By Marianne Kearney
Source: AFP
Indonesian mystic Haryobintoro Tjakra enters a small hut and kneels before the tools of his trade: incense, a bowl of dirt, two black umbrellas and a ceramic burner on which he piles chunks of wood.
Bowing his head, he lights the burner, sending fragrant fumes swirling up to the hut’s exhaust fan, and prays in Javanese: the rain must stay away.
“I pray to the gods via the medium of smoke,” the 69-year-old says, dressed in black pants and matching high-necked traditional shirt.
Tjakra seeks blessings from the local spirits inhabiting Java long before Buddhism and Hinduism, and later Islam, arrived. Most Javanese are Muslim but many practise kejawen, a syncretic belief that incorporates the original animist belief system here.
But to keep all the deities he can on his side, this Javanese shaman always makes his offerings facing west.
Tjakra conducts the simple but well-practised ritual not in a temple or religious building but in a white, pre-fabricated hut in the bustling hub of modern Jakarta, surrounded by gleaming glass skyscrapers.
He has been hired to keep the clouds at bay for three afternoons and evenings by a multi-national cigarette company holding an art exhibition and promotion event in the grounds of a major sports stadium.
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