SANGKURIANG STORY FROM WEST JAVA

 SANGKURIANG

The Legend Of Sangkuriang From West Java

Dayang Sumbi was a beautiful and kind-hearted princess, but sometimes she was very lazy. Her hobby was weaving cloth. One day her weaving tool fell. Tumang, a male dog, came to bring her tool back to her. As she had promised, she married him. Tumang was actually a man who had been cursed by a witch to become a dog. But sometimes he could turn back to a normal man. Dayang Sumbi and Tumang got one son. His name was Sangkuriang. He did not know that Tumang was his father because he was a dog whenever he was with him. Tumang always accompanied Sangkuriang whenever he went hunting in the woods.

When he was twelve years old, Dayang Sumbi asked Sangkuriang to bring her a deer’s heart. But after many days in the woods, he could not find a deer. He did not want to disappoint his mother, so he killed Tumang and brought his heart home and gave it to his mother. Because of her love to Tumang, Dayang Sumbi knew it was his heart, not a deer’s heart. She got very angry at Sangkuriang. She hit him with a piece of wood on his forehead, and told him to go away. Badly wounded, Sangkuriang left her and the village.

One day Sangkuriang went back to his village. He was big and strong. There he met a beautiful young woman. He fell in love with her at the first sight. He did not know that she was Dayang Sumbi. She could never get older because she was granted eternal youth by the gods.

One day he approached Dayang Sumbi to propose her. Dayang Sumbi saw the bad scar on his forehead. She soon realized that he was her own son, Sangkuriang. She told him the truth again and again but he would not believe her. She was thinking hard to find a way not to marry him. Then she got an idea. She gave him a task which she thought was impossible for him to do. She asked him to make her a lake and a boat in one night. She did not know Sangkuriang had genies to help him to do the task.

By dawn both the lake and the boat were almost done. Dayang Sumbi got very worried. She was thinking hard again to find a way to fail him. Then she had an idea. She asked the people in the village to burn the woods in the east, so that the light made all the cocks in the village crow. The genies thought that the morning was almost broken. They ran away as fast they could, leaving the boat unfinished. Knowing Dayang Sumbi cheated him, Sangkuriang got very angry. He kicked the boat so hard that it went upside down. It is now known as Mount Tangkuban Perahu.