May 13, 2006

"People around here believe that if Merapi is going to explode there will be a sign, a magical sign."

"Either it comes in a dream, or in the form of a hallucination."



Not everyone leaves when warned.
Although most Indonesians are Muslim, many also follow animist beliefs and worship ancient spirits. Often at full moons, they trek to crater rims and throw in rice, jewelry and live animals to appease the volcanoes.
Beliefs -- beautiful and sad.

11 comments:

Ricardo said...

"Beliefs -- beautiful and sad."

Are you sad because they're throwing all that perfectly-good jewelry into the volcano?

MT said...

Nobody seems to have noted that this would be one thousand years to the year since the Merapi eruption that ended the society that built Borobudur. That was in 1006. Inauspicious timing.

amba said...

"Beliefs -- beautiful and sad."

'Nuff said. Words I won't forget.

Robert said...

It's only sad when someone's emotional support animal gets tossed in.

"Mr. Fluff! Nooooo!"

michael farris said...

"It's only sad when someone's emotional support animal gets tossed in."

They better keep their hands off my coping monkey.

Dad Bones said...

It pays to know whose "dreams and hallucinations" are most reliable, especially when your life could depend on it. Whether you're an Indonesian or an upper midwest kinda person.

Robert said...

Michael, I can assure you with no fear of contradiction:

there are no plans to touch your monkey.

michael farris said...

Robert, when you put it that way I don't know whether to feel relieved or insulted...

My coping monkey, however, is above such petty, human concerns and worries about the big issues such as 'are peanuts the result of evolution or divine creation?'

verification word: eujsm
I am so not going there...

A.M. Mora y Leon said...

It's also just about right to the day of the overthrow of Indonesian strongman, Soeharto. India exploded its first nuclear bomb when that happened. Maybe something like it will happen every so often on this anniversary. We need an Indonesian soothesayer to tell us all the other coincidences!

Steven said...

'are peanuts the result of evolution or divine creation?'

Neither! Modern peanuts are the result of artificial selection by humans, while the proto-peanut was the result of a Martian bioweapon experiment gone awry.

Ann Althouse said...

Kendi: Click on the link in the post.