Ogoh-Ogohs And Other Things That Go Bump In The Night

The sounds of the gamelan in the village down the road have been growing more frequent and louder over the past week. When the chanting and music aren’t coming from our village, they can be heard from down the way and across the road at the next village.

Nyepi, the Balinese New Year is coming.

At intersections, village centers, and sometimes stored under trees, 20 and 30 foot tall paper mache statues of hideous, evil demons are lurking. Each village prepares several of these brightly colored ogoh-ogohs which feature sharp fangs, bulging eyes and visages that are plainly and obviously….evil.

The ogoh-ogohs represent the demons and evil gods which can do damage to people and the island.

The day before Nyepi, each village parades their ogoh-ogohs into the center of the village and in some cases down to the ocean. The ogoh-ogohs may fight and they at least are bounced around to show their scariness. Then, at the height of the ceremony, they are lit on fire to help rid the village of demons in the coming year.

Nyepi begins at 6am, March 5th and ends 24 hours later. During this time, people cannot go out, cannot use lights and are supposed to remain perfectly silent. Even the airport closes. The Balinese are essentially hiding from the evil demons who want to ruin their new year. When the demons see nothing and hear nothing, they will think no one is home and will move on to other islands, leaving Bali in peace and prosperity.

And while this is all well and good, one of the first questions that once came to my mind is – “They’re Hindu, aren’t they?”

Especially after our recent time in Nepal and India, there’s very little of Balinese Hindu that looks like Hindu on the subcontinent. Temples here are large, flat, enclosed compounds where worship is communal and people are members of their local temple. Most of the temples are dedicated to one god – Shiva. While they believe in other gods, they don’t focus nearly as much on them.

The Balinese assign cows no importance other than they claim their breed of cows have the best meat.

Most importantly – and I like this a lot – they don’t believe in animal sacrifices. While the Nepalis slaughter 108 water buffalo on the steps of the largest temple in Kathmandu every Dashain, Balinese bring stacks of fruit as offerings. Blood running down the temple steps to appease the goddess of destruction, or oranges prematurely discarded? I’ll take the latter.

Bali has molded Hindu into a religion that meshes with its pre-Hindu culture. While Indian traders first brought Hindu to the Indonesian archipelago as early as the first century, it reached its zenith in the 14th century when the Hindu Majaphit Kingdom ruled over most of Indonesia from Java. As Islam took hold of the islands and the Majaphits came under siege, the nobility, priests, artists and top leadership fled to Bali which they managed to keep Hindu to this very day.

Only as happens with so many religions that spread, the locals who convert have traditions they want to keep. This happened in Java and Bali where beliefs good and evil spirits and a singular supreme-being mixed with the religion taught to them to form a unique form of Hindu.

In essence, their semi-monotheistic background with some pagan-ish mythological figures danced with Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu to form something unique and beautiful.

In many ways, the belief in sprits is as strong or stronger than the worship of the gods themselves. Every morning and every evening, Balinese place little trays made of woven coconut palm leaves – filled with herbs, flowers and rice at every entrance and corner of every building . They also place them in a special offering sanctuary posted on each home, business and temple along with some burning incense.

The offerings are meant to acknowledge and please the spirits. The offerings create a perimeter around each building, protecting them from the invasion of spirits. It’s about jeros (evil demons) and rangdas (witches) – not Ganesh who is featured prominently at the entrances of businesses and homes throughout India and Nepal.

There’s even a little meshing old beliefs with Hindu. Dewi Sri, the goddess of the rice fields is also somehow a manifestation of Lakshmi, the goddess of fortune and success. It’s the Balinese’ own special modified pantheon.

My friend Chad told us stories of how his wife, Rina who is from Java and was raised muslim has had encounters with the spirits here in Bali. She’s seen black magic practitioners put people in trances and steal their jewelry while sitting on the public micro-buses. She’s run into the occasional ghost and even seen a ball of fire floating over a rice field – in just the way Balinese legends say demons can manifest themselves.

Balinese dance and shadow puppetry are art forms used to convey Balinese beliefs and culture from one generation to the next, as well as to share with visiting foreigners. Some depict the stories of the Ramanyana and the Mahabrata, others the struggles between evil and good demons. I always prefer the good and evil demon stories – they’re a lot more colorful and fun.

As I sit here writing this, the village is banging drums, playing the gamelan intermittently chanting, and exorcising demons from the area. At sunset, the staff went around the compound, placing the offerings, incense and giving blessings. They always do this for our house along with everything else.

I’m grateful. Prevention is the key. I didn’t come to the other side of the world to start battling jeros and unlike the average Balinese, I don’t own a kris – a sacred, blessed dagger capable of killing a demon.

Of course, should the offering perimeter fail and the village’s exorcisms not extend to our compound, we have one great defense. In Nepal when we faced a fire two buildings down from our hotel, Emily panicked and yelled, “This is where we die!” enough that even a rangda or a black magic man would want to call it a night and move on.

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