Bali Echo Visitor's Guide

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February/March, 1998
No. 033/VI/98

cover story

Galleries Galore
The boom in
contemporary Balinese
art

A Matter of Taste
Why bourgeois Balinese
are collecting art

beyond
bali

From Toraja to the
Togians
Sulawesi's most seductive
parts

Treading Lightly in
Lombok
Tips to being a green
tourist

regular
features

Weekender
The Saltmakers of Amed

Home Grown
Legian's Legend,
Made Kasim

Health and Beauty
The Ubud-based
Bali Utama Spice

Books
The search for the Great
Bali Novel continues

Cuisine
Bumbu Bali cooking
school

Fiction
Marni's Ride by
K. Landras Syaelendra

Jungle Drums

advertising index for
Bali Echo web site

Looking like they are stamping grapes, the Amed people circling high in the tinjung, tread the sand. Who knows where their thoughts are as they solemnly stamp, forcing the salt saturated water down into cisterns carved out of the boles of coconut trees buried below the tinjung.

Saltwater People
the tinjung, into which salt-laden is poured saturated by brine Amed, Bunaten and Lipah are home to coastal fishing populations. Throughout the world fisherfolk and dryland farmers count amongst the poorest of the poor - and this is true of the people in Amed. While a few entrepreneurial souls take to the beach, talking drowsy tourists into early morning boat rides with the fishing fleet, the majority of fishing families live from the meagre proceeds of fishing and salt making. One fisherman who had recently returned from a four hour sojourn at sea caught 60 tenggiri (mackerel), which he sold for Rp 10,000. A year ago that might have been a good day's wage. Some others grow crops for consumption and mangoes for sale, and Bunaten sports a very healthy grape orchard, but the lack of water limits what the people of Amed can do for a living.

But it is the salt makers we came to see. Amed salt is reputed to be the creme de la salt - a mixture of mineral salts from the sea and the volcanic sand from which it is made. It is thought to be particularly high in magnesium, which health experts will tell you is necessary for effective metabolism of vitamins and minerals, and is good for the maintenance of the nervous system.

The tools of the salt makers provide dramatic shapes. The large tinjung teeter on their points, propped up by stumpy branches. It is into these conical baskets that the salt-laden sand is poured after being dried and crumbled in the shallow ponds. To increase the concentration of the brine, sea water is ladled into the tinjung from fanned galvanised buckets, mimicking the lontar buckets (gangan) of old. These are almost impossible to find on the coast now, having been replaced with the more robust but less aesthetic galvanised steel models. Looking like they are stamping grapes, the Amed people circling high in the tinjung, tread the sand. Who knows where their thoughts are as they solemnly stamp, forcing the salt saturated water down into cisterns carved out of the boles of coconut trees buried below the tinjung. From there the brine is poured into the palungan - kiers - made of halved and hollowed coconut trunks. In these shallow pools the water rapidly evaporates, leaving large crystals of salt glistening on the bottom.

The reticent saltwater people were surprised to see us. After all, hard work and privation are not tourist attractions; most of whom stop briefly, take the requisite photos and travel on. The tired looks and backs rounded from years of hard work are not what seductive brochures about paradise are all about. From a process that takes four days of part-time but intensive labour, the salt makers receive only Rp 5,000 for a basket of salt, weighing around 6 - 7 kilos.

To ensure the well-being of the community and the productivity of the sea, the people have an annual ceremony - Budu Wage Kelau - which they regard as special for their community. During this ceremony they manage to spend a lot of the hard-earned money from salt and fishing. Little is left over. The saltwater people too are waiting for the rains, which will spell an end to salt making for some months. They will plant corn, chase the elusive fish, and catch the occasional tourist until the cycle begins anew.

A Little Night Music
Later that evening, walking through a delicious star filled night, and came across a group of young men sitting in the bus stop doing what we thought was a local version of the kecak, but what later we found when we ran across the real one, is a local dance known as genjek. Well not so much dance as music, the men sitting in a circle slurping from a bottle of arak and the processed salt is collected into baskets, ready for selling swaying to an irresistible rhythm being played by two men on suling (flutes). One, an hypnotic wiry older man who we were told has three wives, sat in the middle breathing like a didgeridoo player, swaying like both the fakir and the snake. The men's emphatic chanting accompanied by slapped hands and bamboo slit drums, bemoans their lot as fisherfolk and tells of their dreams to find better work which pays well and bestows pride. And then back to the wash of the waves on the beach as we drift off to sleep, back to breakfast the next day: tasty wafer thin pancakes served with a cool morning breeze. After another wonderful snorkel and farewell to the fish, with 6 kilos of salt in the car, we return to Ubud.

Photos and text by Melody Kemp

Above:
1. The tinjung, into which salt-laden sand poured saturated with brine trickling into the coconut wood kiers called palungan for drying
2. salt dries in the palungan.
3. The processed salt is collected into baskets, ready for selling.