To Watch, To Know more

so, this  is it,, a video (actually slides of photo) of KKN JTG 21.. yeaaah this is us.. 

this is only a little introduction of our group, what we do there.

so enjoy this...

and once more, you can find this video in youtube..

or else you can access erizedkai.com/tasikhargo.

that is website for JTG 21 and you will find some articles there, including mine. 

:D

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Another Unique Tradition

How they cut the trees, or should I say how they harvest the trees, is a little bit different.

Too much considerations and rules.

This is how they live, to love nature as a form of respecting God’s blessing.

There, people will not cut trees as free as they want. They have to look on the Javanese days before doing it. Bad days, good days can be determined based on the Javanese days. Mostly people called this system itung-itungan jawa.

WHY?

The answer is simple. Trees are also living organism: they live, they grow, they eat, they breathe in their own ways. That is why human and trees a little bit similar. As a human, we also have to respect them and understand. Taking care of them can be done in many ways. One of them is cutting them in a right condition.

According to Javanese belief, there is a time when a wood will be filled by waters. Therefore the wood will look bigger and fresh. On the contrary, there will be a time when the wood will look thinner because there is only a few water inside. This condition can be predicted using itung-itungan jawa. Yet how they calculate is still a big question answer (this needs further observation).

HOUSE

To build a house, they also have to think of itung-itungan jawa. Indeed they need woods to build a house. Therefore they have to be careful to choose the woods. If they take one wrong step, the house they build will not stand longer as it should be.

WEIRD

No, it is not weird. Though people, especially in modern era, always wonder how it can be, or they don’t believe in such things like that, this happens. It is all about belief. Since people there believe on it, everything can happen. It also happens on how they build a house. Not only a good choice of wood, they also do rites before building a house and after the house built. This aims to thank to God for the blessing giving to people so that people can be safe when they build house. Moreover, they also pray demanding for the house to stand longer and keep bad things away from house.

Javanese belief taught people to love their nature, to be in harmony with nature since they can live without nature, their environment. They have to take care of it all. That is why most of the tradition is related to nature.

This is how they live to keep tradition, to save nature, and to thank to God.

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Kondangan

KONDANGAN

Strange word? Haven’t heard it, right?

This is a tradition still be kept by people in Tasikhargo.

It is similar with genduren, Javanese tradition.

WHEN? WHERE? And HOW?

When they get close to Ramadhan, fasting time, they will hold kondangan. When they get close to Idul Fitri, they will also do it. When they have been in the 21^st day of Ramadhan, kondangan will also be held. So, this is the part of their activities.

Kondangan will be held in the house. People will invite their neighborhood to come to their house to hold it. They will pray together, asking for blessing. They will eat together, and they will bring the food back home. This tradition will be done by everyone there. Well, some people will not do it because they think this is a strange tradition in modern era. They will think “what’s the use of this such thing? It’s useless”.

Yet, the elders will think differently. It is still about belief. They believe in their ancestor. They believe in what they taught to them. This is a culture they kept and for some reasons hthey believe if they leave this kind of thing, there will be bad things happen. Since they don’t want bad thing happen, they will hold this tradition.

As the time has changed, the culture has changed too, yet only a little bit. There is an acculturation here. If in the past, they pray by pronounce some spells, magic spell maybe, now they pray in Islamic ways. This is because the syncretism of Javanese culture and Islam. Besides, in past there will be dupa, menyan when they hold kondangan, but now it is rarely found. There will be only food, and food. The food is simple that is rice, noodles, egg, apem (Javanese traditional food) and ingkung (chicken). This food will be placed on a big tray. There will be jati leaves too to wrap the food if they want to bring it home.

This tradition keep the people stay closer each other as they always meet and socialize when they hold this kind of tradition. That is why it is good to keep this tradition, no matter what “new generation” says, each culture always have several aims. Sometimes it cannot be understood, but there is something hidden on it. Bad impact, good impact, it is something ordinary. That is how this life balanced. 

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"Sacred Place" between Rice Field

This place is called Mbogo.

It is a famous enough place in Tasikhargo. It is kind of a forest in the middle of rice fields. Most people are coming there to enjoy the sceneries, the old giant trees. Not only teenagers, children and elders also come there for several reasons. Mostly, they come in the morning or evening as they can see sunrise and sunset clearly. Besides, they can breathe fresh air while enjoying the wonderful sceneries.

Sunrise and sunset are such incredible sceneries in this place. Yet when the night comes, this place will be different. Famous place, beautiful sceneries, quiet, and far away from residents house makes this place become “special place” for some people especially for lovers. Well, this place is misused now, and this place is known for a “romantic place”. Moreover, this place is also heaven for drunkard as they can drink “alcoholic drink” without noticed by anybody.

It is so irritating to know that this beautiful place has changed. Back again several years ago when this place was known for the mystic, sacred place. According to the story, Mbogo was a famous place to hold a rite. There were so many rites holding here such as rites to get blessing  from God. There were two giant trees inside mbogo that were beringin and bulu trees. As the myth said, beringin was considered as sacred trees, and having magic power. Therefore, many people looked for enlightenment there. They used to bring offering for the ancestors keeping the place. The offering could be panggang (roasted chicken), flowers (roses, jasmines), bananas, jajanan pasar and other offerings. Sometimes, they slept over in mbogo to get enlightenment. This habit was known as nepi. According to the story, most people came there looking for togel number. Togel was kind of gambit and most people there liked to play togel and they wanted to win. That was why they liked to get shortcut.

Now, in the modern era, this place is not as sacred as used to be. However, there are still some people holding rites in mbogo. They keep the tradition as the ancestor taught them. Keeping the sacred place, some efforts have been done by the villagers. They chase away people who drunk or do something bad. This aims to keep mbogo become a good place for the sacredness and beauty of nature. This is the combination of gods and nature, therefore people have their duties to keep it.

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LIFE CYCLE

Born, baby, kid, teenagers, adult, then become older, finally go to heaven. This is life. It will not stick in one condition. It will flow as the time has changed.

people are holding tahlilan for 7days of death

As a Javanese, there will always be a rite in every moment, special moment. Before a baby born seeing the world, people will also do rites. It is called neloni and mitoni. Neloni is held when the unborn baby is 3 months, while mitoni when it is 7 months. This is held to ask for blessing and grace from God. They pray together for the safety of mom and baby. To do the rites, they need to prepare some food, just like the other rites. They need panggang, rice (nasi giling, nasi uduk), bananas and pecel. The rites is simple since they pray together, eat together, and bring the food home. The most important of the rite is the pray. When the baby is born, the baby is 7days, 25 days, rite is also held for the same aims. It is to show thankfulness to God for giving safety to the baby and mom.

When people died, rites will also be held. The rites is quite similar with the baby born rites. People will pray together for 7 days continuously. Then 40 days, 100 days, 1000 days, they will still hold the same rites. This article will only focus on how this rite works.

People will come to the house of people who die at night, usually at 07.30 (after isya’). They will gather in the living room, sitting down together while they bring Al-Quran and tahlil book. They will sit making a circle, therefore there will be no one in the middle of room. Women usually sit down in the back side. In the middle of the room there will be offering. Those are gedhang tangkep, and flowers. Gedhang tangkep is bananas. It can be any kind of bananas. It is places in tray or any container, while it is combined with rice inside. The flowers are inside a container filled with water.

Since the recent tradition is acculturated with Islam, they pray together in Islamic ways. They read Al-quran (surah yasin), and tahlil. They will read it together and loudly, leaded by one of them. After, they finish tahlilan, there will be some snack and drink. People will eat it together. And then there will be also ingkung (chicken) and nasi giling (rice shaped circle). Those two food will be divided to people who come there, and usually they will wrap it using jati leaves. Bananas and rice which are on container will also be divided to people. Special for 7days, 40days, 100days, and 1000days, the food will not only be snack, but it will be rice, vegetable, and meat. After they finish eating, and praying, people will go home while bringing the foods. And this is the end of the rites. One more, the flowers inside container will be spread on the grave the next morning. But some people will also spread it in the nearest intersection.

That is how the tradition acculturated with Islamic ways. It is still kept in this village, not only this village, yet most of Javanese people. Some of them maybe have left this kind of tradition, but still there will always people who keep this tradition because they believe in it, and they want to keep the culture since culture is part of life. 

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Another Tradition of Harvesting

     According to Oxford Dictionary, ritual is a series of actions that are always carried out in the same way, especially as a part of religious. A ritual may best be defined, perhaps, as a prescribed way of performing religious acts, that is, of praying, singing sacred songs, dancing to the gods, making sacrifices, or preparing offerings (Beals and Hoijer, 1964).

            Ritual is one of cultural part in a society. In the past, the ritual is closely connected with the community. People usually perform ritual activities to be offered to their ancestors. They believe that the ancestors will give them goodness and blessing. Beside that it also showed their respect to the ancestors. But now only a few people who are still doing ritual activities that are very sacred. Maybe it is because the development of increasingly sophisticated technology.

The Javanese is rich of their cultures. Most of them still keep their tradition. One of the traditions is the rite before harvesting rice. This rite is still held in a village named Tasikhargo, Jatisrono, Wonogiri. This rite is mostly called methik. Methik is a word derived from Javanese meaning to pick something. Methik is held only for harvesting rice since rice is the main food for people there. This rite is not held for harvesting other plants.

This rite is simple because it doesn’t take a long preparation. People only need to cook nasi giling, pecel, and panggang. Nasi giling is kind of rice shaped like a ball, while pecel is like a salad yet it is mixed with nut sauces. Then, panggang is a roasted chicken. Besides them, there will always nasi uduk, seasoned rice. To held this rite, people will invite their neighborhood to come and pray together, then they will eat the food. However, they will not eat all the food since some of the food will be spread in rice field. This shows their thankfulness to the God for the blessing.

Now, the rite is the simple one, and they pray to the God for the safety. But long time ago, this rite is used to respect Dewi Sri or usually known as dewi padi. They believe that she is god who keeps their rice and farm. So, they do the rite to show their thankfulness, and to ask to keep their harvest done well. Most of people still keep this rite because they think this is their culture that should be kept. Besides it, they are afraid if they don’t do it, their harvest will not done well, and there will be something bad happens to the farmers or the people who harvest the rice.

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