Ancestors worship is the core of Balinese-Hindus. Ancestors are deified as spirits who have special affinity for the family, and can be counted upon to protect and help the family in time of disaster or need. The ancestors can help ward of evil forces and insure the prosperity, happiness, and peace.

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Alternately – like most forces in Hindu Bali – they can cause constant trouble, causing just the opposite of the above benevolence. Which of the two, they do depends upon the respect of the family accords them. If the family directs good feeling toward them, if the family invites them into the religious ceremonies, if the family makes regular offerings to them, and if the family maintains the shrines to the limit of their financial ability, then their powers will be turn to aiding the family. If the family neglects these courtesies, the sickness, death, and all sorts of unimaginably bad things may results.

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A child bears his father or mother name is a common practice in most parts of the world. However, in Bali, the parents, grandparents, or even great grandparents bear their offspring’s name.

In Balinese culture someone personal name is treated as though it is a classified information – At birth, each Balinese is given a sex indicator, caste title, birth order name and a personal/ real name. It is forbidden for younger people to call their older with his personal or real name. For children and young adolescent birth order names is used to call each other. And kinship relation terms invoked at best sporadically, and then only for purposes of secondary specification. In this kind of situation, a question arises, how do most Balinese address and refer to one another? The answer is: by teknonyms.
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