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EVERYDAY LIFE IN BALI THE HOUSE The household of Gedog, our next-door neighbour in Belaluan, was typical; the place of honour, the higher “ north-east corner of the house towards the mountain,' was occupied by th sanggah kemulan, the family temple where Gedog worshippe, his ancestors. The sanggah was an elemental version of the formal village temple: a walled space containing a number of little empty god-houses and a shed for offerings. The main shrine, dedicated to the ancestral souls, was a little house on stilt divided into three compartments, each with a small door. There were other small shrines for the two great mountains - the Gunung Agung and Batur - and for the taksu and ngrurah, the “ interpreter “ and “ secretary “ of the deities. In Gedog's hous the altars were of bamboo with thatch roofs, but in the home c Gusti's uncle, the noble judge who lived across the road, the family shrine was as elaborate as the village temple, with a moat carved stone gates, brick altars, and expensive roofs of sugarpalm fibre. Such a temple is not a modest sanggah, but receive the more impressive name of pameradjan. Noble people pa special attention to the shrine for the deer-god Mendjanga Seluang, the totemic animal of the descendants of Madjapahi the Javanese masters of Bali. Next in importance to the temple was the uma meten, th sleeping-quarters of Gedog and his wife, built towards the mom ‘Endless ill luck would follow whoever ignored the laws of rank and built dwelling at a level higher than a temple. The Balinese have resented the building a Government rest-house on a hill above the holy temple of Tirta Empul Tampaksiring, and our servant Pugog insisted he could not bring his wife to Tjampuan because the temple across the ravine was at a lower level than the house, and intercourse with a woman there could only result in a catastrophe.tain side of the house. The meten was a small building on a plat-form of bricks or sandstone, with a thick roof of thatch supported by eight posts and surrounded by four walls. There were no vindows in the meten and the only light came through the narow door. When one's eyes grew accustomed to the darkness inside, one could see the only furniture, the two beds, one on either side of the door. In more elaborate homes the platform of , the meten extends into a front porch with additional beds.
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