Jembrana, Bull Racing Center

Mekepung:
A Traditional Balinese Sport

From April to October is the dry season across the Indonesian archipelago. As part of the country of Indonesia, the Province of Bali has a dry season too. It is a good time for tourists and travelers to make time to go on trip around this tiny island. In the dry season, tourists are not afraid of getting wet because of rain and no umbrella or raincoat is needed while traveling.

In this period, Jembrana in west Bali offers the very unique tourist attraction that cannot be found in the other regencies throughout the island. Please take a chance in this period to escape to west Bali, 100km west of Denpasar. The attraction is locally known as “Mekepung” and means, “to compete” in the traditional buffalo race which has its roots in agricultural tradition. From June to October, the buffalo races are staged on Sundays on some circuits (there are at least 9 circuits located on the earthen path in the rice field).
The board for the coordination of Buffalo Races has published a calendar of events for 2003. In the cultural event, there are 10 competitions, twice a month as local competitions including the Jembrana Regent Cup Championship, which commemorates Indonesian Independence Day on 17th August. The biggest competition is the Bali Governor Cup Championship in October.
The Directorate of Museums, Directorate General of Culture, Department of Culture and Education, Republic of Indonesia published the book entitled “Permainan Tradisional Indonesia – Indonesian Traditional Games”, Jakarta 1998. Drs. Tedjo Susilo, the director of the Directorate of Museums, wrote that the main goal of the publication is publishing at least 750 varieties of tradition games throughout the country. Mekepung, the buffalo race of Jembrana regency, can be seen on pages 250-251. The article was contributed by the state museum of Bali in Denpasar. The picture shows a jockey clad in traditional dress, standing on a cart pulled by a couple of water buffalos. Both jockey and buffalos wear headdresses. The buffalo race is staged after harvest time during the dry season. There were actually two kinds of buffalo races - on dry land and in wet rice fields - but only the buffalo race in dry path of rice fields still exists today.
The inspiration for the races came from agricultural activities when farmers brought home their harvest on carts pulled by their beloved buffalo. As the carts were going home they would sometimes compete with each other and such a cheerful condition led to the creation of buffalo races. (BTN/035)