The discovery of a Nyi Roro Kidul statue at the Waterblow tourist attraction in Nusa Dua made headlines and caused quite a stir over the weekend, leading to a public apology by the woman who said she placed it there more than a month ago.
There’s nothing quite like a tinge of the supernatural to spark a reaction from the public here in Bali, and that’s what happened after security officers from the Indonesia Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) area in Nusa Dua found the statue cemented on the rocky reef on Sunday.
Videos and photos of the statue circulated widely among community accounts on Instagram since, while also eliciting a comment from the local police.
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“The person might have done it just for the kicks,” Yusak Agustinus, who heads South Kuta Police, said yesterday.
Nyi Roro Kidul is an Indonesian goddess who is said to be the queen of the southern sea in both Javanese and Sundanese mythology. She is believed to have been the mythical spiritual consort of the sultans of Mataram and Yogyakarta.
With superstitions being commonplace among the people of Bali, Nyi Roro Kidul’s prominence in the local community is presumably why it mattered to the public that the person who placed the statue be found, and provide some kind of an explanation as to why they did it. It appears that simply removing the statue was also not an option, for it involved a being believed to be powerful.
Whoever it was didn’t actually commit a crime, Yusak said, which is why police did not launch an investigation into the incident. However, the wide public reaction was reportedly met with a release of CCTV footage from the area, showing the person who allegedly placed the statue there.
The person, who has now identified herself as Made Putri Remaja, stated her public apology in a video published by the South Kuta Police earlier today.
“I was the one who placed the Nyi Roro Kidul statue at the Waterblow Nusa Dua on Thursday, 9 April 2020, at five in the afternoon. And for that incident I apologize,” she said.
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“Today I will remove the statue, without coercion from anyone.”
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