'Beautiful and culturally valuable': Indonesia graveyard community seeks history through old cemeteries

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JAKARTA: For most people, graveyards are places to avoid as they are often associated with spirits or spooky things best left to the otherworld. But there are others like Ruri Hargiyono wh

There are also cemeteries that went back several centuries before Indonesia’s independence in 1945, including those which became the final resting place for Stamford Raffles’ wife,Her tomb in Tanah Abang cemetery, now called Taman Prasasti Museum, was next to where Raffles’ friend John Casper Leyden was laid to rest.

She would also take advantage of her late friend and fellow co-founder Prasetia’s language skills who was able to read inscriptions on gravestones written in Chinese. “There are many unmaintained cemeteries, especially Chinese ones. Apparently, there is a Chinese belief that if the cemetery is not well-preserved, the descendants’ fortune would not be so good.The community likes to do cleanups of old abandoned graveyards.

The community tries to help with the cleaning up whenever they can, but Hargiyono also realises that with just five people in the group they have their limitations. While there are other history enthusiast communities in Jakarta or even outside the country, Indonesia Graveyard also receives requests from abroad to find graves of deceased family members of non-Indonesians.

In another request, someone sought the group’s help to locate the grave of an English man in Indonesia’s second city Surabaya, but the requester did not know the name of the cemetery.

 

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