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The great Tawur Kesanga, an extortion payment to the bhuta kala (personification of negative force) that is held a day before Nyepi (this year Nyepi falls on Monday 3/19/07) will not be complete without Tabuh Rah (spilling blood) ritual or cockfight as a matter of fact.
“Balinese are truly communal people”, this claim, of course need to be supported with a fact, and here is the fact.
flickr.com/photos/cafiso/
If there is a work to be done by the Balinese, they will create a group to perform this task no matter haw simple this work. In Bali, there is an independent group for every purpose and only one purpose per group. Even when new or temporary needs for working together arise, Balinese do not normally employ one of their already existing social groupings, but instead usually establish a new one.
Banjar, or Balinese neighborhood organization, an aggregate of member families that plans, organizes, and executes the great majority of activities that makes up Balinese life. Anthropologist uses the term “hamlet” for banjar. The banjar is the most important organization in Balinese society; it penetrates and plays important role in every aspect of Balinese life. No cremation, wedding or other ceremony can be held without the participation of the banjar members.
Each banjar has its own law called awig-awig, and the member of banjar adhere more to the banjar law than the state official law. The banjar is an autonomous republic and government has a minimum authority and influence on it. Although the Banjar does not get a penny from the Government the Banjar as group has a very strong influence in local Government decisions, 3500 independent banjars make up Balinese society.
For Balinese cockfighting is not just a game, it is a social activity with complex system that an outsider will find it difficult to understand but for Balinese it is run in their blood. There is a complex social system in a cockfighting game. All Balinese values and codes of life is translated into this game. There are traditional ethical codes in a cockfighting game that a Balinese will obey unconsciously, maybe it is not appropriate to call it ethical code but rather a set of behavior that all Balinese will do in every cockfighting match without any outside pressure, it is their social instinct. Here are some examples of Balinese social instinct in cockfighting.
photo taken from flickr.com/photos/cafiso/
The sharpest weapon in Bali is not for human, or used by human. Taji, the sharpest and deadliest weapon in Bali is used by a rooster in a cockfighting arena. A taji is a tiny, razor-sharp dagger; 11-15 centimeters (4-6 in.) from tip to tip. The blade is thin, sometimes wavy and diamond-shaped in cross section, and terminates in an unsharpened, rounds handle, which is attached to the rooster strongest leg below the spur with twine. This weapon is usually carried in leather or wooden case called a kupak, that contains half a dozen or so different sizes of the taji.
There are many articles or essays in the net which explains cockfighting in Bali in remarkable detail but they are all in the past. So I will give information in relation with cockfighting in Bali after the 1981 ban up to present days.
In 1981 the government of Indonesia banned the cockfighting but the practice has merely moved away from prying eyes so that it is less obvious but still very real. Cockfighting runs in the blood Balinese men especially the older generation, Fred B. Eiseman, Jr author of Sekala & Niskala wrote “So popular has cockfighting been in Bali for so many decades, that it is about as realistic to tell a Balinese man that he cannot participate in his favorite sport as it is to tell the sun not to rise”.
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