Healing hands still a Dayak tradition

Healing hands still a Dayak tradition

Markus Mardius, Contributor, Ketapang, West Kalimantan

This country is well-known for its alternative health
treatments, which include employing traditional herbs and mantras
to cure a disease or protect a person's well-being.

For the Dayak Simpang Hulu people living in the western part
of Ketapang regency, the health treatment of choice is the unique
baboretn.

It is a healing method whereby a boretn (a healer or shaman)
walks around a taman (a bamboo post decorated with banyan tree
and areca leaves and other "magic" decorations) to enter a trance
and gain the so-called divine healing power.

Despite the fact that Christian missions have existed in the
area for years, the Dayak Simpang Hulu people still have faith in
the effectiveness of the animist baboretn.

Moreover, baboretn is more affordable than going to a doctor
or physician, who are in short supply here because of the
reluctance of health professionals to serve in the remote area.
The muddy road leading to the regency presents another obstacle.

"It takes days or even weeks to take sick people to the
hospital in Ketapang. Therefore, the only alternative is
baboretn," said Laurensius Arif, believed to be a prospective
boretn.

Patients brought to a baboretn are usually seriously ill.

Some preliminaries must be gone through prior to the
treatment. The family of the patient must send one of its members
to deal with the boretn on the day of the treatment and meet
various other requirements. But most boretn will give their
approval swiftly.

During negotiations, the family and their neighbors must
prepare all the requirements for baboretn, such as a long piece
of bamboo which will be used as the taman, areca flowers and
leaves, boiled chicken, banyan tree, betel leaves, incense and
other scents as offerings to the gods. A pig and a few chickens
are also provided.

The boretn is always accompanied by an assistant, called
pabayu. The latter sings the so-called magical songs while the
boretn walks around the taman throughout the night.

The taman is placed in the middle of a living room. It is
adorned with pleated bamboo, filled with offerings such as wax, a
large boiled chicken, areca nuts, pop rice flakes, incense and
other items.

The ceremony may take one to two nights, depending on the
severity of the patient's illness.

Before the boretn begins circling the taman, a preliminary
ritual should be held in front of the house.

The host must prepare offerings including the pig, arrack
(sticky rice wine) and a large jar of sticky, fermented rice. The
pig should be measured with a rope to determine whether the
boretn can find the disease in the patient's body.

The assistant drinks the arrack and chews betel while singing
mantras near the pig. He also beats a drum, while another person
plays a gamelan. A bunch of stones believed to radiate magical
powers are kept inside a bowl near the pig.

An hour after the initial rite, the pig is butchered using a
poisoned traditional knife.

Then the boretn, his assistant and some of the guests, such as
the elders, take a break while they wait for dinner.

Nightfall is the signal for the boretn to start the baboretn.
The pabayu continues singing as the boretn reads out a variety of
magic spells. He then drinks the arrack and chews areca nuts.

Sometimes he sings along with his assistant. He is given a
cigarette and wears traditional shawls and hats.

All night long, the boretn and pabayu sing and call to the
spirit of the dead. He mentions the names of the dead and asks
them to help heal the patient. The patient lies on the bed
waiting for the boretn to experience a revelation about the
patient's illness.

During a particular song, the boretn enters the patient's room
to locate the source of the illness. He observes the body as if
X-raying the illness with his eyes. He touches the body and
symbolically removes the illness by lifting his hand and showing
the disease in the physical form of a nail or hook.

The boretn then spreads pikng tawar (water which has had a
magic spell cast over it) around the patient's body. He often
puts his mouth on the patient's body to extract more of the
illness.

Throughout the night, the boretn drinks a lot of arrack,
smokes and chews the areca nuts provided by his assistant. The
more he drinks the more often he circles the taman.

After entering a trance he collapses for a few minutes. The
Pabayu taps him with an areca flower and the boretn wakes up. He
continues circling the taman while singing until morning.

While removing the illness from the patient, locally known as
balikng, he also advises the people surrounding the patient that
someone might have attacked him or her.

"Maybe the patient himself has a conflict with other people
that caused depression or hatred," the boretn explained while
showing some items between his fingers.

The items could be in the form of a nail, hook or horn. They
were assumed to be the essence of the disease.

"The patient has been (metaphysically) attacked by other
people. Maybe the patient had bickered with others about money.
Hence the rival attacked the patient through a magic formula --
black magic," said the boretn.

As a transcendent form of knowledge, baboretn can produce
people with a certain level of mastery, known as rasi boretn (a
person who has proven his healing skills). Kedowai, 65, is one of
them. He is often invited to perform baboretn by people with a
family member suffering from a serious illness.

He said he had been a boretn since he was 28-years old. In the
year preceding his baptism as a boretn, he spent his time
learning magic formulas with dukun or boretn.

Kedowai's popularity is not only limited to his village but
has fanned out to Pontianak, Ketapang and many other regencies.

As the saying goes, man proposes but God disposes. Whether the
patient can recover depends on God and how grave the disease is.
To speed up the recovery process, the patient must abstain from
certain meals prescribed by the boretn, such as the flesh of
four-legged animals, catfish and other fish for some time.