Traditional Javanese 'mitoni' ceremony has different styles

Traditional Javanese 'mitoni' ceremony has different styles

By Ridlo Aryanto

KLATEN, Central Java (JP): Tradition grows in line with the
cultural progress of society. In Java, especially Yogyakarta and
Central Java, all stages of human existence pass through slametan
(a ritual held as a token of gratitude for surviving danger or
bad luck and to ask divine blessing).

"The Javanese culture indeed inculcates the community with the
principle of golek slameting dhiri (pursuing safety in life and
salvation of the soul hereafter), so that all forms of
thanksgiving aim at personal, family and communal safety," says
Karkono Partokusumo, a Javanologist from Yogyakarta.

One of Java's traditional rites which still exist is mitoni,
for the safe passage of a woman's first seventh-month pregnancy.
"The Javanese believe that a seven-month-old infant has got a
soul, whose security should be celebrated. And the first child is
said to bring good luck to the family and other siblings," he
says.

Like other traditional ceremonies, mitoni is practiced in
different fashions in different regionalities, as the saying goes
"so many places, so many customs."

In Klaten, Central Java, for instance, mitoni is held in the
front yard on a mat, like the one taking place in Jimbung Lor
village, Kalikotes, in the first week of March 2001.

The outdoor ceremony "symbolizes the common people's humble
attitude and their expression of gratitude to God. They belong to
the lower class and live in simplicity, while only those of the
royal family or nobility deserve indoor or court rituals," said
Krido Hartono, a Jimbung community figure who threw the mitoni
party.

Unlike the royal mitoni ceremonies in Yogyakarta and Solo, the
celebration in Jimbung was a modest event, using no formal
costume or equipment, and the pregnant woman was only clad in her
daily dress.

It started with a kenduri (ritual gathering with meals and
religious prayers), attended by neighbors. Its leader sat cross-
legged on a wooden pestle for pounding rice, representing the
removal of evils and disasters, and the woman had a seat at the
side of the gathering.

Among the uba rampe (offerings) served on the occasion were
traditional snacks, red and white taffy (reflecting physical
strength), and two yellow-hulled coconuts bearing the pictures of
wayang (shadow puppet) figures, the famous pair Arjuna and
Sumbadra.

This pair, according to Hartono, symbolizes the parents' hope
for the appearance and traits of their coming baby: if it's a
boy, he should be handsome and chivalrous like Arjuna and if a
girl, she should be beautiful and faithful like Sumbadra.

Following the kenduri, the pregnant mother was guided by
village elders for a bathing ritual with water from seven wells
-- her own and her neighbors'. "It's a symbol that the baby, upon
its birth, is blessed by the whole family as well as all
neighbors," said Nyi Wiryotowi, a woman elder conducting the
bathing.

The two coconuts offered were thereafter split and part of
their water was drunk by the expectant mother, in the hope that
the good characters of Arjuna and Sumbadra would be absorbed by
the infant's soul. "Virtue and security are what this ceremony is
all about," Krido Hartono pointed out.

The same tradition has diverse forms in different areas. Both
in Yogyakarta and Central Java, mitoni accommodates the same gist
but it is manifested and furnished in different ways. In Bantul,
for example, this rite is more popularly called tingkeban.

In this Bantul-style ceremony, lasting from 7 p.m. until 9
p.m., the woman and her spouse are bathed first, before being
dressed in separate places like a royal lady and a prince, with
unofficial costumes.

Both are later brought together for a janur (young coconut
leaf) cutting. The wife wears a janur wreath round her neck, and
the man approaches her to slash the leaves with a kris. Their
dresser immediately tosses an egg, amid the audience's applause.

Kulonprogo has just about the same tingkeban, the only
difference being the additional procession prior to the janur
cutting. The couple is taken round the ritual place accompanied
by petal-strewing, which is conducted by an elder or dresser for
the purpose of purging the house of evils.

"In spite of the wide variety, the seventh-month pregnancy
ritual forms have the same essence, that is to seek material and
spiritual salvation for the pair, the would-be child and the
whole family," said cultural expert Suryanto Sastroatmodjo.

Whatever manifestations may be, they eventually point to the
fact that Javanese cultural wisdom always fosters equilibrium
between pursuits of the body and the soul. "Mitoni or tingkeban,
therefore, serves as evidence of the Javanese community's
determination to maintain this wisdom, notwithstanding the lack
of accommodation in modern life," he added.