For some Balinese house compound protection that is provided by walls, gate, and guardian spirit shrines are not enough. All these means of protection are useless against determine thieves, robbers or advanced level magical attack. These kind of disturbances create an urgent need in Balinese’s mind for a stronger mean of house compound protection at least a tool that can cover the weakness of walls, gate and guardian spirit shrines.

The best solution for this problem in Balinese culture is a house compound amulet. The amulet for house compound protection can be divided into two divisions: Tetaneman or Pependeman and Pepasangan.

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For Balinese, protecting house compound is great task that cannot be handled effectively by walls and gate only, especially when dealing with mystical disturbances. For Balinese mystical disturbance is as real as the physical one and some Balinese put more emphasis on the mystical disturbance when dealing with protecting house compound issue since it cannot be perceived with mortal eyes and proven to be harder to deal with than a mere physical disturbance.

Balinese believe that a mystical disturbance should be handled by a mystical guardian since ordinary human has no adequate power to penetrate into the mystical realm even though someone has enough mystical power he simply cannot stay alert 24/7 in order to guard his house compound from mystical.

A typical Balinese house compound usually has two shrines for its two spirits that act as mystical guardians; each has its respective shrine. The shrines are located within the house compound. The first shrine is called Sanggah Pengijeng Karang or shrine of house compound guardian – the word “sanggah” means “shrine”, the word “pengijeng” means the one who stay at home (derived from the word “ijeng” means “to guard” or “to stay at home” and the word “karang” means “house compound”. The sanggah pengijeng karang is a roofed shrine with one compartment. It is located more or less in the middle of the house compound, not in the family temple. It is the home of the spirit of which acts as a guardian or caretaker of the property.

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For Balinese, as other people around the globe, house compound is a private place that has to be separated from public domain and protected from any outside disturbance. Balinese contrive many ways to protect their house compound from outside disturbance whether it is a physical and mystical one. And the first means of protection that protect Balinese house compound from outside disturbance is the wall and the gate.

Wall, called tembok penyengker by Balinese translated literally as “protective wall”. Balinese house compound is a closed area, surrounded by wall. It is usually 1.5 m – 2 m high or high enough to screen the household activity and layout from the view of passerby.

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Our 15 Are (about 1/3 acre) of land, and building site lies behind the owners older compound, in the middle of 24 coconut trees. So we had to build a 200 foot long (60 meter) driveway and wall past the existing buildings, and make the driveway entrance attractive (as seen from the street).

The location of land, for sale or lease, is often behind a Balinese family compound. When the front (street facing) compound was originally built, the access to back lot was not a priority. Of course, the back lot has little value to another family if you cannot get to it.

Our negotiations for the back lot land, hung on the question of street access. We compromised with the landlord, in that we would pay for the relocation of his parking area to the rear, and we would build the new driveway and side wall. We decided to also upgrade his front street wall and entrance to a more attractive “Bali Style” unified design. So, now we both can access a parking area in between our two lots (family compounds) and still have privacy for each family.

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