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.