Abstract
In earlier publications we have proposed a model to explain the functional role of water temple networks in the agro-ecology of wet rice irrigation on the island of Bali. We argued that the key ecological effects of temple networks are best understood as emergent properties of a complex adaptive system. This argument implies that important aspects of the temple system are largely opaque from the perspective of conventional social science. We proposed that the Green Revolution created a real-world test of our model, by effectively removing the temple networks from their functional role in ecological management. The idea that water temple networks represent a hitherto-unknown kind of institution has been met with appropriate skepticism by other social scientists, who have run a fine-toothed comb through our evidence. Here we evaluate their critiques.
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Notes
We concur with Vayda and Falvo that the application of pesticides reduced populations of insect predators as well as the pests themselves. One of the sources listed by Vayda describes a comparative study of the population dynamics of brown planthoppers in adjacent synchronous and asynchronous paddies in central Java (1989–91), and notes that wasps that prey on the planthoppers were more abundant in asynchronous paddies. The inference is that natural predators such as wasps and other insects are as much or more affected by synchronized fallowing than the planthoppers. However, our surveys in Balinese paddies in the 1990s used the same methodology (biweekly sweep census), and found a significant reduction of all rice pests in the subaks practicing synchronized fallowing.
Vayda and Falvo refer to a study which compared brown planthopper populations in synchronous and asynchronous paddies in Java. The authors note that “these spatial expansions of BPH outbreaks from staggered to synchronous areas are probably brought about by the migration of macropterous adults early in the cropping season” (Sawada et al. 1991:12). Another study by Widiarta et al. (1990) compared green leafhopper population dynamics in staggered vs. synchronous plots in Java and Bali. In the second generation the population of pests increased in the synchronous fields. However, these results are irrelevant to the Balinese case because the size of the plots was only 10 m square. In Bali, effective control of insect pests requires much larger fallow episodes extending over entire subaks or groups of subaks, orders of magnitude larger than the plots in this study. Settle et al. (1996: 1978, 1982–4) conclude that the size of synchronously planted areas is important: in Java, pest control is effective in synchronous planting of 10 to 100 ha with short fallow periods but rather ineffective where areas are considerably larger—thousands of hectares—and preceded by long fallow periods suggesting that in the latter system natural rice pest enemies build up too late to contain pest populations (Lansing and Kremer 2011).
Reported by the subak head to Lansing in March 2011 and confirmed by other farmers present at the subak meeting.
Poffenberger & Zurbuchen studied Balinese farming practices in the 1970s. In a study published in 1980, they observe that “Traditionally, insect pests such as wereng were controlled by a staggered planting system, which would keep the insects from getting out of control through continuous reproduction” (1980:99).
Technically, the diversionary structures in Balinese rivers are weirs, not dams, because their function is to divert water, not to store it. Having noted this fact, henceforth we will follow the custom of referring to them as “dams.”
E. v. N credits the Sedahan Agoeng of Klungkung as a source of much of his information.
Concerning soewinih, S.N. observes that “The dynastic centre used this tax [soewinih] to finance large rituals in the newly built irrigation temples.”
We have already written extensively on the subject of these taxes, but a succinct and fairly accurate description is also provided by E. v. N:
The sawahs are divided into sawah kesoegian (individual land property) and sawah pengajah. The last are the sawahs of the king which he has given to people to work. These people hold the sawah from generation to generation but are not allowed to sell or pawn it without the permission of the king. From the sawah kesoegian as well as the sawah pengajah, the king would receive annual taxes in the form of padi…For the sawah pengajah there is an additional tax (soewinih) consisting of beras (rice)…From the padi tax and the soewinih rice, the following nobles are paid, such as poenggawas, his mantjas (ministers) and the sedahan agoeng. Also the maintenance of the big temples is paid from this tax…Those who own sawah pengajah must not only pay the taxes mentioned above, but also help the king with constructing buildings, etc. The owners of the sawah kesoegian do not have to do pengajah services.
Both names refer to the location of the “dam” (weir): Mambal is the name of the village, and Gumasih the neighborhood or ward (banjar) where it is located.
The political and territorial instability of the postage-stamp “kingdoms” of Bali is a consistent theme in the accounts of nineteenth century European observers. After their conquest of north Bali in 1849, the Dutch took a keen interest in the governance of the little kingdoms to the south. Perhaps the most comprehensive account was written by Robert van Eck, a missionary attached to the Utrecht Missionary Society who spent 9 years in Bali (1866–75), traveled extensively and apparently spoke Balinese. Van Eck comments that “This land or this village used to belong to a different kingdom’ is a common expression in the mouth of a Balinese historian” (van Eck 1879 8:1 page 295). Although the ruler of Kloengkoeng (the Dewa Agoeng) claimed supremacy, in reality his was one of the weakest kingdoms: “It is to the same internal divisiveness that we owe in large part that conquered Bali has caused us so little trouble since 1849. The continuation of the local history is a concatenation of fights between the various kingdoms in which the Dewa Agoeng participates now and then. Klungkung, Badoeng, Bangli and Mengwi live in open enmity with Gianyar. Karangasem and Badoeng nurse a secret grudge against Kloengkoeng, while Tabanan does not let an opportunity slip to harm Mengwi. In the majority of the kingdoms, the borders are continuously guarded by armed men who are constantly on the lookout to do damage to their enemy neighbors. [But] on the whole these fights do not signify much. Customarily the parties separate when there is a death on one side or the other. Sometimes a mysterious noise from a neighboring forest like the roar of a tiger, or the eclipse of the moon, separates the fighting parties. But the enmity continues to exist, and we do not have to be afraid that Bali will rise as one man to regain its lost freedom, sword in hand” (van Eck 1878 7:2 page 422). Van Eck does not mention dynastic involvement in irrigation in the southern kingdoms, just the collection of agricultural taxes. But he does often describe initiatives by the farmers. For example, he remarks on the wild and abandoned state of parts of Jembrana after repeated wars and the eruption of the volcano Bakoengan: “Everywhere the population busies itself to create new irrigation canals or to restore the old ones, to expand rice cultivation” (van Eck 1878 9:1 page 103). Concerning Mengwi, he emphasizes the frequency of armed conflicts: “Mengwi forms part of the least densely populated kingdoms of the island, in large part this may be due to the many wars in and out of Bali that it has been involved with. Also there no is other area from which so many slaves were exported as this one” (1879 9:1 page 196)… “It’s a pity that the tense relations in which [Mengwi] finds itself with Tabanan, Badoeng and Gianyar is an obstacle to the expansion of its trade and prevents the otherwise hard-working population from making its exceptionally fertile soil more productive” (p. 200).
More recently Hauser-Schäublin has proposed that the temple of Batur was created by Javanese nobles from Majapahit: “What seems to be clear- according to different sources, among them the lontar text “Pratekaning Usana Siwasasana” (Budiastra 1979) is that the Batur temple is the result of the colonizing efforts of immigrant Javanese nobles from Majapahit between the 16th and the 17th centuries” (Hauser-Schäublin 2011:46). The problem with this argument, as with other historical claims by this author (see Lansing, Perfect Order, p. 174), is that it is entirely based on a literal interpretation of the stories recorded in lontar manuscripts like the Usana Siwasasana. On the historicity of myths about the fall of Majapahit, see Helen Creese, Balinese babad as historical sources; A reinterpretation of the fall of Gèlgèl, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 147 (1991), no: 2/3, Leiden, 236–260.
The absence of direct royal control at the Batoer temple contrasts with the other great mountain temple, Pura Besakih, where the royal house of Klungkung was responsible for the major rituals in the Pura Penataran Agung until 1950. See Picard 2011: 489.
Paras paros selunglung sebayan taka.
Kerta masa is also used to mean the rice growing season when subak rituals are performed, in contrast to masa gadon, when different crops may be planted and rituals occur only at field level.
Subak leaders report that they try to remember to notify their respective Sedahans of changes to their cropping schedules or problems in the fields.
The Ayung river is today located within the Regency of Badung. The office of the Sedahan Agung of Badung includes three lesser-ranking Sedahan Yeh for three branches of the river (Penet, Bolo and Poh).
The first appearance of the term subak is as the root of the word kasuwakan in the Pandak Bandung inscription of AD 1071. The following year (AD 1072), the terms kasuwakan and kasubakan are used interchangeably in the inscription Klungkung C. This inscription discusses a royal order calling for the re-measurement of the rice fields of the kasubakan of Rawas, and lists the irrigated areas that belonged to this subak, which were located in at least 18 communities (Lansing 2006; Lansing et al. 2009).
Another critic, Leo Howe, has objected to Lansing’s description of the abolition of “caste” rivalries in the village of Pujung, in a review of Perfect Order (Howe 2006). Because this seems to be a straightforward misunderstanding, we will address it here. The problem is the meaning of the word “caste”. We meant to refer to “caste” rivalries in the sense of quarrels over status by Sudra groups, such as Paseks and Pandes, which are (as discussed in Perfect Order) an ongoing source of strife in the villages around Pujung. Howe is quite correct that there are no “genuine” high castes in the villages to the north, east and west of Pujung. But rivalry between patrilineal descent groups, which Geertz and Geertz called “commoner title-groups”, are endemic. The need for subaks to mute these differences is an important theme in Perfect Order. People in Pujung were very reluctant to identify their “caste” (soroh), whereas in neighboring villages this was generally a source of pride. Interestingly, the village of Batur also found it expedient to “abolish caste”, as noted in Perfect Order.
To be clear, water temples provide a venue for decisions about subak affairs by the farmers. Temple priests do not control irrigation; they perform rituals.
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Lansing, J.S., de Vet, T.A. The Functional Role of Balinese Water Temples: A Response to Critics. Hum Ecol 40, 453–467 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-012-9469-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-012-9469-4