December/January, 1998
No. 032/VI/97
cover story
Christians in
Paradise
How Christianity came
to Bali
Once Upon a
New Years Eve
MC-ing a New Year's
Eve party during a
blackout
bali focus:
nusa dua and
jimbaran
The Origin of
Nusa Dua
A fable
People of a
Fertile Sea
The fishers of
Jimbaran beach
Center Stage
Steve Charles revamps
the Candraloka
Amphitheatre
Nusa Dua Nights
How to survive them
The Sacred
Wilderness
Colonial encounters with
Bali's southern peninsula
arts and
culture
Latter Day
Laksamana
A.A.M. Djelantik's
recently launched
autobiography
new Fiction by Gde
Aryantha Soethama
The Rat Pack
Who are Bali's literati?
beyond
bali
An Eddy in The
Counter of Time
Kayaking off the west
coast of Lombok
Slick and Cool in
Sengigi
Round midnight at the
famed Lombok resort
regular
Fashion
Adventure
Into the blue
Food
Jewel of the southren rim
Jungle Drums
Bali Update
On the Road
Home Grown
Made Adi Putra
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When one of our people dies, the kulkul in the village hall is struck. Its strong resound reaches right to the village's most far flung corners, permeating even the narrowest alleys, and carrying with it a gently sorrow that brushes all with a sense of grief. It sucks us from our houses and has us anxiously enquiring as to who it is who has been released from calamity, temptation and other such earthly torments.
Each and every death is announced in this way. It tell us that one of our people is now with God and marks the beginning of an official period of mourning, or cuntaka as we call it. During cuntaka, which lasts until the corpse is buried, the village is not allowed to perform traditional or religious ceremonies.
In our village, the corpse can be laid out for as long as a week, awaiting a propitious day to bury or burn it. Usually, the kulkul is not struck until the eve of the day that the body is to be carried to the cemetery, so that cuntaka is only observed for a single night.
Our elders say, in the old days the kulkul was struck as soon as someone died. If somebody died only days before a piodalan in the village temple, the ceremony would have to be canceled, and months of preparations would go to waste. Eventually, the village agreed that the knell should not be sounded until after the piodalan. In fact, it was even ruled that the kulkul would not be struck until the eve of the day of the burial, so that cuntaka could be over with as quickly as possible.
But Wayan Songket wanted to change this. "We must strike the kulkul as soon as somebody dies," he argued.
"But then our village will have to observe cuntaka straight away," countered other villagers.
"We can get around that by having two different death knells. One to announce the death, the other to announce the beginning of cuntaka. The second knell is the one that should resound on the eve of the burial of the corpse," replied Songket.
When Songket first put his view forward at a village meeting, no-one took much notice. But when he raised it at every monthly meeting thereafter, it started to become a matter of serious concern.
Nengah Endek was Songket's most vocal critic. He reasoned, "This tradition works well for us as it is. Messing around with it will only bring bad fortune."
But slowly, people began to back Songket's campaign. He was able to harness the support of those who had been inconvenienced by the kulkul's hurried announcement of a burial to take place the next day. Some families whose relatives had died claimed that news of the death came to them belatedly. Usually, news of a death traveled from mouth to mouth when people met in the roadside stalls or in the rice field.
Songket's people soon gathered courage to speak out in village meetings, saying that there was little use for a death knell that was no more than a formality. "Nothing but empty talk," they said, and they agreed with Songket that one kind of knell should announce a death and another the beginning of cuntaka.
For over a year the issue of the death knell became a topic of debate at every village meeting. It gradually gathered momentum, and became a part of day to day chatter in the village. Never was an agreement reached, and each held fast to their own opinions.
It astounded us to see a once calm and passive people, now become wild and hot-headed. We refrained from saying hello to people in the street for fear of being mistaken for picking a fight. Our people had become over sensitive and easily offended. And we had split in two. As the people from the neighbouring village mocked, our village now had the Songket party and the Endek party.
Songket was a good citizen, and had never before been known to make trouble. He had been elected as the head of the kelompencapir (media readers, listeners and watchers association) in our village. On several occasions he had attended training sessions and courses in the provincial capital on writing for the newspaper. On his return, he would tell us all about the knowledge he had gained there. It was then that he started to change.
Songket said that news had to be told as quickly as possible. "News has to be about the now, it has to be hot," he said, repeating by heart the theory they had taught him. He considered it wrong that the news of a death, or the striking of the kulkul should be left too long. "The news of a death must be told as quickly as possible," said Songket.
But Endek strongly disagreed. A contemporary of Songket, he had studied for two semesters at the Institute for Religion. He believed that Songket's desire to apply new-fangled theories to functioning village traditions was a case of misplaced modernism. "Be a leader if you will, but don't go around stirring up problems in our community," warned Endek.
The rift between Songket and Endek and their supporters got wider and wider. It never came to physical violence, but the seeds of hate were germinating within each and everyone. The village elders were concerned that it had all gone on for too long, and that the peace in our village was under threat. They agreed to find a solution straight away. The village had to resolve the matter of the death knell once and for all. And because consensus could not be reached, it meant we had to vote. Thus it was agreed, we would hold an election.
The voting was to take place in the monthly meeting, three days before the piodalan in the village temple, a grand-scale event with theatre and dances that would go on for five days and nights. Our elders said, this was the first time a decision could not be reached by consensus. They said this was the price of cleverness and modernity.
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