Kampung Adat Pulo, a favorite burial ground

Crossing the divide: A man poles a boat across the lake surrounding Kampung Adat Pulo in Garut, West Java, beneath beautiful mountain scenery

The Jakarta Post

Sat, March 30, 2013 Published on Mar. 30, 2013 Published on 2013-03-30T17:12:49+07:00

Kampung Adat Pulo, a favorite burial ground

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span class="caption" style="width: 510px;">Crossing the divide: A man poles a boat across the lake surrounding Kampung Adat Pulo in Garut, West Java, beneath beautiful mountain scenery.

Kampung Adat Pulo, in Garut, West Java, is inseparable from the presence of the eighth century Cangkuang Temple and a nearby graveyard. Situated in the middle of a lake, the village has been in existence since the 17th century. A bit of its past can be learned by listening to the stories of the caretaker of the historic site, Tatang Sandjaya.

The calm gentleman has only held the respected community position for over a year. “I was born into the 10th generation of the original inhabitants of Kampung Adat Pulo. Formerly this village was known as Kampung Kertahayu,” he related.

An interesting phenomenon can be found in the mountains of Kaledong, Hanuman and some hilly areas. People from outside Adat Pulo recently began to bury their deceased there. “Their numbers have been increasing year after year,” said Tatang Sandjaya. Unsurprisingly, the public cemetery right beside the village is now sprawling, with a majority of outsiders’ graves.

“Perhaps these people think it’s favorable to be buried in a sacred place. That’s why their interest has never declined. Nobody knows how long this will go on,” the 58-year-old Tatang told us.

The local Adat Pulo community’s centuries-old custom limits the total number of houses to six with one temple. The rapid expansion of the cemetery today seems to run in contradiction to this philosophy.