A virgin forest, lair of the ferocious
Bali tiger and haunt of highway robbers, stretching from rugged
mountain chain to ragged coast this was Jimbar Wana, the "Great
Forest" of the west, known today as Jembrana. More than half
of the regency's 842 sq km area is forested, much of the rest
is dry, and people from other parts of Bali still consider Jembrana
to be only half civilized and not quite Balinese.
A Balinese chronicle accounts for the emptiness of Jembrana in
the following way: When the region first came under the authority
of the court at Gelgel around 1450, two princes were sent to settle
the remote western forests. Gusti Ngurah Pecangakan settled near
present-day Negara; Gusti Ngurah Bakungan claimed the area around
present day Gilimanuk. Soon a rivalry developed between the two
as to who could develop the more beautiful and prosperous court.
On one occasion, Bakungan invited his brother to Gilimanuk to
attend a lavish court ceremony, and Pecangakan left his horse
tied to a tree where a pig had been slaughtered. The unguarded
horse broke free and ran home, first rolling in the grass and
covering itself in pig's blood. Seeing the horse return rider
less and bloody, Pecangakan's wife and family thought he had been
killed and as was the custom they took their own lives to share
his fate. Pecangakan returned to a deserted palace and immediately
declared war on his brother out of grief and rage.
Whatever the truth of this tale, the two brothers destroyed each
other and their kingdoms in the civil war which ensued. All that
remains of them today is a small temple, Pura Bakungan by the
side of the main road one km northeast of Cekek. And as a result,
Jembrana remained sparsely populated and barely civilized while
the rest of Bali blossomed with court culture. Eventually, a court
of sorts developed in the town of Jembrana, which in 1803 moved
a few kilometres west to the town of Negara, the present-day capital.
Who first settled the forbidding Jimbar Wana? The earliest evidence
of human habitation on Bali has in fact been discovered at Gilimanuk,
near the island's western tip. Not much is known about these prehistoric
people.
Later residents came not only from Bali but from other islands
also. The Bali Strait bordering Jembrana is notoriously treacherous,
and because the Balinese are wary of the sea anyway, parts of
the coast were settled by sailors, fishermen and merchants from
Java, Madura and Sulawesi. Many of these were Muslims and remained
so. One km south of the central market in Negara lies Loloan Timur,
a village of Muslim Balinese whose Bugis ancestors migrated here
as early as 1653. These villagers have retained elements of Buginese
culture, most strikingly the oblong houses built of wood with
living quarters on the second floor. Loloan Timur looks unlike
any other village on Bali.
Outside influences are thus very much in evidence
here. There is one mosque to every five Hindu temples in Jembrana.
And Jembrana residents themselves will tell you that prior to
the 1920s; many newcomers were people who were politically, economically
or legally in trouble in other parts of Indonesia. And after 1920,
local transmigration programs encouraged people from the more
densely populated areas of Bali to settle in Jembrana.
Most people in Jembrana can tell you where they are originally
from, and if you drive up one of the many side roads that snake
into the mountains, you will encounter places like Bangsal Gianyar
and Bangsal Bangli - entire communities transplanted to Jembrana
a generation ago. Some of them had religious motives for coming
here. Palasari and Belimbingsari in Melaya district, for example,
are the largest Catholic and Protestant communities on Bali. Palasari's
handsome Catholic Church is the largest in eastern Indonesia.
The regency is today inhabited by only about 210,000 people, and
is the least densely populated area of Bali. At least eighty percent
make their living by farming, harvesting forest products, or fishing.
The Bali tiger was last sighted in the 1930s, and the remaining
wilds of Jimbar Wana have been incorporated into the Bali Barat
National Park. Jembrana today is a beautiful agricultural region,
with a unique history and character, reflected in the stories,
customs and arts of its people.
|
