Tenggerese

The Tenggerese are the descendants of the Majapahit princes. Their population of roughly 600.000 is centered in thirty villages in the isolated Tengger mountains (Mount Bromo) within the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru national park in East-Central Java. They are traditionally believed to be the descendants of Roro Anteng and Joko Seger.

The Tenggerese generally profess Hinduism as their religion, although they have incorporated many Buddhist and Animist elements.
Their priest are called Dukun or Resi Pujjangga, who play a middle role in their religious worship. They are believed to possess spiritual knowledge called Ilmu of the gods and the spirits, which they carefully guard from ordinary Tenggers. Membership of the priesthood is hereditary and generally passes down from father to son. Each village has only one of these three priest, together with three assistants, namely Legen, Sepuh, and Dandan.

Both Muslim and Christian missionaries have attempted to convert the Tenggere. However, the Christians have met with hardly any success; they only managed to convert a few hundred to Christianity. Even so, due to the negligible number of them, most of them either reverted back to Hinduism or converted to Islam. The Tenggere Muslim have a more successful conversion, though they frequently mix original Hindu-Buddhist ideas and spirits to their Islam and celebrate Tenggerese festivals at the same time.

Festivals

The main festival of the Tenggerese is the Yadnya Kasada, which lasts about a month. On the fourteenth day of the Kasada, the Tenggerese go to Poten Bromo and ask for blessing from the main deity Hyang Widi Wasa and the God of the Mountain by presenting annual offerings of rice, fruit, vegetables, flowers, livestock and other local produce. They will also see the examination of the medicine men memorizing prayers. The medicine man who passes the exam is decided to be spiritual leader of Tengger tribe.