Anna and Matteo, to whom we warmly welcome on our pages, went on a pilgrimage to Mount Bromo, on the island of Java in the Indonesian archipelago, to take part in the Kasada Festival, an annual event that has been held annually on the summit since time immemorial. of the volcano. They brought us their testimony and their photographic reportage.
di Anna Sida
& Matthew Maimone
βI never thought I would be able to attend one of the largest and most secular ceremonies of these times. We are succeeding, in less than 10 hours we will be there "I said whispering to Matteo, along the bus journey towards Probolingo, Java Island, Indonesia. Between jolts, sudden potholes, lots of bends and about three changes between buses, shuttles and cars, more than 20 hours of travel within Indonesian traffic, we thus take over, in the prosperous banana plantations that characterize this town 70 km from Surabaya, in east Java, and its villages along the Mount Bromo, their sacred mountain. The air becomes fresher and more pungent as we begin to climb in altitude, the bends become more repetitive and we leave behind us huge quantities of sand in the air due to the roads that are not really paved. The energy and the festive air is palpable: with attentive glances we notice the fleeting trucks loaded with pilgrims equipped with blankets and food, leaving in the direction of Mount Bromo for the Kasada Festival. They are all smiling, with their faces tanned by the sun, the expression lines of those who live life for the day without caring too much about what will come tomorrow. There are so many and the lack of lighting favors the context a mix of suggestion and suspense towards this long-awaited festival.
A centuries-old tradition that has deep roots, based on the legend of princess Roro Anteng and Joko Seger. Legend has it that a couple named Roro and Joko, who ruled the Tengger people, remained childless despite many years of marriage behind them. One day, in order for his wife to become pregnant, they decided to climb up to the caldera of Mount Bromo to meditate. 2393 meters of sacredness, a point between life and death due to the continuous activity of the volcano. The gods heard the couple's prayers and granted them 24 children on the condition that the 25th was thrown into the volcano as human sacrifice. The 25th child named Kesuma was sacrificed after a couple of hesitations from the parents and so the gods appeased. For this reason, from that moment and still now, tradition provides for the offering of sacrifices thrown into the crater to appease the wrath of the gods but also to remember the sacrifice that the royal couple made in order to have children.
In day of Yadnya KasadaLong before sunrise, devotees who have traveled and wandered far and wide to get to the slopes of Mount Bromo will once again pray together at the top of the caldera to cast offerings. They come from all over Indonesia and beyond. The main devotees are the hold on who are none other than the villagers of Ngadsas, the only ones believed to be the real ones descendants of the Majapahit empire. It tells of how they escaped from the Islamization of the island and how they were led by Princess Roro Anteng herself. Being a Hindu-Balinese people, they worship the god Ida Sang Hyang along with the gods Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu. A true mix of animism and Hinduism. It is no coincidence that Mount Bromo takes its name from Brahma, the creator god to whom a small sanctuary was erected inside the caldera that hosts the Kesada Festival.
The ritual takes place every 14th day of the month, in this case July 2019, according to the Tengger lunar calendar, and start taking part in the Ngadisari village with wonderful dance performances and songs that recall the spirits of the ancestors. They are ancient rituals that all grown men can participate in, including us. For this reason, having stocked up the backpacks with water and food, we leave at 10 in the evening aboard a jeep, one of the few vehicles available capable of climbing the slopes of Mount Bromo and capable of crossing the sandy plain called Sea of ββSand. Twenty minutes of hairpin bends in the dark in which other jeeps follow one another, overtaken by the motorbikes of the locals to find themselves in front of the Sea of ββSand and be entranced by it.
It seems to be on another planet and like travelers we proceed at a slow pace through the crowd, in the dark, with only our torches on our heads and a faint light from our mobile phones to show us the way along the jeeps and the parked trucks and the tents placed here. and the. People are huddled and huddled together, they proceed at a very slow pace and we notice with amazement that there are really few foreigners present at the ritual. Curious eyes and shy smiles continually rest on our faces that are a little tired and embarrassed but we begin to melt, to exchange some words, helped by the most beautiful language: that of the body, that language in which, even if you can't to communicate well in the language that you do not know and that does not belong to you, you still manage to get a laugh and a warm hug from these kind pilgrims.
The wind continues to blow icily, leading us to cover our faces with our scarves, envying those heavy and colorful blankets that wrap our cute new friends, so as not to breathe too much sand and sulfuric gas produced by the volcano. We are all attached to each other, all of us moving to create heat. There are no faces, only eyes peeking out from the layers of clothes and blankets put in advance in order to counter the cold. The sweet song that seems almost a lullaby gives strength to us, to the thousands of pilgrims who, together with the shamans, prepare for the ritual. The temple of Pure Luhur Poten it is completely surrounded by white fumes created by incense and fog.
And so it is that only around 5 in the morning, when we know that the sun will rise in a while to illuminate this new day, do we all get ready to continue the journey, along the sandy climb and at times characterized by narrow and steep steps. Step by step the cold is felt less, the adrenaline increases and in a moment we find ourselves on the top of the volcano. Inside the crater, right on the edge, is filled with people. They are all standing with their own handcrafted homemade nets as they try to capture the offers people are throwing.
It is a paradoxical situation: all the people inside know that they are risking their lives due to the volcanic activity, but this does not stop their intent, it does not stop their devotion to the gods. If they sacrifice their food and also their animals, it will bring them luck and gratification on the part of the gods of the mountain. Even some of them, unaware of the danger, go down inside the deep crater trying to collect as many offers as possible such as money, animals, food and flowers so as to take them home.
If we were to find an adequate word to encompass this ritual, we would speak of Devotion. The danger is literally around the corner due to the volcano's continuous activity but every year, without ever stopping, the Tengger population and thousands of other people make this pilgrimage because they know there is so much more behind it all. Mount Bromo is an apparently peaceful presence during the day but which comes alive at night, giving a dark, bleak and smoky scenery, a continuous reference to the devastating force of nature. And it is precisely here that, in our opinion, the power of nature merges with the religious power of the faithful recreating something unique, a perfect synergy capable of making that moment unforgettable.
