We are still hunting, not for animals but for peoples’ souls

“We are learning from tracing back to ancient paths
with our contemporary bodies and forms.”
 

I have heard about this Truku artist’s name two years before this interview. ‘Dondon’ sounds like drum playing. His style is quite loud as well. When I first met him a year ago, he wore kimono jacket and pair of clogs. He looked like a Japanese gangster except wearing makeup. That dressed face seemed extra pale as sky was getting darker.   
 
That is why I can’t help exclaiming “This is the first time I see your face without makeup!” when he shows up wearing nothing on his face but thick rimmed glasses. He smiles at my comment and starts talking about his years after returning to his home village; how he transforms from wearing that glamorous jacket as an independent artist to putting on a bigger rope which covers more people. There are two names on this rope: Elrg, a collective art group, and Dondon’s new identity inherited from his ancestors, a Smapux.
 
He has no doubt to the next steps: “We are learning from tracing back to ancient paths with our contemporary bodies and forms.”
 
He elaborates further about going back to old ways. It’s because that the ancestors who steps on the unknow journey to the east hundreds of years ago “They still live within us but in different forms. We are still hunting. Only now we hunt for peoples’ souls with our artworks, not real killings anymore.”

For a Smapux, everything exists in its place naturally. “It is natural even mudslide goes to your house.” 
 
Dondon’s great grandmother used to be a registered high-spiritual Smapux in Japanese-occupied period. With the inheritance in his blood and training he gets from Smapux in Tkijin village, Dondon officially ‘receives spirits’ in early 2016 and exercises as a true
  
Smapux which includes practicing traditional medical ceremony, showing medical power and being a presenter of ‘life of medicine’.
 
“The meaning of receiving spirits is to connect human beings on the earth and the spirits in the heaven.” Dondon randomly explains several ceremonies and worship words Smapux uses to us. The most impressive one for me is what Pangan phrling refers to:
 

 “It is a prayer to ancestors’ spiritual power.”

 
“ ‘Pinching’ it from ancestors would allow you to understand the world of nature and ancestors. It would open your eyes to see everything, and the secrets of all. You would have abilities and vocabularies to express those worlds and secrets you see.”
 
As other tribes, there is no word of ‘artist’ in Tongmon village and Truku tribe. The other word Dondon finds, Seejiq mpseeusa, refers to ‘people who invent or upgrade techniques, or express it percisely in words.’ The more straightforward meaning is ‘people who show direction’.   
 
Whether he’s an artist who only attends his own virtue and development, or a Smapux who wants to live and thrive with his people, Dondon’s practice and search are made for “pinching the once-broken thread and passing it down”. He indicates that the final pattern of weaving and rattan plaiting is always a circle. It is like “we are moving forward to the same direction. It is an original contract. The difference is whether you feel such a power in our lives.”
 
“The contemporary of our ancestors is our tradition. In traditional spirit, art is to create continuously and not to stick to certain form. As you meet all qualifications also understand the definition, you can practice it in this way. Therefore, no matter how heavy your makeup is, wearing traditional outfits or not, with whatever name you have, you are a Truku.”