Fish food on a tree branch; Hidden meanings in Bugis poetry

Abstract

The report following below is, in fact, a report from the past. There are no indications (according to the well-informed Bugis scholars Prof. Dr. Fachruddin Ambo Enre and Drs. Muhammad Salim, whom I interviewed on this subject in March 1991) that the genre which is described in this article still forms part of a living tradition, either oral or written. Fortu- nately its peculiarities have not escaped the attention of scholars interested in Bugis literature. It was B.F. Matthes, the well-known pioneer of Bugis and Macassarese studies, who was the first to refer in two contributions published in 1857 to a cryptic kind of speech known as Basa To Bakkeq, meaning literally 'language of the Bakkeq man' (Matthes 1857:552; 1943:183).2 Over the years he came back to the subject again on a number of occasions, mostly by citing examples of Basa To Bakkeq (especially Matthes 1883). From his first observations of the phenomenon it was clear to Matthes that there existed a particular link between this Basa To Bakkeq and a poetic genre called elong. Since Matthes' exploratory work, no new research has been done on the subject - at least as far as I know.3 The following comments thus are based primarily on materials collected over 130 years ago.