Capturing the Past of Tuyul

WHEN conducting research in Mojokuto, his pseudonym for Pare, East Java in 1952-1954, anthropologist Clifford Geertz came across a systematic description of the spirits of Java. A young carpenter who talked to him said there were three main types of spirits: memedi, lelembut, and tuyul. The carpenter then pointed to two three-year-old children who were standing listening to their conversation.

"Tuyul look just like these kids, only they aren't human but are spirit children. They don't upset and frighten people or make them sick; quite the contrary, they are very much liked by human beings, for they help them become rich," he told Geertz, as quoted in the book The Religion of Java.

At that time, according to Geertz, Mojokuto residents believed there were three people who owned tuyul in that town: a butcher, a textile trader woman, and a haji businessman. They each got tuyul after visiting the remains of Hindu temples such as Borobudur, Penataran, and Bongkeng, as well as the tomb of Sunan Giri. They made a pact in these places: if the spirits there gave them tuyul, they would offer a human sacrifice every year, either family or friends.

According to historian Ong Hok Ham in Dari Soal Priayi sampai Nyi Blorong (From Aristocrats to Nyi Blorong), for Javanese, wealth gained through a pact with the devil has no legitimacy. The rich man would also lose his status as a member of society and would no longer be considered Javanese.

Tuyul's Predecessor

Historian Peter Boomgard calls Clifford Geertz the discoverer of tuyul. "As far as I have found, he is the first scholar to give a long and detailed description of tuyul; its activities, people who have it, and how to get it," Boomgard wrote in "Illicit Riches," included in New Challenges in the Modern Economic History of Indonesia edited by J. Thomas Lindblad.

However, Boomgard continues, tuyul was briefly mentioned by G.W.J. Drewes in "Verboden rijkdom: Een bijdrage tot de kennis van het volksgeloof op Java en Madoera," published in Djawa in 1929. Tuyul may be only known after 1929, but before that, there was a similar money-making spirit.

"Setan gundul, or gundul alone, is a good example. I found it mentioned for the first time in an 1860 source," Boomgard wrote. The source is S.E. Harthoorn’s article, "De zending op Java en meer bepaald die van Malang," in Mededelingen van het Nederlandsch Zendelingen Genootschap 4 (1860).

The description of gundul itself appeared in 1894 in Van Hien's De Javaansche geestenwereld (The Javanese world of spirits). Gundul appears as a four or five-year-old boy with a shaved head like most Javanese children. He can also bring wealth to his owner under a contract for one period or seven years. After that, the owner will give himself up to be tortured in hell. However, this terrible fate can be postponed for up to two terms if the owner sacrifices someone else as a replacement.

If the owner agrees, with not too much profit, all that is needed is a buffalo as a sacrifice. However, gundul must be fed mung beans every day, and if the owner is a mother or a father of a baby that is breastfed, gundul must also be breastfed regularly.

"Clearly, there are similarities between gundul and tuyul. Gundul simply disappeared in the 1930s and 1940s. That was when tuyul started its career," Boomgard wrote. "It seems reasonable to assume tuyul replaced gundul, given their very similar characteristics."

Rice Thief

According to Geertz, in contrast to their act of stealing money from women traders in small markets in the cities, tuyul usually steal rice in villages. One commonly known type of rice thief is called gebleg, which takes the form of a chicken that likes to stomp its feet vigorously as it walks (hence the bleg-bleg sound). It stuffs rice under its wings, brings it to its owner, then flaps its wings to make the rice fall into the owner's barn.

Another type of rice thief is mentek who lives in the rice fields. Like tuyul, it takes the form of a naked child. Some call it tuyul's cousin. "Suppose," the carpenter told Geertz, "you and I have rice fields. I have a mentek, which I got through fasting and meditation. I send him to take the grains out of your rice and put them in mine. Then later when the harvest comes your stalks are empty and mine are full and doubly fat."

Boomgard attributes the presence of mentek to pests that attack farmers' crops. According to him, among agriculturalists, mentek pest is a rice disease whose cause has yet to be convincingly determined. As far as he could find, scientific efforts to determine the origin of mentek pest date back to 1859. Did the period of Economic Depression and war turn the crop-destroying creature into a rice thief? "This seems like a plausible explanation, but the history of mentek itself is probably more complicated," said Boomgard.

This occurrence exists not only in Java. People in Galelarese, Halmahera, Maluku, also believe in small rice-stealing spirits. Dutch scholars call them kabouters, which can be translated as house or forest spirits or little people. The Galelarese make offerings to them in order to get a lot of rice. "This sounds like the mentek described by Geertz," said Boomgard.

The Javanese also recognize other small ghosts, namely kurcaca (male) and kurcaci (female). Boomgard found these creatures mentioned for the first time in 1872, described as small children who died young. They have a white hat, and if one can hold it, one is lucky because the kurcaci will give them anything they ask for. They disappeared in the 1930s.  

Another wealth-giving creature is kecit, which is described as "a little doll in human form" and "a devil in the form of a child." Drewes describes it as "a cicada that still has something to do with a child: in order to become a cicada, one must have the corpse or shroud of a child." The money spent by the heirs of the kecit owner will be returned by the kecit.

"Besides the reference to cicadas, kecit seems to be a local variation of gundul, and has similar fate, as I found no stories about kecit after 1929," Boomgard wrote.

Boomgard suspects that the association of kurcaci with children dying young and kecit with dead children may hint at the beginnings of belief in all these types of small spirits.

Belief in little ghosts or child-like spirits that can make people rich is also found in other Indonesian regions, such as Batak Karo, Minahasa, and Buru Island.