Sasak tradisional stick fighting is a unique spectacle that Lombok people love and tourists and other visitors should not miss.
Lombok's rugged scenery, cool forests and rice filed vistas all add up to natural wonder but it's the human dimension anywhere that adds the vital spark to culture and society.
That's not necessarily because something you might see here is completely distinct from elements of life seen elsewhere.Part of the magic of myth and tradition in diverse and otherwise widely separate communities is that the traveler will often find echoes of similar things elsewhere.
Take Lombok's Sasak stick fighting, known as Peresean, for one example. it certainly has a basis that is distinctly different. it has it's own local rules, defined with Sasak culture over centuries. And it definitely offers a colourful spectacle you don't fine anywhere else.
Yet stick fighting is a widespread tradition in global human society, found among indigenous cultures in the Americas, Eurasia and Africa. it is at once an art, a craft, and a martial training sistem.
Candidate fighters are also brushed ceremonially around the shoulder by their mother using a traditional rice stem broom. This process is known as bejariq and by traditional belief allows magical powers to enter the body.
Lombok's rugged scenery, cool forests and rice filed vistas all add up to natural wonder but it's the human dimension anywhere that adds the vital spark to culture and society.
That's not necessarily because something you might see here is completely distinct from elements of life seen elsewhere.Part of the magic of myth and tradition in diverse and otherwise widely separate communities is that the traveler will often find echoes of similar things elsewhere.
Take Lombok's Sasak stick fighting, known as Peresean, for one example. it certainly has a basis that is distinctly different. it has it's own local rules, defined with Sasak culture over centuries. And it definitely offers a colourful spectacle you don't fine anywhere else.
Yet stick fighting is a widespread tradition in global human society, found among indigenous cultures in the Americas, Eurasia and Africa. it is at once an art, a craft, and a martial training sistem.
Candidate fighters are also brushed ceremonially around the shoulder by their mother using a traditional rice stem broom. This process is known as bejariq and by traditional belief allows magical powers to enter the body.