Mapping Indonesia’s Cultural Assets Through Rain Traditions

What I learned about ritual, memory, and culture after reflecting on rain across Southeast Asia

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Rain has always felt bigger than weather.

It is physical, of course. It waters the soil, fills rivers, cools the air, and shapes the rhythm of agriculture and daily life. But rain is also emotional and cultural. It can bring relief, anxiety, gratitude, delay, celebration, or loss. In many societies, rain is not simply something that falls from the sky. It is something people live with, interpret, welcome, fear, and, in some cases, try to negotiate with.

I wrote this reflection after attending and giving a presentation from 15–23 May 2023 at the Asia Cultural Center, Ratchadamnoen Contemporary Art Center, Bangkok, Thailand. My participation was part of RAIN MOTIONS: CONNECTING (WITH) THE SKIES OF SOUTHEAST ASIA, a series held from 9 February to 21 May 2023. The event brought together ideas, conversations, and perspectives on how water, rain, and the sky are understood across Southeast Asia — not only as natural elements, but also as part of cultural memory, ritual practice, and collective imagination.

That experience stayed with me.

It led me to think more deeply about Indonesia and the many ways our communities respond to rain. It also reminded me that what may appear to some as myth, folklore, or local belief is often something far more meaningful: a way of reading the environment, preserving memory, and expressing a community’s relationship with nature.

Indonesia is an especially rich place to begin this conversation. With more than 300 ethnic groups, our country holds an extraordinary diversity of traditions and rituals. Among them are many practices related to rain — some meant to invite it, others meant to hold it back.

The more I explored these traditions, the more I saw that they reflect two human realities at once.

On one side, people long for rain. This is especially true during drought, when rain means life. It means crops can grow, rice fields can survive, livestock can be sustained, rivers can flow again, and the earth can recover its moisture. In this sense, rain is not abstract. It is survival.

On the other side, people also sometimes resist rain. Weddings, communal celebrations, harvest events, and public performances often depend on clear skies. In these moments, rain becomes an interruption — something that threatens joy, effort, and carefully prepared gatherings.

This dual role of rain — life-giving and disruptive — has shaped many traditions across Indonesia. And I find that duality deeply human. We do not simply accept nature passively. We create rituals around it. We respond with prayer, performance, symbols, and inherited practices.

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Before focusing on Indonesia, I was also struck by how similar ideas appear in other countries. In India, for example, there is Varuna Yajna, a ritual to honor the god of water and ask for rain. In South Africa, the Pedi people have traditions involving rain specialists who help call rain through ritual and offering. In Japan, there is Teru-teru Bozu, a small handmade doll hung in windows to wish for sunny weather. Thailand, too, has traditions aimed at stopping rain through symbolic acts and prayer.

These examples reminded me that rain belongs not only to climate, but also to culture.

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In Indonesia, public conversation about rain rituals became especially visible during the 2022 Mandalika MotoGP, when a rain handler named Rara drew national and international attention. For many people, the moment felt unusual or even controversial. But for others, it was simply a modern reminder of something much older: Indonesians have long had traditions of engaging spiritually and symbolically with rain.

That is why I believe the topic deserves to be taken seriously — not necessarily as a debate over belief, but as part of cultural heritage.

As I traced these traditions, I found many examples that reveal how rich and varied Indonesia’s rain culture really is.

In Lombok, the Sasak people have the Peresean tradition, a ritual combat performance using rattan sticks and shields. Historically, it was associated with calling rain during dry seasons. The music, the rhythm, the movement, and even the blood spilled during the performance were believed to help invite rainfall. Today, Peresean is often performed as a cultural attraction, but its older meaning remains important.

In Bali, rain-related ritual knowledge is also part of spiritual life. Practices known as Nerang Hujan involve offerings, mantras, and meditation, especially before major events. Some practitioners describe this work not as a service for profit, but as part of a spiritual inheritance that should be protected.

In Banyumas, Central Java, the Cowongan ritual uses a doll-like figure, incense, flowers, and chant to call rain. In Kuningan, West Java, the Cingcowong ritual features a beautifully decorated doll and a ceremonial performance held during the dry season. In Madura, the Dhammong ritual combines oral music and local poetry over several nights as a form of collective prayer for rain. In Timor, the Bikomi Miomafo community performs rituals led by adat authorities, using offerings and symbolic interpretation to seek rain during times of need.

What moved me most was not only the diversity of these practices, but the worldview behind them. These are not random customs. They are systems of meaning. They show us that people have long tried to understand the natural world through relationship rather than domination — through ritual, respect, patience, and shared belief.

At the same time, Indonesia also preserves traditions meant to keep rain away.

In Bali and other regions, rain handlers are called to protect ceremonies and gatherings from bad weather. In Betawi tradition, the dukun pangkeng is known as a ritual specialist who helps keep events dry through prayer, offerings, and spiritual concentration. In Javanese communities, guidance from primbon still influences weather-related beliefs, along with symbolic practices, fasting, and mantra.

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To some modern readers, these traditions may sound unfamiliar, irrational, or old-fashioned. But I think dismissing them too quickly would mean missing something essential. Whether or not one believes in their supernatural power, these traditions still hold cultural power. They connect people to their ancestors, to local ethics, to ceremonial life, and to the environment itself.

That is why I see the mapping of these practices as important.

To map Indonesia’s rain traditions is not only to create an inventory. It is to recognize them as cultural assets — forms of knowledge that deserve documentation, interpretation, and preservation. Many of these rituals survive through oral transmission and local practice. Without attention, they may slowly disappear or remain misunderstood.

I also believe this mapping can contribute to cultural tourism in a more meaningful way. Too often, tourism reduces culture to visual performance alone. But traditions related to rain offer something deeper: stories about how people live with uncertainty, how they imagine the sky, and how they turn everyday environmental challenges into ritual expression. These are not just attractions. They are insights into ways of life.

My hope is that Indonesia can continue documenting these traditions not only for researchers, but also for younger generations, artists, cultural institutions, and travelers who want to engage with local knowledge respectfully. I also hope this kind of work can inspire similar efforts across ASEAN and Timor-Leste, where rain, water, and sky also carry layered meanings.

In the end, this reflection has made me think of rain differently.

Rain is never only rain. It is memory. It is prayer. It is fear, relief, timing, ritual, and imagination. It is part of how people make sense of forces beyond their control.

And perhaps that is what fascinated me most after the Bangkok program: not only that communities across Southeast Asia have traditions about rain, but that these traditions reveal something enduring about us. When we face uncertainty, we do not respond only with logic. We also respond with culture.

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