WITCHES, WITCH-DOCTORS, AND THE
MAGIC THEATRE

A performance of wayang kulit, the shadow-play, is such an ordinary occurrence in Den Pasar that it was unusual and intriguing one evening to find the town aroused by news of a shadow-play to take place that night in the outskirts, and we tagged along with the Balinese members of our household to watch the show. The streets were filled with people from the neighbouring villages, all going our way, and we found the open square of Pemetjutan, where the show was already in progress, jammed with an eager crowd trying to push their way within bearing-distance of the little screen, a focus of flickering light for a restless, dark sea of human beads.

We were accustomed to see sober groups sitting quietly even at performances of the most famous story-tellers, but on this occasion the crowd was so great that we could not approach the screen near enough even to distinguish clearly the shadows of the leather puppets. So unusual was the sudden interest in the performance that the high-collared, helmeted Dutch officials, ordinarily unconcerned with the " nonsense of the natives,"' asked nervous questions among the crowd. Everything in the performance went on as usual, except for a line of Balinese characters painted across the screen which said: " 1, Ida Bagus
Ktut, dare to tell." . . . We inquired what he dared to tel and from various sources we pieced together the following story:

For many months a feud had raged between two enemy factions of leyaks, witches, the spirits of living people given to black magic. This everybody knew because in Pemetjutan the leyaks in battle were seen every night in the form of blue flames darting among the coconut trees. The villagers fell sick by the score and many died suddenly of mysterious, unexplained deaths, but the wounds that had killed them became evident if the bodies were washed with specially blessed coconut water. The leader of one faction of witches was a well-known dealer in coffee, a woman of low caste named Makatjung, famous for her strong character and her natural magic powers. Her child bad suddenly died, and in her despair Makatjung refused to leave his grave; night came and she fell asleep over it. In a dream the child spoke to her and blamed for his death a princess of Djerokuta, also reputed in the neighbourhood to be a powerful witch. Mad, with rage, Makatjung went to the princess and accused her of the murder of her child. The princess did not deny it, and the leyak war was on.

It was supposed that the tide had turned against the faction of the noblewoman, and Matakjung, to make her victory known to the public, bad engaged the daring story-teller to re-enact the
events in a wayang performance and give out the names of her enemy's Allies. To add to the suspense, it was rumoured that the story teller, the son of Badung's most famous witch-doctor,
bad stolen the names he was about to make public from his father's records of clients for formulas of witchcraft. Everybody had gathered to learn to be names of the village's leyaks, whispering advance guesses, and'many were in fear of being named. The show dragged on through the night and we did not stay for the outcome. The next day people were reluctant to talk about
it and someone remarked indignantly that it was-wicked to make public accusations in this manner. We beard no more of the feud until three years later when we assisted at the cremation of the princess of Djerokuta, believed by everybody to have killed by the superior magic of.the low-caste Makajiung.

A Balinese prince well known for his eccentric intrigues, announced he was to give a demonstration of how a man become a leyak and invited, the entire foreign pulation of Bali to witness the phenomena. He seemed particularly anxious to atract even the casual tourists that came to the Bali Hotel on the appointed night. not only the Government officials, tourist, and illustrious Balinese had congregated in the darkness of the cemetery, but a great crowdy of Balinese who had heard the rumour had gathered, equally curious, although less skeptical of, the supernatural performance than the whites, they climbed trees, tearing branches and flashing lights into each other's faces, until the infuriated prince banned all flashlights. The prince's motive came out clearly when before starting the demonstration, he asked the guests for a contribution of one guilder and twenty cents to pay for the offerings that had to be made, should the man succeed in becoming a leyak.

After an endless wait the crowd gasped when a greenish light became visible at one end of the graveyard. As it approached it looked more and more suspiciously like a piece of banana leaf with a light behind it. A Dutch official next to me, who had retained his flashlight, aimed it suddenly at the ghost, who disappeared behind the low mound of a convenient new grave The undaunted prince contended indignantly that the leyak was frightened and would not appear again so he did not collect the fee. Thus ended our only opportunity to make the acquanance of a leyak.

The existence of -these, leyaks is to the Balinese an incontestable fact. They are held responsible for most of the evil that afflict Bali, including sickness and death. Like the vampire,they suck the blood of sleeping people and are particular fond of the entrails of unborn children. Every Balinese has stories to tell of Personal encounters with leyaks in various forms, and from my friends I often heard stories such as these:

" Walking on a lonely road at night, a man from Sayan was confronted with a monkey that seemed intent on blocking his path. He moved to the right of the road, but the monkey stood 1, front of him and leaped to the left when he tried to piss on he left side. In sheer desperation be grabbed the monkey's tail, ,It the animal disappeared, leaving the panic-stricken man with he tail in his bands. He dropped it and ran for his life, the following morning he went back to the place of his adventure to reassure himself that it was all a hallucination, but there he found a scorched loincloth exactly where he had dropped the monkey's tail.

"Another night, in similar circumstances, three men stole a chicken apparently lost on the road. They took it home , killed it, cleaned it, and stuffed it with leaves and spices, ready to cook the following day. Next morning they found an unknown dead'. man in place of the chicken, his stomach and intestines remove and the cavity filled with leaves and spices."

" A tiger once ran into ' the school of the- mountain village of Baturiti. The alarm-drum was sounded and the tiger was killed. When the villagers proceeded to skin the animal, they found, between the skin and the flesh of the tiger a kompet, the palm leaf bag with betel-nut, tobacco, and pennies that every Balli, nese carries."

" Rapung's uncle, the temple-keeper and a famous story-teller had great magic powers but be did not practise evil magic. When he was deprived of his office as keeper of the temple becaus a scandalous love affair, he created such a disturbance that was thrown into jail. Although supposedly locked up in a cell lie was seen at night in the village and it was said that often slept in his own house. He used his magic knowledge mainly a defence against his enemies, and, as in the case of the Pemetjutan wayang show, be gave the names of leyaks in wayang performances through the Twalen puppet. Once his lamp went during the performance and, without stopping, he spit on t wick and the light flared up again. He held a memorable battle with a leyak chief disguised as a one-winged garuda bird a fought him in the form of a baldheaded raksasa. He was defied by the chief of Blahbatoeh, a famous witch; the story-teller took , up the challenge and turned into a sea that engulfed the leyak turned into a mad motor-car."

Most frequently leyaks appear as dancing flames flitting from grave to grave in cemeteries, feeding on newly buried corpses or as balls of fire and living shadowlike white cloths, but also in
the shapes of weird animals: pigs, dogs, monkeys, or tigers. Witches often assume the form of beautiful mute girls who make obscene advances to young men on lonely roads at night. Leyaks are, however, progressive and now they are said to prefer more modern shapes for their transformations; motor-cars and bicycles that run in and out of temples without drivers and whose tires pulsate as if breathing. There are even leyak airplanes sweeping over the roof-tops after midnight. Children cry during the night because they see leyaks that become invisible on approaching to gnaw at their entrails. Then the child becomes sick and soon dies; that explains the high death-rate among children.

The ever unwilling patients of the modern hospital in Den Pasar claim to have seen strange shadows under doors and flocks of monkeys that grimace at them through the windows; the congregation of sick, magically weakened people naturally at tracts legions of leyaks and for this reason they fear having to go to the hospital. Witches congregate under the kepuh trees always found in cemeteries, but they are also attracted to the male " papaya tree (that which bears no fruit) and like to carry on their orgies of blood and their love affairs under its shadow; consequently these trees are never permitted to grow within the village limits.

I was told that to see the leyaks that happen to be about, one must stand naked and, bending over suddenly, look- between one's legs. They can be recognized by the flames (endeh) that issue out of their banging tongues and from the top of their heads. This does not work with foreigners, because the leyaks are shy and do not show themselves to outsiders "; thus, even the Balinese who fear leyaks so that they dare not mention the word leyak are not in the least impressed with the bravery of a skeptical stranger who walks alone at night into a cemetery or some such leyak-ridden place.

THE RANGDA AND THE BARONG

Queen of the leyaks and undoubtedly the most interesting' character on the island is the blood-thirsty, cbild-eating Rangda the witch-widow mistress of black magic.

A curious ceremony in the temple of a neighbouring village introduced Rangda to us. It was well after midnight, and although the date for the temple feast was still far off, there was a crowd, mostly women, in the courtyard sitting in a circle, around a man who appeared to be in a trance. Next to him sat the old pemangku, the temple priest, quiet and concentratin attending to the incense that burned in a clay brazier before a monstrous mask with enormous fangs. The community' it. seemed, was having a wave of bad luck and they were asking Rangda to advise them, through the medium, of what she required to leave them alone. The stillness of the night, the incense, and the dim light of the petrol lamp, all aided the feeling that the spirit of the dreaded witch was really there. Soon the oracle began to twitch and foam at the mouth, making painful efforts to talk. The mask was placed on his bead and the priest listened with intense interest to the incoherent groans, muffled by the mask, which he translated in a monotonous voice as the words of Rangda, now in the body of the medium. After the offerings that she demanded were enumerated, she reproached the villagers for neglecting to give a performance of Tjalon Arang, the play in which her triumphs are enacted. To end the ceremony the musicians played and Rangda danced; then the man

was taken out of the trance and Rangda, presumably, went back to her abode in the summit of the highest mountain, the Gunung Agung.
Time and again we saw Rangda. appear in various magic plays; she was invariably represented as a monstrous old woman, her naked white body striped with black. Rings of black fur circled her long, hanging breasts, realistically made of bags of white cloth filled with sawdust. She was entirely covered by her white hair, which reached to her feet, allowing only the bulging eyes and twisted fangs of her mask to be seen. Her tongue bung out, a strip of leather two feet long, painted red and ending in flames of gold. A row of flames came from the top of her head. She wore white gloves with immense claws and in her right hand she held the white cloth with which she hid her horrible face to approach her unsuspecting victims. This cloth became a deadly weapon if it struck.
The character of Rangda has its origin in historical facts, now interwoven with fantastic myth. At the beginning of 'the eleventh century a Balinese prince became the king of Java, the great Erlangga. His mother, Mahendradatta, was a Javanese princess who ruled Bali with her Balinese husband, Dharmodayana, until the husband, suspecting her of practising evil magic, exiled her to the forest. When Erlangg:a's father died, leaving Mabendradatta a rangda, a widow, she conspired to use her band of pupils trained in the black arts to destroy Erlangga's kingdom. Professor Stutterheim says that her chief grudge against Erlangga was that be had failed to bring pressure upon his father not to take another wife. Moreover, none of the nobility would marry Rangda's beautiful daughter, Ratna Menggali, out of fear of the old witch, and her caste as a Javanese princess required a noble marriage or none at all. Before Rangda was vanquished by the superior magic of Mpu' Bharada, Erlangga's teacher, she bad killed nearly half of Erlangga's subjects by plagues brought by her leyaks. (According to Stutterheim, the sanctuary of Bukit Dharma near Kutri, gianyar, is the burial place of the famous witch. There is kept a weather-beaten but still beautiful statue of the witch, remembered as the Queen Mahendradatta in the shape of the goddess of death, Durga.)

The following is an extract of the current Balinese version o the story of Rangda (translated from the Kawi by R. Ng. Poerbatjaraka, in De Calon Arang) :

" The old witch rangda Tjalon Arang bad sworn to destroy the happy and prosperous Daha, Erlangga's kingdom, because of fancied insults to her beautiful daughter Ratna Menggali - the noblemen of Daha bad refused her in marriage for fear of her mother's evil reputation. Tjalon Arang went with her pupils to the cemetery and they prayed and danced in honour of Begawati, the deity of black magic, to help them destroy Daha. The goddess appeared and danced with them, granting her permission, warning the witch, however, to preserve the centre of the kingdom untouched. The witches danced at the crossroads and soon people fell ill in great numbers.

"On discovering the cause of the epidemic, Erlangga ordered his soldiers to go and kill the witch. They stole into her house while she slept and stabbed her in the heart', but Tjalon Arang awoke unhurt and consumed the daring soldiers with her own fire. The witch went once more into the cemetery and danced with her pupils, dug out corpses, cutting them to pieces, eating the members, drinking the blood, and wearing their entrails as. necklaces. Begawati appeared again, and joined in the bloody banquet, but warned Tjalon Arang to be careful. The witches danced once more at the crossroads and the dreadful epidemic ravaged the land; the vassals of Erlangga died before they could even bury the corpses they bore to the cemeteries.
" The desperate king sent for Mpu` Bharada, the holy man from Lemah Tulis, the only living being who could vanquish the witch. Mpu' Bharada planned his campaign carefully. He sent Bahula, his young assistant, to ask for the witch's daughter in marriage. Highly flattered, the mother gave her consent and after a happy and passionate honeymoon Bahula learned from his wife the secret of Tjalon Arang's power, the possession of a little magic, book, which he stole and turned over to his master. The holy man copied it and had it returned before the disappearance could be noticed. The book was a manual of righteousness and had to be read backwards. The holy man was then able to. restore life to those victims whose bodies bad not yet decayed. Armed with the new knowledge, be accused the witch of her crimes, but she challenged him by setting. an enormous banyan tree on fire by a single look of her fiery eyes. Bharada foiled the enraged witch by restoring ' the tree, and she turned her fire against the holy man. Unmoved, he killed her with one of her own mantras;' but she died in her monstrous rangda form and, Bharada, to absolve her of her, crimes and enable her to atone for them, revived her, gave her human appearance, and then killed her again.

It is only in the legend that Rangda could be vanquished; the Balinese perform the story of her struggle with Erlangga in a play, but always stop before the point where the tide turned against the witch.

THE CALON ARANG PLAY

it is in a performance of Tjalon Arang, the legend of Rangda, that the Balinese theatre reaches the height of its magnificence. It combines the fine music and delicate dancing of the legong with the elaborate staging, the acting, singing, and comedy of the. classic plays, besides the element of mystery and suspense.

The calon Arang is not an ordinary play, but a powerful exorcism against leyaks, because by dramatizing Rangda's triumphs, the Balinese aim to gain her good will. Preparations for staging the great show start 'days before; it is essential that a male " papaya tree, which bears no fruit, be first transplanted from the wilds to the middle of the dancing-grounds, because such a tree is the favourite haunt of the leyaks. A tall house on stilts is built at one end for Rangda, reached by a high runway of bamboo, flanked by spears, pennants, and umbrellas, all symbols of state.'The entire dancing-space is covered by a canopy of streamers made of palm-leaf and tissue-paper flags; as many petrol lamps as are available in the village light the stage.

By midnight the audience is assembled, waiting patiently, listening to the special Tjalon Arang music, perhaps the finest in Bali, played by a full legong orchestra augmented with large bamboo flutes. A full moon is propitious for the performance and the company waits until the moon comes out from behind the black clouds, silhouetting the temple roofs, the palm trees,
and the long aerial roots of the village banyan tree, a hanging black curtain of long tentacles against the sky, the perfect setting for the magic play. Offerings are made beforehand and consultations are held so as not to offend Rangda and to ascertain whether it is safe to hold the performance.

The show begins after midnight and lasts until dawn, when the witch makes her appearance. The play approaches our dramatic literature more nearly than anything else in Bali. It relates
the episodes of the struggle between Rangda and the great Erlangga. Dancing interludes by six little girls, the pupils of the witch, alternate with slapstick, the encounters of the king's subjects with leyaks, and with dramatic songs by the prince sent to kill Rangda. She is impersonated by an old actor gifted with such great powers. that he is able to withstand, in his own body, the dangerous spirit of the witch herself.

Towards dawn the atmosphere becomes surcharged with mystery as the old actor goes into Rangda's house to enter into the trance. Watchmen are appointed to wake all the children that have fallen asleep lest their tender souls be harmed; a priest stands ready to conjure Rangda, who will make her triumphal appearance at the end of the play. A flickering lamp can be seen through the curtains of the house ' and there is an occasional groan from the actor as he undergoes the painful transformation. Meantime below, as the music becomes violent, the prince advances across the dancing-space with his kris drawn. With a yell of defiance he starts up the bridge, just as a blood-curdling howl is heard inside the house, the voice of Rangda. Unexpectedly, fireworks, strung on invisible wires all over the trees, begin to explode over the beads of the crowd. The audience is on edge as the curtains part and the frightful form of Rangda appears, shrieking curses upon the prince, who is put to flight as the old witch descends, bellowing, amidst clouds of smoke, sparks, and explosions.

The climax is a critical moment, as it is never known what will happen next. It is not unusual for Rangda to run wild and go
about the village moaning, or to disappear into the blackness of the ricefields. The actor, who is possessed by the spirit of the real Rangda, is bard to bring under control. I have been told of an old actor from Tedjakula who, after impersonating Rangda, ran amuck and went insane when. captured. He is said never to have regained his mental balance. To the Balinese this was, once more, the evidence of the danger of releasing uncontrolled magic powers.

The Barong

The witch has a contender for supremacy in a fantastic animal, a mythical " lion " called Barong. Because of an ancient. feud with Rangda, he sides with human beings to thwart her. evil plans, and the Balinese say that without his help humanity would be destroyed. While Rangda is female, the magic of, the left,"" the Barong is the " right," the male. Rangda is the night, the darkness from which emanate illness and death. the Barong is the sun, the light, medicine, the antidote for evil.
Every community owns a set of the costumes and masks of both characters. These masks have great power in themselves and are kept out of sight in a special shed in the death temple of the village. They are put away in a basket, wrapped a magic cloth that insulates their evil vibrations, and are uncovered only when actually in use, when the performer-medium is in a' trance and under the control of a priest, and not before offerings have been made to prevent harm to the participants. At, the feasts of the death temples their masks are uncovered and exhibited in one of the shrines. It is a good precaution to sprinkle. These masks with holy water when someone is sick in the village.
Like the Rangda, the Barong is treated with great respect and the Balinese address him by titles such as Banaspati Radja," " Lord of the jungle," or as Djero" Gede', " The Big One," rather than as Barong, which is only a generic name for his sort of monster.
Despite his demoniac character, the Barong materializes in a trance play in which be is made to act foolishly and to dance for the amusement of the crowd. His costume consists of a great frame covered with long hair, with a sagging back of golden' scales set with little mirrors. A beautifully arched gold tail sticks out of his rump and from it hang a square mirror, a bunch of peacock feathers, and a cluster of little bells that jingle at every move. Under a high gilt crown is his red mask, too small for his body, with bulging eyes and snapping jaws. The power of the
Barong is concentrated in his beard, a tuft of human hair decorated with flowers. The Barong is animated by two specially trained men who form the front and hind quarters of the animal, the man in front operating the mask with his hands.
In Pemecutan the Barong play began with a performance of djauk, a group of boys wearing grinning white masks, who danced to the delicate tunes of a legong orchestra called in this case bebarongan. After the dance the two Barong performers went under the costume that lay inanimate on two poles, the mask covered by a white cloth. Like a circus prop-horse, the Barong danced, wiggling his hind quarters, lying down, contracting and expanding like an accordion, snapping his jaws, and in general behaving in a comic, rather undignified manner for his awesome character. After his gay outburst of animal spirits, he began a long dance, staring around as if astounded by magic visions that filled the air. He was constantly on the alert for invisible enemies, growing more and more alarmed, clicking his teeth like castanets as the tempo of the music increased. Firecrackers began to explode at the far end of the arena, startling the Barong, and when the smoke cleared, the figure of Rangda appeared, yelling curses at the Barong, who appeared humiliated by her insults. But eventually he reacted and they rushed at each other, fighting and rolling on the ground until the Barong was made to bite the dust.

In the meantime a group of half-naked men sitting on a mat went into a trance. They were the assistants of the Barong against Rangda. A priest consecrated some water by dipping the Barong's beard into it, and sprinkled the men, who shook all over as if in an epileptic fit. With their eyes glued on the Rangda, they got up, drawing their krisses, advancing like fidgety automatons towards the witch, who awaited them ready with her white cloth, her weapon, ready in her raised band. Suddenly she ran after them, but just then one of the priests on watch noticed something unusual in her behavior and passed the word that she was out of control. She was caught by a group
of strong men and led away, but not before she had put a spell on the entranced men by joining the thumbs of her outstretched hands and yelling a curse.
By the spell, the krisses in the hands of the men turned against them, but the magic of the Barong hardened their flesh so that, although they pushed the sharp points of the daggers with all their might against their naked chests, they were not even hurt. This was the explanation the Balinese gave of the strange exhibition and it seemed inconceivable that they were faking such was the earnest force with which they seemed to try to stab themselves. Some leaped wildly or rolled in the dust, pressing the
krisses against their breasts and crying like children, tear streaming from their eyes. Most showed dark marks where the point of the dagger bruised the skin without cutting it, but blood began to flow from the breast of one, the signal for the watchmen to disarm him by force.
It is said that only by a complete trance can the dance be performed with impunity; otherwise a man will wound himself or hurt others. They were closely watched and if one of them gave signs of returning to consciousness he was quickly and violently disarmed. Possessed as they are, they have supernatural strength and it takes many men to hold them down. Even after the kris has been wrenched away they continue to dance with a blank stare and with the right fist still clenched as if grasping the kris handle. To take the men out of the trance, they were led, one by one, to where the Barong stood; someone sucked the bleeding chest of the wounded man and stuck a red flower in the cut. The pemangku wiped the face of each man with the beard of the Barong dipped in holy water, and gradually the hysterical men came out of the trance, dazed, simply walking away as if they did not know what had happened to them.

Towards the end of the Balinese year, during the last months of the rainy season, epidemics of malaria and tropical fevers make their appearance because evil spirits and leyaks are in the ascendancy; then even the earth is said to be sick. It is believed that the fanged demon living on the little island of Nusa Penida, Djero' Gede' Metjaling, comes to Bali then in the form of a fiery ball that, upon coming ashore, explodes into a thousand sparks that spread in all directions. As their glow dies, they release evil forces that go to spread illness and misfortune. This is a propitious time for leyaks to prey on human beings; because of the predominance of evil forces, the village is then magically weakened. The dogs gather at the crossroads and howl all night and the owls hoot, predicting deaths in the village. Quantities of offerings are made to placate the devils, and the benign spirits are implored to come down to earth, through the body of a medium, to advise and protect the distressed community.
A performance of sanghyang dedari is one of the most effective exorcisms; two little girls, trained to go into a trance, are chosen from all the girls of the village for their psychic aptitudes by the temple priest, the pemangku, to receive in their bodies the spirits of the heavenly nymphs, the beautiful dedari Supraba and Blue Lotus (Tundjung Biru"). Choruses of men and women are formed and the training begins. Every night, for weeks, they all go to the temple, where the women sing traditional songs while the men chant strange rhythms and harmonies made up of meaningless syllables, producing a syncopated accompaniment for the dance that the little girls, the sanghyangs, will perform. By degrees the little girls become more and more subject to the ecstasy produced by the intoxicating songs, by the incense, and by the hypnotic power of the pernangku. The training goes on until the girls are able to fall into a deep trance, and a formal performance can be given. It is extraordinary that although the little girls have never received dancing lessons once in a trance they are able to dance in any style, all of which would require ordinary dancers months and years of training to learn. But the Balinese ask how it could be otherwise, since it is the goddesses who dance in the bodies of the little girls.
When the girls are ready, they are taken to the death temple where a sanggar agung, a high altar, has been erected, filled with offerings for the sun. The Pemangku sits facing the altar in fro of a brazier where incense of three sorts is burned. The little girls wear ear-plugs of gold, heavy silver anklets, bracelets, an rings. Their hair is loose and they are dressed in white skirts They kneel in front of the altar on each side of the priest. The women singers sit in-a circle around them, while the men main in a group in the back. Their jewellery is removed and put in a bowl of water; small incense braziers are placed in front of each girl. After a short prayer by the priest the women sing:
Fragrant is the smoke of the incense, the smoke of the sandal. wood, the smoke that coils and coils upwards towards the home the three gods. We are cleansed to call the nymphs to descend from heaven. We ask Supraba and Tundjung Biru to come down to us, beautiful in their bodices of gold. Flying down from heaven, they fly in spirals, fly down from the, North-East, where they build their home.
Their garden is filled with, golden flowers that grow side by side, with the pandanus, the scorpion orchids, the tigakantju, pineapples soli and sempol, their tender leaves gracefully drooping; drooping they spread their perfume through the garden.
Our thoughts shall rise like smoke towards the dedari, who will" descend from heaven.
Soon the girls begin to drowse and fall in a sudden faint. The, women support their limp bodies in a sitting-position, and after a while the girls begin to move again, as if suffering intense pain, then trembling all over and swaying faster and faster, their heads rolling until their loose hair describes a wide circle. From this time on the girls remain with closed eyes and do not open them until the end of the ceremony, when they are taken out of the trance. With their bare hands they brush off the glowing coals from the braziers, making inarticulate sounds that are taken to be mantras, magic formulas, mumbled by the heavenly nymphs that have entered their bodies. From now m they are addressed as goddesses. Women attendants remove their white skirts and replace them with gilt ones. Their waists are tightly bound in strips of gold cloth, and each girl is given a jacket, a golden bodice, and a silver belt, in all a legong costume. The jewellery that lay in the bowl of holy water is put on again. The holy bead-dresses of gold are brought in on. cushions decorated with fresh frangipani flowers, and the girls are guided so that they can put them on themselves while the women Sing about the. beauty of the bead-dresses and the elegance of their clothes:
The head-dress, the head-dress circled with jasmines, the garuda mungkur ornament on its back, enhanced with sempol and gambir flowers, crowned with fragrant sandat and yellow pistils of merak.
Tightly bound in their sashes they dance in the middle of the court, they dance slowly and glide from side to side, sway and swing in ecstasy.
The pemangku, until then motionless and concentrating, now takes a coconut with the holy water about to be sanctified, water in which have been placed various sorts of flowers and three small branches of dadap bound in red, black, and white thread. Then be asks the sanghyangs to turn the water into an amulet.
The sanghyangs begin to dance with closed eyes, accompanied by alternating choruses of the men who sing in furious syncopation: " Kechak-kechak-kechak - chakchakchak!_ and by the women who sing:
The flower menuk that makes one happy, the white flower, it is - it is - it is white and in rows, like, the stars above, like the constellations, like the constellation kartika, that scintillates, they scintillate, scintillate and fade away, fade away and disappear, disappear, disappear because of the moonlight.

Lengkik, lengkik, lengkik, says the plaintive song of the lonely dasih bird that was left behind. Oh, how he cries He cries, cries like the cry of a child who must be amused, amused by the dancing of the dedaris. Lengkik, lengkik, swing and sway in ecstasy. . .

The sanghyangs may suddenly decide to go to another temple or tour the village, chasing the leyaks, followed by the singing men and women. The sanghyangs must not touch the impure ground outside the temple and are carried everywhere on the'
shoulders of men. They stop at a second temple, where a pile of coconut shells burns in the center of the court. The sanghyangs dance unconcerned in and out of the fire, scattering the glowing coals in all directions with their bare feet. They may even decide to take a bath of fire, picking up the coals in both hands and pouring them over themselves.
When the fire is extinguished, the girls climb onto the shoulders of two men who walk around the courtyard, the girls' prehensile feet clutching the men's shoulders, balancing themselves and dancing gracefully from the waist up, bending back at incredible angles. In this manner they give the illusion of gliding through the air. The temperamental girls may suddenly decide that the dance is over. Then they must be taken out o the trance with more songs; and the sanghyangs become ordinary girls again, they distribute the flowers from their headdresses as amulets and sprinkle the crowd with holy water:

Beautiful goddess stand up, goddess, stand up. The singers have come and are singing the sanghyang.
Come, goddess, goddess, we ask of the nymphs to come to us for a while and go around, go around.
Oh, beautiful goddess! take the holy water from the altar, the holy, the clear, the immaculate water with frangipani, white maduri) white hibiscus and blue teleng. The water in the gold coconut, the liberating, water, the water made in heaven.
Sprinkle it over yourself and go and spray the singers. Then go home, go home to the Indraloka.
Go and bathe in the garden and adorn yourself with white orchids, then go home, goddess, go home, back to heaven, and disappear into space, go into space.
The wind blows, fly with the wind goddess; the body remains to take again its human form. . . .
The ceremony lasts for two or three hours, but despite the intensity of the performance the little girls give no evidence of exhaustion and the explanation they give comes back to our minds: the dancers., fascinated by their own rhythm, move in a supernatural world where fatigue is unknown. In ordinary life the little girls are normal children. However, they are forbidden to creep under the bed, to eat the remains of another person's food or the food from offerings, and must be refined in manners and speech. Their parents are exempt from certain village duties and are regarded highly by the rest of the community.

Every Balinese believes that his body, like an electric battery, accumulates a magic energy called sakti that enables him to withstand the attacks of evil powers, human or supernatural, that seek constantly to undermine his magic health. This sakti is not evenly divided; some people are born with a capacity to store a higher charge of magic than others; they become the priests, witch-doctors, and so forth, endowed with supernatural powers. The sakti can be trained to serve them at will by the systematic study of the arts of magic and meditation, but people whose hearts are contaminated by evil use the magic science to harm, their enemies, or simply to satisfy their lowest instincts.
The Balinese use the term sakti like our " holy " or " sacred," but meaning, rather, charged with a magic (positive or negative) power that emanates from people as well as from objects like Rangda and Barong masks, or from places regarded as magically dangerous (tenget or angker), like caves, rivers, and ancient remains. One often hears of the sakti' of living people who could hardly be regarded as holy, like our coffee-dealer Makatjung; I was told of an old prince who was-so sakti he could floor anyone by simply staring at him.
The normal way to bring out the dormant sakti is to undergo mawinten the initiation ceremony of priests, magicians ' dancers, and actors, to give them the luck, beauty, cleverness, and personal charm that enable them to be successful. Story-tellers and singers of epic poems (kekawin) have magic syllables inscribed on their tongues with honey to make their voices sweet. The ceremony is performed by a priest who, after cleansing and purifying the person through a maweda, writes invisible signs over his forehead, eyes, teeth, shoulders, arms, and so forth, with the 'stem of a flower dipped in holy water.
An explanation of the Balinese attitude in regard to personal magic can be found in the principle that constantly obsesses them -strong and weak, clean and unclean. Thus, the individual is magically strengthened when be is in the state of psychic purity (ening, sutji, nirmala) acquired through the performance of the cleansing ritual. The antithesis of this is the often mentioned sebel condition, uncleanliness, when a run-down soul renders one vulnerable to the attacks of evil. A person becomes sebel automatically at the death of relatives, during illness or menstruation, after having children, and so forth. In cases of bestiality, temple vandalism, incest, the birth of twins of each sex; the entire community becomes polluted and has to be purified by complicated and expensive sacrifices. Not even the deities are free from becoming sebel, and, like any other woman, Rangda and the death goddess Durga are sebel once every month.
The ancient Indian idea that a positive force, when temporarily distorted and reversed, is turned into an evil, negative power is the backbone of the magic science of Bali. Even the gods have phases of wickedness, their krodha or rodra manifestations, when a creative spirit becomes a fearful deity of death and destruction. Siwa in his angry form is, Kala, and Uma, Siwa's wife, becomes Durga; Wisnumurti or Brabmamurti are the krodha manifestations of the gods Wisnu or Brahma, and the average Balinese has come to regard them as many-armed, ten-beaded demons of mythology, because their freakish appearance is incompatible with his idea of divinity. The notion remains, however, that a formula of magic intended to give the spiritual health for which they strive, if turned backwards (as in the case of Rangda's book on magic), becomes a powerful source of evil magic. Thus magic is sharply divided into good magic of the " right," penengen, and magic of the ". left," pengiwa, black and evil; both based on the same principles and almost identical in procedure.

(…teka ber, angawang ring gegana, bidjur, bidjur, bijur, ser, ser, ser, teka geseng sianu, angenter mantra mawisesa.)
With every formula comes a prayer so that the witch can re normalcy that is, become human again and reacquire cleanliness- This is done by driving the magic fire back into one s abdomen Here is a typical example:
ONG Brahma (fire) return to my abdomen and disappear the abnormat state], become human again, clearly human, and there shall be no trouble. Lost, lost, lost, clean, clearly a man." "
(ONG, brahma mulih ring serira teka sedep telas, muksaning djati, teka purna, teka udep, teka udep, teka udep, ening djanma djati.)
Every witch-doctor and even high priests should undergo these transformations in order to know what they have to fight against. I was told by an old medicine-man, who claimed to have tried them often, that the process is extremely painful; it starts with violent headaches; gradually the tongue swells, becoming longer and heavier until it hangs out of the mouth uncontrolled. He added that the transformations are dangerous because, with each, one's life wears away and becomes shorter, like burning up one's soul-power. The Balinese claim that certain people have greater aptitude for becoming leyaks than others; women, for instance, require less study than men, and persons devoid of the groove between t he lips and the nose have leyak tendencies. The leyak cult is full of rowdy sexual manifestations; leyaks appear naked and with tremendously exaggerated sexual organs that emanate fire. Like, the witches of the West., they fly naked over house tops and.hold orgies and black masses.

Penengen,
The Magic Of the Right

Against the dreaded pengiwa there is neutralizing magic used by priest and witch doctor to protect their client from leyaks, a magic as powerful as that of the witches and consisting af the same element as the magic of the "left" formulas ( mantra ) charms ( serana ), and amulets ( penawar, sikepan, pergolan, tetulak) . Typical charms are " yellow " coconuts, dadap leaves, onions and salt, flowers, rubbings of gold, rain-water that collects in plants, camphor, a lamp burning perfumed oil, twin bananas and twin coconuts, over which a formula is recited. These amulets are often pictures of monsters and fantastically distorted deities, surrounded with cabalistic symbols, drawn on a piece of new white cloth or on a thin plaque of silver or copper, worn at the waist, hung over the house gate or in front of the rice granary. The images drawn on these little flags, called tumbal, may represent the weapons (senyata) of the gods, or may be pictures of Batara Kala, Batara Gana, or curious representations of that intriguing and abstract Balinese divinity Tintiya, known also as Sanghyang Tunggal - the Unthinkable, the Solitary, the Original God. Tintiya appears often in ritual objects in the form of a nude male white figure, bristling with trident-shaped flames emanating from his bead, temples, shoulders, elbows, penis, knees, and feet. His hands are clasped in an attitude of prayer and his right foot rests on a fiery wheel, a tjakra. The Tintiyas used as amulets of magic are fantastically distorted, often in absurd positions, with many heads, or simply Tintiya beads attached to abstract and geometrical shapes. " Rangdas " and monsters of all sorts used as tumbals are aimed to ward off, by sympathetic magic, the ghosts and werewolves that annoy and persecute the Balinese.

The magic formulas of the " right " are most often simple prayers, litanies of names of protective spirits and curses to intimidate and confound the leyaks. The examples here are taken at random from my manuscript of penengen:

"…you of the wicked heart, your eyes be blinded, your hands be paralysed, your feet be useless."
(Ih, deriya mata malem, lima langah, batis djodjo.)
"…The high and learned who understand the formulas watch Over my body day and night in goodand in bad they watch over me so that I shall not die in my dreams die in health do not be afraid."

(Ne manusa luwih penguruh merta sandi mantra, ngidjing sai, zing awaku " petang lemah, ala-ayu, ane nunggu aku apangede mati ngipi, mati ngawag-ngawag, tan kuwasa molah.)
"…ONG the Original Word, whose brilliance is like the air that fills the sky, a spell is on my house, a great forest surrounded by tigers. A thousand witches bow down to me meekly and fearfully [because] the amulet given to my enemies by the gods is worn out and spoiled…"

(Ong saremula sutedjaniya kad kangin ngibehin akasa tulah tumpur umahku' alas agung matjan mengideriim, lelo tumpurangung siu' leyake membah, sing serana punah pegawen sandelung paweh dewa punah teka punah)
"…Ong ang ung mang ang ah I am sanghyang sukla the Powerful. I descend with the sun and the moon, I am above kala Rahu'. My head-dress has a white diamond and; the gods love me. Sanghyang Tintiya and Sarad Alanik contemplate me parasol is yellow and Brahma admires me. Fire descend Clean' and burn all the devils, burn all the witches burn Banaspati radja burn them all!…"
(Ong, ang ung mang ang Ah Aranku Sanghyang Sukla wisesa tumurun aku' ring Surya amor ring Sanghyang Ulan' anunggang aku kala Rahu', gelunganaku winten petak, sarwa dewa kasih anelengaku Sanghyang Tintiya, wetu Sarad Manik, apayong aku'djenar anelang aku ring Brahma, metu' geni melesat sedjagat, Sekuwihning buta peresel geseng, leyak geseng- Banaspati radja geseng teka geseng…)

In many of these formulas the leyaks demons and even the higher spirit are mercilessly abused and there are often phrase by which the exalted magician places himself on with the gods and even above them. Thus it is easy to understand why the Balinese fear uttering the formulas and why they feel that only the highly- prepared or the naturally magic people like the priests may do so with impunity. Many priest and witch-doctors sincerely believe they possess in themselves powers equal to the spirits', but the ordinary people, Who look in awe at all this hocus-pocus, either buy the amulets already strengthened by formulas of a priest or witch-doctor or always resourceful depend on offerings trances and dramatic exorcizing performances Of plays and dances like the tjalon arang or the sanghyang, when the deities themselves provide the necessary amulets.

HE WITCH DOCTORS, MAGIC, AND MEDICINE

There were two medicine-men, two balians among the friends that often visited us. One of these was a learned, serious, middle aged man who practiced medicine and was progressive enough to adopt some Western medicines like quinine tablets for malaria, to which, however, he added Balinese magic by reciting formulas over them. He liked to discuss the methods of foreigners and often came to us to ask for medicines. The other balian was the extreme reverse; be enjoyed the terrifying reputation of teacher and chief of bands of leyaks, and our friends bad warned us in whispers that many of the old women of our leyak-ridden neigh. boarhound were his pupils; nobody had the slightest doubt of his great magical powers. His appearance was as demoniac as his reputation: enormous fingernails on knotty long fingers, half extinguished little eyes burning still with a wicked gleam, and a great, bloody cave for a mouth-, entirely toothless and always crimson with betel juice. He dres8ed smartly in a blue silk saput, and his gestures showed a rather studied elegance. He was gay and solicitous, but be loved to appear mysterious at times.

Our two friends belonged to the two arch-types of Balinese balians. One was the inspired mystic who works through fits of temperament and trances to fight the evil forces and who by his inherent sakti is able to dominate the supernatural spirits. Shamanism is his medium; he can see " far away " by going into a trance and looking into a mirror or a container with water. Through his self-induced trances he comes in contact with his assisting spirit, perhaps his father's, a former great balian, whose reputation establishes the prestige enjoyed by the son; thus possessed by his assisting spirit, be is able to go into the spirit world and fight the wrongdoer. During the trances the balian growls and mumbles monologues similar to those in plays, in which be relates his adventures in Hades. Often he dances entranced, elegant versions of duels with malignant spirits. I was told that such a balian can see a guilt in the eyes of a boy or a girl who is still " pure" that is, uncontaminated by intercourse. By going into a trance, balians are also able to trace the past history of an old kris or some similar object
while the intuitive witch-doctor (balian ngengengan) mainly through his inspiration and his inherent sakti, the learned balian (balian wisada) , " who can read," depends for his tiveness on a mixture of practical medicine and religious magic learned from palm-leaf manuscripts (lontar or rontal) . Although not a priest, be knows all the good and evil gods and the m of their approach; be understands the calendar and knows proper formulas and magic words, cabalistic symbols, a forth, which he combines with real medical knowledge, of massage, herbs, and roots. Thus, assisted by the faith of his patients he can perform real cures.

A balian inherits his father's wisdom, his sakti, and the accessories of his ritual: magic stones and coins which are placed water that is given to the patient to drink, calendars and carts for horoscopes, but mainly old treatises on magic and medicine the possession of which alone already gives balians certain powers. Besides the aforementioned manuscripts on " right and " left " magic, they own special books on love magic (pengaseh), collections of models for pictorial amulets (tetumbalan) and books on medicine and medical recipes (wisada and tetulak) These are copied when the old ones have become too worm," the discarded palm-leaves are burned to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands; the burned remains are then eat the owner in order not to waste any of their magic power.,

Balians do not divulge their secrets readily; they claim, they would lose their power to recover their human identity a trance and would go insane if they revealed their formulas or sold their books. They have successfully injected fear of dangerous practices among the common people, who shudder even at the sight of their magic books. The profession of b is surrounded with an air of mystery, and although there are many kindly and respectable balians it is believed that there

are also wicked ones who use magic to do physical harm to aclient's enemy. For this purpose they are said to employ the universal system of sympathetic magic by which through the possession of something that belonged to or formed part of the victim - clothes, locks of hair, nail-cuttings, saliva, and even the soil taken from a footprint - they can gain control of the physical and mental condition of the person. Through sympathy between the victim and something of his -his image, a photograph or a doll containing any of the above ingredients - his soul is captured and tortured because be feels the harm done to his image. Consequently the Balinese carefully collect and bury all nail-cuttings, hair, tooth-filings, and so forth.

Just as the Balinese believe that foreigners are immune from the attacks of witches simply because they are of a race apart, so they believe that European medicines and the knowledge of white doctors, pills, liquids in bottles, and bitter or smelly powders, can be effective only to cure the people who invented them. Furthermore, the lack of showmanship of doctors, of dramatic hocus-pocus with which to paralyze the evil forces which they believe cause illness, leave them without faith in their curative ability. Many refuse absolutely to be cured by Europeans, others accept treatment out of politeness, and the few that go to the hospitals do so only after everything else has failed them. It is natural that medical treatment fails then to cure an advanced stage of illness.

In case of serious sickness a folded leaf of pandanus is hung on the gate as a sign of taboo. (sawen) to inform the village. Then only relatives may enter the house and may only approach the sick person after stamping their feet on the kitchen floor to shake off whatever evil influences may still cling to them. A balian is called, and if his magic succeeds in effecting a cure, the patient gives many offerings and has to undergo purifying ceremonies to lose the sebel.

The Balinese attach great significance to any sort of physical sickness and, having no great hardships to discuss, to complain of illness, no matter how slight, is a favorite subject of conversation. Colds, cough, stomach-ache, neuralgia, and other minor ailments make them miserable, although they can cure them effectively with domestic concoctions of herbs, roots, barks, flowers, and especially by massage, which they have developed into a real science. However, despite the appearance of being an unusually healthy race, the Balinese are victims of many
serious afflictions for which they know no cure.

Worst among these are the widespread venereal diseases; syphilis and gonorrhea seem to prevail although in an inherited ' latent skate. Supposedly of ancient introduction, the diseases do not appear in malignant forms and the Balinese seem to have developed a certain immunity that makes them carriers despite a healthy appearance. It is common to see the whitish veil of gonorrhea in the eyes of elderly people and often a boy or a girl of our banjar broke out in sores of an unmistakable origin and had to be sent to the hospital for inoculations. But the reluctance of the Balinese to undertake foreign treatment, the forbidding cost of Silverman, and the natural promiscuity do not help the situation.

The violent rainy seasons bring epidemics of tropical fevers, and malaria takes many lives, especially of children. The Balinese attempt to cure the fevers with concoctions of dadap leaves, onions, anise, salt, and coal from the hearth, which, after straining, is given to the patient to drink, and he is put to sleep. It is also effective to rub the sides with a paste of mashed dadap leaves, onions, anise, and tinke, a sort of nutmeg, and to rub the back with coconut oil with scrapings of dadap bark; but quinine is rapidly gaining popularity. The Balinese love a clear skin and they are disturbed by the prevalent skin diseases, from the ugly but harmless kurab, a skin discoloration produced by a parasitic fungus, to itches, frambusia, and tenacious tropical ulcers. The kurab (called bulenan when in small patches) appears as whitish spots on the brown skin and spreads all over if not checked. It is cured by rubbing the affected areas with Wang grass, but it has been discovered that it disappears quickly with salicylic alcohol from the Chinese druggists. Itches are cured with lemon juice, coconut oil, and frequent baths in hot water
in which legundi and ketawali leaves are macerated.
People after middle age complain of " bone trouble," rheumatism, due to the extreme humidity of the, island, and as a preventive they wear bracelets of kayu uli, a sort of black coral from Borneo. It is said that the pain can be driven out by marking the feet with a hot iron, which does not hurt the patient because the teeth of the fire are taken away by a Mantra." Headaches are cured by massage, but it helps to spray the forehead with a mixture of crushed ginger and mashed bedbugs. For stomach ache they drink the red infusion of medarah bark from Java. A cough is- relieved by drinking an infusion of, blimbing buluh flowers mixed with parched, grated coconut, also sprayed externally on the, throat. Head colds are cured by massage, but -it is good for sneezing to. smell a piece of telor bark three times. Such are the most common of domestic remedies, but for each illness there are seven medicines used consecutively when the preceding ones fail to give relief. the keystone of Balinese medicine is the principle of " hot and ", cold," irritating and refreshing, also applied to foods. Thus. a heated. or irritated condition is. cured by a cooling medicine.

The Balinese are helpless in the case of infected wounds, but it is always a means of breaking the ice with a foreign neighbor to ask for medicine for an infected cut covered with a greenish mess and. wrapped -in a dirty rag. Rose treated. many such cases
soon after our arrival in Belaluan and eventually we had a great circle of faithful friends. who brought presents of. food to show their appreciation. On our return trip we found that the full responsibility for such cases had fallen on our American friends

Jack and Katharane Mershon, former dancers, who had settled on the malarial Sanur coast, where they conducted an improvised but effective free clinic. They spent their spare money on medicines and took turns every day treating scores of people, often coming from afar with the most frightful sores the disinterested work of the Mershons made them the idols of neighborhood and they are known, only as tuan doctor nyoya doctor. There is of course a fine, modern hospital, in denpasar, but the Balinese prefer the more informal, sympathy clinic of the Mershons.