Indirect Rule Through Royalty Balinese

Another aspect of "preserving" Bali was that the traditional rulers were maintained. As on Java, the Dutch adopted a policy of...

Shipwrecks, Opium And Death Balinese

The Dutch found excuses to take on these kingdoms in a series of diplomatic incidents involving shipwrecks and the opium trade. These cul...

The End Of Traditional Rule Balinese

Not long after the cataclysmic eruption of Krakatau in 1883, on the other side of Java, a series of momentous struggles began amongst the...

Calling The Soul Balinese

DiggingDue to the huge amount of time and expense involved, a cremation is usually postponed for months or even years. In the meantime th...

Purification And Deification Balinese

When the corpse has finally been reduced to ashes, the flames are doused and the family hunts for bone fragments, forming them into a sma...

Release Through Fire And Water Balinese

Ngaben Arriving at the cemetery, the effigy or body is taken down and a pair of birds set free - symbolic of the soul's release. On a...

Rites For The Ancestors Balinese

Life, death, rebirth. This cyclical conception of existence lies at the very heart of Balinese Hinduism. During each life on earth the et...

Bitter Memories

Most Balinese have family or friends who were involved in the conflict in one way or another, but few will talk about it today, so exte...

Mayhem And Mass Murder

Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, social divisions which had crystallized during the Revolution continued to widen. Political conflicts...

Proklamasi The Dutch

Complacent in their cocoon of colonial supremacy, were shocked when the Japanese invaded the Indies in 1942, so shocked that they gave u...