Superstition reigns at capital's palaces
By Ida Indawati Khouw
The presidential palace complex has been witness to momentous changes in the country's history, and the changing of the guard of the highest powers in the land. But while the powers that be may come and go, it seems that some "residents" stay put no matter what. This is the 78th article in our series on Old Batavia.
JAKARTA (JP): If Dutchman J.A. van Braam, the first owner of what is today the present presidential palace complex, were still alive, he could see that his former home is now an abode for supernatural creatures.
The belief in the "kingdom" of the creatures there is such that the "owners" -- the successive first families -- usually hold rituals to placate them or keep amulets.
Perhaps the way the presidents treat the creatures determines their tenure.
Most of stories concerning the rituals happened during second president Soeharto's era, not only because he had the longest tenure but also due to his deep belief in superstition.
The beautiful garden dividing the Merdeka Palace and the State Palace was one of the places where he put the "amulets", taken from all corners of Java, so the powers of nature were united there, according to a palace official who refused to be named.
Visitors must be careful when, for example, passing through the 200-meter-long courtyard for fear of damaging the "sacred" areas, like a coconut tree taken from the northern part of Java and a Wijaya Kusuma (pisonia grandis) plant from the south at the center of a small pool.
"On some occasions I was assigned to accompany several people from Salatiga (Central Java) to plant certain plants in the corners of Merdeka Palace's front yard. The people held a ritual during the planting ceremony but I didn't ask them the meaning of it," said an officer who has been working in the palace complex for about 30 years.
There is also a "sacred" gamelan set, Javanese puppets and kris.
During the brief era of B.J. Habibie, "there were also planting 'ceremonies' by what were called datuk (headmen), maybe from Sulawesi where the president came from," the official said.
But the most powerful creatures were reportedly owned by Soeharto, so that even current president Abdurrahman Wahid took the step of "purifying" the area before moving into the palace.
It was reported that before moving into the palace a soothsayer had to first expel the spirit of "the big man" that was standing in the doorway.
"It was the black power of Soeharto," one of the President's daughters, Yenny, was quoted as saying by Time.
That ghosts resided in the center of power in the country has been widely acknowledged. Several palace employees claim to have experience with the spirits.
Yenny herself once shared how the creatures were even brave enough to "bother" Gus Dur. "A rocking chair was swaying by itself when my father was sitting there," she said during a visit to The Jakarta Post some time ago.
Superstition is just one phenomena of the palace complex, which now includes the State Palace -- which faces toward Jl. Veteran -- Merdeka Palace, facing Jl. Merdeka Utara, the Bina Graha presidential office and the State Secretariat.
Old servants recall the warm atmosphere when the Sukarno family stayed at Merdeka Palace during the 1950s and early 1960s.
Yaitun, 73, a cook for employees of the palace and State Secretariat, recalled how the complex was enlivened by Sukarno's children playing with the employees' children, including her sons from her marriage to another palace servant, Suwandi.
"We felt there was no distance with the president's family, one of my sons usually played with Mas Guruh (Sukarno's youngest son from first lady Fatmawati), while the other children sometimes were invited by Mbak Mega (the oldest daughter and current Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri) to watch films at the State Palace which sometimes turned into a movie theater."
The State Palace was actually the oldest building within the 6.8-hectare compound. The two-story building was built by the affluent van Braam at the end of 18th century as a private residence. But in 1848 the upper storey was demolished and the verandah was enlarged to make the building look more formal as the residence of the highest Dutch authority.
Scott Merrilless noted in his book Batavia in the Nineteenth Century Photographs that the first gas lights in Batavia were lit in the 3.375-square-meter building on Sept. 4, 1862.
Sukarno
Yaitun, all of whose six children were born within the complex, also recalled how Sukarno often inspected the servants' quarters located close to the State Palace (they now have been turned into a warehouse). Other rooms for the servants and their families were at the present site of Bina Graha, but palace servants were relocated to a housing complex in Cempaka Putih, East Jakarta, in the 1960s.
It was also Sukarno who gave the artistic touch to the palaces through his hobby of collecting artwork like paintings and statues, mostly of nude women.
But the presence of "nude women" scattered around the grounds became an issue when there were religious ceremonies like the Idul Adha Islamic holiday prayer, which were open to the public and held in the courtyard. Servants were asked to "dress" the statues for the ceremonies.
The openness of the Merdeka Palace at that time reflected the personality of Sukarno. The residence of the first president at that time was described as having open verandahs and porches, which were then closed to install air-conditioners during the era of Soeharto, who changed the palace into a more rigid environment. He resided on Jl. Cendana in the Menteng area of the city.
"I have never seen Pak Harto (as people usually address him) face to face up until now," Yaitun said.
He rarely had contact with the servants.
"Employees here would be very grateful if Pak Harto greeted them just once with simple words like 'have you had your meal?'," said Djoko Setyohadi, head of the program division of the presidential secretariat who started working at the palace complex in 1972.
"He only spent time here to work," Djoko added.
It would be quite a pity if the present sickly Soeharto rarely enjoyed the beautiful courtyard with green grounds cooled by very big trees and enlivened by the sounds of birds and chickens during his power.
The rigid environment was totally relaxed during the 18-month interim rule of B.J. Habibie, who replaced Soeharto for a short period of 18 months in 1998.
In general, the two palaces did not show major changes despite an extension to the verandah at the back of the Merdeka Palace. Some other buildings, Baiturrahim Mosque, a guest house for state guests, a museum and a painting gallery, were added after independence and encircle the courtyard.
Actually the Merdeka Palace was built almost 100 years after the State Palace, which was bought by the Dutch colonial government after the death of van Braam in 1820 to be the residence of the governor generals but the latter preferred to spend more of their time at Buitenzorg Paleis (the Bogor Palace) and turned the mansion into the "Hotel van den Gouverneur- General" (hotel of the governor general) in order to avoid the word palace.
It was also here that meetings of the Raad van Indie (Council of the Indies) were held and also some of the work of the state secretariat. That was why, in the past there was a street called Gang Secretarie ("Secretariat Lane" now Jl. Veteran III nearby) because it was where the secretariat offices were located.
The 'hotel' had soon become too small and inadequate and between 1873 and 1879 a new palace was added on the same premises, especially for official receptions with many guests. It is what we know now as the Merdeka Palace, facing toward the Koningsplein (now the National Monument area).
The palace was inaugurated in January 1879 with a celebration to honor the Dutch King Willem III who had just married.
It was in the Merdeka Palace grounds where the taking down of the Dutch flag and the raising of the Indonesian flag, marking the signing of the Dutch recognition of the Indonesian independence, took place on Dec. 27, 1949.
Upon witnessing the ceremony, the crowd enthusiastically cried "Merdeka! (freedom!) which was why it came to be called Istana Merdeka (the "Freedom Palace").