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Song in the Sumatran Highlands

Genre: Randai

Randai is a Minangkabau theater form that involves theater, martial arts, dendang, and percussive playing of pants. The stories for randai performances are kaba. Typically a randai troupe specializes in one specific story. Saluang is used for the opening and interludes between scenes. The style of singing, however, is unlike the malam bagurau performances. It involves solo delivery of lines of text and the chorus--the players in the circle--joining at the end of pantun. This is the style that gets incorporated in malam bagurau during Talingkin and Jalu-jalu sequences.

Related Resources

Pauka, Kirstin, Ivana Askovic and Barbara Polk. 2003. "Umbuik Mudo and the Magic Flute: A Randai Dance-Drama" Asian Theatre Journal 20 (2):113-146.
- This publication provides a script for an entire randai play translated into English, along with lyrics for the songs included.

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Category of Song: "Jalu-Jalu" "Jalu-jalu," which means spur, is the title for the collection of songs that can be used to close a saluang performance, rather than the name for a specific song. Mak Lenggang told me about the function of these songs: a performance always finishes with a song from this category. Before the padendang present one of the Jalu-jalu, they typically perform a couple of other songs first, including "Bacarai Kasiah" and "Manjalang Subuah." The presentation of one of these songs indicates to the audience that the performance is coming to a close and they can no longer make requests. If they do make requests, Mak Lenggang asserted, it’s clear they don't know the etiquette, the rules of saluang performances. The use of any of the songs labeled as "Jalu-jalu" indicates to remaining audience members they should get up and take their leave. I can only postulate that "spur" is used as a metaphor here, a spur that encourages people to go home.

The songs associated with "Jalu-jalu" include “Sonsong,” “Satampang Baniah,” "Lubuak Aluang," and “Siti Johari.” Mostly these songs are only heard at the end of performances, but there are exceptions: "Lubuak Aluang" was the 7th song performed at the Malam Bagurau at STSI in December 2003. Mak Lenggang also related how these songs can be sung collectively by the padendang, by what he called a kor (chorus), although there are typically just two to three singers at any event. He explained how this collective singing worked: one padendang starts and is joined by a second on a later phrase. The first padendang is either joined by just one more padendang or by all present. To clarify that I understood our conversation, I asked if "Padang Magek" could be an example of this as I have always puzzled over the two padendang singing together on this track included on Night Music of West Sumatra album. Mak Lenggang confirmed that "Padang Magek" is also jalu-jalu, clarifying that jalu-jalu songs are the dendang that can also be used in randai. (Personal Conversation with Mak Lenggang, Padang Panjang, July 27, 2015).
Category of Song: Talingkin Talingkin is a category of songs, which are usually song after the break around midnight. They are songs sung without saluang accompaniment, sometimes as part of a suite. They are always presented around a break, offering the tukang saluang a break. The songs that are typically part of Talingkin include "Dayang Daini," "Simarantang," and "Lintau Buo." These songs come from and are often used in randai performances.

As the padendang take turns, there can sometimes be long pauses and/or conversation, as is heard in this track. You can also hear the padendang overlap and dovetail phrases later in this track, when the padendang transition to a new song at 3:22. This is a stylistic feature associated with randai.
Song: "Dayang Daini" 5 This song is used as part of Talingkin. plain 2021-04-20T18:45:31+00:00
Translation of Title: "Dayang Daini" is a female character in a kaba, a Minangkabau story.
Composer: Unknown.
Explanation: It is one of the tunes used as part of Talingkin, a suite of songs that are presented without saluang right after a break.
Type of song: Ratok.
Genre of origin: Randai.
Place affiliations:
- Luak: Limopuluah Koto.
- Darek or Rantau: Darek.
Source: Mardjani's List of Songs.
Song: "Siti Johari" 4 One of songs that is part of "Jalu-Jalu" and can be used to close a saluang performance. plain 2021-04-20T18:45:04+00:00
Alternative Title: "Siti Jawari"
Translation of Title: The phrase, "Siti Johari," is a term of respect used towards Bundo Kanduang (female leaders) in classic Minangkabau kaba.
Explanation: This is one of the songs used as a Jalu-Jalu, the closing sequence of a saluang performance.
Composer: Unknown.
Type of song:Satangah Tiang.
Genre of origin: Randai.
Place affiliations:
- City: Batusangkar.
- Luak: Tanah Data.
- Darek or Rantau: Darek.
Source: Te E's List of Songs.
Note: Kaba 3 Kaba are Minangkabau epics plain 2021-04-23T13:18:58+00:00
Kaba are Minangkabau epics or stories. As Minang historian Taufik Abdullah writes kaba rely
on an imaginatively constructed narrative to present the social and personal consequences of either ignoring or observing ethical teachings and the norms embodied in the adat system of action. (1999: 336)
They can also incorporate stories about social change and recent events (Abdullah; Yampolsky). Junus (1994) makes the argument that historically kaba were set in the remote past, but their publication in print in the 1920s, along with their proliferation on cassette recordings in the 1980s, has meant that kaba are presented in novel ways today. Newly-composed kaba, such as one that documents the large 2009 earthquake in West Sumatra, introduce an immediate past, rather than deal with the remote past (Fraser 2013).

The manner of presentation can range from live storytelling to theatrical production, print publication, or sound recording. As narratives, kaba become texts for a number of performance genres, including sijobang, rabab Pasisia, rabab Pariaman, dendang Pauah, and randai. As Yampolsky and Hanefi write in the linter notes to an album involving recordings of two forms--rabab Pariaman and dendang Pauah.
In randai the kaba is partly sung and partly enacted; in the others it is sung, to the accompaniment of a single instrument...When kaba are sung, the medium is usually rhythmic lines, without rhyme schemes or stanza forms (1994).
The poetic form means that most of the genres drawing on kaba have quite a different feel than those (see Abdullah 1999: 337 for an excerpt from Johns (1958)), like saluang, that draw on the pantun form.

Related Resources
- Abdullah, Taufik. 1999. "Tambo, Kaba, and History: Tradition and the Historical Consciousness of the Minangkabau." In Walk in Splendor: Ceremonial Dress and the Minangkabau, ed. A. Summerfield, J. Summerfield. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. 334-339.
- Johns, Anthony, editor and translator. 1958. Rantjak diLabueh: A Minangkabau Kaba. Southeast Asia Program. Department of Far Eastern Studies. Cornell University., Ithaca., New York.
- Junus, Umar. 1994. ‘Kaba: An Untold (His-)Story’. South East Asian Studies 32(3): 399-415.
- Phillips, Nigel. [1981] 2009. Sijobang: Sung Narrative Poetry of West Sumatra. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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