What is santet? Indonesia's black magic explained

What santet is

Santet is the Indonesian tradition of harmful sorcery: the sending of pain, sickness, madness, misfortune or death onto a person from a distance, without the one who sends it ever laying a hand on the victim. In English it is usually rendered as black magic, and it lies in the family of beliefs that most cultures hold some version of.

The image most tightly bound to santet is a physical one. In many tellings the harm arrives as objects inside the body (nails, lengths of wire, needles, shards of glass, hair, sometimes gravel or splinters) said to have been driven into the victim by magical means and later found, or expelled, as proof of the attack. A sudden unexplained agony, a swelling, a wasting illness no ordinary remedy touches: these are the signs a community may read as santet rather than as chance.

To say someone has been struck by santet is to name a cause and, often, a culprit. It's a serious claim, not a turn of phrase. An explanation for suffering that would otherwise have none, and one that points a finger at a specific reason: a grudge, a rivalry, an old wrong.

The dukun santet, and the words teluh and tenung

The practitioner blamed for santet is a dukun santet: a dukun who is said to work harm. The word *dukun* on its own is far broader: a dukun is a traditional healer, diviner and ritual specialist consulted for all kinds of trouble, and most dukun are sought out for help, not harm. The specific pairing with santet marks out the one believed to send curses for a fee or a grudge.

Indonesian has more than one word in this territory, and the lines between them shift by region and by teller. Teluh and tenung are the terms most often heard alongside santet, and accounts vary as to how, or whether, they differ.

Santet is a belief with real social teeth, and I'd worry about the accusations before the spells.

Treating these as fixed, tidy categories flattens a folklore that has always been local and spoken rather than written. The candid summary is that they're neighbouring words for sent harm, and the shades between them are felt more than they're ruled.

How people guard against it

Belief in santet has always come paired with belief in protection from it, and that's where the tradition is most alive in daily life. When santet is suspected, people turn to specialists and to the sacred.

As with much Indonesian folk belief, these guards sit comfortably beside mainstream faith. A person may pray five times a day and still keep a jimat, or consult both a kyai and a dukun, layers of the same worldview, not rivals within it. Anthropologists call this kind of blend syncretism, and it runs deep through the archipelago's magic.

Santet and kulam: one pattern across Southeast Asia

Santet isn't unique to Indonesia. The same broad idea (harm sent at a distance, illness with a hidden human cause, a specialist blamed and another called to undo it) recurs across Southeast Asia under different names.

Its closest cousin is the Filipino kulam, the tradition of black magic worked by a mangkukulam. Where santet is often pictured through objects driven into the body, kulam is often pictured through a doll or effigy pierced with pins; where Indonesians turn to a dukun or kyai, Filipinos turn to an albularyo and to Catholic prayer. The methods and the vocabularies differ, but the shape of the belief is strikingly shared: an old, regional answer to the questions of why we suffer and whom to blame.

An accusation of santet, like one of kulam, has a hard social side. The charge has fallen unfairly on outsiders, the elderly and those living apart, and naming someone a dukun santet has at times carried real danger. The belief is heritage and worldview, but its accusations aren't weightless.

How an accusation forms

Santet rarely begins with a spell. It begins with an illness, and with the sequence that follows when an illness has no name.

Someone falls sick in a way that does not match anything the family recognises, or that a clinic cannot explain, or that improves and returns. A neighbour or relative suggests it looks like sent harm. A dukun is consulted, and the dukun confirms it, often by producing an object said to have come from the body. The next question is who, and here the answer draws on what the family already believes about the people around them: a quarrel over land, a marriage refused, a debt, an envy.

So the accusation carries an existing grievance into the open with the authority of a diagnosis behind it. This is why anthropologists who study santet write about it as a social process as much as a belief. It does something in a village that a diagnosis of typhoid does not: it names an enemy.

The Banyuwangi killings and the law

The social danger is not hypothetical. In 1998, in the months after Suharto's fall, more than a hundred people were killed in Banyuwangi in East Java, and in neighbouring districts, by groups who accused them of being dukun santet. Many of the dead were elderly men, religious teachers and traditional healers. Lists of suspected sorcerers circulated, and the killings spread to Central and West Java before they stopped. Who organised them has never been settled, and the episode remains the darkest modern chapter of the belief.

Indonesian law has struggled with santet for decades, because a court cannot try a spell. The old criminal code, inherited from the Dutch, had no offence that fitted. The new criminal code passed in December 2022 and taking effect in 2026 includes an article that penalises a person who declares they have supernatural powers and offers to use them to cause harm. The article does not criminalise magic. It criminalises the claim, on the reasoning that the claim is what causes fear, extortion and violence. Critics worry that it will be used against traditional healers; supporters argue that it gives villages a route other than the mob. Both may prove right.

Regional shapes of the belief

The regional detail matters less than the shared shape. Everywhere, the same figure is both the one you fear and the one you go to for help, and everywhere the belief is strongest where medicine is furthest away.

If someone you love believes they have been struck

Argue with the diagnosis and you will lose the person. The fear is real, the symptoms are real, and a relative who says 'that is superstition' has said 'I am not on your side'.

What helps is to take the illness seriously on both tracks at once. Go to the clinic, and go with them to the kyai or the dukun they trust if that is what they need to feel guarded. Prayer, blessed water and a jimat cost little and calm a frightened person, which is itself medicine. What to resist is any specialist who asks for escalating money, names a neighbour or relative as the sender, or tells the family to stop the clinic's treatment. Those three are the marks of a fraud in any tradition, and they are the point at which a belief that has comforted people for centuries starts to do harm.

Is santet still believed today?

Yes. Santet isn't a museum piece. It remains a widely held belief across Indonesia (strongest in rural and provincial life, but far from absent in cities) and it surfaces regularly in conversation, in news, and in the quiet keeping of a jimat.

The register to keep is respect. The people who fear santet, and who guard against it, aren't credulous; they carry a tradition that has explained misfortune, fortune and blame for a very long time, and that is woven into faith instead of against it. To understand santet is to understand one thread of how a great many people make sense of harm.

What is santet?

Santet is a form of Indonesian folk black magic, harmful sorcery sent at a distance to cause pain, illness or misfortune without physical contact. In many tellings it's pictured as objects such as nails, wire or glass magically driven into the victim's body.

What is a dukun santet?

A dukun santet is the practitioner said to cast santet. The word dukun on its own means a traditional healer, diviner and ritual specialist, most of whom are consulted for help instead of harm; the pairing with santet marks out the one believed to send curses for a grudge or a fee.

What is the difference between santet, teluh and tenung?

All three are Indonesian words for harmful or hidden magic, and their meanings overlap. Santet is often the sent curse pictured as objects in the body, teluh a close synonym for black magic, and tenung sometimes harmful magic and sometimes divination. The lines between them shift by region and account.

How do people protect against santet?

People turn to a trusted dukun to confirm and remove the harm, to a kyai (an Islamic teacher) for prayer and blessed water, and to amulets such as a jimat or an inscribed rajah. These guards sit comfortably alongside mainstream religious faith rather than in opposition to it.

Is santet the same as Filipino kulam?

They're close cousins instead of the same thing. Both are Southeast Asian traditions of harm sent at a distance with a hidden human cause, but santet is often pictured through objects driven into the body while kulam is often pictured through a pierced doll, and each has its own specialists and vocabulary.

Is santet illegal in Indonesia?

Magic itself is not an offence. The criminal code passed in 2022 and taking effect in 2026 penalises a person who declares they have supernatural powers and offers to use them to cause harm, on the reasoning that the claim is what produces fear and violence.

What happened in Banyuwangi in 1998?

More than a hundred people accused of being dukun santet were killed in Banyuwangi and nearby districts of East Java in the months after Suharto's fall. Many were elderly men, healers and religious teachers. Who organised the killings has never been established.