A different sense of identity

Making an offering

In Bali the culture doesn't lend itself to people viewing themselves as self-created individuals.  A Balinese belongs to a larger whole and is primarily defined through his or her relationships - to family, to friends, to village, and to the spirit world.

The naming conventions are one reason.  For a Balinese there is nothing individual about one's name.

Although there is some variation in the names available, one's name is determined by one's birth order.  The first born is commonly named Wayan.  Made is the name for a second child.  Nyoman is the name for a third child.  The fourth child is Ketut. 

These names are mostly gender neutral.  There are mothers named Made who have sons named Made (ma-day).  There are husbands named Nyoman married to wives named Nyoman.

The woman who works around our house is named Wayan.  She is not the first born in her family, however.  She is the fifth child.  After the fourth child, the naming cycle starts over, reusing the names for the first through fourth children for the fifth through eigth children.  Her eldest brother is also named Wayan.  When they are at home and their mother calls "Wayan!", they both answer.

Wayan with the girls, all dressed up

The Balinese believe in reincarnation.  When a baby is born, the family visits a high priest to find out which relative has been reborn as the baby.  Perhaps it is the grandmother, or a great-uncle.  According to our driver, Dewa, the reincarnations stay within the family and don't cross species.

[Corrected]  Dewa belongs to a higher caste than Wayan.  Dewa is a title or honorific used by many of the men of the second caste.  The eldest child in the second caste is named Putu.  Our Dewa is also the fifth child in his family, so he is Dewa Putu.  His oldest brother, also a driver, is Dewa Putu as well.   Dewa the elder brought Gran and Papa Joe to Ubud.  In Dewa's family, both are called Putu.  His brother has the nickname, 'Gede', the older one, and he is called 'Cerik' (chuh-reek), the younger one.

Dewa Putu

Dewa's Eldest Brother, Dewa Putu

Friendship comes before business, and even business is a way to create new friendships.  On the drive back from Mt. Batur, I learned that our driver, Gede, who was the driver for one of the Green School dads on the trip, had a side business renting motor bikes.  I had recently returned the motorbike I had rented from a friend of Dewa's and needed a new motorbike.  Gede's price was less than half the price I had paid to Dewa's friend for the same kind of motorbike.  I was eager to rent the motorbike from Gede.  But Gede refused.  He was afraid of offending Dewa, with whom he had becomes friends while spending time together at the parking lot at Green School.  As Gede said in a text message, "Nat, we are Balinese.  We are so close with each other, so I don't like to make a mistake.  I prefer the friend than the money."  Only after a dozen texts and repeated assurances from Dewa that it was no problem, did Gede relent and allow me to rent the motorbike from him.

Even bargaining in the market between Balinese is not oppositional.  Rather it is a friendly give-and-take with one of your neighbors in the hope that she will become a new friend and a long-term customer.

Balinese retain permanent ties to their village of birth.  They cannot easily uproot and reinvent themselves.  While they may move to a new village and attend ceremonies at the temple in the new village, they maintain ongoing obligations to the village of their birth.  The most important obligation is to make an appearance when someone in your village has died.  Dewa's village is a couple of hours to the west.  He has had to go back to his village ten times already this year to visit the family of the recently deceased.  He often leaves in the early hours of the night, spends an hour or so visiting the family and delivering gifts, and then returns in time for a day of work. 

Dewa is fortunate that he owns his own car.  Those from his village who live in this area and who don't have their own transportation have to rely on public transportation.  This means three separate bus trips taking over three and a half hours to reach his village.   For them, it is a full day's commitment to fulfill the obligation to make an appearance after someone from their village has died.

The biggest event in your life is your death.  Your cremation will be held in your hometown village.  If you have been diligent in attending others' cremations, then the village will turn out for yours.  But if you haven't been making your appearances, then don't expect others to come to your ceremony.  The village may even blockade the path from your family's house to the temple, preventing the cremation from occurring.

Balinese live in a world populated with powerful spirits and gods.  The spirits reside in trees, in animals, in rivers, in the ground, in shrines.  They are everywhere, and they must be frequently appeased with offerings or their blessings requested with offerings.  If the offerings are neglected, the spirits may get angry and cause bad fortune to befall the neglectful.

                                          The offering ritual.  The offerings are made two or three times per day.
                                          There may be a dozen or more offerings to make each time.  All the offerings
                                          are painstakingly created by hand.


The gods themselves at times come down to earth.  At the major festival of Galungan, the gods are believed to return to earth for several days.  This is a time of major temple ceremonies and offerings.

It is a humbling perspective to have, as one is constantly trying to placate forces more powerful than oneself.

The Balinese see themselves as part of a larger whole, enmeshed in a web of social relationships and responsibilities.  In the West, we often view ourselves as self-created, and make enormous efforts to differentiate ourselves from those around us.  For the Balinese, this sense of themselves informs their behavior and personalities.

The zone of privacy we are used to is missing.  Balinese feel comfortable asking you, and telling you, very personal things.  You can expect to be asked whether you are married, where are you staying, for how long, where are you going to next, even how much do you pay in rent.

Deeply personal information that might never be shared even to one's closest friends back home are readily divulged to strangers.  Chakra, the warung owner on Pasir Putih beach, easily shared that his wife had trouble conceiving because of his sperm motility problems.  Within half an hour of meeting us, our Indonesian language teacher, a middle aged woman with four boys, shared that she had planned to abort her last pregnancy but couldn't go through with it after seeing the ultrasound.  She now has had her tubes tied.

In the nearly two and a half months we have been here, we have yet to hear a Balinese raise his voice in anger or annoyance.  As Dewa says, when you speak in anger you create an opening for the bad spirits to enter your body.

The Balinese don't strut cockily, or show off with flashy clothes.  There is little attention seeking, or pushy people acting entitled. 

It would seem ridiculous.  If a Balinese were to act that way, you could imagine his friends saying, 'Made son of Made, reincarnated spirit of your great-aunt, who today made offerings to the dozen spirits who reside in your home, what makes you think you are so important?"

Photo Credits:  Photos of Wayan and the Dewas by Gran