GARUT SUARA— Situ Bagendit Garut is one of the favorite destinations for tourists when visiting this district which is nicknamed ‘Swiss van Java’.
This lake, which is located in Bagendit Village, Banyuresmi District, Garut Regency, West Java, also has legendary origins among the surrounding community.
Situ itself means lake in Sundanese and Bagendit is said to be taken from the name of a noble woman named Nyai Bagendit.
Based on stories spread in the community, Nyai Bagendit is a widowed woman with abundant wealth. However, it is said to have a stingy nature.
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It is said that the incalculable wealth was inherited from her husband. Not only stingy, the woman named Bagendit or often called Endit is also famous for her arrogance.
He also often shows off his wealth. He was even told that he had a house like a palace which was far from the village so that no one or the local community would borrow his money.
Being a middleman for residents’ agricultural harvests is Endit’s daily job. He often sold the residents’ crops at cheap prices, making the village he lived in famous for its fertility.
However, this is inversely proportional to the number of village residents who live in poverty. Of course, this condition occurred because of the arrogant behavior of the rich widow.
The farmers in the village were also obliged to sell their crops to Bagendit because they were afraid of the rich woman’s servants.
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In fact, when the farmers’ rice supply ran out, they had to buy it from Bagendit at very expensive prices. Apart from that, when a farmer runs out of capital, Endit will also provide loans, but with very high interest.
No doubt Nyai Bagendit’s behavior caused misery to the residents, especially those who worked as farmers. Many residents hated the arrogant rich widow. They prefer to remain silent and hope that God will reward Bagendit’s behavior.
Until one day, Nyai Bagendit is said to have met a grandfather who was known to be a traveler. The traveler came to Bagendit’s house with the aim of asking for drinking water.
Instead of helping the grandfather to drink, Nyai Bagendit scolded and refused to give water to the traveler. The rich widow’s attitude clearly hurt the grandfather.
Feeling hurt by Nyai Bagendit’s treatment of him, the wandering grandfather stuck a stick into the ground right in front of the woman’s house.
While sticking the stick, the grandfather also said that the woman would receive retribution for her stingy nature, especially when Bagendit refused to give her drinking water.
However, when the stick was removed, water came out slowly and more and more over time, causing flooding and inundating the area of Bagendit’s house.
Seeing the flood, Bagendit instead chose to save his belongings. At the same time, the grandfather suddenly disappeared.
The water that came out in a large volume ended up drowning all the areas of the very large rich widow’s house. Nyai Bagendit including all the people who worked as his messenger also drowned.
From there the name of the lake was given the name ‘Situ Bagendit’ which is now known as one of the famous tourist attractions in Garut.
Until now, the origins of Situ Bagendit, which came from a rich, arrogant and miserly widow who drowned because of her nature, still exist and are legendary in society.
