Bali Tour Guide

This is a religious event as it is part of the temple anniversary ceremony in one of the temple in Tegalalang village, north part of Ubud. But if you look at the participants of the ceremony you will consider this is a young funky event. The event is locally called ‘ngerebeg’. An event that symbolically to tame the negative forces of ‘demon’ in the village and neutralize them so they won’t disturb the temple anniversary ceremony.

Around noon time, one day before the actuall anniversary ceremony, young boys and teenagers start coming to the temple. Each of them brings small curvy bamboo decorated with palm and other leaves. Its small ‘penjors’. Each of this young boys put heavy make up or heavy paint on their faces, bodies and hair. Some of them look scary, some look funny. Some of them paint the whole bodies so they look like white tigers, one become ‘Friday the 13th devil, one become one eye parrot, one become ninja and many more. It look like they go to underground music concert instead going to religious event. A side of that they still wearing sarong, sash and traditional headdress. They were some young girls joining but they were not do the heavy make up. See the picture here.

Once they arrive at the temple, each of them were given small pack of food consist of rice and some vegetable, wrapped in banana leave. This is ‘pica cenik’-small blessed gift. All kids happily eat them. After every boy that would join the event in the temple, they were asked to gather and make groups of five to ten people. Each group sitting in circle on temple ground The older villagers give each group banana leaves and the put it inside the circle. Some kids were not patient to get the next food to come. After being blessed the ‘pica gede’ finally distributed to each group. The ‘Pica Gede’ – big blessed gift consist of rice, lawar –mix vegetables, pork sate. The foods have been prepared together by men of the village in the morning. The foods put in the middle of the circle of each group. They then eat the food together by hand. I think it is a teaching to share for the kids. Not for long, each group finishes their food. They then rushing get their small ‘penjor’ and hurry to the road. They parade around the village and do yelling and screaming now and then. A group of older kids , also in funky make up , accompany the parade with ‘bleganjur’ traditional music.

The parade stops in every village temple that they pass. They pray in each of them and continue walking. The parade last for about two hours until they get back to the starting temple. The kids look tired after 4km of walk. No much of yelling or screaming anymore. Their demonic make up start to run out by their sweat. I think the demonic forces have been tame