"Rampogan Macan"

The lost tradition in Kediri, East Java.

Kediri is a city which located in east java province. This city established at 25 march 804, based on Hariying A inscription. Therefore this region has through in three times on history classification overwhelm hindu era, muslim era, and colonial era. Every era has fascinating story about traditional ceremony that might never occurred in this era. One of the examples ceremony was "rampogan macan" , rampog is a word of javanese, it means scrambling and macan it means tiger. this ceremony happened in Kediri, while colonial era in a control. Rampog was a part of a ceremonies at the court of kediri regent in the last nineteenth century. This ceremony consisted when the ending of Ramadhan and the beginning of the muslim new year.

Rampog in Kediri, 1895.
source:KITLV

Rampog was a tradition where tigers or panthers became main part of the ceremony. This first ceremony took a place on Yogyakarta kingdom in eightieth century. Originally this ceremony have been devided into two parts. The First, it was a fight between a water buffalo or a bull and a tiger, while in the second part individual tiger was confronted with thousand of men that armed with a tool of spears. This ceremony became a regular part of the entertainments when the king or regent received european guests.

Rampog in Kediri, 1895.
source: KITLV

In Kediri, rampog macan be run on court of kediri regent in the last nineteenth century. Most of people in Kediri were exiting when that moment came and large number of civilians gathered in the court. In that place, civilians of Kediri formed a circle line by them selves and they armed with lances for protection. The center of the circle that became arena of rampogan. Morover, that ceremony provided five until six tigers or panthers in every event. Indeed, before that ceremony started, the society made the tiger to be angry by chili water that sprinkled to tiger body, or they used hot iron. In this ceremony, panthers or tigers had to kill by human or another animal in that arena directly. This was the phenomenon about tradition in kediri a hundred years ago.

Rampog in Kediri, 1895.
source: KITLV

Furthermore, every part of that ceremony has a symbolic meaning that correlated with kediri civilians faith. In that era Tiger was a symbol of crime, badness, colonialism, and evil. Than, buffalo represented of harmony, repellent of badness, and sacrifice of javanese society. That ceremony was a symbol of contention between conformity and chaos. Therefore, society who involved in that ceremony had to kill the bad one, there is the tigers.

To sum up, every era has expression for answering their social condition by art or tradition. Rampog macan was one tradition that explained a form of society responses about their live, when that society under the shackle of colonialism.

"The way to destroy a country, just erase all of the historical memory from young generation in that country"

Abel Jatayu P
Pare, Kediri. 13 February 2016