Until early this century, as in many regions of the South Sumatran highlands, villages in Gumai Talang did not accept strangers unless they were officially accepted as a subgroup or as in-laws. Two modes of marriage contracts, jujur (belaki, kule) and tambi anak (ambil anak), operated to regulate the residence of conjugal couples and contributed to maintaining exclusive village membership. ^[17]

Jujur or belaki was a virilocal marriage that involved the payment of bride wealth. Belaki literally means ‘to have or follow a husband’ (laki). The bridegroom had to pay a sum of money to the father of the bride as bride wealth to formalise his marriage. In return for this payment, the tie between the wife and her native village was severed and she moved into the village of her husband. All the children she bore were then regarded as descendants of the husband’s side. In other words, children regarded themselves as descendants of the village founder on their father’s side, and regarded their natal village as asal or an ‘origin place’. The payment of bride wealth meant the purchase (kule) of the wife’s reproductive capacity. If she was widowed, she was not allowed to return home, and was expected to remarry a brother of her deceased husband; a practice known as nungkat.

Tambi anak is an uxorilocal marriage, which does not include the payment of bride wealth. In other regions of South Sumatra, such as among the Rejang and the Besemah, this mode of marriage was called ambil (ambel) anak or ‘to take a child’. Due to the absence of bride wealth payments, the status of the husband was low and he became a member of the wife’s family and had to sever ties with his native village. The children the wife bore were regarded as descendants of the wife’s side. Children therefore regarded themselves as descendants of the village founder on their mother’s side, and regarded their natal village as their origin place. Marriage between the same village members was said to have been by tambi anak marriage form. ^[18]

Marriage was not always between Gumai. Marrying a non-Gumai affected the status of children. In the past, all the people who were children of a conjugal union between two Gumai were differentiated from the children with one non-Gumai parent, who were known as jurai muda (‘young descendants’) and ranked lower than those born from Gumai parents. The descendants of non-Gumai couples who resided in a village were called anak tawan (‘children of the captured’) and ranked lowest in the village origin structure. ^[19] After three generations of continuous residence, descendants of anak tawan or jurai muda were given equal status to those born of Gumai parents. ^[20]

Through the practice of jujur and tambi anak marriages, Gumai villages remained groups with largely shared genealogical and affinal relations, with a single founding ancestor or multiple founding ancestors. The Dutch and British authorities, however, believed that these two modes of marriage deprived individuals of their freedom, were humiliating and degrading and equated them with slavery. ^[21] Supposedly when reformist Islamic movements reached the South Sumatran highlands, the penetration of Islamic marriage commonly known as nikah gradually replaced Gumai traditional marriage rules.

Islam taught that marriage should be a bond between a wife and a husband, and did not support the custom of nungkat. Along with this change, the selection of a spouse came to be regarded as a personal choice. Relations with the families of both parents should be maintained equally, and a couple should be free to choose a location for their new residence. According to the memories of elderly people in Gumai Talang, a meeting was held among the Gumai in 1944 to decide to abolish jujur and tambi anak marriages, and to replace them with tambi anak jurai sesame marriage. ^[22] As its name suggests, this new form of marriage is similar to tambi anak marriage as it results in uxorilocal residence and has no bride-wealth payment. A husband may live with his wife’s family but may leave the house of the wife’s father after the couple construct their own. The difference is that this marriage form ensures bilateral relations with parents-in-law after marriage and that descendants are recognised as belonging equally to both the husband’s and wife’s group of origin.

Marriage is now regarded as a personal arrangement between two people, and nungkat is not usually practised or expected to take place any more. ^[23] Table 1 shows that 67 percent of marriages that took place in villages in Gumai Talang during the period between 1994 and 1995 were uxorilocal. The three cases of neo-local marriage involved couples who moved from Gumai Talang villages to Jakarta or Palembang in relation to their work.

Source: Marriages which took place between the period of 1994 and 1995 surveyed during fieldwork.

With the prevalence of jurai sesame marriage, old terms related to the previous marriage systems have begun to be used with new meanings. Tambi anak and belaki now indicate post-marital residence patterns: the former refers to uxorilocal marriage and the latter to virilocal residential arrangements. ^[24] Marriage contracts determine the status of descendants and restrict village membership to those who can trace their origins to village founders through genealogical or affinal relations.

The Gumai mention the name of their natal village to indicate their place of origin. The natal village is called dusun laman. ^[25] The house in which one is born is regarded as an important place that connects the individual to a native village. Therefore, one member of the family is expected to inherit the family house to live in. The person who inherits the house is called petunggu dusun, which literally means ‘the one who waits in the village’. This person is expected to reside in the house and to have his/her own descendants maintain and represent genealogical connections to the founding ancestor of their village. ^[26] Gumai ritual specialists, Jurai Tue, Mimbar and Jurai Kebali’an, are all appointed as petunggu dusun among their family members and are asked to stay in their dusun laman.

Under the custom of the petunggu dusun, the village members consist largely of the households of petunggu dusun, who are regarded as the legitimate successors to their ancestors. In ritual language, ^[27] which is used to invoke ancestral spirits, the residents of a village who are mostly petunggu dusun are referred to as bilang gagang jurai bilang batang nyawe (‘each stem of a descendant, each trunk of a soul’). The petunggu dusun is the group who reproduces the next generation of the Gumai. In other words, each petunggu dusun is the trunk of life that derives from the ancestors as source and becomes an origin point from which the next generation of descendants is created. ^[28]

Leaving a house without an occupant in a natal village means losing connections with one’s natal village as the point of origin. This is explained as lupe asal or ‘forgetting origins’. Ancestral spirits are benevolent and will help their descendants to achieve their goals in life if they are remembered properly. Having derived from their ancestors, Gumai should not forget their ancestral origins. Forgetting one’s origins can enrage ancestral spirits who can cause a series of misfortunes. Not having a petunggu dusun could make a member of a household mentally ill.

Except for the child appointed as petunggu dusun, the other children are free to live elsewhere. More than 50 percent of the parents in Gumai Talang surveyed during my fieldwork encouraged their children to leave the village to make their living. Yet, these emigrants should not forget their native village and should pay regular visits to their dusun laman with their spouses and descendants. At the time of their visit, the petunggu dusun should accommodate the returning siblings at his/her house and offer a place to hold a gathering. ^[29]