One of Lombok’s most important
and popular festivals is Bau Nyale, meaning “to catch the sea worms” in
local Sasak language. It is a cultural tradition, deeply rooted in local
legend and drama, and unique to the island of Lombok.
The sea worms are a rare variety of Palolo worm
(Eunice viridis) found in tropical waters in certain parts of the world
and in Lombok, Sumba and Savu in Indonesia. Once a year, when seasonal,
marine and lunar conditions combine, the Nyale come to certain beaches
around Lombok to spawn and, for a few days, the seas are filled with
wriggling sea worms in a variety of colours, ranging from simple brown
or pale cream to red and green.
Bau Nyale, or the Nyale Festival, takes place every
year in the tenth month of the Sasak calendar at a time close to the
full moon, and was celebrated this year on 14 and 15 February on the
south coast beaches of Lombok. The most popular site for celebrating Bau
Nyale is at beautiful Seger Beach near Kuta; an area called Putri Nyale
(Princess Nyale) by the people of Lombok.
The lead-up to the festivities started several days
before the “core event” on 14 February, with peresean performances held
in Kuta every afternoon from 11 February. Peresean is a local form of
traditional fighting, using long rattan sticks, in which competitors try
to strike each other while protecting their own bodies with shields
made from toughened cow hide. It’s a fast and furious fight, always
cheered on by an enthusiastic crowd.
The main Bau Nyale celebrations occurred on
Saturday, beginning in the late afternoon on the beautiful beachfront in
Kuta on Lombok’s south coast. Large groups of both local people and
tourists gathered on the beachfront to be entertained by traditional
music and dance performances hosted by the local southern communities.
Stalls selling ice creams, drinks, balloons and other favours helped
create a carnival atmosphere and provided some relief from the hot
afternoon sun.
All day, a steady stream of traffic flowed into the
streets of this normally quiet resort town – cars, motorbikes and trucks
full of excited people from all over the island, as well as many
visitors from outside Lombok, arriving to witness this unique and
mysterious event. As evening approached, a long train of traffic made
its way to Seger Beach, around 5kms to the east of Kuta, and the site of
the main Bau Nyale celebrations. Scheduled to begin at 9pm, the traffic
was already banked up for several kilometres by 8pm. This is not an
event for the impatient. As crowds of over 6 000 people amassed on the
small road leading to the beach, typical waits for entrance stretched to
two hours. This didn’t, however, deter the crowds and the overall
festive atmosphere.
On the land surrounding the beach, stalls and
warungs selling a huge range of drinks and foods to serve the crowds
were assembled, and stages had been set up to feature the different
performances being held on the beach, with traditional singing and the
popular Dangdut music featured in one, while the main stage featured the
core performances that are an essential part of the Bau Nyale festival.
The crowds lined the grass in front and to the sides of the stage, and
up the sides of the small hill overlooking the main arena. Even the
intermittent rain showers that came and went through the night did
nothing to deter the constant stream of people who continued to arrive,
right into the early hours of the next morning.
The festival starts with “pantun”, a form of
traditional poetry, where young people tease and flirt with each other,
competing to form verses in a ritualised style. Each verse consists of
two couplets: the first couplet suggests the second, by sound or other
similarity. It is often sung in contests where a boy addresses a
quatrain to a girl, who must answer with a quatrain of her own. The
results are often tongue-in-cheek or highly suggestive; for local
people, engaging in pantun is a form of permitted flirting, often
leading to courtships in the more traditional villages of Lombok.
The highlight of the festival is the drama which
commemorates the legend of Putri (Princess) Mandalika, who was the
princess of a large kingdom called “Yellow Flower”. According to local
myth, this kingdom was famous throughout the land and Princess Mandalika
was very beautiful, as well as being kind and well-loved by the people
of her kingdom. When she was of suitable age to marry, princes and
suitors travelled to the kingdom to ask for her hand. So many men wanted
to marry her that it began to cause trouble between the different
kingdoms and the Princess became unable to choose between them without
her decision causing further strife.
For days the princes competed for the princess,
leading to tensions and threats of war between the rival kingdoms.
Finally the princess’ father, King Kuripan, gathered all the rivals
together and instructed Princess Mandalika to choose her husband before
sunrise the next morning. Fearful of causing a war, instead of choosing
one of them, Princess Mandalika declared that, even if she loved one of
the suitors, she loved her parents, her kingdom and the people of her
kingdom too much to cause a war. Saying that, rather than choose one,
she would give herself to everyone, she threw herself into the sea from
the promontory overlooking Seger Beach, declaring that she would return
each year as a sign that she would never leave her people.
Everyone searched the surrounding sea for the
princess, but instead they found masses of colourful sea-worms, called
Nyale. According to a local priest, or Dukun, the princess’s body had
been transformed into these sea worms, and thus they became a
traditional symbol for the Sasak people. Other legends say that the long
strands of the Nyale worms are the princess’s hair, floating in the
water where she drowned. Whether or not the stories are true, the legend
continues to be celebrated and has become a parable of sacrifice for
the sake of the greater good, and is re-enacted each year as a reminder
to the community.
The Putri Mandalika drama, starting at around
midnight, was a spell-binding and well-acted spectacle, and kept the
thousands in the audience enthralled for almost two hours. The
theatrical drama featured beautiful and colourful traditional Sasak
costumes, traditional music, drumming and gamelan, and conjured up a
fascinating image of life during the times when Lombok was ruled by
kingdoms and Sasak royalty.
At the end of the drama, the gong and gamelan
entertainers set up on the stage to entertain the remaining crowds,
while thousands of people started making their way down to the
beachfront to the east of the bay. Excited crowds splashed into the
water carrying small nets, buckets and torches, hoping to be the first
to catch a Nyale worm. No one really knows for sure when the Nyale will
appear, so breaths are held and anticipation is high prior to the first
sighting. Raising their torches high and wading perilously deep into the
waves, eager people scanned the ocean, with the first catches starting
around 2.30am. By 5am the tide had abated and the beachfront was an
awesome sight, swarming with thousands of wet, happy people scooping up
the worms with nets, buckets, shirts and anything else they could use to
catch them!
The highlight of the ceremony occurs when the local
priest or Dukun wades into the sea to observe the spawning Nyale and
predict the future rice harvest, based on the number of sea worms. A
good catch is a sign that this year’s rice harvest will also be good.
Nyale are traditionally associated with fertility, and as part of a
ritualised ceremony, the sea worms are ground up and placed in
irrigation channels around fields to help ensure a good harvest.
Considered a rare delicacy, the people collect the
worms to eat them for a special annual feast. Nyale are eaten sometimes
raw when they are caught, or steamed, fried, or made into Pepes Nyale.
In this popular local specialty, the Nyale are mixed with coconut and
spices, then wrapped in a banana leaf and roasted over the fire. The sea
worms are rich in protein and are also believed to have aphrodisiac
properties, so the feasting takes place with much merriment and gusto!
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