The Persistence of Islam Aboge Adherents in the Preservation of the Among Tebal Tobacco Ritual in Temanggung, Central Java: A Review of Memory and Performance

Abstract

Tobacco farmers in Temanggung Regency, Central Java, perform a sequence of rituals every planting season, beginning with nyecel (preparing the land), among tebal (the first planting of tobacco seedlings), a series of minor rites that accompany the crop's growth, and tungguk (the main harvest). Most of these farmers adhere to Islam Aboge, a strand of Javanese Islam whose life-cycle practices, natural-cycle observances, and holy-day reckonings are organized around ritual as a channel for communicating with God and the ancestors, for offering prayer, and for sustaining traditions dense with moral instruction. These rituals, which have been practiced for well over a century since tobacco cultivation took root in Java, persist because their transmission across generations has proceeded smoothly through oral means. This article examines how tobacco farmers' memory sustains the practice of ritual, particularly among tebal, and how the ritual has developed from an individual observance into a communal ritual performance involving spectators. Using a qualitative method combining ethnography and performance studies, with in-depth interviews conducted across two planting seasons (2017 and 2018) with ritual practitioners ranging from the oldest to the youngest generation of farmers, the study finds that the collective memory of tobacco farmers regarding among tebal is psychologically formed and remains stable because the community lives within a culturally homogeneous world. The development of among tebal from an individual to a communal practice reflects a process of memory transfer aimed at preserving tradition, while its further development into a ritual performance functions to reaffirm the community's identity as tobacco farmers, as adherents of Islam Aboge, and as citizens invested in sustaining their tradition.