The Legend of Batu Menangis

Once upon a time, in a small village in Kalimantan, a girl lived with her mother. The girl was
very beautiful. Her name is Darmi. Everyday, Darmi put make-up and wore her best clothes.
But the girl was very lazy. She didn’t want to help her mother work in a field at all. She just
lazed around in her house and only cared about her beauty.
One day, the mother asked Darmi to accompany her to go to the market to buy some food.
At first she refused the request, but her mother persuaded her by saying that they were
going to buy new clothes for her. Hearing that, the girl finally agreed. However, there was a
condition. She wanted her mother to walk behind her. She didn’t want to walk side by side
with her mother because she was embarassed. She was afraid if anyone would find out that
she was her daughter.
Although her mother was very sad, she agreed to walk behind her daughter. On the way to
the market, everybody admired Darmi’s beauty. They were also curious. Behind the
beautiful girl, there was an old woman with a simple dress. The girl and her mother looked
totally different!
"Hello, pretty lady. Who is the woman behind you?" asked them.
“She is my servant,” Darmi answered.
The mother was very sad, but she didn’t say anything. As they walked further, Darmi and
her mother met other people.
"Hello, beauty. Who is that woman behind you?" they asked the same question.
Again, she answered “That woman is just my servant.”
She always said that her mother is her servant every time they met people. At last, the
mother could not hold the pain anymore.
She was silently crying. She prayed to God to punish her daughter. Then God answered her
prayer. Darmi suddenly stopped, not able to move her body. Slowly, her legs turned into
stone. The process continues to the upper part of Darmi’s body. She panicked. She didn’t
know what to do. Then she finally realized how cruel she was to her mother all this time.
She knew it was the punishment of God.
"Mother, please forgive me! I promise I won’t behave like this anymore. Please, Mother."
she cried and asked for her mother’s forgiveness. She kept crying and begging her mother to
forgive her.
But it was too late. In just a moment, her whole body had become a big stone. Until now
people still can see her tears falling down the stone. People then call it The Crying Stone or
in Bahasa Indonesia, “Batu menangis.”