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Celebrating the sea in a sinking city
Along Jakarta’s ever-transforming coastline, fishing communities welcome the months of September through December to give thanks to the oceans and to hold on to their traditions, with young people taking the helm.
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Coast life: Women sit on a boat taking part in the Nadran celebrations in Kampung Baru Dadap on Oct. 16. During the celebration, traditional food and the head of a buffalo are released into the sea to give thanks for the year's catch and in the hope of many fish for the year to come. (JP/Harriet Crisp) (JP/Harriet Crisp)
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long Jakarta’s ever-transforming coastline, fishing communities welcome the months of September through December by giving thanks to the oceans, with young people taking the helm in holding on to tradition.
Suppose you happened to be anywhere along the North Jakarta coastline over the past few weeks. In that case, you might have noticed small armadas of colorful fishing boats decorated with batik, flags and dangling snacks pass by, throwing sugar canes into the sea and placing plates of traditional food and buffalo heads onto bamboo platforms and boats before coming together in a chaotic circle and capsizing them into the sea.
If you did, you caught the Nadran, or pesta laut (sea festival), the annual ritual practiced by fishermen and their families to give thanks to the sea for their livelihoods and the future. The ceremony, which has been going on for generations along Java’s northern coastline between September and December, has adapted to life in one of the world’s largest coastal cities.
And despite the challenges facing fishermen along Jakarta’s coast, with the city’s well-documented sinking and the world’s rising sea levels – with current predictions from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) suggesting 25 percent of Jakarta, particularly around North Jakarta, will be submerged by 2050 – alongside increasing coastal development projects and pollution affecting fish stocks, these festivals continue to get bigger, with the villages’ younger generations making them their own.
Bringing Nadran into the next generation, these ritual celebrations are turning into full-blown festivals, with music and activities for villagers and guests from outside. Two such festivals occurred in recent weeks: Festival Dadap in Kampung Dadap Baru, Banten, and Festival Nelayan Cilincing in Cilincing, North Jakarta.
Raising Dadap
