An Allegorical Anthropology of Trickster, Cain, Music, and the Wayang
Abstract
The trickster constitutes a powerful symbol, appearing in oral traditions and literature of heritages worldwide. Trickstering represents a uniquely human quality that involves a one-way logic of being in the world. The consciousness of the trickster moves from a center or starting point outward, without a destination, and is defined by the lack of subject / object differentiation.
In this paper, I juxtapose the mythological figure of the trickster with the biblical figure of Cain, to describe dynamics of human ideology. After grounding a critical encounter between the primitive trickster and the biblical Cain, I interpret their discordant expressions in relation to their non-reflexive and reflexive ways of being, respectively. I ethnographically turn to music and to discussions of allegory, to connect these human processes to the archetypal characters of the trickster and Cain. In the context the dialogue, the trickster’s encounter with Cain acquires its musical and allegorical momentum as intelligent ‘othering,’ and gains significance as a conceptual framework in the study.
Keywords: Trickster, Cain, the Wayang, music, linguistic anthropology, allegory