Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/267

LETTERS OF A JAVANESE PRINCESS food. When I was a child, I was very ill. The doctors could not help me, they could suggest nothing. Then a Chinese convict, who had been friendly with us children, begged to be allowed to help me. My parents consented, and I was healed. What the medicines of learned men could not accomplish was done by "quackery." He healed me simply by giving me ashes to drink of the burnt-offerings dedicated to a Chinese idol. Through drinking that potion, I became the child of that Chinese divinity, Santik-Kong of Welahan. A year or so ago we made a visit to the holy one. There is a little golden image before which incense is burned day and night. In times of epidemic it is carried around in state to exorcise the evil spirits. The birthday of the holy one is celebrated with great brilliancy and Chinese come from far and near. Old Chinese residents have told us the legend of the golden image, which for them really lives.

Our land is full of mysticism, of fairy tales, and of legends. You have certainly heard many times of the enviable calmness with which the Javanese meets the most frightful blows of destiny. It is Tekdir — foreordained, they say, and are submissive. The fate of every man is determined, even before he sees the light of life. Happiness and misery are meted out to him before his birth. No man may turn away that which God has decreed. But it is the duty of every one to guard against misfortune as far as possible; only when it comes despite their efforts, is it Tekdir. And against Tekdir nothing in the world can prevail.

That tells us to be steadfast and to push forward and to let happen, what happen will, to submit calmly to the inevitable, and then to say it is Tekdir. That is why our people would not set themselves for ever against that which had actually happened. Brought face to face —245—