Fred Eiseman is an American who lived in a village situation in Bali for many years. His experience and perspective of Balinese life is from the inside, looking out, not from the outside, looking in. Before coming to any conclusions in respect of the percieved efforts of participants in Barong dances attempts to stab themselves, I suggest that a reading of Fred Eiseman`s "Sekala and Niskala" might lift the fog just a little.
On the other hand:- in about 1970 in a village near Kuta I saw a non-Balinese person thrown from the top of a six foot wall, where he was sitting, by an invisible force because he had not heeded warnings to keep his head lower than the head of Rangda. Nobody was anywhere near this person, who was sitting on the top of a wall around the courtyard where the dance was being performed. He had been asked several times by local people to move and sit with everybody else. He would not. When Rangda entered the dance area he was projected with considerable force from the top of the wall.
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14th August 2005, 09:50 PM
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