Gunung Kemukus in Kabupaten Sragen, Indonesia
A seemingly typical Javanese village emerges from the slopes of a nondescript hill. Until recently, when the Fridays of the Javanese and Gregorian calendars coincide, believers congregated from around Java for the Pon Festival, an event that has gained widespread notoriety for facilitating ritual extramarital intercourse. Around 300 years ago, the legend goes, the "prince" of the region fell into an illicit love affair with his stepmother. They would meet in secret on Gunung Kemukus (Mount Kemukus). Both the prince and his stepmother are said to have been caught killed on the site for the dishonor they had brought. This spawned the belief that consummation with a stranger—completing the act the prince and his stepmother could not on the day of their deaths—would bring good fortune. For hundreds of years, it is said, people have come to complete the ritual by having sex with the same person seven times—once every 35 days over the course of a year. The village has a small concrete building akin to a community hall, where one receives a blessing from the gatekeeper with an incantation over a small fire. The inner sanctum holds the shrine, a low platform with a small headstone at each end for the doomed lovers. Believers would then go for a ritual cleansing in a spring, and then into the village to complete the ritual in the open air. In time, an industry of hostels and sex workers arose to accommodate them and people began to use modern technology to meet strangers. Eventually, the rest of the world took notice, which drew unwelcome attention and tourists. Traditional animist beliefs such as these are not rare on Java, but they run counter to the revival of Islam in Indonesia in recent years. In 2014, the regional governor moved to ban the practice, though its not clear from online sources the extent to which it still takes place.
A seemingly typical Javanese village emerges from the slopes of a nondescript hill. Until recently, when the Fridays of the Javanese and Gregorian calendars coincide, believers congregated from around Java for the Pon Festival, an event that has gained widespread notoriety for facilitating ritual extramarital intercourse.
Around 300 years ago, the legend goes, the "prince" of the region fell into an illicit love affair with his stepmother. They would meet in secret on Gunung Kemukus (Mount Kemukus). Both the prince and his stepmother are said to have been caught killed on the site for the dishonor they had brought. This spawned the belief that consummation with a stranger—completing the act the prince and his stepmother could not on the day of their deaths—would bring good fortune.
For hundreds of years, it is said, people have come to complete the ritual by having sex with the same person seven times—once every 35 days over the course of a year. The village has a small concrete building akin to a community hall, where one receives a blessing from the gatekeeper with an incantation over a small fire. The inner sanctum holds the shrine, a low platform with a small headstone at each end for the doomed lovers. Believers would then go for a ritual cleansing in a spring, and then into the village to complete the ritual in the open air. In time, an industry of hostels and sex workers arose to accommodate them and people began to use modern technology to meet strangers. Eventually, the rest of the world took notice, which drew unwelcome attention and tourists.
Traditional animist beliefs such as these are not rare on Java, but they run counter to the revival of Islam in Indonesia in recent years. In 2014, the regional governor moved to ban the practice, though its not clear from online sources the extent to which it still takes place.
