TRAVEL NOTES FROM THE EAST.

Otago Witness, Issue 3996, 14 October 1930, Page 79

TRAVEL NOTES FROM THE EAST.

CUSTOMS OF THE BALINESE.

By

R. J. Terry.

SINGAPORE, August 15. The Balinese have some very strange ways or what would seem to us strange. There are roughly three women to each man in Bali. I believe there is not another part of the world where people are living under natural where there are 75 per cent, females. This goes to bear out my contention that, given peaceful conditions, either with stock or humans, females predominate and the reverse when conditions are hard, or, in other words, when the male has to fight. The Balinese are peaceful. They are split up into groups, therefore do not fight amongst themselves, and although a few tigers can still be found in one portion •of the island, it may be said there are not any beasts of prey. A girl really has the choosing of a mate. The first advances must come from the woman. Although they originally come from India, early marriages are not advocated; the girls marry at about 16 or 17. When about 15, the mother has a talk with the girl and tells her she had better go by the wayside and sell-something, ‘Such as drinks. By the way, .there is no drunkenness on the island—the natives do not drink alcohol. A girl is told to sell by the wayside so that she may meet people, and by and bye she makes it plain to a man that she prefers him. He then asks her about eloping with him; eloping comes before marriage. When the girl’s friends •see that she prefers a man, they all endeavour to persuade her that he is not the right one, but, as you will see, this marriage is largely_ a matter of pretence •as regards her relatives, including parents. They endeavour to persuade her that he is the wrong man because, it is a very •serious matter for her to say that she will •elope with him and then not do it. It means that the man will kill her. The father tells the girl that she must not have that man and pretends to be very angry and gets his male friends to watch the girl that she does not elope. Then he asks his wife to find out what night the :girl will elope. Having got the date, all roads are guarded by the male friends with the exception of the one that th a •couple have decided to take, and so they get clear away. The bridegroom has to take the girl some considerable distance away, the next day the mother weeps bitterly at the loss of her daughter, and the father roams with rage, and so on. The friends know that the girl has eloped, which they are not supposed to have known before. The bridegroom sends a friend to the, father to say that he is sorry for having ■stolen his daughter, but the father still pretends to be very angry, and the friend has to wait till the father’s anger cools. The father states a date on which the bridegroom must bring the daughter to the father’s house for the marriage ceremony. This is about 10 days after the elopement. The young couple start very early in the morning at the end of the village furthest from the'father’s house, calling on their friends and persuading them to come to this ceremony, so by the time they reach the parents’ home there is quite a crowd. The father still pretends to be angry, and the bridegroom sorry for having stolen the daughter. A sum of money is then fixed that should be paid for the daughter, in repayment for the father for having fed her up to that age. This sum varies with her position. It may be partly land, and if it is, it is immediately returned, but the daughter really has the final say, and even if she is what would be considered a rich native, she may choose a poor man, and say that they are not to charge him much money. The bridegroom may take more than one wife, often three or four. If the wife has a sister, she endeavours to persuade the sister or sisters to show favour to her husband, so that he may take them for wives instead of other women. This is also pleasing to the father, as it saves him trouble. Now this is the procedure when everything has gone smoothly, but suppose the girl changes her mind and does not elope as promised. The bridegroom is then in honour bound to kill her. He may approach her even at a large gathering of friends and say to her. " You kribw that you have put shame on me.” She will reply: “Yes, I know.” He will then say: “ Are you ready to die? ” And she, having said “ Yes,” he stabs her and then gives himself up to the police, and is sentenced, in most eases, to 10 years’ work on the roads, but as it is not looked upon as a disgraceful act, he serves four or even less. I saw numerous prisoners' working on the roads. They seemed quite happy and contented, and I was assured that fully 90 per cent, of them were murderers and had killed girls.

The dead are cremated. Cremation is very expensive, not because of the actual burning of the body, but on account of the festival that must accompany it. But the natives get over this difficulty by burning several bodies or even portions of bodies at the one time. If they are poor or do not have the stock or money for the festival they pickle the bodies and probably keep them for a 12-month, or they may even bury them and dig up the bones at a later date. When there is sufficient money and one of the leading members of the family dies, preparations are made for the cremation, and the bodies of all relatives that have been waiting in pickle, or whose bones have been buried, are cremated at the same time. '

Much of the mythology connected with their temples and religion is somewhat on the lines of the pretence of the father — there is a great deal of pretence. The temples seemed to be continually built or renewed, although you are told they are extremely old, and you certainly get that impression because the stones are soft sandstone, and the carving is easy; by exposure to the fierce rays of the sun alternating with heavy rains there is an appearance of age. To give you an instance:.! was told one temple was very old, but I noticed one of the carvings represented a god riding on quite a modern bicycle, though it is admitted that the two Wheels of the bicycle were in the form of a flower somewhat resembling a daisy. The temples in Bali are in most instances in an open court yard walled in by carvings, more or less

in platforms of stones led up to by stone steps on which various gods are depicted. It is pointed out to you, for instance, that a certain god is very strong, and one can well believe it when you see an elephant tucked under his left arm and a reptile under the right, and not even a strained look on his face.’. There are gods for practically everything. A god of monkeys which prevents the monkeys eating the rice and maize, or rather as the native explains, the monkeys do not then eat to excess. There are various other go*ds who control the growth of the rice, maize, and fruits. From one of the photographs that I have sent, you will notice that the child has a shaven head with the exception of one lock of hair, which is quite long. You will notice a fair percentage of children with this lock of hair. It means that the child in its infancy was very sick and was taken to the priest or medicine man, and the parents promised that if he made the child well, they would give a big offering to the gods. The child recovered, but the parents did not have sufficient of this world's goods to make good their promises, they have to leave the lock of hair till such time as they could redeem their promise, when the head may be completely shaved. Cock-fighting is a religious ceremony, and takes place in the temple or the temple courtyard, at all religious festivals; it is supposed to be illegal otherwise. Long-barbed lances are fixed on the legs of the birds,, and betting is very heavy. As much as 12,000 guilders, say £lOOO, may change hands at a festival amongst the natives. These roosters, after a certain age, are not allowed at liberty. Along the roads outside practically every group of houses, you see rows of bamboo cages, each containing a fighting cock. They are small mongrels as regards breed. The. talk about there not being any cock-fighting except at religious festivals is all piffle, because the men, at least in the southern portion of the island, and right up in the hills, are still overgrown children, and you will see them taking the birds out of their cages, the two cocks facing each other while the natives smacked the birds’ faces, stroked them, and otherwise got them excited. Half the time in the villages seems to be taken up with this training and preparation for festivals. In fact, I said to the guide: “ You can see the women work, what do the men do?” He answered: “The men are very good at festivals.” One night I slept at a resthouse 5000 feet above sea level. I got out of bed just as the sun was breaking over a volcano, and walking down the road I came to a’ wizened old man stroking one of the fighting cocks, so I thought I would test out my persuasive powers, at least with men, and also settle the question as to whether they would let the birds fight other than in the temple. So with pantomime I made out that I thought another cock was much better than the one he was holding. He was only an overgrown kid with all his apparent years, as I don’t believe many natives live over 50, although they then look about 100. After making pantomime of the two birds fighting, he shook his head and pointed to some people coming up the road; I pointed to the back of his hut, and the wicked old sinner nearly died chuckling at the thought of it, and calling another man, they took the two birds to the back of the hut and were going to put on the spurs, but I objected to that, so each man then held his bird by the tail. Having accomplished my object, I gave them a little loose change and came away, thinking there wasn’t a great deal of difference between the white man and his brown Brother after all. Going up the road to • this mountain resthouse was a ravine which was formed in 1917 by an earthquake. The land simply dropped down. The ravine was about six miles long, and over 5000 people perished—the tropics don’t do things by halves. The guide wished to return by the same route that we had taken in coming up the mountain. Having been out early in the morning I could see there was another track down, and although he objected, I persuaded the others to insist that we take the other route, With the result that we saw the other side of the picture—the side of the mountain which did not receive the rainfall to anything like the same extent as the side under intense cultivation. The effect -was apparent in the physique of the natives, and naturally the land had taken this aspect, although it was still beautiful, especiallj” when one considers that it was suffering in comparison with the Garden of Eden on the other side. Imagine pont setta growing in the hedges wild. One village we passed throygh, if the name had been interpreted, would be “The Petal of the Flower.” By taking this route we had risen to 6000 feet, and as it was a tarsealed road, we ran down very quickly to sea level, with the result that there was a somewhat distressed feeling and a slight buzzing in the ears for a little while.

The ship, was a much smaller one than that which had taken us from Macassar. First class passengers, which were evidently very few in number at all times, were in the stern of the boat, third class passengers in the centre of the boat; on deck there were natives; a pig had the free run of the deck, i.e.. the third class portion, and spent most of his time near the cookhouse; the forepart of the ship had a cargo of pigs, each of which was in a cylinder bamboo cage. These round cages were packed tier upon tier. There was a joke amongst us that there was a lifeboat adjacent to the pigs, but none for the half dozen saloon passengers.