THE
COMMUNITY
THE SOCIAL
ORDER
It was
surprising to discover the extent to which the question of rank
obsesses so simple and democratic a people as the Balinise. In
our house every time Gusti came near, everyone scramble down the
veranda steps to place themselves at a level lower than his. Once
in Ubud we received a visit from two little girls, high caste
dancers of ten. They were to spend the night in the house, but
they would not sleep unchaperoned and a servant was pointed to
watch over them; when they heard he was to Sleep in the attic,
twenty feet up, they snatched their pillows and ran upstairs,
not to be defiled a second longer by an inferior located above
them. They preferred to sleep on a bard bench rather than in the
bed made for them, while the poor servant had to Sleep on the
floor. Once we visited a high priest, who invited us" remain
for lunch; when the food came he apologized for having to ask
us to sit down, because, be said, " the gods would not it
" if he, a Brahmana, placed himself at a level lower than
ours. We observed similar situations over and over again among
people of all classes.
Five centuries of feudal
domination by an aristocracy have made the Balinese so conscious
of caste, the determination of a man's place in society by his
birth, that the whole of theirs social life and etiquette is moulded
by this institution. A member of the aristocracy is constantly
on the look-out so that his inf may keep to their appointed level
and address him in the language of respect. Princes still demand
the adulation and kowtowing their former vassals, although now
their power has ended, and their prestige is greatly diminished.
Caste rules today are I restricted to the observance of established
formulas of etiq even among the princes, who were always fairly
liberal. Castee relations are relaxed and simple compared with
the absurd intolerance of India. But the common people take for
granted the divine superiority of the aristocracy and are so thoroughly
accustomed to arrogance that they submit to the demands of caste
etiquette as a matter of duty.
By far the most strict of
social taboos is that on intermarriage. A man may marry any woman
he wishes as long as she is of equal or lower caste, but under
no circumstances may a low-caste man marry a woman of a higher
class. For such a man even to have relations with a woman of the
royal or priestly castes was a crime punished in olden times by
the death of both; the woman perhaps stabbed by a member of her
disgraced family, the man thrown into the sea in a weighted sack,
the most degrading of deaths. Today punishment is simply exile
of the guilty couple to the wilds of Djembrana or the little penal
island of Nusa Penida. But like everything else in Bali, special
concessions can be made if the difference of castes is not very
great and the man is influential; in some cases the affair has
been settled by fines, annulment of the marriage, or a special
edict raising the man's caste.
More on Bali community 1,
2, 3, 4,
5, 6,
7, 8
