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'Ngerebong' amazes visitors
Dicky Christanto , The Jakarta Post , Denpasar | Mon, 09/08/2008 10:59 AM | Bali
(JP/Dicky Christanto)
The Ngerebong ritual, held Sunday afternoon at the Pengerebongan temple in Kesiman, East Denpasar, mesmerized domestic and foreign tourists with its haunting scenes of ngurek, a mass trance during which the ritual's male participants stab themselves (photo above) repeatedly with krisses -- without sustaining any injuries.
The ritual took place eight days after the Kuningan festival. Galungan and Kuningan, which fall once every 210 days, are Balinese Hindu celebrations of the victory of dharma (virtue) over adharma (vice).
"After the victory celebration comes the Ngerebong, during which the gods and the heavenly army make a show of force to make it known to any beings, evil spirits in particular, that they will continuously protect dharma and the human race," a member of the Kesiman royal family, AA Sagung Mas Ruscitadewi, said.
During Ngerebong, sacred effigies from various temples in Kesiman and nearby villages were escorted to the Pengerebongan temple. There the effigies, which represent the areas' spiritual protectors, were placed on elevated open pavilion from which they could witness the whole procession.
After a joint prayer, a selected group of Kesiman's men started a special ritual that placed them in a trance. The elders distributed the krisses to the men, at which point the ngurek began.
The men, who were in a trance, began stabbing their chest, head or any other part of their body with the sharp krisses. The violence of the act made several visitors scream in shock -- but nobody was hurt. Indeed, in some cases, it was the iron kris that was damaged.
"We believe that the heavenly army entered the bodies of our men and through ngurek these divine soldiers have displayed their invincibility," Ruscitadewi added.
The men were escorted by their relatives to circle the temple's outer yard three times before being taken back into the temple's inner yard, where a group of elderly temple priests sprinkled them with holy water. The act ended their trance.
