Day 0

I woke up at 7 effortlessly, had my coffee and asked Kadek for a ride to the ceremony. I was carrying both my Lumix and my Sony cameras and felt excited and ready to shoot. After a five-minute ride, we were there. I realized that the ceremony was taking place at the exact point where I had seen all the busy people going around the day before. As l walked in, the narrow unpaved street became wider and turned into a medium size lot where people were assembling and decorating bamboo structures. Two things became obvious. The first and embarrasing one was I could have easily walked there. Second one was that the ceremony was not taking place yet. What I thought to be Day 1 turned out to be Day 0, preparations day. I was already used to miscommunication in Indonesia so I wasn’t disappointed or surprised. I told Kadek I would walk back and decided to stay and have a look. Men of all ages were collaborating. Some worked harder, some seemed to be waiting for their turn. Everything occurred in the laid-back-kind-of-messy manner the island had me already used to.

The Wikipedia Forecast

The word Lembu turned out to be a great starting point for my online research. It immediately pointed to the name of the ceremony: Ngaben. Wikipedia was my main source of information. I quickly learnt that this is the funeral for the Balinese people. Lembus were described as coffins where bodies and offerings where placed before cremation. I also read that the towers I had just seen being built are called wadahs, and are also unique to this rite. Wikipedia mentioned that although it is preferred to have the Ngaben soon after death, many people get buried temporarily while the families gather the necessary funds for the ceremony. It also said that sometimes communities organize collective Ngabens, in order for poorer people to be able to pay for it. I was pretty sure this was the case: I was witnessing the collective Ngaben of the Sebunibus village. One thing was, however, still hard to grasp. I was certain that there were no bodies inside the lembus I had seen that morning. I had, though, noticed a very precarious cemetery right on the side and people walking around it leaving offerings. If Wikipedia was accurate, bodies would have to be dug up and put inside the lembus. I was skeptical. As photos got copied to my hard drive I shook my head thinking: “well maybe they have a different more symbolic version of it.” Little did I know.

I could not help but to remember my Mom’s funeral and start identifying the endless differences with what I was witnessing. First of all, everyone was actively participating in a strong physical activity under the already hot morning sun. Some people could look serious here and there but I didn’t see anyone crying. Others would laugh and talk but mostly they were active, they were sweating, doing things with their entire bodies to make sure the souls of their loved ones reached heaven. I was jealous. Nobody was alone. Nobody didn’t know what to do. Nobody feared to touch the bones with their bare hands. What had seemed like an unreal idea to me the day before upon reading it on Wikipedia, was common practice for these people to whom religion is an everyday activity. The main emotion here was not grief. If you really think about it, emotion comes from the latin root out (e) and the verb move (movere). Everyone kept moving things, bones, offerings and lembus around. I remembered the month during which I emptied the house where my Mom and I had lived and she had died. That month of sheer exhausting practical action directly related to her death had been more healing that anything else. Worlds away, I felt like I could relate that experience with what I was seeing. Despite everyone was utterly and physically involved in what is considered one of the most important ceremonies of their calendar, there was no solemnity in the air. What I could see was sheer action and collaboration as the lot continued to get dressed in colorful symbols and offerings. The rest of the day would involve more live music, traditional dances, offerings and preparation of the bodies.

What came after both wadahs were filled with all the bodies was the most impacting and moving moment. The music changed as the men who had been filling the wadahs with the bodies came down, got rid of the bamboo ramps and organised themselves inside and around the bamboo grid-like structure underneath each tower. Suddenly, both towers were lifted by their corresponding group of men and they started dancing around and against each other. It was breathtaking. Each tower must have had around 50 men puppeteers making them move and on the base of the tower there were men with a microphone talking and musicians playing. There were also kids tied to the top of the towers. These were dressed in yellow and white and holding sticks with offerings, feathers, fabrics that resembled a flag. But the thing that moved me was to see the collective physical force in action. It was beautiful. The towers swayed and turned as the men started sweating and kicking up the dust. We were standing only a few meters away from them and I could actually feel their excitement as they created this meaningful and powerful dance together. The dance ended with the moving of the towers to the back of the lot where the lembus had been moved earlier. I was amazed to see how they quickly begun to get the bodies out of the wadahs and back down. Of course, it was now time to put each body in its own coffin -the lembus- before starting the fire. All that effort, all that organisation had been for a few minutes of majestic collective dance.