What Indonesia - Bali is all about ?

Certain of the villagers have a capacity for going easily into trance, and will appear at every Barong performance. The pemangkoe also prays Durga, supposing the supply of mediums in the village is short, to inspire certain of the onlookers who have come from the outside. A penoegdoeg (follower) is very seldom wounded, and only, it is said, if he has touched a corpse during the last seven days, or been touched by some one who has done so. If somebody is wounded the pemangkoe presses the edges of the wound together and lays an hibiscus-petal upon it. If other penoegdoegs see the wound they will fling themselves upon it in order to suck the blood. One reads in sensational books on Bali alarming accounts of bloodshed during kris-dances. It is obviously impossible to say they are fictitious without having been present one self. Perhaps it is just one's good or bad luck never to have been present on such an occasion. Some Balinese did once tell us about a kris-dance in which a great deal of blood had flowed; though it appeared that the man who was most desperately wounded was at the market next day as usual.

The preparations for possession vary in every village. Sometimes each penoegdoeg will be as it were initiated by plunging his head into the Barong's mouth; sometimes offerings are made before them and holy water is sprinkled over their faces and given them to drink. As the moment approaches for them to become possessed they are watched over by a number of attendants, who have to keep them under control.

In its simplest form the Barong dance contains no story, and this solo dance continues to form the prelude to every Barong performance, however complicated the story may be. Or a few comic masks may accompany him, who seem to engage in a kind of fight about his person. They are known as Djaoeks or Omangs, but their association with the Barong remains mysterious. The following folk tradition attempts to explain it. In Noesa Penida, above referred to as an abode of demons, lived a dangerous demon, Djero Gede Metjaling (Tusked Giant), whose chief abode was the Poera Ped. Once he came over to Bali with many attendant 0mangs, small demons of every color, red, green, blue and yellow. He landed on the beach at Koeta in the form of a Barong and stayed there while his Omangs went inland to destroy. The people in their despair consulted a priest and were told they must nuke another Barong, like Djero Gede, because that alone would be able to scare him away. So they made a Barong and all kinds of Omangs and succeeded in scaring the demon away to Noesa, since when the Barong has been used for driving away illness and evil spirits.

The Djaoek masks range from grotesque variants of the human face to a type approaching the rakshasa', with strongly colored complexion, bulging eyes and wide-open mouth, displaying rows of glittering teeth like an advertisement for toothpaste. The more refined ones wear tall circular gold head-dresses rising in graceful curves to a finial, with a bunch of dangling peacock feathers on one side and long-nailed gloves. ' A white flag like a little sail stands erect on each Djaoek head-dress.

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