The Indonesian province of Bali is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the region—and unlike neighboring Australia, it’s mostly not full of things trying to kill you. Famous as the home of Kopi Luwak coffee (the one made from beans pulled out of cat poop), it’s also the first place on the list for many couples looking to get married or spend their honeymoons in an exotic, tropical locale with plenty of beaches to frolic on. For the permanent residents of the island, the road to marriage is a bit harder than getting all the sand out of your resort hotel room sheets. Young men participate in a yearly festival where they must mercilessly batter each other with spiky plants in order to prove to the eligible females that they’re worthy husband material.
Called the Usaba Sambah Festival and also known as “Bali’s Fighting Festival,” this celebration occurs somewhere around May or June in a walled-off village called Tenganan Dauh Tukad. The melee that occurs is both bloody and ancient in origin, and it takes place during a combination of dance and fighting technique called the Mekare-kare. The spiky plants are pandanus trees, also known as screw pine or screw palms. These produce edible, pineapple-like fruit called drupes. The leaves, which are used as weapons during the combat, are festooned with white spikes, like some sort of photosynthesizing saw blade. Getting smacked with one is an unpleasant, puncture wound–filled experience, made even worse when a dozen or more of them are tied together to make a club.
The ritual combat itself that occurs during the festival is called perang pandan, and it takes place in honor of the Hindu warrior god Indra (Bali is majority Hindu). Legend states that an old king named Maya Denawa declared himself greater than any of the gods. This naturally didn’t go down very well with any of the deities within earshot. So Indra vanquished the blasphemous ruler, and in honor of his victory the annual plant slapping continues to this day. Before the conflict starts, prayers are offered and participants consume a fermented drink called tuak to fortify their resolve. The only defense against the thorny blows are rattan shields, while the multiple lacerations are treated with potions made from saffron, turmeric, and vinegar. Serious injuries are uncommon, as referees attempt to keep things clean, while hard feelings are said to be few and far between as everyone sits together at the end to laugh and nurse their myriad scrapes and scratches. Which is pretty impressive for people who just spent hours getting pummeled by nature’s version of a nail bat.
A Foreboding Landmark
One of the more disconcerting things about villages in Bali is that they pretty much all have a highly visible, dramatic-looking “Temple of Death.” The most imposing of these temples is likely the Agung Padangtegal complex, located deep within the Sacred Monkey Forest and surrounded by “guardian” macaques. Called pura dalem, the temples generally are situated so that they face the sea and are on the lowest available land. The entrances are lined with horrifying statues of the most violent and fearsome Hindu gods (like Shiva, Kali, Durga, and Rangda) standing on a pile of skulls. Many of them also cradle a baby, which suggests a scenario that’s probably too disturbing to think about. Even more disturbing than the bug eyes are droopy breasts and mouths filled with sharp teeth, which some poor artist had to spend time sculpting.
Don’t Drop That Baby
The Balinese people, like all Hindus, believe in reincarnation. Since babies are thought to have souls that just arrived straight from the body of an ancestor, they’re treated with so much reverence that they’re not allowed to touch the ground for three months or longer. Infants are considered tiny gods who are watched over by guardian spirits called nyama bajang. After the required time has passed, a ceremony takes place in which the parents undergo a purification ritual, the spirits are bade farewell, and all the child’s hair is removed (as it’s considered unclean—honestly, they’ve got a point, considering all the disgusting stuff a baby spits up on its hair and everywhere else). Only then is a baby finally allowed to make contact with the earth, at which point it also gets a name. After all that, hopefully it’s not something dumb, like Chad or Trevor.
What are all the young women doing while this wanton bodily destruction takes place? They get to dress up in their best hand-spun silk finery and ride on a structure made out of swings similar to a Ferris wheel while they giggle and watch the boys smack themselves into a stupor. The rise and fall of the contraption is supposed to symbolize the relationship between the sun and the earth while also playing a part in courtship. Presumably because when the wheel reaches its apex the women get a bird’s-eye view of the bachelors swinging around a screw pine maul.
Another female-only ritual held during the festival sees young women dressed in white walking in a line to a sacred spot in the forest. Once there, according to a tour guide, they weave strands of coconut fiber into each other’s hair and read from holy books in order to “reinforce and cultivate self-control and honesty.” We could find no part of this ceremony that included anyone getting whacked with sharpened shrubbery—which hardly seems fair.
Another practice that young, unmarried Balinese can take part in is the omed-omedan, otherwise known as the “kissing ritual.” The translation of omed-omedan is “pull-pull,” referring to the natural ebb and flow of positive and negative elements. This custom is relatively new, having originated about a hundred years ago when a famous fight between a male and female pig took place in the village of Banjar Kaja Sesetan. Over the years the entire island commemorated the battle by randomly grabbing and kissing anyone nearby while others doused them with buckets of water. It’s said that many people find their future spouse after taking part in this event, which certainly sounds like a lot more fun than getting bludgeoned with clubs made out of stabby fronds.
