Story of Bali, Indonesia

Hierarchical orientation (B: linggih for caste and sor singgih for speaking-, 1: jenjang) refers primarily to caste and status which are ever-present in social interaction and play roles in personality and emotional comfort. The author's experience with members of the royal family of Klungkung, of the Ksatria caste, is an example: the puri (palace) has received only five foreign visitors to the household in the past 20 years, because of the possibility of embarrassment to either visitor or royal family it etiquette were to be breached. However, even the lowest caste household has rules of etiquette. The first question asked by Balinese who meet for the first time is, 'Can you tell me your caste, please (Titiang nunas antuk linggih?). In addition to its social and emotional ramifications, caste lends a person identity and stability. A Balinese can rise in status by virtue of wealth and a woman can rise in caste by marriage, but most Balinese retain a sense of his/her given caste in which he/she is most comfortable.

The Balinese are preoccupied with etiquette and a critical part of this relates to rank and hierarchy basic to Hinduism. Commenting on cremation, Geertz stated, The whole. ceremony was a giant demonstration repeated in a'thousand ways, with a thousand images of indestructibility of hierarchy in the ffaacee of the most powerful leveling forces the world can muster--death, anarchy, passion and fire.' Cremations still go on, little changed, except that wives of deceased royalty no longer make a suicidal jump into the fire of the corpse.

Mead illustrated the function of status and the importance of levels to every Balinese, even those of the lowest caste such as all the villagers of Bayung Gede, by citing their effects on various aspects of Balinese life, e.g., language use; amount of contribution to village ceremonials; share of chicken one receives at a feast; postures and gestures. Many aspects of levels are a function of custom and others become part of the personality.27 Attention to the many details of status is quite automatic and without stress. Status is an aspect of social rank. Vying for status was evident in the competition in arts and warfare between the royal families (raja) of Bali in earlier times. Today, some Balinese with accumulated wealth occasionally attempt to augment personal status by flaunting material possessions such as a house or a car or by having unusually elaborate and costly ceremonies. However, the majority of the people do not strive for status through money because they have very little of it. In traditional marriage ceremonies, they may strive to show status b having their best spokesman represent the family in negotiations and by gathering as many of the extended family as possible for the ceremony.

Please access this web site for more Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Bandung, Surabaya and all Indonesia Hotels bali-lombok-yogyakarta-jakarta-hotels.com - and Indonesian Holidays Information, hotels and travel reservation indonesia-hotels-travel-holidays.com