Pasola is an event held by the people of West Sumba to celebrate the rice planting season. The highlight of the festival is the "perang kuda", two sides on horseback battle it out using wooden spears which they throw at each other. Pasola takes place every year in February in Lamboya and Kodi, and then in March in Wanukaka and Gaura. And... I learnt all this from a bule friend of mine. As an Indonesian I am embarrassed to admit I had never even heard of it before. As it turned out, when I tried to get tickets online, everything was fully booked around that time because so many European tour agencies organise special packages for Pasola. This just made it seem more exotic, so Prita, Idot, and I were even more excited to be going.
We flew out of Jakarta before sunrise and in three hours, including a stopover in Kupang, we were in Waingapu. From there it was another three and a half hours by road to Waika bubak, the capital of Sumba Barat. When we arrived at the Monalisa Hotel that evening, the owner, Pak Hengki, told us the Pasola procession would be starting in a couple of hours we hardly had time to stretch and get ready before we had to head off again! I thought Pasola was just a sort of jousting battle, but there is actually a lot of ritual involved including prayers in the hills and summoning sea worms. Pak Hengki introduced us to our guide, Pak Charles, and we set off for Wanukaka.
The procession began at the top of Ubu Bewi hill where Rato Dongu Watu lived in a sort of shrine. A Rato is a Marapu priest who leads the Pasola, and Dongu Watu was the name of the priest at that time. Marapu is a traditional belief from Sumba that includes the worship of deities, spirits and ancestors. Although most of the Sumba population is now Christian, there are still some who keep to the old Marapu traditions. To get up to the top of the hill we went on foot from Kabak, a tiny village with no electricity. In the darkness we passed traditional Sumba houses with their high roofs and the huge stone graves placed right in front of their entrances. From there we climbed on foot through the forest for two hours before we finally reached the summit, exhausted and out of breath.
On the night before the ritual, only the Marapu are allowed to enter Ubu Bewi. However, with Pak Charles' help negotiating, we were eventually given permission to join them in the procession, on condition that we first provided a chicken for Rato to sacrifice to ask for god's mercy. This was still no guarantee that we could join them. Everything depended on the will of god which would be read from the feathers and heart of the chicken after it had been killed. This was too much! After a twenty hour journey which included two hours climbing a mountain, were we really going to be sent back if we were not accepted by their god?
At around midnight Rato came out onto the terrace to see us. He was a slight but charismatic man in his sixties. He gave us a woven bag filled with betel nuts and in return I gave him some money. Then he hit the chicken on the head to knock it out, cut its neck, making sure the blood ran into a cup, and ripped out a bunch of feathers which he counted. I could feel my heart pounding. "You won't have any problems," he told us via Charles who translated for us. Hurray! However, the test was not over yet.
He then cut open the chicken's chest, opened it up, took out the heart and looked at it. This was the moment we had been waiting for. The moment of truth! Everything seemed to go silent for a moment... until eventually he announced, "Your request is granted." I was so relieved!
At 2:00 a.m. Roto and four other men came out and sat on the large stone opposite the entrance. They were now dressed in black costumes tied with Sumba woven ikat cloth and parangs hung from their waists. Their heads were wrapped in black material tied with long threads of coarse hair, and they wore heavy gold triangular earrings.
He then led a prayer which to me sounded like a kind of rap. The long day was catching up with me and I suddenly realized how tired I was. Half an hour later he came down from the stone and dabbed my forehead with coconut oil. Then, with Rato, his wife, and the four men, we began the descent to the beach, each of them crying out to the sea worms "Hu, hu, hu, huuu!" throughout the two hours of the journey. We stopped at a house where the leaders from villages all around the area were also gathered to talk, drink coffee, rest and wait for the sunrise. And then, along with people from the village, we all continued on our way down to the beach. "Hu, hu, hu, huuu!"
The beach was surrounded by huge rocks and there was already a crowd waiting to welcome the procession. Among the western tourists there were also several presenters covering the event for foreign television. I felt proud to be Indonesian I Rato's group continued with their prayers. As the sun rose he walked down to the sea carrying a spear. He then bent down and plucked up a nyale (a brightly coloured type of sea worm) from the water and inspected it.
Noone knows when the nyale are likely to appear but somehow Rato knew exactly what he was doing, even though the previous day there had been none at all on this beach. He returned from the water and addressed the crowd and the press, informing us that the nyale was healthy and this was a sign that the year's harvest would be a good one. Now Pasola could begin! The crowd erupted in cheers and rushed down to the sea with their buckets to try to catch as many nyale as they could. I had not worked out why they would want them but I was soon enlightened by one of the locals. "They are for eating! They really taste good." I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to eat a bright blue worm.
While we waited for the festivities to begin, Pak Charles told us about the legend of Pasola. Once upon a time... in Waiwuang, Umbu Dulu and two brothers went fishing, but did not return. The other villagers eventually assumed they had died. His beautiful wife, Rabu Kaba, was devastated. However, eventually she fell in love with Teda Gaiporana from Kodi. Because it was forbidden for them to marry, Teda eloped with Rabu back to his own village to marry her there. In the end Umbu Dulu finally returned, only to find his wife had run off with another man. Umbu and the others from the village ran as fast as they could to Kodi, but Rabu did not want to return. Teda settled the dowry and married her. He ordered that there should be a Nyale Pasola celebration in Waiwuang to help them get over the sadness of losing Rabu Kaba. So... as usual, it's all about a scandal involving a pretty woman!
We moved to a beach nearby to watch the preparations for Pasola. The horses' heads were draped with colourful ornaments, wooden spears were sharpened, and soon we went over to the battlefield at the foot of the hills to watch the festival. Rato returned to open the event with prayers, and then the fighting began! A hundred or so people on horseback, divided into two camps at each end of a field about half the size of a football pitch, were now ready to do battle.
All at once, they spurred on their horses towards the centre of the field and immediately started attacking the enemy... throwing their spears at each other! This continued until one of the combatants or horses fell or was wounded. This horseback battle, with vicious spears flying through the air, was taking place so close to us that we were actually scared we might be injured ourselves. Occasionally a spear did come into the crowd, so it was no surprise some of the audience were wearing helmets.
My adrenaline was pumping and I was both thrilled by the spectacle and also terrified I would be harpooned by a spear. Every time someone was wounded especially if they were bleeding everywhere the crowd gave loud cheers. They seemed to have no pity, they were enjoying this. The battle went on for hours but I had no idea how they would decide who had won or lost. In fact, I found out that this battle never ended in a victory for one camp or the other. They simply believe that the spilling of blood on the Pasola battlefield makes the soil more fertile. "I am willing to die!" said one of the combatants. Wow!
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