After the better part of a year in Bali we've largely grown accustomed to things here, in big ways and small.
There are big things we love here and small annoyances that we'll be glad to leave behind. Yet it may be the small things that we'll miss most when we return:
-- leaving our shoes on the front steps and walking into friends' homes and restaurants barefoot;
entrance to Clear Cafe
-- getting in the habit of placing ones' palms together over one's chest as a greeting and touching one's hand to one's heart after shaking hands with a new acquaintance;
-- enjoying all our meals in the open air;
-- sharing our home with geckos and other assorted creatures, and hearing the loud calls of the geckos at night. Eating at nice restaurants that have dozens of small geckos hanging out on the interior walls;
in our bedroom the other night
-- daily offerings placed around around the house and yard;
-- meeting a complete stranger and yet knowing that his or her name will likely be Wayan, Made, Nyoman or Ketut, and then suppressing a little smile when your new acquaintance announces that his or her name is indeed Wayan, Made, Nyoman or Ketut;
-- paying for nearly everything in cash and watching waiters count out your payment right in front of you at the table;
-- having Alexa and Charlotte refer to all the grown-ups in their life here as either Ibu (for women) or Pak (for men), for example their teachers Ibu Mona and Pak Shaun;
-- drinking lots of Pocari Sweat, the baffling name of the most popular sports drink;
-- being able to hop onto a motorbike for short trips on small streets where the traffic hums along at a manageable speed;
-- making social plans on the spur of the moment, with dinners, sleep-overs and even overnight trips happening spontaneously;
-- being continuously amazed at what people manage to transport on a motorcycle and the number of kids that can fit on one motorbike;
-- having complete strangers ask you detailed questions about your personal life and your plans for the day, and having them be perfectly happy to answer your personal questions in return;
-- having a next door neighbor who scales palm trees to chop down coconuts (which we buy for the equivalent of $1 and enjoy fresh coconut water) and who sits by the side of the road massaging his fighting rooster;
Dewa Putra cutting down coconuts
-- the joyous sounds of the marimba band at Green School;
-- learning why on certain nights of the month it is dangerous to go outside due to the presence of bad spirits and evil sorcerers from someone who genuinely believes in the existence of bad spirits and evil sorcerers;
-- spending our days close to the ground, rarely if ever climbing up a flight of stairs;
-- receiving a delivery from the deli with the cream cheese and other goodies wrapped in a little banana leaf pouch held together with tiny toothpick-sized twigs.
As I start to contemplate returning to the U.S., I have mixed feelings about leaving Bali.
We are having a wonderful year here. So rich, so full of new adventures, new places, new friends, a new way of living. It has been an exhilarating change from our routine back in DC.
We just returned from an afternoon playing in the surf on a huge beach, where we were joined by a classmate of Alexa's and the classmate's mom. Alexa went home with them to a sleep-over, and then Lynn, Charlotte and I had dinner at a fabulous restaurant overlooking the beach where we watched the sun set over the ocean. Then we relaxed in the car as our driver drove us the hour or so back home. This is a typical weekend day in Bali. It won't be the same back in DC.
Many of the Green School families who started when we did, with the expectation of staying six-months to a year, have found that they love life in Bali and have decided to commit long-term. They are selling their homes abroad, signing long-term leases, or even buying land and starting to build, and looking for a way to be productive and earn a living here in Bali.
Staying in Bali long-term is a real option for us as well. But I don't feel ready to make that plunge. It makes me wonder why so many of our friends here see Bali as a wonderful place to live and full of so many opportunities, and what is holding me back from seeing it the same way.
It may be that I haven't put down enough roots here yet. Partly it may be because I am often busy with work, spending all day at home on the computer, some days not venturing outside the house. Partly it may be that I still feel like a visitor here, a tourist, knowing that I will never be a part of Balinese culture, nor do I want to be a Balinese Hindu. Partly it may be that I haven't made strong friends with the other expats here. Largely thanks to Lynn we have a large social network here of simpatico people that we like a lot. But in part due to work, and in part because I knew we were heading back, and also due to my reserved personality, I haven't committed fully to the social opportunities here.
I also hesitate to commit long-term to Bali because I fear for the future of Bali. Bali faces many serious challenges that it is ill-equipped to deal with. The Balinese government is in large part corrupt, short-sighted, tradition bound, with power highly decentralized in tiny villages so even if the government wanted to take effective action it doesn't have the power.
Bali faces the challenges of development and growth largely brought on by the influx of tourists and expats. I can't think of any other place in the world that is so underdeveloped and yet attracts so many expats. Its narrow roads are clogged, its trash collection inadequate, its recycling largely non-existent. It faces power shortages and clean water shortages. The rice paddies are being gobbled up by rampant development turning charming villages into concrete monstrosities. The education system is inadequate and archaic, preparing most people only to work in the hospitality industry, serving tourists and expats, and, with rare exceptions, not with the skills to build medium or large businesses themselves.
The biggest challenge will be whether the Balinese can maintain their culture in the face of so much exposure to Westerners and to Western attitudes and beliefs. Maintaining the ceremonial rituals is exceedingly labor-intensive, and requires a huge time commitment from the entire village. The bonds that keep the culture going are quite strong. But if enough young Balinese say 'what's the point?' and are lured to a Western lifestyle, the culture will fall apart.
Staying here long-term as an expat means that I am part of the problem. I am contributing to the proliferation of Western style villas, to consuming too much electricity and producing too much trash. Many expats make a positive contribution to the local Balinese -- starting recycling businesses, teaching better agricultural methods, improving health care, contributing to education initiatives, starting or supporting foundations. If we stayed, I would try to make a positive contribution. But addressing the unmet social needs in Bali is a huge undertaking, and to take that on in a serious way requires dedication and a huge commitment. My goal in coming to Bali is not to bang my head against a corrupt local bureaucracy trying to advocate for needed change.
I would hate to commit long-term to Bali only to witness the gradual destruction of this beautiful island and the transformation of the good-natured, tolerant Balinese into impatient, jaded money grubbers and status seekers.
Perhaps this is an overly pessimistic view, and I certainly hope so. Even if this vision of the future is unfortunately accurate, it will take many, many years to play itself out, and there are many good years left.
One of the charms of Bali is to see first-hand a people fashion happiness out of different ingredients than we turn to in the West. It becomes obvious that attitude and expectation determine happiness. Balinese expect to work hard and not to have much material wealth. They don't expect fame, a high-powered job, lots of money, or plenty of time for recreation and entertainment. If happiness is having one's expectations met, then not expecting much is a good starting point for a happy life.
It makes one think to see an island full of people living lives that on the whole would make a Westerner utterly miserable, and to see the Balinese be genuinely in good spirits, relaxed, cheerful, quick to laugh and to relish life's joys.
It helps that the Balinese standard of living is steadily improving from a material sense, even though it is still quite low by Western standards There is a sense of optimism here that comes from new opportunities in the service sector that free the Balinese from back-breaking manual labor, and from higher wages that allow some to pay for motorbikes, or even cars, nicer houses, big TVs, and other modern conveniences.
It is going to be difficult to leave a place of such natural beauty where people are generally content with the little they have and are looking forward to a better future.
It will be a shock to return to a large metropolis within a country that despite having so much is so discontent and that is facing a future that looks bleaker than its past. It will be a challenge to reenter a society that is bitterly divided, and immersed in struggles with unsustainable budget deficits, high unemployment, indebted students without jobs, destitute seniors without retirements, overextended consumers facing bankruptcy, a broken education system, global warming, and a world filled with billions of people who hate us. We have many disgruntled people with high expectations wondering who else is to blame for the fix we find ourselves in, bewildered about how a country with such an elevated sense of itself got into such a mess.
Yet I hold out more hope for America than I do for Bali. Living in Bali, I've gained more appreciation for America's civic institutions. America has the neighborhood committees, the social activists, excellent colleges and universities, regulations that protect safety, an impartial judiciary, a government where corruption is the exception not the norm, the occasional dedicated mayor, and a diversity of opinions that enable America to face its challenges. Bali is facing serious challenges that it has never had to face before and may not have the ability to deal with them successfully.
I find myself torn -- attached now to both Bali and America -- but wondering how to best build a happy life in either place.
Ibu Made, our household helper, is her family's sole wage earner. Her salary of less than $3 per day is barely enough to feed her family. For the recent Galungan holiday she had to prepare hundreds of offerings and pay to erect a bamboo penjor in front of her house. Ten days later, the Kuningan holiday required the preparation of hundreds more offerings. A couple of weeks later, the village temple celebrated an important anniversary - requiring the preparation of yet more time consuming offerings.
Ibu Made also prepares daily offerings, and special offerings for the new moon and the full moon. Offerings to the evil spirits during Kejang Kliwan, which occurs every fifteen days, must not be neglected.
a woman on the way to temple carrying an offering
Balinese Hinduism offers a stark tradeoff. It enriches the Balinese spiritually while impoverishing them materially.
The ceremonies keep the Balinese is a state of perpetual spiritual awareness. From daily offerings around the home, to the major ceremonies when the gods come down to earth, Balinese are constantly communicating with the spirit world made manifest through ritual observance.
The Balinese try to live in harmony with each other and with the powerful forces that control their destiny. Evil acts cause ripples that can pass on to future lives, so karma dictates not to harm others. Anger begets anger and attracts evil spirits, so Balinese avoid expressions of anger and are non-confrontational.
Kuningan offerings at a beach shrine in Sanur
Balinese believe in evil spirits. They don't try to defeat them. They respect their power and make frequent offerings to them to appease them and to avoid giving the evil spirits reason to try to do them harm.
There are life-cycle ceremonies, including birth, when a baby first touches the ground at three-months, a tooth-filing ceremony as an adolescent, wedding ceremonies and cremation ceremonies. On the Balinese calendar, for a typical Balinese, there is a ceremony on average one out of every four days.
All of Balinese life is structured around the Balinese Hindu system of beliefs and the ceremonial rituals. It is an all encompassing world-view, from cradle to grave and every day in between. It provides a framework for an individual's life, and governs the relationships with family, community, ancestors, and the spirit world.
There is no separation of church and state. One of the Bali government's primary responsibilities is to support the religious life of the Balinese, which they do in part by helping to pay for temple construction and renovation and for large ceremonies. Other faiths are tolerated, but not supported.
Bali without the practices of Balinese Hinduism would not be Bali. These observances are what make Bali special.
But these practices come at a huge cost. The bulk of the work of making the ritual offerings fall to the women. They are endlessly preparing for and then participating in ceremonies. These ceremonies are hugely time-consuming and require enormous effort.
offerings at a family temple ceremony
The ceremonies are quite expensive. Estimates are that ceremonies consume between 10% to a third of a typical income. For those who are poorer, the percentage is likely on the higher end of that range. Since many Balinese live at a subsistence level, barely able to afford food, the costs of the ceremonies deprive them of necessities.
Paying for all the ceremonies and ritual offerings require many to borrow and lead many into a cycle of life-long debt. Some pledge the title to their land or their house as collateral, and if the debt cannot be paid back, then the house or the land is lost.
The most expensive ceremonies are the cremation ceremonies. These can cost several thousand dollars if done in style. This may not sound like much but to a typical Balinese who earns around $1,000 per year and who has no savings, it is a fortune.
All the money and effort that goes into creating the offerings, the effigies, and the cremation towers, ends with them being burnt or discarded. Small offerings, once their purpose is served, are discarded onto trash heaps and burnt or dumped in a river. The Ogoh-ogoh, painstakingly created over months, are typically burnt as part of the Nyepi ceremonies. The large animal effigies created for cremation ceremonies are, of course, burnt.
laboriously constructed offerings once used are discarded and burnt
The resources consumed by observing the many ceremonies serve to keep the Balinese in a self-perpetuating cycle of poverty and debt. Those fortunate enough to generate surplus wealth that could be reinvested to grow the economy, usually choose to use much of that wealth in larger, more elaborate, more impressive ceremonies -- so that wealth goes up in smoke as well instead of being put to a productive purpose. One side effect, though, is that this consumption of surplus wealth in ceremonies serves to reduce disparities of wealth among members of the same community.
Even the Balinese government is aware of the issue. It is trying to instill the message that ceremonial observance need not be expensive to be meaningful and sufficient.
Dewa tells us that his Western customers often ask him whether all the money consumed by cremation ceremonies might be better spent on education for the next generation. These are similar to questions Western societies face in deciding whether to prioritize the needs of the elderly or the young, but in Bali the issue isn't the amounts spent on healthcare but on cremation ceremonies.
The Balinese don't seem to question these tradeoffs. We aren't aware of any youth rebelling at their religious obligations. But we've heard some expats suggest that Balinese women who marry expats do so in part to opt-out of the lifelong burdens that observing all the ceremonies require.
If life's purpose is to have a connection to one's family, one's community, one's ancestors and the spirit world, and to live in harmonious balance with all the elements of one's world, to live humbly and to earn the respect of your community, to do no harm to others and to meet death with a clear mind and a clear conscience, then the Balinese ceremonies help fulfill that purpose.
They fulfill that purpose perhaps much better than Western societies do. What good is the freedom and material wealth that we have in the West if a sense of harmony, community, spiritual connection and deeper purpose is lacking?
In the West we have these needs too, but fulfill them in different ways. Football (or baseball or other sports) offers much of the same bonding together as a community, pageantry and ritual, and losing one's individuality into something that is bigger than oneself that can be found in Balinese ceremonies. We devote enormous amounts of time, money and energy to following football -- even fantasy football. Our governments pour hundreds of millions of dollars into building stadiums. I shared this thought with a friend here, only to learn that he'd had the same thought that football was the closest American equivalent to Balinese community ceremonies. As long as each society is going to devote huge amounts of time, energy and money to ritual ceremonies, I'd say the Balinese have the edge in receiving a much richer and sustaining experience from theirs than we do from ours.
But then Balinese rituals and traditions conflict with Western values of realizing one's potential, personal freedom, artistic expression, scientific inquiry, innovation and economic growth. To many expats, the Balinese seem tradition bound, lacking in curiosity, close minded and superstitious.
Living in Bali offers a clear contrast with Western lifestyles and values. I appreciate the tolerance and the emphasis on harmony of the Balinese and contrast that with the competitive aggressiveness of many Americans. Yet I wouldn't want to adopt a Balinese way of life.
We came to Bali to experience a different culture and a different way of life. I'm glad that Bali offers this to us, in such a colorful and vivid way and with people who are kind and tolerant.
Dewa Putu, who helps around the villa, lives in our village of Silungan, just around the corner from our villa. His father is the pemanku, or priest's assistant, at the local temple.
Every three years, a large, four-day ceremony is held in the Dalem temple in Silungan. Each village has three temples: a temple for the founders of the village, a temple for the spirits that protect the village, and the Dalem temple, the temple of the dead, next to the cemetery. Siwa, the destroyer, and Durga, the witch queen, the dark and terrible side of Siwa's wife, Pavarti, are worshipped in the Dalem temple.
There are two kinds of priests in Bali. Some are priests of Wisnu, the protector, and some are priests of Siwa, the destroyer. Dewa Putu's father is a priest of Siwa.
From a Judeo-Christian perspective, if one were to choose a god to worship, one would choose Wisnu. But in Bali the vast majority of priests worship Siwa. To a Westerner this sounds like devil-worshipping. But that is not how it is practiced in Bali.
My sense is that in Balinese Hinduism you don't try to emulate the gods, you try to placate them. And what god needs placating more than Siwa, the god of death and destruction? So if you want to be happy and avoid tragedy, you need to make sure that you make all the offerings and honors to Siwa that he is due.
I gave Dewa Putu our camera and asked him to take pictures from the first day of the ceremony. The entire village brought offerings to the temple. The village formed a procession down to the river to make offerings before returning to the temple. In the evening there were more prayers, a shadow puppet play and traditional dances.
Here are his pictures:
Freshly decorated in white and yellow, the colors of holiness
elaborate offerings brought by the village women
a well-dressed pig
Dewa Putu's father, the pemanku, in the middle
outside the temple
the procession begins
heading to the river
heading down to the river
returning from the river
a couple of Barong, dragon costumes
the shadow puppeteer
short video from inside the temple during the ceremony
Dewa Putu and his son
his hungry son back home after the ceremony
with their offering. after the offering is made and its 'essence' tasted by the gods, it can be brought back and eaten
The rituals around death in Bali are elaborate and colorful. Death is not a private tragedy that affects only immediate family and friends. The entire community gathers together when one of its members dies.
Dewa's grandmother-in-law died recently. (For simplicity, I'll refer to her as "Nenek", which means grandmother in Bahasa Indonesian.) Nenek was laid out in the special bale (wall-less open air structure) in the family compound dedicated for lifecycle rituals. She was surrounded by a crush of family members, relatives and friends who helped prepare the body and cover it with flowers and other items with ritual significance. (An image of these preparations appears later in this post; it may be disturbing to some.)
The entire banjar (neighborhood district) visited to pay respects to Nenek's family brought traditional gifts of food. Those who don't attend risk fines and being ostracized by the rest of the banjar.
The banjar of Dewa's father-in-law consists of about 75 families. The head of the banjar prepared a list of all the male head of households, dividing them into three groups of 25 men each. For three consecutive nights, each group of twenty-five families visited the family compound with the men staying into the wee hours of the morning drinking, chatting and gambling. As Dewa explains, death is a mixture of sadness and happiness, so it is not disrespectful to relax and enjoy oneself.
The family of the deceased is required to stay up all night, serving food and drink to all who visit and then cleaning up after everyone leaves. Dewa had only one hour of sleep each of those three nights. He waved off our concerns about his ability to drive us on so little sleep, explaining that as a Balinese he was used to it. While I would have been a complete wreck with so little sleep, amazingly Dewa was able to safely drive us through the crazy Ubud traffic in his sleep-deprived condition.
Dewa and his wife and children live at his father-in-law's family compound during the week. Dewa is not formally part of his father-in-law's household and maintains a small house about 30 minutes away that he tries to stay in at least once a week.
In Bali, a wife is supposed to live with the husband's family, not the other way around. It is seen as unmanly for a husband to live with his wife's family. Dewa's arrangement of living with his father-in-law is atypical and he seems a little embarrassed about it.
Dewa has been formally invited to join his father-in-law's family, but has declined. He explained that it would mean turning his back on his ancestors as if he formally joined his wife's family he would then pray at her family temple to her ancestors rather than to his own. To do that would make his dead father very angry.
Yet Dewa accepts that since he lives mostly with his father-in-law's family he is expected to help with their ceremonies. He is the only man of his generation in the compound, so many of the ceremonial duties that are performed by men fall to him.
To make the offerings for Nenek's death, Dewa had to kill dozens of ducks, cook them, cut up their meat, and prepare hundreds of duck satays. These satays were prepared weeks in advance of the cremation ceremony and placed in a large refrigerator. They would not be eaten, as they would be spoilt by the time they were needed for the ceremony.
A full-blown cremation ceremony is very expensive for the Balinese, costing many thousands of dollars. Most Balinese do not have this much money. Instead, many Balinese opt for communal ceremonies where the ceremony is performed for several deceased people at one time, and the cost shared between the families of the deceased.
It is an unbreakable obligation for a deceased's family members to provide the deceased with the proper ceremonies after death including a cremation. Otherwise the cycle of reincarnation will be broken and the deceased's spirit will stay on earth as a ghost haunting its family.
preparing Nenek's body (still from video taken by Dewa)
The deceased's family, however, has up to five years after the death to perform the cremation ceremony. Many families bury their dead in the graveyard, waiting for time of the communal cremation ceremony to arrive. Then the dead are exhumed so that they can be honored in the mass cremation ceremony and be properly cremated.
Dewa's father-in-law is a successful businessman. He had the good fortunate to have family landholdings near the center of Ubud. For many generations the land was merely rice fields in a typical Balinese village. But then Ubud was discovered by tourists. Now he owns prime property in the heart of Ubud on which he has built small hotels and shops.
Dewa's father-in-law can afford an impressive private cremation ceremony. He wanted to send his mother off in style. But the banjar's mass cremation ceremony was taking place less than a month after his mother's death. The head of the banjar told him he should not hold his own ceremony, but should include his mother in the joint cremation ceremony, so he had to comply.
The father-in-law felt very badly about this. His mother-in-law had also passed away recently and he had paid for an extravagant cremation ceremony for her. Now his own mother had passed away, and her cremation ceremony, just one part of a larger joint ceremony, would not be nearly as impressive. He was concerned it gave the impression that he cared more for his mother-in-law than for his own mother.
The timing of the joint cremation ceremony was also awkward. Normally a cremation ceremony is either held soon after a death with the body lying in wait until the cremation, or the cremation ceremony is far in the future and the body is buried and then exhumed much later when the cremation ceremony is held. The joint cremation ceremony coming a few weeks after Nenek's death meant it was too long to wait to leave her body above ground but too short a period to bury and then exhume her.
Dewa's father-in-law's solution was to arrange for a mobile cremation service to cremate her body in the neighborhood cemetery with a minimum of ceremony. A physical body is not required for the elaborate cremation ceremony that would happen later. What is important is that the deceased's spirit be present.
If there is no body, for instance if someone is lost at sea, then grass from the closest land is used in lieu of the body. The grasses will be burt and their ashes used in the cremation ceremony.
After Nenek's cremation, the banjar formed a procession to carry her ashes to the Campuan river, the powerful river that flows along the outskirts of Ubud. Her ashes were scattered in the river.
Later, shortly before the cremation ceremony, the banjar returned to the Campuan river with a priest to recall Nenek's spirit with elaborate offerings and prayers. Her spirit returned to reside in a small sandalwood figurine, carved into a traditional female form, and clothed in ceremonial dress.
Once the spirit returns to the figurine, the figurine is called the "spirit of the dead" and treated with the same respect and care as if it were the actual body of Nenek. It is this figurine that will be cremated, in place of her actual body, during the cremation ceremony.
The joint cremation ceremony included six other deceased from the extended family of Dewa's father-in-law, along with one other non-relative from the village. The cemetery is shared with a couple of adjacent banjars. The cremation is held on a special day that is deemed auspicious for human life-cycle ceremonies. These other banjars also brought their dead, so the cremation ceremony was held for over a dozen deceased from the various banjars.
On the day of the cremation ceremony, the entire banjar formed a procession to the cemetery, complete with bands of musicians hired for the occasion. The spirit of the dead is placed at the top of a tall ornately decorated tower. A large animal effigy is also carried as part of the procession. Both the tower and the animal effigy have as their base a large bamboo frame, which allows them to be carried by a group of men.
Dewa and his wife are both from the warrior and ruling caste, the second of the four castes of Bali. The animal for the second caste that carries the spirit of the dead to heaven is a black bull. If the deceased is a priest or studying for the priesthood, the effigy will be of a white bull. (The first cremation ceremony we watched was for the high priest of the same banjar and his effigy was a white bull.) The lowest caste, to which 90% of Balinese belong, often uses a red dragon for its effigy.
The morning of the cremation ceremony, Lynn and I and the girls dressed in our Balinese ceremonial clothes. Dewa's brother, who is also a driver and who fills in when Dewa is unavailable, drove us to the cemetery.
We met Dewa and his family at the temple that adjoins the cemetery. Dewa was again exhausted from lack of sleep, as he had had to spend the last couple of nights without a bed at the temple and had not been able to sleep. A temporary bamboo structure had been created to house the offerings for each of the deceased family members from Dewa's father-in-law's extended family.
Dewa's grandmother-in-law had been part of the household staff of the King of Gianyar, the regency in which Ubud is located. The current royal family came to visit and to pay their respects. The royal family retains a large degree of influence through the traditional power hierarchy and their extensive land holdings, and many of the royal family are also elected or appointed to leadership positions in the regional government.
The black bulls for Dewa's father-in-laws banjar were already at the temple when we arrived. Then came the processions from the neighboring banjars. One procession passed along the main street of Ubud carrying a large black bull. Other processions arrived from the opposite direction up a side street, one carrying a large red dragon, another a large white bull.
All the effigies were then carried to the cemetery. They were placed under bamboo canopies draped in white and gold fabric. The spirits of the dead were removed from the top of the ceremonial towers and carried over to the animal effigies. The top of the effigy was removed, and the spirit of the dead placed inside.
Priests said prayers in the background. The musicians kept up a cacophonous roar of urgent, pulsing music. Hundreds of Balinese and many tourists milled about.
At this point we left, once again not staying for the fiery conclusion.
Dewa was glad we had come. We were glad to have been invited to join in the ceremony as welcome guests. We were also glad to have the opportunity to see and pay our respects to our friend Sakming, one of the wonderful staff members from Sanctuary house. Nenek was Sakming's grandmother.
The cremation ceremony was not the end of the required ritual observances. The most arduous part was still to come. The ashes of the dead were once again collected. The whole banjar formed a procession of cars, buses and minivans and drove to a particular temple by the sea. The family has to visit all of the significant temples for the family, and say prayers on behalf of the deceased. Dewa drove far into the night with his wife and daughter and other
relatives, with the rear of his car filled with offerings prepared weeks
earlier that filled his car with the smells of putrid meat.
They drove first to the bat cave temple by the sea, then to the temple in the family's ancestral home village in the east, then to numerous shrines located within Besakih temple, the "mother temple" perched on the slopes of Mount Agung, then to several other significant temples, and then at last back to the family compound where the spirit of the grandmother-in-law would take residence in the shrine dedicated to the family's ancestors located in the family temple within the compound of Dewa's father-in-law.
After weeks of non-stop labor and many sleepless nights, after having fulfilled all the obligations to the deceased and having freed her spirit to be reincarnated, the family of the deceased can return to normal life. Their grief has been converted into work and ritual. Their sadness expressed through having fulfilled their duty and by the arduous rituals they have performed.
One more task remained, however. Dewa's father-in-law decided to hold a large ceremony at his family temple that is part of his family compound in Ubud. Dewa explained that it is a ceremony to placate the bad spirits, to keep everything in balance, and to create a good environment in the family temple, especially now that the spirit of Nenek resided within it. The last time such a ceremony had been held was in 1987, so now 25 years later the time was right to hold it again.
The family temple ceremony can be on a modest, medium, or grand scale. For a modest ceremony, the special sacrifice is a five-colored chicken. For the grand ceremony, a cow is sacrificed. Dewa's father-in-law chose an intermediate ceremony which requires the location and sacrifice of a puppy with a two-toned face.
the puppy with the two-toned face (photo by Dewa)
Dewa's father-in-law has managed to locate the puppy and is keeping it at his family compound until the temple ceremony. Dewa's children recently lost their cherished pet puppy and have developed an immediate fondness for the new puppy. Dewa wishes the puppy hadn't been brought to the family compound as it is distressing his children to know the puppy is slated to be sacrificed.
We just visited the family compound last night. We had a chance to see the puppy for ourselves. It is a very sweet and affectionate puppy, sitting in its cage, happy for any human attention, unaware of its impending death.
It is heart-wrenching to see the puppy and to know its fate. To my mind, the decision to sacrifice this puppy to appease evil spirits represents the worst of a superstitious, highly ritualistic, animist culture. I wish to object on moral grounds, but as a meat eater who is comfortable with the sacrifice of pigs, goats, sheep, ducks, chickens, and cows for human benefit, my being upset about the sacrifice of a puppy is probably arbitrary at best and hypocritical at worst.
Cremation ceremony photos
Dewa and his son, with the black bull effigies for the deceased
vendor offering sarongs to tourists
the booth devoted to the offerings for Dewa's grandmother-in-law with her photo displayed
the royal family visits
the temporary structure that housed the offerings for each of the deceased
Dewa with his wife Raka
exhumed graves at the cemetery
offerings for the dead - each of the deceased had their own bin, each was filled with similar offerings
street vendors kept the crowd fed
offerings that have served their purpose and are no longer needed are piled up and burned
the priest says prayers in the area reserved for Dewa's father-in-law's family
Lynn and the girls watched the procession from the street. I was at the cemetery overlooking the street below.
the men carrying the tower and the bull lift them up and down, twisting and turning them
video of procession down the main street in Ubud
the effigies are carried to the cemetery
the top of the bull is opened up and removed to be ready to receive the spirit of the dead
onlookers
spinning the bull in circles
another banjar arrives, bringing a red dragon
the white bull arrives
one of the dead was a young man who was the chief nurse at a nearby clinic
the symbol of the dead is removed from the tower
...and carried toward the waiting effigies
the white bull is placed in position under the canopy
