The Balinese Way of Life

At the core of Balinese society is the village, a cohesive religious community organized around a grouip of temples. Village members are required to take part in temple rituals and assist in the community’s funerary rites.

Religious practice in Bali entails music, theatre, and elaborate offerings. The labor intensive nature of rituals requires a high degree of social organization, visible in the village layout. Family house compounds are of varying sizes, calculated by a man’s physical dimensions. A priest will measure from middle fingertip to middle fingertip, on a man’s outstretched arms, from the base of the palm to the tip of the middle finger, and from the tip of the outstretched thumb, to the outside of the hand. These dimensions are used to calculate how large the family compound is.

Family compounds are laid out on a traditional axis, according to kaja (towards the mountains) and kelod (towards the ocean).

The village core is dominated by temples, market, civic structures and sometimes puri (palaces).