Bawang Putih does as she's told, gets the scarf back and the old woman as a gift tells her to bring home one of her two pumpkins, a small or a large one.īawang Putih chooses the smaller pumpkin. The old woman says she will return the scarf if Bawang Putih cooks and cleans for her. One laundry day in the river, Bawang Putih loses a scarf, which is picked up by an old woman. Bawang Merah is a lazy, greedy girl spoiled by their mother while Bawang Putih is obedient, diligent and does all the chores without complaint. "Bawang Merah Bawang Putih" ("Shallot and Garlic") is a Cinderella-type story of good versus evil and very popular in Indonesia and Malaysia.īawang Merah and Bawang Putih are half-sisters who are polar opposites of each other. Finding a way to retell them should start with reading them. Let’s noq take a look at five of the most popular Indonesian folktales.
In 2000, poet Toeti Heraty published a feminist reinterpretation of the Balinese tale "Calon Arang." The book of lyrical prose was titled "Calon Arang: Kisah Perempuan Korban Patriarki" ("Calon Arang: Tale of a Female Victim of Patriarchy"). There have been few efforts to reimagine these problematic tales for the modern readers. Veteran book editor Bambang Trimansyah also said in an opinion piece in Kedaulatan Rakyat that some local folktale themes are not suitable for young readers, including sex, sadism and gender bias.
The unsavory part, Riris said, is that many of them tend to be sexist, brutal and celebrate female passivity. Toha-Sarumpaet, in an article called " Batu Permata Milik Ayahanda: Dongeng Tradisional Indonesia" ("Father's Diamonds: Indonesian Traditional Folktales") published in Jurnal Perempuan in 2007, local folktales generally display one or more of these four main themes: obedience, men’s wrath and women’s loyalty, envy and sibling rivalry, trickery and childishness.
Now in the age of YouTube, Netflix, My Little Pony and We Bare Bears, folktales have lost their magic, leading some local publishers to publish folktale picture books that bowdlerize some of the stories's unsavory, non-child-friendly elements to attract readers.Īccording to University of Indonesia's children's story expert Riris K. Remember the story of Bandung Bondowoso building one thousand temples in one night to win the hands of Roro Jonggarang (in Javanese mythology the origin story of Yogyakarta's Prambanan Temple)? Or Joko Tarub, our own Peeping Tom, stealing a shawl from an angel bathing in a lake so she would come back to him (Joko Tarub's descendants according to another myth founded Java's great Mataram kingdom in the 17th century)? Indonesian children's bedtime stories used to be dominated by folktales.
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