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rance dancing such as Jatilan is linked to kejawen or the spiritual practices of Java.

One such jatilan in Ngampon village in Piyungan, Bantul, was held in honor of a wedding ceremony recently.

Young men wearing feminized makeup and holding two-dimensional, colorful bamboo horses engaged in stylized, fight-like dancing accompanied by melodic and repetitive gamelan music.

Suddenly the fighting turned real as they lunged at each other and rapidly fell to the ground.

Emerging from their tussles, the fighters’ appearance and behavior was notably transformed: Pupils were dilated, facial expressions were bizarre and the dancers’ behavior was erratic. According to spectators, the
dancers’ bodies had been possessed by spirits.

The dancers do so in exchange for flowers, incense and fruit, which are eaten with much relish, and then they would stick out their tongues for more offerings.

One dancer jumped around like a frog, another offered a banana to onlookers — a handler always standing by in case the behavior became too erratic.

Another dancer tried to gnaw his way through a coconut husk to get at the meat inside.  

After more dancing and eating, souls returned to the dancers’ bodies, and the spirits were cast out.

Some spirits proved harder to oust than others, and the process appeared quite painful.

However, when the dancers returned to their senses, apart from being tired, they seemed unharmed neither by the fighting nor their ingestion of extraordinary objects.