Sekaten

The instruments sounded are Kyai Guntur Madu and Kyai Nagawilaga, sekati gamelan brought out once a year and played in alternation without pause for seven days in the courtyard of the Masjid Gedhe. Their tuning and striking differ from ordinary gamelan: the sound is louder and slower, and is meant to carry.

Javanese telling holds that Sunan Kalijaga used gamelan to gather people, and that those who came were then led to say the two sentences of the confession of faith — from which the word sekaten is often explained as derived from syahadatain. That etymology circulates widely and cannot be established; what can be established is that the court has held this sequence as part of the Maulud observance since Mataram, and that both sets of instruments are considerably older than the records about them.

Around those seven days stands a night fair that now runs for weeks beforehand, with fairground rides, food stalls and dangdut stages. For most of the city's inhabitants, “Sekaten” means the fair and not the gamelan.

The relation between them is not contamination but an old form: crowding was part of the purpose from the start, since a ceremony meant to gather people needs to give them a reason to come. What has changed is the proportion. The court states that what is central remains what happens inside the mosque courtyard, and that statement has to be repeated every year precisely because the situation suggests otherwise.