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At last he is led back to his stall in the inner court, his voluminous golden mane with difficulty through the narrow temple gateway. His two dancers mounted with him the platform of his stable, since he must never touch the ground, and only climbed out of him when his body had had been hauled by ropes to its beam. Offerings were made to him, and he was left surrounded by the lofty cones of fruit, built up in slender pillars to an astonishing height. They almost seemed like furled banners, tall slender round towers of rice, fruit, cakes, sweetmeats, neatly bound together at their pointed crowns.

Belonging to the Barong Landoeng family is the giant mask of Tjoepak,' of which several occur in the neighbourhood of Denpasar. This goes its rounds in time of epidemics, acting as an exorcism. We saw one of the Tjoepak' masks in a small temple at Bandjar Bangkal, associated with a singularly lovely mask of Djero Loeh, with a red 'Cupid's bow' mouth and gold lines on her cheeks.

After the early blessing next morning the temple was quickly deserted, all the villagers returning to their own homes to dance the Baris there, for it was the universal festival of the April full moon. 'Me roads and mountain paths were filled again with flags and spears, lively processions of pilgrims retracing the long road they climbed yesterday, or setting off to another more distant village across the hills. Two days later we met such a procession returning with its music and its dancers from the village to which we were ourselves going, to see a peculiar type of Baris which is only done there. A man had died unexpectedly, so there was no feast at all. it will take place next year for those who are still there to see it, if no twins are born and no one dies, and no epidemic brings impurity.

And after the home-coming with holy water from the great temple there is the reception in one's own village; a gamelan to meet the returning pilgrims, a few small boys to dance some irresolute Baris steps in the meadows outside the village; the procession through the surrounding groves, more offerings in one's own temple court in front of the holy water under its ceremonial umbrella, the holy water in a bamboo container bound round with a white cloth and surmounted by a crown of leaves.

There were two white masks of the Sandaran variety, of whom possibly one was Gran". as the dram, of the two brothers is sometimes enacted during the season when then masks are in action. The mask of Tjoepak was a dark chocolate colour, with glass eyes and alternate black and white eyebrows and moustache. His mouth hung greedily open, showing a great row of teeth. He had a rudimentary nose, rather like that of Toealen in Wajang Wong, and, like Toealen also, feminine car-plugs set with semi-precious stones. 'Me usual hibiscus flower was stuck above his car. He was surrounded by offering, and it was only as a special privilege that we were allowed to see and photograph the mask during its period of inaction.

 

 

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