'Cembengan': A ritual requesting a good sugar harvest

Slamet Susanto and Tarko Sudiarno , The Jakarta Post , Bantul, Yogyakarta | Fri, 05/09/2008 9:38 AM

According to tradition, the cembengan ritual must include a ceremony involving offerings to appease spirits of machinery and locations in the factory.

Kyai Kasih and Kyai Anggro, the "sugarcane bride and groom", were married recently in a ritual to ensure a good sugar milling season.

The "newlyweds", made up of bundles of nine black sugarcanes and nine white sugarcanes, are at the heart of the cembengan ritual in Kasihan, Bantul.

The tradition takes place before the start of the sugar milling and refining season at PGPS Madukismo, the only sugar mill in the Special Province of Yogyakarta (DIY).

The ritual is performed to ensure smooth sailing during the milling and refining process, and to pray for an abundant supply of sugar.

"We perform this ritual so the sugarcane milling process runs well and the production is abundant," said Rachmad Edi Cahyono, general manager of PT Madu Jaya, Madukismo's parent company.

Edi said the sugarcane "bride and groom" were taken from Madukismo's plantation, which sprawls across DIY, Purworejo and Sragen.

"When the milling time comes around on May 3 they will be the first to be milled," said Edi.

As part of the ritual, an offering of 40 chickens, one water buffalo's head and one cow's head were placed around the milling machines. Other offerings made up of various flowers were also tendered.

A prayer session was conducted and honey was burned in accordance with local beliefs. Participants in the parade, donning traditional Javanese dress, sat cross-legged in prayer around the offerings.

The ritual reflects a strong Javanese influence, with Javanese spoken throughout the proceedings.

After the prayer, the chickens were placed throughout the sugarmill. The water buffalo head was buried at the entrance to the mill to keep resident spirits from disrupting the work of the mill. Similarly, the cow head was buried in the mill's compound.

"Each chicken represents a work unit of the mill, while the water buffalo head and the cow head represent the spirit of hard work," Edi said.

The cembengan ritual, he said, has been performed regularly since Madukismo was established in 1958, and dated back to Dutch colonial times.

At that time, he said, all of the mill's cooks were Chinese, and before the start of the milling season, they would perform their cing bing ritual -- the tradition of visiting ancestors' graves.

This tradition gradually found its way into the local culture, and continues to live on in the form of cembengan. Paying homage to a forbear's grave, such as that of Syeh Bela-Belu in Parangtritis beach and the Rogocolo grave behind the sugarmill, carries on to this day.

Another ritual usually performed prior to the commencement of the milling season is the slametan giling, a ritual to ward off evil spirits.

"A night-long wayang (shadow puppet) show is also held in Parangkusumo and we dare not skip it," Edi said.

"The story of the show is also related to praising and glorifying, such as Semar mbangun kayangan (Semar building up the heavens), to heap abundant blessings on the sugarmill," he said.

Supardjo, 41, one of the mill's technicians and a father of two, said cembengan was not merely a ritual but also an important prayer medium.

Other creatures such as genies also abound in the world, he said. Some happen to live in the milling machines and in other parts of the sugarmill.

"So this ritual is also an instrument of communication to ensure neither party disturbs the other... especially considering parts of the mill are notorious for being haunted." he said.

He said in 1993 the head of the mill skipped the ritual. As a result, the milling process didn't run smoothly: the machines stalled for no reason and the quality of the sugar was poor.

"Finally the foremen decided to perform the ritual themselves and held a wayang show in Parangkusumo. After this the milling process ran smoothly again," Supardjo said.

The current milling and refining process is estimated to run for 170 days from May until October.

Up to 5,640 million quintals of sugarcane will be milled, with an estimated sugar output of 41,000 tons. It will be an expected increase from last year's output of 38,000 tons.

Yet Madukismo's production still falls short of the annual local demand of 45,000 - 50,000 tons.

To meet this need the company set a target to expand their sugarcane plantation in DIY by some 600 hectares by 2009.

"At present our land measures about 7,000 hectares, with 5,400 hectares in DIY and 1,600 in Sragen. Next year, the land in DIY will be expanded by about 600 hectares," Edi said.

The milling capacity of Madukismo will also be increased this year from 33,000 quintals per day to 35,000 quintals per day.

Edi said the expansion of the sugarcane plantation was possible because local farmers were showing more interest in planting sugarcane. A land-lease system, which has proved disadvantageous to the farmers, is no longer practised.

"The prevailing system now is partnership and farmers cannot suffer losses because there is a minimum income threshold for them," Edi said.

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