BALI     Introduction     Bali to some could be considered a jewel within Indonesia, a purely Hindu island amidst a sea of Muslim neighbors.  However it was not always so religiously distinctive, prior to the comings of Buddhism and Hinduism natives practiced ancestral worship.  The Balinese tribes, as with most of Indonesia, believed the souls of their ancestors rose up to the peaks of mountains where they joined with the great Mountain Spirit.  Mountain peaks then became places of worship and veneration.  Pura Besakih the main temple on Bali rests on one of these ancient ancestral shrines.  Mountains are still sacred sites of reverence and all have temples of their own.  Bali is also known as the land of a thousand temples.  Every village maintains at least three temples.  Each family and all large genealogical groups have their own particular sanctuaries.  The estimate of a thousand is quite modest.
    Hinduism has flourished on Bali because as a religion it is very encompassing in regards to others beliefs.  Religion is an integral part of Balinese society.  It has enjoyed a profound influence in music and art.  Likely the most widely recognized art form is the Balinese wajang, or shadow puppets.  It also pervades the agricultural traditions.  The arable land is broken up into sawahs or collective plots.  Ownership of a sawah comes with several responsibilities including payment of taxes, participation in collective work, building and maintenance of temples as well as the observation of religious festivals.  Members of villages are dependent upon each other in assisting with ceremonies and the maintenance of irrigation canals and terraces. Communities also gather together in subaks or committees in charge of the upkeep of dams and irrigation canals.  These duties are taken very seriously as they are seen as essential for a good crop and harvest.  Participation is obligatory for every member of the subak community in the traditional temple worship as well as construction of new temples when so decided by a majority.  There is a small population of Muslim sawah owners that are exempt from participation in the religious festivals but they still must contribute half the individual levies collected to meet the costs of the festivals and maintenance of temples.
    It is believed that the streams of Bali are fed by tributaries of the lakes.  Yearly pilgrimages must be made to these sanctuaries to appease the deities related to the flow of water (dewi danu).  Over the years temples have been built by the shores of every lake in Bali.  Offerings of considerable value, golden fish and similar objects, are thrown into the lakes.  Buffaloes, pigs and rice are presented to the priests officiating the temples, in return pilgrims receive several bottles of holy water.  Holy water can then be used in ceremonies to ensure good harvests or poured into the rice barns where it is thought to retain the freshness of the rice.  Each subak association also constructs their own temple near their allocated sawahs, these subak temples are known as badugul.  Depending on the resources available to the committee the temple will be as elaborate as possible.  Each sawah’s bedugul is constructed for the performance of the annual religious festivals held by each subak association.  Cornelis de Houtman recorded the first western account of such festivals in 1598.  The Balinese would hold ceremonies at the planting of the rice and at the harvest of the crop.  In the village of Kubutambahan and the surrounding subak communities after all the annual repair has been done on the irrigation canals and conduits an offering called pemlaspas must be made to the river.  The offerings are provided by each of the seven sawahs that receive their water from the river.  A bamboo platform is constructed next to the river and the offerings, which include a suckling pig, a white chicken and a white duck are placed upon the bamboo altar.  A pemangku or non-Brahmin priest then performs the appropriate chants and the river deity comes to enjoy the gifts.  After the dewi danu has been satisfied with the offerings, the platform is thrown into the river upon which the spectators scramble to seize a piece of the delicacies before they float down river.
 After the rice shoots have been planted the water conduits are cleaned a second ceremony, balik sumpah, is held.  It takes place at the juncture were the water is diverted from the main irrigation channels to the secondary conduits.  The balik sumpah is held during the first phase of the new moon and serves as a purification ritual to drive away evil spirits from the sawahs.  An offering very similar to the pemlaspas is performed where at the end people end up grasping at the offerings as they float by.
    The most important of annual celebrations is by far the usaba or harvest festival.  Depending on local custom it will be held either just before or just after the actual harvest of the crop.  The day before the celebration all the members of the subak community, dressed in their finest clothes, carry the wooden caskets containing all the gods down to the ocean.  They are left there with plenty of offerings of fruit and flowers until evening, they are then carried back to the town temple.  This ritual symbolizes the bathing of the gods who are now refreshed and predisposed to recive the festivities of the next day.  On the opening day of the usaba a huge feast is held with plenty of gamelan playing and it is custom for one female representative not yet of marriable age from each sawah to dance around the temple three times.  As evening approaches families gather at the entrance of the temple where a stone structure has been decorated with multi-colored strips of cloth and silk.  Within lives Dewi Ayu Manik Galih, the goddess of the fields and the crops.  Several pemangkus dressed in white sit and accept the gifts of rice, meat, fruit, sweets on behalf of the goddess.  The priests chant and sprinkle holy water on the kneeling families.  The sawah owners and their families then return home to present offerings at the fields themselves.  At sunset a procession travels two miles to the dam temple where more gifts are offered to the gods.  Later in the night, after all have returned from the dam and sawahs, incense is burned and the women gather in a half circle and begin to chant to invoke the deity.  Soon one woman will get into a frenzied state of excitement and the goddess will announce that she is present in the body of the speaker.  A priest will then inquire if the deity is pleased with the offerings, upon receiving a positive reply the goddess will indicate which repairs and improvements still need to be carried out over the course of the next year.  The dancing then continues until the next day when the participants rest for a bit before the owners gather up the offerings.   The time of celebration then ends with cockfights, which are held in the temple courtyard. Music Art Balinese wajang Bibliography For more information...