Dasamuka

The story of Dasamuka, a historical novel by Junaedi Setiyono, unfolds in the Yogyakarta Sultanate, a region in Central Java, Indonesia. Set between 1811 and 1824, the narrative addresses not only Dutch colonialization but also the British interval in Dutch rule between 1811 and 1816.

The Indonesian word dasamuka translates as ten faces, dasa meaning ten and muka meaning face. The author uses the word to metaphorically describe one of his main characters, a young, ambitious, talented nobleman whose diverse character traits enable him to maneuver among the many challenges life compels him to confront.

Setiyono’s narrator, Willem Kappers, is a Scottish scholar from the University of Edinburgh. Jilted by his fiancée, Kappers decides to move as far away from Scotland as he can. Since he has an uncle residing in the Yogyakarta Sultanate, he signs up for a research project of Dr. John Casper Leyden, a world-renowned Scottish scientist with a special interest in the Dutch East Indies. The voice of Kappers enables Setiyono to spotlight many issues that even today remain taboo subjects for Javanese.

Kappers arrives on the island of Java in August 1811 by way of a Royal Navy warship sent to seize the island for Britain from the then reigning Dutch. Kappers’s assignment is to learn the significance of the word bronjong, which describes an ancient form of capital punishment decreed by a Javanese court of law. His research brings him into close contact with the Javanese people, royalty as well as commoners. Since Kappers finds employment in the local colonial government office, the reader also becomes privy to the internal colonial modus operandi.

During his fourteen-year sojourn in the sultanate, Kappers becomes a close friend of Den Wahyana, a Javanese nobleman who is politically engaged. Den Wahyana not only brings Kappers into the inner circle of Prince Diponegoro II, the leader of a group of controversial individuals known as the Tegalreja Group, but also introduces him to religious leaders, families of the palace staff, and Dasamuka. Through these relationships, Kappers becomes ensnared in the kidnapping of one of the sultan’s concubines, who is also Dasamuka’s wife.

Recounting the couple’s escape, Setiyono’s lyrical voice transports the reader to the lush landscape of Central Java and into its rich culture, steeped in mysticism and religious doctrine. Setiyono brings the most powerful human emotions—love, betrayal, and greed—to the page as Kappers experiences an infatuation with a Javanese woman, indignation over the 1812 plunder of the Keraton by the British Army, and the fierce resistance of the Javanese people against colonial oppression and their own corrupt aristocracy.

An engrossing read, Dasamuka invites us into a far-off culture while simultaneously revealing little-known historical facts told from opposing viewpoints.