THE ANCIENT SURVIVAL: THE BALI AGA

Taking into consideration the laboriousness of the dyeing, the painstaking, difficult weaving, and the mystery that surrounds the secret process, it is easy to understand why the popular mind has endowed the kamben gringsing with such extraordinary powers. In Tenganan the scarfs are an essential part of ceremonial dress, and I-Tanggu told me that if he sold his he would lose his place in the village council. Only the finest scarfs are worn in Tenganan; imperfect ones or those in which the dyes fail to produce the required tones are sold to outsiders.

In North Bali, on the slopes of the Batur, above Tedjakula, is the Bali Aga village of Sembiran, where even the dally language is different from that of the rest of Bali. There, as in Tenganan,”temple" is a group of rough stone altars surrounded by a neglected fence. It is hidden in the jungle near the edge of a deep ravine, a dangerous haunted place, where not even the people of Sembiran would venture alone.

In Sembiran the dead are not buried; after washing the corpse, it is wrapped in new cloth carried to the edge of the ravine, and deposited on a bamboo platform with offerings, consecrated water, and the belonging of the deceased. There it is left for three days; if, after that, .is not disappeared, this means that the spirits did not care to take it, so it is thrown unceremoniously into the ravine to be eaten by wild beasts.

There are many other mountain villages that have resisted the influence of Hinduism. Although not as extraordinary as Tenganan and Sembiran, they are equally conservative Bali Aga, like Trunyan on the shores of Lake Batur, where the largest statue in Bali is kept, that of Ratu Gede Pantjering Djagat, powerful patron guardian of the village. There is Taro, the home of Kebo Iwa, a fearful giant of pre-Hindu days who was so great that there was never enough food to feed him and he went about eating people.

To provide him with a place to sleep, the villagers of Taro built the longest council house in Bali. He is supposed to have carved all the ancient monuments and sculptured caves with his own fingernails. In the highlands between the Batur and the Bratan, the Gunung Agung and the Batukau, there are many Bali Aga villages, and in some, like Selulung, Batukaang, and Tjatur, there are remains of ancient and primitive monuments; stone statues and small pyramids, some of which are purely Indonesian in character, while others show early Hindu, perhaps Buddhist influence. In the Bali Aga villages there is much that remains of the ancient race who once inhabited all of Bali, but who were to become the fascinating Balinese of today.

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