Every stage of the rice cycle is accompanied by rituals, some simple, others elaborate, to ensure a bountiful harvest.
An offering to Dewi Sri, the rice goddess, includes a symbolic depiction of the goddess herself A representation of the life force, she is the most widely worshipped deity in Bali.
The so-called rice revolution has had an enormous impact on Bali, as it has on all Asian rice-growing countries. For more than twenty years, the International Rice Research Institute, headquartered in the Philippines, has been developing high-yield rice strains resistant to disease and pests. Bali's traditional rice variety, beras Bali, is a graceful plant that reaches a height of around 1.4 metres. It has a superior flavour and many Balinese willingly pay up to four times the price of ordinary rice for it. But the most widely used new rice in Bali is the unimaginatively named IR36, developed by the IRRI.
This so-called "miracle" rice takes roughly 120 days to mature compared to the 150 days required for beras Bali. It is now grown in 90 percent of Bali's rice fields. Traditionally, the long stems of beras Bali were tied together in sheaves, carried to the granary for storing, then pounded in a big wooden mortar to dislodge the husks when rice was needed. The stems of IR36, however, are short (half the height of beras Bali) and the grains easily dislodged. Thus, threshing has to take place immediately after harvesting. Certain traditional rice harvesting practices, including the construction of granaries, are dying out with the introduction of the new varieties. The Balinese acknowledge the superior yield and growth rate of the new plants: in 1979, Bali almost doubled the amount of rice it had harvested a decade earlier.
Since 1984, Indonesia has been able to provide sufficient rice to feed its burgeoning population and can now concentrate on developing varieties better suited to local conditions. The Department of Agriculture is now experimenting with rice strains that can, it is hoped, eventually be reconciled with the basic foundations of Balinese culture. Dewi Sri, it seems certain, will continue to be honoured and her blessings sought for many more generations.
Daily Life in Bali
Harmony and cooperation within
the village compound
The rhythm of the day in a typical Balinese family compound is ruled by the rice harvest, governed by tradition and watched over by the gods. Several generations usually live together in the compound, which is laid out in accordance with esoteric Balinese principles and surrounded by a mud or brick wall. The holiest part of the land (that which faces the mountains) is reserved for the various shrines honoring the gods and ancestral spirits.
Beyond this enclosed area are a series of other pavilions or rooms used as sleeping and living quarters, with the kitchen or paon and the bathroom near the least auspicious part of the property-that closest to the sea. Farthest of all from the holy area one finds the family pigsty (there is always at least one occupant being fattened up for the next important feast) and the rubbish pit.
Flowering trees and shrubs (a source of blooms for the daily offerings) are dotted about the compound, while the gardens at the back often contain several fruit trees: papayas, bananas (their leaves essential for wrapping food) and coconut palms, among others.
The women are always occupied, cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, sweeping and preparing offerings. Older women often take the daily offerings around the compound, setting them before the various shrines before anyone has their first meal of the day, as well as performing other tasks, such as feeding the pigs, weaving offerings, making special rice cakes and keeping an eye on the youngest children.
The old men who are no longer fit for work in the fields pass the day slicing strips of bamboo and shaping them into baskets, repairing tools or utensils, and doing odd jobs about the yard. When nothing remains to be done, or they feel like taking a break, they wander off to a nearby wan mg (simple local store) for a cup of coffee and a chat with friends.
Towards the end of day, when it's cooler and the younger men have returned from the fields, they may all gather to watch a cockfight. Although gambling is forbidden throughout Indonesia, there's always a corner of every village where this traditional sport goes on, with scant regard for the law.
Making the daily offerings in the family compound.
The market at Denpasar, Bali's capital, is the largest and most colourful on the island.
A chilli vendor in the vegetable market at Batur sorts her wares.
Young girls learn the tasks of a woman in the same way they learn to dance-by imitating their elders from a very early age and perfecting technique over time. The bale gede is usually where women gather to prepare temple offerings, including weaving young coconut palm leaves into trays, baskets, or complex hangings.
This pavilion is also where utensils and other objects involved in worship are stored (generally in the rafters) and where ceremonies involving rites of passage, such as weddings and tooth filings, take place. (The Balinese abhor pointed canine teeth, which they say makes them look like animals, and they are filed down by priests usually when youths reach puberty.)
Culinary skills are passed on from mother to daughter down the generations. Girls frequently undertake the daily task of peeling shallots and garlic, slicing and chopping seasonings, and grinding spice pastes with a mortar and pestle. They are also entrusted with cutting banana leaves and trimming them into shape so that they can be filled with food, folded and secured with a sliver of bamboo.
The complex ingredients for Balinese food and ritual offerings are all committed to memory. No Balinese woman ever needs to consult a cookbook for a Balinese recipe, although a modern woman might follow a recipe for dishes from other Indonesian regions.
Many families now have television sets, and most bale banjar, or community centres, also have a set where anyone can gather to watch programs in Indonesian, English or Balinese. Early evenings are also the time when the various cooperative organisations meet for discussions and planning, and there are also informal "drinking clubs," where the men meet over a glass of tuak (palm brew).
By about 9 pm, doors of the enclosure are closed against any malign spirits that may be wandering in the night, and the only lights to be seen in the village are those of twinkling fireflies.
At Home with Ibu Rani
A day in the life of a Balinese cook
Mangku Gerjar, an elderly priest from the village of Ubud in central Bali, lives with his extended family in a typical compound. The compound houses a total of thirteen people: he and his wife, Ibu Kawi, their three married sons, and their wives and children. Mangku Gerjar's youngest son, Nyoman Bahula, and his wife, Rani, are modern Balinese, having only two children, Rudi and Lies.
In the morning, once the children have gone to school, Ibu Rani sets off to market. (Ibu, a polite Indonesian term of address for a married woman, is not actually used among the Balinese, who have a very complex system of names.) By 7 am the market is already crowded. Rani bypasses mounds of brilliant flowers and coconut-leaf offering trays to select a few pounds of purple-skinned sweet potatoes. From piles of vivid leafy green vegetables, she picks out a couple of bundles of water spinach or kang kung Next into the shopping basket goes a paper twist of raw peanuts and a leaf-wrapped slab of fermented soybean cake (tempeh).
Rani pauses by some enamel basins full of fish in brine, changes her mind and settles for a bag of tiny, frantically wriggling eels caught in the rice fields, then goes to the meat stall and buys a piece of pork and a small plastic bag