Shaggy Hair Children

The shaggy hair style was found in Dieng mountain raise Central Java, but some of them can be found in Merbabu and Sindoro Mountain too.
The society believes that the shaggy hair’schildren have an extra ordinary power ( supernatural power) that could bless their life or the society it self. Whereas their performace stays the same with others children, and they don’t have any special charactertics of their body but hair style.
The people arround Dieng Mountain call them shaggy hair children( bocah gembel) because of the style of hair. It is twisted red hair, dirty and the smell is not good, less of treatment also.
On the other hand, blessing for having shaggy hair is real. The visitors of Dieng tourist resort especially abroad tourist take their picture and give them some money. Maybe this is one of the blessing to the shaggy hair’s chilren.
Local government of Wonosobo, Temanggung, Semarang and Magelang by their Educational and Culture Department try to keep this tradition alive. Finally they admitted to the shaggy hair traditionof warding a misfortune off and giving them some fortunes too

Taken and traslated from Intisari, October 1991