Betawi

Betawi differs from almost every other entry in this encyclopedia in that it does not inhabit a homeland. It was formed in one city, within a period that can be pointed to, out of a population largely brought there — as slaves, mercenaries, traders or labourers — by the trading company that governed it. The mixing happened chiefly outside the city walls, in kampung whose inhabitants could no longer return to their separate places of origin.

The naming of “Betawi” as a single group hardened only in the early twentieth century, and was partly driven by politics: colonial population counting required categories, and associations such as Kaoem Betawi, founded in 1923, used one to press claims. This origin matters because it explains why the components of Betawi culture can still be identified one by one, which is unusual.

Gambang kromong puts the gambang and kromong of the gamelan alongside the tehyan, kongahyan and sukong — two-stringed fiddles from southern China — in one ensemble, and that arrangement is a statement about who lived next to whom. Tanjidor uses European brass that reached the kampung through estate bands. Lenong is folk theatre in Betawi Malay with comedy and fighting. Ondel-ondel, a pair of giant puppets, were once processed to turn away epidemic and now appear at shop openings.

The passage of ondel-ondel from averting misfortune to greeting customers, and then to street busking, took a century and can be traced. It is recorded here as it stands, and not called a decline: what changed was the need, and the form followed the need.

The Betawi share of Jakarta's population fell through the twentieth century and after, from a majority to under a third, as the city grew by migration and as land prices pushed Betawi families to the edges — Depok, Bekasi, Tangerang. Betawi kampung designated as heritage areas, such as Setu Babakan, are an answer to this, and raise the same question that arises elsewhere in this corpus: whether an area designated to preserve a way of life is still living it or performing it.

The Betawi register of Malay has taken the opposite course and spread: many of its features have entered the conversational Indonesian used across the country through television and film, so that the language strengthened exactly as the standing of its speakers as a group weakened.