Rituals of Food Exchange in Rural Central Java

This is a preliminary report of my field research conductedin 1975 at a rice-cultivating village near Surakarta City, CentralJava. In this paper, an attempt is made to describe the threeforms of ritual food exchange, and to analyze the components ofthese rituals such as each household acting as a host; visitingneighbours; friends and relatives; prayers; feasts and so on.The three forms of rituals are as follows;1) bancakan At the ceremonies concerned with birth andgrowth of children, a special food with ritual meaning is givento the neighbours' children.2) slamatan Whenever any household wishes to beg forgivenessand security from the God, souls of ancestors and otherspirits, a small number of neighbours are invited to sit togetherto pray, and a set of foods with ritual meaning is divided andgiven to them. This ritual is held mostly on the occasions ofrites of passage, ceremonies of housebuilding and on some majordays in the calendar.3) jagong Also on every occasion of traditional ceremonies,large feasts are held with a great number of neighbours, friendsand relatives attending. Wives and daughters of the guests bringgifts of rice or other foods, and assist the host household in preparingthe feast. The quantity of those gifts is determined by therigid principle of equal exchange.These rituals, held almost everyday, relate each householdwith others on a reciprocal and egalitarian basis. , This sort ofritual can be considered as an agency which formulates the relationshipof any individual household with others, as well as withthe God and several kinds of supernatural beings.Through an analysis of these rituals, two themes concerningthe structure of Javanese society should be made clearer; namely,what the dominant pattern of social relations among the villagersis, and how those social relations are ritualized.I. IntroductionII. Outline of the villageIII. BancakanIV. SlamatanV. JagongVI. Conclusion