deeper both methodologically and in terms of the subject matter. (A third
essay will be about thedeepestplay possible, a religious and spiritual ritual
that calls upon the most powerful of all the gods to sustain life on this
planet.) This paper is about Bali, Indonesia, but it is also about the best
way to study Bali (or almost any other subject) using insights from the
Interpretive tradition in social science, especially Symbolic Interactionism
(Blumer, 1986; Stone, 1970 ) and Neo-Weberian comparative historical
sociology (CHS) (Bakker, 2010; Weber, 1958, 1963; Lehman & Roth, 1975
[1987]). Both involve the interpretation of human meaning, roughly along
lines sketched out long ago by Wilhelm Dilthey in his discussion of the phi-
losophical meaning of Verstehen (Bakker, 2009). The interpretation of
meaning requires us to use our ability to “understand” other human beings,
people who may be far away from us in their worldview. This discussion is
not so much an effort to point out what is wrong with Geertz’s excellent
work as it is an effort to link Geertz’s anthropological analysis to Symbolic
Interactionism and a broader notion of sociological Interpretivism. While a
cockfight in Balican be considered “deep play,” that idea still remains
somewhat superficial and Utilitarian. It needs to be compared to the
broader context, including the “deeper play” of the cycle of temple (pura)
festivals. The cycle of templeodalanis such that they are coordinated with
the irrigation of wet rice paddy, orsawah(Lansing, 1991).
The Symbolic Interactionist approach is often introduced to many
students in introductory courses through a famous anthropological essay
about the Balinese cockfight by the well-known symbolic anthropologist
Geertz (1972, 1973).To repeat my main intention is to discuss the idea of a
temple festival (odalan) and to present that ritual as a form of even deeper
religious and spiritual play. Unlike the cockfight it is not illegal and it does
not involve as its central focus the “deep play” of illegal gambling. Some
small-scale legal gambling does go on at many larger odalan rituals, but
the center of attention is religious ritual. There is also musically based
dance drama as entertainment. In the specific odalan I attended in 2009 in
the village temple of Padang Tegal in the subdistrict of Ubud there were
also other activities such as puppet theater (wayang kulit). In addition there
were carnival-like stalls for games and food. It was a form ofdeeperplay,
with some bits of merely “deep play” as well. An odalan(Belo, 1966
[1953a]; Eiseman, 1990; Geertz, 2004) is a temple ceremony carried out by
all members of a village community. The cockfight is important in Bali, but
the temple rituals are much more important. They represent a “deeper”
level of symbolic interaction that is based on ritual play with spiritual and
religious dimensions (Keay, 2010 [2000]).
82 J. I. (HANS) BAKKER