4 • Sedaka, 1967-1979

SEDAKA, 1967-1979 • 87

near the village. Kepala Batas is also the site of the subdistrict (Mukim Sungai Daun) chief's (jJenghulu) office, at which minor administrative matters such as the registration or sale of water buffalo 'are handled, and of a once-a-week maternity clinic staffed by government nurses.

The seventy-fOur households of Sedaka are strung out along a nearly milelong dirt path. (See map 3) This path leads from the all-weather road joining Yan to Kepala Batas and ending abruptly at the rice fields separating the village from the neighboring settlement to the east, Sungai Bujur. Like most villages on the Muda Plain established in this century, the pattern of settlement follows the linear plan of the drainage canals that originally brought the land into production. This ribbon of settlement is often contrasted with the pattern of nucleated or clustered villages, where social and ritual cohesion is said to be greater. 2 It is certainly true that villagers themselves are not quite sure where Sedaka ends and where Sungai Tongkang, the village along the main road, begins. Despite these vagaries of geography, the village is, as we shall see, far , more than just a collection of households in close proximity. If its boundaries are ill defined, all but a few families are nevertheless quite unambiguously rf Sedaka. If neighborhoods subdivide it, the prayer house (surau) as a fucus fur religious life and the large feasts to which all villagers are typically invited serve

to ritually unify it. Administratively as well, it is usually treated as a distinct unit. When it is not, as in the case of the Farmer's Association until recently, villagers have lobbied to have Sedaka recognized as a separate branch. Above all, the moral existence of the village is recognized in discourse. When the collector of the Islamic tithe (ami!) explains why he does not report villagers who fail to pay the full amount, he says, "We all live in the same village. "3 When a tenant tells me why he would not try to expand his farm by outbidding another local tenant, he says, "Everyday I see his face." 4 And when the-rules are broken, as they occasionally are, the culprit is shamed in precisely the same terms.

Looking straight down the path, no houses are visible-just the solid archway of coconut palms, banana fronds, nipah, and the water hyacinths and grasses growing in the ditches alongside. Idris's store, facing the surfaced road leading north to Kepala Batas and south to Yan Kecil, is the first building in Sedaka. Idris takes advantage of his roadside location and the electricity it provides to sell drinks and cigarettes to the young men who gather there in the evenings and to offer the only popsicles available locally. A little farther along is a hinged timber spanning the path, which is fastened by chain and lock preventing trucks from entering. This village gate is, as we shall see, an object of some controversy.

2.Afifuddin in Haji Omar, "Irrigation Structures and Local Peasant Organisations," MADA Monograph No. 32 (Alor Setar: MADA, 1977).

3.Sama-sama duduk kampung.

4.Hari-hari tengok muka.

SEDAKA, 1967-1979 • 89

The key is held at the nearby house ofLebai Pendek, a wealthy, elderly cultivator who, together with his sons, Musa and Ariffin, is influential in the small group that controls village politics. Houses interspersed with paddy fields line the path for the next two hundred yards; the dwellings (see photos) of the well-to-do with zinc roofs and clapboard siding and those of most poor with attap roofing and siding made of bamboo split and beaten flat (pelupoh). Even the condition of the houses is an acrimonious political issue, which we shall explore, inasmuch as the local ruling party and its supporters are accused of having monopolized a government subsidy for house repair. Mansur, a landless laborer, and Taib, a poor smallholder, live in this stretch and their houses contrast sharply with the refurbished and repainted house of Shamsul, a ruling party stalwart who owns 6 relong (4.2 acres) and has a rare and coveted job at the government paddydrying installation nearby.

Near the middle of the village stand the two most substantial houses in the village, each with high roofs, louvered shutters, and verandas. One belongs to Haji Kadir, the richest villager, and makes a stark contrast with the dilapidated houses of Hamzah and Razak just beside it. The other is the house of Haji Jaafar, the village headman (ketua kempung). As headman, Haji Jaafar is influential but rather retiring; his married son Daud, who lives with him, and the shopkeeper, Basir, are far more visibly active. Haji Jaafar prefers to emphasize his unifying role by giving an annual feast (Kenduri) to which the entire village is invited and by occasionally leading prayers at the village surau across the path (see photo). While there are many public gatherings in Sedaka, the surau, whose lower floor serves as a village meeting hall, classroom for religious teachers, and lecture hall for sermons and political speeches, is the only designated public space in the community.

The informal gathering places, however, the places where idle chatter and gossip are exchanged, are around the tables of the two small shops (see photo). Each shop carries a small inventory of daily items such as dried chillies, soap, matches, kerosene, tobacco, sweets, spices, tinned fish for last-minute purchase. After the day's work and during slack periods, men will gather to pass the time smoking and drinking homemade soft drinks, with the circle constantly changing as some arrive and others leave. Basir, the owner of the first store, is the acknowledged leader of the local ruling party (UMNO) branch and his shop thus serves as a gathering place for his allies. The same holds for Samat's store nearby, except that he and his father, Tok Mahmud, are staunch supporters of the opposition party and their clientele is drawn especially from its ranks. A few strongly partisan villagers will, on principle, never go to the "other" shop, but a majority claim that they go to both, being above such petty considerations.

The three best-known and most outspoken women live within shouting distance of the stores, farther along the path. All three are, as it were, honorary men in the sense that they have all had to assume male roles and responsibilities. Rokiah and Rosni are both heads of transplanting groups, which requires them

90 • SEDAKA, 1967-1979

to negotiate with farmers; Rosni is a widow, while Rokiah's husband is alive but judged rather feebleminded, and she has assumed control of the family. The third, the midwife Tok Sah Bidan, is a widow whose training and forty-odd years of midwifery give her a unique place in village life.

At the very end of the village path stand a number of houses of poor villagers, most of whom belong to the opposition. Many of the most pointed criticisms and opinions I heard were expressed by Pak Yah, a landless laborer, when he was talking with his equally poor brother-in-law, Mat "halus," and his friend Dullah. They and the other friends and relatives who occasionally joined them on the rough benches below Pak Yah's house could always be counted on for a perspective that broke sharply with that coming from the UMNO stalwarts at Basir's store or with that held by wealthy members (for example, Haji Kadir) of their own party.

In its pattern of settlement, its economy, its size, and its history, Sedaka is fairly typical of the rice-farming villages on the Kedah plain. But so are hundreds of other villages, and the choice of this particular village as a place to settle and conduct research merits a brief explanation. The first requirement I had was a village more or less exclusively devoted to rice cultivation. Sedaka fits this particular perfectly. Only two heads of household are salaried; one is a truck driver for the Farmers' Association, and the other examines paddy for moisture content at the local government purchasing complex. Both also farm in their spare time. There is in fact not a single household in the village that does not now or, in the case of aged couples, did not once grow rice. The advantage of rice monoculture is not only that it is representative of most villages in Muda but also that the task of determining incomes and economic stratification is relatively straightforward. Villages on the fringes of the irrigation scheme, by contrast, have far more mixed economies, which may include fishing, rubber smallholding, and estate work. A paddy-farming community, on the other hand, is rather like a fishing village with only two catches a year.

Another requirement was by far the most restrictive: that the village be one that had been studied before 1971, when double-cropping was introduced, so that it would be possible to establish at least the basic changes in the local economy. Only three or four villages satisfied this condition. The first one I visited was Sedaka. Not only was the village headman, Haji Jaafar, hospitable to the idea of a strange family settling in his midst but it seemed possible, after a brief talk, that a part of Haji Kadir's large house might be rented out now that his own children had grown and left home. The ease with which such basic questions were resolved, together with the euphoria contributed by a remarkable sunset and the knowledge that the imposing beauty of Gunung Jerai (Kedah Peak) would always be visible to the south, were enough to settle the matter on the spot. 5

5. I was not the first fOreigner to settle in Sedaka. Dr. Kenzo Horii, a Japanese researcher, had lived there fur two months in late 1966 and mid-1967, collecting