Rice Festival in West Java Celebrates Rural Life, Indonesian-Style

Magical, mystical land below the wind, the Indonesian island of Java. Sometimes in the daily round of my expatriate life in Jakarta--during study groups, coffee mornings, trips to the butcher, the baker and the dressmaker--I would wonder: “Where is the real Java of bygone days?”

The Dutch call it tempo dulu , the time before. Then, one day in October, I picked up a calendar of events issued by the director general of tourism that stated: Oct. 21, Rice Festival, Cigugur, West Java.

A harvest festival--visions of medieval splendor danced round my head . . . offerings to the rice goddess . . . a ceremonial wedding of the goddess and her consort . . . animistic fertility rites thanking the gods for a bountiful harvest.

Not one of my friends could conjure up such visions. Nor were they interested in a trip based on such scanty information. Nor were their husbands anxious for them to go with a woman who sometimes disappeared into the jungle for weeks at a time.

Taking a Chance

But Cigugur was so close--a four-hour bus ride to Cirebon on the north coast of Java, then a short ride to Kuningan. I had to take the chance.

Besides, if the ceremony didn’t pan out, a bus ride in Indonesia is always an adventure.

Before the bus left the station an entire contingent from the pasar strolled through the vehicle selling supplies for the trip--chewing gum, fans, washcloths, calendars, socks, outdated magazines--anything portable.

Small boys entered the bus chanting, “Es, es, es (ice),” and as the bus moved, they leaped daringly to the ground.

Smiling girls sold oleh, oleh-- presents for the people at home--while engaging in good-natured banter.

No less intriguing than the vendors was the management of the people by the ticket seller.

When the bus was chock-a-block full, every seat taken and luggage piled in the aisles, seven more people with luggage, boxes, bags, chickens and stalks of bananas boarded and discovered that they were to occupy the “hot box” over the engine.

Overflowing, the bus slowly left the station, the conductor clinging precariously to the outside and still calling, “Cirebon, Cirebon!”

Dutch Influence

In Cirebon, Dutch influence is still visible in the whitewashed, tile-roofed bungalows lining shady streets.

I spent the night in one of those bungalows long since converted to a small hotel. The closet-size room was spotless and I felt like Sleeping Beauty under a snow-white mosquito canopy.

The next day the bus from Cirebon to Kuningan left the coast and started climbing the slopes of Gunung Cermai through a series of small towns, each with its own mosque and statue of a prancing stallion.

Timidly Spoke English

After passing three such towns and horses, my schoolboy seat partner timidly risked his five words of English: “Where do you go, Mrs.?”

He had never been to Cigugur, but knew that the name meant “falling water.”

By the time we reached Kuningan he had decided that going to Cigugur with a foreign woman was more educational than going to school.

At 7:30 a.m. the tropical sun was already high as we started down the brown dirt road. I felt as if I were in a painting, a perfect rendition of the “Beautiful Indies Rice-Scapes” painted by the nostalgic Dutch, longing to take a piece of Indonesia back to Holland.

The picture was executed with broad strokes of primary colors, equal splashes of blue sky meeting green rice paddies, with the obligatory volcano in the background.

But something was wrong. Then I realized why I was uneasy. I had never before seen an empty road or field in fertile Java. We seemed to be the only people in the world. Until, rounding a bend between two hills, as if by magic a Ramayana frieze from a Hindu temple sprang to life.

Ceremonial Dance

An enormous pond on the right side of the road gurgled water through bamboo pipes to terraced ponds falling below. Directly ahead, a dance was in progress around a flagpole. Men and small boys dressed in black pants and shirts danced in measured steps.

Some of the men beat drums with their hands, others shook bamboo angklung instruments. Soon the dancers lay writhing on the ground, their bamboo instruments held high.

A dense circle of villagers surrounded the dancers. Some men were dressed in black, others in white. Young women in tightly wrapped batik sarongs held platters containing representations of fanciful animals fashioned from fruits. Bearers shielded these women with ingenious umbrellas made of palm leaves topped with a pineapple.

A closer look at a three-tiered bamboo palanquin revealed the royal cargo. It looked like a snake’s head made entirely of fruits.

Men shouldered bamboo poles, some sagging with the weight of tubers, others heavy-laden with sheaves of rice.

Harvest of Offerings

The dance ended. The music was replaced by the melting brass sounds of a gamelan orchestra as the whole procession moved slowly into a large tile-roofed building, the Madrais Palace.

The spectacle inside surpassed the pageant outside. Beyond the gamelan was a long wooden rice pounder in the shape of a naga , a mythical snake.

Beside a flaming torch, a mystical looking priestlike figure dressed in white received sheave after sheave of golden rice, placing each in front of a mosaic crown made of precisely placed seeds and berries and topped with a small palm fan, which often represents the rice goddess Dewi Sri.

The crown, symbol of the Madrais Palace, was flanked by two red nagas-- so long that they spilled over the tables and onto the floor.

These ferocious animals, made of shiny red jambu bol fruit, dangled green bean fangs from their mouths and ended with crown-shaped tails held high.

Overwhelmed by the sights and sounds, I knew it would take divine intervention for me to be able to focus the camera and coordinate the settings.

Nevertheless, I barged from priest to naga , praying that people would think I was some sort of official photographer, when a young man approached me. He introduced himself as the English teacher at the school and said he was “at my service to explain everything.”

Passing Sheaves

He steered me to a human chain reaching from the red naga to a bamboo shed in the garden. I watched as sheaves of rice passed hand to hand until they reached the villagers waiting to pound the rice.

The rhythmic pounding of wood on wood pulled us toward the shed, where all the men and women of the village waited behind rows of rice pounders.

Going With the Flow

The teacher insisted that I take part and I followed the pattern--lift and drop the heavy pestle on the rice seven times, then pass it on to the next person--signifying village cooperation and the passing of responsibilities from old people to the youth.

Some of the young women had a stalk of rice in their hair, a symbol of their hope of having healthy, prosperous children.

I had a million questions for the teacher as we sat under jacaranda trees eating rujak , a sweet-sour mixture of fruits and vegetables. The teacher told me that the origins of this ceremony are lost in time.

Before Islam came to Java sometime in the 12th Century, Java was under Hindu influence and was very much like Bali is today. With the coming of Islam, many Hindus fled to Bali and this ceremony is a remnant from that time.

The Hindu symbol of fertility in Java then, and in Bali today, is Dewi Sri. Several days before the ceremony, 22 quintals of rice are collected from the villagers. (One quintal equals 100 kilograms.)

Ensuring Continuity

One quintal of rice represented Dewi Sri and one quintal represented her consort--symbolically wed each year and stored away for the first ritual planting next season, ensuring the continuity of the harvest and hence the people.

The remaining rice, 20 quintals, was brought ceremonially from the four corners of the village (the four cardinal points of the universe) to the center of the village--the center of the world.

Offered to the goddess, the rice is then blessed and passed to the villagers outside, where all participate in the pounding ritual. After pounding and husking the rice is stored, half to be used by the village, half to be given to the poor.

Catholics, Protestants and Muslims participate together in this ancient ceremony celebrating the fertility of all things--fruits, vegetables and rice.

The sun dropped suddenly behind the hills. The pounders were still. The rice was stored. The people began to lose their mystical look as they gathered at the large pond for the evening ritual of bathing among sacred 1,000-year-old carp. But the schoolboy and I had a bus to catch.

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The complex Javanese/Balinese calendar relies on solar-lunar order, with one set of rules for honoring the gods and another for ordering the affairs of man. This year the Rice Festival ceremony will be held sometime during June, though the exact date won’t be known until the sighting of the moon.

For more information on the festival and travel in Indonesia, contact the Indonesia Tourist Promotion Board, 3457 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 204, Los Angeles 90010, (213) 387-2078.