Religion in Bali by C. Hooykaas

18 Rites de Passage
Some attention has been given to the worship of the gods and some to the buying off of the bhuta
and kala, which is frequently accompanied by killing of victims. Balians are undemanding when
they separate the head of a small chicken from its body followed by tearing off the legs. In Bali
one must grow up with the spearing of a chicken or a pig from bottom to beak and be
accustomed to the thought that the separated head with open eyes of one of Bali's lovely cows or
calves, frisky like deer, lying on the ground, is welcome to kala bhuta and welfare bringing to
mankind. But offerings for the wellbeing of the little ones and of human beings in general are
perhaps less bloody and in any case more jocular and carefree.
Though after the Pacific War the padandas and ulakas constituted their organisation and held
their conferences and Government instituted provincial offices for religious affairs and even a
central one in Denpasar, there is not yet a universal series of manusa yadna. The differences,
however, are of no importance. It makes no difference whether one begins with marriage
followed by the celebration of the first signs of gravidity or begins with them to end with
marriage, as long as the odd fifteen in between are more or less the same. As the rituals to be
performed are aiming at the welfare of the young baby or the child, as much as possible the help
of a priest is invoked by the loving parents, as a rule a pamangku. There is birth and the falling
off of the umbilical cord and the celebration of having reached the age of seven plus five days; at
none of these (and the following) days the parents will forget the offerings to the child's four
elder brothers or sisters, the kanda mpat.
Now follows five times seven plus seven, makes forty two days, when the young mother is in the
centre of attention. On her behalf an offering is made in the nearest streaming water, said to
represent the Hindu God Wisnu, and in the kitchen, being the site of fire, the Hindu
Agni/Geni=Brahma. Cortege, children dressed up, the end of actual and ritual impurity.
But the festivity which most of all is mentioned in the padandas' calendars is that celebrated
when the child has reached the age of three months of 5 × 7 days. Known as nigang sasihin or
nelu bulanin after this number, but also as nyambutin, 'taking up (the baby, which allegedly had