VILLAGE LIFE
Ninety percent of Bali's population is rural, living in hundreds of
hamlets and villages all over the island. Traditionally, the social organization
of the island is based on the village, each completely self-sufficient,
providing for all the needs and functions of the individual from birth
through cremation. Not just a collection of family compounds, the rural
community was and is a whole series of interlocking corporations, a living
organism, a microcosm of the cosmic order.
Housewives walking lazily down the street,
lounging in courtyards, men gossiping in warung, children playing-it's
a scene unchanged after generations of Dutch rule, harsh Japanese wartime
occupation, turbulent Indonesian revolution and independence, and now the
age of mass tourism.
Village Layout
Pre-Hindu villages were linear in layout, with meeting houses and longhouses
running down the spine of the village. The rustic village of Belantih on
the slopes of Gunung Batur, with its long, flat avenues, is an example
of Bali's prehistoric village layout. With the Hindu influx 500 years ago,
Aboriginal longhouses were replaced by courtyard homes.
Though there are enormous variations, a Balinese
village usually consists of walled family compounds lining tree-shaded
dirt lanes. Even in big towns like Bangli, Amlapura, and Ubud, this traditional
layout is still evident.
People live virtually outdoors. The street
outside each courtyard dwelling is actually the village living room/lounge
area. The land in back of and/or in between the compounds is planted with
banana, papaya, coconut, and breadfruit trees. Nearby woods provide bamboo,
rattan, pandanus, and wood. Under the coconut groves sloe-eyed midget cattle
graze; in a nearby stream is the village bathing place. Since all land
belongs ultimately to the gods, who lease it to the Balinese so they may
live, the concept of absolute land ownership is unknown here.
Where the two main streets of the village
intersect is a miniature alun-alun, the village banyan tree, and
the pasar, surrounded by such important public buildings as the
village temple of origin (pura desa), the cockfight pavilion (wantilan),
the puri of the local raja or his descendants, and the bale banjar,
usually with a blaring TV or table tennis. Also in the village center is
the signal-drum tower (kulkul). A series of quick, frantic beats
means an emergency like a fire, while slow, doleful rhythmic beats denote
a more ordinary community event, like a funeral. The kulkul is a
pre-Hindu tradition. One finds slit drums all across the societies of the
Pacific, the origin of some components of Bali's population.
Different castes or professions live in various
banjar in the village. For example, Banjar Satria is where the aristocracy
lives; Banjar Pande the neighborhood of the smiths. On the edge of the
village is the pura dalem and the cemetery, an eerie overgrown field
with ramshackle bamboo altars.
The Family Compound
While the village is open and communal, the Balinese home is hidden and
private. High thatch-covered mud walls run along the roads, broken at intervals
by high pillared porticos with thick, carved wooden doors, each the entrance
to a family compound, invariably guarded by a barking dog or two. The thick,
mud walls of the enclosure define and protect the family; they would feel
insecure without them.
A central ramp runs up the flight of steps
so motorcycles can be ridden into the walled enclosure. These cells of
unbroken, interlocking, single domestic courtyard homes are open only in
the back, where the rubbish is thrown and pigs root. Behind the main gate
is a thin wall (aling-aling) which affords privacy and prevents
evil spirits from entering; it's difficult for the beasties to turn corners.
Just as the layout of the village reflects
the grand order, so too does the layout of the family compound. The Balinese
believe each part of the house corresponds to a part of the human anatomy:
the head is the family shrine, the sexual organs are the gates, the arms
are the bedrooms and the social parlor, the navel is the courtyard, the
legs and feet are the kitchen and granary, and the anus is the backyard
garbage pit. In each corner of the yard are temples dedicated to guardian
spirits.
Because sons generally take their brides
home, several generations-up to 10 separate families-share the compound,
each maintaining separate hearths and properties. Open-sided raised pavilions
for sleeping, playing, and working all face inward, forming a circle around
the inner courtyard. Near the center of the yard is the family open-air
"living room." Separate enclosures and huts are assigned to cooking
and washing. Just outside the compound, off in the corner, is the pigsty,
where the next festival's main course is fattened up.
 |
| A) candi bentar - entrance gate
B) aling-aling - small wall inside the doorway
to stop entry of devils and evil spirits. Chinese derivation.
C) apit lawang - house shrines, at entrance of
compound
D) bale tiang sangah - social pavilion and guest bale.
Generally contains benches or mats where guests can sit cross-legged.
E) tugu - small shrine, west of the uma meten,
where offerings are laid at the beginning of each work day
F) uma-mete - the windowless, locked sleeping quarters
for the head of the family and his wife, built on the side nearest the
holy mountain on a platform of bricks or sandstone. Supported by eight
pillars and four walls, it's often topped by a thick roof of thatch. There
are usually only beds inside. It is also the treasure-house of the compound
where heirlooms, cassette recorders, jewelry, motorcycles, etc., are kept.
In more prosperous households the platform of the meten extends into a
veranda-like platform with additional beds. Hung on the walls are photographs
of President Suharto and the family in formal atfire, etc. After the shrine
area, the most important building in the compound.
G) bale sikepat and bale sekenam - guest
pavilions for relatives and children; also where souvenirs are made, for
weaving looms, and crafts-and implement-making activities. These vary in
size and number according to each family's needs.
H) sanggah kemula - the family counterpart of the formal
village temple in the more well-to- do families, usually walled in and
consisting of shrines with grass thatch and an altar for offerings. These
shrines are dedicated to the ancestral spirits, to the holy mountains (Gunung
Batur and Gunung Agung), to the interpreter of the gods, etc. In the compound
of noblemen, the sanggah section is as elaborate as a temple and
is called a pamerjan; in the poorest families they're just small
bamboo god-houses on top of split bamboo.
I) lumbun - rice granary, the size an indication
of the wealth of the family. These are tall structures with steep thatched
roofs, four wooden pillars with rat-stopping discs aftached. Always on
the south side of kampung, alongside the kitchen, at a lower level
and west of the sleeping quarters.
J) pengijen - a small shrine dedicated to the Spirit
of the Jewel.
K) natar - interior courtyard. In the old days this included
a cleared area behind the granary where rice was threshed, but now with
the new strains of miracle rice, the threshing is done in the fields.
L) paon - the dark, hot kitchen, often just a flimsy bamboo
structure with woven palm-leaf walls, a smooth, hard dirt floor, a simple
roof of coarse thatch supported by posts. At one end a raised bamboo platform
serves as the kitchen table, a mud stone at the other. The dirt floor keeps
food inside the clay pots hot for hours, and is smooth and easy to clean.
The paon is always located on the south side of the compound.
M) pigsty
N) chicken coop
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Daily Rhythm
The passage of days is marked by a succession of sounds. Everyone rises
at first light with the raucous crowing of the fighting cocks. The women
begin the day cooking, tending children, cleaning, preparing offerings.
They bring water from the village well or stream, then briskly sweep the
compound yard with twig brooms. Small palm-leaf packets (ketipat)
of boiled rice and condiments are prepared for the men to take to the fields.
Trays in hand, the women and girls make the
rounds to the various yard shrines, distributing offerings (ngedjot).
Perpetually hungry dogs follow, gobbling up grains of moldy rice as soon
as they're placed on the ground. The offerings are intended to protect
the homestead against evil spirits, which might very well be embodied in
the scabrous dogs.
Most Balinese eat their first rice meal late
in the morning, or the women buy small palm-leaf packets of cakes and sweetmeats
that are washed down with coffee. During the rice harvest women often take
food to the men in the fields. Before the heat sets in, everyone except
the old are out of the compound going about their daily routines. The school
day starts at 0630, when throngs of children gather on the road carrying
brooms and buckets to clean the schoolyard. Bell-shaped baskets, in which
the game cocks are kept, are lined up on the street.
On market days the streets of the village
are crowded with women from nearby villages, baskets poised on their heads.
The markets teem with great stacks of pots, piles of produce, herds of
farm animals. Since raising pigs and chickens is one of the main sources
of income for women, on market days it's not uncommon to see a woman carrying
a food stand on her head, walking her pig to market at the end of a piece
of twine.
As the sun tops the palms, family members
take their morning wash at the village spring or river. The middle of the
day is a time for resting, or talking with friends in the shade of the
village banyan tree. As the afternoon cools, activity picks up. The men
return home and after a refreshing bath they gather, clutching or stroking
their prized fighting cocks in tight groups outside their favorite warung,
or squatting in front of the temple so their cocks may be amused by passersby.
The last meal of the day is usually the same
food served at lunch, this time eaten cold shortly after sunset. The cool
of the evening is the time to put on clean clothes and saunter through
the night market, or meet beneath the lamplit foodstalls on the main road
of the village. The roads in the early evening always provide a lively
scene: gamelan recitals, young boys strumming guitars in doorways,
men squatting under thatch huts sipping tuak, children playing on
the warm asphalt. If you wander the streets after 2100 or 2200 don't expect
to see too many locals-they all seem to disappear shortly after dark. The
Balinese believe the hours of the night are the time for evil spirts to
wander and tempt the nightwalkers.
Warung
The warung is the testing ground for a boy's first love,
a refuge for inebriates, and the equivalent of a smoking room for the village
gents. There are both long-established warung and those that materialize
overnight for temple festivals, market days, cockfights, and dance performances.
It's where one fully indulges one's sweet tooth or partakes of brem
or arak.
These remarkably well-stocked makeshift foodstall/cafes
feature several hard wooden benches, the back support built into the structure.
The warung is a simple affair of bamboo walls and thatch roof. A
platform bed is often attached for lounging, napping, gossiping, eating.
The food is cooked and water boiled in the back. Shutters fold down at
night, securing the contents.
Farmers stop here before going to the fields
or to work repairing roads; in the late morning they stop in again. The
warung is the men's club of Bali. The enterprise is often run by
coquettish teenagers looking for a boyfriend or husband. If the girl is
particularly beautiful, boys will come from the surrounding villages just
to buy things from her. A male will order hot tea or coffee so he can flirt
longer. Some boys come with a new motorcycle ("smoking ass,"
yit mekudus) or a new watch to impress her.
Late night warung, lit invitingly
by hissing gas lamps, are popular with bemo drivers, small traders,
truck drivers, and insomniac sufferers. Caste, age, social status dissapear
in the proletarian atmosphere of the warung. They're great sources
of gossip, and unfettered and spirited conversation is the order of the
day.
ThePasar
Markets are a necessity in a society where refrigeration and corner
stores are not yet widespread. Markets are a refreshing slice of real Bali,
away from the suntan oil, laser disc movies, and pineapple lasi.
The village housewife still makes her way to the public market before dawn,
often her only outing of the day. Markets are the women's clubs of Bali,
where goods and gossip are exchanged.
Pasar are usually located on the busiest
intersection in the center of the village to the south of either the main
village temple (pura puseh) or the puri. In the more traditional
villages, the pasar is spread under the shade of a huge waringin
tree. A small village pasar may be just a row of makeshift stalls
on a dusty lane off the main road.
Traditionally, pasar are held on the
pasar day of the Balinese three-day week, rotating between different
villages, but these roving portable stands and mats are nearly extinct.
Now villagers favor larger district markets. The 20th century city pasar,
as typified by Denpasar's crowded Market and Pasar Badung, is housed in
a huge, square, multistoried cement block where the stench is unbearable
and rubbish piles are everywhere.
The Mandi
An indispensable feature of a village, the mandi, or bathing place,
is located in a tidal lagoon, in a river at the bottom of a ravine, or
in an artesian spring pouring from rock cliffs or hillsides around which
villagers build walled enclosures. Bamboo or pipe spouts carry the water
onto the heads of the bathers. Nearby will probably be a small shrine built
into a rocky face, dedicated to the guardian diety of spring water, Dewa
Wisnu.
The mandi is a soothing day's end
activity for the water-loving Balinese. Women gossip while doing the laundry,
tired farmers soak aching bones, children cavort and scream. Here the village
meets and enjoys itself. It's polite to avert your gaze from bathing villagers,
especially women. The island's most famous mandi-Tampaksiring, Air
Sanih, Goa Gajah, Toyabungkah-are known to cure certain maladies, including
paralysis, skin diseases, and impotence.