THE LOVE LIFE OF THE BALINESE

Besides these innocent and harmless procedures, there is a black and evil sort of magic (pengiwa) when a man or a woman wants to take revenge on a lover; to tie a hair of the victim to a bird which is afterwards released will make the person lose his mind. Another way to make a lover go insane is to make an image of the person using something that belonged to him: a piece of his underclothes, hair, nail-clippings, or earth from his footprint, but with the head either at the place of the sex or at the feet; the whole then inscribed with magic syllables and a formula said over the image.

Menstrual blood anointed on the head of a man infallibly destines him to be henpecked.The love technique of the Balinese is natural and simple; kissing, as we understand it, as a self -sufficient act, is unknown and the caress that substitutes for our mode of kissing consists in bringing the faces close enough to catch each other's perfume and feel the warmth of the skin, with slight movements of the head (ngaras, diman) in the manner which has been wrongly called by Europeans " rubbing noses."

In general, the love practices of Westerners seem to the Balinese impractical and clumsy, especially in relation to intercourse, for which the general adopted form is the man kneeling, the woman reclining, a posture such as Malinowsky describes of the Trobriand Islanders in his Sexual Life of Savages. The Balinese believe that too hasty intercourse can only result in a deformed child. I have insisted that the Balinese are frank in sexual matters, although the terminology for the sexual act is governed by definite rules: there are extremely refined terms like the classic akrida; usual ones, metemu, " to meet "; and unmentionably coarse ones (mekatuk) . There are, besides, terms used for animals, such as metungan and mesaki.

The taboo against incest (salah timpal) extends to certain spiritual relations; it is incest to sleep with the daughter of one's teacher, who is considered as his pupil's spiritual father. A real child cannot marry an adopted brother or sister, and among the Bali Agas cousins are equally forbidden to marry, although the rest of the population does not always agree, especially the nobility, among whom such marriage is often considered desirable.

Tabooed for sexual relations are albinos, idiots, lepers, and in general the sick and deformed. Waking love to a woman of a higher caste is a dreadful breach of caste rules and a dangerous one if discovered - I have mentioned that in old times the couple was killed - although it is not unthinkable that a Sudra boy may have a secret love affair with a noble girl.

links [ 1 ] - [ 2 ] - [ 3 ] - [ 4 ]