|
|
|
The Ceremony
HAVING spent the previous two or three nights praying while confined in bale built for the occasion within the high-caste family's compound, from two to 100 initiates are assembled, dressed in white and yellow to signify holiness. Girls wear precious kamben (breast cloth), the finest the family can afford, with garments as ornate as those of legong dancers. Boys wear a songket from the armpits to the knees, a kris protruding from a yellow sash in the back. The ceremony begins with the pedanda sprinkling holy water and blessing the group with mantras. Offerings are placed before the gods of sexual love. The initiates lie down on the richly draped bamboo platform wide-eyed and frightened, clutching their pillows as close relatives ring around. Incense is lit, mouthwash placed at the ready, files and whetstones blessed to cleanse them and render the operation painless. Magic symbols (aksara) are inscribed on the teeth. The ‘dentist’ (sangging) first places a small cylinder of sugarcane in the corners of the mouth to prop the jaws open and prevent gagging. The front two upper canines are filed so they're even with the upper incisors; it's important to effect an even line of short teeth. The actual filing requires about five to 10 minutes. A mirror is provided to allow the patient to observe the progress of the ritual. Filings are spit into a yellow coconut. Tears may roll down their cheeks, but the filees seldom cry out. Sometimes members of the family sing a kakawin about Arjuna, the brave young hero of the Mahabharata epic, to bolster the spirits of their loved ones, someone else may recite Kawi translated into vernacular Balinese. To lighten the atmosphere, the sangging may joke with the filee as he files. After consulting with his girlfriend, wife, or mother, a boy may decide he still possesses too much animality and lie back down on the bed for more filing. Occasionally, there are requests for just a few token, symbolic strokes of the file. When the filing is finished, the astringent betel pepper leaf (base) is rubbed on the ends of the teeth, then the pedanda places various other soothing, healing tinctures on the end of the initiate's tongues. The coconut shell receptacle of filing debris and saliva is then buried behind the ancestral shrine lest it be occupied by evil spirits. |
|
| Copyright © 2002, Bali-Island.com Indonesia |