Story of Bali, Indonesia

The above factors caution against assuming that the plains and the mountain villagers have a similar 'psychology, in several important respects . Therefore, the conclusions on the Balinese character in Chapter 9 were not derived form generalizations based on observations of Bayung Gede alone but on similar observations in the plains villages.

In summary, Bateson and Mead wrongly assumed that Bayung Gede, the primary village of their study, represented the 'base culture' of Bali; that it had been little influenced by Hindu, Javanese, Buddhist or Dutch cultures as had the plains villages. On the contrary this book has shown that Bayung Gede represents a culture exhibiting aboriginal and Balinese Hindu influences. It is both different from and similar to other mountain villages, and in some ways it is unique. Although Bayung Gede's ceremonies are generally less elaborate than those in the plains, Bateson and Mead's statement about the village being ceremonially bare was a gross misrepresentation. Bateson and Mead's erroneous assumptions about the slowness of intellectual response and movement of the people of Bayung Gede and its cause in hypothyroidism were based on incorrect knowledge of the illness. No evidence could be found of this even among those people suffering from goitre. Bateson and Mead also failed to note the frequent infections.

nor did they recognize a prevalent chronic illness (ascariasis) in the children, that would affect their behavior, possibly making them lethargic and irritable. Chronic illness is evident in their photographs and is ' still present in inhabitants of the village in A89. All of these factors may have had a beating on some of Bateson and Mead's erroneous conclusions discussed in the following chapters.

In many plains villages and the cities today, Indonesian is the primary language and Balinese is dropping off.
H. Geertz (personal communication), on the other hand, concluded that Bateson and Mead 'could understand Balinese quite well, well enough for them to carry out their research as they understood it to be. I have studied their field notes from the period that they were in Batuan, after they had been in Bali more than a yew and there are many signs that they could talk with Balinese there are passages in both their field notes where it is clear that they have been talking with

Balinese and nothing down what they have said. Made Kaler was their language teacher, and helped with translation. He wrote out thousands of pages of Balinese statements made to him by the people of Bayung Gede and Batuan. After these were typed up, Bateson and Mead and he would go over them carefully. Bateson wrote between the lines on these transcripts all the words that he had to ask Made Kaler for meanings. There are very few of these on each page, indicating that Bateson and Mead understood most of each text. In addition the 'translations' that Made Kaler made of these particular words were always very accurate, and often not in English but in other more common Balinese terms.

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