Story of Bali, Indonesia

Lands, can be sold or mortgaged. The third sort, labaan, is land held in common by members of a temple group for the support of the temple and its priest (Belo 1949).

Bali does reveal scattered traditions of first-settlers' precedents familiar in Indonesia. But Belo claimed too much for this pattern; the scheme she outlines supposes that virgin land is opened by commoner, locally oriented settlers. Where high-caste groups have initiated new settlements, or where many distinct desa
grow out of factions in populous village-areas, the pattern of unalienable village fields is compromised from the outset. In modern Bali seldom does the sacred territory of desa temples correspond to the agricultural lands of its congregation, and seldom are any unalienable lands the property of an actual core group of original settlers.

Belo tried to identify religious space (the area of influence of desa deities) with agricultural space (the productive fields of desa members). Her contemporaries made the related mistake of identifying religious space with the sum of the residential space (banjar); this caused them to overlook complexities in community development. For example, Covarrulbias summarized a standard view of social change:
Most important of banjar property is a little communal temple (pamaksan). If the banjar grows beyond the function of village quarters, or 'ward,' its pamaksan temple may became a temple of origin then they will build their formal village temple may become a temple of 'or temple (pura desa), their temple of the dead, out in the cemetery, and, having the three reglementary temples (kayangan tiga) that every complete community needs, they will ask for independence from the village and will become a full-fledged free desa (1937).