CHILDREN

The Balinese have a love affair with kids. Having come recently from the other world, a baby is looked upon as a god. The smaller the child, the closer s/he is to heaven. At home a child is seldom disciplined, but rather cajoled into obedience as an equal. A child is given responsibilities which contribute to self-sufficiency and maturity. Children are never beaten: it's believed such treatment will damage or drive the soul from the body.
     Rarely are Balinese infants left alone, nor are they allowed to cry. If you're pushing a crying child in a stroller down the street, Balinese will stop you to inform you your child is crying, and you'll be expected to do something about it immediately.
     Balinese children always seem happy, though calm. They have an innate gentility, and are quite well-behaved. In the most frenetic village festivals seldom do you hear a child cry, or see children squabble, fight, or throw tantrums. Nothing is hidden from children; they listen attentively to adult conversations.
     A boy, especially the first son, usually takes up the trade of his father, whether it be caring for cattle or running a souvenir or electronics shop. There's lots of pressure on boys and men to make money. Daughters are very important to the family-for ceremonies, cleaning house, for carrying offerings. Small girls learn from their mothers how to make offerings, weave, cook, and thresh rice, and never question their many religious duties.
     Why do you see so many Balinese kids who look like they're ditching school? Balinese children attend classes in three separate shifts-0700-1000, 1000-1300, and 1300-1600. White and gray uniforms are worn by high school students, white and dark blue by secondary school students, white and red by those in primary school.

Naming
The full name of every Balinese not only indicates his or her caste but also his or her sequence of birth. The first born is called Wayan (Gede or Putu in the upper castes), the second child Made (or Nengah or Kadek), then Nyoman, and the fourth Ketut. With a fifth child the rotation starts over again. Today, with Bali's vigorous family-planning program, one meets fewer and fewer Nyomans and Ketuts.
     Children also receive a formal, personal name. Thus, a Balinese called Cokorda Made Sita is the second-born son in the Sita family, belonging to the Ksatriya caste.
     To make the naming system more complicated, parents' names change at the birth of each child. Identifying people by their descendants rather than by their ancestors reflects the direction of time flow from the present to the future rather than the past to the present.

Transitional Events
Throughout a child's life various rituals are performed on propitious dates chosen with great care. Some life-cycle ceremonies take place even before birth: for example, a ceremony is held to appease evil spirits as soon as it's learned a woman is pregnant. This is designed to ensure the child's good health and well-being. A father may be prohibited from killing animals or cutting his hair until the child is safely born.
     When the umbilical cord falls off, another purification ceremony takes place, and yet a third when the child is named three months after birth. The latter ceremony is called nelubulanin. A puppet shadow play may be staged, and at the end of the performance the child sprinkled with holy water and the name announced by the dalang.
     The afterbirth (ari-ari), which protects a person from sickness throughout entire life, is buried by the doorway of the house in a coconut shell. For 42 days after birth the mother is considered unclean (kesebelan) and ritual actions must be undertaken to purify her. Twelve days after birth, offerings are made at home; additional offerings are taken to a balian, consulted to determine who's been reincarnated in the new infant. Preferably the balian is unknown to the family, avoiding the possibility of cheating with foreknowledge of family history. The balian goes into trance and speaks with the voice (or voices) of the person(s) who inhabit the infant. The spirits state why they've chosen to come back and announce any conditions attached.
     The birth of boy and girl twins is considered a calamity, an evil omen. It's thought the twins have committed incest in the womb, and rigorous purification ceremonies are required. Traditionally, they should be separated at birth, brought up by different families, and married to one another when they come of age.
     Since the Balinese detest actions characteristic of animals, children are not allowed to crawl. An infant may not even touch the impure soil until the age of three months, carried everywhere on the hip of a parent or older brother or sister. It is believed the earth is too strong to risk the vunerable infant coming into contact with it.
     At 105 days old, the child is bedecked with gold and silver bracelets on wrists and ankles, and an elaborate ceremony is performed as the infant first makes contact with the earth. At this time, the personalities of the previous owners of the child's soul are supposed to remove themselves to allow the new being to continue life unencumbered by memories of what went before.
     For a child's first birthday-at 210 days, the length of a Balinese year-a small banquet is arranged and a Brahman priest blesses the child, rings bells, sprinkles holy water, recites Kawi litanies, and places small offerings before Sanghyang Rare Kumara, the god of small children. This rite is considered so critical to the child's future well-being that poorer families often pitch in to share the high costs. At this time, the child receives a magic name, held secret from the personal name uttered in daily use. From then on, the child is considered an adult.
     Once able to walk, a child falls into the care of other children, allowed to roam freely through the village in small, self-sufficient kid republics. A girl's first menstruation (nyacal) is an important rite of passage. Since she is believed unclean (sebel), she enters into partial seclusion until the day when her period is at an end, emerging in gold brocades, jewels, and flowers. A pedanda performs the purification blessing and recites magic prayers (maweda).
     Only one major ritual remains, the filing of teeth-a sort of Balinese bar mitzvah, the passage into puberty-celebrated by both males and females.

Toothfiling  
Called mapandes in High Balinese, matatah in Common Balinese. The reason for filing is to control evil human characteristics (sad ripu): greed, lust, anger, confusion, stupidity, jealousy, ill-will, and intoxication by either passion or drunkenness. This important life-cycle event usually occurs when a Balinese boy or girl reaches puberty-at a girl's first menstruation, when a boy's voice changes. If not then, it must definitely take place before marriage; sometimes filing is incorporated into the marriage ceremony. After filing, a father's duties to his female children are generally regarded as complete.
     Before a cremation the teeth of a cadaver may be filed. Why? Pointed teeth are likened to those of ferocious witches, demons, wild animals, savages, or, almost as bad, dogs. A person's canine teeth, regarded by the Balinese as animalistic fangs (caling), are filed flat so the child may become fully human, able to reign in the emotions. It's believed a Balinese may be denied entrance into heaven if the teeth are not filed because s/he might be mistaken for a wild creature. In the old days the teeth of adolescents were also blackened with betel nut to distinguish them from the white teeth of animals.
     Mapandes is a costly affair; invitations must be issued, musicians hired, the fees of the pedanda paid, elaborate offerings carried out, and a banquet prepared for guests and villagers. Because of the great expense, it may be delayed until enough money has been saved. A number of families may participate in a mass toothfiling in order to share costs, or it may be held simultaneously with some other costly ceremony such as a cremation or wedding. The banjar often determines that financial help should be extended to the lower castes to enable them to participate. To view the maximum pomp and ritual, attend a toothfiling ceremony sponsored by a Brahman family, where as many as 14 people may participate and expenses could top Rp35 million.

Toothfiling represents the evening out of the extreme and kasar (rough) aspects of one'spersonality as one enters adulthood. Toothfiling also dds the person of the six evil animal passions that Balinese beileve everyone possesses to some degree: laziness (alus), love of sensual pleasures (raga), love of luxury and splendor (dewasa), love of woddly goods (tresna), indifference (nidra), and irresoluteness (baja). Though representatives from each caste are in the toothfiilng ceremony, a girl of the lower caste will be asked to lie on a platform at a lower level than her upper-caste sisters, and she wears less lavish ceremonial clothing. The most important event of adolescence, Bailnese endure it with not a sound of complamt. After the fiilng, youths of all castes can go on to lead healthy, well-adjusted lives as a part of Ball's tightly knit family,clan, community, and society.

     Filing is scheduled on an auspicious day and performed by a specialist Brahman priest on a special platform. For the occasion makeshift bamboo shrines with gay, colorful offerings of rice, sweet cakes, flowers, and fruits are erected within the compound. All attendees dress in traditional clothing, and the customary white cardboard box of snacks and bottle of sweetened tea is handed to all who enter.
     Having spent the previous two or three nights praying while confined in bale built for the occasion within the high-caste family's compound, from two to 100 initiates are assembled, dressed in white and yellow to signify holiness. Girls wear precious kemban (breast cloth), the finest the family can afford, with garments as ornate as those of legong dancers. Boys wear a songket from the armpits to the knees, a kris protruding from a yellow sash in the back.
     The ceremony begins with the pedanda sprinkling holy water and blessing the group with mantras. Offerings are placed before the gods of sexual love. The initiates lie down on the richly draped bamboo platform wide-eyed and frightened, clutching their pillows as close relatives ring around. Incense is lit, mouthwash placed at the ready, files and whetstones blessed to cleanse them and render the operation painless. Magic symbols (aksara) are inscribed on the teeth.
     The "dentist" (sangging) first places a small cylinder of sugarcane in the corners of the mouth to prop the jaws open and prevent gagging. The front two upper canines are filed so they're even with the upper incisors; it's important to effect an even line of short teeth. The actual filing requires about five to 10 minutes. A mirror is provided to allow the patient to observe the progress of the ritual. Filings are spit into a yellow coconut. Tears may roll down their cheeks, but the filees seldom cry out.
     Sometimes members of the family sing a kekawin about Arjuna, the brave young hero of the Mahabharata epic, to bolster the spirts of their loved ones, someone else may recite Kawi translated into vernacular Balinese. To lighten the atmosphere, the sangging may joke with the filee as he files.
     After consulting with his girlfriend, wife, or mother, a boy may decide he still possesses too much animality and lie back down on the bed for more filing. Occasionally, there are requests for just a few token, symbolic strokes of the file.
     When the filing is finished, the astringent betel pepper leaf (base) is rubbed on the ends of the teeth, then the pedanda places various other soothing, healing tinctures on the end of the initiate's tongues. The coconut shell receptacle of filing debris and saliva is then buried behind the ancestral shrine lest it be occupied by evil spirits.