'Blood' flows in Yogyakarta 'Bekakak' tradition

'Blood' flows in Yogyakarta 'Bekakak' tradition

By Bambang M and M. Perreira Mesquita

AMBARKETAWANG, Yogyakarta (JP): All the crowd wanted was
blood. They milled restlessly on a sultry day in early May in
Ambarketawang Limestone Preserve, which is deserted and quiet
most of the time except for the chirping of birds.

Then the time came for the sacrifice.

As the onlookers cheered with every cut, a bride and groom
dressed in traditional Javanese wedding attire had their throats
slit beneath the disinterested gaze of police officers nearby.

Yet more carnage in this forlorn country? Not quite -- the
traditional Bekakak ceremony, held every year at the preserve on
the second month of the Javanese calendar, Sapar, involves the
symbolic sacrifice of figures made from glutinous rice and
"blood" of brown sugar syrup.

The origin of the ceremony is tied to the exploitation of the
limestone preserve by locals and the sacrifice of Ki Wirosuto, a
servant of the first Mataram king, Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono I,
hundreds of years ago.

He was entrusted as the keeper of the sultan's rest house near
the site, which today lies in ruins. One day, when he and his
family were in a cave under a limestone hill, the walls
collapsed. One version of the tale says they were praying at the
request of locals after the death of quarriers who disturbed the
cave spirit, Nyai Poleng.

It is said that the sad sultan ordered the local people to
conduct the Bekakak sacrifice, using traditional Javanese
figures, to commemorate the service and unfortunate death of Ki
Wirosuto. Today, the ceremony continues every year, even though
quarrying at the site stopped more than 50 years ago.

Before they are sacrificed, the figures are paraded through
the nearby village, along with effigies of Nyai Poleng and her
followers. Children hide behind the skirts of their mothers at
the scary visages of the spirit (bekakak is Javanese for a
frightful sight).

After cutting the figures, pieces of the cake of rice and
syrup are distributed to the people, who believe it will bring
them blessings.

Preserve

Following the ceremony, the limestone preserve in
Ambarketawang, five kilometers from Yogyakarta, was quiet once
again.

It covers only 370 square meters and few tourists travel to
the area, which is not listed in any guidebook. It has no
beautiful panoramas and is merely a great slab of rock fringed by
banyan trees.

"The limestone is protected for scientific purposes," said
Djoko Wintolo, head of the Department of Geological Engineering
at Gadjah Mada University.

Djoko Wintolo said that Ambarketawang, with its high calcium
content, is among the four most important limestone areas in
Java.

The remaining slab of limestone is all that is left of the
days when the area was a center for limestone excavation, with
eight hectares of the mineral deposits.

"My father used to say that from the top of the limestone hill
he could see the banyan trees in the north square in Yogyakarta,"
said Frans Haryono, vice chief of Ambarketawang village.

The limestone was used to make cement and for the processing
of sugar at local mills.

"After exploiting the limestone, people around Ambarketawang
were quite well off," recalled Caroko Pawoko Hardjono, 77, who
was the first village chief in Ambarketawang after Indonesia
declared its independence from the Dutch in 1945.

At the time, limestone trade was controlled by a Yogyakarta
palace official called a penewu gamping, who also profited during
its heyday. Caroko remembered that the penewu gamping was able to
receive 1000 guilders as a bonus, a handsome sum in the late
1940s.

"At that time, one guilder could buy 20 kgs of rice. So the
bonus was equivalent to having 20 tons of rice," he said in awe.

Caroko said that, when he was a teenager, 60 percent of the
limestone remained, but it was quickly depleted, both by locals
and the Dutch colonial government.

"The Dutch took the most limestone," Caroko said. "While our
people used hoes to quarry, they used dynamite."

The limestone exploitation stopped in 1950, Caroko said,
because of a request from the Yogyakarta local government and
geological office in Bandung. All that was left was the 15-meter-
high slab of limestone.