An authentic descendant of French Louis XIV in Bali?

By Jean Couteau

UBUD, Bali (JP): "I assure you. There is a Frenchman in the village of Banjar. You must see him. He has become Hindu and even reached the status of holy man. He is now an Empu, endowed with magical healing powers, which he gained in the jungle of Myanmar during the war."

This description of Empu Landring by my Balinese friend invited curiosity. It stirred in my soul what remained of my French nationalism, and invoked promises of an encounter with a compatriot who had reached a step further up than me in "going native". How could one be French and a Hindu healer, an adept of Descartes and a Balinese medicine man? If he was French, was Empu Landring fraudulous? And if he was Balinese, how could he be Frenchman?

My curiosity aroused, I decided to check with my own eyes and looked forward to going to Banjar. But it was several months before I got the opportunity. My Balinese friend, a former patient and admirer of the man, decided to take me so I could judge for myself the truth of this enigma -- a Balinese Frenchman.

Situated twenty kilometers east of the major coastal town of Singaraja, Banjar sits at the foot of the island's central volcanic range. Its historical ambience is a pleasant relief for someone traveling across this island of rapid modernization. The village is mostly known for its war against the Dutch late last century. This was the Banjar war and most of the area and its people were savaged remorselessly. Banjar also famous for its lettered Brahmins, who had given Bali some of its best writers of geguritan (Balinese traditional poems). The town has become well- known for its Buddhist monastery, the product of the conversion of a local brahmins and his Balinese following. Another of Banjar's more recent claims to fame is its hot spring, which attracts the attention of backpackers in nearby Lovina.

But, arriving by car, I paid little attention to any of these. I was only interested in finding this Frenchman? Led along rundown dirt roads, stinky trenches and wildly colored warungs, I was eventually brought to a small back-street and to the famous healer's home. To my disappointment, though, Landring was not there. He was dead! Before I could excuse myself and take leave, though, I was ushered inside into the presence of the a tall and handsome youth of vaguely Eurasian appearance.

"I am Empu Landring's son," he said, "And I'll tell you about my father. Was my father French?" he said and then asked in answer too my query, while slightly stiffening his posture on his stool. As he talked, a measure of western confidence was beginning to reassert itself. The idea of being a Frenchman's son was obviously changing his poise and his idea of himself. This was metamorphosis right before my eyes. He was turning French in front of me, to the point of cloaking himself in Gallic arrogance. I half expected him to put on a beret.

"My father's father," he said, adding pride to earnestness, "was born in Nice, an authentic descendant of King Ludovic the 14th." He paused unnecessarily for effect because in me he had met a staunch supporter of Jacobins. Nevertheless, polite as ever, I looked for signs of Versailles splendor around me. There was none, except perhaps for the lone photographs of a long- haired man with piercing eyes and a goatee. His racial origins were not at all apparent. Indeed, he could have come from anywhere. Or nowhere. But this mattered little to the youth.

Royal blood

Indeed, it was this racial anonymity, with its whiff of royal French blood, that provided him his raison-d'etre. It gave him roots. And purpose. As it must have done with his father too. To both, claiming royal French blood was obviously their way to gain prestige and power in their village. As healers, I was awed by the claim. But the son carried on, forfeiting the father for the holy man.

"Empu Landring was a man of great magical powers," he said, "He could heal all sorts of illness, hidden and visible. And people would come from as far as Jakarta and Surabaya to see him for his word and a cure. On some days, high officials would come too. They needed him, they said. He saw to it that they healed and often succeeded." Then, brandishing a book in front of me, he added, "This was my father's book of knowledge. And, it is now mine."

I wondered in silence. Of which arcane knowledge was he the bearer? I was about to ask to see the book when he handed it to me spontaneously, probably sensing in me a Frenchman's quality, partaking through my blood its deepest secrets. What was extraordinary about the book, however, was its extreme banality. Old and dog-eared, parched, tattered and yellow, with minute worm-holes in its outside cover. It read: Wolters, Groningue, 1927, Dictionaire Francais-Neerlandais. It was a French-Dutch dictionary.

Thus the power of this unique vestibule of knowledge -- this dictionary of no intrinsic value in a village where no one spoke French -- rested on the laurels of its historical misuse and on the faded memories of the might of French kings of a bygone era. Ignorance, or rather misknowledge, was thus made into healing power. A dictionary of ignorance had been sealing the fate of Empu Landring clients. And now after his death, the same yellowing book was supporting his son's claims to power and to a transplanted, nouveau kind of Frenchness.

Meanwhile, in the backstreet of Amsterdam, lost Balinese of nouveau origins are also claiming to be princess and magical healers. What do they show off to clients? Palm-leaf lontar books, to boot.