THE
ECONOMIC ORDER
With
agriculture as the-main occupation of the people and the basis
of wealth, the question of the ownership of land is of great
importance. Bali presents the amazing spectacle of a land where
the deeply rooted agrarian communalism of the people has continued
to exist side by side with the feudalism of the noble landlords.
We have seen that the true Balinese village is an independent
economic and social unit, ruled by a council of villagers with
voting power, equal rights for all, and ownership of land restricted
by village regulations. The lands are communally cultivated to
maintain the village festivals, and even the ground on which the
houses stand is village property that can be reclaimed if the
tenant abuses his privileges. Since the land and its products
belong to the ancestral gods, the idea of absolute property is
not firmly rooted among the Balinese. In our household nobody
objected when neighbors came and cut flowers and banana leaves
without permission. Alongside the Balinese commune is the contrasting
influence of mediaeval princes who have tried, without success,
to abolish the village organization and the religion that motivated
it, to replace it by feudal rule with an official cult under their
control.
Passive disobedience at
first, and Dutch supremacy later, left the princes in the position
of impoverished nominal aristocrats, who, despite the fact that
they represent the Government, are excluded from the administrative
management of the - villages. Through their co-operative societies,
the bandjars and subaks, the Balinese have recaptured some of
their village autonomy. However, the communal system has suffered
considerably in the feudal territories where the princes have
held sway; the communal lands sometimes became part of the estate
of the local prince, who gave grants of lands to his vassals in
exchange for servitude, and gradually ownership of the land in
these districts became more and more individualistic, developing
a class of organized small landowners. Village ground cannot legally
be disposed of, but sawa's have been pawned when there was great
need of ready cash. Land has never become a commodity, however,
and today the agriculturist is protected to a certain extent by
the law forbidding the sale of agricultural lands to foreigners,
perhaps one of the wisest laws passed by the Dutch Government.
Economic inequality is not
as striking in Bali as elsewhere. Until recently almost everybody
wore the same type of clothes, all went barefoot and lived in
thatched houses. At first sight they all seemed happy and prosperous.
The majority of the population has a roof, enough to eat, and
some big silver dollars buried under the earthen floor of the
sleeping-quarters. Yet there are some who are' extremely poor
while others are considered rich. There are people without lands
or a house of their own, living a parasitic life of slavery, a
remnant of feudalism, attached to the household of a master and
eating whatever is given them. A rich family is one who has sawas,
a house with a gate of carved stone, a large rice granary, an
ornate family temple, and a well-built pavilion for guests. They
may have some fine cloths put awayand heirlooms in the form of
gold jewellery, a kris with a gold sheath and handle set with
precious stones and a number of silver or gold vessels, all of
which can be pawned in one of the Government pawnshops, in case
of need.
In general the Balinese
have little need of dash to procure the daily necessities of life.
Normally the cost of living is extremely low and food and the
requirements for shelter are produced by the Balinese themselves.
A. meal in a I public eating-place may cost as much as twenty
cents, but, having rice, the cash expense for food for an entire
family in the home amounts only to a few pennies, perhaps only
enough to buy salt and spices. Fruit and vegetables are grown
in the gardens ad joinin & the house; pigs, chickens, and
ducks are raised at home to be killed Ion special occasions or
for offerings which the people themselves eat after the gods have
consumed the essence. Fuel consists of the fallen dry leaves and
stems of the coconut trees.
The housing problem is simple.
Entire families live, together in ancestral compounds, and a modest
house can be built almost overnight out of bamboo and thatch at-
a very low cost. People without means or without a house simply
go to live with a relative, ,(I sharing a kitchen " in exchange
for small services and assistance in the general housework, or
procure land from the village and gradually build their own household.
The daily clothing consists of a kamben, a piece of cotton worn
like a skirt, and a head-cloth, with an added shirt or blouse
in the more " modern ", districts. A complete ordinary
outfit of clothes costs about two guilders ($1.36 at the time
of writing) one guilder for the skirt, fifty cents for the headpiece
and fifty cents more for the shirt. Amusements are free and transportation
is mainly by foot, leaving medicines and luxuries to be bought
for cash.
It was always a mystery
to us how the Balinese made the money they seemed to spend so
lavishly in extravagant festivals and in beautiful clothes. They
never appeared to work regularly for wages, and outside of the
market, in which alone business was transacted, they never see
me & interested in commerce, The men were always busy in the
ricefields, but rice cannot be considered an important source
of cash income. The Balinese grow rice for personal consumption
and for offerings, selling only what is left over from the second
planting, which they regard as unfit for offerings to the gods.
Their main source of income
is in the sale of cattle and pigs, and of coconuts for making
copra; a second source is from coffee, rice,and tobacco which
they. sell for export to Chinese middlemen.. The trades and crafts
are indidental sources of income and in the markets -one may see
people selling pottery, mats, baskets, and so forth-, together
with the vendors of vegetables, dried fish, spices, 2nd flowers.
Some craftsmen, such as the gold and silver workers, the blacksmiths,
carpenters, weavers of palm, and pottery-makers, have regular
incomes, but -they remain independent artisans. The Balinese men
work for wages only spasmodically and as an adventure. In the
larger towns they engage as chauffeurs, clerks, and servants -
positions which are regarded as superior. With the affluence of
tourists, some now derive an income from the sale of sculptures,
paintings, silverwork, weavings, and so forth.
Ruled by the principle of
live and let live, landowners allow others without land to share
their crop in exchange for help. There are, however, organizations
of laborers (seka mejukut) who work the earth for a communal wage.
They are paid by time recorded by water-clocks (gandji) similar
to those used in cockfights: a half coconut-shell with a small
hole in the bottom, placed in a basin of water, the time it takes
to sink being the measure. The fees are arranged by the head of
the group.
At the present time, however,
the economic balance has, temporarily at least, ceased to exist.
With taxes and imported commodities on the increase, and the price
of Balinese products for export at rock-bottom levels, the whole
population has come
to find itself in need of cash, not in kepengs (Chinese cash valued
at a fraction of a cent with which they buy the daily necessities),
but in Dutch guilders worth from five hundred to seven hundred
kepeng according to the exchange. There is no demand for their
insignificant products, and the deflated Dutch currency has become
harder than ever to obtain.
The Balinese are more and
more eager for the " advantages of civilization " in
the form of inferior foreign cloth, bicycles, flashlights, aniline
dyes, and motor-cars, and if their miserable earnings are not
taken away by the Arab merchants it is only because they are already
due for back taxes. Besides a tax on each household, there is
a sawa tax (pajeg) and a tax (upeti) on dry grounds bearing coconut
and coffee trees. The most hated of taxes is that paid every time
a Balinese kills a pig, no matter how small, for which needs a
certificate, This has led to clandestine slaughter and with it
the reduction of the pig supply, and the reward 'promised to denouncers
has introduced the element of discord into otherwise unified communities.
Dr. Korn, the authority on Balinese sociology, says that the population
would prefer an export tax on cattle to the troublesome slaughter
tax.
With the relentless drain
of the island's, wealth, poverty, too, is on the increase and
the Balinese are threatened with -the loss of their lands through
failure to pay taxes. They have been forced to sell whatever they
possessed of value - antiques, fine brocades, jewellery, and even
the bits of gold that decorate their krisses - to tourists and
gold-hoarders, while theft and prostitution are on the increase.
It is to be feared that if present conditions continue, the simple
and well-organized life of the Balinese will be seriously
Bali rice
1, 2, 3
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