From the suggestive moves of Sundanese traditional dancers to potent herbal brews and Balinese kissing rituals, Indonesian cultures are rich in celebrations of romantic and erotic love.
Caught up in last year’s heated debates surrounding the enactment of the anti-pornography law was the jaipongan, a traditional folk dance from West Java. The dance drew political attention for the dancers’ “immodest” dress and “provocative” moves, but defendants insisted the dance had nothing to do with pornography.
As one dancer, Dewi Gita, told The Jakarta Post at the time, the dance is a form of cultural expression.
“The dance is actually derived from the traditional ketuk tilu dance, which is a way for girls to attract boys in the Sundanese tradition,” she said. “So of course the girl must be provocative and sexy.”
As Valentine’s Day, the annual Western celebration of romantic love, once more sends lovers (and would-be lovers) scurrying for red roses, chocolates and candlelit dinners, a look at Indonesian culture uncovers a range of local traditions for finding — and making the most of — romantic and sexual love.
A good place to get started with a meet-cute is Moga spring, about 40 kilometers from Pemalang, in Central Java.
The spring is believed to benefit anyone who bathes in it: Men will become better looking, legend claims, and women will quickly find a spouse. Legend aside, the spring does in fact serve as a place for men and women to pair up.
At the end of the fasting month, locally called Syawalan, hundreds of people of Arab descent, from areas such as Bogor, Tangerang, Surabaya and even Saudi Arabia, gather at the spring, where they hold a mini festival, complete with gambus music and jipin dancing.
The men dance and the women take note of the men they like best. The next day, they all get acquainted at the spring.
In Banjar regency, in West Kalimantan, the harvest inspires another match-up tradition. During the harvest season, the young men and women of the regency’s Sungai Musang village take part in merapai — threshing the unhusked rice while looking for love. The merapai usually takes place after Isya (the evening prayer), after a full day of fieldwork; eyes meet over the threshing, leading to love and marriage.
More than eyes meet during the rites of the Balinese hamlet of Sesetan, home of the omed-omedan or “kissing ritual”, a kind of traditional version of “spin the bottle”.
During the ritual, young men stand on one side of the space, women on the other, and they pick their friends to be the next “kissers”. The designated teenagers are carried on their friends’ shoulders to perform the quick kisses. The participants then choose another pair of “kissers” until every member of the group has had a turn.
Weddings are always a good place to find a potential mate, as is recognized in the midang, which takes place during wedding parties in South Sumatra’s Ogan Komering Ilir regency.
Midang refers to walking while greeting friends and family members along the way. Its aim is to introduce the newlyweds to society, and usually the bride and groom are followed by hundreds of young men and women, dressed to kill. Parents stand by the roadside and eye the youths, noting potential children-in-law.
Not that teenagers have ever really needed their parents’ help in finding their way into each other’s arms. Helping them are places such as the so-called “Matchmaking Bridge” in Gorontalo regency. The bridge has an intersection at each end and is a popular destination for local youths; teenage attendance usually reaches its peak during the first seven days of the fasting month.
But once you have found a lover, how to keep him or her? Or rather, how to keep him or her satisfied?
If you have concerns in this department, Indonesia’s traditional herbal medicines, known as jamu, may be able to help. Just as there is jamu for such varied issues as headaches, back pain and weight loss, naturally there is jamu to help with sex drive and performance.
One herbal medicine is Pasak Bumi, also known as Tongkat Ali. Pasak Bumi (Eurycoma longifolia Jack), which literally means “firmly nailed to the ground”, is a slender tree growing up to 10 meters tall; it is native to Asia, including parts of Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
Use of the Pasak Bumi root dates back to the 1700s, with the plant extract used to treat malaria, high blood pressure, fever, fatigue — and loss of libido. Indonesians were using Pasak Bumi as a sex stimulant long before Pfizer created its little blue pills; the root can reportedly increase testosterone levels by up to 440 percent.
A list of herbal medicines to help the sex drive would never be complete without mention of Madura herbal medicines, whose fame stretches across the nation.
Madura herbal medicines include Tongkat Madura (Madurese stick), Empot-Empot and Rapet Wangi, which can eliminate vaginal discharges (leucorrhoea), banish vaginal odor and provide relief from internal irritation.
The men of Donggala in Central Sulawesi swear by another kind of stimulant named Lamatu or Pakadoro, which means “the medicine of power” in the local language. The blue-white capsule is reported to not only boost sex drive but also improve work performance.
Sahlan, a local shaman who produces the medicine, discloses it is made from various ingredients but refuses to give the full details.
Another relevant traditional medicine comes not from plants but from animals: The nutrient-rich milk of West Nusa Tenggara’s wild horses.
According to research by the Bogor Agricultural Institute, the milk can be used to treat 44 ailments, including cancer and tuberculosis — and impotency.
Drinking the milk mixed with honey, lemonade, garlic and egg yolk is said to help restore a man’s performance; some people prefer to just mix it with alcohol and drink it before going to bed.
Despite all this, you might just prefer to try your luck with candy and flowers. But when all other efforts to win a lover have failed, the final resort for succeeding in love might be a susuk, an object that a shaman or paranormal inserts into the body using mystical techniques. The susuk is believed to bestow extra beauty, fortune and confidence on its users, and to be useful in winning someone’s love.
