But if the Barong is a protective animal, from whom does it protect? And what is its relation to Rangda, the other guardian of the graveyard? We must divest ourselves of the familiar Christian conception of Good and Bad, Light and Darkness. The Barong, equally with Rangda, belongs to the dark or earthy side of things, as opposed to the heavenly. Civa himself, as we shall soon see, plays an active part in the blackest magic, while his wife, Devi Cri, Goddess of Fertility, is also Durga, Goddess of Death.
We cannot go further without introducing the person of Rangda, already several times alluded to, who under diverse aspects is the other great protagonist in the Barong play. Rangda is the Balinese word for widow; but to the idea of a widow is attached a certain awe, even a degree of fear or horror. For a widow is the wife of a spirit and ought really to have given up her bodily form when her husband died, and to have followed him to the underworld. It is easy to see how naturally a widow comes to be associated in the popular imagination with the graveyard which is the home of the dead, and how easily the name Rangda has become attached to the Witch Widow who occupies such a terrifying place in the popular imagination of the Balinese. In fact the name Rangda covers all magical manifestations, even if they have noth7mg to do with witches or