Indonesian Mystic Controls the Weather

When pop star Avril Lavigne and the late Pope John Paul II visited Indonesia, a Javanese mystic was called in to work his magic and ensure a rain-free event. He tells Marianne Kearney how he turned from a sceptic into one of the superstitious country’s most sought after rain masters.

By Marianne Kearney
Source: AFP


Indonesian mystic Haryobintoro Tjakra enters a small hut and kneels before the tools of his trade: incense, a bowl of dirt, two black umbrellas and a ceramic burner on which he piles chunks of wood.

Bowing his head, he lights the burner, sending fragrant fumes swirling up to the hut’s exhaust fan, and prays in Javanese: the rain must stay away.

“I pray to the gods via the medium of smoke,” the 69-year-old says, dressed in black pants and matching high-necked traditional shirt.

Tjakra seeks blessings from the local spirits inhabiting Java long before Buddhism and Hinduism, and later Islam, arrived. Most Javanese are Muslim but many practise kejawen, a syncretic belief that incorporates the original animist belief system here.

But to keep all the deities he can on his side, this Javanese shaman always makes his offerings facing west.

Tjakra conducts the simple but well-practised ritual not in a temple or religious building but in a white, pre-fabricated hut in the bustling hub of modern Jakarta, surrounded by gleaming glass skyscrapers.

He has been hired to keep the clouds at bay for three afternoons and evenings by a multi-national cigarette company holding an art exhibition and promotion event in the grounds of a major sports stadium.

The round-faced Tjakra, who intersperses his talk with mischievous chuckles, is among the pawang hujan, or rain masters, who work across the equatorial island of Java, where tropical downpours can strike at any time during Indonesia’s monsoon season.

For 24 hours before the first day of this ritual, Tjakra, his wife and three assistants have fasted to increase their spiritual strength. A week ago, he came to collect some soil from the site he is protecting and included it as part of his daily offerings to the gods.

Just two hours earlier, there was a heavy downpour in central Jakarta. Now, after Tjakra has sent his smoke signals, the sky directly above is a brilliant blue.

Dark clouds, however, still circle, so the mystic repeats his wood-burning ritual every hour until evening, when the exhibition closes.

And although it tickles his congested lungs, he also smokes the fragrant Indonesian clove-scented cigarettes known as kretek for additional insurance.

“The doctor told me not to, but I have to smoke to keep those away,” he says, pointing to the ominous black clouds hovering just outside the stadium’s perimeter. Sceptic turned believer Tjakra has a reputation as one of Jakarta’s most powerful pawang hujan, having kept the clouds at bay for pop concerts, weddings for Indonesia’s rich and famous and even team-building sessions for international companies for the past two decades.

But he wasn’t always a believer.

“Out of all the descendants of my grandfather, the most stubborn was me, because I was military. I laughed and I didn’t believe in it,” he says, describing how he used to kick his grandfather’s burning bowls.

Many of Tjakra’s aunts and uncles, and brothers and sisters, who come from a poor family in central Java, were keen to learn the art of rain control. But it was Tjakra, then a 46-year-old one-star general enjoying his military life, that the grandfather chose as his protege.

Convinced that he had supernatural powers, his then-89-year-old grandfather persuaded Tjakra’s commander to send him back to Madura, a small island off the coast of east Java, where he spent six months teaching his grandson his secret skills.

“In fact I didn’t want to but, because I was afraid my grandfather would die and then he wouldn’t be able to pass on his knowledge, I did it,” says Tjakra.

The rain expert is coy about what he learned in those months, but he will say firstly that he had to purify his soul, cleansing it of greed or the desire to harm others.

Since his training in Madura, Tjakra believes that the supernatural powers required to do his job are either endowed by the local gods or not.

He is suspicious of some pawang hujan who have tried to Islamise this mystical tradition.

“I inherited these powers from my grandfather, and later I will pass it on to my descendants,” he says.

Tjakra has seven children and 14 grandchildren from his first wife Nganten Sunaningrum, a Catholic, who died several years ago, but he has yet to pass on his skills to anyone in this large brood. But he does have faith in the abilities of his second wife, 29-year-old Novita Kusuma Ningtiyas, who began her training three years ago.

“You can be taught if you have it in here,” he says, pointing to his chest.

Ningtiyas says she is able to act as a proxy pawang hujan, conducting the smoke ceremonies, if her husband has been requested to work at two different events on the same day.

Tjakra, though, will still collect the all-important dirt from the sites several days ahead of the event and the two will stay in touch via mobile phone, with Ningtiyas reporting on any worrying cloud movements.

Chorus and concerts

Punk-skater princess Avril Lavigne and the late Pope John Paul II may not have realised it, but they both owed their rain-free performances in Indonesia to Tjakra’s skills. Or at least, he performed his rituals for them.

“I did nearly all the concerts last year. I did that singer – what’s her name?” Tjakra asks, summoning an assistant who turns around to display “Avril Lavigne Bonez Tour 2005” on the back of her T-shirt.

“And when Paulus (the late Pope John Paul II) was here in 1989, over there at Senayan Stadium, I pushed the clouds away,” he says.

Tjakra’s diary has been full since a fateful call to appease a restless ghost.

A Belgian racing car driver was killed during an international rally in the mid-1980s and his body was kept under 24-hour guard.

But police watching over the body claimed they were being haunted by its ghost, so the committee organising the rally, which had heard about Tjakra, summoned him to the hospital.

“So I spoke to the face of the Belgian, and I said, ‘Don’t play round! If you keep following the guards around, you will be buried in Jakarta and you won’t be taken back to Belgium,’” he recalls. “I don’t know if this was the correct way to deal with a ghost but after that he stopped haunting people.”

The next day Tjakra’s powers were reported to “Tommy” Hutomo Mandala Putra, the youngest son of then-president Suharto, who demanded to meet Tjakra.

Eventually he was flown to New Zealand by Tommy – applying his skill to snow rather than tropical rain.

“They sent me to New Zealand and I moved the snow away from the track,” he says of his trip, aimed at providing perfect conditions for the famous playboy’s car rallying.

Tjakra’s former patron Tommy has since been jailed for ordering the execution of a judge who had him jailed for corruption.

Indonesia’s current leader, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is far less superstitious, has not called on the rain expert’s services. But in the Indonesian entertainment world, Tjakra is a regular fixture.

No drinks, drugs or gambling

Yohannes Sri Haryanto, a director of major concert organiser Java Music, says no event should go ahead without a cloud diverter and often calls on Tjakra himself.

“Every time I hire a pawang hujan, if it’s raining, then they move the rain,” says the man responsible for putting on performances in Jakarta by Lavigne, Irish pop group the Cranberries, heavy rock outfit Korn and Croatian pianist Maksim Mrvica.

None of the stars or their managers are told about the assistance they receive from the Javanese gods, says Haryanto.

Pawang hujan like Tjakra – who charges a standard 2.6 million rupiah RM1,026) per day – are expensive but a worthwhile investment, Haryanto insists, if it means fans avoid injuring themselves in a wet, slippery stadium.

Tjakra claims that he rarely fails to satisfy his clients, although he concedes an occasional small shower has marred the start of an event.

Alfi Chaidir, marketing manager at Jakarta’s luxurious Dharmawangsa Hotel, confirms Tjakra’s claims, saying that in the eight years since the hotel used him, only one event was ruined by a downpour.

Occasionally Tjakra has been asked to use black magic – to make people sick or ruin their businesses – but he has always refused despite fat pay cheques. In the dry season he does private consultations, occasionally locating stolen cars or laptops using his spiritual contacts. He used to work on murder cases, too.

“Before I did lots – but it’s too dangerous,” he says. “Being a rain main is more lucrative.”

Keeping up his powers to wrestle with nature does require constant vigilance – and some sacrifices, Tjakra confides.

“No drinking, no drunkenness, no drugs, no gambling and no playing with women,” he says.

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