'Spirit' of Indonesian village founder inspires locals to save tree wrote:JAKARTA (AFP) - Indonesian villagers have taken up arms to defend an ancient teak tree from their chief who wants to cut it down to finance a new village hall, a report said Thursday.
Inspired by the "spirit" of the village's founder, residents of Tuban in East Java have armed themselves with sickles and machetes and mounted a 24-hour guard of the tree, Detikcom online news service said.
They claim the spirit of "Grandfather" Danyang, the village founder who is believed to have planted the tree hundreds of years ago, had visited them in their dreams and warned them to save it from the saw.
"We have received magical guidance from Grandfather Danyang, that this tree should not be felled and therefore we are all here to safeguard the tree," said Sukirno, one of hundreds of villagers taking turns to guard the tree.
The village chief had already felled and sold another teak tree in the village to pay for the construction of a new mosque, Detikcom said.
Indonesia's forests are rapidly being wiped out by logging, population growth and plantations. Forests in densely-populated Java island now only cover remote mountainous areas.
Spiritual intervention
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Ron Caliburn
- Posts: 6915
- Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2005 7:09 pm
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Spiritual intervention
I wonder why nobody else hears it?
_____I wonder why nobody else hears the spirit? Perhaps it was like a winged snake I saw at the zoo? Nobody else could see it, even though it flew right in front of them.
When my dreams and visions help people, it’s not a burden, it’s a good thing.
