Dances, Blessings, Funerals and Movies
The hotel had a floor show of sorts around dinner time on Monday Oct 17– 3 Balinese dancers, elaborately dressed and masked. The music sounded like bells or gongs – instruments were made of stone and the musicians struck them with something like a hammer. The dances were stylized – hand movements and particularly finger movements were quite prominent – they seemed to have exceedingly long fingers. The next morning one of the hotel staff told us that they grow their nails very long. They looked to be about 3 or 4 inches long to me. I wonder how they manage to do anything with their hands except dance with nails that long.
They dancers were eager to pose for pictures with us at the end of the performances.
On Tuesday, Oct 18 the hotel arranged an outing for us at Tanah Lot, a Hindu Temple, famous because it is surrounded by water at high tide and can only be accessed at low tide. The visit included a Hindu blessing ceremony which meant we would enter the temple and therefore had to wear sarongs and sashes. The sarongs were beautiful black and white print fabric which the hotel staff wrapped around us. Then a white sash was added at the waist. In addition, Ira’s head was wrapped in a piece of fabric to make a udeng.
It was not easy walking around in the sarong for me because of the way it was wrapped and even harder to navigate the temple’s steps which were very steep but I managed. Before entering there was hand and face washing and either rice or salt stuck onto our foreheads. We climbed up to the platform for the ceremony and were instructed about what to do at each stage– at some points we were instructed to hold certain colored flowers which were in a small copper dish in front of us, at other times to hold our hands together in prayer position, still other times asked to open them. Salt was rubbed on our foreheads, holy water poured on our heads, and at the end three strings (white, black, red) were twisted together and then tied around each of our wrists. Ira really got into it but because of the tightness of the sarong women must perch on their knees. Painful. (Ira got to sit in a lotus position)
We passed a funeral on the way to the Temple but the deceased must have been either quite old or really disliked since no one seemed too upset. The custom is to carry the body on bamboo poles to the gravesite for burial and then burn the bamboo. (I have no idea if a coffin is involved) It was the smoke from the burning bamboo that we spotted. The women were all dressed alike and were happy for me to take their pictures.
Tuesday Oct 18 was movie night. I had no intention of going but the staff practically begged us and started the film early. We were the only ones there. It was an old silent film made by the Dutch in the thirties or forties mainly depicting Balinese traditions. The title was something like The Last Dance of the Virgin. The film was organized around a universal story – young girl falls in love, gets jilted (for her sister no less), and the shame causes her to kill herself. It was waaay too long. Still, I am glad we went.
