precolonial Javanese calendar, but the two calendars seemed quite esoteric.
They did not seem worth much time and effort. Why waste time learning
about such an outdated calendar? After all, when I made an appointment it
was always with the use of the so-called Common Era (Gregorian, Coptic,
Roman Catholic, Western) calendar. Yet it was in 2006 and 2007 that I
really did begin to learn about the complex Balinese system for computing
and keeping track of chronological time. It came to me like a revelation.
Suddenly all of the hundreds of rituals at countless temples started to make
a bit of sense. What had seemed like something that was only of antiquar-
ian interest at best suddenly came alive. I pursued that initial awareness in
even more depth and with even more enthusiasm in 2009. It was very hard
to get straight answers about the details. Every time I would ask questions
my patient Balinese friends would start at the beginning, assuming that I
knew nothing at all, like most visitors! It would have helped if I had been
able to speak Balinese rather than just Indonesian.
Eventually I learned enough about the calendar system to realize how
centrally important the calendar is for designating the timing of all of the
rituals. I learned to start to read the printed calendars for more than just
the Western dates. I was staying in Central Bali and everywhere I went I
saw calendars. I would discuss the Balinese calendar with anyone who
would take the time to talk about it with me. Eventually I connected the
dots and awakened to the centrality of the temple anniversary celebrations
held in every village.
Belo (1966 [1953a])presents the results of her own fieldwork in Bali. I
had known about her work on the family and children’s drawings. Her edi-
ted book, Below (1970 [1953b]) is well known to most students of
Indonesia. She herself has four chapters in that book, which appeared after
she died in 1968. Other chapters are written by Colin McPhee, Claire Holt,
Gregory Bateson, and Margaret Mead. The chapter on dance is by Beryl
de Zoete and Walter Spies and is based on excerpts from their 1938 classic:
Dance and Drama in Bali(de Zoete, & Spies, 1952 [1938]). I will return to
some of Jane Belo’s detailed “thick description” of an odalan below. Her
book is excellent ethnographic reporting.^3
My own observations were primarily at the main village temple for the
village ofPadang Tegalin Ubud subdistrict. The district is called Gianyar.
(That is the same district where Belo did her work in the 1930s.) Despite
the fact that Ubud is heavily touristed there were very few non-Balinese
people at the temple birthday or odalan I attended. I myself only gradually
understood that the temple belonged to the village of Padang Tegal and
that Padang Tegal is only one village in the subdistrict of Ubud. When I
Geertz’s “Thick Description” and a Balinese Temple Ritual 89