Web Consultant | Adi Baskoro

Mbah Tumpo’s hands are never still. Every day he’s doing something—tinkering at the repair shop, or making naga (serpent) masks and barongan (masks and bodies of mythical beings). Mbah Tumpo is an elder from the Reyog Singo Mangku Jaya group. (Reyog is a Javanese masked folk dance, using a giant mask of peacock feathers, a range of hobby-horse dancers and a large troupe of male performers). If there’s no invitation to perform, Mbah Tumpo ekes out a living working in his repair shop, patching tires near the entrance of Gang Reyog (Reyog Lane) in the city of Surabaya.

       There is an eerie and ill-fated quality in the face of this white-bearded and mustached man. When he speaks, his eyes are sharp and searching. Although his body is thin, Mbah Tumpo appears strong and healthy at sixty-eight years of age. An akar bahar bracelet (a kind of amulet made of black coral) is coiled around his right wrist. He is often seen dressed in black. Sometimes his chest is bare. This old man is rarely known to bathe, and he’s a champion at reading peoples’ thoughts; he possesses a magical expertise, which he uses for the protection of Reyog Singo Mangku Jaya.

 When there’s a Reyog festival, it is Mbah Tumpo’s task to provide a pagar gaib (magical protective fence). “This is so that the Reyog group is safe from mischief by outside groups,” explains Sugiono, the leader of Reyog Singo Mangku Jaya.

       “What kind of mischief?” I ask.

       “At a Reyog festival in Jember, we were marching across the alun-alun, and the gamelan instruments and gong wouldn’t make a sound. At the moment we were supposed to perform, suddenly a storm came up, with wind and heavy rain.”

       Another of Mbah Tumpo’s responsibilities is as pawang (magical expert) in the Kuda Lumping performance, in which men use flat hobby-horses of woven bamboo to dance themselves into trance. This wiry old man is known for his skill in inserting and evicting jin (a kind of spirit) into and out of the bodies of the group’s members. When people are ‘entered’ by jin, they go into trance and lose consciousness. It’s at these times that extraordinary things take place, such as people eating broken glass or cobras; cracking open coconuts with their mouths; or being whipped just for the show. The Kuda Lumping is part of the Reyog performance. During the Reyog Grebek Suro in Ponogoro in 2000, Mbah Tumpo performed his specialty—extinguishing fire with his mouth.

       Gang Reyog is never quiet. Traffic and pedestrians pass through all day long. Groups of bare-chested youths, with tattooed arms and backs, sit along its curbs. Groups of women rest along the edges of the gang, taking a few moments to fan away the heat of the Surabaya air.

       To the side of the gang’s entrance stands a Reyog statue; the standing figure represents a bearded Warog dancer and Dadak Merak, a giant figure somewhat similar to the Balinese barong, but made with masses of peacock feathers (‘merak’ means ‘peacock’). People often call this lane ‘Gang Reyog’.

       Gang Reyog is in Gubeng Kertajaya Raya, in the heart of Surabaya. The city is the second largest in Indonesia. Surabaya is also renowned for its frequent floods and hot climate. When it rains, almost the entire city gets flooded, including the district of Kertajaya. Until it was repaired, the road in front of the Reyog members’ house was often swilling with floodwater.

       On the right-hand side, about twenty meters from the entrance to the gang, are two houses squashed together under one address. This is No. 8, where the families of the members of Reyog Singo Mangku Jaya live. To the passer-by, it looks stifling, over-crowded, noisy and hot. No. 8 measures eleven by twenty-one meters and constitutes the dwelling of twenty-five families; the total number of inhabitants is over a hundred people.

       The houses have been divided into sixteen tiny compartments, each one measuring three-and-a-half by four meters, and each housing one or two families. Mbah Tumpo’s compartment, where he lives with his wife and three children, is only two by four-and-a-half meters, and part of the roof is used for living space.

       I visit another compartment. Here is where Karjono, the trumpeter, lives with his wife and three children. All three play in the Reyog group. Their names are Nining, Iin and Guna Wibowo, who dances the Dadak Merak. Karjono, who is also an employee of the Regional Drinking Water Company (PDAM) in Surabaya, admits that it has become crowded living like this year after year. “I’ve already made plans to build a house in Sidarjo, but it’s still just foundations.”

       This Reyog group started as a troupe of six traveling Kuda Lumping performers from Ngawi, East Java. These players were Jaya Padi, Suminten, Wagiyo, Sadiyo, Kliwon and Tumpo. They traveled through much of Java, heading west from Ngawi, until they reached Purwokerto, and eventually Jakarta. From there, they traveled eastwards again across Java to Surabaya. In 1949, these six performers decided to settle in the area of Gubeng Trowongan Magersari, Surabaya. It is here—in what is now Gang Reyog—that their children and grandchildren were born.

       In the old days, this was forest. Mbah Tumpo tells me that the forests around Kertajaya were often a refuge for criminals and members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). He says that to buy the materials to build their homes, they used alloy coins, given to them by President Sukarno when they performed at the Istana Negara Jogjakarta.

      The art of Kuda Lumping (also called Kuda Kepang) is well-known in Central Java. In Banyumas, it’s known as Ebeg. In Jogjakarta, Jathilan. In East Java, there is also a Jathilan performance form. This is a long-established tradition. Mbah Tumpo explains: “According to the old stories, Kuda Lumping was a form of tabuh-tabuhan [percussion-based musical accompaniment], using lesung [mortar for threshing rice] and tampah [bamboo tray for winnowing rice]. The purpose of this music was to call back a small child who had been taken away by spirits called wewe.” The sounds of the lesung and tampah were intended to make the spirits dance.

       These instruments were developed into tabuh dor, an instrument like a kendang drum and added to until it was complete with kendang and gamelan angklung (bamboo gamelan). The dancers ride bamboo hobby-horses. The glass-eating and the trance-dancing of the hobby-horse riders are the ‘entertaining spice’ (bumbu hiburan) for the audience. According to studies, this folk art was strictly controlled during the so-called ‘G30S/PKI’ period in 1965-66 when President Sukarno was ejected from office, because Reyog was associated with the PKI.

      Traditional Reyog derives from a folktale from East Java. Prabu Klono Suwandono, the king of Bantar Angin in Pacitan, East Java, sends his prime minister, Pujangga Anom (Bocah Ganong) to ask for the hand of Putri Kediri, the daughter of the king of Kediri, Sunggo Langit. In the depths of the forest, their party is attacked by the Singo Barong (who are now played by the Warog) who also want to woo the princess. The battle is neither won nor lost by either side.

        After the battle, Bocah Ganong decides to take his leave and meditate. As a result of his meditation, he receives a whip called Samandiman. The battle resumes and the Singo Barong are defeated as a result of the lashes they receive from the whip. The defeat of the Singo Barong provokes them to curse Bocah Ganong so that the mask he wears will stay on his face forever. However they do surrender to him. The procession then continues towards the Kingdom of Kediri. They say that the Dadak Merak comes from the thoughts of the Warog contemplating the life of the forest. Usually, if there was a peacock above, there would be a tiger below. This is represented by the tiger masks and the huge Dadak Merak, which is conspicuous in the Reyog procession.

       The order of the procession is still preserved to this day. The first, solo figure, is Bocah Ganong, the Prime Minister to Prabu Klono Suwandono. Second in line are the Kuda Lumping dancers and, third are the Warog (with fearsome faces and thick beards, and doing somersaults and acrobatics). Prabu Klono Suwandono himself walks behind the Warog. The procession ends with the fabulous Dadak Merak.

       In order to conserve this traditional art form, the government of Ponorogo, East Java, puts on a Reyog festival or competition every year, which is usually attended by groups from all over Indonesia, from as far away as Jakarta and Kalimantan. Sugiono tells me that in Surabaya alone there are fifty-six Reyog groups.

       The Singo Mangku Jaya group is renowned for being the most solid of all Reyog groups, and it enjoys prestige at a national level. Besides its origin and history, the group’s unity stems also, of course, from the fact that they live together. This also makes them easy to organize. In two hours, all fifty members of the group can be assembled and ready to perform.

       The group has won many prizes in Reyog festivals. In 1995 and 1998, at the Grebek Suro festival in Ponorogo, the Singo Mangku Jaya Reyog group won first prize. In 1996 and 2002 in Semarang they came in second place.

       Their fame goes beyond Reyog circles in Java. They are well-known ‘cultural ambassadors’ for Indonesia. “We have played in many countries around the world, like France, England, Thailand, Japan, Australia, East Timor, and in American Tahiti,” says Karjono. The group has also been in an advertisement for a popular brand of cigarettes.

       The idea to perform Reyog first came from the Karung Factory in Ngagel, Surabaya. The original Kuda Lumping group were given the wide range of instruments needed for the gamelan, and the costumes, including the Dadak Merak masks, as a gift from the factory. With these tools, Jaya Padi, Wagiyo, Sadiyo, Kliwon and Tumpo were finally able to form a full Reyog group. Up to 1971, they received support from the Golkar Party, which ruled Indonesia for thirty-two years.

       The Reyog group receives two or three invitations a month to perform. Their fee for performing in Surabaya is two to three million rupiah. “To perform outside the city we charge from four to twelve million, depending on the distance and who has requested us,” says Karjono. They are often asked to perform and greet foreign guests in the Perak region or at the airport, for which they receive about Rp2.5 million. “That money is then divided amongst the fifty Reyog members,” Karjono adds.

       Different members receive different amounts. For example, the pawang’s share is the largest. Mbah Tumpo receives Rp1.5 million for three days of performing. It seems like a big share, but not when you consider the amount of work he does. “The day before the performance he has to prepare offerings and fast (no food or water) until the performance is finished,” says his son Kuswanto.

       Those who carry the Dadak Merak get around Rp200,000 if they perform outside Surabaya. Their work is heavy. Their teeth must be strong because that is what they use to lift the Dadak Merak, which weighs about fifty kilograms. “Then you have to add the weight of the person inside, so the total weight can be more than a hundred kilograms,” adds Karjono.

       But the players can’t rely on income from the performances to survive. Life is hard in the inner city of Surabaya. Many of the Reyog group members have to find other work to supplement their incomes, and they work as cement haulers, becak drivers, parking attendants, security guards, drivers, and tire repairmen. Others have opened small warungs serving rice in front of their houses, like Istri Karjono and Sugiono.

       Bearing the fame of Reyog Singo Mangku Jaya is not always easy. Once they were invited to a five-star hotel in Bali but were cheated of their earnings: after they finished performing, they were not paid. Once there was someone who took advantage of the group’s popularity and sold a video of Grebek Suro without their permission.

       They have suffered misfortune. On 17 September 2003 , a Saturday night, the Reyog Mangku Jaya were invited to perform at the Governor of Central Java’s inauguration. In the region of Demak, the truck they were traveling in collided with another truck bearing a load of cement bags. Six musicians were killed and a number of other members severely wounded, one of them having a foot amputated.

       If you visit Gang Reyog at night, sometimes you can hear the bright sound of a trumpet playing in the distance. The lane is never quiet, especially not the house at No. 8. Behind the walls, there is the pleasure of celebrity and the spiritual satisfaction of performing; but economic security remains out of reach.

Adi Baskoro is a freelance writer with a degree in philosophy from Gadjah Mada University in Jogjakarta.
(Translated from the Indonesian by Latitudes)