Subak Irrigation Management (II)

The general Balinese philosophy guiding the subak system adheres to the principle of Tri Hita Karana which emphasises that happiness can only be reached if the Creator (God), the people (the farmers) and nature (the rice fields) live in harmony with each other. Based on this philosophy are the ceremonies which are a substantial part of the rice cultivation cycle. The ceremonies are carried out at the various temples which are associated with the subak.

They are organised hierarchically as follow: the simple shrine (chatu) at the individual water inlet, Bedugul temple at the dam or tunnel intersection, Ulun Suwi / Ulun Carik temple at each subak area, penyungsungan subak temple ’sanctuaries which were originally desa temples that one or more subaks helped to worship, after which in the course of time, all the expenses connected with the temple services and offering ceremonials have, gradually fallen to the subak or subaks and Ulun Danu temple, the Baliwide inter-subak temple at the crater lake Batur, the most sacred lake in Bali. For all the temples and other places of worship there are certain times when religious ceremonies are held, either periodically or as occasion demands.

The periodical ceremonies are divided into ngerainin and ngebekin or ngusaba. Ngerainin consists of making a flower offering in the puras ulun charik and penyungsungan subak; it takes place on certain favorable days (rerainan) such as full moon, new moon, Wednesday-Kliwon, Anggara Kasih (Tuesday-Kliwon), and the like, and is performed by the pemangku without the members of the subak being present. No ngerainin takes place at the chatus, which, since they are not puras, do not have pemangkus.

The harvest festival is celebrated in the last stage of the ripening of the rice, in alternate years as ngebekin and ngusaba. New moon is considered a favorable time for ngebekin, while ngusaba takes place at full moon. The former ceremony has the character of an offering to the demons; the latter, primarily a festival of thanksgiving to the deity, is more elaborate than ngebekin and is often accompanied by the Placing of festive Poles of bamboo (penjor) each kesit (field).

The ceremonies are not just performed based on the calendar but also carried out regularly following the stages of rice growth and the sequences of rice farming activities (which are quite similar with the rite of passage) starting from land preparation which is presided by “water opening ceremony”; seeding; transplanting; blooming of rice plant; milking; harvesting until the harvest being stocked at granary. The rituals may be performed individually by each farmer at his own altar as well as in a joint cooperation with other members of the same subak or even different subaks at relevant temples according to the kind of ceremony to be performed.

In effort to keep harmonious relationship with other living creatures such as pests and insects, rice farmers in former times used not to kill them, but rather they performed ritual known as nanglukmerana (“avoid pest attack ceremony”). This ritual is still practiced until today by Balinese farmers. The philosophical meaning of this ritual is that not to kill any creature as could as possible but just to protect the crops from pest attack. In some places, many subaks still used to perform “rat cremation ceremony” as a form of nangluk merana ritual, by praying for God’s blessing so that no pest would attack their crops. Other important rituals that need to be mentioned here are the so called tumpek uduh (“flora day ceremony”) and tumpek kandang (“fauna day ceremony”). Each of these rituals is performed every 210 days on Saturday based on Balinese calendar. These rituals symbolizing the biodiversity preservation efforts of Balinese rice farmers.

The Tri Hita Karana philosophy is also the basis for the clearly defined rules of a subak, called awig-awig. This set of laws regulates rights and duties among the members. It includes public obligations, regulations concerning land and water use, legal transactions of land transfers, and collective religious ceremonies. For instance, all members have the right to the same share of water at all times. This principle of equitable water sharing is put into action by fixed proportional flow division structures.

Subak internal matters are handled by the pekaseh, the subak head who is democratically elected by all members of the subak. He is responsible to overlook the irrigation management within the subak area, to schedule cultivation cycles and to organise subak ceremonies. He is supported by several assistants, such as the vice subak head (petajuh), the secretary (penyarikan), the treasurer (petengen or juru raksa), the messenger (kasinoman), special helper (saye) and the heads of the sub-subak groups. Biggersubak are divided into sub-groups, called munduk. Munduk may have a separate inlet from the subakmain canal. A munduk usually comprises an average of 20 to 40 farmers.

Every munduk is headed by a pengliman who receives direct orders from the pekaseh and is responsible for all matters related to the munduk. As a sub-group of the subak, the munduk has to follow the subak rules and regulations. However, certain organisational and water management issues can be decided autonomously on the munduk level. The munduk is an important dimension within the subak. Day-to-day cultivation decisions are made on this level and provide the fine-tuning of the subak water and crop management – not always following the subak laws by doing this. The relationship betweensubak and munduk is to facilitate top down and bottom up information flow.

Members of subak also form an informal group which is called sekaa, in order to make ease a certain working activity on the rice field by working together on a certain field and certain activity. For examples: sekaa numbeg (for land cultivation), sekaa jelinjingan (for water tunnel maintenance), sekaa sambang (for water and pest surveillance), sekaa mamulih (for seed plantation), sekaa majukut (for plants surveillance), sekaa manyi (for harvest work), sekaa bleseng (for carrying paddy to the barn). These sekaa may recruit workers outside subak members. The code of work in these sekaa is simple, “I scratch yours you scratch mine.”

The indigenous social-administration organization in subak also supported by efficient and effective water system. Subak’s water system comprise of many parts such as empelan (dam) functioned as water reservoir, aungan (tunnel), telabah (primary waterway), tembuku aya (primary inlet), telabah gede (secondary waterway), tembuku gede (secondary inlet), telabah pamaron (tertiary waterway), tembuku pamaron (tertiary inlet), telabah penyacah (quaternary waterway), tembuku penyacah (quaternary inlet), tembuku pengalapan (individual inlet), tali kunda (individual waterway). Subak’s water system also has complementary part such as penguras (flushing), pekiuh (overflow), titi (bridge), Jengkuwung (small tunnel), abangan (off-land tunnel), petaku (waterfall structure), and telepus (siphon).

source:blog.baliwww.com/

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Subak Irrigation Management (I)

Balinese rice cultivation is famous all over the world for its efficient use of irrigation water. At the heart of irrigation management are the water user associations called subak. They are the backbone of Balinese rice cultivation.

Subak has been described by several authors. It is commonly recognized as an autonomous socio-religious association which deals with matters related to the cultivation and irrigation of rice. They have evolved over centuries, organized by the farmers themselves without (or little) guidance from central authorities. The subak are considered to be one of the most effective irrigator organizations in the world.

The subak is a mixture of different units within a clearly defined geographical area. They are:

a. It is a technological unit including a main water inlet and a complex system of collectively owned in virilocal residence sons stay in the father’s compound uniting the men of a given patrilineal group. Irrigation canals which secure equal access to irrigation water to all the subak members. The water shares are determined by a combination of area sizes and mutual agreements, and technically implemented with fixed proportional flow division structures.

b. It is a physical unit. The boundaries of a subak are defined by all the rice fields which receive water from the subak irrigation infrastructure. The rice fields are also part of the nearest customary village. Yet, the subak does not correspond to the social unit of the village (Bray, 1994).

c. It is a social unit comprising all farmers who cultivate land within the subak boundaries and receive water from the subak irrigation infrastructure. The farmers live in the surrounding villages.

d. It is a legal unit given the status of customary law societies with clearly defined rules and regulations written down in a law book called “awig-awig”. This set of laws regulates rights and duties among the members. It includes public obligations, regulations concerning land and water use, legal transactions of land transfers, collective religious ceremonies, and sanctions when breaking the subak laws. Theawig-awig of subak has been passed down orally over generations. Nowadays, however, most subakhave a written version at their disposal.

e. It is a religious unit including ceremonies on the individual level, the subak level, and the inter-subaklevel. The ceremonies vary in scale, involvement and duration. The ceremonies ask for protection against pests and diseases, and honour god for letting human beings work the land. The most elaborated ones involve all subak who receive water from the same Crater Lake.

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Balinese Temple Network

More than 20,000 temples are scattered all over the island of Bali. All these temples are linked one and another create hundreds of temple networks based on the function of the temple and the clan of their congregation (network of clan temple). Each network has a central temple from which the network starts. The central temples can be everywhere; they are not localized in one area.

The function based temple networks involves only functional temples, or temple of professions, such as Melanting temple (temple of the trader), Ulun Suwi or Ulun Carik Temple – Ulun Suwi temple is an irrigation temple that belong to a subak (traditional water management group), and Banuan temple (dry fields temple).

Pura Melanting, Pulaki – Singaraja

The melanting temple network consists of thousands of melating temples that spread all over Bali. Each traditional market in Bali has its own Melanting temple (temple of trader) from which the traders and businessmen ask for fortune; these temples create melanting temple network with its central temple located in west Buleleng, near Perancak.

Pura Ulun Danu Batur

Ulun Suwi temple networks consist of hundreds ulun suwi temples that spread all over rice fields in the island. There are several networks of ulun suwi temples in Bali; each has different central temple and its own area. Since all rice field irrigations in Bali get their water from the lakes, the central temple of an ulun suwi temple network is the lake temple (Pura Ulun Danu) that is situated around the lake from which this ulun suwi temple network get its water. For example Pura Ulun Danu Batur (Lake Batur Temple) is the central temple an ulun suwi temple network which consists of hundreds of Pura Ulun Suwi (irrigation temple) which spread all over Rice fields in east and central Bali.

Pura Meduwe Karang

The banuan temple networks is a network consists of hundreds of Pura Banuan (dry field temple) that spread all over Bali. Banuan temple is a temple dedicated to the spirit of the land so it will gives his blessing to the cultivators of the dry land. The central temple of this banuan temple network is Pura Meduwe Karang (owner of the land temple) in Kubutambahan village, Buleleng regency.

The clan temple network is a network of temples which belong to a particular clan. For example Pande (blacksmith) clan temple network consist of dozens of clan temples of Pande clan that spread all over Bali. Each clan in Bali has its own temple network and its own central temple, for example, the Tarukan clan temple network has its central temple in Tarukan village, Gianyar; the central temple of Pande clan temple network is located in the complex of Ulun Danu Beratan Temple.

Pura Ulun Danu Beratan

How is the clan temple network formed? At first the members of a clan were concentrated in a village and built their clan temple there. With the passing of the time, there are steady increased on the number of clan members. Some of them settle down in far away villages and built a branch clan temple there. Big clan such as Pasek has hundreds of branch clan temple which spread all over Bali.

source:blog.baliwww.com/

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Temple and Society

Temple and societies in Bali has a unique bond in which a temple serves as part of identity of a society. All traditional Balinese social unit from households to kingdoms, possess their own temples where offerings are offered to the deities concerned with their affairs, for example market deities in the market temple, ancestors in the household and clan temple. In other words, each social unit forms congregation of specific temple or shrines, which symbolically defines its place in Balinese social universe.

This principle has survived into modern era, as banks, government offices, and even tourist hotels construct small temple on their ground, which superficially establish their existence but as for identity more light have to be shed on this matter.

The Subaks or irrigation organizations have their water temple in which Dewi Danu, the goddess of lake or other deities which has strong relation with the farmers and agricultural activities are venerated. The traditional markets have their market temple in which Dewi Melanting, the goddess of trade is given homage. The traditional institutions have obvious relationship with particular deities and give identity to their temple and institution. While modern institutions like office buildings have no immediately obvious relationship with particular deities and so it is difficult to assign any identity to the temple and to know which deities should be invited on the temple anniversary.

Unlike traditional Balinese temples which consist of collection of shrines for specific deities which show the identity of the temple – whether it is a clan temple or water temple. The temples of new institution usually only has a single shrine which is known as padmasana (the lotus throne or throne of God) which is the place where God is revered. The reverence of God in these new temples gives no specific identity to these new temple since all temples has a shrine to venerate God and hence the temple does not give any identity to these new institutions.

source:blog.baliwww.com/

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About Subak

Rice is the staple diet of the Balinese and a great deal of effort goes into sustaining this vital foodsource. Past generations of farmers have painstakingly transformed pockets of natural landscape into the most intricate network of rice terraces and canals.

One of the most important elements of the entire rice cultivation process is a shared irrigation system run by an organization called Subak. This collective basically refers to a group of farmers who have adjacent fields and the organization ensures that each piece of landscape receives fair distribution of the precious water that is sourced from a local spring. These farmers also cooperate to repair aqueducts and dikes, prevent theft and invariably attempt to solve the minor problems that arise between neighbours.

Any farmer owning rice terrace land in Bali must become a member of the Subak. There is periodical voting amongst the constituents to elect a head of the organization. Although being chosen as the head of the Subak is an unpaid role, it is often compensated by extra water supplies if required. Each Subak committee holds regular meetings to decide plantation and harvest dates as well as what insecticides to use and when to perform certain ceremonies to bless the land. In addition, every Subak cooperative maintains a small temple in amongst the rice fields where the deities of rice and water are worshipped.

In the region of Tabanan, which is Bali’s most fertile rice growing district, there is a unique Subak Museum that is dedicated to the entire rice growing process. It houses a collection of tools and equipment that have been implemented by farmers over the generations. The museum is a legacy that delves into the ancient Balinese Hindu philosophy and ideology of rice growing.

source:blog.baliwww.com/

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Magecel: A Unique Balinese Pastime

Magecel is a unique Balinese pastime which strongly related to cockfighting. Magecel can be defined as an activity of fondling and exercising fighting cock. As any activity in Bali, magecel is done collectively; sometimes four up to a dozen men bring with their fighting cocks sit under the canopy of banyan, other big tree or in the hamlet meeting hall fondling and discussing the merit and demerit of their own fighting cocks, sometimes mock battles without steel spurs are staged to exercise the fighting ability of the cocks.

The most favorite topic of conversation during the magecel is the Pengayam-ayam. Pengayam is knowledge of fighting rooster, the law of cockfighting, in short anything related to the cockfighting.Pengayam is written on sacred palm leaves manuscript. The knowledge of pengayam is unbelievably intricate and detailed. There is a mind-boggling classification of cock by color, shape, configuration, neck ruff, and other characteristics. Certain color of cocks should fight cock of other colors only during specific phases of the moon, on specific days, at specific times of day, from specific direction in the ring, and so on. This is subject of endless discussions during the magecel activity.

The magecel activity gives Balinese men bad stigma of lazy men. The visitors which come to Bali can easily make a conclusion that Balinese women are working busily for the family and while the Balinese men are busy fondling their fighting cocks. This picture is not always true. Nowadays, the magecelactivity is usually done late in the afternoon or early in the evening, after the working hours or on the holiday.

The magecel activity can be found easily in the rural area, urban populations in the city rarely enjoy this pastime anymore. The magecel activity is strongly related to the existence of cockfights. After the government banned cockfighting in 1981, the megecel activity decreased slowly in frequency, and quantity of the participant, but the strong resilience of cockfighting and the relatively high frequency of illegal and legal cockfights preserved this pastime.

source:blog.baliwww.com/

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Through The Eyes of Researcher: Cockfight and Balinese Men

Here is an interesting excerpt on cockfight and Balinese men taken from Clifford Geertz’s writing entitled “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight”. It will give you an interesting insight on the relation between cockfight and Balinese men

As much of America surfaces in a ball park, on a golf links, at a race track, or around a poker table, much of Bali surfaces in a cock ring. For it is only apparently cocks that are fighting there. Actually, it is men.

To anyone who has been in Bali any length of time, the deep psychological identification of Balinese men with their cocks is unmistakable. The double entendre here is deliberate. It works in exactly the same way in Balinese as it does in English, even to producing the same tired jokes, strained puns, and uninventive obscenities. Bateson and Mead have even suggested that, in line with the Balinese conception of the body as a set of separately animated parts, cocks are viewed as detachable, self-operating penises, ambulant genitals with a life of their own. And while I do not have the kind of unconscious material either to confirm or disconfirm this intriguing notion, the fact that they are masculine symbols par excellence is about as indubitable, and to the Balinese about as evident, as the fact that water runs downhill.

The language of everyday moralism is shot through, on the male side of it, with roosterish imagery. Sabung, the word for cock (and one which appears in inscriptions as early as A.D. 922), is used metaphorically to mean “hero,” “warrior,” “champion,” “man of parts,” “political candidate,” “bachelor,” “dandy,” “lady-killer,” or “tough guy.” A pompous man whose behavior presumes above his station is compared to a tailless cock who struts about as though he had a large, spectacular one. A desperate man who makes a last, irrational effort to extricate himself from an impossible situation is likened to a dying cock who makes one final lunge at his tormentor to drag him along to a common destruction. A stingy man, who promises much, gives little, and begrudges that is compared to a cock which, held by the tail, leaps at another without in fact engaging him. A marriageable young man still shy with the opposite sex or someone in a new job anxious to make a good impression is called “a fighting cock caged for the first time.” Court trials, wars, political contests, inheritance disputes, and street arguments are all compared to cockfights. Even the very island itself is perceived from its shape as a small, proud cock, poised, neck extended, back taut, tail raised, in eternal challenge to large, feckless, shapeless Java.

But the intimacy of men with their cocks is more than metaphorical. Balinese men, or anyway a large majority of Balinese men, spend an enormous amount of time with their favorites, grooming them, feeding them, discussing them, trying them out against one another, or just gazing at them with a mixture of rapt admiration and dreamy self-absorption. Whenever you see a group of Balinese men squatting idly in the council shed or along the road in their hips down, shoulders forward, knees up fashion, half or more of them will have a rooster in his hands, holding it between his thighs, bouncing it gently up and down to strengthen its legs, ruffling its feathers with abstract sensuality, pushing it out against a neighbor’s rooster to rouse its spirit, withdrawing it toward his loins to calm it again Now and then, to get a feel for another bird, a man will fiddle this way with someone else’s cock for a while, but usually by moving around to squat in place behind it, rather than just having it passed across to him as though it were merely an animal.

In the houseyard, the high-walled enclosures where the people live, fighting cocks are kept in wicker cages, moved frequently about so as to maintain the optimum balance of sun and shade. They are fed a special diet, which varies somewhat according to individual theories but which is mostly maize, sifted for impurities with far more care than it is when mere humans are going to eat it and offered to the animal kernel by kernel. Red pepper is stuffed down their beaks and up their anuses to give them spirit. They are bathed in the same ceremonial preparation of tepid water, medicinal herbs, flowers, and onions in which infants are bathed, and for a prize cock just about as often. Their combs are cropped, their plumage dressed, their spurs trimmed, their legs massaged, and they are inspected for flaws with the squinted concentration of a diamond merchant. A man who has a passion for cocks, an enthusiast in the literal sense of the term, can spend most of his life with them, and even those, the overwhelming majority, whose passion though intense has not entirely run away with them, can and do spend what seems not only to an outsider, but also to themselves an inordinate amount of time with them. “I am cock crazy,” my landlord, a quite ordinary afficionado by Balinese standards, used to moan as he went to move another cage, give another bath, or conduct another feeding. “We’re all cock crazy.”

The madness has some less visible dimensions, however, because although it is true that cocks are symbolic expressions or magnifications of their owner’s self, the narcissistic male ego writ out in Aesopian terms, they are also expressions- and rather more immediate ones-of what the Balinese regard as the direct inversion, aesthetically, morally, and metaphysically, of human status: animality.

The Balinese revulsion against any behavior as animal-like can hardly be overstressed. Babies are not allowed to crawl for that reason. Incest, though hardly approved, is a much less horrifying crime than bestiality. (The appropriate punishment for the second is death by drowning, for the first being forced to live like an animal.) Most demons are represented-in sculpture, dance, ritual, myth-in some real or fantastic animal form. The main puberty rite consists in filing the child’s teeth so they will not look like animal fangs. Not only defecation but eating is regarded as a disgusting, almost obscene activity, to be conducted hurriedly and privately, because of its association with animality. Even falling down or any form of clumsiness is considered to be bad for these reasons. Aside from cocks and a few domestic animals-oxen, ducks-of no emotional significance, the Balinese are aversive to animals and treat their large number of dogs not merely callously but with a phobic cruelty. In identifying with his cock, the Balinese man is identifying not just with his ideal self, or even his penis, but also, and at the same time, with what he most fears, hates, and ambivalence being what it is, is fascinated by-The Powers of Darkness.

The connection of cocks and cockfighting with such Powers, with the animalistic demons that threaten constantly to invade the small, cleared off space in which the Balinese have so carefully built their lives and devour its inhabitants, is quite explicit. A cockfight, any cockfight, is in the first instance a blood sacrifice offered, with the appropriate chants and oblations, to the demons in order to pacify their ravenous, cannibal hunger. No temple festival should be conducted until one is made. (If it is omitted someone will inevitably fall into a trance and command with the voice of an angered spirit that the oversight be immediately corrected.) Collective responses to natural evils-illness, crop failure, volcanic eruptions-almost always involve them. And that famous holiday in Bali, The Day of Silence (Njepi), when everyone sits silent and immobile all day long in order to avoid contact with a sudden influx of demons chased momentarily out of hell, is preceded the previous day by large-scale cockfights (in this case legal) in almost every village on the island.

In the cockfight, man and beast, good and evil, ego and id, the creative power of aroused masculinity and the destructive power of loosened animality fuse in a bloody drama of hatred, cruelty, violence, and death. It is little wonder that when, as is the invariable rule, the owner of the winning cock takes the carcass of the loser- often torn limb from limb by its enraged owner-home to eat, he does so with a mixture of social embarrassment, moral satisfaction, aesthetic disgust, and cannibal joy.

source:blog.baliwww.com/

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