Bali - Teeth Filing Ceremony

No I'm not back in Bali, but I wanted to share my experience of this with everyone. I'll bury this back in cronological order later.

I'm taking this fallow time in Bangkok to catch up on journal archiving and posting. There's also a lot of quicktime movies to edit and process. The movie snippets are necessarily brief, but perhaps they'll give you a taste for the special intimate experiences I've had. Enjoy!

Quicktime movies, and link to photos below.


The Teeth Filing Ceremony
This is arguably the most important personal ceremony on Bali. It's certainly the most elaborate and expensive one that parents owe their children. They become eligible for this important ceremony around age 18, but may have to wait until many years after that if their parents are poor. Balinese are supportive of those in financial need however, so if necessary and practical the local Banjar (community group made up of married men that own property) will arrange a large group ceremony to share the costs, and solicit extra volunteers. In brief, as best as I understand it, this ceremony symbolically separates the person from demons and animals by eliminating any fangs or uneven teeth. It also makes for a beautiful smile... which is not lost on the locals. Usually, at least 2 people have their teeth filed during each ceremony.

In this case, a brother and sister of a high caste were the only subjects, and it took place in the family compound. I was touched by how nervous and vulnerable they felt, and how supportive and empathetic everyone else was. As nervous and busy as they were, they both made their rounds before hand and said hello to everyone. The sister made a point of sitting with me before the ceremony, when she found out that I had come alone. The Balinese are extremely sweet about making sure people do not feel alone or afraid.


Teeth Filing Preparations
Countless hours are put into preparing for this most important of adult ceremonies. Even weddings are simple by comparison! Amongst the things made by numerous volunteers are intricately crafted offerings to the gods and spirits, traditional decorations, and food for everyone. The division of labor is primarily by gender. The decorations I saw for this ceremony were the same as I saw in photographs from another ceremony 15 years ago. Balinese are consistent about their traditions, which explains why they are so skillful at quickly preparing for them... despite elastic Bali time volunteerism. The colorful decoration with the demon face, and 2 figures representing the gender(s) of the people being filed, took 50 people a whole day to create. The ornate towers of shish kabobs, chillis, flowers, and ornately carved glistening white pig fat, took teams of men to create. What is it that causes men around the world to gravitate toward BBQ related duties?

I had helped out several hours the day before the ceremony, though they might have made faster progress had they not needed to coach me on how to weave intricate palm leaf baskets and such. Overall, they were delighted to have me involved... especially since I was polite, dressed in respectable temple ready clothing, and brought a token present in the beginning. The adults were curious and generous, and the children were a lot of fun.


To see photos...
...copy and paste the following URL directly into your browser: http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=jdehulj.9na2dllj&x=0&y=-7ql22k


To see movies, click on the following links...

___Womens Work:
Part A (2MB) teethfiling_prep_a2.mov
Part B (2.3MB) teethfiling_prep_b2.mov


___The Ceremony:
A (1.2MB) Blessing
Note the colorful elaborate sculture with demon and image of sister and brother. This took about 50 people a day to make out of rice, oil and food coloring.
teethfiling_a.mov

B (2.9MB) Brother get's his teeth filed (while his sibling and family conforts, encourages, and holds, him down.)
teethfiling_b.mov

C (2.2MB) Sister is made comfortable
teethfiling_c.mov

D (2.6MB) Sister's turn
teethfiling_d.mov

E (1.5MB) Closing rituals
teethfiling_e.mov