Stambul Fajar: Jalur Rempah
Location: Mendanau, Belitung Regency, Bangka Belitung Islands
Sound: Stambul fajar
Note: This article is written collaboratively by Jabink Suherman, Iqbal Saputra, and Hannah Standiford.
It’s impossible to talk about Mendanau without talking about the ocean. Mendanau is a small island in between Bangka and Belitung (also spelled Belitong), two islands which are probably best known for rich mineral deposits of iron ore and tin. Between Mendanau and Belitung there is a major international maritime route and large cargo ships pass through every day. This route, however, is not new and was once part of what some call the “maritime silk road,” with traders passing between Malacca and Maluku in the early 1500s. Ships laden with spices used to pass the east side of Belitung but the waves and wind were notoriously rough and unpredictable. Over time many seafarers came to favor passing between the west side of Belitung and the island of Mendanau, sometimes stopping there or on other nearby islands for rest and protection. All three islands were also destinations for trading white pepper on this route and it remains a major crop to this day. Mendanau is home to about 2000 people, most of whom claim Malay ancestry while others are from Bugis or Javanese ethnic groups. Quite a few of these residents catch fish, squid, and sea cucumbers for a living and fish is a centerpiece of local cuisine. Between these oceanic flows of goods, people, and influences, it is difficult to pinpoint the precise origins of the instruments and musical elements of stambul fajar, a type of string band music that can only be found on the tiny island of Mendanau.
Stambul fajar is played by just a few groups on Mendanau and the one we are focusing on is called Pengekar Campo. “Campo” is from Belitung language and means “to sound.” “Pengekar” is a word specifically from the coastal areas of Belitung and refers to waves with a white color. Achmadi, affectionately known as Kikmat, is the senior member of Pengekar Campo and has been a tremendous source of knowledge for both this music and the history of this area. Kikmat speaks a dialect of Melayu language that is so distinct to Mendanau that sometimes native Melayu speakers from the main island of Belitung, just an hour-long boat ride away, need a little help translating. Luckily Jabink, another musician in Pengekar Campo, is able to help bridge the language gap. Kikmat is not sure how old he is and does not have a birth certificate. He started learning this music when he was young, younger than ten years he estimates, from his grandfather. This means that, at minimum, this music has passed through six generations. The ensemble consists of two ukulele-like instruments called kruncong, a guitar, a violin, a vocalist, and a bass. In the past, there were two guitars, one playing the role of the bass and the other playing a more melodic role. Vocalists use pantun, a style of rhyming Malay poetry that is often improvised.The violin is a more recent addition as this melodic role used to be played with a bowed instrument called jihan, a kind of spike fiddle found in varying forms throughout Indonesia and Malaysia. Kikmat and Jabink believe that the jihan may be an influence from Pulau Seribu, a small group of islands near what is now Jakarta. They both have a hunch that it may have Chinese origins and it does seem quite similar to the Hokkien tehyan spike fiddle (also spelled jihyan, from Hokkien jī-hiân - see the Aural Archipelago post on Chinese-Cirebon fusion music.)
The guitar alternates between walking basslines and melodic riffs and uses a distinct tuning: E A C# F# B D#. The violin and kruncong also use unconventional tunings; the violin uses E B F# C# while the kruncong strings are tuned to B E G# C#. Historically there were not two but three kruncong playing in the ensemble, one playing a pattern known as lingka, one playing a pattern called nganak, and another playing nyakar. Kikmat made the kruncong that the group uses himself from nangka (jackfruit) wood and also makes them occasionally to sell to tourists. The format of the group in the past 15 years has only allowed for two kruncong so one of them always plays lingka and the other can play either nganak or nyakar, forming an interlocking pattern. There are just two established songs forms for this genre: satu mol and dua mol. Satu mol is believed to be better for playful pantun while dua mol is better for pantun that contain advice or cautionary tones because the rhythm is more flowing and calm, leaving more time for the message to arrive.
Kikmat says that the name stambul fajar was actually the name of the group that used to play this music on Mendanau and became the name of the genre later. Within maybe the last fifteen years, the Dinas Kebudayaan (Local Cultural Agency) here decided to classify this music as a distinct genre and gave it the name stambul fajar. The people on the island have always just called it keruncong (the word kroncong has a number of spellings, in this case the spelling “keruncong” is a reflection of Melayu pronunciation). Kroncong is a pan-Indonesian genre that existed as a folk music for hundreds of years before becoming a popular music around the time of Independence in Indonesia. Like stambul fajar, kroncong consists of plucked string instruments including a pair of ukulele-like instruments that play in an interlocking pattern. In Java, however, these instruments are typically known as cuk and cak and the tuning and construction is a little different. The most frequently played song forms in more dominant kroncong contexts are kroncong asli, langgam kroncong, and stambul and some groups in Java also play a localized repertoire called langgam Jawa kroncong.
Stambul fajar is distinct from other more dominant forms of kroncong in a few ways. The song forms are unique in that the only songs in the traditional repertoire are satu mol and dua mol. The instrumentation is also distinct in that it does not include the flute or plucked cello that have become so typical to Javanese kroncong ensembles. Further, while earlier versions of kroncong were more likely to include pantun verses as well as vocables like “lah” and “ai,” since the 1930s these kinds of verses have mostly disappeared (see Yampolsky 2013) save for a few songs like “Kroncong Kemayoran.” Meanwhile, the lyrics of stambul fajar are comprised solely of pantun. Pantun can also be found in other areas throughout the Melayu-speaking world, for example in the practice of berbalas pantun (lit. “responding pantun,” basically a Malay poetry rap battle which is often sung).
Pengekar Campo usually holds rehearsals on Kikmat’s porch so this was their go-to setting for the recording session that we did together. They also felt that the session should be at night for a few reasons, one of them simply being that several of the members go fishing in the morning and during the day. Another reason is that historically this music was played at night which leads us to several theories regarding the original name of Kikmat’s group and the current name of the genre: stambul fajar. In Belitung language, “tambul” means “to snack,” usually on little cakes and coffee. “Fajar” means “dawn,” so one of the theories is that the name derives from this music being an accompaniment for “snacking until dawn,” sitting with friends and improvising pantun while sharing a little something to eat. People in Suak Gual also remember this music being used as entertainment while women cooked all night prior to a big event like a wedding and sometimes women would improvise verses as they prepared food.
Another theory is that origins of this music might be related to stambul, the aforementioned song form which was used in a style of theater that shared the same name. The origins of stambul theater appear to be traceable to the Indian theater troupes performing a style of theater known as wayang Parsi throughout what is now Malaysia and Indonesia (Yampolsky 2013, 37). Stambul songs were extremely popular, often sung in the streets and released as cylinders for music boxes, and over time this song form was absorbed into other musical genres including kroncong (Cohen 2006, 2). Satu mol seems somewhat similar to one of the types of stambul known as stambul II, but satu mol is a bit “crooked” as they say in old-time music, meaning that the numbers of bars do not come out evenly. This is common in folk music, allowing a breath before the singer starts the next phrase or allowing the instrumentalists to musically respond to the last verse.
Figure 1: Chord structure of stambul II melodies, 16 bars (Yampolsky 2013)
Figure 2: Chord structure of satu mol during vocals, instrumental repetitions are slightly different and the song ultimately ends on a I chord, 18 bars.
We don’t know much about potential earlier contact with Portuguese ships and traders and there is no concrete evidence to suggest that the music played on Mendanau might be as old as the kroncong played in Tugu, Jakarta. Some people in Suak Gual and some of the members of the band, however, feel that the texture of the music and the flow of the melodies might be similar to kroncong in Tugu. We do know that there would have been prolonged interaction with outsiders while a lighthouse was built on the island in 1883. This is one of Jabink’s favorite theories in terms of the origins of this music, that people working on the lighthouse may have brought instruments and musical influences with them that have been sustained until today. Traveling theater companies may have also been influential. The popularity of komedie stambul began to decline after World War I, replaced by another theater form known as opera or toneel, the Dutch word for opera. Kikmat remembers troupes of toneel performers touring to the island. While this would have been long after the peak of this theater form, it indicates potential patterns of theater circulation to the island and Kikmat has confirmed that these groups also used musical interludes. Another interesting connection is that Kikmat consistently uses the word trenen to refer to rehearsals or practice, very similar to the way the word trainen is used in the Dutch language. He also uses the word trel to refer to guitar picks, but we have not been able to discern any clear origins for that word. The use of the word kruncong to refer to not just the music but to the ukulele-like (or should we say cavaquinho-like instruments) is worth noting because it reflects earlier uses of the word. In fact, the name kruncong or kroncong referred to the instruments before it referred to the genre, not appearing in print sources to indicate the genre until the late 1800s (Yampolsky 2013, 28).
In 2017, Pengekar Campo received honors from the Ministry of Tourism (Kementrian Parawisata) for their promotion of stambul fajar as part of tourism initiatives on Mendanau. Pengekar Campo also appeared in “Ensiklopedia Musik Keroncong,” a book released in early 2023 in collaboration with Yayasan Art Music Today and Direktorat Perfilman Musik dan Media, Direktur Jenderal Kebudayaan, and Kemendikbudristek Republik Indonesia. Before the pandemic, the group had opportunities to perform throughout Indonesia (even making an appearance in Malaysia) and they are just now starting to perform publicly again. Pengekar Campo aims to continue playing stambul fajar as a feature of cultural heritage, but they are beginning some experimentations in combining this music with other genres so keep an eye out!
References
Cohen, Matthew Isaac. 2006. The Komedie Stamboel : Popular Theater in Colonial Indonesia, 1891-1903. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press.
Setiawan, Erie, eds. 2022. Ensiklopedia Musik Keroncong. Jakarta: Kemendikbudristek Republik Indonesia.
Yampolsky, Philip. 2013. "Three Genres of Indonesian Popular Music: Genre, Hybridity, and Globalization, 1960-2012." Asian Music 44, no. 2: 24-80.
Lyrics:
SATU MOL
Oi aduh hai sayang ai batang terancap, batang terancap, batang teruntum
terancap tree, terancap tree, teruntum tree
Ai dalam jak la bakao adoi dalam jak la bakao ai
in the mangrove thicket
Tumbonya nipa
Grows the nipa (type of palm tree)
Kami ucapkan Assalamualaikum aduh hai sayang
We say Assalamualaikum
Kami ucapkan kami ucapkan Assalamualaikum ai
We say, we say Assalamualaikum
Ai sebagai jak tande adoi sebagai tande ai barulah berjumpa
as a sign that we just met
Kami ucapkan Assalamualaikum aduh hai sayang
We say Assalamualaikum
Kami ucapkan kami ucapkan Assalamualaikum ai
We say, we say Assalamualaikum
Ai sebagai jak tande adoi sebagai tande ai barulah berjumpa
as a sign that we just met
Oi aduh hai sayang ai pasang jak siro, pasang jak siro, di atas karang ai
set the fish trap, set the fish trap, on top of the coral
Ai dapat jak kan sikok adoi dapat jak sikok ai ikan lah ketande
get one fish, get one fish, a ketande fish
Dari lah jauh kami lah datang adoi hai sayang ai
We come from far away
Dari lah jauh dari lah jauh kami lah datang ai
We come from far away
Ai untuk jak menghibor adoi untuk menghibor ai
to entertain, to entertain
Sanak lah saudare
Everyone here who we consider as our own family
Dari lah jauh kami lah datang adoi hai sayang ai
We come from far away
Dari lah jauh dari lah jauh kami lah datang ai
We come from far away
Ai untuk jak menghibor adoi untuk menghibor ai
to entertain, to entertain
Sanak lah saudare
Everyone here who we consider as our own family
DUA MOL
Wani lah wani ukan jak kan baje
Machete, machete not from iron
Baje lah pemutong ai hai baje pemutong padi lah de sawah
Iron cutter iron cutter for rice in the fields
Kami bernyanyi mimang lah sengaje
We sing indeed with intention
Untuk jak menghibur ai
To entertain
Hai untuk menghibur hati nok gembira
To entertain a joyful heart
Kami bernyanyi mimang lah sengaje
We sing indeed with intention
Untuk jak menghibur ai
To entertain
Hai untuk menghibur hati nok gembira
To entertain a joyful heart
Hendak ke pulau uke pulau lah
If you want to come to the island
Jangan lah kan sampai
Don’t come
Hai jangan lah sampai bulan puasa
Don’t come during the fasting month (Ramadhan)
Hendak bergurau bergurau lah
If you want to joke around
Jangan lah kan sampai
Don’t joke around so much that,
Hai jangan lah sampai badan lah binase
Don’t joke around so much that you make someone feel like dying
Hendak bergurau bergurau lah
If you want to joke around
Jangan lah kan sampai
Don’t joke around so much that,
Hai jangan lah sampai badan lah binase
Don’t joke around so much that you make someone feel like dying
Pengekar Campo are:
Iqbal Saputra - kruncong, Jabink Suherman - violin, Kikmat - guitar, Santi - vocals, Deva Sandar - bas, Delta - kruncong