Penjor

The Balinese have really succeeded in making Galungan Holy Day more enlightening to the community by erecting penjor bamboo poles. There are three sorts of penjor - Galungan, Galungan Nadi, and Anten. This structure functions both as a way for the Balinese to show their great happiness in the success of the harvest and as a representation of naga, the serpent believed to be a source of prosperity.
The Balinese differentiate between penjor upakara and decorated penjor, according to whether it is used in a religious ritual or just as decoration in welcoming distinguished guests. Decorated penjor is made of one sort of material - yellowish coconut leafs - while penjor upakara consists of a variety of agricultural and plantation products.
On Galungan Holy Day, the penjor upakara is in use both in ancestral and public temples. During the specific ritual of ‘mabiyukukung’, following the morning off-shooting of fruits, a small penjor is used on sites around the rice field believed to be sacred. The penjor is there to welcome new fruits and encourage a good harvest. The harvested rice is stored in a barn following the mantenin ritual which uses a specific penjor.
Penjor is a general term relating to Gulungan Holy Day, but the specific one termed as Penjor Galungan Nadi relates to that installed to honor the holy day of Galungan Nadi, which coincides with the full moon. The ‘Galungan Nadi’ penjor has certain requirements; the bamboo bark should be scraped, the higher part of the penjor is decorated with small bells made of snails and with white and yellow colored cloth.
The Penjor Anten is erected before the angkul-angkul structure, a site used by married couples existing among the family members on the eve of Galungan Holy Day. Compared with the usual kind of penjor, Penjor Anten is usually more colorful as seen from the material used and the young craftsmen of the village preparing it cooperatively. These young craftsmen appear at the site of the work place upon sound of a drum. You may see such penjor poles, for example, in Lodtunduh, Sambahan, and Taman, located in Ubud District (Gianyar Regency). (BTN/031)

Bali’s Probable Death Penalty

DENPASAR — One of the topical questions raised publicly in Bali, has been whether judges would be undaunted by the prospect of the death penalty awaiting Imam Samudra, one of the 35 defendants in the Bali bombing case on trial in Denpasar from early June 2003. In answering this question to the press, Ms. Ifa Sudewi (40), one of the judges engaged in dealing with the bomb defendants, admitted there is still much debate in the country about the death penalty. ‘But legally the death penalty is there, so as a judge I must show my responsibility and I know if we have to, it will be used appropriately,’ she said.
Educated in Solo, Central Java, the stronghold of Abu Bakar Bashir, the detained spiritual leader of the terrorist network Jemaah Islamiah, Mr. Sudewi went directly from university to the bench, a not common road for Indonesian judges. She has encountered international legal philosophies and last year undertook a one-month course in comparative law at the Federal Court in Melbourne. While sitting in the trial of Samudra, Ms. Sudewi will keep her other court obligations. She has seen more criminal cases since the Kuta nightclub attacks, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. (BTN/005/013)

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