GODS
AND DEMONS: OFFERINGS AND EXORCISMS
Good and evil, right and left, gods and demons, are
banded into two opposing factions, constantly at war,
in which the weapons are their magic powers and the
stakes the lives and interests of the Balinese themselves,
compelling them to propitiate both sides so as not
to attract the wrath of either party. Only by the
proper balance between the negative and positive forces
are they able to maintain the spiritual harmony of
the community. This is particularly important at certain
times, such as childbirth, menstruation, death in
the village, or when a crime that disturbs the magic
balance of the village has been committed; circumstances
that weaken and pollute the protective life power
of the individual or of the village and render them
vulnerable to the attacks of evil.
The
antithesis of the state of normalcy, of health and
cleanliness (sutji', ening) is for a person or a community
to be sebel, unclean, physically and spiritually polluted
and, run down, a condition that must be cured by cleansing
factors and ceremonies to give added strength to the
soul the making of offerings, the use of purifying
water and fire, and the recitation of secret magic
words by a qualified priest, the three elements of
Balinese ritual.
To
counterbalance the healthy influence of the gods who
produce cleanliness, luck, and fertility, there are
evil spirits responsible for all illness and misfortune.
Among the countless demons that crowd the spirit world
of the Balinese, some, like the raksasas, are inoffensive
giants and ghouls that belong to literature, but the
invisible causes of evil are disagreeable butas and
kalas, symbols of malice and coarseness, that haunt
desolated places, the seashore, and the deep forests
and infest the dangerous " parts of the village,
the crossroads and the cemetery. The butas and Was
have no other mission on earth than to annoy and persecute
humans, making people ill, disturbing and polluting
everything. They can go into people's bodies and make
them insane or turn them into idiots.
The
tangible gifts to the gods, the offerings (pebanten)
like the presents given to human beings, consist of
fruits, cakes, rice, flowers, money, chickens, and
pigs. They are given in the same spirit as presents
to the prince or to friends, a sort of modest bribe
to strengthen a request; but it is a condition that
they should be beautiful and well made to Please the
gods and should be placed on well-decorated high altars.
Their devils, however, the Balinese treat with contempt,
and the offerings in tended for evil spirits are generally
a smelly mess of half-decayed food which is disdainfully
thrown to the ground. The deities are served with
the essence (sari) of the offerings, which is fanned
towards the place they supposedly occupy, carried
by the rising
smoke of the incense. Ordinary people take what is
left, the material part is later taken home and eaten.
Thus both gods and the donors enjoy the banquet. The
magic people, the many Balinese possessed by supernatural
powers, are not allowed to touch these left-overs
from the feast of the gods, the food with out the
essence.
Offerings
to evil spirits are in themselves polluted and are
left to be eaten by the village scavengers, the hungry
dogs. The devils receive elaborate sacrifices on certain
occasions and on special days, every fifth (klion)
and every fifteenth (kadjeng klion) day; but, as they
are greedy by nature, the little offerings given them
every day a few grains of rice, a few flower petals,
and a coin or two - are enough to distract them from
their, evil intentions. They become particularly obnoxious
at sundown, and on these special dates the women of
each household place in front of their gates trays
of food, flowers, and money, next to a burning coconut
husk.
Great
calamities will fall upon the village when the butas
predominate or when they are angry. Then they cause
epidemics, the loss of crops, and so forth, and only
by the most elaborate ceremonies of purification and,
great offerings of blood sacrifices can the pollution
of the village be wiped out.
Nyepi. Once a year, at the spring equinox, every community
holds a general cleaning-out of devils, driving them
out of the village with magical curses and rioting
by the entire population. This is followed by a day
of absolute stillness, the suspension of all activity,
from which the ceremony takes its name. Nyepi marks
the New Year and the arival of spring, the end of
the troublesome rainy season, when even the earth
is said to be sick and feverish (panas) . It is believed
that then the Lord of Hell, Yama, sweeps Hades of
devils, which fall on Bali, making it imperative that
the whole of the island be purified.
There
is great excitement all over Bali at this time, and
on the days before nyepi everybody is busy erecting
altars for the offerings and scaffolds for the priests
at the village crossroads. Since no cooking is allowed
on nyepi' day, the food for the next day is prepared
and there are melis processions all over Bali to take
the gods to the sea for their symbolical bath. The
celebration proper extends over a period of two days:
the metjaru, the great purification offering, and
nyepi', the day of silence. On the first day the Government
allows unrestricted gambling and cockfighting, an
essential part of the ceremony, because the land is
cured by spilling blood over impure earth.
In
Den Pasar round after round was fought all morning;
crowds of men gathered in the meeting hall of every
bandjar, each bringing his favourite fighting cock
in a curious satchel of fresh coconut leaves, handle
and all, woven over the cock's body, its tail left
sticking out so as not to damage the feathers. Each
satchel was cut open and the cocks presented to the
audience to announce the matches. The betting began;
excited enthusiasts waved strings of kepengs and silver
ringgit and yelled at each other. A vicious steel
blade five inches long and sharp as a razor was attached
to the right foot of each cock in place of the natural
spur, which was cut off. When both contenders were
ready and the bets bad been placed, the referee and
the time-keeper went to their places and gave the
signal to start, beating a small gong.
The
two cocks, held by their owners, were brought to the
middle of the arena, provoked against each other and
released. The audience became tense, and the cocks
attacked each other with such fury that the eye could
not follow them; there were only flashes of the polished
steel of the spurs in the cloud of flying feathers.
Each round lasted only a few seconds; suddenly the
two cocks stopped and stood motionless in front of
each other, both streaming blood, until one staggered
and fell dead,
the winner crowing and still pecking furiously at
the corpse. it frequently happens that both cocks
are wounded but the survivor is healed and often lives
to fight many battles. A cock is disqualified if it
runs away at the beginning; otherwise the fight is
to death. When a cock is wounded but it is considered
that it can go on. fighting, its owner gives it strength
to go on with special massages, blowing his own breath
into its lungs; then it is not rare for a badly wounded
cock to come out triumphantly over an apparent winner.
Should both cocks refuse to fight, they are placed
inside a basket, where one cannot avoid being killed.
Hundreds of roosters are sacrificed in this manner
in every village on the day before nyepi".
The
Balinese cannot understand the attitude of the sentimental
Dutch, who have forbidden cockfights. To them a rooster
is as dead in the kitchen as after a cockfight; besides,
cockfights are staged as a religious duty, as a sport
that gives an opportunity for a little gambling and
as a way to provide food for the next day. The dead
roosters are taken home and cooked for the nyepi'
meal. After the cockfights, in Den Pasar it is customary
to give a banquet for the children of each bandjar,
a double row of beautifully decorated trays filled
with sweets and cakes served to them by the bandjar
officials.
Before
sunset the evil spirits had to be lured and concentrated
at the great offering, the metjaru, then cast out
by the powerful spells of the priests of the village.
Facing towars kangin, the East of Den Pasar, were
tall altars filled with offerings: one for the Sun
and for the Trinity (sanggah agung), one for the ancestors,
and a third for the great Was, the evil gods. In the
centre of the.ground an elaborate conglomeration of
objects was arranged: food of all sorts, every kind
of strong drink, money and house utensils, hundreds
of containers of banana leaf with a sample of every
seed and fruit that grew on the island, and a piece
of the flesh of every wild and domestic animal in
Bali (a small piece of dried tiger flesh was pointed
out) ; all arranged in the shape of an eight-pointed
star representing the Rose of the Winds, the whole
surrounded by a low fence of woven palm-leaf. The
colours; of the four cardinal points were indicated
by a sacrificed black goat for kadja, the North, a
white goose for kangin, the East, a red dog for Mod,
the South, and a yellow, calf for kauh, the West.
Small pieces of black, white, red, and yellow cloth
were placed over each of the animals to give further
emphasis to their colour. A chicken with feathers
of five colours was placed in the centre, next to
a small circular Rose of the Winds made of rice dyed
in the eight different colours of the cardinal directions,
with a centre of mixed rice of the eight colours.
The collection of all these ingredients had taken
months and the majority were wilted and decomposing.
On the ground at the right of the metjaru was spread
a bit of rice flour in which an image of Batara Kala
was drawn and consecrated by a priest,surrounded by
a little bamboo fence to keep the dogs from walking
over it.
Facing
the offerings were the scaffolds for the priests.
First a long shed in which eight pedandas, the Brahmanic
high priests, sat in a row, wearing their red and
gold mitres and with their elaborate paraphernalia
of state, ready to pray and dedicate the offerings
for the gods. On the end of the shed was a smaller,
lower shed where sat the sunguhu , the low-caste priest
in charge of dedicating the offerings to the evil
spirits, his specialty. These nine priests chanted
powerful mantras, accompanied by swift gestures of
the hands and fingers, and rang their bells alternately.
There were seven pedanda siwa,, one pedanda budda.,
and one sunguhu - a priest for each of the cardinal
directions.
The
demons were thus lured to the great offering and then
expelled from the village by the curses of the priests.
The Regent of Badung joined in the prayers with his
entire family, kneeling in front of the Sun-altar
and making reverences while the nine priests rang
bells and chanted formulas. When they finished, "
new fire " and holy water were given by the priests
to the beads of each bandjar, and the poor were allowed
to loot the offerings for money and other useful objects.
Firecrackers exploded in every direction and all the
kulkuls in Den Pasar were beaten furiously, the populace
ran all over town in groups, often with their faces
and bodies painted, carrying torches on the end of
long poles, beating drums, gongs, tin cans or anything
that made a noise, yelling at the top of their lungs:
" Megedi, megedi Get out! Get out! " - beating
the trees and the ground, to scare away the unsuspecting
butas who had assembled to partake of the offerings.
From a dark comer came a deafening din that seemed
produced by the frightened devils themselves, but
our flashlight revealed a gang of naked children beating
empty gasoline. cans The noisy torch parades swept
over town until, they were exhausted, long after midnight.
The
following day, nyepi, was supposed to be one of absolute
stillness, a day when no fires, no sexual intercourse,
and no work of any sort were permitted. There was
no traffic on the roads and only by special permit
and the payment of a heavy fine could the cars of
foreigners drive through a town. In most Balinese
villages the people were not even allowed out of their
houses, especially in North Bali, where the nyepi
regulations are strict. In Den Pasar it was forbidden
even to light a cigarette, but people went out visiting
as on a holiday. Curious tug-of-war games (med-medan)
were organized there for the amusement of the young
people; in bandjar Kaliungu', men on one side, girls
on the other, pulled a long rattan until one side
defeated the other, but in bandjar Sesetan a shouting
crowd of boys stood facing a group of girls; the boys
charged as in a football game and captured one girl,
who then bad to be rescued by her friends in a rough
free-for-all. Everybody tugged and pulled and the
poor prisoner, wild-eyed and with her hair loose,
was so roughly handled in the desperate effort to
free her that she fainted. But someone walked over
to her and unceremoniously emptied a bucket of cold
water on her bead so she would revive and the game
could proceed; when the girl was rescued the men captured
another. Although the unique game is not played outside
of the neigbbourhood of Den Pasar and then only on
day, the Balinese insisted it had no significance
of any sort and that its object was purely play.
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INDONESIA
