Mystery Answered, Reasons Why Tuyul & Suckling Pigs Don't Steal Money from Banks

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Indonesian people often associate the way of cultivating wealth with the presence of spirits such as tuyul and ngepet pigs. Both of them are often assigned by someone to steal money from house to house.

Humanist Suwardi Endraswara in The World of Javanese Ghosts (2004) said that this narrative has been going on for a long time in the minds of Javanese people. However, have you ever thought why tuyul just steal from house to house? Can Tuyul steal from a bank that holds a lot of money? Or at least commit theft of your e-money balance?

The answers to this question certainly vary. And usually it comes back to mystical answers. This is fun as a story, but bitter as fact. Then, what is the logical explanation behind this phenomenon?

In fact, tuyul and babi ngepet were created from social jealousy in ancient society, especially among farmers. The farmers initially lived in mediocre conditions. However, economic liberalization in 1870 changed that condition.

Jan Luiten van Zanden and Daan Marks in Indonesian Economy 1800-2010 (2012) stated that economic liberalization was considered to have given birth to a new colonial regime in which people's plantations were taken over to be converted into large plantations and sugar factories.

This situation then makes people's lives worse, especially small farmers in Java who are increasingly falling into poverty. Because they no longer have control over plantation land.

On the other hand, there are also people who prosper from this system. They were traders, both native and Chinese, who in an instant became the new rich. The rapid increase in their wealth then caused astonishment for the farmers who were increasingly impoverished.

Farmers were confused about where their wealth came from. For them, the process of building wealth must be proven and visible, such as seeing hard work or the process of farming. Unfortunately, they don't see that in the nouveau riche. As a result, farmers felt envy and jealousy towards traders because they could get that much wealth.

A society steeped in mystical views makes farmers view that theft is a collaboration between rich people and supernatural and invisible creatures, such as tuyul and ngepet pigs. In short, pJealous farmers always accused the nouveau riche of using illegitimate means to obtain wealth.

As a result of this accusation, Ong Hok Ham was in deep pain From Problem Priayi to Nyi Blorong (2002) stated that successful traders and entrepreneurs lost their status in society. They are considered “despicable” because they cultivate wealth from haram means, namely allying themselves with Satan.

These baseless accusations have increased the popularity of tuyul and babi ngepet figures as mystical subjects related to wealth and continue to be popular to this day in Indonesia.

Attract the attention of foreign researchers

The tuyul phenomenon was also in the spotlight of Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist who worked on the phenomenal work The Religion of Java (1976). In his observations, Geertz said that it is true that there are people who keep tuyul. Usually they make agreements with spirits in sacred places.

Usually tuyul keepers have the following characteristics:

1. Get rich or become rich suddenly
2. Miser
3. Often uses second-hand clothes
4. Often bathed in the river with the poor coolies
5. Always eat poor people's food, such as corn and cassava, rather than rice

Usually, tuyul keepers do that for tricking people into thinking they don't have money, even though their house is always full of gold bullion. However, because these two figures are only a reality of belief in society, it is of course difficult to relate them to actual facts, let alone being able to steal something from the bank.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(mfa/mfa)