S05 E03: Mama Aminah

LAUT LOUD (((~~~)))

LAUT LOUD (((~~~)))

Buru lives as a dark dream in Indonesia’s collective memory.

Many years ago, the New Order regime sent dissidents into exile on the arid island, where many perished on its unforgiving wilderness.

Those who returned brought back harrowing tales of survival, human ingenuity, and adventure. Everybody’s heard of Buru. But nobody’s actually heard from Buru.

Dendang Jawi is a rare riposte from Buru’s native history. This art of oral storytelling recounts the Mapahit armada’s arrival in Buru’s distant shores hundreds of years ago. It is said that after the fleet broke bread with Buru’s native kings, the Majapahit left behind singers to immortalize their kinship through poetry, dance, and song.

Mama Aminah is the last Dendang Jawi singer left on the island of Buru. A retired religion teacher, she inherited the repertoire through a dream in which her ancestors appeared, allowing her to sing. It is this mysterious relationship between reality and myth, history and folklore, art and mysticism that underpins Dendang Jawi.

Sung in pidgin Indonesian-Maluku, the vocal melodies betray strong hints of Arabic and Malay music, perhaps a nod to Dendang Jawi’s origins. Set to simple beats on percussion and flute, Dendang Jawi is a window to an even more distant past when Buru was a place of kinship, adventure, and possibilities – not a place of horror, oppression, and death.