Tengger people find happiness in harmony

Tengger people find happiness in harmony

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): In the mind of Siri Sugiartini, 26, Jakarta was
synonymous with Taman Mini Indonesia Indah's pretty pavilions and
the ocean kissed shores at the recreation park in Ancol, north of
the city.

That was until she visited the capital city recently when she
experienced terrible traffic jams, the pollution and humidity in
the air and talk of much crime.

The city, which had looked so ethereal on television, seemed
strange in reality but also filled Siri with excitement. While
here she decided that she would love to visit Jakarta again but
could never imagine living here.

Siri had descended for the first time in her life from her
home in the rugged mountain region of the Tengger highlands in
East Java to address a special seminar on the mysterious Tengger
community of about 40,000 people who alone in modern Java are
reputed to have preserved a non-Islamic priestly tradition over
five centuries since the fall of this island's last major Hindu-
Buddhist kingdom of the Majapahit.

Organized by The Japan Foundation in Jakarta, this is perhaps
the first time that members of the Tengger community were
provided a platform to talk about themselves instead of being
represented by experts and researchers. Siri was as much of a
surprise to the large group of students, scholars and scientists
who attended the recent seminar as they were to her as she
appeared in the traditional Javanese attire of a laced blouse and
long batik skirt.

Siri is an economics graduate from the university at Jember,
East Java. As a student she would ride for two hours each day on
a motorcycle from her village in the highlands to the university.

Speaking on a wide range of topics, including the place of
women in her community, the presence of Siri helped to correct
the false impression that the Tengger are backward, closed to the
modern world and somehow lesser than the Javanese from the
plains. By their own account, Tengger are neither a primitive
tribe nor an ethnic group distinct from other Javanese but are
heirs to a tradition with deep roots in Javanese history.

According to their folk traditions, Tengger are descendants of
non-Islamic Javanese who fled to the mountains above Majapahit
when that court fell to Islamic forces in the 16th century.

However, when American anthropologist Robert W. Hefner first
decided over two decades ago to visit the Tengger community
scattered in a narrow band below the rim of the volcanic crater
at altitudes ranging from 1400 meters to 2400 meters and at
distances of five to 10 kilometers from the center of the
desolate waste of the sand sea, he was told that live animals
were thrown into the volcano's smoldering crater. And that the
Tengger sacrificed human beings. A friend even advised him to
wear a medallion as the dangerous Tengger spirits were helpless
before Muslims and Christians.

But another rice trader in a market town just below the
Tengger highlands also told Hefner that the Tengger were, "good
people, honest, upright and straightforward as all Javanese once
were, but are no longer."

More recently, Takeshi Ando from The Japan Foundation spent
many weeks in the whitewashed homes of the Tengger people before
inviting them to the seminar in Jakarta. He said that the
Foundation wanted to learn not only about the obvious cultures of
this country but also about those tucked away in remote corners
of the island.

What intrigues Takeshi is how little the Tengger people
expected from life. He is full of admiration for the simplicity
and trustworthiness of these people who never use a lock and key
as there is no crime, just as those engaged in acts of adultery
and the opium trade are conspicuous by their absence from the
Tengger.

"I would like to discover for myself the secret of the deep
attachment they have for their land and their lack of interest in
the material world," Takeshi told The Jakarta Post. Siri, for
example, is a university graduate but is not ashamed of staying
in her village to work on the farm. That is because the life of
the Tengger is focussed on becoming become better people, rather
than being the most important or richest.

Asked if her education would go to waste in the village, Siri
did not think so. "I will use my education to become a good
mother, wife and farmer," she replied.

The Tengger look upon Wong Ngare, or the world outside their
own community, as full of conflicts based upon caste, class and
religion.

They do not think the differences are worth picking a fight
with fellow human beings. They do not like to live their lives
ordering people around or trying to control them. Nobody becomes
a ruler of the Tengger due to his birth or affluence, but wisdom
and goodness is what is valued in any leader of the community.

The Tengger believe that humanity will never experience peace
and prosperity until every individual practices the same in his
personal life. They see their entire life spent in deep devotion
to Dewa Kusuma, the ancestor who sacrificed his own life so that
his people could live.

According to legend, the mouth of the naked Bromo Mountain,
which billows smoke skyward from the Tengger caldera with its 10
kilometer barren desert-like sea of sand, is the abode of Brahma,
the supreme creator where the daughter of Brawijaya, a Majapahit
king and her Tengger husband traveled to pray for children.

Moved by the depth of their prayers, the gods assured them of
offspring but on the condition that the youngest child be
sacrificed in the crater of the volcano. When the time came to
sacrifice the child a voice was heard by the 24 older siblings,
"My beloved brothers and sisters I have been sacrificed by our
parents so that you may live in peace and prosperity, never
forgetting to perform worship."

It is this sense of gratefulness at being alive and the belief
of people as one body of relatives which makes the Tengger so
tolerant of others and a little bewildered when others seem
intolerant of them.