Here is an interesting excerpt on Balinese Household that is taken from Ayami Nakatani’s Paper entitled “Private or Public? : Defining Female Roles in the Balinese Ritual Domain”.

Apart from communal temples, public offices, schools and shops, the territory of a banjar (a sub-unit of the village) is divided into walled house compounds (pakarangan) with high and narrow gates facing each other on opposite sides of alley ways. These enclosed compounds house one or more households and a small family temple.

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Ancestors are very important to the Balinese. Each Balinese family has a family temple to worship God almighty and glorify the ancestor and of course, in this family temple ancestors worship is given a great emphasis.

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The family temple is usually situated in the kaja-kangin corner – kaja being in the direction of the holy Gunung Agung, kangin being east. In low caste families this temple is called a sanggah. Higher caste families use the term merajan or pemerajan. Although the family temple may contain shrines dedicated to manifestations of the Hindu God, Sang Hyang Widhi, the main focus is upon the deified ancestors of family. Shrines of gods are more prominent in public temples. The family temple may be small or large, but it almost always well maintained, and the family is careful to place offerings in the shrines whenever appropriate, often daily.

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To give a better idea on the inconformity of Hinduism in Bali, the Pegatuakan ceremony that fortunately, happen today will serve as a good example.

Today, Balinese celebrate Pegatuakan ceremony, this ceremony mark the end of Galungan bigger period (the smaller period ends on Kuningan Holiday). Today the hallmark of Galungan, Penjor (a long bamboo pole about eight meter high with curved end, and decorated with palm leaves, rice paddies, corn on the cob, coconut, cakes, a piece of white or yellow cloth, etc) will be uninstalled, and a great festivity will accompany this ceremony.

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On 9^th December 200 Balinese will celebrate Kuningan day. Kuningan takes its name from the fact that a special offering that is presented in this holyday is yellow rice (nasi kuning) is made by colouring ordinary white rice with tumeric (kunyit). Kuningan occurs once in every 210 days in the Balinese Pawukon cycle (traditional Balinese calendar). The Kuningan Day is the time for commemoration as the ancestors return to the heaven after ten days dwelling on earth and the Balinese express their gratitude to gods for His mercy to the human races.

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