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Indonesia Balinese
There is probably no group in Indonesia more aware of
its own
ethnic identity than the nearly 2.5 million Balinese.
Inhabitants
of the islands of Bali and Lombok and the western half of
Sumbawa,
Balinese are often portrayed as a graceful, poised, and
aesthetically inclined people. Although such descriptions
date back
six centuries or more and are at least partially based on
legend,
this characterization is also partly based on events in
contemporary Indonesia. Virtually no part of Bali escaped
the
watchful gaze of tourists who came in increasing numbers
each year
to enjoy the island's beautiful beaches and stately
temples, and to
seek out an "authentic" experience of this perceived
"traditional"
culture. The market for traditional carvings, dance
performances,
and paintings boomed, and many Balinese successfully
reinvested
their earnings in further development of these highly
profitable
art forms.
Balinese have a long history of contrasting themselves
profitably with outsiders. Although Hinduism had already
established a foothold on Bali, the contemporary
distinctive Hindu
religious practices of the Balinese date back at least to
the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when Javanese princes
from
Majapahit fled the advances of Islam and sought refuge in
Bali,
where they were absorbed into the local culture
(see Hinduism
, this
ch.). Since that time, Balinese, with the exception of a
minority
of Muslims in the north, have maintained a generally
anti-Islamic
political stance, preserving a great pride in their own
culture.
Indeed, segregation between themselves and outsiders has
been an
organizing factor in Balinese culture.
Like the Javanese, Balinese society is stratified. It
possesses
the small hereditary Brahman class, as well as small
groups of
Vaishya and Kshatriya classes that draw on Indian caste
terminology. However, the Balinese caste system involves
no
occupational specializations or ideas about ritual
contaminations
between the ranks. It does not prohibit marriage between
ranks, but
does forbid women to marry beneath their class. The vast
majority
of Balinese, including many wealthy entrepreneurs and
prominent
politicians, belong to the Shudra (commoner-servant)
class.
Unlike most Javanese, Balinese participate
enthusiastically in
several interlocking corporate groups beyond the immediate
family.
One of the most important of these is the dadia, or
patrilineal descent group. This is a group of people who
claim
descent through the male line from a common ancestor. The
group
maintains a temple to that ancestor, a treasury to support
rituals
associated with it, and certain chosen leaders. The
prestige of a
dadia depends in part on how widespread and
powerful its
members are. However, most of these organized groups tend
to be
localized, because it is easier to maintain local support
for its
activities and its temple. Balinese prefer to draw spouses
from
within this group. These corporate kin groups can also be
the basis
for organizing important economic activities, such as
carving
cooperatives, gold and silverworking cooperatives,
painting
studios, and dance troupes.
In addition, Balinese are members of a banjar,
or
village compound, which overlaps with, but is not
identical to, the
dadia. The social groups share responsibility for
security,
economic cooperation in the tourist trade, and the
formation of
intervillage alliances. The banjar is a council of
household
heads and is responsible for marriage, divorce, and
inheritance
transactions. In addition, it is the unit for mobilizing
resources
and labor for the spectacular cremations for which Bali
has become
increasingly well known. Each banjar may have
individual
orchestra, dance, and weaving clubs.
Yet another important corporate group is the
agricultural
society, or subak, each of which corresponds to a
section of
wet-rice paddies. Each subak is not only a
congregation of
members who are jointly responsible for sacrificing at a
temple
placed in the center of this group of rice paddies, but
also a unit
that organizes the flow of water, planting, and
harvesting. Since
fifty or more societies sometimes tap into a common stream
of water
for the irrigation of their land, complex coordination of
planting
and harvesting schedules is required. This complexity
arises
because each subak has become independent of all
the others.
Although the government has attempted periodically to take
control
of the irrigation schedule, these efforts have produced
mixed
results, leading to a movement in the early 1990s to
return the
authority for the agricultural schedule to the traditional
and
highly successful interlocking subak arrangement.
The very complexity of Balinese social organization has
provided it with the flexibility to adapt to the pressures
of
modern life and its requirements for the accumulation,
distribution, and mobilization of capital and
technological
resources. Although the Balinese remain self-consciously
"traditional," they have been neither rigid in that
tradition nor
resistant to change.
Data as of November 1992
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