Banyuwangi

Banyuwangi is the former territory of Blambangan, the last Hindu-Javanese kingdom in Java, which persisted after Majapahit's fall and remained outside the power of both Mataram and the coastal sultanates until the late eighteenth century. It lay within the Balinese sphere — Mengwi and later Buleleng — and its conquest by the VOC proceeded through the Puputan Bayu war of 1771–1773, which killed most of its population.

The people of Banyuwangi today are therefore largely not direct descendants of the pre-war population of Blambangan: the emptied territory was later filled by movement from Madura, from central Java and from Bali. The Osing are the group that claims continuity with the earlier population, and that claim — with the dispute about the standing of their language — is recorded in the related entries.

Inside the Ijen crater south-west of Banyuwangi lies a blue-green acid lake and a sulphur works: sulphurous gas from fissures is led through ceramic pipes, condenses to a red liquid, sets into yellow slabs, and is broken and carried out of the crater.

The work is done by carriers who take eighty to a hundred kilograms of sulphur on bamboo shoulder poles, climbing from the crater floor to the rim and then descending three kilometres to the weighing station, two or three times a day, in most cases without breathing apparatus. In recent years the work has run alongside tourism: visitors come at night to see the blue flame of burning sulphur gas, and some carriers earn additional income pulling visitors' carts. This encyclopedia records both in one place because both happen in the same crater and to the same people.