It is an hour before dawn, when I gently sloping hill in the cemetery outside the village Blangsinga make my way to the top, on the island of Bali. There is no wind and a scimitar of a new moon hangs overhead.
I. In step with falling perhaps fifty or so men carrying an assortment of tools for digging Hoes, shovels, picks and long metal spikes are worn nonchalantly over their shoulders. In a way, we resemble a motley medieval army to fight a battle.
Upon arriving at the cemetery, the men divided into small groups and make for their assigned family grave. In the darkness I can listen to dig in their task other already. As the new day begins to dawn and the light casts its morning glow I see, in rows, gaudy platforms and life-size animal figures stand in rows under the trees looming over me. Elephants, bulls, both black and white, as if to keep watch dragon and giant fish like giant rear guard on the morning procedure.
Today is a special day for the village and the hundreds, if not thousands, of family, distant relatives and a host of friends, many of whom have traveled great distances to be here, the dead gathering farewell , One hundred and eleven corpses are exhumed, washed the bones and carefully in white muslin and put in their assigned sarcophagus, blessed by priests wrapped with holy water before they are burned and sent into the afterlife.
A Balinese cremation is, to the western eye, a dramatic event that can leave viewers confused by its complexity, as the cremation ceremony has actually nothing to do with a dead body. In Bali, the body is no more than an impure, temporary shell, at all has no meaning, except when the container of the soul and its anchor to the ground.
At the time of death all thoughts focused on the mind and its path in the sky. Instead of mourning, prefer the Balinese to throw a big party to the souls of the dead in unity with God.
to speed up the soul of a man who dies leaving the body immediately. First, the Atman (the immortal soul) hovering near the body sometimes as spirit that the deceased family can interfere. Only after the five elements of the body (air, earth, fire, water and space) is returned by firing on the macrocosm, can completely solve the soul itself from the body.
The sun now its way above makes the line of trees and the light glistens on the variety of colors that make up scattered hundred or so large and small sarcophagi throughout the cemetery. It shouts and laughter of the rapidly growing number, as a procession of women coming objects in silver bowls on the head bears. A large orchestra of men and dressed in vivid, purple jackets boy adds to the growing noise.
mass cremations are never easy.
There is a widespread belief that no cost should be spared final send-off of the soul and any skimping constitutes disrespect to the deceased. A cheap cremation is a pretty bad way considered to start the afterlife. These ceremonies can, and have millions of Rupiah costs that can tax the resources of families heavily involved than hundreds of people in the lead up to the big day, take weeks and even months of preparation. Not only are impressed by a large cremation the spirits, but the family is gaining prestige and status in the village with an expensive ceremony.
Today's special event is a "communal" cremation, where the funds are combined, in fact, so the cost is spread over all the participants, so that the load is reduced to the poorest in the community.
With all the thousands of details prior to the event, it seems to be no checklist, as essentially no one is responsible, but it all works in typical Balinese cooperative fashion from.
The excavator who change places regularly, the graves are discovered deep in and finally the buried body, wrapped in white shrouds in the earth. The family members present now jostle position to the grave and a white ribbon to a three-pointed stick fastened by the blob blob tree lowered ceremoniously in the open pit.
cry with a powerful "one, two, three", the rest corpse is rather unceremoniously hoisted on the side of the grave. The call I am told is the sleep wake the dead!
Once there, it is gently unwrapped, exposed bone, washed in holy water and carefully arranged before they wrapped in pure white muslin. The body will then shoulder-high supported by several men, carried three times around the grave before the allocated sarcophagus and placed inside.
Once all the bodies were exhumed, it seems, it is time for lunch and a bit of a break. Cheerful vendors have set up stalls selling all sorts of food and beverages, while balloon sellers aloft hike their colorful goods holds among the masses, followed by bands of excited children.
I take my rest and lunch at the family home of my host, Leo Sinatra, of looking at some of the more intricate details of the day's events in fills. to be fed in a suitable manner and we rest on the way back to the cemetery by a large procession of family members make offers on their heads.
The orchestra last in fine form is wearing the education!
children, mothers and wives carry photographs or paintings of the deceased and the mood is merry with laughter and take place along the line of scrimmage. Each family breaks their offers in their family to deposit sarcophagi, visited by a priest, the holy water sprinkled from clay pots that are ceremonially broken when the ritual is complete.
This takes a while, and a torpid lull falls over the crowd, which now measures of at least three thousand. You sit in the shade on local gossip catch up and chat with relatives who have traveled from all over Indonesia to participate this grandest ceremonies.
Then bear without warning, young men racing through the crowd burning torches and within minutes the serene scene is not as quiet as the entire cemetery suddenly in flames. This is high drama at the highest level.
start The giant sarcophagi to smoke and then keep as catches fire, flames dancing around the elaborate structures it in yellow Busts fire, explode the crackling consuming and sparks. I'm in a rush, try to take around me desperately as many pictures as possible, while at the same breaks to avoid the fierce heat. I am beginning to understand how it must be for a photographer in a war zone!
burning elephants, bulls and dragons are quickly consumed in the flames and slowly begin to fall from their high platforms. All too soon it's over, and as the heat subsides, I walk through the charred remains. Black and scorched dragon; Heads do seem to breathe fire while Elephant Trunk are now reduced to smoldering appendage. This is certainly new meaning to the term "ashes to ashes"!
Tonight the ashes are collected in the temple and received and guarded overnight before a grand procession tomorrow makes its way to the sea. This story, however, I will another time
NB .:
I am indebted to Fred B. Eisman JR whose essays Bali: Sekala & Niskala was helpful in giving me an insight the complexity of Balinese cremation.
and Leo Sinatra so willingly for its exceptional hospitality and intimate knowledge that he gave.
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