Baru di Bali

If this is your first time to Bali and you don’t know what Galungan is, here’s a quick description: it’s Christmas for the Balinese. Of course, Christmas trees will never be in sight; instead, the skillfully decorated bamboo poles (known as penjor) are everywhere to be found. Galungan itself is celebrated to mark the victory of virtue over evil. Anyway, what we’re going to tell you now is about the day before Galungan, when preparations to commemorate the victory take place. The day is called Penampahan Galungan.

Also known as the day of slaughter, it might be creepy to know that lives will be sacrificed during Penampahan Galungan. Yet, don’t get too carried away with your extreme imagination, because this day will be nothing like the one taking place in Tiananmen, where the Chinese government slaughtered its own people with tanks and guns in 1989. The creature being so unfortunate to get slaughtered during this day is pig! Yep, pigs are a very important ‘ingredient’ to help celebrate the victorious day. 

The men are the ones responsible to slaughter the pigs and cut them into dices. The diced meat will then be mashed to a pulp with a grinding stone and molded onto satay sticks that have been already prepared by whittling small sticks of bamboo. Certainly, this day is not a good day for pigs across the island. Delicate combination of various vegetables, herbs and spices are also prepared by the men to make up the ‘lawar’ dish. Much of this cooking is also to be used in the offerings at the family temple. The women on the other hand, are busy completing the offerings that they have been preparing days before the Penampahan.

While the women continue with the preparations of the many offerings to be made at the family temple on the day of Galungan, the men also have another job to do this day once the cooking is finished; erecting penjor at the house entrance. With the penjors erected along the roads of Bali, the island undoubtedly looks so merry, just like Christmas.