Village alarm code and other Salatiga, Indonesia Local Custom Tips

In the countryside people will try to put you at ease: Disini aman, bu (It's safe here, ma'am). And indeed, Indonesia is generally very safe. In the cities this may be due to the safety wardens you find everywhere: in shopping malls, at banks, parkings and restaurants, as well as to the night watches in residential areas.

Villages have their own safety measures, which include night watch duty. If any disturbance of the peace happens, the watch will raise the alarm by knocking on a hollowed block of wood. As the picture shows, there is a code for different kinds of disturbances:

RAJAPATI = murder, single knocks
PENCURI = theft, double knocks
KEBAKARAN = fire, triple knocks
BENCANA ALAM = natural disaster, four knocks
HEWAN HILANG = lost cattle, five knocks
And if all is well (AMAN-DARAMULUK) at certain times the watch will announce this by a ruffle of decreasing loudness. It's the only signal we actually ever heard!

The photo is from Sombron hamlet near Tlogo Agro Tourism, but could be from anywhere. Left the hollowed wood block or kentong.

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Having a wild animal in your front yard enhances your status. (See The regent's tiger!) In a village it may be a monkey (a beruk or a lutung). The juveniles are caught by killing the mother, no wonder not many remain in the wild on Java.

This example is a beruk or Javanese macaque (macacus nemestrinus), kept on a chain in the front yard of a house in Tetep hamlet (Cebongan village south of Salatiga). It seems these macaques can be trained to pick coconuts, but we never saw that.

A long time ago Theo recieved a young beruk as a birthday present, and on another occasion a lutung (pythecus pyrrahus) in payment of a debt!

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