Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This silent black-and-white clip from a home movie shows scenes of the Hindu ceremony associated with the cremation of an important member of a Balinese village. The footage was shot by Sebastian Clasie, who resided in Bali at the time. Various wooden structures associated with the cremation are shown. A huge crowd takes part in the ceremony. One group carries the winding sheets and another group the body. The wrapped body is placed in a wooden sarcophagus. At the end of the clip the camera focuses on a man who may be a village head or Elder.

Educational value points

• This rare film footage of a Balinese cremation ceremony taken more than 70 years ago provides an invaluable historical record of a major public event. Filmed by an expatriate Australian resident in Indonesia it may well be the first filmed record of a large Balinese cremation. The fact that those being filmed seem unaware of the camera as they take part in this important ceremony may add to the film’s value as an authentic record.

• The clip provides information about the cremation ceremony as it was practised in the early 1930s. The clip shows the body being taken from the cremation tower in which it had been brought to the cremation ground. The body is put into a wooden sarcophagus that stands on a platform under a high roof, and is then placed inside a hollow wooden bull, signifying the dead person’s high status. Jars of holy water are poured over the body and then the jars are shattered.

• A Balinese cremation ceremony is an important event, but the size of the crowd and the elaborate nature of the ceremony featured here indicate that this one is for an important person. Balinese communities have enormously complex social systems, but the deceased person may have been a Klian (Elder). In the clip a man of note is shown who may be another Klian. They are usually men who are elected to the position.

• The event may have involved more than one cremation, since the ceremony is very expensive and less wealthy people sometimes take the opportunity to cremate dead loved ones when a big cremation ceremony is held. Bodies sometimes wait years in temporary burial before a family can afford to cremate them. The ceremonial burning of the corpse is most important since it ensures the spirit’s liberation to enter higher worlds and opens the path to reincarnation.

• The hollow wooden bull seen here would have been burnt with the body inside shortly after the footage was shot. After the flames were doused the family would have gathered ash and bone fragments and thrown them into the sea or set them afloat in a miniature boat with accompanying prayers and ceremony. Twelve days later the family would have burned effigies of the deceased and again cast the ashes into the sea.