EVERYDAY LIFE IN BALI

COSTUME AND ADORNMENT

At home and at work the Balinese like to be free of excessive clothing; ordinarily the dress of both men and women consists simply of a skirt called kamben (the women wear an underskirt tapih) of Javanese batik or domestic hand-woven material, an a head-cloth. The women wear this skirt wrapped tight around the hips, reaching down to the feet and held at the waist by a bright-coloured sash (bulang) .

Along scarf (kamben tjerik) in pale pink, yellow, or white cotton completes the costume. You girls love gay batiks from Pekalongan, full of birds and flow, in red and blue on a white ground, or hand-woven skirts of yellow and green for feasts, but older women prefer conservative brown and indigo or black silk enlivened by a green, yellow, or peach sash. The scarf is generally thrown over one shoulder or wound around the head to keep the hair in place, but it also serves a cushion for a heavy basket carried on the head, or to wrap over the breasts when appearing in front of a superior or entering the temple, because, although the Balinese are accustomed to nude above the waist, it is a rule of etiquette, for both men a women, that the breast must be covered for formal dress.

This is purely a formula and does not imply that it is wrong to go with uncovered breasts; often the cloth is worn loosely around t waist, leaving the torso free; but even modernized Balinese, who generally wear a shirt or blouse, wrap the breast-cloth across their chest or around their middles when they wish to appear properly dressed.

For daily wear the men also wear a kamben, a single piece batik reaching from the waist to a little below the knees, tied the front and leaving a trailing end that falls into pleats. The kamben can be pulled up and tied into an abbreviated loincloth when the men work in the ricefields. An indispensable part the men's dress is the head-cloth (udeng) , a square piece of batik worn as a turban and tied in an amazing variety of styles.

Each man ties his udeng in a manner individual to himself, taking good care that the folds form a certain pattern and that the end sticks out just right. Conservative Balinese wear the udeng with a corner high like a crest, but the young generation prefers small tight turbans with the four points neatly arranged in differ directions. Children generally wear only a lock of hair on their foreheads, but little girls learn feminine propriety by wearing a skirt many years before the boys. Priests dress all in white and one can recognize a high priest (pedanda, " staff-bearer ") because he goes bareheaded and carries a staff (danda) topped by a crystal ball (suryakanta, "the glitter of the sun”) symbol of his authority.

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