Traditional mining began at the Kawah Ijen volcano in East Java, where miners extract solidified sulfur from the crater lake. They carry loads of 70-90 kg of 'devil's gold' down the steep crater wall with minimal protection from the toxic fumes. This artisanal mining is a brutal, independent 'last resort' industry for local Javanese, distinct from corporate extraction.

The 'Sulfur men' of Ijen became a powerful symbol in Indonesian 'Realist' and 'Socialist' poetry of the Suharto era (New Order). Poets like Taufiq Ismail and Rendra (Willibrordus Surendra Broto Rendra) used the image of the scarred, bent back of the sulfur miner to critique the 'development' narrative that ignored the poor. The 'blue flame' of burning sulfur is a recurring image in their verses, representing a hellish, internal economy. In the 21st century, the Ijen miners appear in global climate poetry as the 'frontline' workers of the industrial world's demand, their lungs and bodies sacrificed for the 'whitening' of sugar and the making of matches, linking their local suffering to global commodity chains.