Notes from Stephen, Wan, Kweilin, and Li

Li Tsun's homepage

Atom RSS for your feed reader

 

Ubud: Nyoman Sandi's mother's funeral

We woke up this morning to a flurry of funeral preparation in Nyoman Sandi's compound, where we're staying. Nyoman Sandi's 80-year-old mother died yesterday and more than 200 people from the community came to prepare for the burial ceremony.

Men formed a chicken- and duck-processing assembly line along a path through the compound. One station slaughtered a chicken or duck, the next defeathered it, and the next either roasted it over burning coconut husks or mashed its meat into satay. They used all parts of the chicken and duck. I saw a couple men threading chopped lungs, tongue, and heart onto mini-satay sticks. What fine work!

A couple men wove young coconut leaves into a beautiful basket. I think they intended for the basket to hold the food.

A group of men grated coconut meat and chopped it into fine specks.

Along the road outside the compound, men prepared a bamboo bed on which they later washed and dressed the grandmother. About 100 men took over a lane of the road and sat chopping bamboo to form a platform to hold the grandmother.

Men and women worked separately. Men seemed to do the majority of the preparation. A couple women distributed tea and snacks to the men as they worked. Another handful of women rolled rice balls and wrapped them in young coconut leaves.

I never saw the food again after watching the people prepare it. I don't know where it all went. I think they offer it to the grandmother or some god and then they eat it. I hope they eat it, after working so hard to make it.

I thought that only old people would be interested in preparing for ceremonies like this, but many of the people looked around 30 years old. Balinese tradition is apparently strong even with young people.

The people helping prepare for the ceremony were all volunteers from the community, not hired help. They must have skipped work today.

The actual funeral started just before 1 pm. Three men chanted as Nyoman Sandi and his family dressed the grandmother on the bamboo platform. She started out with just a cloth draped over her pelvis. Her skin looked wet, so they must have washed her. They dressed her in a sarong, put a ring on her, and sprinkled some flowers and seeds on her face and hair. They put pieces of betelnut in her mouth and poured water over her body. Folks stuffed some 1000 rupiah bills (10 cents) in her clothes and covered her with a banana leaf. Finally they wrapped her entire body in a mat woven from coconut leaf and wrapped her again in white cloth.

The whole gathering sat and prayed for the grandmother for an hour and then they carried her off on a bamboo bed to bury her.

I'm really impressed that the whole community came together for this event on half a day's notice.

Nyoman Sandi and his family are so tired, said Nyoman. They've been hosting the entire community these past two days. Tonight they'll entertain more relatives.

posted by Unknown at 4:09 AM