my forehead was a visible sign (Merleau-Ponty, 1964). Wearing that mark
meant: I had at the very least been receptive. I had been open to them and
to a very important symbol of Balinese religious faith. I was not merely a
foreigner, perhaps a “Christian” (or a Muslim) who had rejected Balinese
BuddhistHindu ritual. That little mark on my forehead made me more
acceptable...and remarkable. I was worthy of being “seen” rather than
ignored. In that way I was a bit like the young Geertz gaining entry into
the village by running away rather than simply engaging in casual conver-
sation with the police. I had not done anything illegal, of course, but I had
engaged in an activity that brought me just a little bit closer to Balinese
people.
Of course, it was not my first visit to Bali. I first visited Bali in 1975
when I was a doctoral student. I was working quite hard on my disserta-
tion. I studied nineteenth century Dutch manuscripts at the Archives in
Jakarta. I commuted back to Bandung on the weekends since Bandung is
in the mountains and much cooler than Jakarta. After several months my
wife, Madeline, and I went to Bali for a short visit. We were on vacation.
We stayed at Kuta beach in 1975 when Kuta was still a relatively simple
place. As I remember it we paid about $5 a night for a bed in a home near
the beach, with mosquito netting (kelambu) and a simple breakfast. But
Bali was not my focus at that time; it was merely a place I wanted to visit,
a bit of a digression. My main focus was on Dutch colonial taxation policy
(Bakker, 1995; Pemberton, 1994).
For about 30 years (between 1975 and 2007) I probably visited Bali a
dozen times, but always as a tourist. I usually only stayed a short time. I
was an observant tourist, but I was not acting as an ethnographer. After
my dissertation work on Java’s nineteenth century colonial history was
completed I became interested in the huge island of Sulawesi and its four
provinces, an island many times the size of Bali with dozens of important
cultures and languages. In various parts of Sulawesi I did work for the
Canadian government (e.g., CIDA, Canadian International Development
Agency). One such project involved a four month ethnographic study of
one village in Southeast Sulawesi (Bakker, 1992).I also studied the social
psychology of terrorism (Bakker, 1997). But it was not until that day when
the Balinese priest (apemangku, or lower level priest) “marked” me that I
really started to think of Bali as a place I wanted to actually study and not
just a place I wanted to experience as a tourist intent on relaxation.
Amazingly, despite a great deal of reading and many lengthy discussions
withlocal people, I had not really understood the Balinese calendar very
well (Covarrubias, 1973 [1937],pp. 256260). I knew it was similar to the
88 J. I. (HANS) BAKKER