Royal Cremation

It has been a very busy couple of days. On Sunday there was a procession from Ubud palace to another palace, Peliatan, to get a Naga (dragon) that is sacred and was burned in the cremation on Tuesday, to help guide the spirits. It was great, gamelans playing marching band style, lots of people on the streets. We watched it go by the first time, then waited on the sidewalk for several hours to see the dragon come back, also a giant bull. We're talking several stories high. The laptop accessible internet isn't working at the moment so I can't post pictures but will try to soon. Its kind of like the Danjiiri in Japan, in that lots of people are moving it, but in this case its even crazier because they aren't pulling it they're carrying it! On a grid made of bamboo poles. Despite all the waiting it was a lot of fun.

Tuesday was the actual cremation, and there was a procession in the morning from Ubud palace to the royal burial grounds. Before this, we students had the great privilege of going in the palace grounds to hear Cudamani play. We were allowed to sit with them and listen and watch offerings being brought out of the inner part of the palace. The doors were guarded this time, though a few tourists somehow managed to come in. Emiko told us today that one got far into the private areas of the palace and even when asked to leave was resistant. The rudeness of tourists sickens me.

We had to leave before they put the bodies up the crazy staircase into the tower, because after that happens it is really chaotic and we wouldn't have been able to watch the procession. We went to one of the Cudamani members daughter's house, who lives in her family compound right on the procession route, so we got to watch from the rooftop. Many a Balinese person and a few whiteys were confused as to how that many foreigners got to go on a roof. We spent many hours waiting, playing eye-spy and making faces and peace signs at the people taking photos of us. Finally the procession started and it was well worth the wait. There are 2 large bulls, the dragon, and 2 large towers that hold the bodies, much, much taller than where we were sitting on the roof, all carried by hand by people working at the palace, relatives and what not. All the palace people and royal family had on purple of some sort so they were easy to pick out. Cudamani was following one of the bulls which we didn't expect, and they shouted at us on the roof which was fun. The procession is supposed to be a fun thing, at the end of the whole ceremony you are supposed to let go of your grief. The towers are just phenomenal, when you see the pictures you'll realize what I'm trying to describe. They weigh over 8 tons! The men go into a trance before the procession in a ceremony to get strength from spirits to be able to carry that weight. We were glad we were safely on a rooftop, it is dangerous to be in the streets as things that large will take out anything in their path. Trees had been cut in preparation, all the Balinese stood back, but I heard some people got hurt who were stupid enough to stand in front of it with a camera. An 8 ton thing carried by 100 people is not going to stop for you. Later we saw a street sign bent in half, it was pretty insane.

After the procession, some of us followed the ridiculous crowd to the burial ground. Here there was more waiting- I've spent a lot of time doing that since Sunday. The tourists here were behaving so badly I wanted to cry, and might now thinking about it too much. Most were improperly dressed in tank tops and things, and a few were even drinking beer. The bulls were moved onto a large platform, that anyone with common sense would realize was for the family. Stupid idiots were sitting on it taking pictures of everything, it was beyond rude. As Emiko said, the family is so focused on completing the ceremony correctly that they are not going to stop and tell people to move, even if they are being extremely rude. Levels are really important in Balinese culture, you should never have your head above a priest or other important person, which obviously these people did not know. But even so, why would you sit on the structure? People were even sitting on the staircase, it was just heartbreaking. Anyway, enough about them. Finally before the priest came out a Balinese guy got on the loudspeaker and told people they had to move and sit down. You could tell he was really upset, and still it took people a long time, and later some jumped back up there. I wanted to kill them!

There was a ceremonial dance by some older men in checked costumes with spears. Then everyone (finally) sat down, and offerings were carried 3 times around the whole structure. The bulls were cut open, and the offerings and bodies were placed inside. Finally after all this the fire began. The idiot tourists in front now remembered that cremation involves fire and were backing up pretty quickly at the several-stories high flames that were now rapidly heating up the burial grounds. It was a very surreal experience, and as someone said today I felt privileged to be a part of it but wondered if as an outsider I was part of the problem. I really can't get over how badly people were behaving, when they'd never behave that way at a funeral at home. I can't imagine people sitting right by the casket taking photos of mourners as the come to see the body.

But the fire was quite a sight to see. They had to be careful to contain it, and not let the bull's legs burn first so that it wouldn't collapse. The head still fell off one which was a bit scary, but of course my group was standing fell far back from that. They also had 2 fire trucks and started hosing it down right away to contain it. They didn't burn the large tower, it was burned this morning as its too dangerous to burn at the same time. Apparently last time they did and it caused the temple to catch fire, so they've learned their lesson.

Overall it was a great experience, we were so lucky to get to watch the music in the morning, and to have a great view of the procession safe from being trampled. I hope that next time they get better crowd control. Emiko is going to suggest that they get an outside group to do it, obviously the family can not be responsible for that when they have important tasks to complete. She and Dewa also said that they never expected people would behave that badly and so weren't prepared. Hopefully next time that won't happen.

Part of the problem is that local tourist shops and hotels sell cremation package tours, which is pretty tasteless, so I'm sure most clueless tourists have no idea what they're doing. Don't know if I've mentioned, but I'm taking a tourism class in the fall and so have been paying a lot of attention the past few days, I've got my paper topic all ready to go! I bet you can guess what angle I'm taking. I've never been so embarrassed to be a tourist in my life, and was glad that a lot of people know of our group and know we're not associated with anyone behaving so crassly.

To try to get some relaxation after the exhaustion of the past few days I got a lovely massage after rehearsal today, good times. It came with a body scrub so my skin feels amazing now! Tomorrow is a big mystery. We have to be ready at 6 am to go see a famous teacher. We have to wear temple dress, and aren't supposed to be using cameras or writing in our notebooks. I'm very curious as to what will happen!