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A Closer Look at Ogoh – Ogoh with Joo Peter
Joo Peter is a documentary filmmaker, writer and artist based in Germany, presently working on documentary & travel projects in Asia. Joo Peter’s articles on art and culture are available in Sawidji. Article and photography by Joo Peter
Ogoh-Ogoh, the Balinese New Year tradition, involves creating and parading monstrous figures to drive away evil before a day of silence and meditation. It connects an evolving creative process with ancient beliefs. Joo Peter has documented and studied Balis’ art and culture for many years following the Ogoh-Ogoh process amongst many different village communities. He shares his experiences with us in this article Ogoh-Ogoh, a Close-Up Look.
Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
The Art of Balinese Monsters
A modern tradition with ancient roots. Every year, Bali’s artists compete to create the most spectacular monster figures, the Ogoh-Ogoh. The figures draw on the many legends and myths of powerful creatures of Hindu epics and divine cosmos as well as Balinese folk belief. On the last day before the Balinese New Year, called Nyepi, the large monsters are carried in elaborate and wild parades through the village, embedded in a choreography with musicians dancers, and actors. It’s a kind of pop art that came up about 50 years ago but connects to deep old roots.
Nyepi
The Balinese New Year is celebrated in March and is a day of silence and meditation. The streets are empty. No cars drive, no lights are switched on, no radio, no machines. Work is at a standstill, even the airport is shut down. People do not speak more than necessary in the house. The evil spirits should believe that the island is deserted and empty – and not return to the villages to annoy the inhabitants.
Nyepi follows the new moon after the equinox in spring and is the first day of the new year according to the Saka lunar calendar. Three days before, a purification ceremony called Melasti is performed. Sacred artifacts from the temples are carried to water points (river, sea) and ritually cleansed there. On the day before Nyepi, priests perform another purification ceremony called Caru or Tawur Agung on the street at noon. This is because roads and especially crossroads are traffic routes for the Butha Kala. Large sculptures of protective deities are therefore often erected at crossroads.
Demons – Danger from Butha Kala
As is often the case in Bali, there are many explanations for one thing. The Balinese cosmos is full of beings, spirits, energies, protective and destructive – man tries to keep all forces in balance. In the world of nature, man and the gods should live in harmony.
Butha and Kala are described as demons, little pests in the village that break dishes or cause quarrels in the family – that is the popular idea as described by Fred Eiseman Jr. These little demons can be the cause of a baby crying. But they are not Leyak, transmogrifying spirits of black magic, which can have much greater power and be much more dangerous, causing serious harm or even life-threatening.
Image: Ogoh-Ogoh special for children are made to a smaller size.
Butha Kala
Butha Kala can cause instability in the comic order and disturbances in life. Offerings to the spirits and purification ceremonies help against this. Hindu philosophy explains it more abstractly. Butha and kala are body and time. The ancient Sanskrit word Kala means black and stands for time and the god of the dead. Kala can also simply mean power or energy. Time destroys things, a negative energy that is personified as demons in the popular imagination.
Butha is the body. Mahabutha are the five elements ether (space), air, fire, water and earth. It could be understood as earthly bondage, weaknesses of physical existence. In Buddhism, butha, physicality, the elements are regarded as the source of suffering. Butha also stands for a force, energy. One could interpret these energies as the inner demons that arise from human inadequacies, transience, and corporeality, disrupting equilibrium with negative tendencies such as cravings, addictions, greed, jealousy, and malice.
Community Working Together
The whole neighbourhood (Banjar) works together. The leading artists design the figure, in the end everyone is involved in the realisation.
Ogoh-Ogoh Origins
According to an old custom, the villagers used to parade through the streets after sunset before Nyepi to drive away the evil spirits – originally quite simply with torches and anything that could be used to make noise – a popular, humorous, exorcistic ritual called Ngerupuk.
So where do the big monsters come from today? Many report that the custom first emerged in Denpasar in the eighties of the 20th century. The artistic freedom and variety of the monsters are new. And yet they go back to traditions, ancient myths and legends, like in the old stories of shadow theatre wayang kulit, visual storytelling in sculptures and paintings as seen in the temple.
Traditional Techniques
The Balinese had centuries of experience in making large, ephemeral sculptures for their cremations. However, the motifs and context are initially different there. For Hindu cremations, large animal figures are created from natural materials, and large sarcophagi in the form of bulls, tigers, panthers, fish, elephants or mythical creatures according to the tradition of the family or caste.
First, a basic framework is created from wood, then a plastic fabric made from palm fibers, from which the cock baskets are also woven. The head is usually carved from solid wood. In some instances, the bull’s cheeks can also be made from halved coconut fibre shells.
In the next step, the sculpture is covered with newspapers, cardboard maché, covered with fabric or other materials. After these first steps, then the sculpture is richly decorated.
Ogoh-Ogoh at the Crossroads
During the procession to the cremation, the sculptures are carried through the streets to the cemetery. At the crossroads, the figure is noisily rotated anti-clockwise several times to shake off, confuse and drive away the evil spirits. Crossroads are neuralgic places, as this is where the spirits’ traffic routes meet and can lead to conflicts. This tradition is adopted for the Ogoh-Ogoh procession. In the early days after the 1980s, the Ogoh-Ogoh figures are said to have been burnt and destroyed at the end of the procession in burial grounds. This is done as a symbol of self-purification (interestingly, there are related traditions with straw witches in the carnivals of some European regions).
Children often like to wear their latest monster T-shirts for the occasion. Perhaps this humorous and simple imagery affects the evil spirits, in the same way that rooks can be scared off by the simple image of a scarecrow.
The Construction of Ogoh Ogoh Today
The manufacturing technique of the Ogoh Ogoh figures developed differently later on. Today, elaborate metal skeletons are often developed for spectacular postures and polystyrene is used for good, plastic moldability. These figures are no longer easy to burn. An Ogoh-Ogoh is not always destroyed after use. This is no longer necessary. In the old production techniques for animal sarcophagi for cremation, burning is an essential, indispensable element for other reasons and the use of natural materials has therefore been retained to this day. Today, Ogoh-Ogoh sculptures are not always burned at the end of the night. They are sometimes kept for several months in the village communal area or parts may be recycled. Popular sculptures may even be up for sale.
Origin of the name
In the Balinese language, ‘ogah-ogah’ means to shake. This is what is locally understood to be the origin of the name ‘ogoh-ogoh’. Ogoh-Ogoh may also be related to Portuguese ogro (also in Spanish), French Ogre, and Italian orco. The Latin root goes back to the Etruscan god Orcus, a cannibalistic monster. In the Bible, there is King Og, one of the last giants, who is said to have survived the Flood and stood in Moses’ way. The word doubling Ogoh-Ogoh stands for plural and is a grammatical feature of the Austronesian language family.
Monsters by Many Names
There are many names for monsters in Indonesia, rakshasa from Sanskrit is one of the most common. Perhaps Ogoh-Ogoh caught on here in Bali because it has an onomatopoeic quality, a humorous sound, and can embody the rhythmic noise of the processions and the fun of the eeriness of this carnivalesque evening. Perhaps the name is also best suited to describe the variety of monsters, which can come from very different sources.
Though the origins of its name may be perceived as ambiguous, the tradition of Ogoh-Ogoh is not. Rich with a uniqueness that is the Balinese worldview, the Ogoh-Ogoh parade leaves a lasting and magnificent impression. Where ancient culture meets an ever-changing and evolving technological age. The big monsters of Bali are also changing with it. However, they remain as true a reflection of the unique spirit of Bali as ever.
© Joo Peter
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