RETRIEVING THE TRAGIC DEAD IN BALI

Abstract

Indonesia has seen in the last decades the massacre of 1965–6 and the subsequent autocratic rule of Suharto. The recent film The Act of Killing gives an inkling of the horror of the genocide. ‘Truth commissions’ had limited success in the country. The article focuses on the restorative performances initiated by the Balinese after the years of chaos that interweave the spiritual and material – sensuous – spheres of human experience. This discussion emphasises the importance of rituals in the revitalisation process – a role that emerges cross-culturally. It is through the regenerative dynamic of the death rituals in Bali that the troubled, displaced spirits are liberated and reclaimed by the family and community. The movement across conceptual spheres involves a shift of moral identities: the ‘tragic dead’ are rescued from oblivion and transformed into ancestors that are worshipped. They then have the capacity to protect and heal. The rituals, thereby, contribute to easing the pain and spiritual sorrow of the living. At the same time the tragic dead are assimilated into the social, genealogical and cosmological order. This comes to the fore in the case study of the remarkable Balinese Governor Suteja who was kidnapped in 1966 and closely linked with President Sukarno. Contemporary artistic installations by youngsters, often rooted in the ritual life, elaborate on the ambiguous nature of themes encountered. The art works briefly address inter-generational distress, a subject hardly explored on the island. This gives some idea of how young people come to terms with the violent past by drawing on prevalent cosmological and spiritual perceptions of the world.