Meeting with the gods

by Christin Sasse (Germany)

Making a local connection Indonesia

The procession of white schemes slowly moves up the hill, contrasting brightly against the dark green of the meadows. Balinese believe that the gods reside on the mountains, climbing the stairs towards the sky shall therefore bring us closer to divine grounds. Although the sun has already moved towards the horizon and the hill is steeped in golden light, the temperatures of the day have not dropped yet. It is awfully hot in my long sarong and long sleeves. I stick out of the mass as the only foreigner in their midst. With a wide smile Anda passes me a small plaited bowl filled with colorful flowers. I sit on the concrete floor of the small temple on top of the hill. It is a plain building compared to all the giant ornamented temples I have already seen on the island. White and yellow umbrellas stand between the tables, where people present their offerings to the gods. I remember that yellow is the identification color of Mahadewa, the protecting god of the west. In the front, men in white cloths are sitting around a priest, whose voice is spread all over the hill by small speakers hanging in the trees. He chants a text from the tiny book in his hands. ‘He sings about old stories about the gods’ Anda explains while her little son climbs on her lap. I met the beautiful young woman with the warm brown eyes at my hotel and she invited me to accompany her today. I have the honor to be part of a temple ceremony, which takes place only every six months. Many people from the village participate. Everybody wears colorful sarongs and whereas the men are in white shirts with the traditional headdress, the women wear mainly white but also yellow or pink long-sleeved blouses in delicate lace. The scent of incense sticks lies in the warm and humid air. Children play on the ground and it does not only feel like a religious event, but rather like a big family meeting. Many brought food and drinks and a constant mumbling lies over the temple. During the early state of the ceremony nobody really seems to listen. My huge camera turns out to be a door opener - the kids are fascinated and quickly gather around me, pose and enjoy the pictures I show them. Anda’s son giggles and urges me to take more photos of him. People around start craning their necks in order to get a glimpse of this unfamiliar scene. An elderly woman close to me gifts me with a warm almost toothless smile. I feel welcome and absorb the special atmosphere of the celebration. After some time a kind of sermon begins. The people start to pray in a joint procedure. Only the children are not yet up for asking divine blessing, playing around their parents, who try to follow the procedure. Anda shows me what to do in every step. At first, she takes some herbs from the flower bowl like the one she gave me and crumples them between her hands. Then she discards them to the ground and raises her hands to the head in prayer. In the next round she does the same, but with a small purple flower between her fingertips, which is afterwards placed behind the right ear. At the third time, another flower is tucked in the hair at the back of the head. I observe her every step and do it likewise. She nods at me as a gesture of consent. At the end of the ceremony the priest walks around with a metal bucket filled with sacred water. By means of a small brush he spreads water over the heads of one person after the other and everyone holds the hands up to receive water to drink it three times. Afterwards, we take some grains of rice and place them on the forehead. The ceremony took about two hours and at the time we rise from the floor it is already dark. With careful steps, limited by the tightly wrapped sarong around my legs, I descend the hill on a narrow path with a smile in my face.