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| October 15, 2007 |
| Bali People |
 LIKE A CONTINUAL UNDER-SEA BALLET, the pulse of life in Bali moves with a measured rhythm reminiscent of the sway of marine plants and the flowing motion of octopus and jellyfish under the sweep of a submarine current. There is a similar correlation of the elegant and decorative people with the clear-cut, extravagant vegetation; of their simple and sensitive temperament with the fertile land.
No other race gives the impression of living in such close touch with nature, creates such a complete feeling of harmony between the people and the surroundings. The slender Balinese bodies are as much a part of the landscape as the palms and the breadfruit trees, and their smooth skins have the same tone as the earth and as the brown rivers where they bathe; a general colour scheme of greens, grays, and ocher's, relieved here and there by bright-coloured sashes and tropical flowers. The Balinese belong in their environment in the same way that a bumming-bird or an orchid belongs in a Central American jungle, or a steel-worker belongs in the grime of Pittsburgh. It was depressing to watch our Balinese friends transplanted to the Paris Fair. They were cold and miserable there in the middle of the summer, shivering in heavy overcoats or wrapped in blankets like red Indians, but they were transformed into normal, beautiful Balinese as soon as they returned from their unhappy experience.
Today the beauty of the Balinese has been exploited to exhaustion in travelogues and by tourist agencies, but as far back as 1619 records mention that Balinese women were in great demand in the slave markets of Bourbon (Reunion), where " they brought as much as 150 florins." The traffic in Balinese slaves continued until 1830, and today there is a colony of Balinese in Batavia, the descendants of former slaves. Their reputation for beauty is well justified: the majority of the population are handsome, with splendid physique and with a dignified elegance of bearing, in both men and women of all ages. From childhood the women walk for miles carrying-heavy loads on their heads; this gives them a great co-ordination of movement, a poised walk and bodily fitness. Old women retain their strength and do not become bent hags. We were astonished at times to discover that the slender, straight silhouette we bad admired from a distance belonged to an old lady with gray hair, walking with ease under forty or fifty pounds of fruit or pottery. Unless physically disabled, elderly people never admit that they are too old or too weak for activity; to " give up " would be dangerous to physical and spiritual health and would render a person vulnerable to attacks of a supernatural character.
Ordinarily free of excessive clothing, the Balinese have small but well-developed bodies, with a peculiar anatomical structure of simple, solid masses reminiscent of Egyptian and Mycenaean sculptures: wide shoulders tapering down in unbroken lines to flexible waists and narrow hips; strong backs, small heads, and firm full breasts. Their slender arms and long legs end in delicate hands and feet, kept skilful and alive by functional use and dance training. Their faces have well-balanced - features, expressive The Beach in Sanur eyes, small noses, and full mouths, and their hair is thick and glossy. Because they are tanned by the sun, their golden-brown skin appears generally darker than it really is, and when seen at a distance, people bathing are considerably whiter around their middles, where the skin is usually covered by clothes, giving the impression that they wear light-coloured pants. Watching a crowd of semi-nude Balinese of all ages, one cannot help wondering what the comparison would be should men and women of our cities suddenly appear in the streets nude above the waist.
Their character is easy, courteous, and gentle, but they can be intense and can show strong temper if aroused. They are gay and witty; there is nothing that a Balinese loves more than a good joke, especially. if it is off-colour, and even children make ribald puns that are applauded by grown-ups. It is perhaps in their mad sense of humour, the spirit of Rabelaisian fun with which they handle even such forbidding subjects as religion and death, that lies the key to their character. The adjective " childish " or 11 childlike," so often misapplied to primitive peoples, does not suit the Balinese, because even the children show a sophistication often lacking in more civilized grown-ups. They are resourceful and intelligent, with acute senses and quick minds. Once, when I mentioned the goodness of a very short friend, the immediate reply was: " How could he be otherwise, be is so small! " One day Spies's monkey got loose and ran all over the house upsetting and breaking things.
All the Balinese boys chased the monkey, but it let them come to within a few feet of it and then leaped out of reach onto the roof or a tree. The only one who did not join in the chase was Rapung, our teacher of Balinese, because he was a newcomer to the household and the monkey snarled and sprung at him every time Rapung passed near where it was tied: they bated each other. When it became plain that the monkey could not be captured so easily, one of the boys had the bright idea of having everybody pretend to attack Rapung, imitating the monkey, making faces, and squealing at him. Soon the monkey forgot that be himself was persecuted and joined in the attack, but when he was most aggressive someone grabbed him.
The pride of the Balinese has not permitted the development of one of the great professions of the East: there are no beggars in Bali. But tourists who lure boys and girls with dimes to take their pictures now threaten this unique distinction, and lately, in places frequented by tourists, people are beginning to ask for money as a return for a service. Ordinarily even a child would be scolded and shamed by anyone who heard him ask something from a stranger. A gift must be reciprocated and we were often embarrassed by the return presents of our poor neighbors. We gave Ketut Adi, a little dancer of eight, a scarf of no great value; one day soon after she came to us with a basket of rice, some eggs, and a live chicken, carried by her mother because the load was too great for her. Children of the neighborhood that Rose had treated for infected wounds always came back with presents of fruit, cakes, or rice which they handed casually to our house-boy, never mentioning them to us, as if they wanted to avoid making a demonstration of their generosity. Even children have a strong sense of pride.
The aristocracy is despotic and arrogant, but the ordinary people, although used to acknowledging the superiority of their masters, are simple and natural in an unservile and unsubmissive way. By the threat of passive disobedience and boycott they kept the princes from overstepping their bounds. Europeans complain that the Balinese make bad servants; they are too free, too frank, and do not respond to the insolent manner that the white man has adopted as " the only way to deal with natives." Their moral code consists in maintaining their traditional behavior, observing their duties towards their fellow villagers and paying due respect to the local feudal princes. Among themselves they are kind and just, avoiding unnecessary quarrels and solving their disputes by the simplest and most direct methods. .1 The villages are organized into compact boards or councils, independent of other villages. Every married man - that is, every grown man - is a member of the council and is morally and physically obliged to co-operate for the welfare of the community.
A man is assisted by his neighbors in every task he cannot perform alone; they help him willingly and as a matter of duty, not expecting any reward other than the knowledge that, were they in his case, he would help in the same manner. In this way paid labors and the relation of boss to coolie are reduced to a minimum in Bali. Since the world of a Balinese is his community, be is anxious to prove his worth, for his own welfare is in direct relation to his social behaviors and his communal standing. Moral sanctions are regarded 2S stronger than physical punishment, and no one will risk the dreaded punishment of exile, from the village, when a man is publicly declared " dead " to his community. Once " thrown away," he cannot be admitted into another of the co-operative villages, so no misfortune could be greater to the Balinese than public disgrace. This makes of every village a closely unified organism in which the communal policy is harmony and co-operation - a system that works to every body's advantage.
By their ingenuity and constant activity they have raised their main occupation, the cultivation of rice, to levels unsurpassed by other rice-growing nations. Being essentially agriculturists, they are not interested in navigation and trade; living the easy life of the tropics, they are satisfied and well fed. The majority works the land for themselves, so they have not yet become wage earners and have enough freedom and leisure left to dedicate to spiritual relaxation. They are extraordinarily fond of music, poetry, and dancing, which have produced a remarkable theatre. Their culture, unlike that of their cultural ancestors, the Javanese, is not yet in frank declin6. Even the common people are better agriculturists, better craftsmen and artists than the average Javanese. The Balinese are by no means a primitive people.
Moreover, unlike the natives of the South Seas and similar races under white domination, the Balinese are not a dying people; far from that, in the last ten years a constant increase in the birth rate has been recorded. The 1930 census gave the population of Bali as 1,148,000 people, or about 500 to the square mile, an enormous figure when compared with the 41 per square mile of the United States. This includes the foreign population: 7,1935 Chinese, 1,544 Arabs and other Mohammedans, and 411 Europeans, of which only a small percentage are of pure European stock, the rest being Eurasians and certain Balinese, Javanese, Chinese, and Japanese who are given equal standing with Europeans by a decree making them " Staatsblad European."
For those interested in knowing something of the racial origins of the Balinese, it may be added that they are by no means a pure race, but a complicated mixture of the native aborigines, with superimposed layers of higher cultures of various types.' The Balinese are descendants of a pure " Indonesian " race mixed with the Hindus of Central and East Java, who were them selves Indonesians of Hindu culture, with Indian and Chinese blood. To these mixtures are further added traces of the Polynesian and Melanesian, the result being a picturesque variety of types among the Balinese: from the noble Hindu and Northern Chinese, to the Malay-Javanese, Polynesian, and even Papuan. While some have sleek hair, high nose bridges, and cream-yellow skins, some are dark and curly haired like South Sea Islanders. Some have large almond eyes, often with the " Mongoloid fold, convex noses, and. fine mouths; others have the concave, flat, broad
Noses, the squinty eyes, bulging foreheads, and prognathic. Jaws of the more primitive Indonesians. Thus the Balinese of today are the same people as the Hindu-Javanese of pre-Mohammedan Java, in the sense that they both underwent the same racial and Cultural influences.Labels: Culture |
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