Mimi & Mintuno

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Mimi & Mintuno



In Javanese traditional marriage ceremony, the parents of both bride and bridegroom will give advice to them to always live together in harmony ever after like ‘Mimi’ and ‘Mintuno’. While, Mimi’ and ‘Mintuno’ is a sea animal, precisely an horseshoe crap (Limulus polyphemus) or an arthropod that live primarily in shallow ocean waters on soft sandy or muddy bottoms. They will, however, occasionally come on shore.



Horseshoe crabs are not crabs but they are related to arachnids. According to Wikipedia, the horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) is a ‘living fossil.’ The most identical form to this species were present during the Triassic period, which is 230 million years ago, and similar species existed in the Devonian period, over 400 million years ago. Limulus means “odd” and polyphemus refers to the giant in Greek mythology. It is based on the misleading idea that the animal had a single eye.



The Javanese call ‘Mimi’ for Female horseshoe crab, while the male one is called ‘Mintuno’.

Horseshoe crabs are monogamous. They mate for life. That is why Javanese use them as symbol of harmonious and true love, in which, one man and one woman dynamically live together in harmony. A man and woman, who decide to build family, are supposed to be inseparable. They must unite for life.



The horseshoe crabs play an important role in medication. Their blue blood becomes substance that is crucial for drug testing. People use an extract of the horseshoe crab’s blood as the pharmaceutical device industries to make sure that their products are free of bacterial contamination.



We can find these animals in Kenjeran beach, one of those raw materials for Kenjeran cracker products and quite rare because it difficult to find.



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