Running of the Bull in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.
As I write, I’m sipping a hibiscus cooler at the open air café near the corner of Rayan Ubud and Monkey Forest Roads in the heart of Ubud. If Ubud bustles, this is where it does so. In the past week, there have been regular processions with music, costumes and other typical Balinese sights, such as women gracefully floating down the street with towers of fruit balancing atop their heads. These processions have been in preparation for today’s main event: a large royal cremation ceremony. Although Indonesia is the largest Muslim populated country in the world, the small island of Bali is almost entirely Hindu. The daily income in Indonesia is extraordinarily low. Most Balinese make more than double the national average due to tourism (US$2-4 per day). Funeral arrangements for cremations are arranged long after death. This allows the Balinese to select an auspicious date and save for a ceremony where sometimes hundreds of bodies are exhumed to be cremated together at one time to reduce costs. Today’s ceremony is larger and more elaborate than usual as a member of the Ubud royal family is included along with other villagers.
Yesterday, I saw the spectacular papier maché tower built for the occasion. I’m told it will be carried on the shoulders of 50-100 men and danced through the street with the royal casket and priest riding atop the tower. It is pagoda-like and ten stories tall. I expect quite a spectacle.
And so today I find myself unexpectedly seated front row awaiting the dancers who will carry the tower and run willy-nilly through the streets to confuse the spirits so that the deceased can be free of these burdens in the after-life. We’d moved out to the street for a better view and awaited several hours in tremendous heat for things to get underway. Suddenly, the crowd swells and rounding the corner up the hill appears a huge papier maché bull, followed by the cremation tower carried by at least double the estimated 100 men. It was coming so fast that I thought I might be in Pamplona for the running of the bulls - the crowd was intense and the speed made me feel the way one must feel when the bulls (of Pamplona) are breathing down your neck. As it neared, the crowd swelled yet again, all leaning forward to see. Suddenly, we were ushered toward the curb by the sound of a chain saw. A chain saw! It became evident that there were two large trees in the way that would block the procession. The trees were felled swiftly and only moments before the tower passed as thousands of people filled the street. In a calm stampede, hot as a human sauna, we were carried by the mass of the crowd to the temple where we watched the body be removed from the highest part of the tower into the bull where the woman of royal decent would be cremated. As the festivities ramped up into a lovely combination of food, dance and music, we learned that the cost of the ceremony was over US$30,000. Imagine.
10/2006