Nusantara Self-Defense Has Been Around 15,000 Years BC

Jakarta (DreamLandLibrary) - Since when was Silat martial arts in the archipelago? This is the opinion of Donald Frederick Draeger (15 April 1922 - 20 October 1982), an expert on Asian martial arts and an American marine.

He is known as a martial arts expert because he conducts in-depth research and learns directly from many Japanese, Korean and Chinese branches of martial arts. He also choreographed fights in a variety of action action films including one of them being the James Bond series, "You Only Live Twice" (1967), starring Sean Connery.

According to Draeger, during the Palaeolithic period (around 15,000 years BC), primitive humans in Java known as pithecantropus erectus were already familiar with fighting techniques or simple martial arts, namely with the hand of an empty hand or with the development of using a stick or stone weapon. Drager put forward this theory by proposing the findings of the Ngandong and Wadjak skulls which were found with simple stone tools such as stone axes. Stones sharpened to one side by breaking one another. The hand-held stone ax he called a simple weapon in a fight or as equipment for other purposes, such as hunting or food processing or clothes. In the next period (Mesolithic and Neolithic, 15,000 - 3,000 BC), primitive humans in the archipelago landscape began to make progress by refining their equipment and weapons. Draeger suspects that the art of martial arts has progressed in terms of stance due to the refinement of the stone ax weapon.

In Indonesian classical times, according to Draeger - who also wrote the Javanes Silat Martial Art of Self Shield - the evidence of martial arts can be seen not only from various weapon artifacts found from the classical period (Hindu-Buddhist) but also in relief sculpture- reliefs containing the attitudes of horses for martial arts in the temple Prambanan and Borobudur. In his book Draeger wrote that at the time his book was prepared (mid 1970s) weapons and martial arts of silat were inseparable from the Indonesian people. Silat can be seen that its needs are not only from physical exercise, but also from spiritual relations that are closely related to Indonesian culture.


Source:

• Kampung Silat Jampang
• http://kejawenonline.blogspot.com/2010/03/silat-sudah-ada-sejak-15000-tahun-sm.html

Photo: Special