The calendar that regulates
the social and religious life of Bali is an intricate mechanism
by which not only all communal and private festivals are established,
but even the most ordinary actions of the Balinese are determined.
No Balinese can hope for success in any undertaking unless it
is performed on the exact auspicious day set aside on the calendar
for the purpose;. a wedding, a tooth-filing, a cremation, the
occupation of a new house, take place only during special weeks
dedicated to the affairs of human beings., while there are other
similar weeks and days for activities concerning cattle, fowl,
fish, trees, and bam, boo (consecutive periods of seven days called
ingkel: wong, sato, mina, manuk ' taru, and buku) . The Balinese
use two simultaneous systems of time-calcula tion: one, the saka,
the Hindu solar-lunar year, similar to ours in duration, twelve
months, moons," by which they observe the full (purnama)
and the "dark" or new moons (tilem) important for agriculture,
for nyepi, and for the festivals of the mountain people. The other,
the wuku year, the so-called native or Javanese-Balinese year
of 210 days, is not officially divided into months, but into weeks,
ten of them running parallel and simultaneously, from a week of
one day in which every day is called luang, a week of two days,
one of three, of four, five, and so forth, up to a week of ten
days. Each day of each of the ten weeks receives a special name,
the combination of names deter mining the character of a date
as a lucky or unlucky day.
Thus every day theoretically receives ten different names, plus
the month of the saka year and the " age " of the moon,
according to whether it is ' crescent or waning; for instance,
Sunday, the A of November of 1934, the beginning of the wuku year,
was, according to them: saka year 1856, wuku of sinta, ingkel
wong (good for humans) , redite, paing, paseh, tungleh, sri, sri,
danggu - only one endowed with the sakti and the knowledge of
a high priest could keep track of such a tangle of names. Ordinary
Balinese reckon simple dates, auspicious days for making offerings
and for the principal feasts, by the combination of day~names
of the seven- and five-day weeks, by which names everyday dates
are recorded. The common people also observe the week of three
days by which the village market day is established,held in rotation
every day in one of the villages that work in groups of three
Other date names are ' used mainly for magic and religious purposes,
making of the calendar a science so complicated in itself that
it is practised mainly by specialists, generally the Brahmanic
priests and witch-doctors, who, by the ownership of intricate
charts (tika) with secret symbols painted on paper or carved in
wood, and of palm-leaf manuscripts (wariga) by which the lucky
or unlucky dates are located, make the people dependent on them
for this purpose, because the Balinese are obliged to consult
them.for good dates for every special undertaking and have to
pay for the consultation.
Galunggan, Nyepi' is the acknowledged New Year feast of the solar-lunar
year, but the Balinese celebrate another " new year "
in the great holiday of galunggan, when the ancestral spirit come
down to earth to dwell again in the homes of their descendants.
The ancestors supposedly arrive five days before the day of galunggan,
receive many offerings, and go back to heaven after ten days,
five days before kuninggan, the feast of all souls.
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