To this day it is precisely during the
period of Galoengan, corresponding to our Feast of All Souls, when
the ancestral gods come down from the Mountain to visit their shrines
in the house temples, that the Barongs are let loose upon the roads;
one or another of them may be met at any moment of the day or night,
accompanied by a small crowd and a gamelan, going from house to house
dancing and collecting money. Once we saw from twenty to thirty Barongs
streaming down the mountain paths to assemble at sunset at the holy
bathing-place Tirta Empoel, each with its gamelan playing, all at
once and every one for itself, in the cup-shaped valley, with an effect
of weird, unaccountable beauty. The Barongs were fed from the temple-offerings
and under the extraordinary emotion of the occasion several fell into
trance.
But it is not only at Galoengan that Barongs haunt the roads. Perhaps
at sunset one may come upon a procession winding its way sure-footedly
down a slippery descent, half path, half torrent, fantastically lit
by torches rude from bundles of dried coconut leaves. Down and down
they go with much shouting and laughter, till one sees only the flares,
the priest's white dress, and the tips of the Barong's banners bobbing
far below in the ravine where the Barong is taking his annual bath
on a temple anniversary, at a particularly holy spot where two rivers
meet.
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