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Feasting the Ancestral Spirits
The Galungan festival - celebrating the triumph of good over evil

Galungan, one of the most important festivals in the Balinese calendar, 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, weaving intricate decorations from coconut palm leaves, baking festive rice cakes and stockpiling packets of incense.

Towering bamboo poles are erected outside every gate, turning simple lanes into avenues of magnificently decorated penjor -looped scrolls of coconut leaf, decorated with vividly colored leaves and tied with sheaves of rice and pieces of fabric, with intricate weavings of young coconut leaf and flowers dangling at the ends.

The day before Galungan 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. Fragrant trays of brilliant flowers, shredded leaves soaked in perfume and sticks of incense are also prepared. Every item of ritual significance is then placed precisely according to the rules of tradition.

On the morning of the bid day, every Balinese wears exquisite traditional clothes. Women, carrying offering trays balanced on their heads, appear like flocks of brilliant tropical birds, their bodies wrapped in tightly wound sarongs and kebayas (blouses) of cerise, scarlet, emerald, sapphire green, gold or purple lace.

With the offerings made at the family shrines, married women then 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.

Copyright by The Food of Bali, Authentic Recipes from the Island of the Gods

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