Galungan 2008 23rd January & 2008 20th August
Galungan is one of the most important festivals in the Balinese calendar. It is a time when the spirits of ancestors return to earth to live with the family. The spirits are said to descend five days before the festival begins and to return to heaven den days thereafter.
Women begin preparing a month before the festival, they weave intricate decorations from coconut palm leaves, will bake festive rice cakes and stockpiling packets of incense.
The day before this festival is devoted to preparing festive dishes. Embossed silver or aluminum plates are readied with pieces of sugar cane, betel leaf, several types of rice cake, and a few grains of cooked rice and dried beans in a small tray made from a palm leaf.
They will prepare fragrant trays of brilliant flowers, shredded leaves soaked in perfume and sticks of incense because every item of ritual significance is then placed due to the rules of tradition.
On the morning of the bid day, every Balinese wears traditional clothes. Women will carry trays balanced on their heads, their bodies wrapped in tightly wound sarongs and kebayas (blouses) of cerise, scarlet, emerald, sapphire green, gold or purple lace.
For married women, they attend to the shrines at the homes of their parents. After the offerings and the feasting, the children have fun prowling the streets with gongs, drums and a barong (a mythological beast considered protector of the village) with a couple dances inside. Families crowd into the lanes to be entertained. With the spirits feted and all mortals well-fed and content, balance and harmony is maintained throughout the island.
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Melasti is another religiously inclined festival. It is a purification festival held the day before Nyepi. On Melasti, villagers will dress in their finest and make their way to the sea or holy springs.
They would carry umbrellas, offerings or flowers, and fruit and sacred statues. The statues are affectionately washed with water, and pigs would be sacrificed by holy men as offerings to their gods. This festival must be carried out amid the din of gamelan and drums and lots of merry shouting. All must then fall silent the following day on Nyepi.
