Ceremony

Nelubulanin of Lavani Pucangan. Banjar, Buleleng Province, Bali, Indonesia, September 22,  2016. Video credit: Putu Aditya Nugraha.

A Balinese child’s birth and early months of life are marked by important rituals. The Nelubulanin occurs when the child is three-months old in the Balinese Hindu calendar and the Otonan marks its first birthday.

Nelubulanin marks the transition of the newborn from the heavenly to the earthly realm, and, depending on the village, is also the occasion when an infant’s feet first touch the ground. The soul is officially welcomed into the child’s body at this time. Malicious spirits may intrude during ceremonies to rupture the cosmological balance of positive and negative forces. Hence, during the initial part of the ceremony a vegetable surrogate is dressed in cloth to help attract the evil spirits and divert their attention away from the infant. In the video of Lavani’s Nelubulanin, the surrogate is the banana flower carried by the infant’s mother. The infant’s father carries a banana bark effigy of one of the child’s numerous protective spirits, tasked with taking care of the infant. Later, the ceremony continues with the actual child dressed in heirloom cloth and gold jewelry. A priest places cotton yarn on the baby’s head and ties lengths of string around each of her wrists as symbols of a long life.