|
|
|
Pre-Burial and Preparation
The signal of death in a house is a coconut-oil lamp hung from a long bamboo pole high over the roof. During the period before cremation, the soul of the deceased is thought to be agitated, longing for release, and the lamp enables the wandering spirit to find its way home in the dark. On the first auspicious day after death, the body is prepared for purification and pre-burial. If the cremation is to take place quickly and the body to remain in the house, it may be mummified. If necessary, the teeth are filed. While prayers and mantras are recited, the corpse is rubbed with a mixture of sandalwood powder, salt, turmeric, rice-flour, and vinegar. The hands are bound and folded over on the breast in the gesture of prayer. Mirror-glass is placed on the eyelids, slivers of steel on the teeth, a gold ring in the mouth, jasmine flowers in the nostrils, and iron nails on the limbs, all to ensure a more perfect rebirth with ‘eyes as bright as mirrors, teeth like steel, breath as fragrant as flowers, and bones of iron’. An egg is rolled over the body, and the corpse then wrapped in many meters of white cloth. If the cremation will be postponed and it's decided the cadaver will be buried and not mummified, the corpse is carried to the graveyard accompanied by chanting relatives bearing offerings. The body is then buried, often simply wrapped in cloth and placed directly on the earth. Open mourning is forbidden; a weeping child is sent out of the cemetery. The body will lie buried until it is burned. A small bamboo altar is erected next to the grave and offerings brought to it daily for 12 days. Forty-two days after death more offerings are placed, at which time it's believed the soul has fled the body. The expense of a cremation ceremony can be staggering. With hundreds of callers to feed, entertain, and keep supplied with cigarettes for as long as a week, a special 'gamelan' ensemble required, and priest's and assistant's fees, an elaborate mass cremation can easily cost eight to 12 million rupiah. It takes 2 million rupiah alone to take down power lines so that cremation towers can pass underneath. But for this spectacular send-off - the life goal of every Balinese - a family is prepared to make sacrifices. One of the kings of southern Bali killed in the mass suicide in Denpasar in 1906 wasn't officially cremated until 28 years after his death. Only then was the family at last able to accumulate enough wealth to give him a proper departure befitting his high rank. |
|
| Copyright © 2002, Bali-Island.com Indonesia |