NABEN - A BALINESE HINDU COLLECTIVE FUNERAL

30 June 2023

You have to attend and talk to local people before you can understand what otherwise seem to be bizarre local customs and rituals at a Hindu Bali funeral, called a "naben".

Cremation is believed to drive off evil spirits linked to greed or excessive desire, allowing the person a second chance following his or her rebirth. It is a purification of the soul.

However, I am told that the cost of an elaborate cremation ceremony in this country is too high for an individual family to bear alone.. 

And so grieving families must wait for a large number of people to pass away (this is all true) and then they share the costs at a collective cremation.

So what about the bodies while they are waiting, piling up somewhere?

So here's the strange part... If a person dies, they're buried first, buried in the ground. Over time, the numbers of dead and buried build up and a year later, sometimes as long as five years later, the bones are dug up and burnt at this collective cremation ceremony called a Naben.

Yesterday's naben concerned fifty local people who had died these last two years. One was a member of the king's family, so following the rules of the caste system, he received a luxury funeral and was kept separate from the ordinary castes. His pyre has nine levels, as you can see in the photo, which are ordinal points on the compass that attest to his high birth and assist his navigation to the next world.

Someone asked me what the attendees do at a naben - "do they just sit around?".

As it's only the long-buried bones, there's really not much to disagree with at this ceremony governed as it is by ancient ritual, evolved and tested over time; but if it's a freshly dead person there's the flesh as well which bubbles and squeaks as the air and grease is burnt out, an experience for those present that even elaborate ritual cannot easily calm and dignify.

On this occasion yesterday, along with the bones of the elderly long-time buried and exhumed, there was a 17 year old boy killed just last week, in a scooter accident most likely. The family had kept the body of the boy in their home, temporarily preserved in formalin. 

They use a gas burner, as in any crematorium, and the pyre is as much for display as those electric log fires. One of the organisers keeps the decorative border watered to keep up the appearance and stop the flames from spreading.

Wailing or any dramatic scenes of grief are not permitted by the etiquette because this would be to question the god's calling time on one of his faithful followers. It is the same for many beliefs.

The body of this boy took a long time to be reduced to ashes, the hissing and spitting of the fire accompanied the sadness and tears of his stricken parents, family and school chums. Each comforts themself alone, head bowed quietly in hands.

COMMENT

Horrific and quite touching all at the same time. I had some bacon in the pan behind me as I read this. It was hissing and spitting. I think it will go to the doggy this morning.