The Baduy imah

Kanekes, Lebak, Banten

The Kanekes imah is a raised bamboo and timber house in the hills of southern Banten, and what makes it worth building here is the shape of its rules. The other eighteen packs in this project write down what a building is; the pikukuh of Kanekes write down what may not be done — and one of those prohibitions has a consequence a model can check: the ground may not be dug or levelled. So the stones are set where they lie, every post is a different length, and the floor stays one level plane over a hillside nobody has touched. The sun in this model is computed for Kanekes, 6.55° S and 106.25° E.

Most of what this tradition says cannot be checked by any model. A sawn beam and a split one are the same shape; a nailed house and a lashed one look identical once the frame is closed. Those prohibitions are stated in the pack and tested by nothing, and saying so is the honest form of that limit. Beyond it: the layout of a Kanekes village — where a house sits on the north–south axis, where the leuit stand, which ground may not be entered — is not modelled at all, though it is what most determines the shape of the settlement. The slope drawn here is an even plane, and real ground is not even. And not one figure here comes from a measurement.