  The road to the cremation ground is crammed with
a slow-moving sea of people; a procession of hundreds bearing a towering wadah - the tall,
tiered, bamboo pagoda which contains the body of the deceased - and a lembu - the
sarcophagus symbolising the bull that leads the soul to heaven. Whenever the crowd
procession reaches a crossroad, the wadah and the lembu is spun around three times as the
bleganjur - the plodding, musical accompaniment to the cremation rite - reaches its
crescendo, as if to insist that any feelings of sorrow must relent to the ultimate joy of
the occasion. The event climaxes when the flames begin to lick the wadah and the lembu,
engulf the body, and leap skyward as they turn the corpse to ash. A whole series of rites
follow, to urge the soul towards heaven.
Such is a typical Balinese cremation ceremony, one of the local rites
most frequented by tourists to the island. Contrary to popular belief, Balinese cremation
rites are not strictly traditional. They have their roots in the influence of the Hindu
Javanese Majapahit empire over the island, in particular with the entry of Majapahit Hindu
priest and missionary Dang Hyang Dwidjendra in the 17th century. In Bali's pre-Majapahit
communities, known as Bali Mula, no such ceremonies existed. Rather, Bali Mula communities
preferred a death rite known as mepasah, in which all or part of the body - depending on
the age and cause of death of the deceased - was buried. Traces of these pre-Majapahit
rituals are still evident in practices of Bali Mula, or indigenous Balinese, communities
of Tenganan in Karangasem.
Interestingly, however, the cremation ceremonies practised in the
indigenous Balinese village of Trunyan have been subjected to Hindu Majapahit influences,
namely those transmitted and promoted via the official national Hindu body, the Parisadha
Dharma Indonesia. Nevertheless, in Trunyan, as noted by James Danandjaja in his book Desa
Trunyan, they don't burn the body, but bury it, at the bottom of Lake Batur.
Masatya: The suicide rite of widows
At the cremation ceremony of the King of Gelgel in 1663, both the
king's queen and concubines leapt from a high tower into the funeral pire. Known in India
as sutee, and in Bali as masatya (for the queen) or mabela (for the concubines), the rite
was witnessed by a Westerner called John Crawfurd. As quoted by Covarrubias in The Island
of Bali, Crawfurd described the rite as "a sacred festival", where the queen and
the king's concubines "commit suicide without regret". Showing no fear, he said,
they leap from the tower into the raging funeral pire. (Detailed excerpt of Crawfurd's
writing included on p.14)
The next Westerner to document the masatya rite was the Dutch historian
Friederich, who attended a cremation ceremony that included masatya in 1847, when the
widows of King Dewa Manggis were burned along with him on 22 December. Like Crawfurd,
Friederich also described the rite in detail, writing of how the widows stabbed themselves
in the chest and stomach with keris (wavy daggers) before leaping to their death. The
widows, it is said, believed that if they performed the masatya or mabela rite, then they
would be transformed in the afterlife into Saraswati, and that their souls would unite and
find eternal love in heaven.
It is highly likely that mabela and masatya rites continued to be
practised over the next century, although there is little documentation to confirm this.
The only evidence that masatya existed is the notes taken by westerners who, on witnessing
the rite, were shocked and taken aback at its "barbarous" nature.
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