Balinese Social Community - the Banjar

Village or called Desa in Bahasa Indonesia, generally consists of smaller units, called the Banjar.

A Banjar usually has about 150 members at the most. People do not like a Banjar to be too large because it will become too difficult to rule or organize. If the membership is more than that, the banjar is divided into two smaller ones. As with the membership of a temple only married people can be members of a banjar or better said only married men are registered members of a banjar.

The wives are not registered, but they do come to the banjar to help every time there is something to do for them. The young boys form the: sekeha teruna”, youth club, and the young girls are organized into the “sekeha deha”, girl club. They are assigned work in the banjar fit to be done by young boys and girls, such as fetching water from a spring or well when there is a ceremony in the banjar that needs much water.

Every banjar has a Balai Banjar, a community hall where every activity of the Banjar is done, such as preparing a banquette, sewing ornaments for a festival, done by the women, discussions of banjar matters and cook-fights that follow every festival.

More than the desa the banjar is the place where the community spirit shows and more than the desa’s, the Banjar’s function lies in the social field. The banjar is obliged to help a banjar member in need; when a member has an accident the members come and see whether he needs help and also show participation and concern. When a member has a celebration the whole banjar comes to help him make the preparations and the women make the offerings. Only the male banjar members prepare the banquette, no woman is allowed near it.

If there is a death in the banjar the family notified the head of the banjar. The banjar head then beats the kulkul, the wooden drum that hangs in the bale kulkul, drum house, possessed by every banjar, in the code of death. Every male comes out with tools to make the “papage”, stretcher, and to cut bamboo, because the stretcher is always made of bamboo. The female goes to the house of the family who has the dead and makes the offerings necessary for the burial.

The banjar does not help only its own members but also other banjars when asked. Sometimes a celebration is too big for one banjar, such as a cremation, and the head of the banjar goes to one or two neighboring banjars to ask them for help. When asked the banjar never refused to help.

A few days before the galungan day begins and during the Galungan days, the Sekeha Deha, girls group, organizes a night stall in the bale banjar. The stall sells food and drinks and the girls are the waiters. The boys of the banjar spend the evenings in the stalls. Sometimes the male members of other banjars are invited to come and buy. There is no dating yet among the uneducated youth, so such an occasion is an opportunity for boys to meet girls and girls to meet boys.

Like every building in a Balinese society a Bale banjar, community hall, has a temple, which celebrates its anniversary day, every 210 days or every full moon. So every 12 lunar months, depending what is used to inaugurate the temple.