Balinese Royal Cremation

Tjok Muter's farewell, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

Morning's first light had just touched the hillside when it started.

Like echoes of battle, the BOM... BOM BOM of exploding bamboo echoed down the valley. During breakfast the first blue tendrils of smoke drifted above the trees and spread into the river valley, dispersing there to create a blue wonderland of light shaft and shadow. The vibrant colour of the flowering trees, the intense greens of the lush jungle and the pellucid blue air combine to create the illusion of the river gorge as a submarine garden, the dense tropical landscape transformed to coral reef.

We descend Tjampuhan Hill toward the bridge over the river and begin the climb through the stone walled cutting to the center of the village. Except for the bamboo's staccato resonance and the trilling chorus of birds and insects, it's quiet here in the cutting, the usual drone of traffic absent due to the roadblocks set up around the village. The air too is different. Usually the walk up this hill is less pleasant due to the trapped exhaust of the teeming vehicles and two stroke motor cycles that normally ply the cutting.

As we approach the top of the hill, a raucous tumult of yelling and slapping footfall approaches. The running men are carrying a large platform which bears the effigy of a black bull. They double their pace and volume as they tilt at the road which winds back across the hillside from the top of the cutting. The bull they bear is the cremation sarcophagus of a family member and they are bound for the common people's cremation ground, where the fires have been burning since the sun rose.

There hasn't been a day like this in Ubud in a quarter century. Today is the cremation ceremony of Tjokorda Istri Muter, the last of the 11 children of the old King of Ubud. The previous royal cremation in 1979 was that of Tjok Muter's twin brother, Tjokorda Gde Agung Sukawati.

Tjok Muter was 96 when she died on May 6, 2004 - a time when the Balinese calendar decrees several important religious observances. The death of a royal renders the kingdom "unclean" and thus unable to perform any religious rites until the deceased has been cremated. The cremation of a member of the royal family is a huge and expensive affair, taking months to prepare and bringing together many thousands of people from all over the island. So it was that Tjok Muter's family announced in May that she was only "sleeping", a contrivance which allowed the observation of the scheduled important rituals over the following two months.

Today will see Tjok Muter's spirit set free in the fires at the royal cremation ground. It may well be the last big royal cremation the Balinese will see...

We emerge from the cool of the cutting into the bright heat of the main road. This road to the palace is lined with the funeral palanquins of the common folk who will also be cremated today. A proper funeral is expensive for villagers too and the need to save for it, coupled with the requirement of an auspicious day means that there will be 58 cremations at the commoners' cremation ground today. The dead are buried until a cremation can be performed and some of those to be honoured today have been waiting as long as four years. Their palanquins are incredible. Elaborate constructions of coloured paper, metal foils, mirrors and bamboo, they line the road for hundreds of meters as we approach the palace. Each has a hatch in its uppermost part behind which the remains of the departed are enshrined.

The closer we get to the palace, the more crowded and noisy the scene becomes. A huge gamelan orchestra plays in an open sided building opposite the palace. The crowd thickens as the gonglike metal symphony washes around us. The road between the orchestra's building and the palace is a solid throng.

Towering over the crowd are Tjok Muter's badé and lembu. The badé is the winged tower which will bear her to the cremation ground. The form is the same as that of the common folks' palanquins but it's far more elaborately decorated and it's twenty five meters high! In front of the tower waits the lembu. This ornate bull is the sarcophagus into which Tjok Muter will be transferred for cremation. It's taken the labour of months to create this tableau, with skilled artisans from all over the island contributing. Rising from within the palace, an enormous white-shrouded and decorated bamboo ramp provides access to the badé's height. When it's time, Tjok Muter's body will be brought from her resting place at the palace and carried up the ramp into the top of the tower.

Pressing through the crowd, we pass the tower and under a temporary archway built across the street. Behind the arch, a priest sits in front of a fire performing pujas. The palace wall continues up the right side of the road and ranged along it are the funeral stalls of the departed common folk. Each bears a name and is arrayed with sacrificial offerings. Antique Chinese coins, bolts of fabric, live chickens, smoked baby pigs on spits, flowers and incense. The families of the deceased are gathered in their finery by the stalls of their loved ones, chatting, laughing and taking pictures...

By midday we're ravenous and go in search of food. It's a mission today as the whole town centre is without electricity. Tjok Muter's bull and tower will be carried from the palace to the royal cremation ground which is about a kilometer and a half away and as a consequence all the power lines have been taken down to allow passage of the tower's height. We eat and decide to walk to the cremation ground to await the procession's arrival.

The crowd is now unbelievable. I've never experienced anything like it, not even in India. There must be hundreds of thousands of people crammed into the town center. Every available vantage point is packed. Rooftops, balconies, footpaths and steps. The tops of walls, doorways and windows, even trees are loaded with people. The crowd filling the road is so dense that it's like being on a Japanese train. Cheek by jowl, we press sideways through the heaving mass. I hold my camera above my head and shoot by feel...

The entire kilometer and a half of the route to the cremation ground is like this. It seems impossible that anything could pass down this road, let alone the huge structures waiting back at the palace. We find a spot on the footpath next to the entrance to the cremation ground and wait. It's hot. The locals shield themselves from the sun with newspapers, pieces of cardboard and large leaves. We sweat in the heat. By half one, we can hear the swell of sound rolling down the street as the procession approaches. Black and red uniformed village police begin clearing people from the roadway. They're miracle workers! I can't see how, but amazingly the people filling the road are being condensed onto the already packed footpaths. It's like watching Moses part the sea..

Into the calm space created on the road come Tjok Muter's daughters. They bear a large framed photographic portrait of their mother. Behind them are black and red clad men beating a sedate rhythm on drums and cymbals, then an escort of spear carriers in white polo shirts and mauve sarongs. The entire gamelan orchestra is next, their instruments now carried on poles for mobile performance. The orchestra is flanked by men I assume are some kind of guard. They are dressed in flowing garments of large black and white check, adorned with gold, cerise and white chest pieces. They wear headpieces which look for all the world like model sailboats with black and white gingham sails. They carry long black and white striped lances. There are women in magnificent gold brocade sarongs, turquoise long-sleeved tops and cerise sashes bearing elegantly piled offerings on their heads. Another gamelan orchestra and then the young prince and princess glide by. They sit on gilded thrones and are borne, shaded by parasols, above the level of our heads on the shoulders of their countrymen.

A crescendo of crashing cymbals and shrieking whistles accompanies the first bull and tower. These belong to a member of the royal family who died some years back and wasn't accorded a ceremony on the scale of today's. To make up for that, she is being honoured again today and will be burnt in effigy alongside Tjok Muter. The bull and its dais are mounted on a bamboo scaffold which is picked up and carried on mens' shoulders. A family member rides on the bull's back, a cloth halter on the bull providing him balance. The dais is put down in front of us briefly and then hoisted again at a shouted command. The men run for the gate of the cremation ground, pausing at the corner to spin the bull and its rider in wild circles and dips to disorient the spirit of the departed. They almost succeed in dislodging the rider and the others on the dais...

Behind them is looming Tjok Muter's huge black bull. This one is massive, with four men riding on the plinth that carries it and another on its back. Again the noise rises in a huge wave. The bull is joined by a long cord to the small tower following. The noise peaks again as the tower passes, a priest riding high on it as it is borne 'round the corner and into the cremation ground.

There's a brief respite and then comes another group with drums and cymbals. Behind them the village police are exhorting us to press back against the wall. They are clearing a path for a plinth bearing a purple and gold naga or snake. The plinth is so large it looks like a small temple being carried down the street. About a dozen men are riding with the naga and everybody's screaming and yelling as they struggle to fit its bamboo scaffold between the trees lining the road.

Bound to the naga by another cord is Tjok Muter's tower. It's impossibly large. Pushing twenty five meters into the sky, around eight tons of bamboo, textile, foil and paper is being manhandled down the street. The tower's scaffold is so wide that it barely fits between the street trees. The trees are being tossed around as if in a storm by the passage of the juggernaut. One hundred men carry this edifice and I shudder to think what would happen if one of them should stumble and fall.

"Boleh, boleh, boleh!" The policeman coming toward us cries. "Please, please, please!" as he gestures for us to move even further back. There's no more room. Our backs are against the wall and I have no idea what has happened to the crowd that only moments before had filled the footpath between it and us. There's a brief struggle as the badé baulks at some trees and then it's free and bearing down on us. The noise rises to an overwhelming cacophony as the monster is wrestled past us and into the cremation ground. The white robed priest accompanying Tjok Muter's body is about ten meters above the ground and looks in peril as the tower leans precariously while being moved into place. The road behind the procession is again choked with the thousands paying homage...

It's two o'clock by the time Tjok Muter's body has been removed from the badé and transferred to the lembu. Once her body has been placed in the bull the priests tend to her, performing the final rituals before the back of the bull is resealed and the fires lit. The cremation ground is full to overflowing, people packed to within a few feet of the soon to be lit fires. The crowds part for a wizened old woman in black and gold. She's a high priestess and slowly climbs the steps into the royal temple adjacent to the cremation ground. She passes close by me and I am transfixed by her aura, unable to raise the camera to my eye. At half three the first fire is lit. The little bull belches smoke from its mouth as the flames begin to consume it. The smoke rises and soon the trees above are casting solid blue beams of light through the deepening shadows.

The naga and Tjok Muter's bull now stand side by side on the big plinth, which has been piled with fragrant herbs to which the fire is applied. Once started, it all happens so quickly. The flames sputter and smoke at first and then leap into the paper and fabric. They rise and the canopy over the plinth dissolves in roiling orange and black. The purple naga blackens and sags as the bull roars smoke from its muzzle. The work of ages, the filigreed foils, the vibrant colour, the meters of fine fabric are all consumed by the fire until the bare wooden bones of the bull are visible. Suspended within them is Tjok Muter's body - a charred Venus de Milo.

It's a disconcerting scene. The retinue of attendants laugh, drink and chat on their mobile phones while poking at the body with bamboo poles and splashing coconut oil over it to hasten the consuming flames. The wind changes - suddenly my eyes and lungs are filled with Tjok Muter's atomised remains. I keep breathing...

An hour later, the fire has collapsed into a pile of coals and all that remains is the tower. The tower, once lit, roars and crackles. The bamboo of the scaffold bearing it begins exploding and again we hear the BOM... BOM BOM of this morning. This time we're so close that the fire gives us sunburn and the explosions reverberate through our bodies. The tower crashes down in flames to the cheers of the crowd. The flames leap high overhead, licking at the surrounding palms and the adjacent ramp, whose white shrouds billow upward in the heat's convection.

BOM BOM... BOM!

The fallen tower lies burning as the joyous, approving crowd begins to disperse.

BOM BOM BOM!

The high priestess emerges from the temple, naked and wrapped in white cloth. She departs, moving through the remaining knots of flushed onlookers with an air of otherworldliness. Then she's gone, but I know this sound will never cease to echo in my awareness...

BOM... BOM BOM!