A tiger in the heart: the Javanese rampok macan

Abstract

Introduction Over the years, mentions of a Javanese ceremony called rampok macan have appeared occasionally in the literature, the most recent references being those in Nieuwenhuys and Jaquet 1980 and Nieuwenhuys 1984 and 1988, and in a comment on these by Kousbroek (1984). These, however, are only the latest in a long series of references to this ceremony, which ceased to be performed in the early decades of the twentieth century. As far as the details are concerned, the descriptions of this ceremony in which several tigers or panthers2 were killed in either of two ways are all very similar. Several writers (Pigeaud 1938:424; Nieuwenhuys 1984:9; Nieuwenhuys and Jaquet 1980:88) mention that this killing of tigers had a more or less religious significance. Pigeaud (1938:424) inter prets it as the execution of an evil being on the orders of the ruler. This execution was carried out by the community, he writes, in order to safe guard individuals from revenge by the tiger's soul. The death could even be blamed on the tiger himself, because he himself jumped onto the spear points in his attempt to escape, as will be made clear below. Nieuwenhuys and Jaquet (1980) closely echo this interpretation by Pigeaud and add that the sacred aspects of the event are reflected in the general solemnity with which all the actions in the ritual were performed. As Nieuwenhuys and Jaquet (1980:9) point out, the rampokan was part of a series of ceremonies at the courts of the Central Javanese rulers on the occasion of the celebration of the end of the fast of Ramadan and the beginning of the Muslim new year (cf. Ruzius 1905). Aside from these mentions of the sacred nature of the event, the con sensus seems to have been that the tigers were killed in revenge for the

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