Advantages
Music of Kebyar
Commoners
Temporal Perspectives
Village Fields
Knowledge
Magnificent
Betutu
Evidences
Tropical
Mahendradatta
Music of Kebyar
Administrative

Continued...

The sacred legends documented for royal houses in classical Hinduized-Java and still current in contemporary Balinese society proliferate where social structural norms have been contradicted. For example, when an incorporated house reputedly arises from the descendants of a raja's concubine, as in the present case, or originates matrilocally, or when a subhouse temporarily achieves a prominence rivaling that of the original larger group without actually breaking away, plentiful magical and religious reasons are adduced to explain these states of at-fairs. Yet our general argument is not that contradicted social norms cause compensatory other-worldly concerns, but only that contradictions can renew interest in dormant ritual and tore. Patent social structural principles are axiomatic and need no such obvious reinforcement. To take a specific example, ancestor legends in Bali do not clarify wily a genealogically appropriate primary descendant failed to measure up in individual achievements to his birth - that is not the issue. The descent and marriage principles are strong enough to withstand refutation by this frequent 1 exceptional' case. A thousand conspicuously average eldest sons born of patricousin spouses would not refute the high-caste cultural 'rightness' of a lone ascendant figure in this position. The issue addressed by the legends is rather why individuals not so qualified by birth should achieve prominence. Such legends tackle the easier contradiction while avoiding the other unsolvable problem (why the genealogically privileged individual actually failed) that would be less the province of scholastic legend and more that of doubting philosophy. Scholasticism still reigns in Bali.

The ancestor-group of over five-hundred members, to be described, has been a significant political force in modern Bali; its sense of corporate and political identity is more developed than that of many ancestor-temple congregations (pemaksan). Yet this group's current use of legends and redefined rites to adjust to heterogenetic, even revolutionary, social changes recalls traditional ways of legitimizing augmented status in Bali in light of new opportunities. The group's elders relate current political policies to classical statecraft and detect varied echoes across the rapid succession of Balinese epochs. They thread together stipple traditions which simultaneously celebrate great traditional Hindu founders of a self-sustaining social unit, articulate folk anxieties over demonic influences in times of hardship, and confront the life and death politics of post-Sukarno Indonesia. Front the details of their own legends and the social context sustaining them, one can appreciate the complexities in the operation of ancestor cults in Bali and perhaps in neighboring islands as well.

The legendary trek of Marketside East

In Bali any politically significant group, regardless of caste standing, embellishes the story of its origins. Although our case study lacks a sacred manuscript legitimizing its status (kawi suda), elders have formulated a piecemeal account, set in an authentic classical landscape:
The ancestors arose out of Klungkung, the culture cradle of classical times. Its