Tag Archives: calabai

Granny has a secret

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Would you ever think that this lovely old lady was born some 80 years ago as a boy? No, of course not, nobody would ever think of it. As far as everybody remembers her she has always been this sweet old lady wondering around the village.

Only that she somehow never got married and has no children of her own. But she has many grandchildren from her sisters, who would never guess that their granny has a major secret – that’s her male genitals and an ID-card of laki-laki (a man in Indonesian).

But does it really matter?

Personally I follow the feminist criticism on biological determinism. I don’t agree that our gender is supposed to be in accordance with our sex, that literally based on our genitals the whole society should be divided between men and women only, and there’s no room or just a tight one for any alternatives, both, in the scope of possible genders and sexualities, and also within the substance of these possible gender and sexual identities.

I think the case of this old lady – the oldest transgender I have met in my life -, who is living in the middle of the tropical village life, very down to earth, simple life of sunny and rainy Sulawesi, surrounded by rice fields and green hills, brings out fabulously the relativity of sex-gender pairing. Any foreign visitor, even an anthropologist, would see this world here ‘traditional’ – still out of the reach of modernity and globalization, that theoretically would bring along ‘the sexual revolution’. Yet this ‘traditional world’ here has reached far further than most of the societies in the West, taking the problem with gender with far more ease.

Granny can’t talk much about it, as the children are playing around and she wouldn’t want to let them know. But she brings out her ID-card where her sex is stated as a man. As Bugis culture distinguish between 5 genders, she has probably led a decent life as a calabai (male-to-female transgender) and finally people even forgot about that, seeing her as she is, whatever she wears under her skirt.

What can the Holy Spirit tell about my love?

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Some experiences in life touch some other unknown realms with such profoundness, that even if they remain so far from our daily lives, they keep on haunting. I gave a visit to couple of bissus to ask about love, but experienced a live broadcast from some other dimension, in a language i yet don’t know.

Bissu Nasir in a state of trance (video-still)

Although vast majority of the bissu consider themselves transgender or locally calabai, actually bissu can be of any other gender too. The important matter here is to be clean. For women, this would mean that bissu can be a girl whose menstruation has not yet started, or a woman who have already reached menopause. As the first is theoretically impossible, then female bissus are generally elderly women. Also, according to the legend, the very first bissu was actually a woman. The rumors around the village also tell that the most powerful bissu now is a woman.

Bissu Ma Temmi is a brilliant woman that radiates warm energy. She creates an impression of a grandmother who is charming and smokes a lot. After approximately one hour-long interview we move on to her the sacred chamber to ask the spirit a question I have in mind. I take the classic step and ask about love.

Ma Temmi puts on her glasses, for a moment she gazes at her palm and then puts her fingers on the siri-leaves lying on the plate.

“Salaam Alaikum,” she begins to have a conversation with the spirit. It feels as if we’re listening over a phone-call in which one side is for us to hear, but the other is not. “Aahaaa, jajajjajaajjaaa …” she nods to agree with the spirit.

Finally, she tells us her interpretation in Bugis language what she has heard from the other side, which is then translated to me into Indonesian language, from which I in turn create my own interpretation. It turns out that this man I can marry, we suit for each other. But the other one is only playing with me and, besides, he has another woman in the heart. Of course, I do not want to believe it, because the reality always seems to be a lot more multilayered, than the information that reaches me through continual re-interpretation, and multiple translations. But you never know!

And just as she said her words, a candle burns down and the curtain falls down over the sacred place. The truth has been proclaimed.

“If you want to speak with the Holy Spirit more, you need to go to another bissu. Spirit was here for a moment and then it moves on to the next bissu,” Ma Temmi was laughing. As the spirit has already fled, so we too take a ride along dark and muddy forest paths to reach another bissu.

Bissu Ma Temmi

Our knocking on the door of this tiny hut woke up bissu Nasir from sleep. Nevertheless, this man (exactly, male bissus are particularly rare) is ready to speak to us, in case of course the dewata accepts us too. We reach out to give him our gifts on the plate and the bissu disappears to the rear chamber, leaving us with just a curious black cat. Just like in a fairy tale.

On the other side of the thin wall we hear a gentle murmuring of the bissu that mixes with loud sounds of tropical night bugs. We are waken up from the dreamy state by a huge rumpus. This is an unconscious bissu who has fallen out from his sacred chamber. I get scared, so that even the hum of the insects hush up. However Ma Temmi’s brother who was accompanying us does not seem to be surprised at all.

Bissu has entered deep trance, followed by a few cramps. Then he crawls himself together and his cheek against the floor he starts speaking with a strange voice. This live broadcast from the Spirit World lasts for next quarter of an hour. Even if I manage to ask something in the meantime, it seems rather, that the spirit guides his talk throughout the connection. The voice that has come alive in his body repeats that the spirit is already old and feeble and the strong dewata works with only a few selected shamans. Until he suddenly caught another strong rage of cramps and he enters into deep sleep again.

When bissu Nasir finally wakes up, it looks as if he’s having a huge hangover after traveling between the worlds. He does not seem to remember anything of the time that has passed. But I remember, I will always remember.  And up until now I am still thinking a lot about it and wondering how it should be interpreted.

“I can’t talk to you on Friday,” said the shaman between mundane and divine, man and woman. Maybe s/he was lying.

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Would you give up your gender and sexuality in order to talk to God? This is what came forward to me right at the cross-road of generations, local shamanic belief and Islam in South Sulawesi. 

Although I found many more thrilling aspects here in South Sulawesi, my main interest of visit was the holy personality called the bissu. These local shamans connect not only the divine and the mundane, but also the femininity and masculinity, on a very real grounds. Namely, most probably the bissu is also a calabai, locally, or a waria in Indonesia, which is globally rather known as a transgender. Bissu is seen as the 5th category of gender here in Bugis culture, the para-gender, that somehow accumulates all other genders in the society.

We were driving across the dirty and slippery village roads with Eka to give one old bissu a visit already on the very first day I was around. There were mosques sitting in the bushes every 400m or so as we were driving. The mosques resembled me some cosmic stations, and indeed they were often decorated just as Chistmas trees, bling-bling.

One of these simple Pippi Longstocking’s style of houses a bissu Nani was living. S/he was pulling together her shirt while I entered the house and I noticed hir breasts. But surely s/he was born as a man. On the wall there were some photographs of hir dressed in a bissu’s ritual costume. This was shaded by the huge fake photograph of Mecca in golder frames, which are the very common elements of interior design here around Sulawesi and Kalimantan, somehow less apparent in Java, which I think just has to do with current fashion and market availability.

I was handing hir over a plate covered with necessary gifts for the spirit. There were some betel nuts, special leaves, some cigarettes and a note of 20 000 rp. We also brought a bunch of bananas. You can’t go to meet a shaman without thinking about the hunger of the spirits, you need to bring an offering.

Bissu invited us to hir room of the spirit, which usually most bissus have in their household. The room was fully dedicated to serve the spirit, an altar was in the middle and there were all kinds of little baskets, rocks and candles around, which s/he seemed to know the meaning, and perhaps there wasn’t anything more complicated than the bare fact that these were all to reinforce the communication with the dewata or the world of spirit. But as we started to talk with Nani, and Eka seemed to be really anxious and not too much at the level of transcendence, Nani said that today is not the best day to have further conversation.

“Why not today?” I asked.

“Because today it’s Friday, and this is the holy day in Moslem. Better we talk some other day,” Nani explained.

“Is there a conflict between these worlds?”

“The spirit does not really want to come out on Fridays…”

Eka stood almost immediately up and started to make a move. That is her common way of restlessness. But I was confused.

The curvy dagger called kris is the most important accessory for bissu

I got even more confused when the next day we were visiting another old bissu. This time without the presence of Eka.  She somehow didn’t want to come. The bissu couldn’t believe that there could be any conflict between the world of dewata and the world of Islam.

“There’s no problem with Friday to communicate with the spirit,” s/he said. Apparently s/he was the kind of leader of the bissu community here, not that it would place hir spiritual capabilities anywhere higher, but this respected bissu must know something about the most crucial issues – and the relationship between old local belief and mainstream Islam is definitely one of them.

Here most of the bissus also go to mosques to make their daily prayers. And besides, they can always use their personal tempat dewata (the place of the spirit) in their household to get in touch with the God. Almost all bissus I talked to agreed that these worlds are actually the same, just the way to reach them is different. And I have to admit I agree with it, because I understand it (and this is almost the only reason why I tolerate institutionalized religion – most probably it can get you in touch with the same transcendence). And here the bissu even gives blessings to those going to a pilgrimage to Mecca!

I only later got to realize what might actually be the issue, why bissu Nani didn’t really want to talk to me that day when I went there with Eka. Because this very Eka sometimes likes to write a word bissu behind her name, just as she enjoys the friendship of the local authorities. And yet she’s a busy businesswaria and happily in love with her husband.

Once she was trying to get into the bissu community, she was learning about it, I later hear some rumors around the village. But how couldthe younger generations of the waria possibly dump there daily carefree lifestyle and literally give up of their gender and sexuality in order to talk to God?!

“This is when I was a bissu,” said the young waria and proudly showd me the picture.

The queen, the boss, the beauty: life around Eka’s salon

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Soon it came out, that my host Eka, who I knew was supposed to be the transgender holiness, the bissu, but who daily identified herself rather as a calabai or waria, and a proud one, was actually the Queen of the whole village.

Everywhere we go there were people she knows, everywhere, especially in the worlds which are dominated by women, such as markets, shopping areas, the social gathering spots here or there. But the Queen of Them All, she was still in her Kingdom, in the beauty parlor that was called by her name – Salon Eka. Welcome!

When I first entered this weird ghostly house, where people only lived on the first floor, the second floor was for ghosts and spiders, I had no idea who’s living in this household and where exactly they sleep. I was placed to sleep in the main salon room, where she usually sews (and she’s good, she’s so busy!) and where it gets busy in the mornings. On the walls, there are pictures of her and a man posing just like a newly married couple. Eka really enjoys everything that has to do with beauty and style and decorations and celebrations. That’s her work, her life, and her desire.

And her customers are satisfied. So much, that sometimes it can be pointed out, that the myth of warias having an extremely good sense of style, proves to be working in real again. She’s a busy woman. She was making me an occasional space for sleeping and herself went back in her bedroom. To get there you had to pass a wide area, which can be viewed as a kitchen, but which is basically everything a space can be. There’s also a huge exercise device – a bicycle, where she sometimes exercises, just like the most modern women who would do that in their city apartment where it can be difficult to leave the cozy flat and run around on some asphalt. There she was training, rats sometimes sneaking behind her and always some other people, as her salon was an important social gathering place, for men and women and all possible transgenders. Including her husband. Supposedly her husband already was married once, with a cis woman, who gave birth o two children. Then he fell madly in love with Eka and since then, already for nine years, they have shared some love, work and fun in life.

She had five people working for her. Including her husband. There was also a young strong man. A couple of warias, some ever-smiling women. Apparently many of them are sleeping just behind the narrow wall of room for spending nights. They are sleeping in the most magical room in this house – the very heart of the Eka’s salon. This is where she makes her art. She makes her art of make-up and of styling up the groom and the bride, who perhaps met some two-three months ago, but are eager to marry.

Then the whole family comes together, enjoys some lovely food, that some ten-fifteen women were cooking all day the day before. They exchange some news, take a lot of photographs, sometimes there’s a guy who shoots a video and burns it on a DVD within a couple of days, sometimes there’s some ceremony, sometimes there’s an amazing dance by the bissu, who enter into state of trance and present how the dagger does not enter their body. This is because they are already possessed by the spirit, that has made them supernaturally strong.

Rest of the time everybody eats and drinks water from the single-use plastic cups and wishes best luck for the newly married couple, who were just dressed up by some professional waria, in this area, most probably by Eka. Who also decorated the whole house for this special event, where eventually though the couple gets really bored. 

And God created all the five genders

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About to settle down in a village in South-Sulawesi, I still had no idea that I was about to experience the paradise of not just Adam and Eve, but the paradise of gender pluralism. 

Straight endless roadside is fringed with similar cafes (or locally, warungs) that provide almost entirely the same items, like instant noodles or local coconut sweet. Warung’s are all numbered, at the moment I’m sitting in a warung number 799. It’s raining, it has been raining for the entire day, as we drove on motorcycles through South-Sulawesi. The guys dropped me off couple of hours ago in one of these cafeterias by the endless road near a village of Pangkep. It is going to be a long awaited meeting. I have been chewing it in my imagination. Because I think that what I’m going to face with soon sais something unique not only in the context of Bugis culture, Sulawesi island or Indonesia, but it represents something more complex, and yet universal.  I’m waiting to meet someone that not only makes me especially adore the Bugis’ culture, but I’ve always felt that this represents a unique way to speak of something universal.

The culture of the Bugis people has been able to overcome the binary notion of gender. Next to women and men there are also some space for these folks that rather take up the behavioral characteristics of the (some) other gender, but that does not necessarily mean that they want to transcend to other gender, to swap things. Calalai is thus a born woman who behaves much like the men in the community (also known as Hunter) and Calabai is a born man who acts like a woman. Calabai is thus a waria in South Sulawesi. And, as I have noted before,  just like on the island of Java, here also the main concern for a calabai is not to be exactly like cis women in society, but it has also become a separate gender category with its own playground.

In addition, there is still another gender category here – this is the bissu who should be a para-gender, which not only combines different features of the other genders in the society, but it also connects the supernatural world.

I’m surrounded by curious local village people, that find it difficult to place me in their standardized framework of knowledge – where did I get the contact of the bissu Eka? How did I come here? Who were the people who dropped me here? Am I married? Am I studying? And also – when will I return back to my kampung. Kampung is the local word for neighbourhood.

“Which kampung?”

“Your Kampung, there in Europe. Can I come with you? “

It was raining like  a sticky evening.

Some time after midnight bissu Eka finally arrived. There was a man with sexy mustache behind the wheel next to her and some 5-6 pairs of eyes peeping out under the plastic over the back of the truck. Eka made me a nice couch in her salon, a huge spider under my bed, and she woke me up early in the morning to take a look at this fresh bride&groom. Make-up and dress by young calabai Upe (dressed in yellow on the photo).

Stay tuned for more soon!