Tedhak Siten
Practice Jawa Tengah
Maintained
The ceremony at which a child first sets foot on the ground, held at seven selapan or about two hundred and forty-five days, with a sugarcane ladder, a chicken coop, and a choice of objects the child takes as a sign.
Seven selapan
Tedhak siten — from tedhak, to step, and siti, earth — is held when a child is seven selapan old, that is seven times thirty-five days, about two hundred and forty-five days. The reckoning uses the selapan, the thirty-five-day cycle produced by the seven-day week meeting the five-day market week, so that the time of the ceremony cannot be stated in months without rounding.
The sequence has the child step on seven coloured jadah, climb a sugarcane ladder, be placed in a chicken coop holding several objects and allowed to choose one, and then be bathed. The object chosen is explained as a sign, and the explanation is spoken as a hope rather than as a binding prediction.
A ceremony that survives by being small
Unlike nearly every other practice in this section, tedhak siten requires no institution, no qualified officiant and no great cost. It is held in a house yard by a family, with materials bought at the market, led by an elder who knows the order.
The result is better continuity than the great ceremonies have. Tedhak siten is still held in Javanese cities, including by families who hold no other Javanese rite, and its order passes through grandmothers and neighbours rather than through institutions. This encyclopedia records this as a generally applicable point: a practice that is cheap, short and needs no qualified officiant survives better than one requiring all three, regardless of how important either is held to be.
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