Bali Prehistoric Culture and Arts
Apart from the evidence of prehistoric times discussed thus far, there is proof of a developed megalifhic culture: stone,seats, menhirs, stepped pyramids, etc., some of which are still
This fact is reason for further examination of the social and cultural situation of that time. Proceeding on the assumption that the cultural phenomena found in conjunction with recent Southeast Asian megaliths were also characteristic of the Balinese megalithic culture, than might see the situation as
follows:
In prehistoric times Ball was inhabited by an Indoneside,
Austronesian-speaking population. The basis of their way of life was the wet cultivation of rice. This method could only be realized with the help of a developed system of irrigation and with all the social, legal and technical consequences resulting from it. Oxen and water buffaloes were used in agriculture and as sacrificial animals. Pigs and poultry were bred as domestic animals. Apart from the forging of bronze and iron, other handicrafts probably existed at this time ( pottery, carving, weaving ), but
as a consequence of the transitoriness of the material, there is no proof. The villages, divided into phratries8 according to dualistic concepts (Grader 1937), were agricultural communities that felt bound to the land for religious reasons and at the same time felt genealogical ties with common ancestors who had to be ritually worshipped or pacified along with natural deities and chthonian powers. Periodically village elders and
ancestral souls gathered on stone seats consisting of a large horizontal and a large vertical stone from a river bed. These seats can be seen as the forerunners of meeting long houses (bale agung) . As memorials to the dead, menhirs were an outward sign of the bond between the living and the ancestral
souls who came down from time to time to be venerated with offerings, music and dancing. In the course of time, the idea that menhirs were suitable seats for the souls of the dead evidently led to the individuahzation of originally unhewn stone monuments. This development was to influence the style of Hinduistic portrait sculpture in the centuries to come. A further category of sculpture is connected with a different kind of concept that appeared at the same time. The attempt to invest sculptures with power that would be preserved permanently did not affect only the faces of the Pejeng gong. It also determined the style of three-dimensional works and led
to the creation of intense, powerful figures that often had
overemphasized heads and small bodies
The so called cili or deling motif belongs to a totaly different conceptual complex and is dependent on the hinduistic rice cult. It was dedicated to the Rice Mother and later to the rice goddess Sri and was a symbol of wealth fertility and luck in the shape of a more or less abstract female head with a large, fanlike head-dress. Cili motifs are still very comon today. They are used in palm-leaf ornaments and ornamental clay roofing tiles and are painted on wood or fashioned out of paper, flowers or Chinese punch marked coins.
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