A GRIM MESSAGE FROM THE MOUNTAIN
It was to be no foolhardy adventure. Explorer and author Nigel Bullough and his anthropologist friends were well prepared for the quest to find ancient sites.
Their sponsor was the private Surabaya University where British-born Nigel was the leading consultant for the development of a cultural centre.
Their target was Penanggungan, 50 km south of the East Java capital, the year 2015.
The mountain is only 1,653 metres, but its slopes are steep and its story is a legend. It was part of holy Mount Mahameru hauled from India to nail Java into the world, often labelled the 'sacred geography' linking Indonesia with the sub-continent.
The biggest lump became Semeru (3,676 meters), the highest peak in Java and close to Malang, The rest became Pawitra (‘holy’ in ancient Javanese), now known as Penanggungan.
When Nigel’s expedition started climbing a bushfire had cleared much of the undergrowth exposing sites probably unseen for centuries.
Locals think the firing was from a lightning strike. The flames had revealed well-built tracks that negotiated the steep slopes once trodden by sandalled pilgrims and barefoot artisans.
Then Nigel slipped and fell, almost into a ravine.
He was saved when his camera strap snagged the shrubbery. But his left arm was jerked from its socket and the bone fractured.
It took his friends five hours to get him down the mountain, and a further hour of slow driving over rough roads to reach a police hospital. A surgeon dashed in from afar in the early hours.
"The treatment was excellent," Nigel said more than six months after the accident. "My arm is almost back to normal. The mountain had briefly revealed its secrets and it was time to close. And the next day it started to rain.
"Penanggungan (BELOW) was telling me that it was time to sit down and work on our discoveries."
These finds have been extraordinary. More than 130 previously uncharted sites have been discovered including a circular three-metre wide road once used by horses and carts to scale the mountain.
Years before the near-fatal fall Nigel had taken the Javanese name Hadi Sidomulyo, learned the language, and become a resident.
His medical doctor friend Hery Kurniawan, says he was an introvert. That fits because info about the former Englishman’s past is thin, sad because his determined research into the Majapahit Era (1292 - 1527) deserves to be widely known and vigorously applauded.
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| Majapahit symbol |
Nigel died last month and was cremated in Bali; he was probably aged 72. Some claim he came from Scotland, others believe London. Maybe both.
He was just out of his teens and backpacking the archipelago around 1970 when he snared a job with the government-owned phone company Telkom.
His work took him across East Java and he became aware of the province’s rich past, particularly the Majapahit, a Buddhist-Hindu empire that pre-dated the arrival of Islam.
It was based on Southeast Asian sea trade yet centred inland at what is now Trowulan. Dr Hery, who believes in reincarnation, said it was his friend’s “destiny” to be called to Java and drawn to reveal some of its secrets.
After quitting Telkom he got work with government departments writing coffee-table books despite having no formal qualifications in social anthropology.
His first published work was a catalogue of paintings Bali: An Adventure in Cultural Ecology sponsored by the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam; that would have helped provide credibility.
He was an excellent photographer and wordsmith able to use academic jargon for learned publications like Achipel, the French journal of inter-disciplinary studies on Southeast Asian nations.
He could also flip to the uncluttered prose needed to draw ordinary tourists to the marvels in Memories of Majapahit.
As a consultant to the Department of Culture and Tourism in Yogyakarta (1986-1989) and Surabaya (1989-1994) he produced books like Discovering East Java as presentations for visiting VIPs.
The credits and intros were usually led by Indonesian bureaucrats pictured in splendid uniforms but who'd never dug the dirt. The giveaways were the small lines with no portrait tucked away from the pompous on a left-hand page, though should have been on the cover: Written and illustrated by Nigel Bullough.
Other authors might have demanded better recognition, but it seems a low status suited.
When former general Soeharto ruled last century, Westerners wandering the land and asking about culture were often considered suspicious. Nigel seemed harmless. He got close to officialdom through his assignments and was accepted.
Dutch businessman/historian Herald van der Linde who is currently touring Java to promote his book Majapahit: Intrigue Betrayal and War in Indonesia's Greatest Empire knew Nigel as “a very gentle man, friendly, open, and deeply devoted to researching Majapahit:
"He once told me that he didn't consider himself an academic or historian, probably because he didn't have university qualifications. But he had unrivalled Majapahit knowledge."
There are now moves to have Penanggungan classified as a World Heritage site. If successful the name Nigel Bullough / Hadi Sidomulyo should be included in the title.
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First published in Indonesia Expat, 23 August 2024: https://indonesiaexpat.id/travel/history-culture/a-grim-message-from-the-mountain/
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