nine dances are performed each week. The majority are adapted from Kenyah tradition, but one or two are borrowed from other Dayak groups. Some dances are performed by a single individual or couple, others by a group of women, several are executed by teenage girls and boys, some involve the participation of very young children. The most popular ones, judging from audience reactions, are the punan leto or "war dance," the anyam tall or "weaving dance," and the leleng, a group dance. In the first, a pair of rivals fight over the affection of a maiden who dances atop a gong. The disappointed suitor returns with reinforcements who attack en masse, only to be vanquished once again. In the second dance, a group of girls perform an intricate choreography that involves grasping colored ribbons suspended from a carved hornbill that is attached to the ceiling. The girls braid and unbraid the ribbons to demonstrate "the unity of the Dayak Tribe." As the master of ceremonies describes it: "We Dayaks come from different tribes, with different languages. But we are really one. The different colors represent different tribes. We all live together in harmony in Pampang Culture Village." The leleng is an audience participation dance that closes the show. It is performed only after the minister has delivered a second prayer and visitors have been thanked and wished a safe journey home. In all, the show lasts about an hour.
As tourists prepare to leave, they often pause to have a picture taken of themselves standing amid the dancers. Then they gather their souvenirs and head for the vehicles that will carry them back to Samarinda. Villagers remove their headdresses and goatskin vests, vendors gather up unsold goods. Over the loudspeaker, the master-of-ceremonies announces the day's take, to be divided later among performers. These remarks are delivered in Kenyan, rather than in Indonesian, so that only villagers can understand.
Dancing into the Future
Many residents insist that culture tourism in Pampang will enable them to have more comfortable lives and offer their children a better future. In addition to their Sunday performances and sales, other opportunities for villagers to earn money are also presented by their association with the culture village. Hotels, travel agents, other private businesses and government offices sometimes book private shows. An hour-long production similar to the one just described costs Rp. 400,000 ($1.00 = approx. Rp. 7,000 at the time of research). A longer performance, including a ceremonial greeting for guests on the field in front of the longhouse, costs Rp.700,000. Troupes of dancers are available to perform at wedding receptions, and Pampang's residents were recently featured at a publicity event for a new shopping mall in Samarinda. Proceeds from the dances are divided among performers and organizers. Money made from the sale of handicrafts belongs to the artisans just as fees paid by the tourists belong to the individuals who have their picture taken. The average yearly income of a family in Pampang is about $80, and the money earned by participating in a show or selling one's craftwork is meaningful. With profits from the sale of a single beaded key chain, for example, a villager can purchase a couple of packets of local coffee powder, roundtrip transportation on a public minivan to Samarinda, or three small fish caught by the family of Buginese migrants that runs a store just outside Pampang's gate.
The development of tourism in Pampang also increases the possibility the government will provide other forms of assistance. As previously noted, from time to time local offices of the Ministry of Tourism embark on projects intended to enhance Pampang's attractiveness. In 1996, for example, that office paid for several new buildings to be erected on the main village path, including a branch office, another small building that could be used as a museum, and a guest house for the governor should he visit. However, with no funds set aside for upkeep, the buildings soon began to fall into disrepair. Today they are on temporary loan to the school principal as housing.
In early 1999, Pampang's longhouse underwent more renovations, also with tourism department funds. The formerly plain back wall is now overlaid with dramatic carvings painted in vibrant colors. It is a work at once fanciful and aristocratic. The focal point is a commanding representation of a powerfully built man in a loincloth standing atop a large Chinese vase. Rhinoceros hornbills, an important symbol of Kenyah people, are depicted above his head, and tigers stand watch at his feet. The head carver on the project explained that: "The jar represents a porcelain vase, the kind our ancestors prized. The strength of the Kenyah people is collected in that jar. All our good ideas, our courage, are mixed inside. A customary law chief stands guard at the top. He makes wise decisions for the Kenyah." The carver mentioned that he had actually had the head traditional law chief of the Kenyah in mind while he carved, and intended to represent that individual specifically, because he has been so active in developing Pampang for tourism.
But beyond these longhouse carvings-and a new tiled outhouse-there is little evidence of improvements to Pampang's physical circumstances. A telephone line has yet to reach the village, so it is difficult to make arrangements for special dance performances. There is no water supply except the small river that flows behind the village. Like settlers in the 1970s, Pampang's residents today continue to make their way to the river to bathe and haul out buckets of drinking water. Although electricity has reached Pampang, there are no lights along the road out of the village. And, by early 2000, that road had once again fallen into a terrible state. It became so bad, in fact, that even the tourism office staff members assigned to visit on Sundays to count the number of tourists no longer attended. A local newspaper described Pampang's plight in an editorial, entitled "Disarrayed Tourism Venues in Samarinda" (Kaltim Post 2000), and claimed that Pampang "wasn't fit to be visited." Yet according to representatives of the municipal tourism office, now responsible for "improving" Pampang, development there is only now getting underway. Blueprints and plans have been drawn up for a cultural complex that will include an auditorium and museum, golf course, artificial lake with paddle boats, and a palm-tree-lined "Pampang Boulevard" to replace the rutted road. The office hopes to construct the complex with help from the World Bank.
It is clear that Pampang's residents require government support to improve village infrastructure much beyond its present circumstances. By making the village more accommodating to tourists, they hope to improve their own standard of living. As the data presented here indicates, however, assistance continues to be sporadic. Disappointed expectations on the part of some villagers have already led to resentment concerning whether they should be expected to shoulder the burden of operating the culture village. The extent of the municipal tourism office's role in the management of Pampang also remains unclear, leaving open the potential for misunderstanding, or worse. For example, the introduction of wages for work related to tourism may lead to disputes over the disbursement of project monies. As noted earlier, Kenyah society is organized hierarchically and decisions regarding the public good are usually made by members of a village's aristocratic strata (Conley 1976). However, during the most recent renovation of the longhouse, some carvers became upset over the lack of clarity on the part of some leaders regarding whether, when, and how much they would eventually be paid. One threatened to tear down his carvings if a thorough accounting was not forthcoming.
An expanding tourist sector may change economic and social relations among villagers in other ways, also. While the majority of Pampang's families reside in simple wooden plank housing, some are building large stone or ironwood homes with money earned by relatives who work in professional or managerial positions in Samarinda or elsewhere. These homes will certainly be the most attractive accommodations for overnight paying guests, should the demand arise. The issue of who should instruct Pampang's youngest dancers is also contentious. As one senior dancer pointed out to me, an authority on "authentic" Kenyah dance might be unable to choreograph new dances nor be willing to vary the show in ways that would maintain tourists' interest and make them want to visit again. Finally, efforts to encourage Pampang's villagers to devote more time to handicraft production may yield diminishing returns. Beadwork souvenirs are widely and cheaply available in Samarinda, where they are produced by cottage crafters from a variety of ethnicities. And non-Dayak carvers have already set up shops just beyond Pampang's gate, producing pieces patterned after the native style.
Pampang 2: The History of Pampang Village
Pampang, which in the Indonesian language means "expansive," is populated mostly by people known as Kenyah Dayaks, among the largest Dayak groups in Kalimantan. Like some other Dayaks, many Kenyah refer to themselves as "people of tradition" (masyarakat adat). However Dayak traditions, like Dayak languages, vary widely across the island. Kenyah are further divided in subgroups that speak distinct dialects and whose customs vary. These subgroups are sometimes called uma or lepo. Kenyah who live in Pampang today include representatives of several different lepo. Thus, unlike the situation in more remote Kenyah villages where nearly everyone may speak the same dialect, two neighbors living in Pampang may speak quite differently from one another. The Kenyah practice a hereditary ranking system that includes aristocrats (paren) who traditionally comprised the villages' political leadership, various types of commoners (panyin), and, formerly, slaves (ula). At the same time, traditional patterns of leadership are gradually changing as villages become increasingly incorporated in state administrative structures, and the role of church leaders in many communities is increasing in importance (Conley 1976:187-201). The relative affluence of some families who participate in new wage-earning opportunities has also affected the balance of power. Thus it is not surprising that questions of cultural identity and the effects on tourism many dimensions of local community life loom large in Pampang.
The first Kenyan settlers arrived in Pampang in the early 1970s following an arduous journey from Long Liis, a village deep in the Apau Kayan region (Bulungan Regency) close to Indonesia's border with Sarawak, Malaysia. According to the popular account of their migration, three families set off together. Hard times upriver had led them to take the risks associated with a move. Their farms were failing, they could not afford many basic foodstuffs at astronomically inflated upriver prices, and they had virtually no access to health care or education for their children. They journeyed slowly, sometimes stopping to farm along the way. Eventually they reached Pampang, where they were later joined by other Kenyan who were finding it difficult to survive in their remote communities as well. The trek to Pampang may take even present-day migrants more than a month, down muddy paths cut through the rainforest and over dangerous river rapids. With time, the village population has grown to about 700 inhabitants. In addition to Kenyan, village residents include a handful of Dayaks from other subgroups and even a few non-Dayaks who have married locals.
Compared to a home in the Apau Kayan, Pampang is strategically located-it lies fewer than 30 kilometers north of the provincial capital, Samarinda. Nevertheless, even the trip to Pampang from Samarinda requires some effort. After turning left off the main road out of Samarinda at kilometer 28, travelers must take a much smaller byway for about five kilometers, traveling up and down steep hills where the road floods in patches. Arriving at Pampang's "gate," they must push on for a final muddy kilometer or two on a path that is in such poor repair as to be often impassible for motor vehicles.
Eager to improve their lot, a little more than a decade ago Pampang's leaders, including one of the original settlers who is now its traditional law chief (kepala adat), began working with the head traditional law chief of the Kenyah people-a well-known professional in Samarinda-to expand the village's annual harvest festival (palas tahun). By acting creatively, they hoped to increase provincial officials' awareness of the village and of the challenges faced by the indigenous people who lived there. Many local administrators, including the governor and the mayor, were invited to the celebration, and to those that followed during the next few years. Taking advantage of its location near the capital, village leaders, their Samarinda-based advisors, and the provincial office of the Department of Tourism decided to begin promoting Pampang as a "culture village" (desa budaya) in 1991. The culture village was a novel concept, and Pampang remains the only one of its kind in East Kalimantan. The designation was celebrated with the erection of a heavily carved "unity column" (belawing) in the center of the village. Residents began planning their largest harvest celebration yet, to be held in 1992. Some villagers organized dances to entertain dignitaries. Others created artwork that their guests could take home to remember their visit. At that time, the path into the village off the five-- kilometer feeder road had yet to be paved. Access to Pampang was still limited to a trail cut roughly through the bush. In addition, there were no large enclosed buildings and guests would have to be entertained outdoors regardless of the weather. Even though the start of the festivities was delayed for a time while some waited to see whether asphalt could be poured on the path, the festival attracted more publicity and was better attended than in the past (Suara Kaltim 1992).
Within the year, the mayor of Samarinda declared that he had become "obsessed" with developing Pampang as a tourist object. Speaking with a reporter from a national newspaper, he compared the village to a tourist venue in Europe: "In Polendam, the Netherlands, there is an area for culture tourism that presents the traditional way of life of the Dutch hundreds of years ago, like wooden shoes, colorful shirts, hairstyles, and more. There is even an opportunity for tourists to have their picture taken as a souvenir. Now, that's what we are going to do to the people of Pampang" (Suara Pembaruan 1993). In an essay written for a local paper, the mayor suggested that, by pretending to live in economically difficult straits, the Dayaks of Pampang would actually improve their standard of living: "When one discusses the pattern of life of past times, by modern indicators, it was a life of poverty. But in portraying the cultural life of past times, the workers will be shown in `artificial poverty.' That means that the workers perform as professionals...and receive a wage appropriate to their job. It's clear that this is the place where they work, but their wages will enable them to live comfortably outside of the place that they work" (Husain 1993b:8).
Yet besides its annual harvest festival, Pampang apparently offered little of interest to visitors seeking a Dayak cultural experience. A domestic tourist in 1993 was quoted as follows: "My impression when I heard that Pampang was a culture village was that I would be exposed to a unique atmosphere, although I didn't know what the buildings, the environment, and the lifestyle would be like. But I didn't find anything like that." That newspaper report noted that although the poor condition of the road led visitors to imagine that they were entering an authentic Dayak village-that is, it felt remote-when they arrived they found that homes in Pampang were simply like those of [poor] city dwellers in Samarinda (Suara Pembaruan 1993:1). Most peculiar of all, Pampang lacked a "longhouse" (lamin). Longhouses are the traditional dwelling places of many of Kalimantan's indigenous peoples and sometimes house several hundred persons at once. The absence of a longhouse in a village that was promoted as being rich in Dayak culture seemed glaring (Dyson 1992). Responding to that criticism, a teacher in East Kalimantan's state-run university, herself a well-known Dayak activist, countered that Pampang wasn't called a culture village for its architecture. She added it is considered a culture village "because of the presence of the Dayak Kenyah tribe that maintains its customs and traditions, as in performing harvest ceremonies, the manner in which they receive guests, and by means of their dances, songs, and skill in carving" (Laden 1992:6).
Despite this flurry of interest, little changed over the next few years. A long dry season in 1994 caused a severe water shortage-the river on which Pampang's residents depended for water became dangerously low. The path to the village went unimproved. A meeting hall was built to serve as a longhouse for holding social gatherings (rather than for residence), but it deteriorated rapidly. The traditional law chief finally took his case to the public in a newspaper interview. "Why should Pampang have to bear the designation of `Culture Village' if, with the addition of that title, we, Dayak Kenyah citizens, are expected to take on a heavy burden?" he queried. "The longhouse is falling apart, the instruments and accessories here are insufficient to portray the face of the Dayak Kenyah. There aren't even any authentic Dayak clothes in this village, and it's difficult to find any examples of home industries or handicrafts. So just what is the characteristic of a culture village that is here in Pampang?" (Kaltim Post 1994c:7).
Officials' sensitivity to public criticism, coupled with the successful lobbying efforts of the head traditional law chief in Samarinda, began to have an effect on Pampang's fortunes. The local government began to take a more active role in Pampang's development. Army troops were sent to widen and improve the road and to help enlarge the longhouse. The head of the provincial office of the Department of Tourism announced plans to expand Pampang through partnerships with private business. The first step, he counseled, would be to erect additional longhouses in the styles of other Dayak groups. These longhouses would enhance the "rich landscape of Pampang." The next step would be to build a hotel. Pampang, he asserted, would become a "Mini Dayak Kaltim," analogous to the "Beautiful Indonesia in Miniature Park" in Jakarta (Kaltim Post 1996a). Shortly after this announcement, the advisor to Pampang's farmers' cooperative announced intentions to step up handicraft production, including the manufacture of beaded purses, mats, and other items. Whereas the production of such items had formerly been an evening pastime for village women after they returned from their farms, it was hoped that particularly skilled individuals would devote even more of their time to crafts and that their children or others would replace them in the fields (Kaltim Post 1996b).
In 1998, under the guidance of the traditional law chief, the village's middle school principal, and other advisors in Samarinda, Pampang's residents began offering regularly scheduled dance performances. Participation in twice weekly dance practice became an integral part of students' required extracurricular activities, as did their attendance at actual performances. To encourage visitors to come to the shows, billboards were erected in Samarinda and elsewhere, including one on the spot at kilometer 28 where travelers must turn off the main road to get to Pampang. The billboard, which depicts a Kenyah woman in an elaborately beaded skirt and vest with her arms raised in dance, provides drivers with directions and details show times.
Source: Pampang culture village and international tourism in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, Human Organization, Winter 2001 by Schiller, Anne
The first Kenyan settlers arrived in Pampang in the early 1970s following an arduous journey from Long Liis, a village deep in the Apau Kayan region (Bulungan Regency) close to Indonesia's border with Sarawak, Malaysia. According to the popular account of their migration, three families set off together. Hard times upriver had led them to take the risks associated with a move. Their farms were failing, they could not afford many basic foodstuffs at astronomically inflated upriver prices, and they had virtually no access to health care or education for their children. They journeyed slowly, sometimes stopping to farm along the way. Eventually they reached Pampang, where they were later joined by other Kenyan who were finding it difficult to survive in their remote communities as well. The trek to Pampang may take even present-day migrants more than a month, down muddy paths cut through the rainforest and over dangerous river rapids. With time, the village population has grown to about 700 inhabitants. In addition to Kenyan, village residents include a handful of Dayaks from other subgroups and even a few non-Dayaks who have married locals.
Compared to a home in the Apau Kayan, Pampang is strategically located-it lies fewer than 30 kilometers north of the provincial capital, Samarinda. Nevertheless, even the trip to Pampang from Samarinda requires some effort. After turning left off the main road out of Samarinda at kilometer 28, travelers must take a much smaller byway for about five kilometers, traveling up and down steep hills where the road floods in patches. Arriving at Pampang's "gate," they must push on for a final muddy kilometer or two on a path that is in such poor repair as to be often impassible for motor vehicles.
Eager to improve their lot, a little more than a decade ago Pampang's leaders, including one of the original settlers who is now its traditional law chief (kepala adat), began working with the head traditional law chief of the Kenyah people-a well-known professional in Samarinda-to expand the village's annual harvest festival (palas tahun). By acting creatively, they hoped to increase provincial officials' awareness of the village and of the challenges faced by the indigenous people who lived there. Many local administrators, including the governor and the mayor, were invited to the celebration, and to those that followed during the next few years. Taking advantage of its location near the capital, village leaders, their Samarinda-based advisors, and the provincial office of the Department of Tourism decided to begin promoting Pampang as a "culture village" (desa budaya) in 1991. The culture village was a novel concept, and Pampang remains the only one of its kind in East Kalimantan. The designation was celebrated with the erection of a heavily carved "unity column" (belawing) in the center of the village. Residents began planning their largest harvest celebration yet, to be held in 1992. Some villagers organized dances to entertain dignitaries. Others created artwork that their guests could take home to remember their visit. At that time, the path into the village off the five-- kilometer feeder road had yet to be paved. Access to Pampang was still limited to a trail cut roughly through the bush. In addition, there were no large enclosed buildings and guests would have to be entertained outdoors regardless of the weather. Even though the start of the festivities was delayed for a time while some waited to see whether asphalt could be poured on the path, the festival attracted more publicity and was better attended than in the past (Suara Kaltim 1992).
Within the year, the mayor of Samarinda declared that he had become "obsessed" with developing Pampang as a tourist object. Speaking with a reporter from a national newspaper, he compared the village to a tourist venue in Europe: "In Polendam, the Netherlands, there is an area for culture tourism that presents the traditional way of life of the Dutch hundreds of years ago, like wooden shoes, colorful shirts, hairstyles, and more. There is even an opportunity for tourists to have their picture taken as a souvenir. Now, that's what we are going to do to the people of Pampang" (Suara Pembaruan 1993). In an essay written for a local paper, the mayor suggested that, by pretending to live in economically difficult straits, the Dayaks of Pampang would actually improve their standard of living: "When one discusses the pattern of life of past times, by modern indicators, it was a life of poverty. But in portraying the cultural life of past times, the workers will be shown in `artificial poverty.' That means that the workers perform as professionals...and receive a wage appropriate to their job. It's clear that this is the place where they work, but their wages will enable them to live comfortably outside of the place that they work" (Husain 1993b:8).
Yet besides its annual harvest festival, Pampang apparently offered little of interest to visitors seeking a Dayak cultural experience. A domestic tourist in 1993 was quoted as follows: "My impression when I heard that Pampang was a culture village was that I would be exposed to a unique atmosphere, although I didn't know what the buildings, the environment, and the lifestyle would be like. But I didn't find anything like that." That newspaper report noted that although the poor condition of the road led visitors to imagine that they were entering an authentic Dayak village-that is, it felt remote-when they arrived they found that homes in Pampang were simply like those of [poor] city dwellers in Samarinda (Suara Pembaruan 1993:1). Most peculiar of all, Pampang lacked a "longhouse" (lamin). Longhouses are the traditional dwelling places of many of Kalimantan's indigenous peoples and sometimes house several hundred persons at once. The absence of a longhouse in a village that was promoted as being rich in Dayak culture seemed glaring (Dyson 1992). Responding to that criticism, a teacher in East Kalimantan's state-run university, herself a well-known Dayak activist, countered that Pampang wasn't called a culture village for its architecture. She added it is considered a culture village "because of the presence of the Dayak Kenyah tribe that maintains its customs and traditions, as in performing harvest ceremonies, the manner in which they receive guests, and by means of their dances, songs, and skill in carving" (Laden 1992:6).
Despite this flurry of interest, little changed over the next few years. A long dry season in 1994 caused a severe water shortage-the river on which Pampang's residents depended for water became dangerously low. The path to the village went unimproved. A meeting hall was built to serve as a longhouse for holding social gatherings (rather than for residence), but it deteriorated rapidly. The traditional law chief finally took his case to the public in a newspaper interview. "Why should Pampang have to bear the designation of `Culture Village' if, with the addition of that title, we, Dayak Kenyah citizens, are expected to take on a heavy burden?" he queried. "The longhouse is falling apart, the instruments and accessories here are insufficient to portray the face of the Dayak Kenyah. There aren't even any authentic Dayak clothes in this village, and it's difficult to find any examples of home industries or handicrafts. So just what is the characteristic of a culture village that is here in Pampang?" (Kaltim Post 1994c:7).
Officials' sensitivity to public criticism, coupled with the successful lobbying efforts of the head traditional law chief in Samarinda, began to have an effect on Pampang's fortunes. The local government began to take a more active role in Pampang's development. Army troops were sent to widen and improve the road and to help enlarge the longhouse. The head of the provincial office of the Department of Tourism announced plans to expand Pampang through partnerships with private business. The first step, he counseled, would be to erect additional longhouses in the styles of other Dayak groups. These longhouses would enhance the "rich landscape of Pampang." The next step would be to build a hotel. Pampang, he asserted, would become a "Mini Dayak Kaltim," analogous to the "Beautiful Indonesia in Miniature Park" in Jakarta (Kaltim Post 1996a). Shortly after this announcement, the advisor to Pampang's farmers' cooperative announced intentions to step up handicraft production, including the manufacture of beaded purses, mats, and other items. Whereas the production of such items had formerly been an evening pastime for village women after they returned from their farms, it was hoped that particularly skilled individuals would devote even more of their time to crafts and that their children or others would replace them in the fields (Kaltim Post 1996b).
In 1998, under the guidance of the traditional law chief, the village's middle school principal, and other advisors in Samarinda, Pampang's residents began offering regularly scheduled dance performances. Participation in twice weekly dance practice became an integral part of students' required extracurricular activities, as did their attendance at actual performances. To encourage visitors to come to the shows, billboards were erected in Samarinda and elsewhere, including one on the spot at kilometer 28 where travelers must turn off the main road to get to Pampang. The billboard, which depicts a Kenyah woman in an elaborately beaded skirt and vest with her arms raised in dance, provides drivers with directions and details show times.
Source: Pampang culture village and international tourism in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, Human Organization, Winter 2001 by Schiller, Anne
Pampang 1: Pampang culture village and international tourism in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo
Human Organization, Winter 2001 by Schiller, Anne
Pampang, a village inhabited by Kenyah Dayaks, an indigenous people of Indonesian Borneo, was recently declared the first "culture village" in the province of East Kalimantan. This study traces the development of "Pampang Culture Village" and examines the incipient effects of tourism on the lives and livelihoods of local people. Even as the village's cultivation as a tourist destination has begun to garner benefits for residents, their role in the enterprise remains ambiguous. Left unresolved, this confusion could contribute to fissures within the community. Another disturbing side effect is the creation of a new arena for competition among native subgroups. Competition for tourists may have negative consequences for whether indigenous peoples can forge and maintain a common identity for themselves in an era of rapid social transformation.
Among Pasadena, California's, 1994 Parade of Roses floats was one that transported a singularly exotic contingent: male dancers bundled in banana leaves, middle-aged women with elongated earlobes and forearms scored by dark tattoos, an orangutan cradling her infant. Called "Mysterious Borneo," it was sponsored by the Republic of Indonesia and intended to promote travel to that Southeast Asian country (Kaltim Post 1994a). While most foreigners vacationing in Indonesia visit the islands of Bali or Java, the neighboring island of Borneo-known in the Indonesian language as Kalimantan-also includes an area touted by the government as a tourist venue. The persons on the "Mysterious Borneo" float, as well as the orangutans, came from one of those venues, the province of East Kalimantan.
Despite its efforts, Indonesia's fortunes in promoting international tourism have lately plummeted. Declines in the number of visitors to Kalimantan, specifically, are largely due to three factors: political instability leading some foreign governments to issue temporary advisories against travel there, forest fires that incinerated huge rainforest tracts leaving the air unfit to breathe for months at a time, and ongoing interethnic violence in the west and central provinces. Nevertheless, East Kalimantan continues to pin its hopes on tourism. Its provincial and municipal offices of tourism, both located in the provincial capital, Samarinda, have begun to select locales to develop for "culture tourism,." One is Pampang, a village inhabited by a group of native people known generically as "Dayaks," some with ties to the team that once brought home an "International Trophy" from the Parade of Roses.
The aim of this paper is to trace the development of "Pampang Culture Village" and to examine the incipient effects of culture tourism on the lives and livelihoods of villagers there. The paper argues that even as Pampang's designation as a tourist destination has garnered some benefits for the community-mostly in terms of highly targeted infrastructural development-it has introduced confusion concerning exactly what the designation "culture village" means. Residents' role in the enterprise also remains ambiguous. Lack of clarity concerning what a culture village should comprise, coupled with economic and social changes related to the escalation of tourism, may contribute to fissures within the community. The paper suggests, too, that a disturbing side effect of culture tourism in Kalimantan has been the creation of a new arena for competition among native subgroups and between natives and migrants. It asserts that competition for tourist dollars may have serious consequences for whether and how indigenous peoples can forge unity across subgroups in this high-stakes era of rapid social transformation.
Theoretical Background
Dramatic political and economic changes are lately sweeping over many Southeast Asian nations, where the process of nation building itself is a relatively new endeavor. Nation building is complicated by the heterogeneity of the region's citizenries. Indonesia, for example, is populated by peoples of strikingly different cultural backgrounds who practice different religions, speak myriad tongues, and are dispersed across an island chain the width of the United States. Yet by virtue of historical contingencies-in particular, their common experience of European colonialism-these groups have taken on the difficult task of creating a national identity. Even after nearly six decades it remains fragile, and, in light of recent political upheaval, some would argue that it is disintegrating. The most important conceptual vehicle used to reify and inculcate Indonesian identity remains Pancasila, the "Five Principles" that are the ideological basis of the Indonesian state. School children as well as civil servants are required to attend civics education programs designed to deepen their commitment to the state through the study of Pancasila.
The official motto of the Republic of Indonesia, "Unity in Diversity," distinctly acknowledges the heterogeneity of its populace. However, even while acknowledging religious and ethnic difference, the state simultaneously seeks to ensure that citizens demonstrate their ethnicity in acceptable ways. A glance at the state's role in the tourism industry provides insight into which dimensions of diversity are deemed acceptable and, with regard to tourism's important role in the economic sector, most useful.
The Asian-Pacific region is quickly growing in popularity as a tourist destination. Some scholars have posited that the study of tourism there "provides a way to understand what has been happening to ethnicity" (Picard and Wood 1997:viii). Concerning Indonesia, it has been argued that "it is only through the articulation and celebration of obvious diversity" that "'unique' customs within a broader system of Indonesian cultural representations" can be identified (Pemberton 1994:12). The most palpable expression of this process of representation and identification is a huge cultural theme park called "Taman Mini Indonesia Indah" or "Beautiful Indonesia in Miniature Park," which opened in 1975. Taman Mini stands at the edge of Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, located on the island of Java. It features a pond studded with concrete islands that depicts the geography of the Indonesian archipelago and pavilions erected in many regional architectural styles. Watching dance performances and purchasing souvenir handicrafts are important parts of a visit to Mini Indonesia. The park's success has inspired some of Indonesia's provincial governments to follow suit. On the island of Sulawesi, for example, a park has been built featuring festival buildings that resemble 19th century animist temples of various local ethnic groups, That complex has been dubbed "Beautiful Sulawesi in Miniature Gardens" (Schrauwers 1998:204).
Discussing the relationship between tourism and identity on the Indonesian island of Bali, Michel Picard (1997:206) writes that the emergence of ethnic identity there should be seen as a dynamic response to new situations brought about by the state. Tracing the development of a notion of "Balineseness" based mostly on shared religion (Hinduism) and custom, he suggests that the components of Balinese identity are, in large part, the deliberate choices of certain individuals who are "authorized" to speak for the society as a whole and therefore monopolize legitimate discourse. These cultural spokespersons include government personnel and other professionals such as academics, entrepreneurs, and journalists (Picard 1997:207). Yet it is important to underscore that some dimensions of Balinese identity have taken shape in a direct dynamic with tourism. James Boon (1977:187) has noted that 20th century Western devotees of Bali-including anthropologists-who wrote of their fears that the complex artistic traditions associated with Bali would disappear, "were actually witnessing more of a rejuvenation of arts and performances, partly in response to new tourist markets in the 1920s."
It has been said that tourists to Bali arrive anticipating "a serene and harmonious people" whom they will encounter as they travel along "sun-dappled roads that meander quietly past peaceful villages and markets" (Vickers 1989:191). What might they expect from a trip to Kalimantan? Rather than a relaxing ramble, many come intending to engage in experiences that test their physical stamina. These adventures include rafting down rapids or participating in pan-island jeep races (Freund 1996). Unlike Balinese villages, those of Dayaks are often separated by hours or days of hard travel. Given their isolation, it is not surprising that there are many different "kinds" of Dayaks, and that their languages and traditions differ. The designation "Dayak tribe," or references to particular "tribes," are largely terms of convenience that do not signify corporate political organizations. Different subtribes speak different languages and, in some cases, subgroups of the same subtribe may speak nearly mutually unintelligible dialects.
Religion is another area in which Balinese and Dayaks differ. Whereas Balinese are predominantly Hindus and watching temple festivals or cremations are highlights of visits to their island, the Dayaks of Kalimantan practice a variety of religions. Most are converts to world religions; the majority practice Catholicism or Protestantism. At the same time, travelers to Kalimantan may indeed happen upon indigenous celebrations, including elaborate mortuary rituals involving animal sacrifice and, sometimes, secondary burial (Schiller 2002, 2001). In the past, some Dayak groups engaged in head taking or rituals of human sacrifice, practices associated with their indigenous animistic faiths (Schiller 1997). As a result, Dayaks have historically been stereotyped as headhunting "wild men," with some exceptions (Boon 1990:18-25). Recent events, in particular the violence between Dayaks and migrants in the west and central provinces, have done little to alter that view. The stereotype of the Dayak headhunter also continues to be reinforced with images deployed by the tourist industry. These images feature, for example, natives in traditional dress clustered around an orangutan skull and include references to headhunting dances in travel brochures. Industry professionals realize there is a risk to carrying the headhunting trope too far, however; hence visitors to Kalimantan can also buy postcards that feature photographs of natives printed above the caption "Welcome to the Dayak Peace Land."
An attraction many tourists have come to associate with travels among Dayaks is the opportunity to see the latter's artificially extended earlobes. One travel writer, remarking on what she observed in the course of a strenuous hike across parts of Borneo's interior, recently noted that "the Kelabit are [sic] known for their elaborate and enormous earrings, which elongate their earlobes down toward, and sometimes to, their shoulders" (Catchpole 1999). Few contemporary Dayaks engage in this form of bodily alteration nor, apparently, was the practice ubiquitous in the past. Nevertheless, the anticipation of seeing a "long-eared Dayak" is now embedded in touristic consciousness as a travel highlight. That the tourist industry contributes to the perpetuation of this image is revealed by even a cursory glance at travel brochures from East Kalimantan.
Concerning the attributes by which ethnic groups are characterized, a final distinction between "Balineseness" and "Dayakness" may be made. Whereas the manner in which the Balinese are known among outsiders is, at least to some extent, the product of deliberate choices made by a native intelligentsia, Dayakness largely remains associated in travellers' minds with a physical inscription-long ears-as well as with geographical remoteness and lives of simple subsistence. As indigenous activists concerned with constructions of Dayak identity point out, long ears are destined to vanish with the oldest generation's passing. How the economic circumstances of the Dayaks may change, and the role of tourism in that process, remains to be determined.
Several years ago, Indonesia's Ministry of Tourism ranked the Province of East Kalimantan number 15 in its long-range plan to expand touristic activities throughout the archipelago (Husain 1993a). For a period of 10 months ending in June 2000, I conducted the first phase of a long-term field study on the intersections among tourism, cultural representation, and Dayak activism in that province. My methodology included participant observation and attendance at cultural events in Pampang, the "culture village" mentioned at the outset of this paper. For more than half my time in the field, I also served as a volunteer ninth-grade English teacher in Pampang's middle school. All Indonesian youngsters are taught English, but in Pampang, it assumes particular importance-English is the language of international tourism. For six days of the week, children arrived at school dressed in worn but clean red and white school uniforms. On their day off, however, most were directly involved in the delivery of entertainment and traded their uniforms for dance costumes. Their long-eared, heavily tattooed grandparents accompanied many of them to Pampang's culture show, where they posed for photographs with tourists.
Mark Masperger (1995:87) suggests that the impact of the expansion of international tourism and resultant contact between tourists and hosts is "typically the highest among the small-scale societies that are unindustrialized and have recently emerged, or are now in the process of emerging, from colonial rule." The situation facing the 150 families in Pampang, whose livelihood depends mostly on swidden horticulture, offers a fascinating, and timely, case study in this regard. At present, Borneo's indigenous peoples are struggling to free themselves from state-engineered "internal colonialism." Internal colonialism has brought about the destruction of much native land and forced Dayaks to give up land rights-hence many Dayaks view tourists as resources that will enable them to increase their incomes and attract investment to their neglected island. Pampang's residents hope to position themselves at the forefront of the competition for tourists by encouraging their children to dance and by expanding their cottage industries. As has proved the case elsewhere in Indonesia, it is likely that Dayak identity will evolve, in part, through a dynamic relationship with tourism. The positive value that tourism places on cultural differencein this case, on being a Dayak-suggests that benefits can accrue for indigenous peoples through their participation in the industry. At the same time, changes in the local economy associated with tourism may come into conflict with traditional notions of social hierarchy or introduce new forms of competition that could prove deleterious in a larger indigenous struggle for social empowerment.
Pampang, a village inhabited by Kenyah Dayaks, an indigenous people of Indonesian Borneo, was recently declared the first "culture village" in the province of East Kalimantan. This study traces the development of "Pampang Culture Village" and examines the incipient effects of tourism on the lives and livelihoods of local people. Even as the village's cultivation as a tourist destination has begun to garner benefits for residents, their role in the enterprise remains ambiguous. Left unresolved, this confusion could contribute to fissures within the community. Another disturbing side effect is the creation of a new arena for competition among native subgroups. Competition for tourists may have negative consequences for whether indigenous peoples can forge and maintain a common identity for themselves in an era of rapid social transformation.
Among Pasadena, California's, 1994 Parade of Roses floats was one that transported a singularly exotic contingent: male dancers bundled in banana leaves, middle-aged women with elongated earlobes and forearms scored by dark tattoos, an orangutan cradling her infant. Called "Mysterious Borneo," it was sponsored by the Republic of Indonesia and intended to promote travel to that Southeast Asian country (Kaltim Post 1994a). While most foreigners vacationing in Indonesia visit the islands of Bali or Java, the neighboring island of Borneo-known in the Indonesian language as Kalimantan-also includes an area touted by the government as a tourist venue. The persons on the "Mysterious Borneo" float, as well as the orangutans, came from one of those venues, the province of East Kalimantan.
Despite its efforts, Indonesia's fortunes in promoting international tourism have lately plummeted. Declines in the number of visitors to Kalimantan, specifically, are largely due to three factors: political instability leading some foreign governments to issue temporary advisories against travel there, forest fires that incinerated huge rainforest tracts leaving the air unfit to breathe for months at a time, and ongoing interethnic violence in the west and central provinces. Nevertheless, East Kalimantan continues to pin its hopes on tourism. Its provincial and municipal offices of tourism, both located in the provincial capital, Samarinda, have begun to select locales to develop for "culture tourism,." One is Pampang, a village inhabited by a group of native people known generically as "Dayaks," some with ties to the team that once brought home an "International Trophy" from the Parade of Roses.
The aim of this paper is to trace the development of "Pampang Culture Village" and to examine the incipient effects of culture tourism on the lives and livelihoods of villagers there. The paper argues that even as Pampang's designation as a tourist destination has garnered some benefits for the community-mostly in terms of highly targeted infrastructural development-it has introduced confusion concerning exactly what the designation "culture village" means. Residents' role in the enterprise also remains ambiguous. Lack of clarity concerning what a culture village should comprise, coupled with economic and social changes related to the escalation of tourism, may contribute to fissures within the community. The paper suggests, too, that a disturbing side effect of culture tourism in Kalimantan has been the creation of a new arena for competition among native subgroups and between natives and migrants. It asserts that competition for tourist dollars may have serious consequences for whether and how indigenous peoples can forge unity across subgroups in this high-stakes era of rapid social transformation.
Theoretical Background
Dramatic political and economic changes are lately sweeping over many Southeast Asian nations, where the process of nation building itself is a relatively new endeavor. Nation building is complicated by the heterogeneity of the region's citizenries. Indonesia, for example, is populated by peoples of strikingly different cultural backgrounds who practice different religions, speak myriad tongues, and are dispersed across an island chain the width of the United States. Yet by virtue of historical contingencies-in particular, their common experience of European colonialism-these groups have taken on the difficult task of creating a national identity. Even after nearly six decades it remains fragile, and, in light of recent political upheaval, some would argue that it is disintegrating. The most important conceptual vehicle used to reify and inculcate Indonesian identity remains Pancasila, the "Five Principles" that are the ideological basis of the Indonesian state. School children as well as civil servants are required to attend civics education programs designed to deepen their commitment to the state through the study of Pancasila.
The official motto of the Republic of Indonesia, "Unity in Diversity," distinctly acknowledges the heterogeneity of its populace. However, even while acknowledging religious and ethnic difference, the state simultaneously seeks to ensure that citizens demonstrate their ethnicity in acceptable ways. A glance at the state's role in the tourism industry provides insight into which dimensions of diversity are deemed acceptable and, with regard to tourism's important role in the economic sector, most useful.
The Asian-Pacific region is quickly growing in popularity as a tourist destination. Some scholars have posited that the study of tourism there "provides a way to understand what has been happening to ethnicity" (Picard and Wood 1997:viii). Concerning Indonesia, it has been argued that "it is only through the articulation and celebration of obvious diversity" that "'unique' customs within a broader system of Indonesian cultural representations" can be identified (Pemberton 1994:12). The most palpable expression of this process of representation and identification is a huge cultural theme park called "Taman Mini Indonesia Indah" or "Beautiful Indonesia in Miniature Park," which opened in 1975. Taman Mini stands at the edge of Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, located on the island of Java. It features a pond studded with concrete islands that depicts the geography of the Indonesian archipelago and pavilions erected in many regional architectural styles. Watching dance performances and purchasing souvenir handicrafts are important parts of a visit to Mini Indonesia. The park's success has inspired some of Indonesia's provincial governments to follow suit. On the island of Sulawesi, for example, a park has been built featuring festival buildings that resemble 19th century animist temples of various local ethnic groups, That complex has been dubbed "Beautiful Sulawesi in Miniature Gardens" (Schrauwers 1998:204).
Discussing the relationship between tourism and identity on the Indonesian island of Bali, Michel Picard (1997:206) writes that the emergence of ethnic identity there should be seen as a dynamic response to new situations brought about by the state. Tracing the development of a notion of "Balineseness" based mostly on shared religion (Hinduism) and custom, he suggests that the components of Balinese identity are, in large part, the deliberate choices of certain individuals who are "authorized" to speak for the society as a whole and therefore monopolize legitimate discourse. These cultural spokespersons include government personnel and other professionals such as academics, entrepreneurs, and journalists (Picard 1997:207). Yet it is important to underscore that some dimensions of Balinese identity have taken shape in a direct dynamic with tourism. James Boon (1977:187) has noted that 20th century Western devotees of Bali-including anthropologists-who wrote of their fears that the complex artistic traditions associated with Bali would disappear, "were actually witnessing more of a rejuvenation of arts and performances, partly in response to new tourist markets in the 1920s."
It has been said that tourists to Bali arrive anticipating "a serene and harmonious people" whom they will encounter as they travel along "sun-dappled roads that meander quietly past peaceful villages and markets" (Vickers 1989:191). What might they expect from a trip to Kalimantan? Rather than a relaxing ramble, many come intending to engage in experiences that test their physical stamina. These adventures include rafting down rapids or participating in pan-island jeep races (Freund 1996). Unlike Balinese villages, those of Dayaks are often separated by hours or days of hard travel. Given their isolation, it is not surprising that there are many different "kinds" of Dayaks, and that their languages and traditions differ. The designation "Dayak tribe," or references to particular "tribes," are largely terms of convenience that do not signify corporate political organizations. Different subtribes speak different languages and, in some cases, subgroups of the same subtribe may speak nearly mutually unintelligible dialects.
Religion is another area in which Balinese and Dayaks differ. Whereas Balinese are predominantly Hindus and watching temple festivals or cremations are highlights of visits to their island, the Dayaks of Kalimantan practice a variety of religions. Most are converts to world religions; the majority practice Catholicism or Protestantism. At the same time, travelers to Kalimantan may indeed happen upon indigenous celebrations, including elaborate mortuary rituals involving animal sacrifice and, sometimes, secondary burial (Schiller 2002, 2001). In the past, some Dayak groups engaged in head taking or rituals of human sacrifice, practices associated with their indigenous animistic faiths (Schiller 1997). As a result, Dayaks have historically been stereotyped as headhunting "wild men," with some exceptions (Boon 1990:18-25). Recent events, in particular the violence between Dayaks and migrants in the west and central provinces, have done little to alter that view. The stereotype of the Dayak headhunter also continues to be reinforced with images deployed by the tourist industry. These images feature, for example, natives in traditional dress clustered around an orangutan skull and include references to headhunting dances in travel brochures. Industry professionals realize there is a risk to carrying the headhunting trope too far, however; hence visitors to Kalimantan can also buy postcards that feature photographs of natives printed above the caption "Welcome to the Dayak Peace Land."
An attraction many tourists have come to associate with travels among Dayaks is the opportunity to see the latter's artificially extended earlobes. One travel writer, remarking on what she observed in the course of a strenuous hike across parts of Borneo's interior, recently noted that "the Kelabit are [sic] known for their elaborate and enormous earrings, which elongate their earlobes down toward, and sometimes to, their shoulders" (Catchpole 1999). Few contemporary Dayaks engage in this form of bodily alteration nor, apparently, was the practice ubiquitous in the past. Nevertheless, the anticipation of seeing a "long-eared Dayak" is now embedded in touristic consciousness as a travel highlight. That the tourist industry contributes to the perpetuation of this image is revealed by even a cursory glance at travel brochures from East Kalimantan.
Concerning the attributes by which ethnic groups are characterized, a final distinction between "Balineseness" and "Dayakness" may be made. Whereas the manner in which the Balinese are known among outsiders is, at least to some extent, the product of deliberate choices made by a native intelligentsia, Dayakness largely remains associated in travellers' minds with a physical inscription-long ears-as well as with geographical remoteness and lives of simple subsistence. As indigenous activists concerned with constructions of Dayak identity point out, long ears are destined to vanish with the oldest generation's passing. How the economic circumstances of the Dayaks may change, and the role of tourism in that process, remains to be determined.
Several years ago, Indonesia's Ministry of Tourism ranked the Province of East Kalimantan number 15 in its long-range plan to expand touristic activities throughout the archipelago (Husain 1993a). For a period of 10 months ending in June 2000, I conducted the first phase of a long-term field study on the intersections among tourism, cultural representation, and Dayak activism in that province. My methodology included participant observation and attendance at cultural events in Pampang, the "culture village" mentioned at the outset of this paper. For more than half my time in the field, I also served as a volunteer ninth-grade English teacher in Pampang's middle school. All Indonesian youngsters are taught English, but in Pampang, it assumes particular importance-English is the language of international tourism. For six days of the week, children arrived at school dressed in worn but clean red and white school uniforms. On their day off, however, most were directly involved in the delivery of entertainment and traded their uniforms for dance costumes. Their long-eared, heavily tattooed grandparents accompanied many of them to Pampang's culture show, where they posed for photographs with tourists.
Mark Masperger (1995:87) suggests that the impact of the expansion of international tourism and resultant contact between tourists and hosts is "typically the highest among the small-scale societies that are unindustrialized and have recently emerged, or are now in the process of emerging, from colonial rule." The situation facing the 150 families in Pampang, whose livelihood depends mostly on swidden horticulture, offers a fascinating, and timely, case study in this regard. At present, Borneo's indigenous peoples are struggling to free themselves from state-engineered "internal colonialism." Internal colonialism has brought about the destruction of much native land and forced Dayaks to give up land rights-hence many Dayaks view tourists as resources that will enable them to increase their incomes and attract investment to their neglected island. Pampang's residents hope to position themselves at the forefront of the competition for tourists by encouraging their children to dance and by expanding their cottage industries. As has proved the case elsewhere in Indonesia, it is likely that Dayak identity will evolve, in part, through a dynamic relationship with tourism. The positive value that tourism places on cultural differencein this case, on being a Dayak-suggests that benefits can accrue for indigenous peoples through their participation in the industry. At the same time, changes in the local economy associated with tourism may come into conflict with traditional notions of social hierarchy or introduce new forms of competition that could prove deleterious in a larger indigenous struggle for social empowerment.
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