Jam Karet?? Or Rubber Time? Not only in Indonesia

It was a cold day in Berkeley, we put on warm clothes getting ready for catching a bus number 18 to go downtown Berkeley. We checked the schedule of the bus, it was said that the bus no.18 would arrive at 4.18 pm at the bus station near our house in Yosemite street. We rushed out from the house with two backpacks and a duple bag. Kadek carried her two bags; a backpack and a duple bag while I carried only my backpack, but mine was heavy because I had my laptop inside the backpack and other electronic devices for working. Kadek's bags were also heavy because she packed for two weeks' trip to Costa Rica. I tried to help her to carry one of her bags but she said that she needed to train herself to carry heavy stuff for hiking and other physical works. 

We arrived at the bust stop at 4.15pm, which meant that we were 3 minutes early than the bus schedule. We were at the bus stop waiting for the bus who supposed to arrive in three minutes after we got there. However, the bus did not come although we saw bus No. 18 going by to the opposite direction. I thought that the No. 18 bus would come soon after seeing that bus going by. But I was wrong. We checked the schedule which was posted at the bus stop, it said that the next bus would come in 20 minutes or at 5 pm our time. We got so bored waiting and waiting but the bus did not show up either. 

Finally, Kadek called 511 to get some information on the delay of the bus and why the bus did not show up at the time of their arrival scheduled. Kadek said that the next bus would arrive in 30 minutes. We had been waiting for an hour when Kadek called. Then we decided to walk to Solano Avenue carrying heavy bags to catch the bus No. 18 heading for the Bart station downtown Berkeley.

 

As usual, when we got bored, we always put out our camera and started being narcissistic. The whole time we were in the bus stop, I had cash ready in hand $US 2,35 for myself and $US 1,5 for my daughter as you can see from the picture. I needed the cash to be ready in hand because the driver was not patient enough to wait for the passengers who were slow in sliding cash in the payment machine (whatever you call it). 

So, the conclusion I could draw here was that the "Jam Karet" or the "Rubber Time" was/is not only valid in Indonesia, but also in this very most super power organized country. However, a good thing in the US was that we could/can ask for information about the bus roundabout by calling 511 free service. Or in other word, there are some public services for everyone. But, no matter what, I got used to the chaotic transport systems in Indonesia. I found it much easier to go around any time anywhere in Indonesia. Jam Karet? Yes, I get used to it in Indonesia. Maybe because we have a motto that says,"Biar lambat asal selamat, tak kan lari gunung dikejar" or the closest English I could think of was "It's okay to be late as long as you are safe; the mountain won't move no matter how fast you chase it" .  It is great to be in the US but I still LOVE my country most.

To the Realm of a Goddess

My Pilgrimages:

One Woman’s Journey Into the Realm of the Goddess

Introduction: Yatra and Jatra

In Rajasthan, North India, people talk of two forms of pilgrimage, which they call yatra and jatra.  I first learned these terms when I began to do a survey about the worship of the goddess Durga in India, and when I returned to Bali I realized that these two words had taken on a special meaning for me. According to Ann Grodzins Gold (2001, pp. 81-82), yatra is a Sanskrit word that refers to a major type of pilgrimage, which is often taken to a sacred water source (tirtha):

“…yatra [indicates a] pilgrimage to a tirtha or ‘crossing place’ such as the Ganges river at Hardwar or Gaya, the temple of Jagannath Puri near the Orissa coast, or the Himalayan peak of Shri Badrinath. Such journeys indeed are frequently designated with the compound tirthayatra”

On the other hand, as Gold goes on to say, a jatra is a smaller, more local pilgrimage. Perhaps this is reflected in the fact that the word jatra comes from the local, Rajasthani language, though it is derived from the Sanskrit word yatra:

“…jatra [implies] a trip to any of the countless shrines dedicated to ‘goddesses-and-gods’ (devidevata) most often of local origin and fame.”

In a Balinese context  yatra is understood as a spiritual journey across the ocean  for getting merit by visiting a place sacred to one of the Hindu deities. In India yatra refers to a serious pilgrimage to a holy site, often quite far from one’s home, for a higher purpose. It is opposed to jatra, which is a more local journey, often to ask for a favor, so in that sense is closer to what we call a sesaudan or sesangi, A sesaudan or sesangi often takes the form of a vow to a local deity or deities to do something special if they fulfill the desire of the devotee. One might, for example, promise to give a feast for the community in the temple area if one’s wish is fulfilled.

In one recent case a young Balinese man became distraught when he heard that his fiancée was working in the area of the explosions in Kuta on October 21, 2002. He immediately made a sesaudan that he would offer a roast, suckling pig at the site of her work if she had survived the terrible fires that swept through the Sari and Padi nightclubs that night. When she called on her hand-phone to say that she had miraculously escaped with her life, he was overjoyed and the next day took a roast, suckling pig to the place she had taken shelter from the flames in fulfillment of his sesaudan.

When I visited India in February through April 2002, I became interested in doing a research project on the powerful image of the Hindu goddess, Devi Durga. My deep interest in knowing more about the goddess Durga came from my great surprise to find that the physical appearance of the goddess in India is very different from how I had understood Durga as a Balinese who practices the Hindu religion of Bali.

When western scholars like C. Hooykaas first started studying Balinese texts they found that most priests at that time referred to the religion of Bali as Agama Tirta, “the religion of holy water”.. This is a good descriptive title since it brings out the great importance of “holy water” (tirta) in Balinese religion.[1] In contemporary Bali the term Agama Hindu Bali is more common. This title brings out our Balinese understanding that we do some things differently from the way they are practiced in India, even though we believe that the essence of our religion is the same, whether in Bali or India.

In Bali we believe strongly in the power of niskala, unseen or invisible forces. I myself was raised to believe in every aspect of Hindu belief and Hindu philosophy, and that the deities each have a spiritual force. This traditional mindset was passed down to me through the oral traditions of my grandfather who is a pemangku (temple priest) of a Pura Dalem, one of the three village temples found in most Balinese villages and the dwelling place of Shiva and his consort Devi Durga.

When I was a little girl my grandfather often told me many stories from the epic Ramayana, Mahabharata and other stories.  In his stories he always portrayed Dewi Durga as a magical and terrifying powerful goddess who dwells in the Mrajapati, a small shrine that stands near the cremation ground . It seems that Mrajapati probably comes from Prajapati, a word meaning “Lord of Beings” in Sanskrit, and usually associated with either Brahma or Shiva. This is something I will need to research further as I prepare my thesis.

Because he considers Durga so powerful, my grandfather didn’t even allow me to mention her name because, according to him, the Goddess is very tenget, spiritually or magically powerful and dangerous. She can cause so many troubles if she is not happy with the behavior of human beings.

Recently when I got the idea of doing a research project on Dewi Durga, I felt terrified, because we believe that the Goddess can curse us if She is displeased with our behavior. That’s the main reason why I decided to undertake a jatra and yatra before going more deeply into my research project. My main objective in doing jatra and yatra was to ask for permission from the goddess to study beliefs about Her as the subject of my research project. I learned later that scholars like Agehananda Bharati have used personal experience as a basis of an anthropological or historical study.[2] Bharati became a wandering ascetic in India in order to learn more about how villagers feel about the Tantric aspect of Indian religion. After those experiences he talked about a difference between “etic” and “emic” research. These two words come from the linguistic terms “phonetics” and “phonemics”. In phonetics we study all possible speech sounds and try to become expert at recognizing and being able to describe sounds from any language, so phonetics is about “universals” in language. When we study “phonemics” it is about the sounds in one language that contrast with each other and so create meanings in that language. So according to Bharati, you can also do research from the point of view of a participant in a culture, which he calls “emic research”. Because of my upbringing I feel that the “emic” approach is most suitable for what I want to accomplish. However, I will also try to make my analysis more objective and scientific at times. The “etic” part of my research may be more difficult, but I hope that I can accomplish it so that I understand better how to make use of both “universal” (etic) and “local” (emic) forms of knowledge.

There are many temples in Bali, including temples for villages, families and rice fields.  Each Hindu family has a family temple to worship their ancestors called either a sanggah, for members of the commoner (jaba) caste, or a mrajan for members of the “upper three castes” (triwangsa). In general, each village has three main temples called the Kahyangan Tiga. These are the sacred places for the Hindu Trimurti; Brahma the Creator, Wisnu the Preserver and Siwa. Siwa is often called the Destroyer but in Balinese we call him Pelebur, which means closer to the “Dissolver”. This is because Siwa as the god of Pura Dalem is important in the rituals to remove the impurities of death. Each God has his own Sakti, who embodies the active aspect of his divine power. Brahma has Dewi Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, as his consort; Wisnu has Dewi Sri, the goddess of rice and material good fortune, as his consort; and Siwa has Dewi Durga, the goddess as destroyer, as his consort. In Bali we worship the three main Gods equally, so each of the Trimurti has a special temple in the village, one of the Kahyangan Tiga. The Pura Puseh is the dwelling place for Wisnu, the Pura Desa or Bale Agung is the dwelling place for Brahma and the Pura Dalem is the dwelling place for Siwa and Durga. The position of these temples is almost the same in most villages. The Pura Puseh is located at the “north” (kaja/kaler) or “east” (kangin) side of the village, the Pura Desa in the center of the village and the Pura Dalem at the “south” (kelod) end of the village close to the cremation ground where the Pura Mrajapati, the temple guarding the cremation ground and burial grounds, is also located.

From the point of view of the family, the sanggah or mrajan is equally important, as it is here that the deities are worshipped by way of the family ancestors, who merge with the deities after the successful cremation of elaborate post-mortem rites. The all-Balinese holiday of Galungan, which is celebrated on a special day in the Balinese sacred 210-day calendar (Pawukon) is especially important for family shrines as each family makes offerings and prays to its own ancestors on this day.

In addition to family and village temples, there are also elaborate public temples and functional temples. Functional temples are worshipped by certain people of the same profession. For an example; the Pura Bedugul is a temple for Dewi Sri, the goddess of rice and consort of Wisnu. All the farmers who share a single irrigation watershed and belong to the society that administers that watershed (subak) worship at this temple at specific times during the irrigation, planting and harvesting cycles for wet rice farming.[3]

In general, the public temples of Balinese Hindu have a typical layout and division. The Balinese divide larger, public temple according to areas of sacredness. Moving outwards from the most sacred part we find the jeroan, the inner sanctum; the jaba tengah, or middle sanctum and jaba, or outer courtyard. A candi bentar, or “split gate” connects the jaba and the jaba tengah, while a candi-kurung, a closed thatched gate connects the jaba tengah and the jeroan. There are shrines inside the jeroan which represent the sacred “seats” (palinggihan) for each deity. These can take the form of lofty, stone seats like the padmasana, which is the place for the Sun God (Surya) who also represents Gunung Agung, the sacred, central mountain of Bali. In some larger temple, there are also lofty pagoda-like shrines called Meru, named after the central mountain in the Hindu cosmology. These are noticeable at a distance because each tier has a roof of thatch of black palm fiber (ijuk). The roofs of the Meru shrines are always odd in number, reflecting either the sanctity of the mountains they represent, or the place in the hierarchy of ancestors (often royal) worshipped in these temples.  The jaba tengah is the place where people play the enchanting melodies of the gamelan orchestra and perform traditional dances in honor of the deities. It is also a place where families store the offerings they have brought for blessing into the temple, and for resting and socializing before completing their worship in the jeroan.

The sacred places that I choose to undertake both my Jatra and Yatra pilgrimages were Pura Dalem. Why Pura Dalem? The main reason for doing pilgrimages to the Pura Dalem was because these are the places of Siwa and Dewi Durga, the god and goddess of destruction or dissolution. Durga is the most terrifying deity in the Balinese Hindu pantheon. Most Balinese perceive Durga as the patron of the black-arts, and especially the art of taking on magical form as animals or terrifying spirits, called leyak.  As a Hindu Balinese I felt that I should ask Dewi Durga for her permission to mention her name many times in my research project. Also I want to get protection from the Dewi for whatever I am doing during this research project.

My Jatra

It was Sunday Kajeng Kliwon in the Wuku Pujut, an auspicious day according to the Balinese calendar.[4] I started my fasting early in the day, not eating any food and not drinking any beverage. However, because I got such a bad headache, I broke my fast by drinking a cup of coffee at midday. I thought that I had failed in my fasting but later my grandfather explained that the effort to fast is more important than whether we are 100% successful or not. It was the day when I planned to go to my grandfather’s village to do a puja (worship with flowers, incense and prayers) in the Pura Dalem to get permission from Ida Betari Durga to continue with my project. [5]  I went to the village with my daughter and my brother, who drove the car. It took about 2 hours to get there. Along the way I bought some sugar, some fruits, and some cookies to be used as offerings to the ancestors and deities in the household shrine at my grandfather’s house and in the Pura Dalem.

Getting home to my grandparents’ house made everyone very happy, because I hadn’t been able to visit my family for four months due to our work in India. They all gathered around me asking about India. For them India is a sacred place, as it is for all Balinese Hindus. They asked me whether I bathed in the Gangga river. When I told them that I had  they said that meant that I have become a holy woman who deserves respect like a priest. I felt awkward at that time, because I am just a village woman who was lucky to have an opportunity to go to India and just coincidently the granddaughter of a priest.

When I told my grandmother that I wanted to go to the Pura Dalem that day for doing puja, my grandmother didn’t wait to prepare the offerings that we needed for praying. She made some rayunan, a form of offering made from banana leaves containing rice and any side dishes that are available that day. She also prepared segehan, a kind of offering made from palm leaves which contains colorful rice, one color for each of the direction, for the deities of the directions each have their own special color. For example; white for the east, red for the south, yellow for the west, black for the north and the mixture of the four color for the center. I bathed and put on a traditional clothes; kamben and selendang, my grandfather put on traditional white clothes, a batik kamben and white head-dress too, called an udeng, or in refined language, a destar. He didn’t forget to bring his walking-stick (tungked) either.

My grandfather went ahead to the Pura Dalem because he had to clean the shrines first. . Then, just before sunset, my aunt, Me Man and I followed him there. Me Man put the rayunan on the shrines for the deities and put segehan on the ground for the chthonic spirits. She also put some holy water in some clay containers in each shrine, complete with burning incenses. My grandfather sat in the Piasan, a medium-size shrine symbolizing as a make up room for the deities, whereas I myself sat on the ground facing a segehan and tabuhan, a liquor drink for the chthonic spirit. The scent of burning fragrance incenses had brought me into a very magical atmosphere. Me Man told me to do muspa, pray with flowers and incense to Ida Hyang Betari Dalem, the Honored Goddess of the Pura Dalem. I did muspa with two different color flowers; red and white, started and ended the muspa with both hands held together in prayer fashion just in front of our eyebrows.

While we were doing prayer with my grandfather as the mediator, a wall-lizard” (cecak) made clicking sounds in one of the shrines. After praying, my grandfather told me that if you hear the sound of a cecak while praying, it is a good sign. He said, Ida Betari ledang pisan, “the Goddess is very pleased”. What he meant was that the goddess had given her blessing. Many Balinese believe in signs; for example, that the sound of a cecak, or the position of the stars, can have a special meaning.

After muspa Me Man first sprinkled holy water on the shrines, then on the segehan offerings that she had placed on the ground and finally on me. She sprinkled it thrice on my head, then she poured some on my right hand three times to drink and three times to wash my face. The last stage was putting bija, wet uncooked rice, between my eyebrows. For Hindu Balinese, if the priests or priestesses have given the devotees some bija tthat means that the prayer are complete and the devotees are free to go where they like. We went home after tasting some surudan, the leftover offerings to the deities. That was my Jatra before doing my Yatra to Nusa Penida.

My Yatra

It was two days after I did my jatra to Pura Dalem in my grandfather’s village that I continued my sacred journey to a place far from home, across the southern straits separating Bali from the smaller island of Nusa Penida. In order to seek the presence of the goddess there we had to climb a mountain, enter a dark and frightening cave and spend a night without warm clothes, sleeping mat, or pillows. Our journey was to take us to the sacred place of the deity at the temple called Pura Dalem Ped.  This is one of the village temples of Nusa Penida, an island off the southeastern coast of Bali that is within the district of Klungkung. Even though Pura Dalem Ped is a village-level temple it is very important for devotees and traditional healers (balian) from all over Bali. The Balinese believe that the diseases, bad luck, evil spirits and disasters that afflict the mainland of Bali are caused and spread by the powerful demonic being called Ratu Gede Mecaling. In Balinese “Mecaling” means “having fangs”, and is a main characteristic of animals and evil spirits. (This is one reason why we Balinese believe that tooth-filing is one of the necessary rites of passage before becoming a full adult; it is one way of symbolically lessening our resemblance, both physically and morally, to wild animals.) People of Bali are so afraid of him that they don’t even dare mention his name. He is believed to live in the Dalem Ped on the island of Nusa Penida. Some people also say that those who want magical power also go to the Pura Dalem Ped to get a special blessing.  I went to the Dalem Ped not to seek magical power, but rather to ask for permission to do my research from Ratu Gede Mecaling, for in my mind that deity is a female deity like, or perhaps identical with, Dewi Durga.

On Tuesday 21 May 2002 I woke up before dawn and made a cup of coffee. It was my third day of fasting. I intended to have a clean heart and mind for worshipping the great goddess of Pura Dalem Ped. I cleaned myself by washing my hair and my body thoroughly and putting on traditional clothes. I then performed puja (prayer with offerings) in the sanggah, or “family shrine” of our home in Denpasar.

At 11:00 am Mang De Arya, who is my brother, and a Balinese traditional healer, arrived together with his friends, Wayan Sudarya who is from Nusa Penida itself, and Ketut Sumber, another traditional healer from Negara, in western Bali. They arrived on two motorbikes, bringing with them four woven bamboo baskets that held the pejati offerings that we would need to offer at the four main temples in Nusa.[6] I was not ready when they came to our house, because I still needed to do some small but important errands. I didn’t want to have any burdens on my mind while I was concentrating later in Nusa.

At 11:30 we were all ready to leave for Sanur, a town located south of Denpasar that is popular for tourism and also one of the places where we can catch a boat tto Nusa. It took only fifteen minutes to get to Sanur, but the boat we hoped to take has left ten minutes before we got there, Wayan tried to call the boatmen, but they didn’t hear him.

We decided to go to Padang Bai, another bay where people can catch a boat to Nusa, or a ferry to Lombok, the large island to the east of Bali. We all got into the car and headed for Padang Bai. It was not an easy ride as we rushed through the crazy traffic of Gianyar, Klungkung and the crowded road toward Karang Asem district. Many times we had to sit in stalled traffic for quite some time before we could continue our trip. After a drive of one and a half hours, we finally reached the bay at Padang Bai. But once again when we arrived we found that the boat had left for Nusa just a few minutes earlier. Wayan, Mang De and Ketut all jumped out of the car and ran down to the shore to call the boat back. It must have been our lucky day because the boatman heard us this time and came back to pick us up.

The conductor who works on the boat rushed us onto the boat; took our offerings and put them in a higher place on the boat. In Bali people have a strong sense of where they should place things and where they should place themselves, according to the degree to which certain people or objects may be more holy than others. Both place (location) and direction are very important for Balinese society. Offerings, for example, always have to be stored or carried in a position that is higher than other objects, and should never be placed lower than people either.

I noticed that there were 17 passengers on the boat plus 2 crews, the captain and the conductor. The captain lifted the anchor and turned on the engine. We all sat back in the boat as it began to cut through the bluish-green water of the sea. I sat in the back seat looking out from the boat and watched the waves dash against the sides of the boat. It was a lovely smooth ride. The wind was blowing strongly and the mist from the waves sprinkling on my face gave me a cool and refreshing feeling.

It took only half an hour to get to the shore of Nusa Penida. The first thing we saw was the green coconut trees spread all along the coast. When we got closer we could see that there were many people on the shore waiting for the boat to go back to Padang Bai. We were met at the harbour by Made, Wayan’s younger brother. He was a bit worried because he had expected us to get there earlier by the boat from Sanur. We apologized for his inconvenience, then got into a small van that is the type of local transportation popular on Nusa. I think that we must have chartered the car because there weren’t any other passengers besides us.

It was my first time going to Nusa Penida. For the length of the trip to Tanah Byas village where Wayan’s house was, I just kept looking outside watching observing the lay of the land, the type of vegetation that grows on Nusa and the layout of the villages we passed through. Compared to Bali, Nusa is very dry so there are no rice fields covering the landscape as we find in Bali. From my observation coconuts, cassava and corn are the main cultivated crops that grow there. But there is another kind of “farming” on Nusa too. As we drove along the coast I noticed that there were many small grass thatched huts. Wayan explained to me that these huts belong to people who farm seaweed in the shallow ocean water in front of their huts. The “seaweed farmers” divide the beach and shallow water next to the beach into small plots, so that each hut is at one end of the “field” of a single family of farmers.

I was so busy watching the view outside that I didn’t realize we had already arrived at Wayan’s house. A number of women – some young, some old and some middle-aged – came out to welcome us. Then they all sat down together in front of a small building and busied themselves plaiting offering baskets from strips of palm leaf. I smiled at them and they told us to sit in the new building across from where they were sitting. Like Balinese in general, Wayan didn’t introduce us to his family; it was our task to find out who they all were as best we could. If we really need to exactly who someone is we usually ask other people, because it is not polite to ask people directly about themselves. Not long after we sat down, one of the women came bringing tea, coffee and snacks. She invited us to drink, but I told Wayan that I was fasting that day. He understood. Then he gave the women some oleh-oleh, kind of small gift, in this case consisting of sugar and cookies. It suddenly dawned on me that I had completely forgotten to bring along any oleh-oleh. I made an excuse to go out, so that I could go find the closest warung, a stand where people can buy snacks, coffee, tea and other small necessities. I bought some oleh-oleh and brought it back for Wayan’s family.

While waiting for the right time to go to the temples, I was attracted by a very old man who lived near Wayan’s house. I was interested in him because his family said that he was a Casanova when he was young. I was amazed that he was still very strong and energetic at what appeared to be a very advanced age.  From one of his sons I learned that people thought that he is 120 years old. It’s hard to say whether this means in western years, or by counting Balinese “ritual years” (Pawukon) which are 210 days long. Since people of the older generation remember their Pawukon birthdays but not their western-style “birthdays” it seems more likely that his age was counted that way. I offered to take some pictures of the old man, and he stood up proudly in front of his family shrine posing for my camera.

I then asked the people some questions about Nusa Penida. They said that they have recently started getting good drinking water form government project that provides the community with clean water, and that they have had electricity for a few years now. The main income on the island comes from seaweed farming since people can’t grow rice due to lacking water sources for irrigation. With whatever cash they earn, they bring in building materials, TVs, cars, motorbikes and other consumer items from Denpasar or Klungkung. Many of the young people work on the mainland as civil servants or in the tourist industry, usually as waiters or waitresses. Wayan himself is working as one of the front office employees in Bali Saphire, a tourist business in Kuta.

At 4:00 pm Wayan’s mother told me to get dressed in Pakaian Adat. , traditional Balinese clothing worn for all religious events. The others were busy having a meal. As required by Balinese courtesy even though they knew that I was fasting they still invited me to have something to eat. I also politely refused the offer. When we were all ready to go, we went to the street to get into the car Wayan had rented for us. To my surprise there were four more people who were going to join us for the trip to the temples. I was so happy that they were willing to join us to make the yatra even more exciting. That made nine of us all together, including the driver.

In undertaking a yatra to Nusa Penida we should pay homage to the following sacred places, in order to follow the correct procedure according to the tradition of Nusa. First we should go to the Hyang Baruna temple; second to the temple of Goa Hyang Giri Putri; third to the Puncak Mundi temple, which is the highest point of Nusa about 529 meters (1,736 ft) (Eiseman, 1990. p.33). Finally, as the climax of our pilgrmage we should visit the sanctuary of Ratu Gede Mecaling in the Pura Dalem Ped. So, our first destination was to the Sang Hyang Baruna temple, a temple dedicated to the god of the sea (Baruna), who I’m sure is similar to the Greek god Neptune who has a trident as his weapon. As we rode along the coast we could see the seaweed farms spread out along the coast, with the sun glinting off the layers of seaweed that women were spreading along the sand. It was a unique kind of beauty.

For a second time I was absorbed in the view and the life along the road that we arrived at the temple before I took notice of where we were, even though it had only taken us about 30 minutes to get to there from Tanah Byas. Before going on to the main Hyang Baruna temple we stopped to do the required purification in the Pura Taman, or Pura Beji, a sacred place for purification for both deities and devotees that is also the source of the sacred water used in the temple. Walls of brightly coloured coral surrounded the temple and there were some steps down into the shrine itself, which was located in the middle of a pool of fresh water, with a small yard for the devotees doing prayer. The thing that struck me most was that there was a yoni-like piece of coral located near the shrine. I had learned in India that the yoni is a symbolic representation of a woman’s sexual organ, the counterpart of the lingga of Shiva, and I wondered if its presence at the Pura Beji for Hyang Baruna was intentional.  After praying the priestess of the shrine sprinkled holy water on us and she also gave us some bija. Then we went on to the nearby Sang Hyang Baruna temple.

In the Hyang Baruna temple, there was an image made from pure, white sandstone of Gajah Mina, the great fish with elephant head[ITC1] , represents the God of Sea, Baruna or Varuna in Sankrit.  According to local legend, the Gajah Mina was an avatar of the God of the Ocean who protected Nusa from disaster in the ancient past, and continues to play a role in protecting the island in his invisible form. This temple was only recently constructed. We put offering on the bamboo platform in front of that image. The priestess led the praying. We all sat on the ground concentrating in our prayers. Each of us prayed for our own wish, which was ended by the priestess, who sprinkled holy water on each of us and gave us each three sips to drink.

According to our legends, even though the main shrine for Hyang Baruna is in Nusa, He has been worshipped and continues to be worshipped by people from all over Bali. This is because we believe that when he is displeased he can spread epidemics from his dwelling place on Nusa. This happens especially in November and December when the wind blows from the southeast of Bali.

After leaving the temple of Hyang Baruna we continued our pilgrimage to the temple of Goa Hyang Giri Putri, the cave sanctuary of the “daughter of the mountains”, that is the consort of Siva whose father was the great Himalaya mountains. It took us only a few minutes to get to the Goa Hyang Giri Putri, where we stopped in front of a sign that read “Pura Goa Giri Putri”. We took one of the pejati offerings and climbed up many steps of concrete cement. The priestess challenged the men to a race to the top of the temple steps. Mang De held my hand and whispered to me that he was transferring his spiritual power to me in order I could get to the top of the temple faster than the priestess. It was amazing in my fasting condition I actually did reach the top of the temple stairway one step ahead of the priestess. We were all breathless when we reached the top. As we paused to catch our breath, I made a quick trip around the entrance of the temple to get a sense of where we were. We were in an awesome spot, high above sea level; where we could see the ocean far below us and in the distance the lofty Mount Agung towering above the mainland.

Try as I might I couldn’t find the cave that was referred to in the name of the temple. All I could see was a small shrine for Hyang Siwa Raditya, Shiva as the Sun God and two rocks wrapped in black and white cloth located on the right side of the shrine. I  kept  wondering where the cave was but I didn’t ask anybody about it. The others were sitting in a small pavilion on the side of the cliffs resting with the guards of the temple.

The sun had almost set when the priestess called us to prayer before entering the cave. When we had finished and the priestess had finally given us holy water she asked whether we were ready to enter the cave or not. I was very excited and said, “Yes, we are ready”. It was very striking when suddenly I saw a light coming from a hole between the two rocks and I realized that they must mark the opening of the cave. To my astonishment the priestess told me to enter the mouth of the cave first, but being very new in that place, I refused to be the first person to go inside, I urged the priestess to go first, then followed her through a hole which was just enough for one person at the time. We had to bend over just to able to be fit through the mouth of the cave; I wondered how we all would fit inside if the mouth of the cave was that small, but I kept my mouth shut and just let my mind play with its puzzles.

My confusion didn’t last long, because when we walked further from the mouth of the cave we found an extraordinarily large space about six meter high. The sandy floor of the cave felt cool and damp to my bare feet and the musty smell of damp moss and guano took me to a different world, away from the real world. Although there were some electric lights inside the cave, their flickering on and off made the cave seem dark and eerie. The atmosphere was very magical. The twittering sound of the bats calling back and forth in the darkness overhead made me shudder. I wondered if our courage was being tested by some unseen force. It seemed strange to me that none of the water dripping from the ceiling fell on us, even though the sound echoed throughout the cave.

A few meters from the mouth of the cave there was a small shrine for the god Hyang Betara Sedahan Agung Penyarikan, whose name implies that He is the keeper of the records and inventory for the gods. It was a small shrine wrapped in black and white cloth, but the color was faded from all the guano and the water dripping from the ceiling. There were two white and yellow tedung - traditional umbrellas – on both sides of the shrine. The color of the umbrellas has also faded. We did our first prayer there. Even though the floor of the cave was wet, it didn’t prevent me from sitting with my legs folded to the side during the prayer, in the way that is expected of Balinese women. When we were all finished the priestess sprinkled holy water and gave us some to sip three times. The taste of the holy water was a bit strange, a mixture of sour and salty that I’d never tasted before, but I put aside all my negative thoughts for it seemed to me the holy water must still be spiritually purifying.

We still stumbled blindly through the huge, dark cave. Then I understood the reason why Wayan’s mother had made such fuss about bringing as many flashlights as possible. It was really hard to walk in the dark, not knowing what kind of thing might be there under our feet. We walked along completely by instinct. After about 15 minutes walking through the darkness, we finally arrived at a small shrine that was almost black from guano. In the dark it was hard to tell the color of the cloth that wrapped the shrine. Next to the shrine there was a big bucket full of water and a small dipper made from coconut shell. We prayed there before entering another small cave whose entrance was located half-way up the wall of the main cave. To get into that small cave we had to climb up a bamboo ladder about six meters in height. Mang De was the first person  who climbed the bamboo ladder. I was the second one. One by one crawled inside the small cave that is the dwelling place of Hyang Sada Siwa, the eternal god Shiva.

Then we learned that there was another chamber that we would have to crawl through to reach another shrine. Mang De and I went first, followed by the others. We reached a chamber where there was a small space with a shrine hanging on the rock face of the chamber. The priestess put our offerings on the shrine and the rest of us just sat on the floor of the cave. I felt the dampness of the sand under my feet. I was amazed that eight of us could fit so easily into such a small chamber. The priestess asked for the holy water container before we prayed, then fetched it herself from a niche in the rock next to the shrine. After that we prayed as usual. When we had finished the priestess sprinkled holy water on our head and gave us some to sip three times.

We all stood up since the process of praying there was now finished, except Mang De who seemed to be in a very deep meditation state. We tried not to bother him. I told the priestess that we didn’t need to wait for him. Sumber would stay behind take care of Mang De, while the rest of us went back to the Hyang Sada Shiva shrine.

Just when I was about to leave the chamber, as I touched the ground of the entrance with my right hand, a large drop of water landed on my hand. I was startled,  but also I felt graced, because to me that meant a blessing from the deity we had just prayed to. I sipped the drop of the water with a feeling of delight, then rinsed my face and my hair with the moisture remaining on my hand.

Next I entered the Hyang Sada Shiva shrine again, leaving Mang De and Sumber behind us. The others plus four other men who brought the hurricane lamp for us were sitting there waiting for us. I assumed that they were the guards or the priest of the temple who assist devotees during the ritual. I myself sat down just next to the wall of the cave. The priestess performed the ritual without waiting for Mang De and Sumber. She told us to pray to Hyang Giri Putri, who in India would be considered the shakti, or spiritual power of the god Shiva. While we were praying I noticed that the priestess was in a trance. At the same time I heard smooth, gentle chanting coming from the smaller cave, and I noticed too that the priestess uttered some words that I couldn’t understand. The atmosphere was very magical.

After praying and before taking holy water, I stood up and went over to the little cave to check the situation there. A local priest who had come with us had gone in to assist Mang De who was still in trance state. I could hear Sumber trying to say some words of apology to the deity there. The priest poured some Balinese liquor (arak-brem mixture) on the ground, intended as an offering to the demonic forces, at the same time asking for forgiveness in very polite and spiritual phrases. In his trance Mang De seemed to speak for the deity, saying that we have made a mistake by not purifying ourselves before climbing the bamboo ladder and that the priestess too had been careless with the holy water in the shrine.

Then the priest sprinkled holy water on Mang De’s head and gave him some to sip three times. At that point Mang De seemed to regain his consciousness and stood up ready to go.  But just as he was about to leave the smaller cave, he fell backwards into the cave as if a very strong invisible force had pulled him back. This time when he recovered he asked for burning incense, then slowly and deliberately completed his prayer. I waited patiently just outside while observing all that was happening. After some time Mang De must have been released from the spell of the deity, because he came out and joined us in the Hyang Sada Siwa shrine. 

Finally we all prayed at the Hyang Sada Siwa shrine and accepted holy water from the priestess. At that time three of the four other people who had joined us on the trip began to ask us a few questions. They had come along inside the cave to carry the hurricane lamp that had provided extra illumination for us. First they asked us where were from; then one of them asked about the procedure we had followed for our yatra. When we explained the details, he asked us whether we cleansed ourselves before climbing up the ladder or not. All of us looked at each other and said “no”. He explained the right procedures to us, but by then it was too late for doing the right thing. We told them that next time we would do things correctly in the future, understanding now what had happened to Mang De in the cave.

As we descended the ladder I think we all had chaotic feelings. I myself felt so guilty for making such a stupid mistake. At that point though we had reached the last stage of our prayers there. As soon as we all reached the bottom we went to the very end of the main cave to pray in the huge entrance of the cave that hung so high above the gorge. It was dark outside, but I could see the stars in the clear night from the mouth of the cave and even some trees down in the gorge.

The night wind blew strongly from outside the cave. Suddenly the priestess called us over to pray again. While we were sitting on the ground praying suddenly we heard a very frightening sound coming from the ceiling of the cave. I was terrified and lost my concentration. It sounded almost like a cyclone was whirling around inside the cave.

It seemed even stranger that in my frightened state, I suddenly thought I heard a puppy whimpering somewhere above the cave. The atmosphere grew more and more strange and uncanny. I looked at everyone’s face; they seemed very frightened as well. I edged closer to Mang De because he might understand what was going on I asked him: “What was that sound?”

He replied, “It must be the wrath of the ‘owner’ of the place, because we did something so stupid”

I asked him again: ”What should we do to propitiate the owner of this place?”

He answered: “Don’t worry, just ask for forgiveness in your mind”.

“Okay”, I said and after that began to feel a little more calm.

After accepting holy water from the priestess we all stood up ready to leave. The priestess ran out quickly in front of me. Mang De grabbed my hand and said, “Don’t run! We will be fine”.

When we arrived outside the cave I saw some men gathering in the pavilion. We invited them to share our surudan, the food that remained from the offerings that had been blessed by being presented to the deities. At first they courteously refused, but when we offered a second time they accepted our offer. I also gave them Rp.20.000 (about AUD $4.00) for the temple donation. From the pavilion we could see the blinking lights on the mainland from across the sea. The sky was very clear that night and in the darkness the stars seemed much brighter, as if competing with the electric lights of the Balinese mainland.

Our next destination was a temple called Pura Puncak Mundi. I didn’t know how far it was from the Goa Giri Putri. While in the car I just closed my eyes and let my feelings guide my thoughts. At the same time I could feel that the car was making a steep and steady ascent.

When I opened my eyes I saw an incredible beautiful view outside the car. I could see the twinkling lights across the ocean while the crescent moon was shining gently above us, creating a romantic and serene, almost ascetic feeling.

Just then I realized that I hadn’t broken my fast that evening, and I could hear my stomach making hungry sounds.

Wayan’s mother had come along with us, and I asked her for a tipat from our surudan to fill my empty stomach. Tipat are blocks of rice cooked in a wrapping of plaited banana leaves. Since the leaves become quite stiff when they have dried after steaming, I had to struggle to unwrap the tipat since we had forgotten to bring along a knife.

Off in the distance we could hear the sound of a gamelan, the Balinese metallaphone orchestra. The closer we got to our destination the clearer the sound become. Finally we passed a small village high up in the hills, where we saw many people practicing on their village gamelan. Not long after passing through that village we finally reached the Puncak Mundi temple. It was dark, but the gentle glow of the moon helped us to find our way to main temple, and faintly lit the surroundings.

The driver parked the car, while the rest of us went to the temple carrying one of the pejati offerings. Along the way to the main temple there were many poles of freshly cut  bamboo, each about 1 meter high, that connected the entrance of the temple to the inner courtyard. I asked Wayan what they were for and he said that they were for the umbrellas and sacred banners for a temple festival that had just been completed a few days earlier.

We entered the inner courtyard and the priestess put the offering in a shrine in the northeast corner of the sanctum. There was an image in the shrine, but I couldn’t see clearly which deity it was. When I looked to the north side of the temple, all I could see next to the temple walls were dense brush and shrubs swaying in the night wind. We prayed there and took holy water.  Suddenly we heard a dog barking from the entrance gate as a man in white walked into the compound. From his white clothing and manner we knew that he must be the priest who has the responsibility of guarding the temple and keeping it clean and pure. After I made a donation for the temple, we all went back to the car to continue to our final destination, the Pura Dalem Ped.

It was about 10:00 pm when we left for the Pura Dalem Ped. We didn’t talk much on the way to the temple. The only thing I could think about was what it might like to stay in the Pura Dalem Ped overnight. It took about 45 minutes to get to Dalem Ped. There were still many people there playing gamelan but all the food stands have been closed. I sat for a while in the gamelan hall watching people playing. They were not bothered at all by our coming to the temple so late in the evening. It seemed that they were used to seeing people coming late to the temple.

There are four temples in the complex there; Pura Ratu Gede, Pura Ulam Agung, Pura Taman, and Pura Penataran Agung. The gamelan hall was located outside the temple complex itself, but facing the main entrance to the temple area.

Outside the Ratu Gede temple there was a signboard telling us the procedure for paying  homage. First, we should go to Pura Ulam Agung, second to Pura Taman, third to Pura Ratu Gede and the last one to the Pura Penataran Agung.

Since we expected to spend the entire night in the Pura Ratu Gede, first we went to the Ratu Gede temple complex to store our belonging in a small pavilion-shaped shrine called a piasan, the make up room of Ratu Gede Mecaling. It may seem strange to non-Balinese to hear that we have a shrine where the deities “put on their makeup”. This is because in essence a temple festival in Bali is a time for “inviting” the deities and ancestors to visit their temple sites, which are inactive, and basically empty, at times when there is no festival. After the deities are invited to the temple, we treat them as very honored guests. That is why several important sections of the ritual of a temple festival or “birthday” (odalan) involve acts of “offering hospitality” to the deities (betara-betari), and it also is why we provide them with a small pavilion that they can use (in their invisible form) for preparing themselves for the feast and entertainments offered at the festival. The piasan shrines also serve a purpose in the visual (sekala) aspect of the temple festival, for the priests and priestess often sit here as they perform the rituals and sacred chanting (mantra) of the rituals. Since there was no temple festival going on when we visited the Pura Dalem Ped, the piasan of the Ratu Gede shrine was empty, so we were able to store some of our belongings there while we went about visiting the other temples and completing our prayers according to the proper procedure. I should add that not just any belongings can be stored in the temple areas, only the things that we consider holy or sacred.

We went out from the Ratu Gede temple, just outside on the right side of the Candi-Bentar, the entrance gate we noticed a white board with an arrow pointing us toward the Pura Ulam Agung, the “Temple of the Great Fish”. This temple area is located only a few meters behind the Ratu Gede temple. The path to the temple was very dark, but the path had been paved smoothly so the going was easy.

As we entered the Ulam Agung temple we were struck by the sight of a huge sculpted image of Gajah Mina, in the form of a huge shark made from sand-stone placed in the small-pavilion shaped shrine. The image was covered by black and white cloth, only its prominent sharp teeth had been left uncovered.

There was a temporary bamboo altar in front of the image. The priestess laid the offering there and lit the incense. We all took our sitting position under the tree next to the statue. As usual after getting the holy water, we ended our worship. I knew that we were all tired, hungry and sleepy, but I was also very curious about the rest of the temple complex, since this was my first visit to this awe-inspiring complex.

The next temple we visited was the Pura Taman, which we also found by following the sign designed to lead us there. On the way to the Pura Taman we passed by a large tree with a small shrine built into its exposed root structure. We stopped there for a short worship. The nearby brush seemed to be dancing, buffeted by the late night sea breeze. Pura Taman, according to Mang De, is a temple where the (invisible) deities cleanse themselves before taking part in the ceremonies at the Pura Penataran Agung. Pura Taman is a very beautiful temple surrounded by lily pond. A small wood bridge connects the gate of inner courtyard (jeroan) with the gate of outer courtyard (jaba tengah). The sound of the frogs in the pond there created a feeling of remoteness and loneliness. As soon as we were inside the temple I took my position in front of the altar. I sat silently enjoying the sound of the night. The priestess called us for worship. When we had completed our prayers and received holy water, we were ready for the next temple.

Walking on the small paved path we headed toward the Pura Ratu Gede. In the Pura Ratu Gede we followed the same pattern of prayer that we had in the other temples.

The last temple where we paid homage was the Pura Penataran Agung, a temple whose name tells us that it is the “great meeting place” (penataran agung) for the deities. A candi-bentar, or “split-gate” connects the outer courtyard of this temple with middle courtyard and a candi kurung connects the middle courtyard to the inner sanctum (jeroan), which, as I have said earlier, is a typical way of dividing the space of a larger temple complex The temple area was wide and contained many shrines, some small, some medium size and some tall and imposing. The overall impression was very powerful and the glittering of the gold leaf covering the wooden surface of many shrines made the shrine seem alive and conscious of our presence. It was only in this temple-complex we found Mery shrines, the tall, slim pagoda-like  shrines that I mentioned earlier.

It was 11:00 pm when we entered the temple of Penataran Agung. What struck me most at first was at that later hour of the night there were still two young male devotees sitting quietly in front of the temporary bamboo altar. This type of altar is  usually constructed during temple festivals for putting the offerings of the devotees because the main shrines can’t accommodate all the offerings. The fragrance of burning incense created an esoteric atmosphere the seemed to envelop them as they sat in deep meditation. We kept very quiet, afraid if disturbing their worship. We sat in one of the larger shrine areas nearby waiting for them to finish.

When the two devotees had finished their prayers they looked at us and smiled. They invited us to take over their position, then left the temple area for us to go on with our next round of worship. Since we didn’t have enough offerings for each shrine, the priestess decided to put all our offering on the bamboo platform in front of the Bale Agung, the Shrine of the Great Meeting Hall.[7]

Although this temple is quite big, when the time comes for the temple festival, the crowds are so large that the devotees need to take turns to worship in groups. Since we were there alone, at a time when no temple festival was in progress, the emptiness of the temple area made it seem even more imposing and majestic. As usual after accepting holy water, we rose to our feet to continue on to the Ratu Gede temple.

This was to be the last place for our prayers and worship that night. By that time the steady sea breeze had made conditions very cold. I hadn’t brought along any warm clothes, but I felt I could manage the worst situation as long as I had the blessing of the goddess. The inner courtyard of the Ratu Gede temple complex was not too big, but we noticed that in the northeast corner of the jeroan there was a small covered shrine (gedong) shaped like a small, raised building, that was completely covered by the sacred checkered black and white cloth (poleng) that we associate with the principle of complementary opposites (rwa-bhinneda) and is used to mark sacred places or sacred objects that area considered to contain magical power. Men or women who come into close contact with sources of magic and danger will often wear an outer skirt (kamben) of poleng cloth. That was why we know that shrine must be a place of great magical power and danger (tenget).

 In front of the shrine there was a bamboo platform to put offerings. A tall tree stood beside a tiled area of about one square metre that was set outside for the temple priests to chant their mantra-s. When the priestess was ready, we all sat down on the tile floor under the tree facing the powerful image of Dewi Durga. Our prayer routine did not differ from the one we had followed in other shrines.

It was about 11:30 pm when we arrived at the parking lot. The driver looked very sleepy. After paying the driver well for his trouble, five of the group went home to Tanah Byas, leaving behind the priestess, Mang De, Sumber and I to spend the night at the Ratu Gede temple complex.

When we arrived back at the Ratu Gede complex I didn’t really know what to do next, so I just sat there under the tree while listening the sound of the wind blowing through the coconut palms behind the temple. I started feeling so hungry because I hadn’t eaten anything due to my vow to keep a fast before worshipping.. I hadn’t brought along any food, but finally I found some surudan from other temples that I could eat. I had a piece of banana and besides that the steamed rice and side dishes from a tipat nasi offering, like the one I had eaten earlier on the way to the temple.[8] I felt much better after that simple late supper.

After eating supper, the three others (Mang De, Sumber and the priestess) went away and left me alone there. When they came back, they lit some incense and sat down to meditate. I also asked for some incense and started closing my eyes to mediate. The three of them immediately sank into deep meditation.

The wind from the sea was still blowing very strongly, causing the trees to shake and make a terrifying sound in the darkness that seemed to envelop us on all sides. I was so terrified by the sound that I couldn’t concentrate at all. Once in a while I opened my eyes to peer into the darkness in the direction of the terrifying sounds. Of course I didn’t see anything but the silhouette of the trees. I looked left and right and I noticed that the others were still in a deep state meditation. Once again, I shut my eyes tightly and tried to concentrate. I emptied my mind by taking deep breathes, and finally I didn’t hear anything but emptiness. When I came back to the real world I saw Mang De and Sumber lying on the ground. They were going to sleep on the ground without any mat at all, while the priestess had found an old, ragged mat for herself.

For my sleeping place I picked the spot, a raised wooden platform about one meter square roofed with black plam fiber where the pedanda, a high priest from Brahmin caste, sits to perform his/her rituals during a temple festival.. Since I am small that space of just one square meter fit me quite well enough. I tried to make myself comfortable. There was some ritual equipment laid out in that space too, including a clay container for water and some incense. There was also a mat that just fit the area. I fell asleep quickly, amazed that there were no mosquitoes in the temple.

As I slept the great goddess came to me in a dream. She was in a terrifying fearful form, but she looked at me with very gentle eyes. She even touched me on my chest. Her long red, white and black hair, her long fingers nails, her fangs, and her tongue were very vivid in my dream.

Suddenly I was awakened by the sound of barking dogs. I found that the electric lights illuminating the temple grounds had gone off and I was alone in the temple. I had no idea where the others had gone to. I tried to go back to sleep but I couldn’t shut my eyes because I kept thinking about my dream. Did the great goddess realy come to me in my dream and touch me on my chest? Why did she tell me to put on Her clothes? Should I take that to mean that she had given me her permission to write my thesis about Her? I was so amazed and puzzled by that dream.

Finally it was around one o’clock in the morning when the lights went back on. By then Mang De, Sumber and the priestess had returned and told me they had been doing another purification in the Pura Taman. The dogs barking at them when they returned must have been what woke me up. I tried to go back to sleep after that, but this time I couldn’t sleep at all because an army of ants had found me and attacked me all over my body.

Early in the morning we prayed one more time as a way of taking leave of the deities, and asking their permission to return home. Once again we received holy water for sipping and washing our face, but this time we also were given holy water to take home to the mainland. The priestess put consecrated rice grains (bija) on my forehead as a sign that we have been completed our yatra.

There is no way I can describe my feelings that morning; I felt so happy and so light. It was the first time I had encountered the goddess in a dream, and I still felt amazed at the combination of her terrifying image but gentle smile and touch. As we all returned to Bali I felt that we took with us the blessings of the goddess.

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[1] The word is spelled tirtha in Sanskrit, but in Balinese we do not distinguish between aspirated and non-aspirated consonants, so when we write in Romanized script we use the spelling tirta. However, the difference between the two kinds of consonants is still there in our Balinese script, and priests and others who work with holy texts are careful to spell words that have come from Sanskrit correctly.

[2] See Aghenanda Bharati (1965) for his descriptions of his travels in India and his discussion of the terms “etic” and “emic”.

[3] See Lansing (1996) and Eiseman (1990) for more complete information on subak societies and the role they play in Balinese society.

[4] In Bali time cycles are very important, and also very complicated. In Bali we have two very different systems which are overlaid on the familiar Gregorian calendar. These are the 210-day Javano-Balinese Pawukon calendar, and the Saka or Indic solar-lunar calendar. In carrying out any activities, we chose an auspicious day in order to get a good result for our work. We often ask the help of an expert in calendrical cycles (wariga) to match the work we are starting with an auspicious day for beginning that type of work. This is called nuasen, from duasa (Skt diwasa), which means “auspicious day”.  For that reason, we try to get ta good combination of the 3-day week, the 5-day week, and the 7-day week. As we see above Sunday-Kajeng-Kliwon is an auspious day for doing ritual. For more complete information, see Eiseman (1989), especially Chapter Seventeen.

[5] In Bali we refer to the gods and goddesses in several ways. Since names are sacred in Bali, we are not allowed to call older people by their own names. That’s why in Bali after getting married and having our first child we are given teknonyms (names based on the names of our children, like Men Indra, mother of Indra). This is done to avoid our children knowing our name. This is also true of deities, as it is especially dangerous to know the names of these deities whom we consider very dangerous and powerful. For that reason we create epithet sfor the deities. For examples: to mention Durga we would say; Ratu Ayu, “Beautiful Queen” or Ida Betari “the Honored Goddess) o I Ayu. For another example, we shorten the name of Ratu Gede Mecaling and call Him/Her Ratu Gede, “The Great Lord” or Ratu Gede Nusa, “the Great God of Nusa”. Even in the case of rats or mice, since we consider them evil and dangerous because they eat our crops, we refer them as Jero Ketut, “the Honored Fourth-Born”.

[6] We often refer to Nusa Penida as simply Nusa, “the island”.

[7] In villages of the “Bali Kuna” or “Bali Aga” type the Bale Agung is the place where the village council meets within the temple area to make all major decisions that affect either the spiritual or physical welfare of the village. In villages of the “mainstream type” the Bale Agung has evolved into the Pura Desa, one of the three main temples of every village, in this case representing the god Brahma, and the village itself as a sacred space. The Bale Agung is still preserved as part of the Pura Desa, but it is used mainly during festivals to store offerings that will be presented to the deities of the Pura Desa. Most mainstream villages are now subdivided into sections called banjar, and the council for each banjar meets outside the temple areas of the banjar in a pavilion called the Bale Banjar.

[8] Tipat Nasi is a compulsory offering in every ritual. It usually consists of six pieces of steamed rice cake (tipat)  to make a full “set” (akelan).  The side dishes included with the steamed rice (which are cooked in their wrapping of plaited coconut leaves) are usually a hard boiled egg, with hot pepper paste (sambal) and some peanuts.

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 [ITC1] This is confusing. Does Gajah Mina represent Hyang Baruna? Was there any seat (pelinggihan) for Hyang Baruna at all?

The Memory of Hotel Rwanda

“NEVER AGAIN” is a famous quote by one of the victims engraved in Kigali Memorial Center.

“When they said, “NEVER AGAIN” after the Holocaust, was it meant for some people and not for others?” Appolon Kabahizi

Definition of Genocide

Rapheal Lemkin, a Jewish Polish lawyer introduced a new word describe the Nazi policy of systematic destruction of European Jews. It is a combination of Greek and Latin words ‘geno’ (race or tribe’) and ‘cide’ killing. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of genocide which approved by the United Nation in 1948 could not prevent the tragic event in Rwanda in 1994. 

The genocide happened everywhere in the world. For examples: the killing of Jews by the Nazi in 1949, the killing of Tutsi in Rwanda by the Hutus in 1994, the killing of communist members and sympathizers in Indonesia in 1965, the Bosnians, the Poll Pot, etc. 

However, in this writing I would like to overview the massacre in Rwanda based solely on my personal observation and my limited knowledge about the tragic event. This writing was also supported by my previous ethnographic field-works and secondary works by previous scholars.  

I had a personal experience to explore the Kigali genocide memorial center in Kigali city. It was Tuesday, 10 January 2012, after presenting a paper at the International Symposium at Hotel Rwanda, there was an excursion carried out by the symposium team. We visited the Kigali Memorial Center. After having lunch at the Panorama restaurant of the Mollies Collins or Hotel Rwanda, we all left for the memorial. There were four buses leaving from the hotel accommodating all of us around 100 participants both from the SIT community and scholars from various Universities in the world. It took around 30 minutes to get to the memorial. The buses parked in the parking lot and we walked to the center. There was a man who gave us information about the ritual needed to be performed before going around the memorial.

As we can see from the picture above, there was a ritual of offering flowers to the dead; we could do it individually or in a group. Since we visited the memorial in a group, we did the ritual in group. We also could buy a banquet of flowers for the veneration for the victims. We could take pictures outside the memorial but not inside. We all got together in front of the entrance gate of the memorial. The flower was carried to the display-coffin in the open yard next to the memorial building. We walked to the displayed-coffin and laid the flower on top of it. There were a few coffins underneath the glass-box display. The coffins were wrapped in white with purple strip around them. They looked so peaceful but yet they still could tell many stories about what had happened in the tragic event of 1994 massacre. We all were silent for a moment to send our prayer to the dead. Fortunately, we were allowed to take pictures in that area. However, I had a mix feeling about that area; the feeling between terrified and sad, angry and incomprehensively upset imagining about the situation at the moment of the killing. 

We were so silent, no words to say. We were all in deep thought. How could that happen? What did they have in their mind when they conducted the genocide among human-beings?

After the ritual, we proceeded to the memorial building. We could choose whether we would like to use audio aid that explained the images in the wall or just read the captions next to each image. I chose to have an audio aid for myself because it was hard for me to read in the crowd and also I needed a new pair of glasses that I could use for reading both for long and short distant. 

We entered the memorial building and the first thing we saw in the display diorama was the introduction about the Garden of Unity. Kigali before the genocide was united just like a Garden which was full of different plants and lived happily together. But suddenly in April 1994, there was an imbalance clash between Hutu and Tutsi after the crash of a plane that carried two of the most powerful figures of Rwanda at the Kigali International airport. That plane crash had triggered the mass-killing of the Tutsi by their Hutu fellow tribes.

There were about 1,000,000 million peoples killed in only 100 days. The methods of killings were very brutal and inhuman at all. The perpetrators tried to kill their victims in the most painful death. They used machetes, hoes, club, sex, etc. They killed men, women and children. Not only Tutsi were killed but also the Hutus who tried to stop the massacre. The women were raped by those who had HIV diseases to make the women died slowly and painfully. The women were hung and beaten up till they stopped screaming reaching their peaceful mind for not feeling any pain of the tortures. The children were killed by machetes, gun, hoed in the heads. The methods of killing were unbelievable sadistic and beyond human feelings. This killing happened in Kigali Rwanda in 1994 for 100 days. 

There were men, women and children got shelter in one of the churches assuming that they would be safe under the protection of Jesus. But, they were wrong because human beings had been blinded by their anger. There was only one thing in their mind, which was kill, kill and kill with the most painful death.  The house of Gods did not guarantee to provide any safety when the human beings have been penetrated by their evil thoughts. However, the Hotel Rwanda has become famous because it has saved 1200 people from the cruelty of the perpetrators. That Hotel Rwanda has kept a very sweet memory in providing life for more than thousand peoples. There was a movie made entitle "Hotel Rwanda"

After the massacre, there were 37,000 children left without parents, families and other relatives. Those children waited for their fate to face the uncertain future in front of them. I asked about the fate of those children the next day the Reflexion session after our visit to the memorial museum, they (the Rwandan scholars) said that some survivors adopted them to be the members of their families. During that Reflection of the excursion held in one of the rooms at Hotel Rwanda, I recommended to our audiences especially those who were from Rwanda to demand their government to enforce and implement an incentive policy by paying the couple if they do mixed-marriage between the Hutu and Tutsi. However, as human beings, it must be hard for those people to forgive all of what had happened to their dead families. No way, we can forget easily the painful memories that claimed the lives of beloved ones. In one of the talks it was mentioned that the Tutsi and Hutu still differentiate themselves as better than the others. For an example: the Hutu smell bad etc.  

Rwanda in present time:

The Rwandan government has tried so hard to unite and to create One Nation which is Rwanda consist of several tribes; no more Tutsi or Hutus. They both should live in peace by respecting each other and should forget the bitter past of animosities. They tried to use one language which is Kanyarwanda as the national language, but still some debates about that. In the past they (the Tutsi and Hutu) spoke their own ethnic languages, there was no one language to unite them. In addition to their ethnic languages, they also speak English and French. Some of them recommended to adopt one of those foreign languages to be their national language, however, their patriotic pride make it impossible to adopt any of those foreign languages.

There have been some conciliation efforts carried out to unite Rwanda as one country, one language and one nation. According to a common theory, a nation will unite if they have an enemy from the outsiders, they will fight together to protect their country as one. It happened in East Timor (Sakti presentation, 13 January 2012), where the Timorese united themselves to fight against the Indonesian government after 20 years of cruel occupation. So was Rwanda, after having no more outside enemies, they become enemies among themselves. They fought with each other for sometimes unclear stupid reasons.

Please feel free to comment, suggest and advise for this writing. This is a bit heavy stuff to digest....:)

Thanks for reading it.