Every region must have their own tradition which is inherited from their ancestor. Such as India with their ‘mangal sutra’ tradition and the dowry from the bride, Japan for their tea ceremony and also the growth day for them who have reached the age of 20, and many other traditions around the world. And so does Indonesia with its various areas must have diversity on its tradition. One of them is Bali.

Gebogan offering

Bali is so popular with its ‘banten’ (means in the Balinese worship which is usually made from young coconut leaves and contains fruits, flowers, leaves, betel vine, cakes, and sesari – a little money as an offering). There are many kinds of ‘banten’, hundreds might be. It is so amazing that the old people are able to remember those kinds of ‘banten’ for each different ceremony meanwhile most of the young Balinese generations do not understand on ‘banten’ and everything related on it. That’s why this sentence appears; “It’s quite difficult to be a Balinese, isn’t it?”

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It is not only Muslims and non-Balinese who are visibly excluded or even threatened by this discourse. It also affects Balinese Hindus who do not practise the appropriate Hinduism as portrayed in the Bali Post and as taught by the televangelist Hindu priests on Bali TV. This form of Hinduism is supported by the PHDI (Indonesian Hindu Council). Ajeg Bali is part of a larger movement to sanitise, standardise and explain Balinese Hinduism. Thus Bali TV will often have programs explaining how offerings should be made and how rituals should be performed. There are also community and city-wide youth praying competitions, enforcing ideas of stylised praying and how a Balinese should and should not communicate with God.

In addition to the standardisation of praying styles and ritual activity, ceremonial clothing has also become more uniform. Today, it is the norm to wear white for most ceremonies and black for cremation, whereas ten to 15 years ago ceremonial clothing was much more varied in colour. The Western colours of purity and grief have been appropriated by the PHDI, Bali TV and other ajeg Bali proponents and promoted as a form of standardising ritual and pakaian adat.

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THE NAME OF THE CEREMONY IS DESCRIPTIVE, but hardly explanatory. This is, perhaps, why the wife of a visiting foreign dignitary, when told of this practice, exclaimed: “Oh, do they still do that here?”

Yes, they still do that in Bali. To everyone. But do not confuse tooth filing with some sinister vision of Dracula-like sharpened teeth. In fact, the procedure produces just the opposite, dulling the front teeth to diminish the savage characteristics of their owner. The ceremony is called matatah, £rom the word natah, to “chisel” or “carve”. The same word in high Balinese is mapandes, and another common synonym is masangih, from sangih, to “file”. Sometimes the Indonesian potong gigi - “to cut teeth” - will be used. The person who files the teeth is called sangging, the same word used for “painter” or “artist”.

Tooth filing, together with prenatal rites, birth ceremonies, various ceremonies for the young baby, and marriage, is one of the rituals known as manusa yadnya. These are an important category of the Panca Yadna (”Five Rituals”) that every Balinese Hindu absolutely must have performed to insure an orderly transition of his or her spirit from birth to death and later reincarnation. Six to 18 years old is considered the best age for tooth filing - before marriage, bJ.lt for girls, after the first menstruation. Better late than never though, and it is not unusual for people in their 60s to have their teeth filed. If a person dies before having held the ceremony, the family sometimes has it done to the corpse before burial. It is that necessary.

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