Tuesday, July 10, 2007






Most of Klungkung was destroyed during the war with the Dutch, but the gardens and a few buildings from the royal palace survive. The water gardens are quite peaceful, and there are a few buildings from the original 1710 construction with interesting ceiling paintings on them. One of them is covered with nasty torture scenes, and served as the criminal court. The other building was used for the all-important tooth filing ceremony. The Balinese have about 50 life ceremonies that are held for special occassions and require huge village celebrations. This is one of the more important, and takes place sometime between puberty and marriage. The basic idea is the victim gets the points filed off the fanglike teeth whose name I learned once but have long forgotten (incisors?). You know the ones that make us all look a bit werewolfy. Well, the Balinese chop that off, which is supposed to eliminate our animal natures and make us more civilized. So this building is where members of the royal family got their teeth filed, to get back to the main narrative.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

huh. i'm balinese.
i don't have incisors, they were removed when i was in high school.