A Glimpse on Pecalang
Monday, April 7th, 2008 by Rina-Editor
Bali is an island which is very active in celebrating traditional ceremony. Almost everyday, all over the island, traditional ceremonies and celebrations are held. And those celebrations and ceremonies need security forces to ensure the ceremonies and celebrations are going well. In this case this task is tackled by Pecalang.
If you take a look in every Balinese ceremony you will know what pecalang are and how they looks like. Pecalang resemble police that they work in group. They (pecalang) use black-red-white checkerboard-pattern “saput” (a traditional Balinese lower cloth which is tied in waist and is used to cover the main cloth (kamben). The main cloth is longer and covers the legs). They also use head-cloth named “udeng” and sometimes using waist coat.
Etymologically, Pecalang derived from ‘celang’ means vigilant. That is logic because pecalang have to secure the ceremony process from any problems. They worked based on the traditional rules (awig awig) and appointed by the member of Banjar (hamlet). (more…)
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