Christianity Hymns in Rotinese Taste: Local Efforts to Translate Rotinese Culture into Christian Belief
Tom Therik with Lintje Pellu, Australian National University
From the second part of the sixteenth centuries, the Dutch (traders, civil servants, military official and missionaries) brought Christianity to the island of Roti. The readiness of the Rotinese to accept Christianity made the Dutch establish the first theological college at Ba’a, the present capitol of the District of Rote Ndao. The Bible and church hymns used were Indonesian Malay taught by Ambonese teachers. As far as the church hymns are concerned, old people still regard the collection of songs in the books of Nafiri Perak (Silver Trumpet), Dua Sahabat Lama (Two Old Friends) and the relatively new hymn book, Mazmur dan Tahlil (Psalm and Praise) as the most songs most suited Rotinese spirituality. Beside that many Rotinese ritual chanters and song writers produced church songs in Rotinese. The aims of this paper are: (1) to discuss reasons for the varying acceptability of hymn books, (2) to understand canonical parallelism as expressed in the Bible compared to the dyadic set expressed in ritual language, and (3) to elaborate the theological meanings as expressed in the hymn books preferred by Rotinese in contrast with Rotinese cosmology.
