In Javanese tradition, there is a spiritual ceremony called Ruwatan Procession which aim is to get rid of bad luck from the lives of those who are in Sukerta (bad Luck). Sukerta People, According to the story are the people who will be preyed upon by Batara Kala.
There are about 60 sukerta category, some of it is someone who born as : ontang-anting (a child without brother or sister), kedhana-kedhini (a son and a daughter), kembang sepasang (two daughters), sendhang kapit pancuran (two daughters and a son, in which the son is born after the first daughter), pancuran kapit sendhang (two sons and a daughter, in which the daughter is born after the first son) etc. The persons with sukerta category or we can call them as the patients, have bad luck that should be neutralized. The goal of this ceremony is to banish the sukerta (bad luck).
The procession of ruwatan consists of four basic steps. The first is taking a bath. The patients wear pasatan (bathing cloth), the leader pours water over them. The water consists of kanthil (magnolia), mawar (rose) and melati (jasmine) flowers. The second step is hair cutting. Only a few hairs are cutted as symbol to banish the sukerta. The third is floating the pasatan and the hair to the sea. The fourth is the Javanese shadow puppet performance.
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