THE JELANGKUNG RITUAL
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Photo by Eric Deeran on Unsplash
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Jelangkung is a very old ritual
which has existed for at least 1500 years. In Belitung,
such ritual is performed in a full moon night. Young people like it a lot
because they will be able to communicate with the spirits of the dead.
Before the ritual, they should
prepare a wooden puppet. The jelangkung puppet is made of a coconut half-shell
and two wooden sticks.
First, draw a face on the coconut shell
and tie the wooden sticks to make a cross. The coconut shell needs to be
attached to the cross, and then tie a pen or marker at the lower end of the wooden
cross. After that, put a bunch of keys on the neck of the puppet and dress it with
used clothes.
Such ritual is usually performed by
three or four people. They go to find a quiet place, so that nobody will
disturb them when the ritual starts.
In the moonlight, they take out glutinous rice, cakes, tea or arrack and put them on the ground. After burning
kemenyan (incense), two people stand on the left and right holding the jelangkung
puppet.
One of them stands in front of the
puppet and say, “Jelangkung, jelangsing, we have a small party and invite you
to play with us. You may come if you want and go if you feel bored. If you join
our party, please move your body to tell us that you’re here.”
While the wooden puppet is loaded
with a spirit, it feels a little heavy and starts swaying back and forth. The
people who hold the jelangkung puppet may lower their hands to let the pen or
marker touch the paper below. It will draw symbols or mysteriously write a
person’s name or something else.
Whenever the spirit write some signs
and symbols which are not easy to understand, just guess and interpret them as
capable as you can. Don’t be too sure of your interpretation because it is
only a probable outcome.
The spirit that you invite may write
in Indonesian, English or Mandarin or other languages. You may ask the spirit
to leave if you don’t understand the words or sentences written on the paper.
In China, people call this ritual Cai
Lan Gong. For Cai Lan Gong, you use a bamboo basket instead of a wooden puppet.
The pen or marker is attached to the base of the bamboo basket. Cai Lan Gong has
long been considered extinct in China.
Perhaps you won’t have the chance to see such a ritual anymore if you visit China.
If you like horror, I recommend you watch the Indonesian Jelangkung movies. There you can see how people invite
spirits at haunted places.
The strange bamboo basket on the wall
A friend of mine had ever tried to
play Jelangkung with a bamboo basket. After he returned home, he hung the
basket on the wall.
He couldn’t sleep well and heard
strange sound on the wall as though the basket were moving back and forth, but
there was no wind blew in from outside.
He got up from bed and slightly
opened the door. He looked at the basket on the wall. He waited for quite a
while, but the basket remained silent.
While he lay down on bed, he heard
the strange sound again. It was very disturbing and made him hard to close his
eyes. He didn’t dare to go to peep at the bamboo basket the second time. He lay
with his eyes wide open the whole night until the roosters crowed at daybreak.
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