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Since
their sacred mountains are "north" and to sea 'south,' these
are the cardinal points for the Balinese: their villages, their houses,
and even their beds are aligned in these directions. Its said that the
Balinese are one of the few island peoples who don't turn their eyes toward
the sea, but upward toward the mountains. They believe everything high
and mighty like the mountains is powerfully magic, healthy and divine,
where as to ocean is the domain, the underworld, the source of threatening,
impure, and harmful forces: fanged demons, monsters, sharks, poisonous
sea snakes. The Balinese are thus very caution with the sea. Few Balinese
except surfers know how to swim. Only during low tide do small children
venture from shore to catch tropical fish trapped in shallow tide-pools,
and in the early hours foragers the beaches for coral used to make lime
for constructing buildings. Balinese women sometimes seen wading a ways
out but they always come splashing fearfully back to shore, holding up
their sarung before the incoming tide. Not surprisingly, then, the Balinese
dwell in the intermediary region the rich farmlands between the mountain
and the sea as it were, between heaved and hell. The highest of the island's
mountains, sacred Gunung Agung is known as the 'Navel of the World,"
the focal point whence the world springs.
The Balinese seem to have an innate and infallible sense of direction; no matter where they are. they always sleep with their heads to either the east or towards the mountains even if they're in California! To do otherwise would offend the gods. If he is unable to orient himself properly, a Balinese will feel uncomfortable and out of balance, He will almost invariably turn a map so that the top is oriented "northward," toward the mountains. When giving directions, he will not say "left" or " right" but kauh or kangin (west or east of Gunung Agung), as in "The banjar is 50 meters to the kauh of the market place." if you ask a bemo driver where he is going, he'll say "Toward the ke1od (south, toward the sea)."
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we must point out a very important distinction which the Balinese make between
two clearly separate groups of ancestors. The first of these groups consists
of the dead who are riot yet completely purified. This group is in turn subdivided
in pirata, those riot yet cremated, and pitara, those already cremated. The
former are still completely impure; the latter have been purified, but are still
considered as distinct, individual souls. The second group consists of the completely
purified ancestors who are considered as divine. Everything Bali Indonesia |
