Sakuddei Myths: “Mutsimata” | Translation & Commentary by Dr. Reimar Schefold
Mutsimata
Narration by Oggoli Salamao
Transcription by Yudas Sabaggalet
Translation by Dr. Reimar Schefold
with assistance from Steven G. Alpert
So then. A couple went down the Siberut River to go fishing at its mouth. When they had caught enough, they paddled back. They branched off into the Silaoinan River, the man, and the woman. The woman, however, was pregnant. When they arrived at the middle course, labour started for the child.
"Oh, what are we going to do?" the man asked.
"Oh - I am not well," the woman replied, and she gave birth to a boy.
The man was annoyed: "What, isn't it enough that there are floods, isn't it enough that it rains, now I have to take care of you two as well!"
The mother felt offended and said: "Well, if that's the way it is, then let's just put the child in the thicket of brackens there." But then, in the bracken, they covered up the child. "We don't want to do him any harm," they said to each other, "let him stay here." So they drove on and left the child behind.
Then a crocodile appeared. It came out of pity. And this crocodile took the child into its care. It told him what a shaman must know and taught him the first shamanic songs.
But the parents, as they continued upstream, were now less heavy in the boat. They arrived at the house of the man's brothers, who called out:
"Hello, where did you come from? Clearly, you have become much lighter! How is he, your child, our nephew?"
"Yes, he is there; we didn't kill him. It was only because the father was angry, angry about the hot sun, all the floods, the constant rain, that we left him behind," said the mother
"What - how - did he live?"
"Yes, he lived, but we did nothing to take care of him."
"So!" And one of the brothers said to his wife: "Listen, as for us, come, let's go, we'll get the nephew. Maybe he hasn't died after all and is still alive."
"Yes," the woman replied and went to her taro field to get some food for the child. The man fetched a chicken as an offering to the spirits and looked at the oracle in the intestines. "Look, it is still alive, the child they left in the underbrush. The lauru lines in the entrails are favourable, and the salou lines are not unusual either. Come, let's go."
Before sunrise the next day, they went down the river to the indicated spot on the Silaoinan River. "This must be the place the brother talked about." And there they heard the child crying. "Oh, there it is!" And when they reached him, they fetched magic leaves to use to sweep away all evil influences from him. They put the afterbirth and the umbilical cord into a bamboo container.
Afterwards, they paddled back again. The woman chewed food for the child while the man poked with a long pole. The child had now become their foster child. When they arrived at the community house, they landed. "So there he is, the nephew!" the people exclaimed. "He just didn't die."
"Yes!" And they performed the rituals for him, as is the custom with us, they swept away everything bad from him, they carried him to the river bank for ritual strengthening and whatever else goes with it. That's how he stayed alive. And he was also given a name: Mutsimata.
When he was big enough, he went to play on his own at the landing place for the dugout canoes. And there he came again, he who had taken care of him, he whom we call 'Big Shirt' because of his covering that looks like frayed banana leaves - he resembled a human being a bit and a crocodile a bit.
Mutsimata went back to the house and asked his mother, "Mother, why don't you give sago for me to eat? "And when he went back to play at the landing place, he broke off a piece of his sago stick and gave it to Big Shirt to eat.
Not long after, the boy asked his mother for sago again.
"Boy, it doesn't take you long to eat your sago."
"No, mother, I'm taking it to share. I'm sharing it with a friend."
"So, who is this, your friend?"
"He's at the landing place."
"Then let him come up."
"No, he doesn't want to come. The rest of you can't see him, can you?
Big Shirt went to shore at the landing place, and the boy broke off the sago for him in front of his mother, who was busy tying a fish net.
"Look, mother, we're out of food."
"What – is it all gone - so it's true what the boy said."
As the boy gradually grew up and began to know more, he began to fall into a trance. This is how his shamanic being emerged.
"What is wrong with my child?" the mother asked, crying.
But Mutsimata began to dance. He could do that because he had become an adolescent by now. And on his own initiative, he said to his father: "Prepare my shamanic ordination.
"What does this mean, shamanic ordination? Where are we going to get the pigs for that?" asked the father.
"Oh, there will be enough; they come from my friend."
"Who is that, your friend?"
"That one, the one from the landing place."
"Is that true?"
"If you don't believe me, father, why don't you throw sago chunks in front of the house for the pigs tomorrow morning?"
The father did as he was told. He threw down the sago chunks, and two mighty boars appeared.
"Is that enough?" the boy asked.
"Yes, that is enough. All right, if you want to be ordained a shaman, then become a shaman." And they began the preparations. The father made a big enclosure, and all those who wanted to take part in the consecration celebrated a ritual together. It had been raining, but now the weather was fine, and when they went to the enclosure at noon, there were suddenly pigs there in great droves, all created by the incantations of Big Shirt. For those who know the Silaoinan area: Even today, the place there is called "by the pig's droppings." It is on the upper reaches, at the mouth of the Koddoban stream. I have seen it myself.
There, the boy began to sing, and everyone heard the shamanic songs for the first time. He consecrated himself as a shaman to the end and had done it.
When he was finished, another boy came to him who wanted to be his friend. His name was Koikoi. Koikoi means 'curved,' like a pig's tail or like a crocodile's pointed mouth. "Come! Let's make friends."
"All right!"
Thereafter, this Koikoi went hunting on his own and spotted a simakobu monkey. He shot and shot at it with his bow and arrows, but he did not hit it. The arrows fell down on the other side and hit a crocodile there. "What is this," Koikoi wondered, "I have shot so many arrows. Did really none hit the monkey?" His quiver was empty, and he thought, "I'll at least go and look for the broken shafts. There ought to be quite a few arrowheads in the monkey's body." He went over, came to a stream, and there he saw something lying there. "What's that? Did I hit a girl who was fishing there?" But what he saw was a crocodile lying there, thicker than a sago trunk. "A crocodile! What am I going to do?"
He went back into the communal house to call his companions. "Friends, come, let's go, we'll get something I shot - that is, actually, I didn't shoot it, I just hit it by accident. A monkey I had wanted to shoot, but the arrows hit a crocodile. Come, let's get it as meat for us." And they went and got it.
But the crocodile's companions in the sea were suddenly silent. "Friends, where has our companion gone?" And the one, the Big Shirt, set out and went up the river. He took on a little human form and a little crocodile form, both, he changed, as the case may be.
From the river, he called up to the residents: "Friends, the river here smells like meat!"
"Yes," he got the answer, "the ones in the neighbouring house, they have meat, meat that Koikoi shot, crocodile meat."
"Oh! How did that happen?"
"So and so" – and he had everything explained to him.
"I see." And Big Shirt dived under and turned back into an aquatic animal, became a crocodile again.
Further upstream, he emerged and became human again: "Friends, the river here smells like meat!"
"Yes, the ones further up there, they have meat."
He received explanations and information in response to his questions. Afterwards, without those in the house seeing it, he went underground again. Finally, he arrived at the landing place of the Koikoi family.
"Friend, Koikoi!"
"What, dear, have you come?" replied Koikoi.
"Yes. But what happened? Did you succeed in the hunt?"
"No, not a success, actually. I had wanted to shoot a monkey, and there happened to be a crocodile lying there, and that's what I got instead."
"So, something for us to eat." Human-shaped Big Shirt said that.
"Well, let's eat."
Secretly, however, Big Shirt put aside the meat he received. He did not eat it but let it fall between the posts under the floor, for it came from his companion. And then he said: "Friend, I'm afraid I have to go now. I'm finished."
"Oh, if you're not in too much of a hurry..."
"No, my wife and the others at the river's mouth. They are waiting for me."
"Yes, if that's how it is, then go."
So Big Shirt set off, but not to the mouth of the river, but further upstream, saying to himself: "So that's how it went, they did eat my companion, but not on purpose. They actually wanted to shoot a monkey, and it was only by chance that the arrows hit my companion. Thus, in a way, he's responsible for his own death." So Big Shirt went, and then he summoned the rain. He summoned it through incantations as a real spirit.
And it started to rain! Everything downstream was flooded. A sugar cane plant floated near Koikoi's house, which Big Shirt, the crocodile, had put into the water out of cunning, but Koikoi did not fetch it. And the crocodile let a dugout drift downstream, but Koikoi did not fetch it either. But when the crocodile had the scaffolding of Koikoi's chicken-shack with its magical charms floating away, which was further upstream and on which he used to take care of his baskets of brood-hens and chicks in the evenings, the crocodile said to itself: "Now you will go." And sure enough, everyone cried out, "Oh dear, Koikoi, the scaffolding for your chicken baskets is drifting away!" And "I see it!" he replied, and "aha, friend!" said the crocodile, and Koikoi swam over. And the crocodile came up and clap! He fetched him and dived under with him.
But it closed his nose. It didn't kill him; he kept his breath. Only one question kept coming back to it: "What did he do wrong? What did he do wrong?" And so it brought Koikoi to the mouth of the river. There it asked again, "Why did you eat my brother?"
"Oh, it happened like this and like that; it wasn't on purpose. I wanted to shoot a monkey, but the arrow hit something else."
"So the fault really lay with my companion." And the crocodile set off again and went with Koikoi along the coast of Siberut past all the villages, and at every little river they came to, it fetched a stone, only one at a time, they say. It picked up one pebble when they passed the Gulubbe estuary, one at the Matalu estuary, one at the Seppungan estuary, and one at the Siberut estuary. It didn't swallow them, however, as crocodiles usually do, but stuck each one to one of Koikoi's joints. They got all swollen from it.
But at Mutsimata's home, people shouted: "You, Mutsimata, your friend, he is probably no longer alive now."
Mutsimata, who was just returning from his field hut further upstream, didn't know anything yet and asked, "Who do you mean?"
"Well, Koikoi. A crocodile took him back when there was the big flood, it is quite a while ago, maybe ten days."
Then Mutsimata cried together with the brothers of Koikoi. He, too, now knew what had happened. But now, three of the brothers put his magical knowledge to the test: "You, Mutsimata, will he come back, your friend?"
"I don't know. Give me a bell," said Mutsimata, "I want to ring the bell once for my friend to know if he is guilty of anything." He took the bell, started ringing, and finally, he said, "So my friend is still there. The crocodile didn't kill him. I am now going up the river to my field house to fetch my shaman's implements. But you, you are to prepare everything needed for a ritual, firewood, kindling, everything." And then he set off.
After he had equipped himself as a shaman, he came back. There, the three brothers of Koikoi were waiting to challenge him: "Mutsimata, if your friend Koikoi really does come back, then we will give you fruit trees as a reward, these and these, on Simagotagotai Mountain in our family's common area of origin in Simatalu."
"So, brothers, ah, there is no need. Who knows if he will come, it depends on luck after all."
Then they all celebrated a ritual feast together. "Get a boar!" said Mutsimata. And still today, we do it that way when we want to call on the crocodile spirit: We give him a pig. Even if it is only small, we can still invoke him with it. They ate the body of the boar together, and then they put the head on top of a crossbeam of the house.
In the evening, when the sacrificial ceremony was over, Mutsimata danced trance dances. First, he called his friends: "Friends, come here, come watch, come, it will rain, the rain will catch up with you, you will capsize with the canoes, there will be a tremendous rain." For that was what he intended to conjure up.
And splash! It began to rain all night long, and the water rose. And all night long, Mutsimata danced trance dances and rang his bell: Ring! Ring! Ring! To this, he sang a song listing the mouths of the tributaries from the sea to the communal house, where the souls of the relatives summoned during the rituals pass. When the song ended, he asked, "How far does the flood reach?"
"It has already risen to the foot of the stairs leading up to the house," the brothers replied.
"All right!"
"But what about your friend?" the brothers asked.
"He is not here yet, but the crocodile is about to bring him here. Along the beach, they have passed all the villages. Halfway up the river, they are now."
"Really?"
Mutsimata continued to ring his bell. Ring! Ring! Ring! - "How high is the flood?"
"It reaches to the porch, up to the porch. And where is your friend? »
"Not far away. He's at the middle course." And on with ring! Ring! Ring! - "how high is the flood?"
"It reaches to the crossbeams under the floor, you, soon it will swamp us! Where is he then, your friend?"
"By the landing place, a little below the landing place." And he went on with ringing, ringing, ringing.
"Really, everything is beginning to come loose from under us. The boards are coming loose from the floor!" cried the brothers. "Where is he then, your friend?"
"There, by the landing place!" And even stronger with ring! Ring! Ring! until it was past midnight, or maybe almost morning - that's when they appeared! The drummers who accompanied Mutsimata's dances had partially risen and were drumming, standing up with their legs apart because, sitting down, they were already swamped by the water. Mutsimata, however, grabbed some boards from the dance floor and lifted them up. Then he reached down once more and pulled Koikoi up, and sat him down. Then he grabbed the boar's head and dropped it through the opening into the water: "Here is your reward, brother. Big shirt, here is your reward!" And immediately, the flood receded.
But he, Koikoi, had thick joints from the magic substances that were embedded there. The pebbles had become magic tools, just as we still use them today; the crocodile had told Koikoi during their journey how to put them together. There were magic tools for sea turtle hunting, magic tools for pig breeding, for chicken breeding, for the actions of the shamans. All magic substances had been made known by Big Shirt by virtue of his own great magic power.
Mutsimata sprinkled Koikoi with magic medicine, and then he swept everything bad away from him and everything good towards him. Finally, he blew on him - that's when Koikoi began to breathe! The two sat down opposite each other and spoke emphatically to each other.
"Do you recognise who we are here?" asked Mutsimata.
"Yes, I recognise you. I recognise you. You are my friend."
"Yes - but how did it all happen? »
"Oh, so and so..." and Koikoi told everything that had happened.
But there were still the three brothers from Koikoi, whom Mutsimata asked: "Friends, what about our appointment?"
"Yes, friend, truly," they replied, "The promised fruit trees are now yours, there on Simagotagotai Mountain. Take possession of them there. They are yours along with the ground on which they stand, all of them, the Bairabbi trees, and all the others that bear fruit there. They shall be yours."
That is how it came about that we here, the Salamao family, still have fruit trees on Simagotagotai Mountain today. And that is the end of the story, there is nothing more to tell.
Commentary
In the myth of the earthquake spirit (Art of the Ancestors: July 2022), we have seen how a mythical crocodile taught an orphan boy, called Siusiubu, the technical ways to construct a community house and what rituals were necessary in this context. It is not only the community, the uma, however, that owes its origin and authentication to the crocodile. In the village of Taileleu in the southeast of Siberut, I was told a myth according to which another central feature in the life of the Mentawaians also goes back to this animal. It is the origin of shamanism, of kerei.
All informants, including those on the neighbouring islands of Sipora and Pagai, which were settled from Siberut many generations ago, agreed that the origin of the shamanic traditions lies somewhere in East Siberut. In fact, the texts of the shamanic songs seem to be based to this day on the dialect of this area - but a closer study of this is still pending. In a myth from Saibi, this origin is traced back to an orphan boy who received his knowledge from his deceased mother at the place where she was left to rest. In that version, the crocodile does not appear. In the present narrative of Mutsimata, however, it takes on a central significance. It comes here with the designation "Big Shirt" (Beu Leppei), an allusion to the sinister, enveloping shape of the water spirits with which the crocodile is associated in mythical tradition. In this form, it also exercises its control function over the uma, already mentioned in the earthquake myth, when it punishes antisocial behaviour with illness. Just as it does in the Mutsimata narrative, in such cases of illness, it ascends from the river into the house, where the shamans must try to appease it with sacrifices during the healing ceremony. Like in the story of the earthquake spirit, the crocodile is addressed as "father's sister" in the pertinent shamanic songs. In the Mutsimata narrative, however, it appears not as a female but as a male figure, as evidenced by the casual mention of its "wife" - a circumstance to which the narrators that I questioned about it did not want to attach any particular significance.
In a great move, this turn in the story expands the message of the earthquake spirit. There it was about the constitution of the local community. Here, the entire settlement area of the Mentawaians is included in the events: The knowledge of the shamanistic ingredients results from contributions from the scattered localities of all Mentawaian social groups. In this way, the threat of the ever-present regional conflicts is countered by a collective involvement of the entire population, a perception that I have not met anywhere else in the Mentawaian traditions.
Dr. Reimar Schefold
Dr. Reimar Schefold is Professor Emeritus Cultural Anthropology and Sociology of Indonesia at Leiden University. He has a long-standing interest in material culture, art, and vernacular architecture, particularly that of Southeast Asia, which has been the subject of many of his scholarly publications and Museum exhibitions. He has conducted several extensive periods of fieldwork in Indonesia, notably among the Sakuddei of Siberut, Mentawai Islands, where he spent two years from 1967 to 1969 and several shorter stays later; the Batak of Sumatra, and the Sa’dan Toraja of Sulawesi.
He is, with Steven G. Alpert, editor and one of the authors of Eyes of the Ancestors: The Arts of Island Southeast Asia at the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art; New Haven etcetera: Yale University Press. 2013) and, with Han F. Vermeulen, of Treasure Hunting? Collectors and Collections of Indonesian Artefacts (Leiden: Research School CNWS/National Museum of Ethnology. 2002). His most recent publication is Toys for the Souls: Life and Art on the Mentawai Islands (Belgium : Primedia sprl. 2017) where in the Bibliography more of his writings on Mentawai can be found.
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