zimatravels

     The final ceremony in anyone’s life is one of great importance.  News of a death in the village spreads very quickly.  Villagers come to visit the family, men traditionally bringing sugar to the men in the family and women bringing rice and other foods.  Taking care of death, like life in the village, is a communal village responsibility.  The neighbors try to cheer up the family and there is a lot of activity necessary to prepare the offerings for the funeral ceremony.

     Thus, grief is purposely kept at a distance while the family has to properly receive many visitors, some of whom lay down on the floor to sleep together with the family at night.  Since the family must make all the arrangements and decorations and offerings in a short time (rather than delegating the job to a funeral  parlor as in the western cultures) they are kept in a rather constant state of activity until after the burial or cremation.  It is usually after the funeral that grief sets in, but is muted by the belief in reincarnation.

     And, it is quite likely that the loved one will be symbolically cremated again in a ceremony in combination with others, even many years later.  Usually there is an all-village very elaborate cremation ceremony every ten years.   I was told the last one in Munduk had been held in grand style and celebration.

     One of the last ceremonies a visitor to the west would choose to go to would be a funeral.  And, in the western world, it would be unkind to intrude upon a family at such a time.  However, in Bali, there is no reluctance to having a foreigner come to a funeral.

     When I saw a large gathering of men near a house, I asked why and was told of the sudden, unexplained death of a young man in his late twenties.  He was from Munduk village, but had been living as a bemo (small bus) driver in larger Singaraja.  Without a moment’s illness, he had died in his sleep.

     Why?  One person I spoke to said he might have died from stress because he was always working, hardly taking time out to eat.  But, during the funeral, his cousin told me that he thought maybe black magic had killed him.  However, with a sense of fair justice, he told me that the perpetrator could never be joined to God after such an act.

     No one would ever know the reason because, after a couple of days of people visiting the family while the body was preserved in ice, they washed and prepared the young man for his cremation.  He was then taken by procession to the village temple for a short ceremony and then on to the cemetery (always located at the end of a village) and cremated.  A photographer from the bemo company documented the funeral.

     I had read that funerals feel more like celebrations in Bali, but I knew there must be pain at death, especially of someone so young.  I cannot say I saw happiness and celebration at this man’s untimely death, but the anguish was quiet and repressed.  The young wife fainted as the body was laid within the cement blocks for cremation.  She was quietly carried off to the side.  The dead man’s co-workers had solemn, long faces as they carried the body, smoked, and finally put money in with the body before the fire was lit.  A white canopy was held over the dead man’s face as an old priest sang and sprinkled flowers.  Some elaborate offerings were brought forward and laid on top of the body.

     It is not easy to burn a body, so two large gas-fed torches were inserted under the body, and pieces of metal placed on top.  Three women sang as all was prepared for the cremation.

     For the two hours it took for the body to burn, people sat around on the ground, some eating under a roofed structure and quietly talking.  I saw only one woman sitting on the ground off to herself and crying quietly, but deeply.  That was the young man’s mother.  In the western tradition, I would expect the father and mother to be consoling each other, but the father sat quite a distance away from the mother.  No one attempted to console him either.  He was left to his own thoughts, memories, and tears.

     I learned that what was left after cremation would be taken in the afternoon to Lovina by the sea and put into the ocean.  The spirit would then be taken back and ceremoniously placed in the village temple.

     Not all bodies are cremated, depending upon specific religious beliefs or the high cost of cremation.  During the cremation I watched, another funeral procession carried in the body of an old man.  There was again a singer and a ceremony, and his body was lowered into the ground.  He was covered over, the grave filled in, and a rather elaborate offering was placed on top of the grave.

     In Bali, which is mainly Hindu, the death of the body is only another level of an ongoing life.  The spirit lives on and is endlessly reincarnated, sometimes upward and sometimes downward depending upon the goodness of the person in his/her last life.

This is an excerpt from my book, Memoirs of a Middle-aged Hummingbird, as it was written in my travel journal of Bali in 1995.

Tags: Bali; Hinduism in Bali; cremation ceremony in Bali; Bal, Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 5:57 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.