Death
And Cremation
THE CREMATION
The
great towers in which the corpses are carried to the
cremation ground and the animal-shaped coffins in which
they will be burned, the two most spectacular factors
in a cremation, have waited ready for days in some corner
of the village, covered with screens of woven palm-leaf.
The
cremation tower is a high structure solidly built of
wood and bamboo, bound together with rattan and covered
with Coloured paper ornaments and cotton-wool dyed in
bright colours, and glittering with tinsel and small
mirrors. Shaped like the temple gates and the sun altars,
the tower represents again the Balinese conception of
the cosmos: a wide base, often in the shape of a turtle
with two serpents entwined around its body, the symbol
of the foundation, upon which the world rests, supporting
three gradually receding platforms -the mountains, with
bunches of paper flowers and leaves on the corner of
each platform to represent the forests. Then comes an
open space, the bale balean, " rather like a house,"
the space between heaven and earth. This consists of
four posts backed with a board on one side, and with
a protruding platform to which the bodies are fastened.
The bale balean is topped by a series of receding roofs
like a pagoda to represent the heavens. These are always
in odd numbers which vary according to the caste of
the family: one for Sudras, from three to eleven for
the aristocracy, and none for the Brahmanic priests.
The back of the tower is nearly covered with a gigantic
bead of Bhoma, the Son of the Earth, a wild-eyed, fanged
monster with enormous outstretched wings, that spread
some ten feet on each side of the tower. This mask and
the wings are covered with bright-coloured cotton-wool.
As many as seventy-five men are often required to carry
the great tower and its complementary bridge, a tall
bamboo runway by which the upper stages of the tower
are reached. Strict caste rules also dictate the shape
of the patulangan, the sarcophagi: Sudras are entitled
only to burn their dead in open cases shaped like a
gadjamina, a fantastic -animal, half el6pbant, half
fish. Today the majority of the nobility use the bull
for men and the cow for women, animals supposedly once
reserved -for Brahmanas; Satrias were entitled only
to a singha, a winged lion; and Wesias used the deer.
Towers and coffins are not made by ordinary villagers
but by artist specialists who are directed by a master
craftsman. The cows are splendidly carved out of wood,
the hollow body hewn out of a tree-trunk, the back of
which opens like a lid. The whole animal is covered
with coloured,felt or velvet, lavishly ornamented with
goldleaf, cotton-wool, and silk scarfs. Caste again
decides whether the animal should be black, white, spotted,
yellow, orange, or purple. With true Balinese playfulness,
their sexual organs are clearly defined and those of
bulls often are made so that they can be put into action
by means of a bidden string.
From
dawn of the day of the cremation the house teems with
excited people attending to the last details; the hosts
wait on the notable guests, the women see to the offerings,
hordes of halfinaked men proceed to uncover the towers
and the sarcophagi and bring them to the front of the
house gate. Delegations are sent to the cremation grounds
to put the final touches on the bamboo altars and on
the platforms of tightly packed earth, roofed with coloured
paper and tinsel, where the corpses will be cremated.
When
everything is ready and the guests have been served
with their final banquet, the village kulkul is beaten
to start the march to the cremation grounds; the way
to the tower is cleared of evil influences by sprinklings
of holy water, and a great fire is often made to prevent
rain during the day. Eventually the corpses are taken'
out, not through the gate, but over a bridge or through
a hole knocked out somewhere in the house walls. The
groups of men in loincloths that carry the bodies are
greeted with fireworks, and handfuls of kepengs are
scattered, as a traditional custom and not because the
people actually believe the evil spirits to be interested
in pelnnies.
A
second party waits outside ready to snatch the corpse
from the first group, and a realistic free-for-all ensues;
one group rushes against the other, yelling and. hooting
like madmen until the attacking party runs off, knocking
one another down, turning and. whirling the body in
all directions " to confuse it so that it can not
find its way back to the house." The corpse is
disrespectfully rough-handled all the way to the tower,
carried up the bamboo runway, and securely tied to the
plank on the uppermost stage, the bale balean. Meantime
the women, unconcerned with
pranks
of the men, rush to the cremation place in a disorderly',,,,
stampede, quite in contrast with the solemn procession
of the day', before. Instead of silks and gold, they
wear ordinary clothes and most of them go with uncovered
breasts. They carry the accessories, offerings, and
the pots of holy water. The decaying evilspirit offerings
that lay for days near the corpses are piled up on bamboo
stretchers and rushed to the cemetery, followed by hordes
of hungry dogs that fight for the rotten food that falls
oil the ground.
Although
there is no organization committee, the procession is
soon under way. The orchestras that have played incessantly
since the day before march at the head of the parade
followed by the spear-bearers, the baris dancers, and
the men who carry the cows; then come the women with
the effigies, then the towers and the bridges, carried
by a wild mob of lialf-naked, shouting men who deliberately
choose the most difficult paths, falling into ditches
and splashing each other with mud, almost toppling the
towers over, and whirling them to further mislead the
dead. The high priest rides in a dignified and mystic
attitude amidst all this hullabaloo. Each tower is led
to the cemetery by a long rope tied at one end to the
platform where the corpses are fastened, the other end
held by the hands of relatives. This rope has a special
significance, and in cremations of members of the royal
family, the descendants of the Dewa Agung of Klungkung,
it takes the shape of a great serpent that serves as
a vehicle for the souls.
The
noisy procession dashes along in disorderly fashion,
raising clouds of dust, accompanied by fireworks and
war music, until it reaches the cemetery, just outside
the village. There the cows are placed on the bald pabasmian,
the cremation pavilions, their final destination; a
canopy of new white cloth, a " sky," is stretched
under the paper and tinsel roof directly over the funeral
pyre, and detachments from the procession walk three
times around the pavilions to do them honour. The bridge
is placed against the tower and men run up the runway
while the attendant who rode on the tower releases two
small chickens that were tied by the feet to the posts
of the stage where the bodies are fastened. They are
used as a substitute for the doves that in olden times
were released by the widows that were sacrificed and
cremated with the corpse of a prince. Their significance
was probably symbolic, although the Balinese now say
that they are only " to teach the soul bow to fly.
This may be a typical tongue-in-cheek Balinese answer
to dodge a complicated explanation for out siders.
The
remains are then handed down by the mien lined along
the runway until they reach the ground. Each group carrying
a corpse is attacked again by another party of yelling
men who aim to take the body by force in fierce hand-to-hand
battles. Clothes are torn to shreds and men are trampled
upon until the victorious party makes away with the
corpse. Meantime women attendants spread the kadjang,
the long white shroud which they hold stretched over
their heads, attaching one end of the cloth to the corpse,
held up high by as many hands as its length permits.
Thus led by the kadi2ng, the body is taken to the coffin,
now opened by lifting the lid that forms the back of
the animal, and the corpse is placed inside. Relatives
crowd around it to supervise the last details and have
a last look at the body, which they expose by cutting
the many bindings with a special knife inscribed with
magic syllables.
The
high priest steps onto the platform and recites prayers
over the corpse, at intervals pouring pot after pot
of holy water on it, dashing the empty pots to the ground
to break them, which is one of the rules. The body is
so thoroughly soaked in holy water that one begins to
wonder bow it is possible that it will bum. Next the
important accessories,' together with thousands of kepengs
as ransom to Yama, the lord of bell, are spread over
the body; costly- silks and brocades are piled on it,
and the lid is replaced, while the more voluminous offerings
are put under the coffin to serve as fuel. The priest
stands facing the closed coffin for a final blessing
and often he himself sets off the pyre. Fire from matches
is considered unclean and it should be procured by friction
or by a sun-glass.
The
orchestras play all at once, the angk1ung louder and
more aggressive than ever, while the gambang hums solemnly
near where the old men and the women relatives have
assembled to watch the body burn. The air is heavy with
the odour peculiar to cremations, which haunts one for
hours after, a mixture of decaying organic matter, sweating
bodies, trampled grass, charred flesh, and smoke. The
mob plunders the towers to rescue the mirrors, silks,
and tinsel before it is set on fire. Everybody is tense
and they dash about excitedly feeding the fires, all
except the high priest, who is in a trance, performing
the last maweda on a high platform, the elderly men,
who drink palm wine from Tall bamboo vessels, sitting
in a boisterous group, and the daughters and wives of
the dead men, who remain unemotionally quiet in the
background.
The
men in charge poke the corpses unceremoniously with
long poles, adding debris from the towers, all the while
joking and talking to the corpse. The crowd is neither
affected nor touched by the weird sight of corpses bursting
out of the halfburned coffins, becoming anxious only
when the body is slow to burn. Soon the cow's legs give
way and the coffin collapses, spilling burning flesh
and calcinated bones over the fire until they are totally
consumed, often not without a good deal of poking. Small
boys are then permitted to fish out the kepengs with
long sticks after the unburned pieces of wood are taken
away. Water is poured over the embers, and the remaining
bits of bone with some ashes are piled into a little
mound which is covered with palm-leaves. Green branches
of dadap are tied to each of the four posts of the cremation
pavilion, and surrounded by a rope of white yarn, thus
closing it " to forget the dead." The remaining
ashes ire then blessed and placed in an urn, a coconut
inscribed with the magic ong and wrapped in white cloth.
It is customary that this be done just as the sun has
begun to set. A new procession is formed for the march
to the sea, where the ashes will be disposed of. On
arrival at the seashore, or at, the river if the sea
is too far away, the priest Wades into the water to
ask of the sea or the river spirit to carry the ashes
safely out. The ashes are then carefully strewn over
the waters and the whole congregation bathes, to cleanse
themselves before returning home in the darkness.
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INDONESIA
