HINDU WEDDING AT ANTURAN, LOVINA

Sunday, 7 June 2009

Our Fisherman had previously invited us to his nephew Hindu style in a local family house. It had all ready started by the time we returned from our boat trip to see the dolphins and snorkel so we showered quickly and went with him.There was quite a big crowd of extended family to watch the ceremony with the bridegroom and his elder unmarried brother, the second part of the ceremony was at the brides home,which we did not attend,then she came to us to join him for the final ceremony.


As in Sumatara 13 years ago every one was so very friendly at the marriage and we were encouraged to photograph. The main set was the marriage bed and it was there that the main ceremony was performed by the village religious head and his wife in white, and that is a ceremony called teeth cleaning. It was very prolonged with much ritual brushing and spitting, not surprising when one of the implements was a wooden chisel and wooden mallet as well as what seemed like emery paper,and cleaning with paan.

He also had a lock taken from his hair by the priest and put in an envelope. All the time two musicians had left the band and played gamelan (bamboo xylophone) whilst men sang dirges through a microphone including one song from our man Putu ( Putu is common because it is the name usually given to the first born son.
Before being joined by his bride,heavily pregnant, he had an almost a Roman garland put on his head and also that of his elder brother who accompanied throughout the ceremony as onlooker/moral supporter. Finally joined by his bride they walked together over the Hindu offerings in front of them three times. The ceremony seemed complete so we left.

That evening at 8pm were invited to to the shadow puppet show for close family. This was performed by the local puppeteer from the village and was infinitely more enjoyable than any we had seen previously,because the audience was Balinese rather than tourists they understood exactly what was being said. There was a lot of interaction with the crowd and it was clear as though once more a scene from the Ramayana it was clear that the repartee was of a form more associated with our pantomimes, the puppet show much more in common with say Punch and Judy.

The next day we repeated the boat trip with Putu complete with camera but the dawn was not so spectacular,our first bit of bad luck.

We ate fish with the Holy man the first night,a BBQ snapper and two cutlets cooked in banana skin which Joan preferred, each 3.5$.He was very pleased with me because by speaking alone with him whilst drinking tea in the afternoon I had attracted a lot of custom. We order a whole duck between us for the next day and bargained a reduction based on our services from 20$ to 15 for two. It was a huge meal, the first time we have made pigs of ourselves this trip,better and bigger than the much more expensive duck in Ubud.