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    8 views14 pages

    Balinese Character

    Uploaded by

    uh

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    of 14
    BALINESE CHARACTER By Maxcaner Mean Introductory (Plates 1 t0 8) Once every 400 days, Bai is quiet and empry. The whole thickly populated see ‘con ofthe Bite island lies silent forthe New Year, which ie spoken of asthe “slence.” (One can travers the length of Bali, along the excellent roads which the Dutch have Dil, through village after village, between the long mud walls punctuated every few feet bythe high narrow gates buil i the distinctive style of that particular village, and see no women squatting before their own or someone e's doorway in front of anklehigh table covered with soft drinks and idbits, no group of hoy gambling for pennies, no cages of fighting cocks sec out in the sn. The roads, at other tines, are ‘crowded with people coming and going fom the markets, which are held every three days in the larger towns; crowded wih people ersyng rice, palling cats loads high with baskets oF mats oF pots being brought from a distance for se; crowded with small boys driving oxen or water buffalo, On feast dap, the roads are crowd with procesions of people in silks and brocades, alking neatly broken lines behind their orchestras and their gods; gods represented by temporary minute images sated in small sedan chairs; gods represented by images made of leaves and flowers; go which are masks or bits of old relics. With the processions mingle groups of people grimed from work, hurrying lightly beneath heavy loads; and theatrical troupes, ther paint sand fine costumes tucked away in litle bundles, rudge wearily behind the two-man smash, the patron Dragon (Barong) wo walks quitly with covered face. But at the New Yen, these same roads are empty, stretching up and dewn the frequent hills, between terraced feds holding green rice, wo another distic: where the rice is golden, on toa thied where the rice is 30 young thatthe Noodd bes seers filled mostly with reflections from the sky. The air on every other day of the year i Sled with sound, high sacento voices shouting the clipped ambiguous words of f niliar speech or artificially prolonging the syllables of police address, quips of passers by to the vendor girls who make a profesional at of repartee, babies equalling on the hipsof their child nurses; and over and above and behind all these husuan sounds, the air on other days carries musi fom practicing orchestras, from an individual idly ‘apping a single mecallophone, from children with jeweharps, and from whiering musical windmills se on narrow standards high against che sky. SPECIAL PUBLIGATIONS: N.Y. ACAD. SCI. [But at the New Year every sound i silenced. Even the dogs, which on every other day keep up a sharp, impersonal yapping at every passerby, sente the need for silence and skulk away into the courtyards where each family, with fires out and offerings set, ‘out inthe house cemple, stays quietly by itself. In many villages a xcreen set squarely acros the gate, afew inches inside it, not only misleads mischievous demons who are tumble to negotiate such sharp turns, but ako protects the family ie fom watehful ‘eyes: Inside, there are door to close between neighboring houscyurds, if i Bappent that close relatives live side by side (and if relatives are to live near each other at all it had best be side by side or ese the unforeunate one who dvells beween thera will be “pinched” by the outraged ancestral gods). Between the courtyards of non relatives there are high wal. Each household i complete unit; ia one corner isthe house temple, planted with lowers for wie in offerings, and set with small shrines ‘where the ancestors and sometimes other epecal gds are honored. [No one enter lightly the house of another; only beggars whose low estate may be ‘that ofthe honscowner in another incarnation, peddlers, relatives, and those who have some special errand, enter anothers house in the course of everyday affairs, Only if the houscowner gives a shadow:play ora light opera to celebrate the birthday of a child, the validation ofa new house temple, or some piece of good fortune, do all who ‘in th same village, and even those who are merely passing through, or working asthe lowest of casual laborers, fel fee to enter, ost down, and enjoy the play until itis over. Wich this exception the houseyard is closed and forthe individual member ‘who wishes to exchange light stylized puns, or eaty caricature, or merely stand and ‘ew betel with others — the stret lures him out. Inthe street, people meet and eat casually around the vendors’ stalls, two-year-olds come with their pennies — worth a fourteenth ofan American cent —and there is gay impersonal interchange, with lle enough meat or matter in it. The roads lead through small villages and large, cities in which the grea courts ofthe ruling caste are conspicuous with their gilded and highly caved gates and their ‘occasional many-tiered pagodas, and where innumerable temples are equally con- spicuous. A few reads led up into the mountain districts, where the erraced ice Fields are replaced by feld of dy rice in a landscape that is more like Europe than the ‘wopiak Here oxen replace water bulfaloes, bamboo tiles replace the thick plump thatch which roof the lowland houses. The temples become sinpler and simpler, uni a structure of only four posts furnished with a shelF and a rof thatched with black sugar fiber is found instead of the elaborate overearved rococo structures ‘of the plains, In these mountain villages there are greater diflersnces between one BALINESE CHARACTER community and the next, but all contain fewer elements of the Hindooiam which for centuries has seeped into Bali, carried by word of mouth, by priests, by the palm-eaf books, by pictures on cloth, by carvings. ‘There are few people who have caste in the ‘mountains — for in Bali only a small percentage ofthe people are spoken ofa having caste, the others, “outsiders,” simply lack thie special hereditary ingredient o! per- sonality. But in the lowland villages and i the mountains alike one sees stright streets, walled courtyards, and gates through which, on every day except the New ‘Year, children trickle in and out, and dogs bark at everyone who passes, not sparing the nearest neighbor their comment on hi esential srangenes ‘The significance of Njepi, che Silence, can only be ealized against the Balinese preference for anything which is “rame,” a word which may be translated as "nsly, ‘crowded festive.” Roads packed with people ll going in different directions temple ‘courts overcrowded with offerings and where three orchestras are playing diferent pieces within easy earshot ofeach other and two dramatic performances are going on a few feet apart; market places where gay shoppers can hardly thread their way among the endless trays of carefully sorted and arrayed fruits and foods, and the fesh Sowers ‘upon which strong manufactured scent ha been put, and the litle stands where seady- sade offerings tothe market gods ae sold; a theatrical performance about which the studience packs so tightly thatthe smallest child cannot worm its way from the front row (where the smaller children st by well accepted custom) tothe outer edge where people break away and wander among the peanut vendors — that is rame. No matter ‘fone knows no one in the whole crowd. Presed tightly aguinst the steaming bodies of strangers, the air heavy with scent and garlic and spices, and many rare forme of dir, sharing no single emotion with those so lose to him, the Balinese watches the play and revels i the oceasion, when he can stnd completely remote in sprit, yet so lose in body to a crowd. Women are believed to love crowds more than men snd to ‘be less able to stand the silence af empty fields, while occasionally an overwrought man develope a hatred for crowds and becomes a solitary. ‘This exowd preference is seen everywhere in. Balinese life in the tendency to ‘crowd too many offerings on an altar shel, to pack too many flowers in a young gts hair orto carve too many scrolls and flowers on a stone gate. Single offerings or de- sigs, lovely in themselves when taken out of context, occu in veal life in a scrambled ate, unrelated patterns. But the Balinese, ‘ho enjoys the crow without sharing init, is not confused by such arays, nor is he ‘anfused by interruptions in his elaborate patterns, When a motor car or a peddler thrust into 2 long and stately procession, the European is shocked bue the Bilinese ‘confusion of t90 many colors, 0 many (eer SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS: N.Y. ACAD. SCI. ‘docs not notice the intrusion. Never attending to the whole, whid he wants never”

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