Talk:Puputan

amok distinction

• Examining the sources, it seems that suicide is not the right term for this and that amok or rage would be better. For example, see On Cross-cultural Assessment and Study of Dissociation

"An apparent psychiatric illness, not attributable to an identifiable organic cause, which is locally recognized as an illness and which does not correspond to a recognized Western disease category, e.g. amok. This phenomenon is associated with an inability to own feelings of anger and an indirect expression of distress in an otherwise, very harmonious society. When an Indonesian Balinese feels that his/her tolerance is surpassed, he/she will apply the strategy of interpersonal avoidance. If this is surpassed, the next level is ‘silent enmity’ or locally referred to as puik, a situation in which people in conflict do not greet each other. The third phase, if the second is surpassed, is total confrontation or ‘defend to the death’. This is called puputan. In puputan, people no longer think of their life, but pride and self-esteem. In this stage, they collectively run amok."

My impression of the incidents in the article is now that they were like the banzai charges of Japanese soldiers in WW2 - death or glory fights to the finish. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:03, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

• I have no idea, as Balinese history ain't my forte by a long stretch, however I did stick a note here in case anyone more knowledgeable could drop by. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

• Puputan is a culturally specific phenomenon and is different from amok - SatuSuro 11:54, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

  Correct, amok/amuk has been misrepresented in Western sources, but it was something like the Viking 'beserk'. These puputan or'fights to the death' were entirely different. Adrian Vickers (talk) 02:45, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

NNPOV

This tag has been placed today because of the narrative style. 94.192.87.215 (talk) 11:38, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you be more specific? What about the style do you find to be POV? Miremare 17:44, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

A whitewashed account of Denpasar

This is an atrocious case of racism. The article iteslf admits that a thousand barely armed Balinese dressed in surrender white were mowed down by Dutch artillery. Yet, on the strength of exactly one reference repeated umpteen times, the slaughter is presented as some sort of odd Hindu-Asiatic ritual gone awry. But if the Dutch force was so honorable and civilized, they could have stopped at 100 deaths. Obviously they did not. This article portrays a possible mass murder by a colonial force as an unfortunate but justified rampage.

At least one sentence should be devoted to the possibility that the Dutch troops misunderstood the intent of a surrendering column, as noted by Tim Harrington (page 157). Sooku (talk) 06:23, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

You mean Tim Hannigan. Otherwise, agreed. Adrian Vickers (talk) 02:43, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

References

Term puputan

Hello Austronesier. You are probably familiar with this term. Can you verify whether puputan is a Balinese, Javanese (see diff1, diff2, and diff3 of User:Dimas supriatno), or a broader Austronesian term? Etymologically, the relevant Wiktionary entry agrees with Pringle (2004), by stating that the Balinese term derives from the root puput 'to complete, finish off, perfect'; though, there is no clarification on whether this is a Balinese or an Austronesian root, and it is linked to a page that has only the Finnish entry puput 'bunnies, rabbits, hares'. Demetrios1993 (talk) 18:48, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Demetrios1993 for directing me to this page. It is a Balinese word in the first place, especially the extended meaning to refer to suicide or suicidal attacks in the face of defeat. This meaning is found nowhere else among Austronesian languages, except for Indonesian which has borrowed the term but only to describe the Balinese phenomenon.

The ultimate etymology of the root puput 'finish' (the suffix -an is a multi-functional noun-forming affix which denotes collective action here) is not clear, but borrowing from (Old) Javanese is plausible (you can search for puput here: http://sealang.net/ojed/). Note however that the Old Javanese term did not convey the extended meaning, so the earlier version of the lede was clearly wrong.

Next to Balinese and (Old) Javanese, puput 'finish' is only found in Sasak, a language which is closely related to Balinese. In other Austronesian languages, puput exists but has a totally different meaning ('to blow', probably an onomatopoeic term). It is based on this very restricted occurrence of puput 'finish' that I believe it could be a Javanese innovation that radiated east to Balinese and Sasak. –Austronesier (talk) 17:36, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

But without RS (and there are none about it), this remains OR, so the etymology question remains moot anyway. –Austronesier (talk) 19:58, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

I am grateful for your thorough answer Austronesier. Demetrios1993 (talk) 18:06, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

'Puput' is Balinese, and has a common meaning of 'to end' or 'finish' something. For example 'muputang' is a transitive verb form. 'Puputan' is a noun. The meaning of 'suicide' is inaccurate, as Margaret Weider argues in Visible and Invisible Realms: Power, Magic and Colonial Conquest in Bali (University of Chicago Press, 1995). When I have finished trying to sort out the Puputan Badung and Puputan Klungkung entries, I'll edit this page. Adrian Vickers (talk) 02:39, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

References