April/May, 1998
No. 034/VI/98

cover story

Ground Breakers
Bali's top corporate
women

Out of the Frying
Pan
The legacy of widow
burning in modern Bali

beyond
bali

Pedal Power
Cycling around Lombok

regular
features

Sidelines
The cultural value of
Indonesia textiles

Adventure
Off-road trips by Land
Cruiser

Home Grown
Bali's surf hero of
nineties, Rizal Tanjung

Health and Beauty
Mandara's many Bali
spas

Books
The Butterflies of Bali

Food
Four delis that have
survived the crisis

Photo Gallery
F.X. Marit captures nyepi
on film

Jungle Drums

advertising index for
Bali Echo web site

According to Putu Wirata, the spirit of widow sacrifice lives on in modern Bali.

When guests of state visit Bali, they are welcomed, on their descent from the plane, by a troupe of young, female, petal-scattering panyembrahma dancers. In their practiced tourism smiles, that symbol of Balinese hospitality, these dancers reveal no trace of the histories of their forebears - the topless women who aroused the happy-snapping tourists early this century, or the king’s widows who, as witnessed by the first western visitors to Bali three centuries ago, were sacrificed in elaborate cremations ceremonies.

John Crawfurd, an English explorer of the Malay archipelago, was the first westerner to witness such a sacrifice when he took part in a Dutch mission to the Balinese kingdom of Gelgel in 1633. Crawfurd’s description of the cremation suggests that it was a sacred religious ritual that provoked no opposition from the masses. Everybody was involved, their duties assigned in accordance with their social rank, as would be the case in any other ceremony of state. Following Crawfurd, Dutch scholar Friederich was the next westerner to document his observations of the cremation of Dewa Manggis, the King of Gianyar on 22 December 1847 and the subsequent sacrificing of his widow queen and concubines. According to Friederich the hundreds of Balinese present at the cremation showed no signs of fear or grief, and when the time came for the widows to throw themselves onto the funeral pyre they seemed to do so hypnotically, almost methodically. And moreover, the widows were under no obligation to undertake the mebela (the sacrificing of widow concubines) or mesatia (the sacrifice of the widow queen). Following the death of the king, they had eight days to decide whether they would agree to be sacrificed or not, and had the right to go back on a decision as long as it was within the eight days. Needless to say, the incentive to agree was an assured ride on the expressway to heaven, where the soul of the sacrificed widow queen was immediately transformed into the angel Satiawati.

In the end, the practices of mesatia and mebela were banned by the Dutch colonial administration in the 1930s, who considered it barbaric. And in this modern age, humanist Balinese would concur with this view, and the widow sacrifice, while confined to royalty, would be considered outmoded, as a symbolic enforcing of the minor position of all women. This is not to say, however, that the spirit of widow sacrifice is completely lost to Balinese culture, and in the late twentieth century Balinese women continue to live in its shadow. The great majority of Balinese couples still wish for and favor sons over daughters, despite the slogan of the government family planning program which insists that two children is enough for one family, and a daughter is as good as a son. It is the sole responsibility of the Balinese son to carry the family name and it is the son who undertakes ngupat (cleansing of the spirit) of his parents at their cremation - a traditional role frequently alluded to as an excuse for parents to favor sons over daughters. If a family is of meager means, parents will choose to educate their sons and encourage their daughters to marry quickly.

It need come as no surprise therefore if a kind of inferiority complex rules the modern Balinese woman’s attitudes towards and relationships with men, and by extension that very few Balinese women have emerged as pioneers and leaders. Most Balinese women opt for a low-key careers so they have time for their husbands. Like the queens and concubines before them, they fling their bodies into the funeral pyre of marriage and domesticity, sacrificing their souls for the sake of devotion to their husbands. The spirit of mesatia is alive and well in modern Bali.

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