If most people in Europe and United States believed that Friday the 13th is the most scariest night, in Indonesia, most people (especially Javanese) are afraid of Monday & Thursday night in Kliwon cycle. For some people, those nights are the scariest nights due to some urban legends mentioned about frequent ghost appearances during that time. Some other thought that nights are very good nights to do supernatural rituals and spiritual ceremonies.Why Monday & Thursday night? And what the meaning of "Kliwon cycle"?
THE HISTORY
In Java Island, some people - especially Javanese people - have their own exclusive calendar called Kalender Jawa (Javanese Calendar). It is a calendar that made as the result of the blending among Islam culture, Hinduism - Buddhism culture, traditional Java, and western culture. The Javanese Calendar contains multiple, overlapping separate measurements of times, called cycles, in which consist of : the five day cycle called Pasaran, the common Gregorian seven-day week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on), the month-cycles of Mangsa and Wulan month-long cycles, the year cycles called Tahun, and the octo-ennia (8 year) cycles called Windu.
The calendar was inaugurated by Sultan Agung of Mataram in the Gregorian year 1633.
THE TERMS OF TIME
In Indonesia, people called the seven-day week as below :
1. Monday : Senin
2. Tuesday : Selasa
3. Wednesday : Rabu
4. Thursday : Kamis
5. Friday : Jumat
6. Saturday : Sabtu
7. Sunday : Minggu
Pasaran Cycle : literally Pasaran means "market place". The terms came from the regular time of villagers gathering in local market to meet socially, engage in commerce, buying and selling wares, produce, foods, etc. Usually they are gathering for five days (Monday - Friday), and take a rest for two days. As its name, Pasaran Cycle is consisting five days that divided into days as follow :1. Legi (means in Javanese : Manis / Sweet)
2. Pahing (Pait / Bitter)
3. Pon (Petak / Partition)
4.Wage (Cemeng / Ugly or dirty)
5. Kliwon (Asih / Love)
In addition, Javanese consider those days' names to have a mystical relation to colors and cardinal direction :
1. Legi represents White and East
2. Pahing represents Red and South
3. Pon represents Yellow and West
4. Wage represents Black and North
5. Kliwon represents Blurred Colors and Center
THE SACRED NIGHTS
Based on Javanese believed, there are two nights which they considered as sacred nights, and there are Monday night in Kliwon Cycle and Thursday Night in Kliwon Cycle. (In normal practice, Indonesian usually call a night name as "the night before". For example, when they said Malam Selasa - which is actually referring to Monday night - it means "the night before Tuesday".)
In the past, based on Islam tradition, Monday and Thursday night time are good time for praying and worshiping God. They choose the night in Kliwon cycle because Kliwon represent "love".
In the past, most kids did not like to pray and prefer to play till very late at night. To make their children willing to pray, most parents set up some fake ghost stories that relating to those night. According to the stories, Ghosts and evil spirts will come out from their graves on Monday and Thursday night of Kliwon and hunt down every lazy children whose do not like to pray to God. After the stories spread, most children were become diligent and love to go to mosque at night for praying.It turned out those fake ghost stories from the past become Urban Legend in the present. People believe that ghosts and evil spirits really appear on those times. To make the legend become more terrified, some people who believe in supernatural power usually choose those days to practice their rituals. Some spiritual ceremonies mostly also been held in those times. Although the point of the practices and ceremonies are ask blessing and the expression of the worshippers' love, but for most people "Malam Selasa Kliwon" & "Malam Jumat Kliwon" have become sacred nights that should be avoided or assumed "cursed". Even some fanatic believers choose not to do anything during those days and prefer to postpone or cancel everything.
Among those days, "Malam Jumat Kliwon" is the scariest night, because there is a mouth-to-mouth story (based on Islam tradition) said that on that night, ghosts and evil spirits are gaining their optimum power to kill humans. And they will kill as much as possible, before dawn. Because when the dawn came, it is the time for God to punished them all and put them back to hell again. (This story had connection with the tradition of Islam people that worship Friday as Good Friday).
Many movie makers have using the myth of the sacred of Kliwon's Thursday Night as movie objects. Since 1970s until today, there are more than 20 movies that use that kind of title or any title that have connection with that night to attract audiences. So far, it works and most of them are blockbusters.
