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Caste in retroflexion It was surprising
to discover the extent to which the question of rank obsesses so simple
and democratic a people as the Balinese. Covarrubias 1937 Generalizations about Balinese status and caste are notoriously difficult.' Covarrubias and others confused the island's local traditions of democracy with egalitarianism. Yet, while a Balinese agriculturalist is willing to give an equal vote to an inferior, there is no implication of an equal share of anything else, least of all ritual purity, social esteem, or sacred merit. Caste in Bali is, to define it most simply,the historical projection over the whole island of a migration legend plus a marriage scheme. Literate traditions record that cacti caste (warna) is descended from a founding Javanese ancestor initially ranked by his function in society; - priest. king, or warrior-administrator. High-caste ancestors are sanctified as perpetuators of these founders. Each warna is internally differentiated into ranks based both on the birth position of the ancestral sons who established the regnant collateral lines and on the different caste-statuses of a given ancestor's multiple wives who produced his descendants. Bali's three upper warna categories - Brahmana. Satria, Wesia - are conceptualized as such expanded ancestor-groups that have organized into temple networks interrelated by an ideology of hierarchy. Often in high-caste accounts. Sudras are ignored they are merely the rest.' This idealization is deceptively simple because if' such a migration and descent legend can be projected once, it can be projected again. In fact, Bali, like other societies with either caste or exogamous clan ideologies, harbors beliefs in composite origins of its population.
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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 |
