Page 133 - EBOOK_Jamu: The Ancient Indonesian Art of Herbal Healing

The jamu gendong, who makes her jamu and sells it directly to the

customer, is a familiar sight on the streets of Indonesia. It is she, more than
anyone else, who brings jamu to the consumer. She sets out early in the morning
armed with the tools of her trade: a pail, two glasses and a large basket of bottles
of ready-to-drink jamu tied on her back with a long strip of batik. When the
bottles are full in the morning, she often carries well over 22 kg (44 lbs). The
pail is filled with water for rinsing her dirty glasses and contains a slice of lime
to remove the lingering smell of jamu. She walks from door to door selling the
freshly made herbal tonics and medicines for which her country is famous.
By tradition, an even number of bottles in a jamu seller’s basket means she
is married; an odd number shows she is still single. The older, heavy glass
bottles are highly prized because they are no longer available. They are passed

from one seller to another and are now rarely seen outside the villages of Central
Java. The modern alternative is a square Johnny Walker bottle or a plastic
mineral water bottle; the latter is frowned upon by purists as it is impossible to
sterilize them with boiling water.

MAGICAL POWERS

Even the most educated Indonesians have a healthy respect for the paranormal. Alan, a lecturer in
Engineering at Ambon University, says he is usually somewhat sceptical about such matters—but has
witnessed a “curse” and cure in his home town countless times.
A river runs in front of the family house in Ambon where locals are welcome to bathe. But if
an outsider decides to swim there, he is guaranteed to leave the water with a swollen face and nasty
rash covering his body. It has all the makings of a black magic curse.
However, when Alan’s great grandfather administers an antidote that looks to be no more than
a glass of water, the culprit is cured immediately. Doctors, on the other hand, are baffled by the
condition. The antidote is a secret, but Alan says it will pass to the most senior member of the family
when his great grandfather dies. “The curse must be pretty strong,” says our cynical friend,
“Otherwise doctors would be able to deal with it. In these circumstances, a healer must be very
powerful to handle such a situation, otherwise the black magic can have a boomerang effect.”

A TIP FOR DRIVERS

Taxi drivers worldwide are expert on handing out gratuitous advice and Jakarta is no exception. The
capital’s taxi drivers come from every corner of the archipelago and share their culture with
enthusiasm.
Pak Agus from Yogyakarta held forth at length and was able to offer the following advice:
“Jakarta’s horrendous traffic jams mean we drivers suffer from above average stress—it’s either