This is a translation of Dukun Palsu, a short story by Pangga Rahmad published in the 22 July 2019 edition of Rakyat Sultra, a local newspaper from Southeast Sulawesi. You can read the original here.
This story is an interesting one to translate. Unlike most Indonesian newspaper short story, this one feels positively jolly. Not so much in the story itself (although it is also less menacing than most other newspaper stories), but in how it's told, the way the prose just kinda zip through. If it can be said that Indonesian prose has a sense of decorum in the way it treats it grammar, then this one happily threw a middle finger at it while still working within its rules.
I tried to get into the same flow while translating it, and the end result is probably the least "accurate" translation I've made, but I think it stays faithful to the tone of the story while being a lot more fun to do.
More translation notes after the story. It's pretty short, so I hope you can take the time to enjoy it!
False Witchcraft
By Pangga Rahmad and translated by Aliya N. Anindita
"That boy is just too stubborn," so said Ma Imin one gloomy morning. While it wasn't clear who she was yelling it out at, everyone in the room could guess who it was meant for. Jaka Mardio, a boy infamous for a belief in witches so rock-hard solid it rivals the faith of saints on the existence of hell and heaven. This is the first time that Ma Imin made a remark about Joko Mardio, apparently because the so-called stubborn boy had been gone since this morning, right after one of the cows he was supposed to keep guard of had vanished from its pen. As everyone knows, the Missing cow belongs to none other than Ma Imin. God knows why she chose Jaka Mardio to look after her livestock.
"It's all right, Ma," Jaka Mardio had said to Ma Imin right before he disappeared. "I'll bring it back soon."
"Where are you going?"
"To Taweo's place."
Jaka Mardio is really a very pleasant boy. He is a lively, honest, hard-working young man, which were probably the traits that Ma Imin saw when she hired him. Even the ladies of the village likes him, but of course that would be before they know of his obsession with the occult, especially when it comes to witches. It isn't uncommon for these young ladies to find themselves writing him love letters and then regretting them all when Jaka Mardio asked them to believe in witches in exchange. Still, these same ladies would write his name in their diaries, finding themselves lucky just to be born in this world and having the opportunity to lay their eyes on him, even if having him is another matter entirely.
People used to say that it wasn't his fault that he is so obsessed with witches. It's just the world he was raised in. His grandfather, rest his soul, was a famed witch, known far and wide for his precise and accurate predictions in locating valuable missing objects that were, say, lost, or misplaced, or perhaps straight-up stolen.
But time changes. People either learn about new beliefs or were introduced to new beliefs—the beliefs we call _modernity—_and then people would tell Jaka Mardio that only fools believe in the things you believe in. He wouldn't be angry. He would laugh. He'd tell them, how am I any different from you, who believes in hell and heaven?
Right after the three burglary cases hit the village, people began trying to convince Jaka Mardio to not be so easily fooled by all this witchcraft nonsense, for it goes against modernity itself, or so they say. Don't let the boy go mad, they said, but he retorted them just as often, with words nastier than the ones that they'd used, like a child lecturing adults. And it was so that people started to look at him differently.
"The hardest part of believing is convincing all of you to trust in the truth," Jaka Mardio often said.
"Sure. That's just what we're thinking. You're too stubborn to accept the truth."
"One day," he replied. "I'll prove just how wrong all of you are."
Theft is not a rare thing in the village. This is the seventh time that a cow was stolen, and it just so happened that the stolen cow was the one that belongs to Ma Imin, one among the five that were being guarded by Jaka Mardio. But really, it's only recently that these burglars targeted cows, perhaps because there is no value in stealing indoor riches anymore. Anyway, even the cops seems happier to arrive late than lengthening their patrol time and, of course, they'll only arrive after one or two cows have vanished, as obvious as superheroes in the daylight, pitiful.
The people of the village had actually agreed on their own patrols, to catch the thief mid-act and then, of course, to beat them up, and only afterwards send to the authoritities. But it seems these thieves are slyer than they, as there happened one night in which two cows vanished before anyone could catch a trace of the burglary. Of course, the cops arrived after the event had unfolded.
"What did I tell you," Jaka Mardio said. "Getting the cops to help is as difficult as getting you all to believe that the witch can help."
"Let's just hope your wards don't get their turn."
"Just say it," said Jaka Mardio. "You want me to take you to see the witch."
Lo and behold, one week after the incident that night, one of Jaka Mardio's cows received its turn. Good thing it was just one cow out of five. God knows what will happen if the other four also vanished. Ma Imin might ship Jaka Mardio off to jail.
The witch is called Taweo. He was a man whose old age was marked by his receding silvery hair along with the age lines in his face, each as if marking one of the many tragic events in his life. As it was oft spoken especially by Jaka Mardio, his most renowned skill is in reading for lost objects of value, a skill as great as that of the grandfather of his grandfather, whose tales were often old by the people of old. People also told of how he could cure the sick and deliver curses of such potency that his task was like that of an angel of death.
Taweo lives in the next village over, in a small shack with a patchwork roof made of ferns, alone. Other than being a witch, he was also accomplished at growing all sorts of legumes: ridge gourds, yardlong beans, and green amaranths grow in abundance in his backyard to the point that his shack resembles a garden more than a house, at least by the standard of that village. It wouldn't take long for Jaka Mardio to reach him. According to the people of those villages, three hours by foot is a good short distance, not at all too far. Besides, there aren't any real obstacles in the way. Just one long river that divides the two villages and a small mahogany bridge to get across it. It was through this route that Jaka Mardio arrived at Taweo's sack, his stance perfectly innocent, as if nothing at all had happened.
On the evening that Jaka Mardio did not return home, after he had promised that it won't be long until he return with the missing cow, Ma Imin and a couple of assorted villagers decided that it was time to look for him. In their hearts they knew that the boy was probably too ashamed to go home, and maybe also too ashamed of not coming home. Nothing would look right to him.
And so they arrive at the river, and they find Jaka Mardio sitting in the middle of the bridge, looking gloomy and disinterested. His face is as a pale as a child who haven't eaten for an etire day, a sketch of a man in dire need of serious affection. Quite a couple of people think that he is going to kill himself.
"Tell me what I have to hear," says Ma Imin.
Unprompted, Jaka Mardio hurls himself at both Ma Imin's feet and hugs them. He tells her how sorry he is, that he regrets everything. Not long afterwards, he recalls his meeting with Taweo, and he tells Ma Imin along with the rest of the people of what had happened.
"How long has that cowe gone?" asked Taweo.
"I found out just this morning," answered Jaka Mardio. "Maybe it was gone at dawn. I did forgot to close the door to his pen."
"Oh," said Taweo. He smiled. "Don't look for it. Soon, that cowe will find its way back home. As in many cases, if a cowe leaves in the morning, then it is just looking for a safe place to give birth."
Bah, Jaka Mardio spat and hurriedly got up. He yelled angrily at Taweo, "Dumbass! That cow is a male, not a female!"
FIN
Yeah. Yeah that's the end. Yep. They set you up with all these background events and then it was just... yeah. Yeah the writer's just trolling you. I'm as upset as you are, but damn, I love how bare-faced it is. It's very probable that the writer was just doodling whatever was on his mind and at one moment he just decided, well, time to wrap this up, and then he did it without much thought.
A lot of Indonesian newspaper short stories are just this aimless, but they often take up more serious themes, covering their tracks by making you viscerally uncomfortable. This one seems to take joy in its aimlessness, very sit-down-and-lemme-tell-you-a-story and having fun with the telling itself. I dig it. I want to find the original writer and punch him in the face, but you know, lightly, as friends.
A dukun is usually translated as a witch doctor, or sometimes wise men. They're men with occult connections, most often known for casting curses, talking to demons, finding your true love, etc. Some people still believe in them, a lot of people consider them quacks. So basically a witch, just male instead of female, and without the association with burning people at the stake. I decided to translate it to just straight up witch to hone in on that occult/witchcraft connection, and also because honestly I was too lazy to think of something else. "Warlock" is just too High Fantasy.
I chose this story randomly from lakonhidup.com. I wrote the first translation draft by hand because I didn't have my computer then, then lightly rewrote when I got back. It's a pretty good process.
This one was interesting to translate. Indonesian and English are, on first glance, not too different. We use a similar subject-verb-object structure. We use our adjectives similarly, just switching the position. But string the many words and sentences together, and they go in wildly different places. You can directly translate, word-for-word, between the two languages, and it will be grammatically correct, but if that's all you do the result will always feel weird, or at the very least it will be very obvious that it's a translation.
I haven't really nailed just what this difference is, though. One of them, which I've mulled about for a while but was glaringly clear while I translated this, was that Indonesian have no temporal tense. There's no past tense, future tense, future perfect whatnot. There's no grammatical distinction between things that "was done" and something that "had been done" or "would have been done" or somesuch. Oh sure, we have words that can add temporal context, but we don't instictively, through the grammar of the langauge itself, think in that way. We often have no need to.
The way this story weaves between the past and further past and present in the original Indonesian was done brazenly, almost absent-mindedly. I couldn't do that, or at least not to the same level, in English, where the difference between adding "will" or "would" could (... can?) be significant. I chose to make this sound like it's being told as the final event is taking place. This makes it sound like the village and its people exist, that Jaka Mardio is a boy from the village and was obsessed with the occult, that the burglaries have happened.
I'm still not sure I quite get it, to be honest. Temporal tensea have been like a thorn in my head whenever I write my stories in English. I guess that's just one of the many trials and blessings of being bilingual.
Thanks for reading!
