Podcaster: Ni Nyoman Ayu Cinde Dhitasari or Dhita Pettit
Title: East meets West: Pleiades and Javanese Culture
Organization: Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Space Odyssey Exhibit
Links: http://www.dmns.org/
Description: In this podcast we will explore Pleiades in Javanese culture
Bio: Ni Nyoman Ayu Cinde Dhitasari, or simply Dhita Pettit is a volunteer at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Space Odyssey Exhibit. An Astronomy enthusiast, she just discovered her passion for the relations of culture, both ancient and modern/pop, and Astronomy. She hopes to explore more of the ancient astronomy of her own home country, Indonesia.
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Transcript:
Hi everyone! Welcome to 365 Days of Astronomy! This is Dhita Pettit and I am a volunteer at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in Denver, Colorado, USA. Today we will talk about the constellation Pleiades and its importance in Javanese culture of Indonesia.
Pleiades is one of the most famous constellations since the dawn of mankind. It’s not an actual constellation in itself; it is a star cluster a part of the constellation Taurus. Its importance in the ancient days were as a “sailing star”, which means its heliacal rise marked the beginning of the sailing season in the Mediterranean Sea. The Greek culture associated it with the Pleiades in their mythology, the seven sisters, daughters of Atlas, due to its 7 brightest stars. Those stars eventually named after the seven sisters of Pleiades.
Moving east halfway across the globe, another culture also have its own view of Pleiades. Javanese people of Indonesia also view this constellation as important, even intricately woven into their daily life and traditions. Let’s talk about that in more detail.
In Javanese culture, Pleiades is called ‘Lintang Kartika’ (literally means ‘stars of stars’) or ‘Bintang Tujuh’ (the seven stars). Some people think that the first name, ‘Lintang Kartika’, shows how important this star cluster is to the Javanese culture. The second name, however, creates a little confusion within the Indonesian people in general. Some people say that ‘Bintang Tujuh’ is Pleiades, but some say that it is the Big Dipper, which also consists of 7 main stars. Now that Indonesian Astronomy and Education authority adopted the western naming system of the constellations and asterism, it is no longer become an issue.
Although there is no official documents that confirm the relationship between the Pleiades and a the Javanese legend of Jaka Tarub and the Seven Nymphs, the legend is said to serve as the background story of Pleiades. The story talks about this guy named Jaka Tarub, who was on his hunting trip to the forest. He arrived at a lake and saw these seven beautiful women descended from the sky to the lake to bathe. In his hiding place he was so captivated by the beauty of these nymphs and then he decided to steal one of the nymphs’ scarves. When the time came for the nymphs to go back to the heavens, one of them, named Nawangwulan, couldn’t find her scarf. As a result, she couldn’t fly back to the heavens. Her sisters had to left her behind.
Seeing her in distress, Jaka Tarub came out of his hiding place and offered to help her. Long story short, he married her and they had a daughter together. Because of her divine origin, Nawangwulan gave her husband one condition before he married her; that he should never peek and question the way she did household chores. He agreed, but soon becomes curious because the rice in the barn never seems to be used. One day he decided to find out.
Once Nawangwulan left the kitchen while the rice was cooking, he opened the rice cooker and found out that she only used one grain of rice to provide cooked rice for the whole family for the whole day!! Because of this violation to her marriage condition, Nawangwulan lost her powers and had to cook rice the way it normally cooked. The rice in the barn started to get lower and lower….then…lo and behold! Nawangwuland found her long-lost scarf in the bottom of the barn, hidden among the piles of rice. How she had been deceived!!
Angry, she decided to leave her husband. His pleads were of no use. Before she left him to go back to the heavens, she promised to return to the Earth to nurse their daughter, and then on the night before the daughter’s wedding day.
The seven main stars of the Pleiades star cluster represents the seven nymphs in the story. Maybe you wondered…..how does this story and Pleiades affect Javanese culture? Well, one of them is seen in Javanese traditional wedding ceremony. One of the ceremonies for the Bride is that the night before the wedding day she is expected to stay awake all night long (some say only half night putting in mind that the bride will have a long day ahead of her) because at that time the nymphs will come down to the Earth to bless and dress up the bride spiritually, just as she came on her daughter’s wedding eve. By staying awake, she is ready to receive the beauty treatment from these nymphs and will become exceptionally beautiful on her wedding day. This ceremony is called ‘Midodareni’, a term which believed to be derived from the Javanese word ‘Widodari’ ,which means Nymphs.
When I was a little girl, we were told that when a rainbow is visible in the sky it is a sign that the seven nymphs are coming down from the heavens to bathe in a nearby lake. The rainbow is their trail. In art depictions of the Jaka Tarub and Seven Nymphs legend, the seven nymphs is almost always wearing seven different colors, representing the colors of the rainbow.
Is that all? Nope. Still related to its background story of the seven nymphs, we will discuss about one of the Javanese sacred dance called the ‘Bedhaya Ketawang’. The name of the dance literally means ‘The Dance of the Heavens’. There are several variations of the history of the dance. Some sources believed the dance was first choreographed by Panembahan Senopati, the King of Mataram in Central Java. Other sources mentioned that it was created by Bhatara Guru, or the Supreme God. The premier of the dance was said to be danced by seven beautiful nymphs created from seven sparkling gemstones.
The dance is considered sacred, only performed during the Coronation Ceremony of a new King or very special occasions in the palace. The dancers have to meet very strict requirements, among others: they have to be virgins, not in their period while performing, they have to observe several rituals such as fasting, staying inside the palace for certain amount of days, etc.
‘Bedhaya Ketawang’ is usually danced by 7 – 9 dancers. According to local legend and beliefs, when the dance is performed by 7 dancers, one of them is the spirit of (or possessed by) Kanjeng Ratu Kidul or the Queen of the Southern Sea. She is believed to be the Spiritual Consort of the Kings of Mataram. The dance is an expression of the love from the Queen to the King and represents their union. And oh, she is also said to be present during rehearsals, checking that all dancers got their movements right!!!
So, what does this dance have to do with Pleiades then? Well, it is believed that one of the dancers’ configuration during the performance mimics the configuration of the seven main stars of Pleiades.
Are we done yet? Not quite. There is one more use of Pleiades in Javanese culture, and this time it is related to farming. Ancient Javanese people used Pleiades to indicate the beginning of the planting season. When Pleiades is 50° above the horizon, they take it as a sign that Mangsa Kapitu (the seventh season of Javanese farming calendar Pranata Mangsa), or the time of planting of rice seedling to the main field, has begun. We had discussed Pranata Mangsa briefly in one of our previous podcasts. If you are interested to learning more, you can download our podcast for January 26 edition. Hopefully in the future we will feature a full podcast on Pranata Mangsa.
That’s it for now, everyone. Thank you for listening!!!
Thank you for listening!!
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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