Jatihlan in Nanggulan
KoreaMosaic Home Photos Home Country Photos Yogyakarta 2014.01-02 Around Jogja	All photos on this page © 2014 John Holstein
Jatihlan: Villagers dance to repetitive music in order to get possessed by the village guardian spirits, with the objective of communicating with them, but they have to fight off evil spirits in the process.
Nanggulan is a small village about an hour's ride west of Yogyakarta.
She is singing an Indonesian form of pop music to warm up the audience. When they start dancing, she sings the ancient half-chant half-song that leads the dancers into trance.
Lots of specially blessed food is prepared to sustain the dancers over the next few hours.
First the little kids--the evil spirits--come on the scene . . .
. . . and they are soon joined by older girls, who represent the villagers.
The evil spirits and the villagers battle it out, exhausting the villagers . . .
. . . and killing the evil spirits. Good ultimately triumphs over evil.
See photos of a livelier (though not deadlier) jatihlan in Kemesu. Watch my action-packed video, Jatihlan in Kemesu.
For a deeper understanding of Jatihlan, check out this great 8-minute documentary: Jatihlan
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