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The Progress of the Ancestors in a Balinese Temple-Group (pre-1906–1972)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

James A. Boon
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Extract

Bali has long been reputed for its capacity to maintain a distinctive social and cultural “Balineseness” in face of sweeping change. One persistent component on anthropological lists of Balinese institutions has been the island's “ancestor cult,” often presented as a static custom of principally theological significance. This paper portrays some complexities in the formulation, maintenance, and recent intensification of ancestor lore in a particular group through time. Our subject is a large Sudra group in Tabanan district: how its members explain the origin of their house in the classical era, account for its trials and accomplishments during the Dutch colonial period (1906–1948), and with little sense of discontinuity justify its role in modern Balinese politics, from Indonesian independence through the national elections of 1971. We first detail legends, rituals, and stories—cultural forces in their own right–celebrating central ancestors and leaders from the group's classical, colonial, and modern history. We then describe practical social, political, and economic matters indirectly involved in these traditions. Finally, general conclusions are drawn regarding the significance of ancestors in Balinese society, where legends and rituals commemorating specific deceased leaders are no mere antiquarian escape from the present nor a pale reflection of more practical realities, but an active commentary on, and a contributing force to, a group's internal dynamics and self-esteem.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , November 1974 , pp. 7 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1974

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References

1 This article is based on fieldwork carried out in Bali, Indonesia in 1971–2, first as a Ford Foundation Consultant, then under an N.I.M.H. gram (1 Foi MH 51800.01). Names have been changed, in accordance with N.I.M.H. provisions; present tense refers to 1972. A fuller picture of social structure as it relates to marriage principles and of recent developments in caste compared to reports in the Dutch ethnography appears in James A., Boon, Dynastic Dynamics: Caste and Kinship in Bali Now, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (University of Chicago, 1973).Google Scholar Special thanks to Mildred Gccrtz and also to Olivian Boon, Paul Friedrich, Clifford 'Gceriz, Sherry Ortner, David Schneider, and Milton Singer for comments on earlier drafts of portions of this study.

2 Emphasis on eldest lines is an optional aspect of Baline.ie “descent.” Rules for actual inheritance of house property range from primogeniture to ultimogeniture, and every son assumes particular ceremonial responsibilities fur ancestral shrines according to the share of productive fields and other material wealth received on the father's death. It is in certain textual traditions—the special province of royal houses, but imitated by ascendant commoner groups—that emphasis falls on eldest sons.

3 An overall interpretation of ihe nineteenth century Halinese state and an account of the values involved in its power play is being prepared by Clifford Gcertz in his Negara: The Theatre State in Rali … (m.s.). Another important part of these classical M.E. traditions—marriage and house endogamy—must be postponed to a future article.

4 Geertz, C. itemizes some of the activities of The People's Trade Association of Tabanan in Pedtilers and Princes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 106–109.Google Scholar

5 On the GESTAPU see, for example, Brackman, Arnold C., The Communist Collapse in Indonesia (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969).Google ScholarOn the “academic debate” over whether the army or the PKI initiated the September 30 movement, see Stephen, Sloan, A Study in Political Violence: the Indonesian Experience (Chicago: Rand McNally),50ff.,Google Scholar and the sources he cites. Firsthand impressions of the subsequent massacres in Bali are described in John, Hughes, Indonesian Upheaval (New York, David McKay), 173–183,Google Scholar and Horace, Sutton, “Indonesia's Night of Terror,” Saturday Review, (Feb. 4, 1967), 25–31.Google Scholar

6 These quotations are from Geertz, Clifford, “Form and Variation in Balincse Village Structure,” American Anthropologist 61 (1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar994; and Hildred, and Geeriz, Clifford, “Teknonymy in Bali,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 94, part 2 (1964), 96.Google Scholar

7 Geertz, Hildred, “The Balinese Village” in Skinner, G. W. (ed.), Local, Ethnic and National LOyalties in Village Indonesia (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1959), 25.Google Scholar

8 One way to obtain a more adequate sense of the complicated nature of GOLKAR organization, and of the apparent rationales behind the program as it unfolded prior to the 1971 general elections, is to peruse Indonesian Current Affairs Translation Service. For items on the “;functional groups,” their relation to the armed services, etc., sec the January-June, 1971 issue, 17–22, 87–89, 161–163, 240–46, 315 ff 379–82.

M.E.'s candidates represented three organizations under the GOLKAR banner: KOKARMENDAGRI, the old civil servants' lobby which was converted into a campaign machine, and two similar organizations in other governmental spheres, SOKSI and MKCR; on these aspects of the functional groups, see R. William, Liddle, “The 1971 Indonesian Election: a View from the Village,” Asia, 37, (1972);Google Scholar and “Evolution from Above: National Leadership and Local Development in Indonesia,” Journal 0f Asian Studies XXXII (2) (1973). 287–309.Google Scholar

9 On the range of recent Balinese developments, especially the Warga Pasek and other caste-related movements with political overtones, sec Boon, 0973) Ch. IV. For reflections on the significance of these religious and political trends, especially in Java, sec Clifford, Geertz, “Religious Change and Social Order in Suharto's Indonesia,” Asia, 27, (1972).Google Scholar A study of such developments among the Djarkarta nationalist and Muslim elite was presented by Samson, Allan A., “Kebatinan and Islam in Indonesia: Genesis of a Conflict,” paper presentcd at the 25th Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Chicago, March, 1973.Google Scholar

10 Geertz, Clifford, Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali: an Essay in Cultural Analysis, (New Haven, Yale Southeast Asia Studies, 1966).Google Scholar To see how the high caste ideals were expressed in classical Java, see Schrieke, B., Selected Writings, II: Ruler and Realm in Early Java, Indonesian Sociological Studies, Vol. Ill, (The Hague, W. Van Hoeve, 1957).Google Scholar

11 Grader, C. J., “The State Temples of Mengwi,” and Swellengrebel, J. L., “Introduction,” in Bali, Studies in Life, Thought, and Ritual (The Hague. W. Van Hoeve, 1960).Google Scholar

12 See mosl recently Worsley, P. J. Babad Bule-teng, published dissertation (University of Leiden, 1972).Google Scholar and the sources of Balinese royal chronical (babad) literature he cites.

13 See, for example, Goldman, Irving, Ancient Polynesian Society (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1970).Google Scholar and Sahlins, Marshall, “Poor Man, Rich Man, Big Man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 5, (1963), 285–303,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and their extensive bibliographies.

14 We ate skirting the complex issue of types of Balinese temples. I am alluding above to the “lineage” level temples called dadia by Geertz, C. in his “Tihingan: A Balinese Village” in Villages in Indonesia, Koentjaraningrat (ed.) (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), 210–243.Google Scholar Some dadia (or panti) temples are clearly supported by a genealogical kingroup, as is the case in Marketsidc East. Others arc ideationally a kingroup but qucstionably actually so. Some local so-called village temples are reported by the Dutch to have originally been ancestral dadia temples to which new unrelated residents accrued, thus converting them into a locality origin temple (pura puseh). In Tabanan district certain types of dadia temple congregations (e.g., Pasck) arc less tightly knit than those reported by Geertz or than Markeiside East.