Here is an interesting piece of writing on the growing trend of buying offerings for religious ceremony which is taken from Scott A Johnsen’s thesis which is entitled From Royal House to Nation: The Construction of Hinduism and Balinese Ethnicity In Indonesia.
Many Balinese now regularly purchase offerings, from small offerings for use in the houseyard to all the offerings needed for a life-cycle or temple anniversary ritual. On a positive reading, one often hears that this is more efisien than making all offerings oneself. On a negative reading, it is now common to hear the complaint that Balinese too often purchase their offerings, instead of making them themselves. For example, an offering specialist in Tabanan regency laments this change, commenting in Bali Aga magazine:
Now it is not like in the past, when making offerings for [rituals – lists offerings for marriages, mortuary rituals, etc.] was done with others as a duty (ngayah). There did not used to be people buying offerings as is done today, everything were done oneself. I learned from my grandmother. Now, since it is normal to buy them, no one makes offerings every evening if a relative is having a ritual.
In Bangli, I also encountered clear sentiments along these lines. For example, at a shadow puppet performance by one of my sources, a character urged women to make their own offerings: “Young women should study to make canang [kind of common offering], so they don’t always have to buy them. Studying this is proper for women.” A woman from the city of Bangli who worked in the capital, Denpasar, told me that the feeling of solidarity is much greater in Bangli. In her ward in Denpasar they buy the offerings and spend two days at most preparing for temple anniversaries (as opposed to one or two weeks in Bangli). A village official in Bangli told me that the use of purchased offerings lessens the feeling of mutual assistance (gotong royong) that derives from collective preparations for a ritual. In Sanur (highly touristed area in South Bali), an older woman told me that there did not used to be any people selling offerings, but now if there is a cremation on short notice (ngaben mendadak) usually most of the offerings are purchased. I heard from sources in Denpasar and in Bangli that people in Denpasar are more likely than many other Balinese to buy offerings. One source said this was because people in Denpasar are “a bit modern”, while another said that they are becoming more individualistic and do not have as much time as people elsewhere. In less urban areas, purchasing offerings can have connotations of failure: it is evidence that one could not mobilize sufficient labor.
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