Buleleng Northern Lights

Balinese Culture Expounded in Literature

Many people who are in need of studying the Balinese culture should visit Singaraja’s Gedong Kirtya, cultural institute housing ancient lontar manuscripts or their copies, and books by foreign writers including Dutch researchers and scientists on Balinese history and culture. It is located on the west side of the former palace compound of the Raja of Buleleng, which was later transformed into a cultural centre. The last two kings of Buleleng were Anak Agung Panji Tisna and lawyer Mr. Jelantik during the era of the Dutch NICA (Netherlands Indies Civil Administration) coming to Bali to restore Dutch colonial administration in the post-WW II period.

At the beginning of the 19th century, sailors from all over the world passed through Bali. As the 19th century progressed, trade between the island and British colony of Singapore increased, and commensurate with that, more reports in English appeared, such as published by the Singapore Chronicle of June 1830, later to be reprinted in a report of the north Balinese port of Buleleng, based on sailors’ accounts.
A medical doctor, Julius Jacobs in 1881, arrived in the service of Netherlands East Indies colonial government. Jacobs made a lifetime career in the Indies and observed all that he saw with an eye of a fascinated ethnographer. He visited all the courts of Bali and was entertained in style. The interior of Bali was still then a strange wilderness to the Dutch, although only three years after Jacobs’ visit, a series of wars began, which saw Gianyar defeated, broken up, and then re-established under Dutch sovereignty.
Once the Dutch established their rule in Bali and opened the island up for tourism, Western travelers came in ever increasing numbers. Two of these were Hickman Powell and Andre Roosevelt, American adventurers, beachcombers, and film makers. Powell watched life in Bali with full humanity, swarming and seething, with the many temples on the island, and villages with their miles of walls thatched against the rain.

Covarrubias on Bali
The classic description of Bali is still Miguel Covarrubias’ book “Island of Bali” (1937), stored in the Gedong Kirtya and also in a library established by Anak Agung Panji Tisna. Covarrubias (1904-57) was a Mexican cartoonist who became famous for his life style with the fashionable set of the 1930s as also for his art. Covarrubias saw and read about Bali when he was here with his wife, Rose, in the 1930s. What Covarrubias observed firsthand, was later reproduced in his earlier travelers’ tales, and in this sense the book is as much an encyclopedia of the images and the stereotypes of the island as it is an encyclopedia of Bali. He was at his best writing about the everyday aspects of Bali, as with his descriptions of Balinese cooking.
Frank Clune (1893 – 1971) was one of Australia’s colorful travel writers. He traveled throughout Asia and the Pacific in the period between the World Wars, cultivating the image of the vagabond. His book stylishly written, thoroughly researched and well-illustrated, was produced in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Vaucluse.
He drove across the isle to Singaraja, climbing over the volcanic mountain for lunch at the pesanggrahan of Kintamani, 5100 feet high, perched on the lip or the Batur crater, which erupted in August, 1926, while noting the peak and wispily smoking.

Inspired by McPhee
John Coast’s introduction to South East Asia was harsher than most other travelers. He was in the British forces at the time being captured in the fall of Singapore, and from there was sent to the infamous Burma railway, where he first met Indonesians and studied Malay. He became involved in postwar Thai politics, but is best remembered as an enthusiastic supporter of the 1945 Indonesian struggle for independence. After the Revolution he settled in Bali, inspired by Colin McPhee’s account of the island and organized a dance troupe which toured the world.
Mr. Coast once sat in two bamboo chairs, looking towards the beach where the breakers gently pounding the white weep of Kuta Bay. Between his grass-thatched hut and the sea lay only a shallow strip of coconut palms, beneath which the gray sandy soil baked in the afternoon sun. The breezes blowing in steadily off the Indian Ocean made him want to sleep twelve hours a day. He had only been living in Bali for two weeks, but already he wanted to stay in the fishing village indefinitely.
Along the beach in the 1950s stood a series of ragged huts, placed under trees just above the high-water mark. In these huts were the narrow boats with prows carved in fanciful sculpture to scare the monsters of the ocean.

Ritual Oath
Anak Agung Panji Tisna (1908 – 78), scion of the royal house of Buleleng, was one of the first generation of writers in the Indonesian language. His novels on Balinese themes include “Ni Rawit Seller of Souls”, “Sukreni, a Girl of Bali”, and “I Swasta One Year in the Kingdom of Bedahulu”. A central concern in all of these works is the notion of karma, an exorable force binding together one’s deeds and their consequences. Panji Tisna’s great strength as a writer was his ability to combine plot and character development with themes of a particularly Balinese character. This comes out in the novel of “Ni Rawit,” a description of ritual oath-taking aimed at identifying the perpetrator of a crime such as burning a house, let alone to having stolen the harbor master’s goods, or a treasure box belonging to a Chinese merchant. (BTN/Surawan)