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The Documentary Podcast

Sex Mountain

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.32.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why did Indonesians flock to a remote mountain to have sex with strangers? Gunung Kemukus is a hilltop Islamic shrine in Java where, every 35 days, Muslims from across Indonesia arrive to conduct a ritual that involves adulterous sex. As darkness shrouds the hillside, candles are lit and people sit on mats around the sacred dewadaru trees and the twisting roots of massive fig trees. The single grave here is believed to hold a legendary prince and his stepmother. Legend has it that they ran away together and lived at Gunung Kemukus. It is believed that if you do something even more shameful there, like have adulterous sex, then you will be blessed with good fortune. Rebecca Henschke tells the story of this extraordinary ritual. Open Ear features documentaries from producers across the world being rebroadcast by the BBC World Service. It originally aired as a 360 Documentary on ABC Radio National in Australia. Photo: A flower on water, Credit: Thinkstock

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello and welcome to Openeer. I'm Hugh Levinson and I'm Head of the Department which

0:13.5

makes programs like Assignment in the Inquiry, but now we're doing something a little different.

0:18.9

I've made a selection of brilliant programs produced for other broadcasters, so think

0:23.1

of this as a trip around the wonderful world of radio making. And today we take a journey

0:27.5

to Indonesia, recorded back in 2014 for ABC Radio National in Australia. It's a truly

0:34.2

remarkable story told through on the ground repertoire target is best, vivid and immediate.

0:39.1

I should warn you that it's a story about sex, so it may not be one to listen to with

0:44.5

children. Now over to Rebecca Henshka reporting from Solo in Java for the story of Sex Mountain.

0:58.2

We're driving about an hour out of Solo to Malcolm August, a hilltop Islamic shrine.

1:04.7

It's in a spacious day to night. Every 35 days the Friday of the Western calendar intersects

1:10.9

with porn on the five days of the ancient Javanese lunar calendar. And on this night,

1:17.0

Muslims from across the country flock to Gununga Mugus to conduct a ritual that involves adulterous sex.

1:24.2

So we're climbing up some steep steps now, up to the grave of Samudro. If you turn around,

1:32.7

you can look out over the lake. The sun's heading now, so it's quite beautiful.

1:39.4

And a lot of visitors are arriving at the grave tonight.

1:45.1

The single grave here is believed to hold the legendary prince, Pongarang Samodro,

1:49.7

and his stepmother night under Wulan.

1:54.6

So we're walking past Warrung, some food stalls on the left, where people are coming and having

2:01.0

food. And then on the right is a forest of trees, very large roots that people are sitting around.

2:12.6

Everything's let by very simple, one ball blight.

2:19.8

It's time for Magri, which is the quarter prayer of the evening of the sunset.

2:25.9

So you can hear the quarter prayer being ringing out from the nearby mosque.

...

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