BATUAN
Village
of Ancestral Spirits
For over
a thousand years Batuan has been a village of artists and
craftsmen, old legends and mysterious tales. Batuan's recorded
history begins in A-D. 1022, with an inscription that is
housed in the main village temple, Pura Desa Batuan. The
name "Batuan" or "Baturan" mentioned
here prompts villagers to joke about being "tough as
stone" or "eating rocks" - as batu means
"stone" in Balinese. But it likely refers to an
ancient megalithic tradition in which standing stones served
as meeting places and ceremonial sites for the worship of
ancestral spirits.
Famous
families
Batuan's
central location in south Bali is the primary reason for
its historical importance. Besides the ancient village temple,
there is a temple called Pura Gede Mecaling which is said
to be on the site of the old palace of the demon king Jero
Gede Mecaling, whose name the Balinese are afraid to even
utter. He is supposed to have moved from here to the island
of Nusa Penida, where he still reside.
In the
1600s the famous family of Gusti Ngurah Batulepang dominated
south Bali, living as prime ministers based in Batuan. They
remained prime ministers until the early 1700s, when a branch
of the Klungkung royal family was established at nearby
Sukawati. At that time the chief centers of the kingdom
were Sukawati, Batuan, and the nearby sea side village of
Ketewel. Batuan still has ritual links with Ketewel that
commemorate that era.
The family
of Batulepang scattered to the far corners of Bali in subsequent
centuries as the result of a priestly curse, but a small
temple for Gusti Batulepang remains on the site of his palace.
The Buddhist priests or pedanda boda who later made Batuan
a great spiritual center built a house, the Griya Ageng
on that part of Batulepang's temple where death rituals
were once held. They then marshaled powerful Tantric forces
here.
Brahman
majority
Because
Batuan became a center from which Buddhist priests and brahmans
spread to main court centers of south Bali, the village
has an unusual preponderance of brahmans DeZoete and Spies,
in their famous book Dance and Drama in Bali, describe it
almost as entirely a brahman village. This is not really
true, but much of the village near the main Denpasar to
Ubud road is inhabited by the extended family of the Buddhist
Griya Ageng and of a smaller number of Siwa-worshipping
brahmans who came later to Batuan. The other main high caste
family the Dewas, related to the Batua, or extended palace
family, who are in turn closely related to the Gianyar royal
family. Batuan is unusual in that commoners actually form
a minority in the center of the village.
The western
area of Batuan, known Negara, was a separate village and
court center in the 19th century. It grew so powerful that
it revolted against the main house Gianyar in 1884, destroying
the kingdom and setting south Bali on a path of inter conflict
which opened it up to Dutch conquest. In 1900, when the
Dutch took over Gianyar, Negara was incorporated within
Batuan Similarly, the adjacent area of Puaya, a famous center
for dance and theater ornaments, puppets and other objects
made from hide, is regarded as being quite separate.
Dancing
ancient tales
The Buddhist
brahmans of Batuan, in concert with the famous former king
of the village, Anak Agung Gede Oka (1860 - 1947), were
responsible for making Batuan the center on Bali for the
most courtly and elegant of all Balinese dance forms, the
gambuh. In all of Bali only two troupes from Batuan still
perform this theatrical presentation of tales of ancient
princes and princesses.
The first
is led by I Made Jimat, Bali's most celebrated dancer of
modern times, whose genius never fails to leave his audiences
breathless. The second consists of the extended family of
the greatest dancer of the generation before Jimat - the
late I Nyoman Kakul - who passed on the skills and techniques
of gambuh and of the other important dance forms such as
the masked topeng plays and the operatic arja theater. I
Ketut Kantor, Kakul's son, now leads the troupe.
In his
day Kakul was able to call on the mask-making skills of
Dewa Putu Kebes, whose topeng masks were charged with the
spiritual forces of kings and heroes from the Balinese past.
Since his death, his son Dewa Cita and grandson Dewa Mandra
have maintained the combination of immaculate skill and
divine inspiration, which made his work so powerful. A pupil
of the family, Made Regug of Negara, also upholds the fine
carving tradition.
Besides
the dances, performed in the central part of the village,
Batuan is also famous for its wayang wong, masked performances
of stories from the Ramayana. This is exclusively performed
in the banjar (hamlet) known as Den Tiis.
The
'Batuan style'
From
Den Tiis also came the inspiration for the modern Batuan
style of painting. In the 1930s, two brothers, I Ngendon
and I Patera, began experimenting painting with ink on paper.
The result was powerful black and white images of magic
and of Balinese life. The families of these two artists
are still influential in the village, and now own the Art
shop Dewata on the main road leading to Ubud.
Ngendon
and Patra originally studied under a traditional painter
living to the east of the palace, but from them. The painting
tradition spread back to the main part of the village where
it was enthusiastically embraced by a number of their fellow
villagers. The present-day generation of artists includes
Made Tubuh, Wayan Rajin, Ida Bagus Putu Gede and Made Budi
who has become famous through his humorous and insightful
depictions of tourists in Bali. more..
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