Festivals and traditions

Religious Festivals

Odalan
This means the anniversary of a temple’s foundation. The days-long festivals require the temples to decorated with palm leaves, flowers, bamboo towers, flags, prayers and food offerings. Dancing, food stands and cock-fighting (a favorite local sport) round off the occasion.

Melasti
Melasti is a festival for purification. Villagers come in colorful garbs and head off to the sea or holy springs bearing umbrellas, flower and fruit offering and sacred statues. These are then washed. Holy men sacrifice pigs for offerings to the gods. These events unfold with the sound of gamelan and drums and a lot of shouting.

Non-religious festivals and holidays

Negara Bull Races
Between July and October, the Negara Bull race is carried out with decorated bulls harnessed to chariots.

The Rice Harvest
Dewi Sri, the rice god is honored in this festival. Villages are bedecked with flags, houses are freshly painted and a gay mood pervades. Placed around fields are small dolls made of straw rice.

Indonesian Independence Day
The Republic of Indonesia celebrates its independence from the Dutch every 17th of August.

Traditions

Birth
Essentially, the Balinese only have four first names. Wayan or Putu for the first child. Kadek or Made for the second child. Kornang or Nyoman for the third. Ketut for the fourth.

Marriage
There are two key styles of marriage in Bali--ngorod and mapadik. The latter is the respectable style where the man’s family goes to see the woman’s family and courteously proposes marriage. Ngorod or elopement, on the other hand is believed to be a more exciting and cheaper option.

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