What Indonesia - Bali is all about ?

In one village there are five Rangdas, in different degrees of power, but all equally hideous in voice and aspect. Five monstrous forms reeled forward in the smoke, of a fire lit to keep off rain, fiercely gesticulating, gurgling, declaiming, their greedy fingers clawing at the air, swinging their huge manes. They formed a ring and danced a witches' round, an uneasy see-saw of monstrous limbs and uncouth gestures. There was a strange epilogue to this Barong play in the temple court, shadowy forms writhing and moaning in the torch light, incense-smoke, and dust. The great Rangda lay outstretched up a flight of steps, and even when the mask was removed the man who had animated it lay on in deep trance. The tongues of the four minor Rangdas hung out of their baskets over the faces of their bearers; women stole about with offerings. The air was full of incense, of the quick, uninterrupted clacking of the Barong's jaws, of the sudden cries of men in trance. Then peace; silent prayer over the offering-mat, a dreamy distant gamelan, a haloed moon in the waringin-tree
The real drama of the Barong play begins with the entry of Rangda, who may appear singly or two-fold or even three- or five-fold, in a crescendo of magic power. There is not necessarily any story other than the symbolic encounter of two great forces, both probably inimical to man, but one of which he has succeeded in winning to his side. To express the fight between the Barong and Rangda in terms of good and evil is to miss the point. The Barong is not a Saint George battling with the Dragon; the Barong too is a monster of the same kin as Rangda. He is even regarded, in a mystical Tantric interpretation by a Hindu priest,' as actually an emanation of Rangda, won over by offerings to take the part of the villagers against her. He has thus become their protector, a protagonist of men against the dark intruding death-force of Rangda. Each time his conflict with Rangda is shown it is viewed with. Intense emotion by the villagers, an emotion strong enough to induce a state of trance not only in the recognized village mediums (the so called kris-dancers), but in the Barong itself, in Rangda, in the pemangkoe, and in casual members of the audience. At each Barong play the life of the community is somehow jeopardize

In each of the vast temple courts a gamelan was playing all day long. Suddenly the spears and brilliant head-dresses of the Baris dancers begin to fill the lower court, and the crowd diverts its strewn to flow round them. Nowhere else in the ceremonial Baris does one see such a brilliance of pradaed. stoles and cloth-of-gold, gay scarves and sashes of every hue,'glittering colars and be-flowered magnificence of rays from light-scattering head-dresses. The faces and gestures of the men, sixteen in number, who danced the Djodjor (spear dance) advancing with great solemnity, Uttering strange cries; their entranced wild faces approaching and retreating, clutching and swinging their gorgeous stoles, puffing themselves with dance pride, kneeling, rising, grasping their spears in shuddering fingers as they wheel and dip in mimic battle; their roaring cries and bursts of demonic violence create an impression of intense martial ardour transformed into mysterious splendour.

. The dance had a more informal character dun usual, owing to the mud; for no one had put on the proper long-trained dresses, but just wore their ordinary kains, often with the favourite bath-towel wound round the waist. Now there was a fresh stampede. Djero Gede began to disappear; he was being pulled from behind. I must mention that during all this time, ever since the appearance of the Barong Bangkal, men and women had been krissing themselves with shrieks and ecstasy, and a young man had been dancing and gesticulating in front of the Barony Landoeng, trying apparently to leap up on to the bali. As during the last feast I saw at this temple, any attempt to climb on to the bale of the Barong Keket was strongly repressed. The young women standing by me were obviously in great distress and anxiety as Djero Gede was brought out, together with the mask of Rangda, which was put on a man, who descended the steps to join the large crowd round the possessed and the Barong Bangkal.

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