TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Food fight! Villagers honor rice in ritualistic battle
The rice wars: Residents of Kapal village, Badung, enthusiastically throw themselves into the ritualistic battle Masiat Tipat, which involves two sides pelting each other with rice balls wrapped in coconut leaves
Change Size
T
span class="inline inline-center">The rice wars: Residents of Kapal village, Badung, enthusiastically throw themselves into the ritualistic battle Masiat Tipat, which involves two sides pelting each other with rice balls wrapped in coconut leaves. JP/Zul Trio Anggono
Once the temple ritual had finished, 1,000 or so devotees poured out of Desa temple onto the wide asphalt road in front of it. There, they formed two opposing groups and readied themselves to do battle — the ritualistic battle Masiat Tipat.
The battle, an ancient tradition here in Kapal village, Badung, is held annually in the afternoon of Purnama Kapat (the full moon of the fourth month, according to the Balinese calendar).
Each member of the group carried the only weapons allowed in the battle: a tipat — a rice dumpling wrapped in a woven coconut-leaf pouch — and a bantal — a sticky rice cake, in a similar wrapping.
Two villagers, I Nyoman Kutek and I Made Sabar, stood across from each other. The men wore no shirt, their bare torsos glistening with sweat in the humid heat.
Kutek and Sabar were the warriors who would start the battle, to the supporting cheers of their respective sides.
The order to start the battle came out of the temple’s public announcement system; without a moment’s hesitation, Kutek and Sabar threw their tipat and bantal at each other.
Soon, the other “warriors” followed suit. The air was thick with tipat and bantal flying through the space between them. It was a disorganized, even chaotic battle, with none of the modern sightings or laser-targeting systems common to more modern wars.
And naturally, there were casualties: While some of the projectiles did hit their intended targets, a large number struck the “civilian” spectators.
The battle’s supervisors — the village elders and temple priests — repeatedly told the participants to throw the “weapons” higher so they would clash against each other mid-air.
But where is the fun in that? Most of the participants gleefully ignored the instructions and continued to aim their rice-grenades at their opponents.
Yet when several participants did obeyed the instructions and threw their “bombs” higher, several of the rice packets lashed in the air, rousing jubilant cheers among the spectators.
This was considered a good omen, with those particular projectiles believed to possess the supernatural quality of being able to increase human fertility. A couple seeking to conceive would be urged to consume the rice from the successfully collided projectiles.
The ritualistic battle is the enactment of the coupling between two major cosmic forces: the masculine Purusha and the feminine Pradhana.
“This coupling gives birth to the energy that sustains all living forms in the universe,” Kapal customary village chief AA Gede Dharmayasa said.
That the battle’s primary weapons are made of rice also carries a significant philosophical meaning.
“It means that rice is the primary weapon we have in sustaining our life. Food is essential to our survival,” he added.
Each household in the village is obliged to make six tipat and six bantal for the battle. The customary village comprises 18 hamlets with a total of 2,211 households.
The tipat and bantal were offered to the gods during the temple ritual. At the end of the ritual, the collected tipat and bantal were divided into two groups, one for eating and the other for fighting.
Details on the ritualistic battle are found in a palmyra manuscript Tabuh Rah Pengangon belonging to one of the villagers, Ketut Sudarsana.
According to the manuscript, more than 600 years ago a prolonged drought hit the village, destroying the crops and starving the villagers.
A local hero, Ki Kebo Iwa, received a divine instruction to organize Aci Rare Angon, a ritual in which the villagers offer tipat and bantal to the gods, to stop the drought.
At the end of the ritualistic battle, local farmers collected the projectiles and carried them to their rice fields. There, they respectfully placed the tipat and bantal on the wet ground, in the belief the act would ensure a bountiful harvest for them.
In ancient times, the battle was organized by the local subak (traditional irrigation organization) and held near the rice fields.
But now, with the ever-decreasing number of rice fields, local farmers are forced to conduct the battle in the road.
Consequently, the battle, which lasted 20 minutes, created a massive traffic jam stretching back 3 kilometers from the battle site.
“The number of rice fields keeps decreasing, yet we hope that we will never have to face a period of starvation in the future,” a farmer Murni said.
