Mun and I left Amed at 7:00 am Friday morning headed for the cremation ceremony in Selat which we were told started at 9:00. We had calculated that it would take us one and a half to two hours to drive to Selat. We didn’t count on the rain.

We drove through village after village, making our usual frequent stops for directions. All the while a light rain was falling, impeding our progress and making us wet and cold. It was much different driving under these hurried, damp conditions than it was when we were driving on a sunny day and had the time to meander and stop when we pleased.

people gathered outside the Selat temple (photo courtesy of Mun)

We made it to Selat in fairly good time though considering the circumstances, arriving shortly after 9:00. The rain stopped at about the same time. As we got close to the village, we noticed a number of people all dressed up and walking in large numbers into town. All the action seemed to be centered around the same temple we had stopped at two days earlier where we saw many people carrying in baskets of offerings.

We slowed our bike to a crawl and asked people walking along beside us what was going on. They explained that a ceremony was about to begin and then said something about honoring souls and burning. “Ah!” we thought. “This must be the cremation ceremony we’re looking for.” I was a little confused though because we were in a different village than the one where we were invited to the cremation ceremony. Also, people were gathering in the temple and, as far as I had read, cremation ceremonies typically involved a raucous procession in the streets followed by the actual cremation in a cemetary. I wasn’t expecting a temple to be involved. I’ve learned here to just go with the flow though so Mun and I drove on, searching for the man who had invited us and who had offered to rent us the proper clothing to attend.

We didn’t remember the name of the man who invited us (probably Wayan or Nyoman!) and we had only a vague recollection of the intersection at which he lived. We drove for about 15 or 20 minutes searching, unable to find it or him. We decided just to try to rent or buy clothing from someone else so we stopped at the house of a family standing at their gate, all dressed up. “Where can we buy sarongs, kebaya and udeng?” we asked them, explaining that we had been invited to the ceremony but couldn’t find our invitee. Typically hospitable Balinese, these strangers invited us into their home and offered to loan us their clothes with no request for any rental fee.

Mun being fitted for his sarong

Although this is starting to become a semi-regular occurence for me, I’m still genuinely surprised and humbled each time it happens and no less so this time as these people were complete strangers to us. I guess this doesn’t happen often for the Balinese, however, because each time they become quite excited at the prospect of helping us foreignors play dress-up. Both the husband and wife, grown adults at least the same age as my parents, became like little kids, laughing and running to get the clothes and having fun as they dressed us like we were dolls. Their neighbors somehow found out what was going on and gathered in the courtyard to watch the goings on.

Ayu, me, Raka & Mun

When we were dressed, Ayu (the wife) and Raka (the husband) offered to keep our bags and helmets for us while we went to the ceremony. They trusted us with their clothes so we trusted them with our belongings. We hopped on our motorbike and hurried back to the temple, anxious not to miss anything.

We were both stunned as we walked through the temple gates. There were easily over 1000 people inside all milling about, almost all of them wearing white or cream colored tops. Although we weren’t sure what we were looking for, it didn’t seem that any ceremony had started. Although I would have easily stood out anyway with my white skin, I was an especially obvious standout with the bright red kebaya that Ayu had selected for me. Mun, with his brown Indian/Malaysian skin and cream colored top easily blended in with the locals and was often mistaken for Indonesian. I’m not sure if the color of my shirt was a “party faux pas” or not, but if it was, the locals outwardly overlooked it graciously as many sought me out for conversation.

I had read a bit about cremation ceremonies before coming to Bali and what I was seeing didn’t fit anything I’d read. There was a man standing with a white cow wrapped in a white sheet. Three other men each held a baby pig, baby chick and baby goose respectively, each also draped in white cloth. All four animals wore necklaces of old brass chinese coins, round with a rectangular hole in the center. Many women were carrying offerings on their heads as they stood around. Everyone seemed to be waiting for the ceremony to begin. One of the open-air bamboo structures in the middle of the temple grounds had a second story where a few people lingered. I was told that Mun and I could go upstairs after the ceremony, but not at this time. It started to rain again so we crammed under a bamboo thatched structure with everyone else, our feet sinking in the wet mud, and waited … like everyone else.

the crowds (actually this photo was taken at the end of the ceremony so the crowds had greatly thinned out by this time)

Several women struck up a conversation with us, asking us where we were from and how we came to know about the ceremony. We explained that we had been invited but couldn’t find our host. No one seemed to mind that we were there un-hosted though. We asked about the schedule of events and were told that this was a ceremony to honor 700 souls. “Wow! We’ve stumbled into a mass cremation,” I thought. Cool.

In Bali, cremation ceremonies are very expensive by Balinese standards often costing $5000 or more which is frequently more than families can afford. Most families cannot afford immediate cremation for their deceased relatives at the time of death so many Balinese are buried with minimal ceremonies until the family can save the money to hold a cremation ceremony at which time the body is exhumed. Sometimes, this may take up to 10 years. The Balinese consider it bad luck to have too many bodies buried in the cemetery for too long so sometimes the village will pool money together and hold a mass cremation ceremony for all the as-yet uncremated village members. It’s a very special occasion when this occurs and I was beginning to think that’s what Mun and I were about to witness. I was wrong.

men holding animals to be used (not sacrificed) in ceremony

After continuing to ask many questions, we ultimately discovered that we were not attending a cremation ceremony, but a ceremony to honor 700 souls that had already been cremated at some point in the past. While I was delighted to be learning about a new kind of ceremony and thrilled to be included in anything, I was disappointed that I wouldn’t see a cremation ceremony.

Now if you are unfamiliar with the customs of a Balinese cremation ceremony, you might think my near obsession with them to be a bit macabre. Let me explain. First, unlike in India and some other countries, you don’t see the actual body being burned in a Balinese cremation. In fact, the entire event is rather a dramatic production with very festive overtones. In Bali, a cremation starts with a parade through the village streets. The entire village participates in a loud, partying atmosphere.

They carry a number of tall, elaborately made and brightly painted wooden structures that are art in themselves, each having been made specifically for this one and only event. One of the structures carries the body of the deceased wrapped in a sheet. As that particular structure arrives at an intersection in the streets, the Balinese shake it violently and spin it around in circles. They believe that doing so confuses the soul of the deceased so that it cannot find its way home so it will proceed on its soulful journey upon cremation and not linger and haunt the family. So it’s really this part of the cremation ceremony and not necessarily the actual burning of the body that fascinates me and that I was hoping to witness. Unfortunately, it looked like Mun and I had encountered some language barriers two days earlier and had actually been invited to a different kind of ceremony than a cremation.

ceremonial goose

Still, a Balinese ceremony of any kind intrigues me and this was one I hadn’t heard of before so I was easily contented photographing, watching and asking questions. I was fortunate to strike up a conversation with an Indonesian man named Wayan who teaches computer science and whose English was fabulous. He filled me in on much of what Mun and I were seeing.

He explained that the ceremony we were witnessing was called Memukur, a post-cremation ceremony the purifies the soul so that it can go to heaven. In Bali, the purpose of cremation is to free the soul of all worldly attachments, particularly the body, by turning the body to ashes. Cremation, however, is only the first step toward reincarnation. Memukur completes the process by cleansing the soul, allowing it to enter heaven to be reincarnated. Without this purification, the Balinese believe the soul stays trapped on Earth and is blocked from reincarnation.

women with sekahs

Wayan explained that the particular Memukur that we were witnessing was cleansing the souls of 700 deceased and already cremated Balinese. Each soul in the ceremony was represented by an ornate effigy called a sekah and contained the name of the person represented. The bamboo frame of each sekah was draped in white and yellow cloth, colors representing the purity to be achieved for each soul; the same reason each of the young animals I witnessed were draped in white cloth.

Wayan told us that the Memukur lasted several days and would continue for two more days after the portion of the ceremony that we were witnessing. After the ceremony, I learned that each sekah is burned at some point during the Memukur as a symbolic second cremation. The ashes from this burning are placed in the shell of a young coconut and the container and its special contents are called a puspa. Two days after the ceremony we witnessed, the puspas would be carried by family members in an elaborate procession to the ocean several hours away and thrown into the sea finally completing the death rites of the individual deceased.

Now that I understood a bit more about what I was witnessing, I turned my attention to the activities and events at hand. Many people were beginning to come down from the off-limits second floor, each carrying a sekah on their head. It was important that they be carried on the head and not in the arms because the Balinese consider the head to the highest and most holy part of the body and therefore closest to God. Each sekah bore the name of the soul it represented and was created and carried by a family member of the deceased.

sekah

Each sekah-bearing person lined up single file for a procession that was lead by the man leading the cow and the other three men holding the baby animals. In a long snaking line, the 704 participants processed three times around the temple grounds. Wayan explained that each round symbolized the three levels of existence: Bhur – lower beings; Bwah – humans and Swah – gods. At the end of the procession, each person delivered their sekah to a high priest manning a large building that had an altar-type feel. Wayan told me that there were four “altars,” one for each caste. The high caste people delivered their sekahs first, followed in order by each of the lower castes.

As the lower castes were delivering their sekahs to their respective priests and altars, a traditional dance started under a canopy about 40 yards away. We hurried over to see it but there was already a crowd gathered around. Mun, who’s quite a bit taller than I am, video’d it for me (and you!). In fact, I need to give a big shout-out to Mun who helped considerably with the photography for this event. My description of the goings on makes it sound much more organized and contained than it actually was. There were many things going on at the same time and often in vastly different places. Throughout the entire event, he would video as I would shoot and then we’d swap equipment and he would shoot as I would video. I tremendously appreciated his help!

Wayan and me

All of these events took about 3.5 hours. They still weren’t quite finished by the time Mun and I were ready to go, but our stomachs were growling. It was time to find some lunch. We thanked Wayan for his guidance (keeping me from going places I shouldn’t) and information, said goodbye to other people we’d met and headed for our bike. We’d been driving for about ten minutes scouring for a lunch spot, when I told Mun, “That was really cool, but I have to admit that I’m still a bit disappointed that it wasn’t a cremation ceremony. I really had my hopes up and …” Wait! What was this?

Coming up a small street and headed straight for us, was a group of noisy merry-makers carrying colorful wooden structures on large bamboo grids. “What’s going on?” I asked a local standing nearby. “Someone died,” he answered. “We’re having a cremation ceremony.”

I had goosebumps all over my body as I awaited their arrival! I did a quick check. After the morning shoot I had 42 photos left on my Canon 5D. There’s no way that would last me. Hmm – I could change from RAW to Large format and be able to shoot more, I thought. Batteries were ok on that camera, but were starting to fade on the video camera. Still had 4 GB of unused memory for video but needed to swap out batteries.

Mun was wiped out from the morning shoot and thought my fascination with the cremation ceremony was a bit morbid. Luckily, the procession passed right in front of our newly adopted family’s home so we dropped Mun and the bike off, I swapped out video batteries and ran back out into the street to continue with the procession on foot. I was so excited I could barely stand it! (to be continued)

Click here to see video of the Memukur ceremony and accompanying Balinese dance.

Additional photos for this and other blog entries can be found on the “Photos of Her Adventure” page of this blog.