Bali Cremation Ceremony

One of the reasons we stayed in Bali longer than we'd planned (aside from the fact that it was more awesome than we anticipated), was that a Balinese friend we'd made told us we should stay for the Cremation ceremony that was happning later in the week.

The ceremony is huge and festive (being a joyful, rather than sombre occasion), with a long processional, music, and many decorations. Everyone who dies in Bali will have a ceremony like this, but they're so expensive that generally they are only performed once a year for many people at once. If a family is poor, they may wait up to five years to save enough money. In these cases, the body is buried, and then exhumed later for the cremation ceremony.

There were several large floats of bulls on bamboo platforms supported by 30 or so men each.

You can see in the picture that the men don't just carry the platforms, but rotate, tip, and generally jostle them around as much as they can. Apparently, this practice originated in order to "confuse" the spirit of the deceased so they can't find their way back to the family compound, though it's not really clear to me whether this is still an active part of most people's belief system here. (it might, but it also might well not).

The procession also included decorated caskets, long lines of women carrying offerings, and most of the town on foot or motorcycle behind.

The procession was staggered in several stages over about an hour and a half. Here is a video of most of the musicians that accompanied the final stage:

For the entire day (and well into the night) you could see a huge conflagration behind the high stone walls of the main temple where the procession ended.