International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 3 | Page 13

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDONESIAN STUDIES
SPRING 2016
today. The vibrant religious festivals of the cremation ceremony continue to give communal
identity and continuity. These and other festival events typically derive from the families of
the king and the priest, whose social status ensured the continuation of the ‘ancestral line’.
We can see how the relation of the rituals to the route of the procession and its
social/cultural purpose are defined by the three stages of the procession: pre-cremation,
cremation ceremony and the post cremation ceremony. These rituals, which take place in
the Tabanan area, are a special case in point on the basis of their dependency on the
presence of royal and priestly families. This can be summarised as follows:
Pre-cremation day
At this first stage, there are two main rituals that take place in the dwelling of the deceased,
comprising the ritual bathing of the deceased’s body called melelet, and the purification and
cremation preparations called Mereresik. Both rituals require holy water from the village
temples, the priest’s temple and the wellspring. The involvement of the banjar community
to participate in this ritual typically commences on the day after melelet. Meanwhile,
mereresik, as the day before the cremation ceremony, could be construed as an
independent ritual event which takes place in the house of the deceased as well as outside,
from early morning to the middle of the night. Moreover, the routes of the procession for
the Mereresik ritual can be described as follows:
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In the morning, members of the family and the banjar community have to collect
holy water from different places. The first place to collect the holy water is at the
wellspring, and then it is carried to the priest and the village temple respectively. In
the course of the procession the holy water is paraded in the streets and concludes
with a performance by the traditional orchestra of angklung and gong.
The second parade takes place in the afternoon to collect the holy water at the
wellspring for the purification of the deceased (Figure 11&12).

After the second collection of water at the wellspring, another event takes place which is
called Mamios. This event is a unique ritual not found in other places in Bali. It entails
walking around the inner enclave of the town, parading ritual ‘equipment’ such as; Saji
(small offering with rolled pork), purification tools, bandrang (a complete javelin and
umbrella), a miniature of the corpse tower, etc. followed by Baris Dapdap (ritual dancers),
Ratu Gde Tanah Pegat ( as a demon to protect the ritual), angklung and gong (traditional
orchestras). This only occurs in the presence of the king and the priest’s family. It indicates
that the ancient culture and customs of the royal household still persist. The main purpose
of this tradition is to announce to the families and society in generally, that the cremation
ceremony will take place the following day.
Cremation day
On the final day, the ritual does not occur in just one place (i.e. the cemetery), but takes
place across a number of locations, as highlighted in the following sequences of events:
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