Baduy tribe shuns right to vote

Baduy tribe shuns right to vote

By Andrew Marshall

GAJEBOH, West Java (Reuters): Deep in the remote highland jungles of west Java, an enigmatic Indonesian tribe has finally won a cherished political right -- not to vote.

When Indonesians go to the polls on June 7 in their first taste of democratic elections in more than four decades, the reclusive Baduy people will not be among them.

Politics is one of the things banned by their ancient, mysterious religion -- along with the wheel, toothpaste, electricity, poisoning fish and touching the breasts of a virgin.

The Baduy were forced to vote during the 32-year rule of former President Soeharto, whose tightly controlled "festivals of democracy", as elections were known, never failed to give a landslide to the ruling Golkar party.

But last month, a delegation of elderly village heads set out from the mountains and forests of their isolated homeland to ask permission to ignore the elections this time around.

Because the use of wheels is banned by the Baduy, they walked the 80 km (50 miles) to Jakarta.

"This time...because of the changes and the freedom, we ask permission to be excused from the poll," village chief Daina told Indonesia's election commission when he finally arrived in the capital.

"We are forbidden by our ancestors...to be involved in politics, to lie and moreover to take sides."

Nobody knows exactly where the Baduy came from.

They say they have lived in the land they call Pancer Bumi, the center of the world, since the dawn of time.

Anthropologists think they may be the descendants of priests from the Hindu kingdom of Pajajaran, who fled into west Java's jungled peaks when Moslem armies overran the region in 1578.

Little has changed for the Baduy ever since.

Their rigid religion, a blend of animism and ancient Hinduism, has left them suspended in the past and cut off from the outside world. Anything modern is taboo.

At the heart of the Baduy universe are the three villages of the Inner Baduy, where residents adhere to the strictest form of their religion. The Inner Baduy provide the governing elite, and are famed throughout Indonesia for their skill at magic.

Foreigners are banned here and few Indonesian outsiders manage to penetrate the inner sanctum.

Surrounding and protecting this secret world are the 44 Outer Baduy villages, acting as a buffer zone and a place of exile for those from the inner sanctum who break the rules.

A serious transgression by one of the Inner Baduy -- who wear white shirts to distinguish them -- results in banishment to the outer villages known as "the land of sinners".

The list of possible violations is a long one.

Electricity is outlawed. So is adultery, soap, four-legged animals, fertilizer, glass, metal cutlery, cutting down trees, touching money, and changing the course of water.

"If an Inner Baduy touches the breasts of a virgin he will be made to do forced labor, and exiled," said Miharta, a local government official in charge of the Baduy region.

"The woman will be banished too, of course."

Any surprise that the Baduy have managed to prevent their ancient lifestyle being eroded by contact with the outside world evaporates during the exhausting, bone-jarring walk from the nearest road to the Outer Baduy village of Gajeboh.

Visiting the Baduy means trekking for hours through the jungle on a muddy rollercoaster path that winds up sheer hills and plunges down again into humid, mosquito-infested valleys.

Gajeboh is a small cluster of wooden huts huddled in a river valley. Visitors sleep on bamboo mats on the hard floor. There is no electricity, and at night the village is blanketed in total darkness except for the fireflies.

The food on offer is salted fish, rice and raw vegetables -- for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Strict rules on agriculture, including a ban on irrigation, fertilizer, beasts of burden and modern tools, complicate food production. Malnutrition is common and infant mortality high.

The Baduy have rejected modern health care and education. Children do not go to school and most of the 8,000 Baduy are illiterate. A model village built by the Indonesian authorities to try to tempt the Baduy out of seclusion stands largely empty.

But isolation has been a blessing as well as a curse for the Baduy. Untouched by the progress of the past five centuries, they were also untroubled by the economic and political chaos that has swept Indonesia. Indonesia's financial crisis has passed them by.

"In Baduy there is no crisis," said Aimin, Gajeboh village head. "At the most things are a bit more expensive when we do our shopping in the town. But there is no sense of crisis here."

While the Baduy have benefited from Indonesia's new atmosphere of democracy, which has allowed them to opt out of voting, they take little interest in the outside world.

"The only thing we care about is for the country to be safe and the people to prosper so that things will not be expensive," Aimin said. "Other than that, things such as buildings and cars, we don't care about."

Inner Baduy villagers take even less interest in the outside world. Many never leave their secret enclave. Most only travel as far as a nearby market town, where they stock up on salted fish.

But even the Inner Baduy who have made the long walk to Jakarta seem unimpressed by what they saw.

"My own village is much nicer than Jakarta," said Sarif, a youth from the Inner Baduy village of Cibeo, who made the journey in January. Asked what he thought of the capital, he shrugged. "A lot of demonstrations," was his only comment.