Tugu people learn about their roots through song

Mariani Dewi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sun, 11/16/2008 8:23 AM  

“We sang Portuguese songs so often, but I still did not understand them. But thanks to the Portuguese language class we are taking, we now understand,”said Tugu community resident Saartje Michiels. 

Saartje performed a Portuguese song “Rosa Branca”, (white rose), at a cultural show in Tugu village in Marunda, North Jakarta, on Saturday. 

Boys and girls perform a traditional Portuguese dance at the backyard of the Tugu Church in North Jakarta on Saturday. Portuguese descendants in Tugu area held an annual event called Kampoeng Toegoe Festival that day to keep their traditional heritage alive. (JP/Ricky Yudhistira)

Childhood memory is the only way the Tugu people learn Tugu keroncong songs in Portuguese, and the songs are their only exposure to the language. 

“The elderly banned us from watching them practicing keroncong, so we learned the songs by heart and memory. But we did not understand what they were saying,” Saartje said. 

The Tugu people are descendants of Portuguese soldiers who married locals in Malacca. After a string of turbulent events, the community settled down in the then Batavia area Tugu, hence the name. They converted from Catholicism to Christianity and built the first church in the area in 1738. 

Since then, the community continued to marry people from other cultures and became part of Jakarta’s Betawi community. Now they consider themselves part of Betawi. But Portuguese songs in keroncong are still a part of their daily lives and are performed during celebrations. 

They still use some Portuguese words, but the community has lost most of the vocabulary. So the weekly lesson provided by the Portuguese Embassy, who answered their request for a language class, has helped. 

Saartje’s 7-year-old daughter, Angella, who is in the Junior Tugu Keroncong group, said she enjoyed the music very much and that understanding them made them even better. 

“I like Portuguese and I love keroncong. There is no other music I like,”she said after her performance. 

Maria Emilia Irmler, the language teacher at the Portuguese Embassy, teaches at the community on top of teaching Portuguese dance. 

She said she was pleased with the interest expressed by the community and she welcomed the community’s attitude. 

“They want to learn everything related to Portuguese culture.We have taught them some dances,”she said. 

Arthur James Michiels, the community’s spokesman, said they wanted to embrace all their roots. 

“The koko dress and sarong pants we are wearing show our Betawi side, while the shawl and the hat show our Western side.We want to embrace both,”Arthur said. 

Mulyawan Karim, the head of the Forum for Indonesian Anthropology Studies, which organized the event on behalf of the North Jakarta municipality cultural and museum office, said the aim of the event was to highlight the beauty of unity in diversity. 

“The more diversity we have the better because then we are richer socially and culturally,” he said. 

“The Tugu community is very different from the common community. But we should not forget them because they are part of our social and cultural wealth.We hope the event shows that kind of spirit.”