In spite of the bad reputation inflicted on them both by reformist Islam and by the coming of demystified society [22] , supernatural beings still constitute a part of village life. They have been able to imprint their existence on the villagers' belief system, expressing their willingness to assist them. The lack of public conversation about them makes it difficult for outsiders to appraise the present state of belief in supernatural beings in villagers' worldview. A rare chance to understand it, however, came from an unexpected quarter: a traditional art called jathilan or jaranan.
The jathilan is a collective group dance where the performers ride bamboo horses and experience a state of trance in the course of dancing. Formerly, it was mainly performed by a professional itinerant troupe (Geertz,1976,296-7; see also Koentjaraningrat,1985a:211). However, the pendulum has swung from the professional to the amateur and from streets and markets to villages. It is now ordinary villagers living in rural areas who organise their own troupes and perform it sporadically whenever a request is made to them.
Several factors seem to be responsible for the recent popularity of the jathilan group amongst rural villagers. First, the government has encouraged villagers to participate in a program to preserve traditional art. [23] Second, as the general economic situation has improved, more villagers have tended to celebrate certain private occasions such as circumcision, entrance to university and getting a job, by sponsoring an art performance. This is not a new trend since wayang (shadow play) performances were held for the same purpose. However, the cost of wayang, which is about ten times higher than other folk arts such as a gamelan orchestra, slawatan, kethoprak and jathilan, makes its celebration difficult. [24] Third, the jathilan is more dynamic than other traditional arts and appeals easily to youngsters who have much time to idle away, freed as they are from productive labor. Fourth, it is relatively easy and inexpensive to form a jathilan group. Three or four kinds of musical instruments, 8 bamboo horses, 2 topeng (wooden masks) and costumes for 8-12 performers are the minimum requisites to establish a new group. Whatever the exact reason, the popularity of jathilan has been extraordinary. In 1993-94, five hamlets among nineteen in Sumber founded their own jathilan groups.
Before the beginning of the performance, eight horses are placed at the center of an open ground, making two rows. Offerings to supernatural beings are placed near where gamelan musicians take their seats, facing the horses. When the music starts, eight performers come out of the house and kneel beside the horses. Each of them grips a wooden stick with their right hand and holds the neck of the horse with their left one. The changing rhythm of music signals the commencement of the performance. All the performers stand up and begin their dances, locating the bamboo horse between their thighs as if they were riding a horse. Different footsteps and diverse motions of hands and head bring variations to their dance. Within a few minutes, the riders are divided into two parties and enact a war scene. [25] They are drawn into a series of combats in which they strike one another with their bamboo sticks. This act reaches its end when one rider leads an abrupt assault on the opposite party, which is followed by all the other performers. Clashing together, they fall down on the ground. It is at this moment of chaos that supernatural beings are said to enter the performers' bodies. Possession is recognised by their paralysed bodies.
A massage makes the performers recover from their paralysis. After recovery, the movements of the performers are thought to be controlled by supernatural beings. Some show their extraordinary capacities by biting off the outer shell of a coconut with their teeth, by chewing pieces of glass, by holding a chicken in their mouths and sometimes by walking on coals with bare feet. Others behave in an uninhibited fashion, by chasing after girls, climbing a tree, making exaggerated facial and bodily expressions and so on.The more incredible their feats or passions are, the greater the applause they receive from the audience. As the play continues, some members of the audience who are grasped and pushed down on the ground by the riders are also possessed. They join the original performers and dance in a state of possession. The performance goes on until the last dancer is freed from possession by a pawang [26] , which normally takes around an hour and half. Therefore, a jathilan group can play four or five times a day, from 10 in the morning till 5 or 6 in the afternoon, attracting huge audiences.
It was Pak Silo who initiated a plea for establishing a jathilan group in Kolojonggo. At first, his move originated from his personal desire to strengthen his weak position among villagers. He and his wife were university graduates, a condition sufficient to give them high social status in village life. However, they were not born in this village, which caused them to be treated, according to their own evaluation, improperly for their high qualifications. [27] To compensate for this weakness, Pak Silo has attempted to organise art groups since he moved into this village. He established a kethoprak group andthen, a gamelan group, over which he lost control after the groups got started. The jathilan was the next item that he relied on for the same purpose. As his personal motive implies, it was not his commitment to the traditional belief system and ilmu which lay behind his initiative in establishing a jathilan group. On the contrary, he was proud of his modernity stemming from his education and had never showed interest in supernatural beings before he set out to found the group.
When he announced his intention to launch a jathilan group, it was greeted enthusiastically by the younger generation, already acquainted with this art form. At the first preparatory meeting, villagers from their early teens to their early thirties were present en masse. From that time on, they collected donations from villagers, made costumes and topeng and practised gamelan music and the horse dance under a temporary pawang whom Pak Silo invited from the neighbouring kecamatan.
When the jathilan became a hot public issue before and shortly after its foundation, scepticism dominated discussion about the state of possession during the horse dance. Many villagers, especially those in their twenties and thirties, considered it to be a fake originating from collective hallucination or from the alcohol that the performers drank before the beginning of a performance, both of which made them brave enough to behave in an abnormal manner. Pak Sri enumerated several points which caused him to suspect possession was not supernatural:
The performers who were said to be possessed (dadi) knew exactly who the pretty girls were and they only chased after them. If they had been really possessed, how could they do so? ... Only a few among the performers were said to be possessed. If they were in the same situation while dancing, why were all of them not possessed? It is said that those who are in bodily contact with the possessed man and pushed down on the ground by him will also be possessed. However, I've never seen any of the assistants of the jathilan group [28] possessed, although they stumbled over the possessed performers accidentally. ... There are so many things which make me doubt the actuality of possession. Seeing the performers whom I know well, I get an impression that they pretend to be possessed with the help of alcohol which might lessen their feelings of shame in public.
After the jathilan group did their regular performance, more youngsters were involved in it, and their experiences of possession spread to other villagers, a side effect which was not anticipated by Pak Silo and other members began to appear among villagers, namely, the disappearance of sceptical or 'I-doubt-it' attitudes. Most villagers believed that possession during the performance was real and that it was triggered by supernatural beings, although no consensus was reached on the identity of the supernatural beings who were responsible for it.
The reformist villagers were certain that the responsibility lay in the heathen jinn or satan, whose duty was to entice human beings. As the performers did not use reason (akal), emptied their heads and followed their physical desires (nafsu), all of which were not recommended behaviour for Muslims, they argued that Muslims should distance themselves from the jathilan, as they fought against the temptation of satan. Others who were less active in Islamic activities used the neutral term, 'invisible being' (makluk halus), to explain the possessing beings, while their specific names were not agreed upon. Even the main body of the jathilan group in Kolojonggo did not have any conclusive idea of them. Its members generally thought of them as supernatural beings residing in certain places such as a cemetery, river, tree, or the yard where they performed. This lack of consensus among the jathilan members arose from the fact that no one in its organising body had deep knowledge of supernatural beings and that they failed to incorporate someone who was famous for his ilmu as an ideologue of their group. Accordingly, they took their experience of possession for granted rather than tried to explain it systematically.
The same situation did not apply in the jathilan group in Pasekan, a hamlet on the southern side of Kolojonggo. Soon after its foundation, the jathilan group in Kolojonggo achieved remarkable popularity in this area, which naturally caused the youth in Pasekan to decide to have their own group. In this process, they were lucky enough to include Pak Atin, the famous wong pinter living in Pasekan, as a pawang of their group. As a result, the jathilan members in Pasekan shared a more systematic explanation for their own performance which originated with Pak Atin. Asked about supernatural beings in the jathilan, Pak Atin replied as follows:
Before the day of the performance, various supernatural beings visit my house, disclosing their wishes of me, such as for specific drinks, foods, flowers or something else. If they are satisfied with what is offered to them [the offering made by the host of the jathilan], no serious problem occurs during the performance. They observe the agreement made between me and themselves. If they are not satisfied, however, it takes longer for me to control the situation. As it is my side that breaks the agreement first, I have to fight with these beings who are angry at this maltreatment. ... Therefore, which supernatural beings are responsible for a specific performance can be decided only when they visit my place, registering themselves with me. They are sometimes those living in the area where the performance will be celebrated, while in other cases, they are the souls of the deceased.
Ordinary members of this group had the same ideas as Pak Atin. They knew more about the reasons and the process of possession, the methods for expelling invisible beings and other extraordinary things happening during the performance than their counterparts in Kolojonggo. A high school student had a clearer idea than Pak Silo about why the performers in the jathilan group of Kolojonggo did not speak when they were possessed:
It is because they [the jathilan group in Kolojonggo] made a permanent contract with a dhemit [29] who will safeguard the performance from possible interference from other supernatural beings. As a result, interferences from an unexpected roh (dead soul) who wishes to talk through the mouth of the possessed performers have not occurred unlike cases in our group. ... Until now, they are quite fortunate since roh who have higher ilmu than their guardian dhemit do not visit their performance place. If it happened, it would be a catastrophe for them. The ilmu of the pawang [in Kolojonggo] is not strong enough to control this accident. What he did was just to make a pact with the dhemit and to keep that relation.
There is an interesting point to be made about the development of the jathilan group in Kolojonggo. Its initiator was not a man who had close relations with supernatural beings such as a dhukun but one who stood somewhat against it. His original intention was also far from that of reviving a traditional belief system. The youth reacted enthusiastically to it not because they were curious about supernatural beings and wanted explanations for the experiences beyond their reason, an attitude demonstrated by their lack of interest in understanding the rationale behind possession. Instead, they pursued it as fun and enjoyed the severance from daily life which emphasises refined ways of behaviour. However, despite this naiveté, the effect of the jathilan has been remarkable. It has reaffirmed the existence of supernatural beings. Moreover, the supernatural beings they support are not an abstract and moralistic image of supernatural beings as the reformist villagers hold, but concrete and vivid images which were common before the surge of reformist Islam. [30] In brief, the jathilan has strengthened the traditional identity of supernatural beings, helping them to resist an attack from reformist Islam which has tried to equate them with the jinn and satan.
I had another chance to look at the present position of supernatural beings when the anak masjid performed three dramas for children, commemorating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad and the end of Fasting Month, and consolidating the brotherhood among Muslims. A brief summary of these three dramas is as follows:
[The first drama]
Parjo, the only child of a poor peasant, hated his life in the village and yearned for a new life in the city. In spite of the objection of his father, he left his house and headed for the city, making a promise that he would fetch his father when he became rich. In the city, he seduced the daughter of a rich businessman and succeeded in marrying her, hiding his village background from her family. One day, two street musicians from his village happened to visit his house to ask for money. Not recognising them, Parjo treated them harshly and expelled them from the door. They returned to their village and told this story to Parjo's father who had been eager to meet his son. Hearing the news that his son had become rich, he headed for his son's house. However, Parjo pretended not to know his father. In front of his wife, he denied his father and drove him out of his house, cursing and beating him. It was not long before Parjo was seized with an unknown disease, which could not be cured by the doctor. As the last resort, his wife fetched the dhukun. Using his heirloom (pusaka) and uttering magical formula, the dhukun began to diagnose his disease.
Dhukun: If the situation is like this, I am not brave enough to treat it. My magical spell is not strong. Serious, really serious! This is not ordinary sickness. His disease originated from his inner self since he was disobedient (berani) to his parent.
Parjo's Wife: Oh, it is certain that the old man who came before is the father of Parjo.
Dhukun: Right, as is written in my pusaka.
Parjo: I don't believe in an obscene dhukun (dhukun cabul) like you. My sickness might be from sprain.
Dhukun: Listen to my words! If one is disobedient (berani) to his parents, his fate is like this. There is no way to cure this disease except for the help of the man whom you have hurt. In fact, you are cursed (kualat) due to your behaviour. Cursed!
Parjo: What? Being cursed! Please, help me, Pak Dhukun. I ask forgiveness.
The drama ended happily. The dhukun brought Parjo's father, who at last forgave his son.
[The second drama]
Murni was a daughter of a poor peasant who could not afford her education nor wanted to do so. She had to go to the house of Wanti whose father was rich to borrow books and other materials. There, Murni was mocked by Wanti. Although she returned home with a broken heart, her parents did not bother about it much. Then, there came the final exam. Murni was fortunate to pass it whereas Wanti was not. Hearing that his daughter failed the exam, Wanti's father became furious and swore at his wife and Wanti. This caused Wanti to became hysterical, which could not be treated by doctors. Then she was taken to the dhukun who could not cure it, either. At last, her family took Wanti to the pesantren. Hearing the story, the kiyai asked his pupil to bring the Quran and a glass of water. He recited some verses in front of the glass of water and ordered Wanti to drink it, which made it possible for her to recover her consciousness. Then, the kiyai gave advice to Wanti and her family about the importance of educating children and of adopting the teaching of Allah in everyday life. After returning from the pesantren, Wanti visited Murni's house to apologise for her arrogant behaviour.
[The third drama]
Every day Harto gambled and spent money. One day, returning from gambling, he asked his father to sell the house and paddy field to pay his debt and for more gambling, arguing that the property would be his upon his parents' death. Being pressed by Harto, his father died from stress. Not regretting what he did to his father, Harto coaxed his mother and two sisters to give up their right of inheritance. As they rejected his proposal, he expelled them from their house and sold the paddy fields. As a result of his bad behaviour, he was cursed (kualat) by his dead father, which caused his two legs to be paralysed. When he begged money from the passers-by in the street, he met three girls whom he had known before. Seeing Harto's pitiful situation, they started to mock him. Filled with shame, Harto fled from them. His mother, returning home with two daughters, heard the story of Harto and tried to find him. When they met at last, Harto regretted truly what he had done before. The three girls who had ridiculed him also asked forgiveness of him for their wrong behaviour.
Originally, these stories were intended to convey several Islamic ideas on the duties of Muslims: obedience to their parents (drama 1); the importance of the right education and the danger of being arrogant (sombong) (drama 2); and prohibition against gambling, the importance of repentance of one's sins and readiness to forgive each other for wrong deeds (drama 3). However, the selections of the motifs which enabled the dramas to proceed to their conclusions, namely, dhukun, kiyai and kualat (cursing from the dead father) were not congruent with the messages that they were intended to convey. In other words, they resorted to non-Islamic elements to transmit Islamic teachings. [31]
This raises a question as to why non-Islamic motifs were used to express Islamic lessons in religious events. In considering this question, it should be emphasised that the non-Islamic motifs were inserted into the dramas extemporaneously rather than intentionally. The anak masjid who created these stories did not have any intention, for example, of displaying the efficacy of the dhukun's practice. In everyday life, they do not show any interest in supernatural beings nor do they want to follow ilmu. Rather, they attack the practice of the dhukun and villagers' dependence on them.
The inclusion of non-Islamic elements can be interpreted as an indicator that the Muslim youth are not wholly freed from the influence of the traditional worldview. As Islamic development in Kolojonggo is quite recent, they have grown up and spent much of their time in a social environment which was oriented less to reformist Islam but in which supernatural beings played an important part. As a result, their reformist orientation has been inculcated by exposure to education rather than acquired through their socialisation process. This has given birth to a state in which they can, at the conscious level, harmonise their thought and behaviour with reformist ideology, while the traditional worldview is still a part of their disposition as Durkheim puts it:
In each one of us, in differing degrees, is contained the person we were yesterday, and indeed, in the nature of things it is even true that our past personae predominate in us, since the present is necessarily insignificant when compared with the long period of the past because of which we have emerged in the form we have today. It is just that we don't directly feel the influence of these past selves precisely because they are so deeply rooted within us. They constitute the unconscious part of ourselves. ... ... with the most recent acquisitions of civilisation we are vividly aware of them just because they are recent and consequently have not had time to be assimilated into our collective unconscious. [32]
This does not mean that the anak masjid have the same syncretic religious outlook as many of their predecessors had, where Islamic and non-Islamic ideas were mixed together without conflict (Geertz,1976:40). In the case of the anak masjid, the mixture is a rather stratified one: Islamic elements are dominant but other non-Islamic elements are not excluded as unthinkable. In brief, the cases of the jathilan and dramas show that supernatural beings have not been expelled from village life as a result of their encounter with reformist Islam. Although they have been placed in an unfavourable position, they have not lost their grip over villagers, at least, up to this point.
One crucial factor which has made it possible for supernatural beings to maintain their influence over villagers is that their efficacy has not been negated by most villagers. They are still believed to have the ability to assist villagers who desperately seek every means possible to solve their problems. There are many success stories about villagers who received assistance from supernatural beings and attained certain goals. Moreover, these praiseworthy services are done almost for nothing. Flowers, incense and small offerings of foods are enough to satisfy supernatural beings, supplemented by small gifts for the dhukun, if the assistance is sought by way of him. Within the limitless capabilities of supernatural beings, and in frequent demand by the villagers are: to find lost things, to cure sicknesses that cannot be treated properly in the hospital, to cause someone be selected for a vacant post, to increase wealth, to predict the number of the lottery [33] , and to attract the other sex. Below are two examples of villagers who sought the service of supernatural beings by way of the dhukun:
[case 1: position] Pak Bari, a person who has the largest sawah in Kolojonggo, decided to apply for a vacancy in the kelurahan office. It was his life's dream to be a government official, in that he wanted to convert his wealth into social status which can only be achieved by taking a position in government office. In the written test, he was ranked as the second among eight candidates. However, it was just the beginning. He had to compete with two others who also passed the same test. According to popular perceptions, success in the next selection process of interview is dependent on one's economic capability and one's connection with the interviewers. It was not so difficult for him to prepare 3 million Rupiah, guaranteed to be fully refundable. However, he was not so sure about his selection only with money since the other competitors were also capable of raising money. As the date for the interview approached, he came to be more and more anxious. With advice from his family, he at last made two long journeys to East and Central Java where, according to him, the most powerful (sakti) dhukun lived. There, he received an ilmu to attract the interviewers, consisting of a spell, a method of practising the fast and several prohibitions. He followed the ascetic exercise sincerely until the day of interview. However, he was not successful in being selected as a kelurahan official. Recounting this long story, Pak Bari briefly commented that his religiosity had not been strong at that time and, if an opportunity arose again, he would not follow the same course, but would only pray to God for the realisation of his dream.
[case 2: lost things] Pak Sodo lost his wallet in his work-place. At first, he thought that it had just fallen on the ground and would be returned to him the next day. Several days passed, but there was no news. He thought more about that day and at last recalled someone who might have stolen it. After this, he used several indirect measures to make the culprit return his wallet. A week passed but there was no sign that the culprit was impressed by his action. At last, he visited Pak Akir who was known as a wong pinter. Hearing what he said, Pak Akir raised his right hand and began to swing it over his head. After going round several times, his hand stopped at a certain point, indicating the direction of the thief's house. The direction pointed out by Pak Akir was the one where the house of the culprit was located. After this, it took a few more minutes for Pak Akir, waking from his silence, to begin to talk about the fate of his lost wallet: most of money was already spent but the thief intended to return it. As the thief was ashamed of his behaviour, it would take a few more days for him to return it. Listening to this advice, Pak Sodo decided to wait. It was not long before a note was delivered to him, on which was written the address of someone whom he did not know but who was said to have custody of his lost wallet.
As the above cases show, the efficacy of supernatural beings is not denied by villagers as an option for assistance. In this circumstance, the efforts of the reformist villagers focus on making an 'ethical person': one who, although admitting the power of supernatural beings, does not make use of them. The case of Pak Ibrahim, compared to Pak Sodo in case 2, exemplifies who the 'ethical person' is:
Pak Ibrahim's sister-in-law lost his bike at a street stall. As the theft happened in a street, it was quite difficult for him to track down the thief. A few days after this theft, he mentioned why he did not take any further action to find it: 'I thought a lot about this problem. Sometimes, I was eager to visit someone [dhukun] who would be able to help me to find my lost bike or I was almost ready to do some lelakon to disturb the thief and get my bike back. But soon, I changed my mind. I knew it was not the right way to do so. ... Instead, I just added additional prayers at the end of my regular ones, asking Allah that my bike would be brought back. If my prayers are accepted by Allah, the thief will return it to me. If not, it is the intention of Allah to let my bike be lost, which I cannot do anything about.'
The focus of this section was put on the position of supernatural beings in present village life. As the cases of jathilan and three dramas performed by the anak masjid demonstrate, supernatural beings still retain their grip over villagers and are not excluded as 'unthinkable'. One of the factors which help supernatural beings maintain a position in village life is their ability to intrude in human affairs, the efficacy of which is admitted by almost all villagers. In this situation, the emphasis of the reformist villagers is put on making an ethical person, whose religious piety is strong enough, to resist temptation to ask assistance of supernatural beings.
Recently in Kolojonggo, the efficacy of supernatural beings which reformist Islam has not been able to deny, has started to be challenged from an unexpected side: the rise of villagers who pursue ilmu in different ways from that of the dhukun. [34] Their presence may bring a more fatal result to belief in supernatural beings than the surge of reformist Islam since their basic tenet is to bypass supernatural beings in order to seek ilmu. In the section below, the diversification of those who seek ilmu and their specific ideational systems will be discussed.