Story of Bali, Indonesia

But when, late at night, towards the end of some play, the barong made a dramatic entry, looming out of the darkness to the sound of agitated drums, it was no longer the friendly agreeable creature. It advanced slowly, with strange mee, its gold and mirrors shining dimly in the lamplight. Now it had become the mystic and supernatural form of king or saint about to engage in battle against the forces of evil, a conflict in which the last ounce of magic strength would be needed to put to flight the witch or demon foe. This was a dark moment in the drama, a moment of hovering on the borderline between reality and the unseen, for more often than not the dancers, carried away, identifying themselves perhaps with the beast whose body now enveloped them, fell into trance. Here a new drama might begin, for the barong often left the stage, to run quite wild into the night'

The authors concur that Balinese fathers are strikingly tender, affectionate, and tolerant in interaction with their children. However, this fact does not justify equating the father with the playful barong in the classical dances. For the Balinese, the barong does not represent life as interpreted by Mead but it is a good, reassuring, protective, helpful, and entertaining figure. The barong is also spiritually powerful and he is held in great awe.

Suryani (1984) described a mental disturbance of 27 women living in the compound of the premier royal family of Bali in Klungkung, a trance disorder which she called bebainan (see Appendix 1). Symptoms began suddenly and lasted about 15 minutes to an hour. The women who were studied described hallucinations and spirits speaking through them. The spirits usually told the traditional healer the purpose for coming, i.e., that they came to harm or kill the person whose body they had entered. The cause of the disorder could be understood in terms or an accumulation of stress, a restricted lifestyle of adolescent girls about which they felt resentful and pressures on lower-status women to defer to higher-status families in precisely prescribed manners and language as they gracefully accepted affronts from the upper classes. Prospects of marriage or pressure of a newly married status were also sources of concern .These behaviours and stressful aspects of the roles were expected or required to be performed without overt expression of emotion. However, the women experienced associated inward emotions of anger, anxiety, and worry. Suryani hypothesized that trance behaviours (bebainan) provided sufferers with an opportunity to release feelings of frustration and anger without risk of widespread disapproval or stigmatization.

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