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ancestor
group, it suggests more broadly any ancestor-temple-endogamous union. At
the higher caste levels, in which legends and pan-Bali temple networks connect
distant groups, family marriage implies broad caste endogamy, since a caste
is theoretically an ancestor-group and its women therefore of relatively
equal rank. Thus, for individuals in a simple agnatic commoner yard, patricousin
marriage is culturally analogous to the prescribed sacred subcaste-endogamous
regulations of the most preeminent Brahmana.
Balinese are ambivalent about close endogamy at every level it is envisioned. Later we shall see that 'endogamy' occurs between twin siblings (divinely) and brother and sister (mythically), as well as between first cousins (ideally, but dangerously), second cousins (practically, but compromisingly), and more distant kin, only limited by the extension of the ancestor group as incorporated. And just as marrying too near risks the chaos of delirium or affliction if the parties are inadequate, so mythological forms of inmarriage risk social and cosmic chaos if conditions are not ritually perfect. Moreover, in temple-group endogamy the subgroups involved - the 'brothers' - are portrayed ritually as affines. Thus endogamy is twofaced. To see it simply as a way vaguely to solidify a group by having kinsmen wed, would be to miss much of its significance. Endogamy organizes a temple group by momentarily stressing its implicit divisions into affines and by propagating superior descendants related to two divisions. Ancestor-temple endogamy achieves a facsimile of the whole society and cosmos - a hierarchical totality - within the confines of a single ancestor-group. Structuralist terms and twins Many nomenclatures and rules in Bali interrelate social and cosmological strata. Balinese rank everything real and imaginary: (a) offspring (by titled birth-order, interrelated through the repetition in cycles of four); (b) women (by endogamous versus outsider, and also by caste rank below the husband); (c) brothers (by mother's rank in addition to birth order); (d) generations (by teknonymous terms); (c) bilateral kinsmen (by generational terms); (f) individual persons (by beliefs in the four siblinglike components of the human being); (g) pan-society (by caste-status), and so forth.` All these terms and concepts establish distinct generationlike strata. And marriage inevitably connects not just individuals, or simple groups, but the cultural strata that individuals and groups partly represent. An important example of such cultural strata in Bali is the use of so-called teknonymous terms, whose generational aspect 1 would emphasize even more than recent studies (cf. H. and C. Geertz 1964; C. Geertz 1966). Pail Madeg, for example, translates as 'Father of Madeg,' and Madeg's father is called this after the child's birth. But invoking teknonyms as traditionally understood in anthropology creates several problems. First, it misleadingly implies a contrasting set with other naming practices, such as necronyms (named after a deceased person) and autonyms |
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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 |
