MATABONGI
Darkness

The Village of Matabongi, Rantepao in the background

Landorundun was a young beautiful girl with long hair. One day she took a bath in the river, and combed her hair. One of her hair was fallen, and when she put it on a stone, the wind flew it to the river bank and it reached the middle of sea.
Landorundun's hair was glowing in the sunlight, and an adventurer, Bendurana saw it from his ship. He ordered his companions to take that hair, but all of them came back wounded. Bendurana then walked on water and took the hair himself. He rolled the hair over his arm, and the hair turned to be very long. When he wondered the origin of the hair, a bird said to him where it came from. He followed the flock of the birds, and finally dropped the anchor to a stone, nowadays called Batu Sangkinan Lembang. Then Bendurana planted a mango tree; it instantly grew and had fruits.
He walked around the place and found a girl, Landorundun. Bendurana asked Landorundun to marry him, but she said her father Solokang and mother Lambe Susu aren't ready to be separated from her. Then Bendurana walked away, but he kept stalking Landorundun.
When Landorundun took a bath at the river, she saw the mango tree that Bendurana had planted and picked fruits. After she ate it, Bendurana asked her who ate his mango, and Landorundun said the shepherd boys did it, but they said Landorundun did. Finally Landorundun surrendered and agreed to marry Bendurana.
To trick her mother Lambe Susu, Bendurana gave her a bamboo with large hole on its bottom, and ordered Lambe Susu to fill it with water. When she realized she had been tricked, Lambe Susu ran downhill after her daughter but all of a sudden it got dark. Lambe Susu went back and there was light again, so she continued the pursuit of her daughter, with the result that it was getting dark again. The place where this happened is now called Matabongi (darkness). And so it happened that Landorundun and Bendurana escaped from Tana Toraja. They married and sailed away over the seas.

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Status: July 2004
Story originally published by Mario Rustan