Posted on 05/14/2006 7:00:06 PM PDT by blam
Superstition stops villagers fleeing active Java volcano
By Sebastien Berger on Mount Merapi
(Filed: 15/05/2006)
Clouds of ash and smoke and a fiery stream of lava were pouring out of Mount Merapi yesterday as Indonesian authorities grew increasingly concerned.
Thousands of villagers fled the fertile slopes of the volcano after officials on the island of Java said an eruption was imminent.
A fiery stream of lava cascades down the side of Mount Merapi on the island of Java yesterday
They raised their alert to the highest possible status and ordered an evacuation of territory stretching up to seven miles from the summit.
But the spiritual guardian of the volcano, Mr Marijan, is staying put.
In a land where traditional beliefs remain widely held despite the strength of Islam, a few thousand others on the perilous slopes have joined Mr Marijan, who was appointed by the Sultan of Yogjakarta, the nearest city.
They expect him to be warned in a vision when an eruption is imminent.
"I'm not afraid because it's my duty," said the clear-eyed 79-year-old. "I'm like a soldier - they are never scared." Indonesia sits on the Ring of Fire, a chain of volcanoes that surrounds the Pacific Ocean. Mount Merapi, which stands at 9,800ft, last erupted in 1994, killing 60 people. Its harsh grey sides are scored with the scars of past eruptions.
It is topped with a recently-formed black dome of rock, estimated at 2.3 million cubic metres in volume and still swelling as magma rises.
Superheated clouds of gas, known locally as wedhus gembel or shaggy goats, burst forth yesterday from the summit several times an hour. If the dome collapses, lava as well as a vast "shaggy goat" will rush down the mountain, killing every creature in its path.
Ratdomo Purbo, the director of the Centre for Vulcanology and Disaster Mitigation in Yogjakarta, declined to speculate on when that would happen. "I'm a scientist, not a clairvoyant," he said. "There's a possibility it might just happen without any warning."
Senior police visited Mr Marijan at his home in Kinahrejo, the highest village on the peak, to try to persuade him to leave. But he laughed off their warnings.
"We cannot walk ahead of God," he said. "Making estimates is not allowed."
Merapi is steeped in mythology. The summit of the mountain is inhabited by spirits of the dead, Mr Marijan explained. Every year he carries out a ritual, offering cones of mountain rice and sacrificing chickens.
"Merapi is the heart of the universe," he said. "The smoke is like the breath of the universe.
"Merapi is stable, it's not trying to scare people. All I can do is ask almighty God that if Merapi erupts, debris will not endanger the community."
But with about 100 tremors a day shaking the mountain, the authorities are less philosophical.
The Sultan of Yogjakarta and the provincial governor, Hamengkubuwono X, said: "With this new status there is no other choice. All people whose areas are vulnerable have to come down."
At least 9,000 have done so, mostly women, children and the elderly.
Access roads on the mountain have been closed, and Kaliurang, the largest settlement on the upper slopes, is a ghost town.
More than 2,000 refugees are crammed into the office and three schools of Hargobinangun on the lower slopes.
But many of the men, fearful of looting and the loss of their livestock, are staying in their homes. In Kinahrejo, entire families are following their spiritualist neighbour's example.
With her two-year-old daughter cradled in a sling around her shoulders, Warni, 21, explained: "We have three cows. If we leave the house nobody will take care of them."
Her husband, Ambal, 26, said: "We're not scared, we're used to it. But when it happens we will run."
I'm reminded of the old salt on Mount St Helens, Harry Truman who wouldn't leave. There's still no trace of him.
Imbedded in tons of debris just like Bin Laden.
This is central Java where mysticism has a very deeprooted hold of the people even though they are nominally Muslims.
I know everyone in Free Republic has to have the obligatory sneer whenever the moderate nature of Indonesian Islam is mentioned but this belief in spiritualism is the reason why Indonesia is no Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. The people of Indonesia are Muslim in the same way that Haitians are Catholic, sure the local mosque might be where they go on a Friday but when there's a problem that needs fixing, a cow that won't calve or a sick child, you can be sure it's the local "dukun" or witchdoctor they call on rather than the village imam.
Of course such a refusal to give up the old superstitions drive the Wahabis in Saudi crazy that's why they have spent millions in building mosques all over the country to bring them into line, but on the whole Indonesia is still refreshingly free of the fundamentalism of Arab countries, though I am not complacent enough to believe that it will never change.
"And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? "
Isaiah 8:19
What is interesting is that even in Bandar Aceh--where Islam has the strongest roots--I've read stories saying that many Imams there still are a bit perplexed that the locals still have very strong traditional beliefs. It's akin to the situation in central Mexico, where many rural people have both strong Catholic and traditional Aztec beliefs at the same time.
Twenty years ago I was in Yogyakarta and actually had dinner with the sultan in his palace. What you say is quite true. Back then at least you could still find animistic practices in the city -- people bringing offerings to the sacred albino turtle, etc. -- and in the mountain villages there were troops that did trance dances to induce rain and so on.
I also met quite a few Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists. Indonesian culture is very syncretic. There was a batik artist who had done large panels in a semi-traditional style illustrating scenes from the Book of Mormon. Also, I met a maker of shadow puppets who had done characters from the Iliad, after learning the story from an American. (Stories from the Ramayana were more typical -- despite this being a Muslim island.)
Driving around eastern Java one did run into towns and cities where the Muslims were more organized, with all or most of the schoolgirls in headscarves, but this was the exception.
Yes that is very much the case, the headscarf is becoming more common now, the efforts of the Saudis in their mosque building is paying off and there is an increased attempt to islamise some laws in Indonesia. That is why I am far from complacent about Indonesia's future, but nonetheless it is not the crazy jihadi nation that some contributors to this and other likeminded forums like to describe.
As regards Indonesian superstition and spiritualism I often think of my own Irish grandmother, as pious and devoted a Catholic as you could want to meet but who nonetheless talked freely about the banshees and the little people and fairies and the like which she remembered from when she was growing up. Sometimes I think we in the west, with our sophisticated modern lifestyles forget how close we are in fact to this more primitive world.
By the way kudos for dining with the Sultan.
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