By Mauliya Risalaturrohmah
Ouidah, historically called Whydah, Juda, Juida, Ajuda, which is formally the Kingdom of Whydah (the name for the Whydah Bird of Paradise), is a city in Benin. Ouidah has become a relaxed and prosperous beach town with sweeping expanses of golden sand to laze upon. It is considered as the Voodoo capital of Benin. Ouidah is known as a mecca of spirits and gods that are worshipped by the adherents of Voodoo, a religion coming from the West Africa. Voodoo is also called as ‘vodoun,’ and practices associated with it can be seen through the street of Ouidah. The city is known as the spiritual capital of the vodoun religion, and hosts an annual International Vodoun conference. “Every January, thousands of voodoo worshipers joined by crowds of tourists and descendants of slaves head to the Gate of No Return monument in Ouidah in Benin. Erected in 1992 in memory of those packed on ships bound for the New World, it is a living reminder that the small Beninese coastal town of Ouidah once was the muster point for the black slave trade on the southern coast of West Africa.” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZBfTmO_zeU]. Interestingly, the changes in local representations of Voodoo identity have been constructed and influenced by commercial interests within Voodoo itself. In practice, people seem to commercialize the aspects of the religion for the tourism industry. As stated by Bell [2012: 99], when certain cultures are put on display, people themselves are viewed as the obstacle for the progress which tourism wishes to bring about. Now, promotions for tourists are developed by citizens in the area. In fact, the International Voodoo festival was originally celebrated mainly by locals, but now many tourists also join the Voodoo rituals. The slogan that proclaims that Ouidah is the Mecca of Benin, and this is also stated by one of the guides of the Temple of Pythons named Jean Zossoujbo. This is why I call Ouidah a mecca of spirit or the religious Mecca of Benin; locals do not only host their annual festival but visitors can also access other sacred places. For example, one can tour the sacred forest that is used during the Voodoo rites. The forest is not accessible to the public, but tourists can enter with the help of a guide who explains the spiritual meaning of the site. The Temple of Python is another site that tourists can visit. For 3.00 USD, visitors get a guide who will take them around and inside the temple to see the python, a snake which is recognized as a totem in Benin, and an important animal in the religion of Voodoo. Hence, it is forbidden to kill a python because it is thought it will cause bad luck local residents. Although for some pythons are feared, in Ouidah the python is not seen as harmful but rather is respected. Ouidah is a site that displays the mixing of beliefs and practices that represent both a clash of cultures and the ability for ancient traditional beliefs to adapt to modern life. In other words, what has been maintained by Voodoo practitioners is influenced by local's strong effort to combine what they believe to be their religion [Voodoo] and what they have preserved as tradition from their ancestors. Local practitioners highlight the religious nature of their practices: Djabassi Manonwomin has stated that “It is like we are sending all the evil in the country, on the continent, away. The people today are corrupt, we can see that. It it is from the old days, but now more open. More people are hungry (for corruption). They put their beliefs in front of themselves.” Furthermore, labeling Ouidah as the Mecca of Benin has become a way to promote some sites in Voodoo that have previously not been exposed to the general public. According to Hollinshead in Kravanja (p. 199), “the politics of imaginary, iconology, fashions, and values regimes by which the tourist industry in general makes, un-makes, and re-makes locals are becoming more and more complex.” By wearing spectacular and colorful costumes, people celebrate the Voodoo festival in Benin at the beach, as it is recognized as the heart of Voodoo in West Africa and the site of the birth of Voodoo in Benin. This festival is also completed by the spirit of ‘Egungun’ from the Yoruba clan coming from Nigeria. Egungun is represented by the dancer representing the spirit of Yoruba, believed in Nigeria as being built from earth and giving guidance to human beings http://www.anehdidunia.com/2012/10/festival-voodoo-spektakuler-menyeramkan.html. The festival has been held since 1997, and is attended by by people who seek the blessing of the head of Voodoo practice in Ouidah. The ritual starts with slaughtering a goat which is offered to the spirits. Some of the religious followers are indistinguishable from the tourists. Although tourism brings benefits to places like Ouidah, I think that it is hard to find the value of spirituality when there are outsiders joining in these religious rituals just to satisfy their curiosity. By looking at some rituals of celebration in Ouidah, Benin, it seems people consider that these festivals are very attractive to international tourists. There is one tourist coming from America said that “Actually Voodo is a national religion. And it is not about the negative aspect of putting pins in dolls and working magic for evil. The people who practice Voodo are lovely people, they are very kind [Gail Hardison].” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZBfTmO_zeU. From some of the videos I watched about the interaction between tourism and Voodoo, I learned that that not all people who practive Voodo have the financial ability to hold the main rituals that become tourist objects in a luxurious way. Some people attempted to take their children to work outside Ouidah to earn money in order to be able to hold this ritual. One of the top head of the Voodoo ritual explained that “to hold the ritual is like going to university, people must pay for it since it is spiritual education for them.” It means that people must prepare and spend large amounts of money to hold this ritual each year. It is like what Bell [2002: 98] says we can see as a dynamic that creates an inharmonious social and political environment in which the two groups [guests and hosts] do not have shared interests and lifestyles. Voodoo practitioners in Ouidah are maintaining their own culture, not just producing culture for tourism. Not all rituals to commemorate Voodoo are held in public, there are still the traditions that are held in private moments in the home and are invested in by locals for the sake of their spiritual well-being. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouidah https://www.lonelyplanet.com/benin/ouidah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv6EmX7dYLg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZBfTmO_zeU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67_WYt28Bhk http://www.voodoospiritualtemple.org/about-us.html https://unseenbenin.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/the-temple-of-python-in-ouidah/ written by Leila Abdoulaye http://www.anehdidunia.com/2012/10/festival-voodoo-spektakuler-menyeramkan.html http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/11/snakes-sacrifices-and-sales-benin-voodoo-festival-is-vibrant-mix.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVzBWHLmQ2Ehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVzBWHLmQ2E Hollinshead in Kravanja, Bostjan. 2002. On Conception of Paradise and the Tourist Spaces of Southern Sri Lanka. Nanzan University. Asian Ethology, Vol.71, No.2, pp. 179-205 [in part of additional notes in page 199] Bell, Elizabeth R. 2012. “Pirates of Our Spirituality”: The 2012 Apocalypse and the Value of Heritage in Guatemala. Sage Publications, Inc. Latin American Perspectives, Vol.39, No.6, TOURISM, GENDER, AND ETHNICITY, pp. 96-108.
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By Devi Muslianty
In the Javanese language, ‘lethek’ means dirty, but in this case the word ‘lethek’ is used as an analogy for something that is deformed, unable to be repaired, or not in pristine condition. The word candi in Indonesian normally refers to worship places from the Hindu-Buddhist period, including pre-Islamic buildings. Candi Cetho is located in the hamlet of Cetho, Gumeng village, Jenawi district, Karanganyar regency in the Central Java province. This candi is associated with Hinduism and is found at an altitude of about 1496 meters above sea level. The ruins of Candi Cetho were rediscovered during the colonial period. At that time, the candi was a stone ruin settled on fourteen terraces (punden or punden berundak) extending from the west (the lowest) to the east, although at the present there are only thirteen punden berundak, and restoration of the temple was only undertaken on sections situated on nine of the punden berundak. In an interview with a lecturer in Anthropology at Gadjah Mada University, I was told that Candi Cetho is considered to be a candi lethek, because the candi had been restored without the advice of experts in archaeology during the Soeharto era. At that time, the restoration was based on a vision called a wangsit, a kind of sacred mandate that was to guide the restoration of the candi. Under the guide of this vision, many of the original structures and the appearance of Candi Cetho were changed. Additionally, Regent Rina Iriani’s project, added a Saraswati statue to one Cetho’s punden as a part of an effort to promote tourism. In the eyes of experts, these changes exacerbate the 'deformed' state of Candi Cetho. Visitors to Candi Cetho come from Karanganyar and other towns around the region, like Solo, Wonogiri, Ngawi, Magetan, Sragen, and Klaten. They have to pay about ten thousand rupiah (.75 USD) to enter the site. When I visited Candi Cetho, I found that the tourists who visit the candi fall into a few different categories. There are the common tourists that Margry calls “secular pilgrims,” those who go to pilgrimage sites without feeling any religious ties to the place because there is no relation between that site and what they believe, however, they may visit sites for a spiritual experience (2008:20). Pilgrims like me tend to visit the site for religious and touristic purposes at the same time. The last category of visitors are the pious pilgrims who visit the candi with the strong religious motivations. In conversation, the secular pilgrims I spoke to said that they went to Candi Cetho to search for serenity and to see the natural beauty of the mountain, and for common tourists, they hoped to enjoy the view from the candi. Others said that they visited because it was part of their tour schedule on a holiday trip, one tourism destination in Karanganyar. For me, visiting Cetho is both entertainment and worship all at once, something to do in my free time. This is different from the kejawen believers that I met, who worship at Candi Cetho routinely, as a part of the regular ritual practice in their religion. Usually, the main place they use for worship at Candi Cetho is Candi Kethek. Kethek means monkey in Javanese. Candi Kethek was built on northeast side of Candi Cetho. Another group of pilgrims I encountered while at the site were from a Hindu community located in Yogyakarta. They were at Cetho to perform the Tirtayatra, a Hindu practice done on journeys to sacred places or pilgrimage sites. Most of the visitor that I interviewed said that they were unaware of the reconstruction that changed the front structure of the candi. A few of the religious pilgrims were aware of these changes, but they weren’t concerned by them. For these pilgrims, the spirit of Candi Cetho is most important aspect for their ritual. The authenticity of Candi Cetho as a structure is not an issue. In their opinion, it is impossible to avoid the influence of tourism. As Bruner said, tourism can produce a ‘new’ authenticity (Bruner 1994:407). The value and history of the transformation of a tourism object will produce new meanings for the object. New meanings can then formulate a new kind of identity. In my opinion, agent of transformation in the case of Candi Cetho is the government. Government institutions view the candi as a historical site, and their case was strengthened by the 2010 Law on Heritage No 11. The law states that heritage is something that needs to be maintained, and can be used for many interests because it has academic value, historical value, and is attractive to tourists. Therefore it is not suprising if secular pilgrims perceived the candi through its ‘new identity’, as a historical monument, a place to looking for serenity, and a tourism destination. Government institutions that manage the site treat all of the visitors equally as visitors to a historical tourist site, even those who use the site as a place of worship. This means those who go to Candi Cetho for the purpose of performing religious rituals also have to pay the entry fee to the site. However, it is the local community around Cetho that voluntarily maintains the candi. Most of them are Hindu, although others in the community from different religious backgrounds also join in caring for the temple. According to them, Candi Cetho is the home of their “grandmother”, an ancestor spirit. Maintaining Candi Cetho means maintaining their ancestor spirit’s home, no matter what their religion affiliation or belief. In addition, people in the local community also believe that Cetho is a gate to the invisible kingdom of Brawijaya V who reached moksa and still dwells on Mount Lawu. Contestation over the site emerged due to different perpectives towards the candi. When government institutions began to treat the candi as just a historical monument, the religious communities who used the candi to worship were sidelined. They also were required to pay the entrance fee as though they were just a regular visitor or tourist. On the other hand, when the government involved people around the candi to work as entrance attendants, the locals received some economic benefit. I assume this is the government’s way of maintaining their policy. As Digance notes in her article on contestation over pilgrimage tourist sites, the power of access, the struggle of representing nationality, and the human right to freedom of religion and self-determination are some of the reasons why pilgrimage sites might become contested spaces (Digance 2003:149). She writes that contestation can become conflict among different types of visitors: pilgrims, tourists, traditional religious pilgrims and secular pilgrims. Conflict can also be caused by commercial interests, the actions of volunteer organizations, and government management. The candi for us is a place of worship. When government institutions reimagine a site as a tourist destination, we feel that the government ignores our religion and our rights. Governments treat us as the same as tourists, and neglect our need to perform rituals, and in that sense indirectly discriminate against us. For example, at religious buildings in Jakarta that are also heritage sites, the religious communities who want to worship there are not required to pay the entrance fee. This is contrary to how candi are managed and how worshipers at candi are treated throughout Indonesia. Bruner, Edward M. 1994. Abraham Lincoln as Authentic Reproduction: A Critique of Postmodernism. America: American Anthropological Association and Wiley. Digance, Justine. 2003. Pilgrimage at Contested Sites. Great Britain: Elsevier Science Ltd. Margry, Peter Jan. (ed). 2008. Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. www.djpp.depkumham.go.id about The 2010 law on Heritage no 11. (was accessed on 13 April 2017). by Ahmad Aminuddin
The tourism industry in the modern era has become more popular, and through the conditions linked with globalization, becoming a tourist is more common than ever before. People all over the world get easy access to information about destinations. They can easily take advantage of social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram and others to get more detailed information about sites to visit. It's just as easy now to access information about pilgrimage sites as it is secular tourism sites. Although undertaking a pilgrimage is often associated with the religious realm, pilgrimage sites have also become more popular as tourist destinations. I don't think it is exaggerating to say that actors who play a role at tourist sites are often also involved in contestation over sites. Before diving deeper into a discussion about the sacred and spectacle, I will attempt to make a clear statement to differentiate between pilgrimage and tourism, although in my opinion they are similar. It is important to distinguish between the two activities here in order avoid bias. First, most understand pilgrimage as a tourism activity which is influenced by religious motivation. This is the most common understanding of what pilgrimage is. However, some scholars like Peter Jan Margry argue that the pilgrimage to some extents is not merely a trip guided by religious motivations (Margry 2008:29). Margry theorizes that there are two kinds of pilgrimage defined by different motivations: namely religious and secular pilgrimage. I tend to see pilgrimage as defined by religious activity, and see Margry's definition as blurring the difference between pilgrimage and tourism. I will emphasize in this examination that tourism is an activity which is secular, with no religious motivation present in the activities undertaken. After defining these terms, it will be easier to discuss the main theme of this blog post: sacred and spectacle space. The other reason that I differentiate between the terms pilgrimage and tourism is because it is a necessary foundation to discuss the concepts of the sacred and spectacle. According to some scholars, the sacred is always associated with activities related to pilgrimage. Digance states that the formal sacred is frequently related to the temples, mountains, and palaces (Digance 2003:145). Spectacle, on the other hand, is primarily associated with the secular, especially in tourism; regardless of the fact whether that is true or merely an assumption. Pilgrimage usually is related to sacred places, while tourism is linked with the spectacle, although to some extent, those things are mingled. Pilgrimage relates to traveling to a place with a religious motivation, like the Hajj in Islam, a spiritual journey to travel to Mecca for the purpose of undertaking required religious practices. In Buddhism, for instance, going to Bihar, India, to visit the Bodhi Tree where the Buddha (Sakyamuni) gained enlightenment is considered a pilgrimage practice. The difference between this and tourism is a common understanding, on the surface at least, that tourism is understood as visiting secular sites or spectacle sites, beautiful places, the out of the ordinary, places that are unusual or entertaining. According to Digance, a sacred site is a space or place where people feel they get access to God or a divine figure in their cosmology (2003:144). Furthermore, he insists that it is also as a place where the ordinary (profane) is transformed into the sacred. In my opinion, there are many phenomena that can support this theory. We can see that people who participate in activates labeled "Wisata Religi" (religious tourism) are usually those with religious motivation from traditionalist groups. For example, the Walisongo tomb is considered a religious tourism site as the Walisongo "saints" are central figures in the spread Islam in Java, and they are also regarded as wali (religious leaders) who have a close relationship with God. By visiting a Walisongo tomb, people can feel calm and in some cases, experience a closeness to God because of the wali's proximity to Him. On the other hand, spectacles tend to be included in the secular tourism sphere. According to Justin Thomas McDaniel, one definition of spectacles is the Japanese concept of misemono, "a purposeless delight." In Japan, it is established by a performance that celebrates the Buddha’s teaching without any immediate purpose (McDaniel, 2015:4). It tends to prioritize and combine beauty, historical and literary significance, and Buddhist, Shinto or imperial sacrality (2015:5). By simply observing it, the spectacle tends to highlight art or delight, although in some cases it is also related to religious values. I think in Indonesia, a country that is full of diversity, there are many performances that contain spectacles similar to McDaniel's notion of misemono. Look at the wayang performance, with its many narrative themes of (lakon) full of moral and religious values used by the Walisongo to spread Islam, and also by missionaries to spread Christianity in Java. Wayang is merely a vehicle to educate people in terms of religion, and the Dalang (puppeteer) is expected to engage in a ritual before the performance that is related to the religious practice, as well as to obey rules of Javanese traditional religion. However, although wayang displays religious values and engages with religious practices, it does not mean that it is a sacred act. To some extent, however, spectacles can gradually grow to become sacred. I recently visited the Gua Maria Kerep Ambarawa or the Ambarawa Marion Grotto, and based on my experience, it appears the site basically was a spectacle that has become something sacred. It was built in 1954 under Semarang bishopric, and the site underwent several renovations after its initial establishment. The most well-known renovation was caused by the story of a miracle that allegedly was experiences by Miss Bedjo Ludiro, a Jesuit with the Juwana Pati Parochial. She suffered from palsy and underwent a number of unsuccessful treatments for her condition. One day, after her husband Mr. Bedjo Ludiro or Lo Thiam Siang had invited her to pray at the site, she experienced a miraculous recovery. In thanks for the miracle she experienced, the couple donated money to renovate the site, as they believed that the resolution of her condition was a result of their prayers to Mary. The Ambarawa park adjacent to the Marion Grotta has many statues illustrating significant events from the timeline of the life of Jesus and his teachings. For example, there are many installations that recount the story of Jesus and his followers, and also a big statue of Maria in the site's parking lot. Those sites were built to visualize and commemorate the life story of Jesus and his teachings. In the early years of the site, there were not many visitors who engaged in ritual or prayer in the park area, but now some guests do. They pray in some places, like under the Maria statue and inside of the replica of the cave where the body of Jesus was interred. I think the visitors pray perhaps because they are in an area that is full of religious nuance, where they personally find access to God. This occurrence is similar to what Jan Margry discusses related to the grave of Jim Morrison, the American rock star and poet, which basically was not a sacred place but gradually transformed into a sacred site for his fans (2008:143). Hence, the spectacle gradually becomes a sacred place. However, just as sites of spectacle can gradually become sacred; there are also some sacred sites that lose their sacredness. For example, at the grave of Sunan Pandanaran, some visitors still consider the site to be sacred, but for others, it is merely as a tourism site. When I visited the Sunan Pandanaran site after visiting the Maria Cave in Ambarawa, I did not feel any nuance of the sacred. Moreover, I felt it was very strange when I had to pay a lot of money for the entrance ticket, since I have visited many other graves of sunans but have never encountered an obligation to pay for an entrance ticket. At other graves, if people come with the group, the leader should fill out the list of guests, and he is not obligated to pay. Usually the group leader donates money voluntarily. So in my opinion, the required payment is one of the factors that decreases the sacredness of the Sunan Kalijaga site. In addition, the many juru kunci who stand around to oversee the site inside the tomb area also corrupt the nuance of sacredness. I cannot enjoy the conditions there and feel I don't have the freedom to behave as I wanted; I felt that they were watching me. Another example that shows how a site's sacredness can be lost is found in the celebration of the commemoration of Sunan Bonang, one of the Walisanga, in my hometown of Tuban, East Java. During this event, there is an increase in vendors of food and goods around around the site that hundreds of pilgrims visit. However, I prefer to call them visitors, because most of them tend to visit the celebration for the purpose of being entertained rather than for a pilgrimage, especially on the last night of the event, when there is a pengajian (religious speech) preached by a famous Ulama. There is a similar case in the Rebo Wekasan celebration in Suci, a village under Gresik Regency in East Java. Overall, it is clear that a spectacle site can gradually change to become a sacred site. These occurrences frequently happen to the spectacle site which contains, or at least represents, religious values, because it facilitates the visitors to reflect and connect with themselves; thus gradually religious experience emerges. On the other hand, sacred sites will always remain sacred, but they can lose their sacred aura through the influence of some practices, like celebrations which are associated with the site but are dominated by commercial interests. Based on this argument, however, religious values can clearly contribute to the establishment of a sense of sacredness at tourist sites. Since religion is an integral aspect of life for human beings, religious values can serve as a vehicle which make people feel connected to specific sites as sacred spaces. Digance, Justine. 2003. Pilgrimage at Contested Sites. Annals of Tourism Research, 30(1) pp. 143-159. Margry, Peter Jan. 2008. Secular Pilgrimage: A Contradiction in Terms? Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World: Itineraries into the Sacred. Jan Peter Margery, ed. Amsterdam University Press, pp. 13-48. By Anthon Jason “Hey… look at that”, my friend points her finger at the bus with a banner stuck to its body, where the phrase: “Wisata Religi Yayasan XXX” is printed. It was Sunday the 9th of April 2017, and we were on our way to the Marion Cave site (Gua Maria) at Ambarawa on a field trip for our class, Religion and Tourism, at CRCS. All eight of us in the car excitedly tried to get a picture of the bus. The reason the banner was so interesting to us was because we were just discussing the topic of ‘wisata religi’ (religious tourism) in our class. At that moment I immediately understood the happy feeling of a scholar when they meet something in the field that supports or verifies what they have been learning about. It was a hilarious and priceless moment, showing us how the tourism industry in Indonesia is intertwined with religion, politics, economy and social-cultural aspects of life. Should we be worried about the impact of this hegemony and how it intersects with our daily life? In Republika, on the 13th February 2017 there was an article titled: “Sumsel Kembangkan Wisata Syariah” (South Sumatra Develops Syariah Tourism). The article mentioned that the Indonesian Tourism Ministry had begun to promote Indonesian’s new program of Syariah Tourism to markets in the Middle East. Kampung Arab Al Munawar is a site in South Sualwesi that is advertised as a Syariah tourism destination in the province. The province's Governor Alex Noerdin was optimistic that the new destination for tourism will attract many tourists, as Kampung Arab Al Munawar is unique and authentic to the region. The village is authentic in the historical sense, given that many of the houses and buildings are 250 years old. Another aspect of the authenticity of the site is that the Kampung Al Munawar residents are descendants of people that came from Arab regions around 350 years ago. Meanwhile, I Gde Pitana, the head of international tourism development from the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism, said that his department would promote Kampung Al Munawar to overseas to Middle Eastern markets, as well as to other Muslim countries. Moreover, I Gde hoped that the villagers could create a particular attraction or performance that demonstrates the uniqueness of the culture in that village to attract tourists. He noted that as tourism and culture can align, the same thing can be true of tourism and religious activity. From these statements, we can see that authenticity is employed as something to draw tourists. The authenticity established through the narratives that describe the kampung give meaning to this location. Moreover, a religious value was also attached to the site to sharpen its image as part of the Syariah tourism branding. The shifting meaning of space to place has been described by Bremer. He argues that “space refers to an undifferentiated expanse lacking in meaningful content. On the other hand, place distinguishes particular locales by punctuating the meaningless expanse of space with meaningfulness” (2006:25). By looking at this definition of space and place, we have to realize that there must be appropriate authorities behind the process of giving meaning. The officially authoritative party, in this case, was the government and the tourism department. Religious authorities are also engaged in this project, as the South Sumatra Province teams up with Majelis Ulama Idonesia (MUI) to promote a halal certification program to the business sectors in the region. Sacred Spaces, Tourist Places: The Opportunities and Challenges One interesting factor to analyze here is how Kampung Al Munawar could become a place for ‘wisata religi’ or religiously motivated tourism. Moreover, we can explore what the impact of the shifting narrative of ‘wisata religi’ is, which is now expanding to be developed as ‘wisata syariah’, a recent trend in the Indonesian tourism industry specifically, and in Indonesian society in general. To begin with, I suggest we need first to understand what is meant by the categories of ‘wisata religi’ and ‘wisata Syariah’. Wisata religi or 'religious tourism' can fall under a standard definition as a tourism site that is established to attract only tourists that are affiliated with a particular religion. However, in reality, wisata religi’ sites cannot cater to only one particular religious group. As Bruner (1994:410) argues, “tourists are not monolithic, and neither is the meaning of the site.” Every sacred space and every tourist place always contains multiple narratives. Tourism sites by nature also attract various kinds of visitors. Numerous stories and various types of visitors can contribute to potential contestation over the meaning or uses of the site. Exceptions to this can be seen in the Islamic pilgrimage sites Mecca and Madinah which is restricted to Muslim visitors. On the other hand, we should be aware there is also diversity within Islam and Islamic practice at pilgrimage sites. Finally, we can assume that the central paradox in the development of religious tourism at any site is when those in charge of the site exclude alternative narratives or discourses but at the same time want to entice as many people as possible to the site as part of the promotion of tourism. On the other hand, the definition of Syariah tourism is a specialized tourist service to accommodate Muslim visitors, and to ensure more convenient and comfortable traveling for them in regards to religious concerns and prohibitions. Although it may be true that the designation of Syariah tourism is not intended to mean an application of sharia law to a region, it has been seen as problematic for some non-Muslim communities. Indonesia has the largest population of Muslims in the world, so detractors of this tourism scheme argue that there is no need for a special tourist service, as a Muslim visitor can easily accomplish their religious activities anywhere they are in Indonesia. People can easily find a mosque where ever they are. There are designated areas for prayer in every gas station in line with government regulations. Additionally, we can also easily find products marked ‘halal’ to indicate they are approved for consumption according to Islamic guidelines. Again, we have to realize that tourism is about giving meaning to space. A place can be sacred and attract many tourists due to the narrative used to attract them to site. Therefore, tourism is closely related to branding. Syariah tourism is a proactive action from officials in the Indonesian tourism industry to brand select destinations to attract more Muslim tourists. The target number for Muslim tourists for 2017 is 5 million visitors. (Republika, 13th February 2017). In the case of Kampung Arab Al Munawar, I want to explain the process of the transformation, from a tourism place to a religious tourism site, and then to a Syariah tourism site by utilizing a anthropological view. First, I'd like to address the concept of authenticity in the tourism industry. Bremer argues that “Tourist discourses attribute significant value to the authenticity; the most authentic experiences are the most aesthetically pleasing” (2006:32). It is apparent that tourists are obsessed with authenticity. The question is, how do these perceptions of authenticity affect the connection between the tourism industry and religion? Again, Bremer points out that the discourse of authenticity in tourism corresponds with the religious discourse of place. He notes that, “indeed, both pleasure tourists and religious adherents have a keen interest in the authentic experience of place. To some extent, touristic concerns and religious interests respond to and reinforce each other to produce a meaningful sacred site” (Bremer 2006:32). The narrative of authenticity established for the promotion of Kampung Arab relies on a knowledge of the early early history of Islam. The name Kampung Arab references the origins of Islam in the Arab world, which establishes a sense of historical authenticity rather than just a religious one (instead of using the term Kampung Islam, for instance). The reference to the historical origins of Islam creates a feeling of authenticity related to religious values. In his exploration of authenticity as a concept, Bruner states that “authenticity is a struggle” (1994:403). The goal of Kampung Arab being offered as a tourist destination using religious values can be understood here as an attempt to increase the authentic sense of the place. Moreover, the newly coined phrase "Syariah tourism" (wisata Syariah) rather than general phrase religious tourism (wisata religi) can be understood as a more focused kind of branding attract more tourists from specific markets. The encounter between tourism and religion is unavoidable. This meeting not only invites opportunities but heralds challenges. It represents a chance to increase the tourism industry, but on the other hand could trigger potential conflicts of interest between different religious adherents. Being a tourist should be a joyful and meaningful experience. As I am finishing this essay, I am happy that the election day in Jakarta has also arrived. Although the result is not what I expected, I am relieved and hope the tense political situation can cool down. It is the time for people to reinterpret their values, reconstruct their lives, and rebuild their relationships. Since we are the only ones responsible for our own lives, it is useless to complain about how others affect our life. And don't forget to plan your vacation as the holidays will be arriving soon. By Linda Sari Zuarnum Paradise, Island of Gods, Island of invisible people, Island of thousand temples, Land of exotic and beautiful happenings, that is how people refer to Bali. I call Bali the Island of Freedom, because on this island people, especially Indonesians like me, are free to dress however they want. Many people want to go to Bali. I had the opportunity to visit Bali for celebrating my birthday with my best friends. Although it sounds like only a wealthy student could go to Bali for her birthday, the main reason I visited was because I had place to stay with a friend who lives there. It was also a chance to observe tourism activities in Bali for my Religion and Tourism class at CRCS UGM. So I went to have fun and to learn. I found it hard to be just a tourist because as I was observing as I visited different sites, I kept commenting on the tourist's activities, questioning the authenticity of everything that is considered to be beautiful, traditional, and what the "real" Bali looks like. In the class on Religion and Tourism, I have been learning about tourism and religious activities. These days, people visit many attractive places in the world not merely for something to do in their leisure time, but also to seek spiritual revival. People go on pilgrimages in order to worship or visit sacred places, or just to go as a tourist to see places and to simultaneously feel their sacredness. Bali is one of many places that offers the beauty of nature, strong traditions and spirituality as attractions. We can see rituals, people praying, temples everywhere, statues of Hindu deities, and the fragrance of incense in the air in Bali. This sensory environment is part of a package that entices people to experience religious and tourist activities in one box. It is no doubt that Bali is a complete example for us to see how religion is part of the allurement of some tourist sites, with religious decorations creating part of the appeal. The glimpse of the red barong statue at Ngurah Rai airport was the first thing I saw when I arrived in Bali, followed by the big gate drawn from the design of Balinese Hindu temples, their orange color giving me the impression that this is Bali. Along the road I saw many beautiful, big statues of Hindu deities decorated with colored lamps that makes the city look more beautiful and religious. But then the question that came to mind is it all real? Are these statues, temples, colors, and buildings truly representing Bali? Are these things authentic? Is this what Bali looked like since the beginning? When did they build these statues and buildings? How come Bali becomes so traditional even as it embraces many aspects of modern, Western life? These questions stemmed in part from our discussions about authenticity in Religion and Tourism class. Authenticity is often related to something that is introduced as real or authentic in a community's culture, history, or identity. One discussion related to this was conveyed by Anne Schiller in her article discussing the Ngaju Dayak identity through documentary film in order to attract tourists from all over the world to come and see the life of people there. Schiller says that forming identity is a long process and is always in progress (Schiller: 2011). In her article, authenticity for the Ngaju people is more about representation through tradition, and religious identity that is being reimagined for the promotion to the wider world through media. For me the same phenomenon Schiller describes in the case of the Ngaju Dayak can also be seen in Bali. In the case of Ngaju Dayak, in Kalimantan, Schiller notes that especially in the center of Kalimantan, many indigenous people are now eager to promote their tradition in order to gain identity by cultivating aspects of their traditional culture as tourist attractions. To get the attention of visitors, activists attempt to film Ngaju Dayak death ritual through NGT to show the world the authentic Ngaju Dayak’s tradition (Schiller 2011:33). Balinese also use their tradition as tourist attractions, as there are many rituals in Bali that are availble to be watched by tourists, for example people go to Bali to see the parade of ogoh-ogoh held after the Nyepi holiday. This ritual is held every year as part of the worship activities of Hindu Balinese. Unlike the situation in Kalimantan, the Balinese don't have to work hard to introduce their island and culture to the world, as it has been a tourist site since the colonial period. When we search about Bali on the internet or we see the island on the news, watch travel agent ads that offer their services to tour the island, or videos on Youtube that show us images of what will we see and do in Bali, we are seeing the image of Bali that is all about strong advertisement, beautiful imagery and harmony, tradition, and identity. One interesting experience I had in Bali was when I visited the Bali Taman Safari. I saw the tiger performance, which was not merely an animal show but a performance with a story told to the visitors through beautiful dancers with dazzling traditional Balinese dress and loud music. The story was about the Goddess Durga who was angry because tigers had been hunted almost to extinction. I could see the amazement from all visitors as they watched the show. The impression the performance gave was that this is Bali, a place where the story of Hindu traditions mixes together with tourism. Although the religious aspects of the story might be not be that important for the visitors, it succeeded in impressing them as a performance complete with big tigers running around during the show. There is also another show that is famous and must be not ignored because the performance was the peak of our visit to the Taman Safari Bali. The Bali Agung show is hosted in a theater in the Taman Safari Bali park, but to enter the show visitors have to pay again as much the price of the ticket to enter the zoo. Visitors are not allowed bring cameras or any recording devices into the show. Before the show begins, a woman brings a bowl full of flowers with incense, and moves around the stage performing a prayer ritual to ensure the success of the show. This is one of the common images of Bali, people doing rituals before actions in their daily life, even in a modern, expensive show. The theater was actually a reproduction of everyday life in Balinese society. Models of the market, farms, kids playing around, and dancers were shown, recreating an image of a Bali where nature is still good, people are dancing everywhere and the kids are happy. The prayer ritual is a reflection of the Balinese population's identity as Hindus. This image of the "authentic" Balinese presented by the park is what the tourists want to see, meanwhile outside of the tourist attractions, people live modern lives and they may only go and pray when they have time. On my visit to see the Kecak Dance in Pura Uluwatu Bali, I was also reminded of a discussion about authenticity from Anthropologist Edward M. Bruner. Bruner discusses Bali in his writing, describing his experience as a tour guide in Indonesia. He writes that people were not interested in authenticity, but only in good show. For example, he attempts to tell the tourists about the story of the frog dance in Bali, explaining that although it appeared traditional, it had in fact been devised in the 1970s specifically for tourists, as was the case with many Balinese dances. The Kecak (monkey dance) and the current version of the famous barong performance had been created for foreign visitors in conjunction with Western choreographers. He describes how in the 1930s, Western event-grade intellectuals such as Walter Spies, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson and others had a profound effect on Balinese arts (Bruner 2005: 3). For Bruner, it is not merely authenticity that people want to see, but an authenticity that can be performed. Since my friend said that the Tari Kecak in Pura Uluwatu was the best, I decided to go there to see the Kecak dance. Pura Uluwatu is a temple on the top of a cliff; it's very beautiful because we can see an enchanting view of the ocean from the top. Along the way to the top of the temple, we walked through a neat forest park with monkeys running around. Before going inside that area, we had to wear special clothing because we were entering a holy place. However, I saw no religious activity but instead tourists taking pictures, talking, and laughing. It didn't seem sacred at all. Interestingly, the guardians of the temple, men wearing traditional Balinese clothes, spent most of their time protecting tourists from being attacked or disturbed by the monkeys. The Kecak Dance took place on a stage where we could see the beautiful sunset in the background. While waiting for some other visitors to come, I overheard someone who I knew from Bali talking to his western friends about the Kecak Dance, saying the original ritual the dance was drawn from was actually quite boring, because it only had one choreographer and the movements were very slow. To make it more lively, a story was added to the dance taken from the Ramayana, an epic Hindu story. From what I saw in Bali, I tend to agree with the theory that there are no traditions, identities or images that are truly authentic. There must be something new added on it, including everything that I saw in Bali. Even the magnificent Pura Uluwatu is not that authentic, because there are many things added to make it look beautiful, and its good design and management are one pivotal factors in its attraction. For me, authenticity is important in certain cases, but I don’t have a rigid way of seeing this authenticity, especially since in tourism authenticity is not necessary for some people, or people have different ways in seeing what is supposed to be authentic, and there are different kinds of authenticity that are dependent on different situations. Bruner identified four meanings of authenticity in his description of the Abraham Lincoln site in New Salem. These four meanings are related to verisimilitude, genuineness, originality, and authority, so the standard of authenticity might be changed or added given the context (Bruner 1994:401-402). So I think this is the weakness of the concept of authenticity because it is made up, and when I say that Pura Uluwatu is not that authentic doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have any authenticity, it just lacks a sense of sacredness from the place. This makes it less authentic because temples are supposed to be for religious practitioners to worship, not for people to walk around taking pictures. For me performing the real function of temple as a worship place is authentic and other activities make it seem less authentic. by: Kristi On June 2016, I visited Trondheim, Norway. I was there for the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee (CC) meeting. It was my first time visiting a Scandinavian country, and I was impressed by the weather in summer which is around 14-16 Celsius, and with seeing the midnight sun. It was so cold for me so I wore a “winter jacket”, as my friend said, as we restlessly followed the sun which never set. Blankets were a savior against the cold and the curtains were my savior against the sunshine so I could sleep well. On my first day, my youth fellows told me that they would go for a walk. I decided to go with them although I had just arrived. We took a bus and were dropped in a place up in a hill where other people had already gathered. We met with a guide who explained the aim of our presence there. We were going to have a walking pilgrimage. Traditionally, the pilgrimage is done by walking from where we were dropped off to the Nidaros Cathedral in town. We from the WCC will only planned to walk as far as the Sverresborg Kirkesenter (a small church where one of the CC members serves as priest) because we would have a youth gathering and dinner there. Interestingly, it was mentioned that one of the walking pilgrims was the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in Norway, who had already walked for a month from Oslo to reach the site. He undertook the pilgrimage in honor of the CC meeting in Trondheim, which the Church of Norway hosts. The General Secretary was expressing the WCC’s theme of Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace through his personal pilgrimage. Along our pilgrimage journey, I spoke to one of the pilgrimage guides. He told me that Trondheim is a well-known as pilgrimage center. Many pilgrims come from all around Norway and even from neighboring countries to participate. The pilgrimage is mainly performed on foot. In the past, the pilgrimage was normally performed by Catholics in Norway when the country was under Catholic authority. When the Protestants defeated the Catholics, the pilgrimage was stopped. There was no pilgrimage at all. It was seen as something which must be to be avoided because of its association with Catholicism. However, understanding about the pilgrimage is changing. Now, both Protestant and Catholics undertake pilgrimages in Trondheim. The center of the journey is the Nidaros Cathedral where people show devotion to Saint Olav, the Saint of Trondheim. This trip was my first experience doing a pilgrimage, walking or not walking. It was very impressive for me. For one thing, I can really feel the effort needed to walk. I had just arrived from a very long journey, I felt very tired, and I had to walk. I had to walk for some distance before but I was exhausted. Moreover, the others in the group were walking too fast for me. However, I can see and feel the beauty around me. We walked through the forest, then several villages. The trees, plantations, and houses along our way gave me a different feeling. It was different than the places I see in my daily life. Although I cannot fully listen to the explanation at every checkpoint because I had fallen behind the group, I tried to enjoy the view and the weather. There are some points I want to emphasize here. First, during the pilgrimage, my fellow pilgrims and I experienced togetherness. Although we came from different backgrounds, and I didn't know all my WCC fellows. During the walk, some of us already been on the trek for a while, following the trail provided. Some of us joined halfway. Some of us were guides who maybe walked the trail every day. But when we were walking, we were one. We could talk each other as if we knew had known each other before. We could share what we saw and felt. We shared a similar experience while we were walking together. I believe this is what is described by Victor Turner in “The Center Out There: Pilgrim’s Goal” (1973) as communitas. We came from different communities but we became one communitas when we participated in the pilgrimage together. Turner mentioned three types of communitas based on the connection which is formed along the pilgrimage. The first is existential or spontaneous communitas, which is a condition when people, who are not know each other before, meet in a pilgrimage and start to form a group with a common goal, regardless of their differences. The second is normative communitas, which is organized form of what before is started as spontaneous communitas. It happens when the pilgrimage is organized by an institution with all facilities provided. The third is ideological communitas, which is a way to characterize groups of pilgrimage to make them be easily recognizable (Turner, 1973: 193-194). According to Turner’s types of communitas, on one hand, I feel that what I experienced was spontaneous communitas.. Some of us just met at that spot then walked together. Although we had different backgrounds, we could automatically blend. We talked to each other. We shared about ourselves as we walked side by side. We shared our feelings and what we sensed along the walk. Spontaneously, we became like a family. On the other hand, I see that pilgrimage can also be seen as normative communitas. Our walk is not difficult. Although we were heading downhill, there was a path. I assume that the path was already prepared by the staff who manages the pilgrimage trail. There are also markers of the route placed along the way. Small red crosses on a white background served as signs that we were on the right track. It was a well maintained path for anyone who wants to undertake a pilgrimage. There were even guides provided for the pilgrims. For me, spontaneous communitas is an interesting way to do pilgrimage. People can start their pilgrimage alone as individual and with her/his own understanding about it. In the process, they may meet with other people and continue the pilgrimage together. Although at the first they may think that they have same goal in that pilgrimage, they can share their differences along the way and reach a richer meaning of the pilgrimage. On the other hand, when pilgrimage has already became a normative activity or form of communitas, it can be seen as both positive and negative. It will be negative because the normativity tends to homogenize the meaning of the pilgrimage and close off the chance for pilgrims to develop other meanings for their journeys outside of the “official one”. It can be positive when it is seen as a way to help the pilgrims undertake their pilgrimage more easily. For me, both are important. It is important to have chance to develop pilgrims' own meaning of the pilgrimage, and sometimes it is important to make sure that the pilgrimage is easy and convenient to undertake. In the process of writing this essay, I found several websites about the pilgrimage trail in Trondheim. The websites are beautifully designed and attractive. The websites have detailed information about the pilgrimage, with the information about how people can walk the path of King Olav who returned from Russia to Christianize Norway. There are several routes that can be chosen by those interested. The narration on the websites describes the ease of doing a pilgrimage in Trondheim. People can choose a route that matches their ability and the time they have available. There are also facilities along the pilgrimage trail such as hostels and restaurants that serve traditional food. Overall, the Trondheim pilgrimage is advertised as a tourist attraction. I assume that by advertising the Trondheim pilgrimages in this way, not all people who walk the trail are pilgrims. I believe that there are many people who walk as pilgrims through the tracks as a way of commemorating Saint Olav, and who have a religious experience walking in Saint Olav’s tracks. On the other hand, others may only want to enjoy the walk and see the views as tourists. They may not care about Saint Olav or the church there. From these conditions, I see that pilgrimage (in the sense of a religious or spiritual experience) is mixed with tourism (a leisure activity). My experience demonstrates what Peter Jan Margry writes in “Secular Pilgrimage: A Contradiction in Terms?” (2008) as the shift in the practices of pilgrimage as they overlap with practices of tourism. Part of this shift is in how sacred and secular spaces overlap. On the Trondheim pilgrimage trail, there is a souvenir shop in the yard of the Nidaros Cathedral. People can take pictures in front of the cathedral. However, not everyone can enter the cathedral, and photography is forbidden inside. The Church of Norway's congregation is Lutheran, but Nidaros cathedral seems not only used by the Church of Norway because the Anglican Church also conducts worship there. Today, visitors of from various religious backgrounds mingle at the site without issue. However, one of the guides told me that historically the pilgrimage in Trondheim was contested. In the past, Protestant authorities prohibited the pilgrimage. Now the pilgrimage is open to all, although the Protestant church is still dominant in the management of the site. It isn't clear to me if the Protestant Church has changed its understanding of pilgrimage or if they simply are taking advantage of the the chance to use the pilgrimage to promote their site and their traditions. Although it can be seen as negative, contestation is something that has always accompanied pilgrimage, as Religious Studies scholar Simon Coleman writes in “Do You Believe in Pilgrimage?: Communitas, Contestation, and Beyond” (2002), contestation can happen between institutions, such as the different churches in Norway, between religious institutions and the government, or between visitors who emphasize a spiritual experience versus those who undertake the pilgrimage for leisure. This experience of pilgrimage and the process of writing this essay gives me a new understanding about pilgrimage. Before I always thought that pilgrimage is always about religious issues, now I can see other side of it which is about leisure. Even during my participation in the pilgrimage at Trondheim, I did not realize that what I did and what other people were doing might be different. I did not pay attention to what I felt and what other people did or felt. Only after studying “Religion and Tourism” and writing this essay, I began to think again about my experience and find that all participants in a pilgrimage can have different motivations: they can be spiritual, or can be for leisure. I think it is also important in the context of the study of religion and tourism because it provides an example that religious sites are often also tourism sites. People who engage with religious pilgrimage often encounter those who looking for leisure in same place. Both of those motivations can be found in the same person. The one who comes with religious intentions can also enjoy the leisure side at the same time. My experience demonstrates that there can be shared space for pilgrimages that are both spiritual with those that are leisure activities. Reference: Coleman, Simon. Do you believe in pilgrimage?: Communitas, contestation and beyond. Anthropological Theory 2002 2:355 Margry, Peter Jan. 2008. Secular Pilgrimage: A Contradiction in Terms? Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World: Itineraries into the Sacred. Jan Peter Margery, ed. Amsterdam University Press, pp. 13-48. Turner, Victor. The Center out There: Pilgrim's Goal Author(s): Victor Turner Source: History of Religions, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Feb., 1973), pp. 191-230. by Galuh Pawestri I first heard the story about Lara, or Roro Jonggrang of Prambanan Temple, when I was in elementary school. This love story is famous among local citizens. Whatever beliefs they are embrace, everyone knows this tragic story. I read about it for the first time when I was in elementary school, in a book about Yogyakarta's history written for children. Even though the story was written in a simple way, it succeeded bring my imagination back to 9th century. Using my imagination, I could envision the place where the story fades into a myth that most local citizens certainly have heard before and tend to believe. The story recounts the unfortunate proposal of marriage to Lara or Roro Jonggrang, a daughter of King Baka. Princess Lara or Roro Jonggrang was said to be pretty and attracted the attention of a Prince named Bandung Bondowoso, whose army had defeated her father. Upon seeing her, he wanted to take her as his wife. Here the narrative takes a turn for the tragic. Princess Lara does not have a heart for him. She wants to decline his proposal, but how? She does not want to hurt the Prince’s feelings. She cleverly devises a difficult requirement to win her hand in marriage, so that she does not have to reject him outright. The challenge she gives him is to make her a thousand temples in one night. If he could achieve this impossible task, then Roro Jonggrang would accept his proposal. Bandung tried to build a thousand temples in one night near the Keraton Baka, with the spirits and his father’s help. Upon seeing Bandung's progress, Roro Jonggrang felt worried. She didn't want to marry a person she doesn't, love but how could she gently reject him? A brilliant idea came to her. She left the keraton and asked all of the female virgins in the village to process rice with the traditional wooden tools called lesung. The noisy pounding awakens the roosters who begin to crow. The spirit who was helping Bandung hears the rooster, and mistaking it as a sign of the dawn approaching, runs away. Bandung is betrayed, only one temple short of a thousand. One more temple and he could have claimed Roro Jonggrang as his wife. Realizing that Roro Jonggrang cheated in order to make him fail, he cursed Roro Jonggrang to be turned to stone, to become a statue in the the last temple in the complex. He also cursed the women in the village that came to her aid, assuring they would never marry and would remain virgins until their old age. Today this story is still well known with the locals and visitors to Prambanan. It is believed that couples who are photographed in front of the main temple containing the Durga statue, thought to be the cursed Roro Jonggrang, will eventually "break up in a bad way”. Once, while my neighbor was visiting Prambanan Temple, she talked to a random couple who were taking their photo with Prambanan Temple in the background. She told them that they should not use the temple as the background of their photo because it would end in disaster for them. My neighbor did not stop insisting that they change the angle of their photo to make sure the temple wasn't shown. Her actions are a reflection of life in Indonesia's multicultural and multi-religious society, where myths still exert a powerful influence, even for those who practice one of the country's approved world religions. People living in the vicinity of the temple are still understand the history of the temple through these myths, no matter what religious system they embrace. As Tom Bremer, a religious studies scholar, has written "the history of a place and its commemorative value help[s] to maintain personal and collective memories that in turn contribute to contemporary perceptions of one-self and other" (2006:27). Prambanan Temple’s history is intertwined with our everyday lives. I feel that Prambanan Temple is not just a tourist site, but also a mystical site that brings my imagination back to a certain period, a kind of time-travel experience. Tourists who visit the temple might not have a personal relationship with the temple or be aware of the local myths surrounding the site, since they visit it for its value as a historical site. For Hindus, Prambanan is a religious site displaying the Trimurti, the three temples that represent Brahma, Siwa, and Wisnu. The temple complex at Prambanan was reportedly erected by Rakai Pikatan from the Hindu Sanjaya dynasty, but the Lara or Roro Jonggrang story is unique to the region surrounding the temple. The story is part of the value of the site that that goes beyond its historical or religious definitions. The Prambanan Temple complex is also a UNESCO world heritage site. As a tourism and heritage site, we can examine the elements of visits made to the temple. As anthropologist Edward Bruner describes, as scholars of tourism, we can separate between the trip as lived, the trip as experienced, and the trip as told. He explains that the trip as lived refers to the actual physical experience. The trip as experienced refers to the images, feelings, and other abstract things that happen in the mind of the visitors. Finally, the trip as told is when we hear stories or experiences from secondhand sources (Bruner 2005:19). We can view the Prambanan temple complex site from all of these perspectives. The history of the temple, the role of the temple as a Hindu and Buddhist worship site, and the myth of the thwarted love story are all part of the nuanced way that people interact with the site. The myth of Prambanan Temple has the potential to add more value to the visitor experience. The stories about Roro Jonggrang are like the pinch of one last flavor that we add to our local cuisine. Tourists can learn more about local ways of thinking through these narratives about the site. For me, the Prambanan temple complex is a magnificent place. There are many other temples nearby, but I haven't heard myths or narratives about them. I am curious if those other, smaller temples would be re well known if they also had well-known local myths. Those temples are also counted as sacred spaces or places by surrounding inhabitants. How can the connection be made between the perspectives of those who live around the sites and the experience of visitors? Talk presented at the Seminar Internasional Masyarakat Pinggiran, Brawijaya University Malang, 9 November 2016 Banda Neira (atau Naira) adalah kepulauan kecil di Kabupaten Maluku Tengah. Tahun 2015 Banda Neira terdaftar sebagai calon situs warisan budaya campuran, dan Pemda Maluku Tengah sedang berupaya untuk memperbaiki akses ke kecamatan Banda. Sekarang wisatawan hanya mejangkau Banda dengan pesawat kecil tiga kali seminggu jika cuaca baik, dengan kapal Pelni dua minggu sekali, atau dengan kapal speed tiga kali seminggu yang tidak beroperasi selama musim ombak di laut Banda. Pemda Maluku berencana menata ulang kecamatan Banda sebagai Kawasan Ekonomi Khusus Pariwisata dan Perikanan untuk memfasilitasi proses pembangunan industri pariwisata di daerah tersebut. Cukup menarik untuk dicermati latar belakang Banda sebagai tujuan wisata. Mengapa kepulauan terpencil ini dikembangkan sebagai daerah wisata? Selanjutnya, saya mau menguraikan efek industri pariwsata terhadap Banda, suatu daerah yang sudah dilanda konflik antar agama. Dalam konteks representasi, saya ingin menganalisis bagaimana kegiatan dan praktek representasi pariwisata berdampak pada relasi antara penduduk beragama Islam dan penduduk beragama Kristen yang menjadi pengungsi akibat kerusuhan tahun Secara spesifik, bagaimana praktek dan kegiatan terkait dengan industri pariwisata mempengaruhi hubungan orang dengan tempat tinggalnya, yang mempengaruhi reproduksi makna identitasnya? Dengan kata lain, saya memperhatikan beberapa proses: Pertama adalah emplacement; proses di mana orang diidentifikasikan dengan tempat tertentu; Kedua adalah displacement dimana terjadi semacam penggusuran, pengambilalihan; dan ideological proses untuk mengklaim dan membantah klaim terhadap hak atas tanah, pemakaian simbol budaya, atau kemampuan seseorang untuk melabeli dirinya. Dari perspektif antropologi, turisme bukan hanya kegiatan ekonomi, tetapi salah satu metode interaksi budaya, pertukaran budaya, dan perubahan budaya. Tourisme juga berperan dalam proses pembentukan identitas dan etnisitas dan berpangaruh pada siapa yang dianggap asli dan bukan asli Sosok yang paling penting dalam pembentukan identitas modern dan proses pencitraan kepulauan Banda adalah Almarhum Des Alwi Abubakar. Beliau terkenal sebagai "raja" kepulauan Banda, seorang budayawan yang berupaya menggali kembali kebudayaan Banda yang dihilangkan oleh agen kolonial. Tahun delapan puluhan, Des mulai memusatkan perhatiannya kepada sejarah Banda sebagai pusat perdagangan. Dengan fokus kepada peran Banda dalam perdagangan global dia melaksanankan program pembangunan industri pariwisata di kampung halamanya. Sampai hari ini, kegiatan wisata di Banda masih fokus pada empat tema yang dibentuk oleh Des Alwi: gedung bersejarah (cagar budaya), sejarah rempah, "spice"tours and history, Banda sebagai tempat pengasingan tokoh nasional Hatta dan Syharir, dan wisata laut. Beliau mengangkat dua "tradisi": Tarian Cakalele serta Lomba Belang (perahu perang). Kemajemukan dan keberagaman identitas orang Banda tidak terlalu diperhatikan atau dianggap sebagai elemen menarik buat para wisatawan. Orang Banda bisa disebut "mestizo" atau "orang campur". Saya mengutip dari artikel Kompas yang diterbitkan tahun 2012: "Orang Kepulauan Banda adalah orang Indonesia asli seperti yang dicita-citakan para pendiri bangsa sebagai tempat peleburan beragam suku di Nusantara. Lumrah bila kita menemukan seorang Banda dengan nama Arab, tetapi memiliki leluhur Tionghoa, Eropa, Jawa, dan suku-suku lain di Nusantara." Oleh karena itu, usaha untuk menentukan siapa orang Banda 'asli' tidak mungkin berakhir dengan jawaban yang tepat. Sebagai tempat yang sangat beragam, identitas lokal biasanya ditentukan oleh hubungan dengan tempat tinggalnya - orang Banda adalah orang yang lahir dan besar di Banda, apalagi orang yang ikut serta dalam praktek ritual terkait dengan beberapa situs yang dianggap penting secara kosmologikal. Walaupun populasi orang Kristen yang terdapat di Banda Neira, Pulau Ay dan Pulau Hatta lebih kecil daripada penganut agama Islam, mereka tidak dianggap "minoritas" dalam konteks identitas lokal. Walaupun demikian, tahun 1999 hampir semua orang Kristen di kepulauan Banda menjadi pengungsi akibat kerusuhan yang mulai dari peristiwa di antara komunitas Kristen dan komunitas Muslim di Pulau Hatta kemudian melebar ke pulau-pulau lain di Banda. Sebagian besar dari mereka berpindah tempat ke suatu desa di Ambon, yang sekarang dikenal sebagai Desa "Banda Suli". Seperti kebanyakan yang digusur dari tempat tinggalnya akibat kerusuhan Ambon, mereka masih mengidentifikasi diri mereka sendiri dengan tempat asalnya. Mereka juga balik ke Banda untuk upacara penting, serta untuk memanen kebun pala dan cengkeh Saat Des Alwi bekerja untuk mengembangkan obyek wisata di Banda, dia kerjasama dengan tokoh adat di beberapa negeri di Banda Neira, termasuk di desa Negeri Namasawar dan Negeri Ratu di mana kebanyakan usaha terkait dengan industri pariwisata terletak. Dua negeri tersebut diwakili oleh kepala adat beragama Kristen, yang terlibat secara aktif dalam proses penelitian dan pembentukan kembali praktek kultural yang akan ditampilkan kepada wisatawan. Hampir semua praktek yang diangkat oleh Des Alwi merupakan rekonstruksi berdasarkan informasi yang beliau temukan dalam penelitiannya di arsip Belanda. Ini merupakan proses yang dijelaskan oleh Edward Said (1977): Proses konstruksi ruang geografis yang lebih memperhatikan fantasi (khayalan) dan kepentingan agen kolonial daripada kenyataan geografis atau kehidupan penghuni. Situasi tersebut bisa dipandang sebagai pariwisata pasca-kolonial seperti dideskripsikan oleh Renato Rosaldo (1989), dimana orang dari negara kolonialis bernostalgia untuk masyarakat atau gaya hidup yang mereka coba hapuskan selama masa penjajahan. Misalnya, tarian Cakalele dijelaskan oleh Des Alwi sebagai kode yang diciptakan oleh penduduk lokal di masa penjajahan untuk berkomunikasi secara rahasia. Lomba belang adalah tradisi yang sudah ditransformasikan - pada awalnya belang adalah obyek ritual yang dilaksanakan saat berperang, tetapi agen kolonial menciptakan "lomba" untuk memenangkan pertarungan antar negeri di kepulauan Banda. Hampir semua perlengkapan dan fasilitas terkait dengan dan citra Banda sebagai situs sejarah kolonial dan nasional masih dilanjutkan oleh pemangku kepenting (stakeholder) dalam industri pariwisata sampai sekarang. Bulan November tahun 2015, saya hadir festival yang diselenggarakan oleh Dinas Budaya dan Pariwisata Maluku Tengah. Festival tersebut bertujuan untuk mempromosikan budaya Banda Neira kepada para wisatawan, akan tetapi jumlah wisatawan yang hadir tidak lebih dari tiga puluh orang menurut perhitungan saya. Budaya yang ditunjukkan dalam aktifitas festival ternyata adalah kegiatan yang sering dilihat dalam acara sosial di tempat lain, seperti lomba tarian modern dan mainan seperti lomba klompen raksasa. Bahkan event utamanya, lomba belang, tidak diiringi oleh praktek ritual yang namanya "buka kampung" atau persiapan secara kultural yang biasanya wajib dilaksanakan ketika perahu belang dikeluarkan dari tempat simpanan. Salah satu faktor yang menghalangi pelaksanaan ritual adalah tidak adanya orang kristen di beberapa negeri yang terlibat dalam lomba belang. Sesudah tahun 99, pengetahuan tentang praktek dan tahap upacara yang spesifik di setiap negeri hilang ketika kepala adat beragama Kristen mengungsi ke Ambon. Menurut kepala adat baru di Negeri Namasawar, orang Kristen di Banda Suli biasanya diundang pulang kampung supaya bisa memimpin upacara adat. Namun karena kebingungan terjadi di antara aktor lokal dan Pemda Maluku Tengah dalam proses perencanaan, tokoh adat yang terlibat memutuskan untuk melaksanakan lomba belang "non-adat" (atau tanpa upacara) untuk kepentingan mempromosikan Banda sebagai situs pariwisata, maka mantan kepala adat dari Banda Suli tidak diperlukan. Keputusan tersebut merupakan suatu sifat dan karakter dalam industri pariwisata global: decontextualisasi dan proses penyederhanaan. Akibatnya simbol dan praktek "budaya" semakin terpisah dari kosmologi lokal dan proses pemahaman ritual yang merupakan basis emplacement baik untuk orang Kristen yang tinggal di luar Banda maupun orang Muslim. Lebih lanjut, pemuda lokal tidak dilibatkan dalam industri pariwisata di Banda, khususnya kalau mereka tidak memiliki hubungan dengan stakeholder utama di Banda Neira. Ketika saya mewawancarai beberapa pemandu independent, mereka mengungkapkan kejengkelan mereka tentang kitidaktahuan tentang adat dan ritual yang semestinya melekat pada praktek seperti lomba belang dan tarian Cakalele. Mereka juga membantah versi sejarah Des Alwi yang sering dipresentasikan sebagai versi berwibawa. Mereka juga khawatir tentang dampak industri pariwisata terhadap moralitas lokal, seperti perilaku wisatawan yang bertentangan dengan praktek Islam (berpakaian tidak sopan, konsumsi alkohol, dan sebagainya). Mereka berpendapat bahwa pemandu Kristen dari Ambon yang memiliki akses ke jaringan wisatawan asing membawa elemen yang akan mengancam "adat" (dalam tanda kutip) Banda dan moral komunitas. Apa yang terjadi adalah polarasasi yang kerap terjadi di Indonesia, di mana konsep adat bertumpang tindih dengan identitas agama tertentu. Dalam kasus ini agama Kristen dianggap sebagai yang membawa pengaruh asing karena diidentifikasi dengan Barat. Kalau kita lihat definisi "adat" yang diajukan oleh Henley dan Davidson (2007), bisa dikatakan bahwa konsep adat memberikan rangka (framework) berbeda dengan tujuan untuk membangun koneksi dengan suatu komunitas. Ada rangka yang bersifat inklusif, tetapi ada yang bertujuan pada proses "representasi" yang kecenderungannya essentializing. Industri pariwisata lebih fokus pada obyek kultural yang bisa menjadi symbol identitas yang dengan mudah dapat dibaca oleh wisatawan. Tetapi orang lokal juga merefleksikan dan belajar dari citra atau representasi identitas lokal yg diciptakan untuk wisatawan. Seiring watku berjalan, fokus industri pariwisata pada sejarah kolonial kepulauan Banda yang mengabaikan kehidupan nyata masyarakat setempat, dan proses objektifikasi upacara adat dan praktek budaya berpotensial menuruskan proses displacement. Orang Kristen yang tinggal di luar Banda mulai menghilangkan hubungan mereka ke identitas yang melekat pada tempat (place based identity) dan kemampuan mereka untuk ikutserta dalam "komunitas moral" semakin dibatasi. Bagaimana orang akan mengingat peran orang Kristen dalam pandangan sejarah, dan apakah representasi tradisi dan simbol budaya dalam industri pariwisata akan menulis kembali siapa yang bisa dianggap sebagai "orang Banda"? Menurut Maurice Halbwachs, meskipun orang mengingat sesuatu secara individu, proses ingatan berjalan dalam konteks sosiokultural yang mempengaruhi apa yang diingat oleh suatu komunitas. Pierre Nora menjelaskan keterkaitan di antara sejarah dan ingatan: ingatan berakar di dalam hal yang konkrit, di dalam ruangan, bahasa tubuh, citra dan obyek. History, menurut dia, adalah rekonstruksi masa lampau yang tak pernah lengkap (1989:9). Ada beberapa faktor yang menentukan proses ingatan kolektif yang mungkin memicu proses displacement untuk orang Kristen, sampai saat klaim mereka sebagai Orang Banda tidak lagi diterima atau diakui. Proses pencitraan di industri pariwisata ikut berperan dalam pembentukan identitas modern orang Banda, dan berpotensial membuat sebagian masyarakat Banda diingat sebagai minoritas. In his article “the Death of Awe in the Age of Awesome” Henry Wismayer contemplates why the overexposure of the modern world has left many of us feeling, frankly, a little underwhelmed by everything. “Travel, for many of us has become a means to resuscitate that sense of humbling incomprehension” that our forebears felt witnessing some natural phenomena they didn’t understand. Those writing in the field of tourism studies point to a theory similar to Wismayer’s: that one of the main incentives underlying modern travel is a search for that missing sense of awe, the one that got lost amidst the selfies and the endless repetition of predictable tourist attractions. Wismayer sees this modern search for meaning through travel as making us into “refugees from the mundane,” which, not coincidentally, is similar to early social scientific definitions of a pilgrim engaging in a spiritual journey.
Wismayer points to media saturation as part of this disillusionment with the world at large, asking us when was the last time we went somewhere special without seeing a photo of it first. The tourism industry depends on providing the consumer with pre-departure images and imaginings, selling us a way of “seeing” before we ever encounter what is to be seen. It’s difficult to escape this cycle of priming our expectations, as each vista we encounter is a simulacrum of the last, standardized by our expectation of how it will look cropped and filtered and circulated on social media. Even as we stand in the moment we are decontextualizing what we are seeing in our minds, transforming it into a signifier of where we’ve been, of who we are for being there, what others will think when they see us there - nostalgic for the moment before it has even passed. The immediacy of place has lost its sway over us because we are always, essentially, somewhere else. Tourists encounter not just places that exist, but places that they imagine, and in a media-saturated world the reality of the encounter can seem a bit anemic when compared to the high-res version we hold in our minds like a kind of talisman ensuring how good things will be when we get there. As little as we like to admit, anthropologists and tourists are of the same ilk. We both travel to places ostensibly to gain experience, and learn things about this undifferentiated mass of the world that is “somewhere else." Instead of imagining what we want to see, or consuming culture as a product for our entertainment, the anthropologist wants to see from the inside out, trying to move from an observer to a participant in a social sleight of hand that is often neither simple or entirely successful. We seek our refuge from the mundane in the lives of others. It was this impulse that led me to take an invitation to camp out for a night on a tiny, uninhabited rocky island at the mouth of the bay in front of Banda Neira called Pulau Karaka, or Crab Island. In researching attitudes about tourism and the impact of a new phase of tourism-centered development on this small chain of islands in Maluku, I’d wandered into the territory of adat and ancestors, a very different landscape than the one visible to your average tourist. This Banda was a place inhabited by creatures we cannot always see, but who make themselves known under certain circumstances. Unlike American concepts of things of the spirit, where ghosts seem to appear as if from another place or time, spirits in Indonesia have a much more immediate relationship with their human counterparts. They too are part of the real world, and have places of their own built into the landscape. The most notable of these in the Banda islands are the keramat, described as graves of important ancestors who can appear to living humans as orang halus. Some of the keramat are linked to specific ancestors, such as the wali who brought knowledge of Islam to the islands, but others seemed to have less specific associations. The keramat are still part of the ritual practice, consulted before any major cultural events, like the ritual known as “opening the village” (buka kampung). My friend Andi told me that many people still practiced Islam “in the old way,” explaining that they prayed at the keramat and not at the mosque. “Do the ancestors help with things?” I asked. “That’s what we used to do,” he said “but we know now that it’s wrong. We just go to the keramat to remember them, to pay our respects." I was curious if I had learned enough to sink into the local landscape and to encounter some of these other inhabitants for myself. For many, the activities of the spirit realm seemed to be swirling about us all the time, flowing through human conduits in the form of ilmu that could be used for harm or good. Another friend had confided in me that his schoolmate’s father had recently woken from sleep with something sitting on his chest, choking him. He was unable to move. He was finally able to grab the figure’s arm, but when he made contact with the figure he experienced an excruciating burning sensation. The next thing he remembered he had been flung across the room, cracking his head open on the wall. “Sounds like sleep paralysis,” I said, launching into an explanation of the many names used for that feeling of some presence standing in your room while you sleep, or sitting on your chest, rendering you unable to move. My friend listened politely, and then explained that this attack was clearly something different. He understood the event as the physical manifestation of jealousy over this man’s newly successful business. The boat that he used for the business was moored on the neighboring island of Rhun, the very same piece of land that had once been traded for Manhattan when the Banda Islands were the center of the world’s spice trade. The people of Rhun are notorious for their ilmu, he said, and prone to using magic to gain the upper hand. We left for Karaka in the late afternoon, just as the lengthening rays of the sun started to soften the harsh angles of the jutting, craggy rocks where Banda Neira island points to the open ocean towards Ambon. The waters between the volcanic Gunung Api and Banda Neira are calm, as the channel is protected by the land masses around it. Passing the end of Banda Neira, the waves picked up, and as our little boat sidled up the barnacle-covered rocks we gingerly hoisted each other up the slippery sides as the prow bobbed in the waves. With a few boxes of full of fishing and cooking gear and a simple tent, we passed what looked to be an old foundation for a small house facing Banda Neira, and then crested the hill in the middle of the island to set up camp facing the open sea. The center of Karaka was smoldering from a recent brushfire that had been put out by the local fisherman, so we cleared the brush from the rocky area between the hill the and beach where we intended to set up camp. Since the vegetation flanking the path in the center of the island was still smoldering, I climbed over the rocks along the shore, reaching the other end of the island in about ten minutes. There I found huge pillars of black volcanic rock shooting out from the sea in oddly geometric patterns, attesting to the violence of Gunung Api’s explosive power. The spill of lava from Gunung Api’s 1988 eruption was still devoid of any greenery, disappearing into the water across from where I hopped the gaps between the black columns of rock twenty feet above the churning waves. My friends, some teachers and students from a local high school, went out fishing for our dinner, leaving me to wander about and swim into a sunset dripping with colors I had no name for, until the reef grew too dark for me to see what was swimming up from below. Later that evening, nearing half past eleven, Andi and I sat on the rocky shore, staring at the dying campfire where we had roasted our dinner. A few embers could still be seen glowing softly on the hillside behind us as the tide crept towards the edge of our camp. We had spent the evening eating fresh grilled fish and kangkung, laughing about the funny differences between people from Maluku and Sulawesi, and at my failure to recognize the difference between types of fishing boats. No one talked of the superstitions about the island, and no one had stumbled on any keramat during the afternoon’s activities. Our biggest worry was the few spots where smoke could still be seen on the hill behind us, as we occasionally heard the pop and crackle of small fires reigniting in the brush. On the far side of the island facing away from the deep channel where ships have entered the bustling port of Banda Neira island for hundreds of years, we were witness only to the open sea and the lazy rotation the of a small lighthouse on another nearby collection of exposed rock. Blocked from any of the light emanating from the port, it was as if the sky and the land were reversed, milky blocks of galaxies creating depth against the closer stars, like a landscape one could step into. Our companions were asleep and all was quiet in that breathless way that comes at night on a calm sea. The fishing canoes that trawled the reef all afternoon had gone in for the night. Content listening to the sound of the waves, we chatted occasionally and chucked stones at the sea. The tide was still rising so we moved closer to the fire, facing the hill. As if someone had switched on a spotlight, the area behind our camp abutting the hill was suddenly, strangely illuminated. For a moment I thought that someone must have been shining a light from the top of the hill, since the angle of the light came from above, widening to circle at the bottom. As my brain tried to make sense of what I was seeing, I realized that the spotlight had lights within it – several flat discs of blue light spaced evenly around the edges of the illuminated area. After a moment, the light began to move, slowing canvassing in a wider circle around the flat area above our camp, as though looking for something. I started to ask Andi something along the lines of “what the hell is that,” but the words didn’t quite come out. We were both frozen where we sat. He started chuckling nervously and whispered, “I told you!” At that point all I could manage to do was hiss at him to shut up. I was suddenly afraid of making too much noise, and aware that all the hair on my arms was standing on end. The light continued to slowly move, the blue discs roughly a few heads above us ten feet behind the campsite. Again, I tried to make sense of what could be generating the light, noting that despite being aimed at the ground, its range seemed to stop a few feet above it. After ten seconds of slow rotation, long enough for me to start looking up and around for anything that could logically explain what was going on, the light was extinguished as abruptly as it had appeared. As if on cue, a tree behind the campsite burst into flame, and I finally scrambled to my feet. With the departure of the strange glow, the tension was released, and Andi and I started to giggle nervously as I finally was able to croak out “what the hell was that?” Andi suggested we bank the fire so we could see what was going on. We gathered up some more dry palm and coconut husks until the campsite was illuminated again to the edge of the hill, where a small path wound around from the opposite shore. I was half convinced, at that point, that there must be someone else on the island. But there had been no sound of an approaching engine, or anything overhead, meaning that someone would have had to paddle in to catch us off guard. I thought a heard someone cough, or something rustling, but the island was alive with the sounds of the hundreds of hermit crabs that determinedly scuttle through the dry palm fronds lining the shore. It seemed neither of us were ready to breach the subject of what that thing really was out loud, so I asked Andi to grab the flashlight so we could walk up the path cresting the hill to see If there were any boats on visible from the other side of the hill. There were no boats that we could see with the naked eye from shore. “There isn’t anyone here, Kel,” Andi said, giving me a look that said I should know better. I was less frightened than I was taken aback at the physical reaction the encounter caused. My skin was still contracted and tingling from a rush of adrenaline. I had no imminent feeling of danger, no sense of foreboding. It was as though my body and brain couldn’t incorporate the strangeness of what we had seen into into a clear and bounded experience, and my blood was pulsing with bewilderment. We settled back next to the fire, and as my breathing slowed I wondered again what we saw, and why it was so off-putting. As my fight or flight impulses ebbed, I started to feel a pleasant stupor, my eyes growing heavy as I stared into the fire. What we had seen lay unspoken between us, and I felt that I couldn’t, or shouldn’t, speak about it aloud. I moved towards the sandy strip at the shore as the fire dimmed, surprised that I was still looking forward to sleeping in the open. The only acknowledgement of the strange events of the evening was that Andi had laid our machete in its scabbard carefully within reach. I smiled to myself as I drifted off, thinking that metal and wood was probably not going to be particularly useful for the kind of visitor I was imagining might be heralded by that strange light. Sometime in the early hours before dawn, when the night and the horizon have begun their slow exchange of light, I found myself awake, stiff from lying on the ground. Trying to focus my eyes, I was startled to see what I thought was someone standing between the tent and the shore to the left of our camp. As I went to lift my head to call out in a whisper I paused, again sensing that something was not as it appeared at first glance. I had a strong urge to stay still, focusing on the snores of my friends in the tent. I cracked my eyes a little further, still half asleep but cataloging the not-quite rightness of whatever was there;. It was a human-like shape with limbs that seemed not fully formed, opaque pale skin that seemed to be strangely bright in the dark, the vague suggestion of a head with a smooth, featureless face. It did not move or make a sound. I thought maybe I was dreaming, but the rocks poking uncomfortably into my hip said otherwise. Or maybe my brain was projecting an afterimage, a reaction to the emotions brought up by the earlier disturbance. The figure seemed sad, or resigned, but I had no desire to investigate it more closely. I also didn’t care for it to investigate me either. I closed my eyes. Dawn warmed me awake on the shore, and I sat in the purple light of morning watching the boats nose back out over the reef. My fellow campers went off to cast a few more lines in hopes of snagging another couple of fish to take home. I halfheartedly poked around near the tree that had burst into flame so spectacularly the night before, wondering if what we had seen was some refraction of firelight through glass or other detritus around the beach, even though that explanation made little sense. All I found was the blackened trunk, still warm to the touch. We cleaned up camp quickly as one of the student’s parents came to pick us up. Andi and I said nothing to our friends about what we had seen. Skimming back over the glassy water towards Malole beach, we heard distant voices and the thrum of oars hitting the surface of the water in a staccato beat. The men of Tanah Rata Village were guiding their new belang swiftly towards the shore, returning from practice for the upcoming races. Their chant carried clear and strong over the calm water. Back on Banda Neira later that afternoon, I stood on the cliff near the island’s small runway, overlooking where Karaka’s small, dark shape gives way to the open sea. The caretaker for the island’s only museum found me there on her afternoon walk, and I told her I had experienced something out of the ordinary on the island the night before. She said that as a child she used to picnic there with other families from her village, and that at one point in recent memory, a family had lived there, coming back to Banda Neira only occasionally for supplies. I told her I thought we had seen the ruins of their small house the night before while crossing to our campsite. People avoided the island now, she said, because of an oft-recounted incident involving a police officer who was drunk on the island and allegedly disturbed a keramat. Diving for the anchor of his boat the next morning, he didn’t come back up, although he was not stuck on anything under the water, according to those who dove down after him. “Something held him under,” she said. Efforts to revive the officer were unsuccessful, and the island has been considered spiritually potent ever since. I asked her if she thought it was a dangerous place, even for an outsider like me. “It’s all about your intentions,” she said after gazing at the island for a moment. “if you have niat baik, you’ll be fine. It’s people with bad intentions who get hurt.” The land sees us too, I thought. relationships, our view will always be limited, reflecting only what we bring to it, something we’ve seen before no matter where we go. Or maybe we have narrowed our vision so far to fit within the bounds of our expectations that we’ve obliterated anything that falls outside the frame. For weeks after returning home from Banda, I dreamed of the sea. Dreams so vivid that I woke gasping and disoriented. I wonder if whatever inhabits Karaka can see me from afar, just as I can see the island when I close my eyes. Author: Kelli Swazey |
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