Page 56 - EBOOK_Jamu: The Ancient Indonesian Art of Herbal Healing

week is made to fit into this by simple addition. For example, a Javanese woman

would understand that if she was born on Saturday Pahing 9, and the recipe
called for twice that amount, she has to add 18 ingredients to a recipe.
Conflicting with this is the superstition that ingredients must be of an odd
number. Thus you may include one or three handfuls of an ingredient, or one or
five cups of liquid, but never two. Some recipes for jamu furthermore require the
preparation of the medicine by a girl who has yet to start menstruating—yet
another hurdle.

A CAUTIONARY TALE

It is vital to follow instructions when mixing jamu. Barbara Johnson, an American who has lived in
Jakarta for many years, discovered this at her own expense. Although Barbara has a fine figure she
noticed the beginnings of cellulite on the back of her thighs. Mentioning this to an Indonesian friend,
she was amazed when a pack of dried roots and herbs arrived at her house a few days later. “This is
for the cellulite,” her friend said. “I’ve used it for years and it works wonders.”
Barbara asked her maids, village girls with experience of jamu, to prepare the drink and
promptly forgot about it. She later found a glass of black liquid in the fridge and, enquiring what it
was, learned that it was her jamu. Naturally she was keen to see whether this foul-tasting brew was
effective and drank it all down only to realize minutes later that she’d made a big mistake.
Barbara was rushed to hospital, having burned her throat, oesophagus and intestines to such an
extent that she couldn’t go home for six weeks. She says the only good part of this tale was the result.
“When I looked in the mirror I discovered there was not one single ounce of cellulite anywhere on
my body. The cure was incredible in more ways than one.”
Why did this happen? Apparently Barbara had consumed about three weeks’ supply of jamu in
one draught, because the girls had accidentally made the mixture far too strong.

Other beliefs concern the need for additional ingredients for pregnant

women. They are advised to include the powdered egg shells of newly-hatched,
healthy chickens and carbonized mouse nests in their jamu. The egg shells are
included in the hope that the baby will be equally healthy; they provide
additional calcium while the carbon helps absorb toxins. The mouse nests were
believed to make birthing as easy as that of a mouse.
Jamu also features in Javanese wedding ceremonies in which the bride’s
mother presents a newly married couple with a box or botekan containing
various seeds, rhizomes and dried cuttings from traditional medicinal plants and

spices. Traditionally, these should be used on the first day of marriage and, more
importantly, be planted in the garden of the couple’s new home. This gesture is a
mother’s last symbolic effort to provide a healthy life for her daughter.
Old beliefs are not in short supply. Some believed that ingredients had to be
ground in the home of the person drinking the jamu. However, if that person did