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Java's Rice Goddess
| Article
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11503 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1986 |
5,682 Words |
| Author
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Jan Knappert
Jan Knappert is a folklorist and specialist in African and
Oriental languages who is based in Belgium. |
During the first quarter of this century, psychiatric institutions were founded in the cities of the Netherlands East Indies (as the Indies were then known). To these clinics were brought cases of every conceivable mental aberration encountered in the country.
One day in Surakarta (also known as Solo), in the early 1920s, a man was brought in by the police, handcuffed as a criminal. The story the police told was: "This man is a dangerous rebel. Without any reasonable cause, he broke into the office of the Resident, shouting that he wanted the Resident. When arrested, he jabbered something about dreaming dreams that he urgently wanted to talk to the Resident about, so it was concluded that he must be quite mad and he is therefore handed over to you."
The psychiatrist in charge gave the poor, harassed man time to recover, then examined him. His conclusion was that the man was neither dangerous, nor a rebel, nor indeed a madman. His condition was the result of growing up in a culture that was so completely different from that of the ruling power that the two nations could almost be said to live in two different realities. According to one set of concepts he was a lunatic; according to another, he was a saint and a chosen prophet of the goddess of rice.
Here is the man's own story:
Three times I had a dream, the most important dream of my life. I dreamed that I saw the rice goddess, who appeared to me descending from heaven. She warned me that this year would be a very wet one, that there would be heavy rains and bandjirs (floods), and that therefore the people in the whole country must plant their rice on the higher grounds, otherwise it would be washed away. I told this dream to the elders of my village, and they all agreed that it was an important message from heaven, and it must be communicated to the highest authority in the land, the Kangjeng Residen. I therefore set out from my diesa (village) and traveled to Solo to inform the Resident. When I arrived at his keraton (palace), I sat down in the shade of the waringin (ficus indica) tree on the lawn, hoping that the Resident would notice me, for it is not proper for a man of my low standing to go and demand an audience.
The Resident came and went but he never noticed me. After three days I became nervous, because I knew that the time for planting the rice was approaching rapidly, and the rice goddess must be obeyed, or else she will punish the people with failure of the
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