Bukak klambu: A Virginity Auction as a Ratifying Ritual for Becoming a Dancer

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-166-1_45How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk; Virginity; Culture; Javanese Ronggeng; Dancer

Abstract

Bukak klambu is an important ritual for being a ronggeng, as depicted by Ahmad Tohari in his Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk novel. The ritual is elaborated as a significant artefact in the traditional dance as the subculture in Javanese. This study aims to describe the symbols found in the novel, especially those related in the ritual to reveal the meaning behind. The result of the analysis reveals three important symbols there: the naming of bukak klambu (net-mosquito opening), ranjang putih (white bed), and sayembara (competition). “Bukak” (opening) means here is the first opening, and “klambu” is the virginity hymen. In other words, it is a process of “devirginization” done by a man who won the competition by paying the highest price to the shaman. He would deprive the ronggeng’s virginity. The virginity here was also symbolized by the white-bed, meaning the girl was untouched and pure. In normal situation, a girl would serve her virginity to her husband, as the pride of a Javanese woman who could keep her sanctity to her marriage. For the patriarchal culture, the competition here symbolizes the power of man over women and to other men, because the winner had proved their masculinity in terms of wealth and sexual prowess.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Widya Nirmalawati
AU  - Andrik Purwasito
AU  - Warto
AU  - Sri Kusumo Habsari
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/12/30
TI  - Bukak klambu: A Virginity Auction as a Ratifying Ritual for Becoming a Dancer
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on English Language and Teaching (ICOELT 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 324
EP  - 332
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-166-1_45
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-166-1_45
ID  - Nirmalawati2023
ER  -