A Two-Year Study Of The Music And Ritual Of Native Life In Bali

Southland Times, Issue 23740, 11 February 1939, Page 16

A Two-Year Study Of The Music And Ritual Of Native Life In Bali

After studying native life in Bali for the past two years, Dr Margaret Mead arrived in Sydney recently to spend some weeks. This is not Dr Mead’s first visit to Sydney; she was there about five years ago after making an anthropological study of women and children in New Guinea, states a Sydney writer. Previously Dr Mead had worked in Samoa, and the results of her research have been published in several pamphlets and books. Chief among the latter are “Coming-of-Age in Samoa,” “Growing Up in New Guinea,” which was one of the best sellers of its year in America, and “Sex and Temperament.” She is now contemplating another book about her work in Bali.

In her studies in Bali Dr Mead specialized particularly in the babies and followed their lives from birth until two years of age. Her records include cine-films of the babies, and on her return to the island she will make further records of the children’s development in their third year. The caste system which prevails among the natives of Bali made it necessary for Dr Mead to undertake her research work in three different villages. She and her husband lived in a bamboo hut among the Hindus in an old mountain village of Bajoeng Gede, then rented a “piece of a palace” at Bangli, and later studied the Brahmins from a temporary home in a “priestly courtyard.” “The excellent roads of Java make for expeditious travel,” said Dr Mead, “so that in an hour or so you can be with an entirely different people, speaking another language and with an entirely different mode of communal living. “COMPLAISANT GODS” “I should say that about 50 per cent, of the life of the Balinese is made up of ceremonials connected with religion, but the Balinese gods are most complaisant gods. Curiously enough, the gods always seem to like the same tilings as the people, and if there is a temple feast it is not unusual for tiie gods to indicate that they would like four dances, two or three operas and. a couple of shadow plays given in their honour. In one village the old woman who was the sort of leader was very fond of dancing, therefore the gods in that village loved dancing also. “One of the most amusing things I noticed recently was that apparently the gods also like bus rides, for I found natives vowing to take a bus ride round the island if their pigs got well. And if the natives concerned were unable to fulfil the vow it descended to their heirs, who would be in honour bound to take that bus ride. “All theatricals are open to everybody,” continued Dr Mead, “and / the arts also belong to everybody. When we couldn’t coax natives into our hut we turned on- the gramophone and the little figures came in quietly, sat and listened in perfect calm, then when the

music was over got up and walked quietly out again. There are travelling groups of players who every seven months—six months of their time—travel round the island with the Barong and give performances in the temples. The players do a little bit of their act as a sort of preview for the village

elders, who then order the performance with as many characters in it as can be afforded. These performances go on for 42 days—no more, no less—and cost an infinitesimal amount.” Bathoen is the centre of a new art movement, where the natives have been influenced by European art. and are learning to paint on paper instead of on cloth. 1

“The natives here are developing a distinct style of their own, which is very like that of. Persian miniatures,” said Dr Mead. “Walter Spies, a German artist, who has himself been influenced by the Persians, and who has lived in Bali for some time, has had a good deal to do with the training of the natives, whose art was disappearing but has now gained a new impetus, a new technique and a market with tourists.”