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Always
a fresh group was kneeling before some fresh altar and
offerings being made. Every stone shrine and every bamboo
table was soon filled to overflowing with offerings,
and in an endless procession the women still brought
more, meeting the counter-stream of those which had
been blessed and might be carried away. The ground was
strewn with metjaroe, the offerings to baleful spirits,
and with kneeling girls and women being blessed by a
priestess. The Barong's small latticed house in the
lower court had a continual stream of visitors, sitting
on the doorstep or circulating in the small space round
his body, or praying at his feet.
The
temple lies a little way from the road, high above the
river where the gods go to bathe. The wide river spread
out brilliant in the sunshine among great rocks, at
the foot of the steep cliff down which, by a narrow
winding path, the gods were carried, their litters covered
with great sheaves of rice straw.
Two
gongs sat at intervals to accompany their passage with
music. I caught glimpses of Redjang dancers preparing
in the courtyard of a house. They were dressecrin cloth-of-gold,
sleeveless, and wore amazing head-dresses, like Djanger
in shape, but built up tier upon tier with frangipani
flowers, whose petals were cut and curled; a magnificent
impression of gold and white, on a foundation of glittering
fragments of painted wood. The backs of their crowns
were also entirely made of flowers. They came out to
kneel in the path of the gods as the procession wound
out of the narrow lane which led up from the river and
passed into the open space, divided from the temple
court by a low wall Already the attendants were in trance.
A man or two came dancing before them with a kris, doing
wide stylized steps, and immediately behind these came
the litters, the young men who carried them being harnessed,
as it were, between bamboo traces. Frantic scenes took
place.
They
swerved about with their burdens, driving the long poles
of the litters among the onlookers, so that the gods
were tossed from side to side as if on a rough sea.
They were guided one by one down the lane into the temple,
while the Redjangs, screened by a few older women, sat
in a flowery group against the wall of the inner temple
court. Soon all the litters were in the big outer court
of the temple, including one on which a regally dressed
small boy was enthroned. The crowd was driven helterskelter
by the long poles; even those on the raised platforms
were in dancer of being prodded
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