BALI—THE UNSPOILT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 29 September 1928, Page 13

BALI—THE UNSPOILT.

. STRANGE TEMPLE DANCERS. SUPERIOR TO RUSSIAN BALLET. Bali is an island in tliri Dutch East Indies, near {Sumatra, so that it is quite- off the beaten track of tourists, who do the Sourabaya-Batavia-Singa-pore run, and fancy they haA r e seen the Indies. “I have seen Pa\’k>v.a and the Russian ballet,” said l Mr. Ethelbert tlales, the ex-Wellington actor, now back, in his home town (says ‘‘The Dominion”), “but the dancers of Bali rife in grace- and poetry of motion away above them rill. Bali ,is one of the unspoilt islands of the world. They llrive fe\v Adsitofs, and are practically living as have lived for thousands of years. No missionaries have been allowed to invade the place, and you find a people unspoilt by external influences, worshipping the gods of their ancestors — Hindu mostly—with that unfettered fatalism inseparable from, the East. “Dancing is part of their religion, as there are regular tem-p-le dancers, men and women, who perform dances of amazing grace arid extraordinary > invention. But perhaps most wonderful of all are the child dancers—pretty, sinuous arid bewitching—ivlib are evidently taught from their earliest infancy, and take rank as the holy ones of the temple, andi can only remain such until they reach the age of -puberty. We have never seen such dancing—dancing not for the “baksheesh” of the tourist, but the genuine thing, done as part of religious ceremonials. It Avould he a shame to take them away from their island —a shame to interfere with them in any way. MOST EXTRAORDINARY BURIAL. “The form of burial on Bali is pei>. haps the most extraordinary in the world. When an ordinary person dies he 'is not buried or burnt immediately, hut- the body is embalmed arid stoAved away inside -a great mimic bull —a representation of the Sacred Bull of India. A Avoman might he kept in that Avay for six months or more. It all depends. These burials must not take place in fin off-hand ,U*ay. The usual practice is to wait until some rich man or Avoman dies, and then all the others AA'ho have dead relatives stored in the sacred bullock sort of ‘chip in’ to make one grand event of it-—or sort of orgy or festival. which might cost the- rich many guilders, but the rest get off scot free. By the time this happens this stupid-looking mock hull is richly caparisoned, and- presents a. very gorgeous sight in its pagodn-lilce stable, and is then regarded with I great A’eneration by the people. PEOPLE COMPARED WITH. THE JAVANESE. “The people of Bali are more interesting arid better-looking than the Javanese. They liavri eopper-colorired skins of great purity., the girls fire exceedingly pretty rind graceful, and the men are not unlike- our Maoris. Though Mahommedanism spread down through the Indies to Java, it nevei* reached Bali, s.o the people of the island are about as pure in that respect as they seem to be physically.”