Gunung Kemukus

Under the shadow cast by a tropical thunderhead cloud sits a typical Javanese village on the slopes of a nondescript hill. Women sweep their porches of leaves blown by passing scooters while children hang washing on shared lines. But in this place, at least until recently, when the Fridays of the Javanese and Gregorian calendars coincide, believers congregated from around Java for the Pon Festival, which had gained widespread notoriety for involving ritual intercourse. 

Around 300 years ago, the legend goes, the “prince” of the region fell into an illicit love affair with his stepmother that involved secret meetings on Gunung Kemukus, or Mount Kemukus. They were both killed on the site for the dishonor they had brought, spawning the belief that consummation with a stranger there would bring good fortune.

For hundreds of years, it is said, people have come to complete the ritual, which involves meeting the same person seven times in the course of a year. The village has a small concrete building akin to a community hall, where one receives a blessing from the gatekeeper with an incantation over a small fire. The inner sanctum holds the shrine, a low platform with a small headstone at each end for the doomed lovers. Believers would then go for a ritual cleansing in a spring, and then into the village to complete the ritual in the open air. In time, an industry of hostels and sex workers arose to accommodate them, people began to use modern technology to meet strangers, and, eventually, the rest of the world took notice, bringing a lot of unwelcome attention and tourists. 

Traditional animist beliefs such as these are not rare on Java, but they have also run into a newly devout view of Islam in the country. In 2014, the regional governor moved to ban the practice, though its not clear from online sources the extent to which it still takes place.