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The boar demon hunt that shook the internet
A fixture of Indonesian folklore, the babi ngepet is a demon shrouded in mystery, violence, and poverty.
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scourge has fallen upon the sleepy subdistrict of Bedahan, Depok, West Java. For months, its residents had reported many incidents of burglary and theft — various personal possessions and up to Rp 2 million (US$138.48) in cash. To the residents, there was only one possible explanation: They had been victims of a babi ngepet (shapeshifting boar demon) and it was their duty to hunt it down.
Stories of their dramatic hunt have taken Indonesian internet by storm. In a widely shared video posted on the TikTok account of local resident Lukman Nurjamal’s, a crowd of hundreds can be seen descending upon Bedahan, eager to see the alleged babi ngepet. Other footage shows a nervous piglet trapped in a small rectangular cage, appearing weak and disoriented.
“People have been talking about this babi ngepet for the last four to five months,” Lukman told to The Jakarta Post. “They say this babi ngepet moves from kampung to kampung, clearing out people’s homes before running away. So, when it began operating around Bedahan, people were ready. They had been eyeing this guy for some time.”
Then, the grisly aftermath: a man standing triumphant amid the crowd, carrying the dead boar’s head in his hands.
The specter of poverty
A fixture of Indonesian folklore, the babi ngepet is a demon shrouded in mystery, violence, and poverty. It was believed that thieves skilled in black magic could transform into a monstrous, hulking boar. The wereboar would then wander around a residential area, breaking into houses and stealing its contents.
The ritual needed to achieve this dubious power is Faustian in nature. According to the Book of Betawi Folklore compiled by the Jakarta Tourism and Culture Agency, two people (typically a husband and wife) must first seek out a shaman and offer up a blood sacrifice to the dark forces, preferably their own kin or child. In exchange, they would receive the powers needed to transform into a babi ngepet.
When the time comes to operate, the man would walk into a secluded area at night wearing a black robe, before turning himself into this magical boar. Any house the wereboar bumps into would lose its valuables, which will instantly appear in the devious couple’s home.
Meanwhile, the wife would stand guard in their home, in front of a candle. If the flame shakes, the wereboar is in danger and the wife must blow out the candle to enable the boar to escape. But if the flame is prematurely put out, it means the wereboar has met a gruesome death.
According to historian Christopher Reinhart as interviewed by Voi.id, the babi ngepet myth came out of the rigid agricultural system of colonial Indonesia. Nouveau riche farmers were viewed with disdain, as the only sure way for locals to gain wealth back then was to collaborate with the hated colonial officials and become money lenders or middlemen.
“Rich people were labeled by farmers as friends of the devil, people who practiced pesugihan [black magic used to enrich a person],” Reinhart said. “It’s meant to scare people away from them, isolate them in society and stop people from aspiring to be rich.”
As poverty, inequality and slow social mobility persist into post-colonial Indonesia, the babi ngepet and tuyul (demon that takes the form of a child), another demon associated with ill-gotten wealth, entrenched itself into the Indonesian subconscious.
In July 2020, a residential area in Sukmajaya, Depok, descended into chaos after an alleged babi ngepet was spotted on CCTV. Meanwhile, in 2019, a series of robberies in Surakarta, Central Java, and Jombang, East Java, were both attributed to a babi ngepet.
Of course, the true explanation is rather more mundane. The robberies in Surakarta and Jombang were committed by a (human) burglar who was simply good at his job. Meanwhile, the supposed boar demon in Sukmajaya turned out to be a mongoose that had escaped from a local resident’s house.
But for sociologist Bagong Suyanto, each alleged incident of a babi ngepet robbery is simply an extension of panic for many economically fragile communities. The aspirant lower-middle class is fearful that these demons would disrupt their livelihoods, while the frustrated and unlucky underclass seek increasingly violent means to get by.
“They are viewed as a shortcut for people who couldn’t achieve vertical social mobility,” observed Bagong. “Because there was little possibility of advancement through rational means like education and skills, people found irrational ways to move up the socioeconomic ladder. The babi ngepet reflects those deep-seated frustrations.”
After the hunt
These frustrations are alive and well in Depok. Viewed as an emerging satellite city near the capital, the city was economically devastated by the pandemic. At one point in late February, the city had the second-highest rate of active COVID-19 cases in Indonesia. The last thing they needed now was a babi ngepet operating in their communities.
Their first attempt at seizing the boar, though, ended in failure. According to CNN Indonesia, local ustad (Islamic teacher) Adam Ibrahim had managed to catch the boar demon in Bedahan subdistrict, Sawangan district, Depok, last month. But after a short time in captivity, the magical boar disappeared, leaving only clumps of fur that, tellingly, disappeared after other residents came to check.
After consulting his spiritual advisors, Ibrahim found the reason for his alleged failure: the captors were wearing clothes. To truly see a babi ngepet in action and capture it once and for all, everyone must strip completely naked.
At midnight on Tuesday, he rallied his kampung with this new strategy. He dragooned eight naked, burly residents into chasing and herding the boar into a designated trap area, before enveloping the boar in a special robe owned by a local religious figure. His gambit worked a treat. By dawn, hundreds had gathered around his home, eager to see the caged demon.
Footage of their hunt and subsequent commotion spread across Indonesian social media like wildfire. Within hours, it had become a national talking point. Zoology researcher Taufiq Purna Nugraha from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) weighed in, insisting that babi ngepet “doesn’t exist scientifically.” Meanwhile, Sawangan Police chief AKP Rio Tobing promised to investigate the matter further while reiterating that the pig was neither enchanted nor devious.
Their denial fell on deaf ears. Bedahan became a hotbed for curious onlookers, eager to see the magical pig. Fearful of more crowds during a pandemic, the locals decided to slaughter the boar and bury it. Soon enough, Ibrahim said, the true thief’s family would come to them to claim the fallen boar’s body.
Ibrahim alleged that the wereboar’s family had contacted him anonymously and agreed to retrieve their son’s body on late Tuesday evening. But that never came to pass. On Wednesday morning, local police returned to Bedahan to exhume the alleged babi ngepet’s body. To precisely no one’s surprise, they simply found a small piglet rotting in a shallow grave.
This was when the story took a nasty turn. Suspicion immediately fell upon Ibrahim, the ustad who first alerted residents about the babi ngepet and coordinated the boar’s capture. After a short investigation by the local police, the truth finally emerged: it was all an elaborate hoax, engineered by Ibrahim to advance his burgeoning religious career.
Wary of a recent spate of local burglaries, Ibrahim saw an opportunity to raise his profile within his community and attract more members to his religious group. With the aid of a friend, he secretly bought a piglet from an animal lovers’ group on social media, paying Rp 900,000 and hiding the animal in a specially prepared cage in his home.
When the night of the hunt came, he simply released the piglet and ran, butt-naked, into the night.
“He wanted to become more famous,” said Depok Police chief Imran Edwin Siregar. “He was a respected figure in his kampung, but he wasn’t famous yet. He orchestrated everything for attention.”
Every detail, including the puzzling requirement to hunt the pig while naked, was simply a product of Ibrahim’s imagination.
Perhaps, it was always destined to end this way. True to its own legend, the curious case of the boar demon of Depok is a heady tale of greed, deceit and blind ambition.
