Death
And Cremation
Strange
as it seems, it is in their creamation ceremonies that the
Balinese have their greatest fun. A.cremation is an occasion for
gaiety and not for mourning, since it represents the accomplishment
of their most sacred -duty: the ceremonial burning of the corpses
of the dead to liberate their souls so that they can thus attain
the higher worlds inid-befree for reincarnation into better beings.
At cremation ceremonies
hundreds of people in a wild stampede carry the beautiful towers,
sixty feet high, solidly built of wood and bamboo and decorated
with tinsel and expensive silks, in which the bodies are transported
to the cremation grounds. There the corpses are placed in great
cows (hewn out of tree-trunks to serve as coffins and covered
with precious ma. terials) , and cows, towers, offerings, and
ornaments are set on fire, hundreds and even thousands of dollars
burned in one afternoon in a mad splurge of extravagance by a
people who value the necessities of life in fractions of pennies.
To the Balinese, the material
body is only the shell, the container of the soul. This soul live
in evry part of the body, even in the hair and nails, but it is
concentrated in the head which is near-holy to them. A Balinese
observes the rank of his head inrelation to the rest of his body,
and for this reason no one would -stand on his head or take any
position that would place his feet on. a higher level. It is an
offence even to pat a small child on the head and there is no
worse insult than " I'll beat your head! " One's soul
wanders away during sleep (dreams arc its travels and adventures),
without becoming, however, entirely detached from the body, and
it is considered dangerous to awaken a person too suddenly. Children
are never beaten, so as not to shock their tender, still undeveloped
souls.
Madness, epilepsy, and
idiocy are the results of a bewitched soul, but oedinary sickness
is due to a weakened, polluted soul rather than to mere physical
causes. ' Life vanishes when the soul, escapes from the body through
the 'mouth, and death occur's when it refuses to return. The relatives
of a dying man who has lost consciousness go to the temple of
the dead and, through a medium, beg the deities for the release
and return of his soul. By force of habit, the soul lingers near
the body when death comes, and. remains floating in space or lives
in a tree near by until,liberated by the obliteration, of the
corpse by the elements by earth, by fire, and by water, to destroy
the last unclean tie that. binds the souls of the dead to this
earth. By cremation the soul is released to fly to the heavens
for judgment and return to be reborn into the dead man's grandchildren.
Failure to, liberate the soul by, neglecting to perform the cremation
or by incomplete or, improper rites would force the soul to turn
into a ghoset that would haunt the careless descendants.
Cremation rites were probably
not introduced into Bali until the time of majapahit, about. the'thirteenth
century but the ancient Balinese animists already, believed that
their 'life-fluid was immortal and that after death it returned
to animate other beings. They. Practiced the obliteration of the
corpse by 'burial or, as is still done in the primitive village
of Sembiran, simply by abandoning the. bodies in the forest at
the edge of a ravine to be eaten by wild animals. A man in Bali
is born into a superior state - a higher caste -. if his behaviour
on this earth has been good; otherwise he will reincarnate into
a lower.stage of life to begin over again the progressive march
towards.. ultimate perfection Aman "who is guilty'of'serious-
crimes is punished by being reborn, often for periods of thousands
of years, into a tiger, a dog, a snake, a worm, or a poisonous
mushroom.
Between incarnations, until
the time comes for its return to this. earth, the soul goes to
Indra's heaven, the swarga, a reservoir where "life is just
as in Bali, but devoid of all trouble and illness." But this
process does not go on forever; when the individual has attained
the highest', wisdom and has reached the highest position among
men, that of a Brahmana who has been ordained as a priest, he
hopes to obtain liberation from this cycle of births. and become
a god. The man of low caste attributes his state to former misconduct,
redeemable in future lives only through a virtuous existence,
which entitles him to be reborn into a higher and higher caste.
A mans life on this earth
is but an incident in the long process of the soul's evolution.
The grand send-off of the
soul into heaven, in the form of a rich and complete cremation,
is the life-ambition of every Balinese. He looks forward to it,
often making provision during life with savings or property that
can be pawned or sold to finance his cremation. The greatest happiness
that comes to a Balinese -family, is to have, in this way, accomplished
the liberation of, the souls of their dead, but complete cremation
ceremonies are so costly that a family of limited means have to
wait often for years., haunted by the fact that their dead are
not yet cremated, and are sometimes obliged to sacrifice their
crops and their lands in order to pay for the ceremonies. The
expenses of, a cremation are enormous; besides the priest's fees,
the great amounts of holy water used and the costly towers coffins
offerings and so forth there is the food and entertaiment provide
for days for the hundreds of guest and assistants that help in
the ceremonies
A rich-cremation adds greatly
to the prestige o a well-to-do family, giving occasion for gay,
extravagant festivities that are eagerly anticipated despite the
financial burden they represent
A good average for a great
cremation is seldom thousand ringgits or about two million kepengs
(a ringgit is worth about one gold dollar in normal exchange),
but there:' cremations of princes that cost as much as fifty thousand
guilders (at the time of writing, about twenty five thousand dollars
The cremation of the mother
of, Naseh, a former servant of' ours, was the poorest we ever
witnessed. She was burned three days after her death with only
the most essential rites then the costs amounted to more than
the, fifty Naseh had succeeded in borrowing. A unique and rather
,improvised cremation of a nobleman of Pemetjutan cost,only three
hundred and fifty guilders because the body had to be burnet on
the same day the death occurred and I was told. By relatives that
had the corpse been kept for the reglementary forty, two days,
the cremation would have cost over guilders. The extraordinary
decision to cremate. a, caste immediately became possible only
because the the community was preparing for, their greatest in,a
decade could not have taken place bad there been an im, cremated
corpse in the village. The family was in difficult,financial circumstances
and they. welcomed the decision.
A Brahmanic priest is essential
to a, proper.crmation and only the destitute would call upon a
lesser priest,the quality of the ceremonies the priest performs
is determined by, the to him. There is a choice of three kinds
of cremation utama the highest, costing an average of fifty dollars
in,fees for the priest alone; madia the medium class cremation
for about twenty-five dollars; and nista, the low for about five
dollars The rites for each are abaut-the same the difference consisting
in the quality and power of the magic formulas and symbols and,
the sort of holy water used, the credentials given by, to the
soul entering heaven, and the more or less thorough purification
of the soul.
It is always a good resource,
in a great cremation of to provide. a retinue of souls for his
trip into the beyond and to profit at the same time by the magical
and social advantages of a more elegant cremation. In Krobokan
we witnessed the release Of two hundred and fifty souls of commoners
who accompanied a member. of the royal family. It is of extreme
importance, however, to keep within the rules prescribed for each
caste, the breach of which would bring dreadful punishment upon
guilty relatives who in their craving for ostentation should use
rites or materials for the accessories allotted to a higher caste.
These rules are at times infringed and it becomes the source of
malicious gossip if a family use a cow instead of a lion to burn
their deceased, or if they have more roofs in their tower than
is their right. In a few cases the right of cremation is denied,
as in the death of exiles from the island. Lepers are buried in
hidden places and their redemption, is carried out by pious persons,
secretly and through an effigy
