Night The Miracle of Bali

BBC Four Collections - specially chosen programmes

from the BBC archive.

For this collection, Sir David Attenborough

has chosen documentaries from the start of his career.

More programmes on this theme, and other BBC Four Collections,

are available on BBC iPlayer.

MUSIC PLAYS

These children are in deep trance.

Their bodies are no longer under their control.

They have been taken over

and are inhabited by unearthly spirits.

This is the island of Bali.

When the Balinese are in trance,

they perform acts that they couldn't repeat without pain

or indeed repeat at all in a normal state,

and the ability to communicate with the gods through trance

lies at the heart of Balinese religion.

PEOPLE CHATTER

Officially, Bali is a Hindu country

and, like all Hindus,

the Balinese cremate their dead.

But, being Bali, they do so with dramatic displays of great splendour.

The corpses are brought to the cremation ground

in this magnificent tower.

Then they are transferred to a coffin in the shape of a black bull.

CHATTER AND PRAYING

Because the cremation rituals are so complex,

and demand so many offerings,

they cost a great deal of money.

Often a man's body may have to lie in a shallow grave for years

before his family can finally save up enough

to provide him with the rich ceremonial that he deserves.

A cremation, therefore, is not an occasion for grief

but a time for gaiety,

to celebrate the successful accomplishment

of a man's most sacred duty.

MUSIC PLAYS

Now, at last, the spirits of the dead are being liberated

from their earthly bodies

to ascend to a higher world,

where they will dwell until they are reincarnated

once more as better beings.

MUSIC PLAYS

500 years ago, the whole of Java and Bali was Hindu.

But during the 16th century,

Mohammedan fanatics began to invade Java.

Slowly they fought their way eastwards,

converting some princes, driving others before them.

When they reached the eastern tip of Java, they stopped,

and allowed the surviving Hindu rajahs and their courts to escape

across the narrow strait to Bali.

Here they found sanctuary

and here there still stand statues of Ganesha, the Hindu elephant god,

in an island that has never seen an elephant.

The Javanese rajahs brought to Bali much else beside their religion,

for with them into exile travelled their court musicians

and their artists.

As a result, Bali became the sanctuary

for the cream, the distillation, of what was at the time

the most sophisticated culture in the whole of Southeast Asia.

And here it has not merely survived, it has burgeoned gloriously.

MUSIC PLAYS

This is the legong, perhaps the most famous of Bali's dances.

It tells the story of a Javanese king

who kidnaps a princess from a rival's kingdom

and is eventually killed in battle.

The dancer on the right portrays a court attendant,

but it seems strange indeed that the king and his princess

should be played by two doll-like children dancing in perfect unison

and children, moreover, who are forbidden to dance the legong

when they become tainted by adolescence.

The official story may be Javanese.

It seems possible that the dance has origins in Bali itself

and meanings that lie much deeper

than a relatively trivial tale of foreign chivalry.

To search for those origins,

you must go into the mountains of central Bali,

where many of the island's most ancient beliefs

and rituals still survive,

beliefs that hark back to a time long before the arrival

of the Hindu refugees.

MURMURING

This village priest is holding two wooden dolls.

As he prays, he smokes them with incense

in just the same way as he would smoke real dancers

in order to send them into a trance.

On either side of him sit two young girls,

lavishly dressed, with whitened, impassive faces,

girls who have been specially selected by the priest

and the villagers for this particular ceremonial.

SINGING AND CHANTING

Once again, the priest prays,

calling to the spirits to come down and visit the village.

Once more, he smokes the dolls.

They begin to vibrate,

just as a human being vibrates when he's on the verge of a trance.

SINGING AND CHANTING

Now the children hold the sticks that animate the puppets

and the people sing to the gods,

entreating them to come down and animate the bodies of the girls,

just as the girls are animating the puppets.

Slowly, the children's eyes fall shut.

Slowly, they drift into trance.

SINGING AND CHANTING

"Sanghyang, heavenly spirits, come down," the women implore.

SINGING AND CHANTING

SINGING STOPS

And now the girls are in trance.

Now the sanghyang, the spirits, are inhabiting their bodies.

Their eyes will remain closed until the trance is over.

They see no-one, they speak to no-one,

except when, on a rare occasion,

they may communicate secretly to each other in a whisper.

LOW CHATTER

More offerings must be made.

The villagers now address the children as Ratu, "Your Highness",

as befits a goddess.

The children themselves are acquiring new characters.

They may become petulant and arrogant

and quite unlike their normal selves.

LOW CHATTER

This ritual of the sanghyang dalang, the puppet spirits,

sanctifies the village.

In times of pestilence, when disease threatens,

the children may be called upon to perform every night for weeks.

They must be children,

for the heavenly spirits wish to inhabit pure bodies

uncorrupted by adolescence.

SINGING AND CHANTING

And they must dance like puppets, impassively and in unison,

for they're portraying the puppets of the gods,

and so the very characteristics

that seemed so meaningless and mystifying in the legong

here seem perfectly logical.

What more likely, then, that this is the origin of the legong,

and that the Javanese princes 400 years ago,

anxious to recreate the sophisticated splendour

of their court in Balinese exile,

took the child trance dancers of the villages

and used them to recreate a pantomime of their court legends?

But the sanghyang dalang dancers,

though they by now have been excelled in technique

and sophistication by the legong dancers of the lowlands,

can in their trance perform feats which no legong dancer can emulate.

MUSIC PAUSES

CHATTER

MUSIC PLAYS

With no support from the hands of the men

and with their eyes still firmly shut,

they continue to dance.

MUSIC PLAYS

MUSIC PAUSES

And now the women chant.

"They quickly come the nymphs," they say. "Two together they dance,

"like lilies with pollen in the centre,

"blown by the wind and swaying.

"The water lily seeks the Sandat flower.

"They fall, and as they fall, the heavenly nymphs bend over backwards."

SINGING AND CHANTING

MUSIC PAUSES

LOW CHATTER

Before the gods release the children from their trance,

they must perform one more act.

They must walk barefooted

through the embers of a fire made from coconut husks.

MUSIC PLAYS

MUSIC PAUSES

The main ceremony is over,

but the goddesses have not yet departed.

The children are still in the grip of trance.

LOW CHATTER

COUGHS

CHANTING AND SINGING

Once more the priest must pray,

this time to bring the girls out of their trance.

SINGING AND CHANTING

With a flower, he sprinkles them with holy water.

The women pray, giving thanks.

The gods are leaving them.

The trance is over.

Once more, they are little girls.

Once more, they have demonstrated that the gods are all around,

invisible but in direct communication with the people.

The priest who gives them absolution

is officially a Hindu priest.

But the rites over which he presides

have probably existed in Bali since long before Hinduism arrived.

This ancient religion of the island seems to have been an animistic one,

a belief that all things in creation have individual spirits,

and since this is so,

it follows that wherever nature manifests itself

in a specially prodigal or spectacular fashion,

then there must be a specially holy place.

SQUEAKS

Monkeys are rare in Bali.

In this forest alone do they exist in large numbers.

In this forest, therefore, shrines have been built to celebrate them,

and to give thanks to the spirits of nature.

Here, it's an act of piety to bring food to the monkeys.

MONKEYS COO AND SQUEAK

In a cave on the east coast of the island, there stands a shrine

in homage of an even more spectacular concentration

of animal life - bats.

They hang in millions from the roof.

The air in the cave is fetid and unbearably stifling

with the accumulated heat of a million bodies.

As the guardian priestess prays,

a steady hail of lice and droppings falls to the floor of the cave,

where it's fed upon voraciously

by a glistening carpet of giant cockroaches.

INSECTS BUZZ

On the rocks at the back lives a python,

which feeds on the dead bats that fall from the roof.

A hideous place, maybe, to many eyes.

To the Balinese,

an unquestionable demonstration of the fecundity of nature

and therefore of its holiness.

INSECTS BUZZ

Since animals have spirits,

those spirits may as well possess the bodies of a man

as may the spirit of a goddess.

Even the spirit of the most ordinary creatures may do such a thing.

This man is about to become possessed by the spirit of a pig.

Only in the remote mountain villages

do these animal possessions take place.

The people themselves can't explain

why these strange ceremonies are held,

yet the men of certain families

habitually and deliberately go into trance to become pigs,

and become possessed to such a degree

that unless they're cared for they may injure themselves.

The process of going into trance is achieved again

by being smoked with incense.

These occasions are watched with pleasure by everybody in the village.

These people are familiar with the supernatural.

It's entertainment, sometimes even comedy.

SINGING AND CHANTING

SCATTERED LAUGHTER

This is no play-acting.

One night, a man entranced as a pig broke through the cordon of villagers

and escaped into the surrounding rice fields.

In the darkness of the night, no-one could catch him.

The next morning, he was discovered in a mud wallow.

He was ill for days afterwards,

for in his pig incarnation he had eaten dung, as pigs will.

SINGING AND CHATTER

The villagers taunt and jeer at the entranced dancers.

They jostle them just as they would jostle a pig.

To an outsider,

this seems no more than some extraordinary game,

some pantomime stunt.

It seems so, that is,

until the moment comes to bring the men out of their trance,

for a man possessed has superhuman strength.

He must be captured to be exorcised,

and he cannot be captured except in the most violent way.

SHOUTS

He remembers little of what happened,

the song the women sang to him little more.

But he knows that he's experienced something vaguely delicious

and he feels exhausted to his very soul.

Each village may specialise in a particular kind of trance.

Near the village of the pig trance there's another,

where men are habitually possessed by the spirits of horses.

Drawn by the light of specially lit fires,

they come careering out of the blackness of the night,

kicking the hot ashes with their feet and whinnying.

SINGING AND CHANTING

SHOUTS

SINGING AND CHANTING

SHOUTS

LOUD CRIES

It's not only the spirits of animals which may possess a man.

Objects have spirits and even they may do so.

SINGING AND CHANTING

This man is about to become entranced

by the spirit of the lid of a pot,

represented by the wooden disk tied to his hand.

CLAPPING AND CHANTING

This is comedy,

for the spirit of a pot lid

will obviously wish to place itself upon any flat surface,

and being a trance spirit, it will do so with the greatest vigour.

CHANTING AND SINGING

LAUGHTER

The villagers shriek with laughter

and yet beneath it all lies the knowledge

that the man entranced is uncontrollable and irrational,

that he may become violent,

that none can tell for sure how he will behave

and that to bring him back to normality

will need the strength of many men.

RAISED VOICES

LOUD CHATTER

The fact that all things, animate and inanimate, have spirits,

means that every natural phenomenon must be watched, considered,

and, where appropriate, reverenced.

Bali is a volcanic island and, as so often on the slopes of volcanoes,

warm springs gush from the ground in miraculous fashion.

These are the most spectacular of them, at Tampaksiring.

The Balinese are by nature and habit fastidious people,

who bathe several times a day, anyway, if they can.

But they travel the whole length of their island, 100 miles or so,

to bathe in these sacred pools.

This place was once the battleground of the gods.

Not far away, a great demon was killed,

and to this day the water that bubbles up there

may not be used to irrigate rice fields,

because, if it were, the rice stems when cut would exude blood,

they said.

But these springs were specifically created by the great god Indra

as a source of the elixir of immortality

with which he was able to revive other gods wounded in that battle.

It's important, therefore, as a site of pilgrimage,

and blessings given by these priests

are particularly valuable and powerful.

Every day, whole communities arrive on foot or by truck,

laden with offerings to place in front of the shrine.

CHANTING AND CHATTER

All important places in Bali have their own temples,

but there are six which are particularly holy,

and this is one of them,

Luhur, which stands on the southernmost tip of the island

overlooking the sea.

Strangely, for an island people, the Balinese fear the sea.

For them it is not a welcome source of food

or a highway to other places.

Instead, it is the home of demons and monsters,

and the source of all that is most evil.

The long empty beaches of black volcanic sand,

shimmering in the heat,

are the assembly grounds of witches and demons.

There are few fish in the reefs round the island

and therefore little inducement to the Balinese to become great seamen.

As a result, when they go to sea, they do so tentatively

and they take good care to protect themselves

with the head of a friendly spirit, half fish, half elephant,

in the bow of their canoe.

Only thus can you hope to keep the sea monsters at bay.

The sea gods must indeed be placated

for evil spirits must be taken account of

just as much as good ones.

Among the thousands of ceremonials

that are held every year in the island,

there are many to make offerings to the sea.

MUSIC AND CHANTING

Often the guardian spirits of a village near the sea

are brought down in procession

to spend an evening on the frontiers of their kingdom.

MUSIC PLAYS

CHANTING AND CHATTER

MUSIC PLAYS

As the depths of the sea are the source of evil,

so the source of all that is good lies on the heights,

the summit of the great mountain Gunung Agung,

which forms the heart and centre of the island,

and yet, by a tragic paradox, Gunung Agung is a volcano.

Only a few years ago, the mountain exploded.

Lava poured down its flanks

in an irresistible and lethal flood.

The people took flight before it,

stunned and mystified that their god should have turned against them.

In some way, it seemed, they must have unknowingly offended.

The lava swept towards them, turning rivers to steam before their eyes.

In spite of all their prayers and offerings, the eruptions continued.

Many people fled.

Many others stayed in their villages,

believing that if they had indeed offended

and could not atone with prayers and offerings,

then they had better accept their fate.

2,000 died.

MUSIC PLAYS

But the spirits that exercise the most power over the minds

of the Balinese are neither remote nor impersonal.

They are, on the contrary,

creatures that the people know intimately and personally.

Nor are they some recently imported deities from India or anywhere else.

But they are gods whose origin lies directly in Bali.

They come out of their special stores in the temples

and walk the streets in procession on the occasion

of every temple festival,

and the most important and friendly of them all

is a magnificent, shaggy creature,

the guardian of the village, the Barong.

He it is who plays

one of the main roles in the most spectacular temple rituals.

MUSIC PLAYS

The Barong takes part in a great drama

in which he does battle

with the hideous witch Rangda, the embodiment of evil.

But before the main protagonists emerge from the temple,

masked dancers perform.

These are the Barong's attendants and supporters

and their dance is the first act in a drama

which may last for the rest of the afternoon

and go on late into the night.

MUSIC PLAYS

The Barong awaits in his specially built store,

oblivious of these preliminaries,

while the gamelan orchestra plays the sacred melodies.

Most of the village is here to watch,

for this performance is at one

and the same time an entertainment and a drama,

a ritual and an exorcism.

As darkness falls, the Barong begins to dance.

MUSIC PLAYS

The two men inside his skin animating him

have already to some degree been taken over by his spirit.

But it will not be unusual if one or both of them,

before the evening's drama is over,

falls into a deep trance and becomes possessed.

MUSIC AND CHATTER

SHOUTING

The Barong's first opponent has emerged from the temple.

Horrifying as she may appear,

with her goggling eyes, her appalling fangs

and her red pendulous tongue,

she's not Rangda the witch, but Rangda's daughter, Rarung,

and she has been sent here to try and ensnare the Barong

with a proposal of marriage.

The white cloth she holds is an instrument of her magic.

By waving it she casts spells.

By placing it over her head, she becomes invisible.

MUSIC PLAYS

Rarung's mask was cut out of a special tree

that grows in the graveyard.

Night after night,

it has been hung there in the cemetery to charge it with magic.

Now it is so powerful,

that even when it's lying in its basket, it may creak and groan

and sometimes even rise in the air, so the people say.

In the drama at this moment, Rarung is truly terrifying.

MUSIC PLAYS

SHOUTS AND CRIES

The first skirmish with the Barong is about to begin.

MUSIC PLAYS

Rarung has placed her magic cloth over her head.

She's invisible to all except the Barong,

who, with his supernatural awareness,

knows exactly where she is.

MUSIC PLAYS

SHOUTING

SHOUTING

Although this is a ritual,

although all the villagers watching so intently know the plot

and the theoretical outcome of the battle,

this conflict is nonetheless a real one.

In a sense, there is a haunting fear that maybe things

will not go as they should.

Maybe this time the Barong, the guardian of the village,

will not win, as he has always won in the past.

Maybe this time

the health and the wellbeing of the village

is in real jeopardy.

SHOUTS

There is a momentary pause,

a lowering of tension in the play,

that has already been going on for an hour or so.

And then suddenly the drama tautens,

for out of the temple for the first time comes Rangda.

SHOUTING

Rangda, the haunter of graveyards,

the personification of evil and malevolence.

Her shoulders are hung with dead men's entrails.

Flames spring from her tongue, and her fingers

are armed with immense claws.

Rarung reports to her mother.

The Barong has spurned her. She must be revenged.

If the drama continues as it usually does,

Rangda will do battle with the Barong.

She will appear to get the upper hand,

and men in the audience will fall into trance

and rush to the Barong's defence, waving swords.

Rangda will then bewitch them

and make them turn their swords upon themselves,

but the Barong will miraculously prevent the swords

from doing any harm to her supporters.

That is what should happen,

but things do not always turn out as expected.

SHOUTING

The drama has been too powerful.

Even before battle has been seriously joined,

men in the crowd are falling into trance and rushing to attack Rangda.

They must be restrained before they injure themselves.

And now Rangda herself goes into trance.

MUSIC PLAYS

SHOUTS

MUSIC AND SHOUTING

Rangda is no longer in control of herself.

She must be carried forcibly back to the temple

to be brought out of her trance by a priest.

RAISED VOICES

It seems that the play has come to an early and unexpected end

without any of the usual demonstrations

with swords and self-stabbings.

The Barong visits each of the entranced villagers,

giving her benison to bring them out of trance.

But all is by no means over yet.

LAUGHTER AND CHATTER

These swords are unquestionably sharp.

If a man is not deeply entranced,

he may well injure himself severely.

If he is impure, he will be in great danger.

If he had touched a corpse within the last seven days,

the swords would certainly pierce his flesh.

RAISED VOICES

Once they have endeavoured to stab themselves

to demonstrate their devotion to the Barong,

they must be disarmed by the priests and their helpers.

But that must be done swiftly and powerfully,

for none can tell how they will react.

CHATTER

To be brought out of trance,

the men must now be sprinkled with holy water.

But when it appears, one of the most powerfully entranced men,

in his passion, seizes the jar to drink it.

Some are released from trance by wiping their faces

with the shock of human hair that hangs beneath the Barong's chin,

but final exorcism will not happen except inside the temple itself.

SINGING AND CHANTING

Within the courtyard of the temple,

the village priest prays and makes offerings before the shrines.

In front of him stands the Barong,

and attendants holding on their heads the baskets

which now contain the magic masks of Rarong and Rangda.

Many men are still entranced and moaning.

Before all can be brought back to this world,

the sacrifice of a chick must be made.

LOW CHATTER

CHANTING AND SINGING

Once more, the Barong receives the homage of his supporters.

Once more, evil has been routed, good has triumphed,

and the village has been saved.

Once more, the gods have demonstrated the continuity between the natural

and the supernatural,

by coming down to Earth,

and for a short time inhabiting the bodies of men.

MUSIC PLAYS