Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Next stop: Tangkuban Perahu. This volcano, when seen from Bandung, looks like an upside-down ship. Of course local tradition couldn’t let a phenomenon like that go without a good story.

The legend I hear closely resembles the theme behind Prambanan, and a few other places in Indonesia: man falls in love with Javanese woman who doesn’t want to marry him, for whatever reason. Instead of simply saying “No”, afore-mentioned woman (usually a princess for the sake of the story) must devise a polite way of getting the suitor off her back. The preferred method is by asking for an impossible task to be performed in one night: ie, building 1,000 temples, or constructing a ship single-handedly. Because these heros rarely take “no” for an answer- they defy mortal limitations and come within moments of completing their tasks. Seeing this, the shocked princesses find a crafty way to sabotage the effort,,, usually by stirring the roosters a few hours early. Upon hearing the roosters crow (early), the villagers awake, and the new day officially begins early enough to claim that the task was, in fact, not completed in time as per the agreement. Apparently the Javanese princesses had good contract lawyers.
Their Herculean efforts foiled, the heroes are understandably upset, and rarely take their loss well. In the case of Prambanan, the hero built that final temple in spite of his loss,,, bigger than all the rest, and cursed his beloved princess to rot for eternity, entrapped within. Sounds rational.
In the case of Tangkuban Perahu, the hero flipped his boat upside-down in a fit of rage, thus forming the mountain by the same name.

The Tangkuban Perahu legend has an Oedipus twist to it, because said named hero was orphaned off by his princess mother,, and then came back several years later, only to fall in love with her (without knowing her true identity). They reportedly loved each other, until mom figured out the real identity of her suitor, and had to find a delicate way of breaking off the engagement.

Always interesting, listening to the Javanese stories. Invariably- there are always some who lose the ability to distinguish between legend & history. Ahh well. Legends sound better sometimes.

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