Hey Eat Pray Love Ladies: Call Me!

Photo of Ketut Liyer from Padang Ekspres.  Ketut's advice
for young lady looking for love: "get a haircut that doesn't
make you look like a dude".

Liz, You're Killing Ketut!

Since I've been back in Indonesia I've read a couple of newspaper articles about the "Balinese medicine man" that meant so much to the authress of Eat Love Pray, Elizabeth "Liz" Gilbert.  According to one article that appeared in the Padang Ekspres, the "medicine man", Ketut Liyer, is currently making about US$650 (Rp6,250,000) per day seeing "patients" who come to him with questions about life, the universe, and everything.  Sadly, Ketut had to be hospitalized earlier in the year with a kidney ailment.  According to the aforementioned Padang Ekspres article, his illness was caused from fatigue brought on by entertaining too many foreign visitors.  Of course, it could also be at least in part due to his age; he says he's 98, whereas his family says he's 95.  

I remember hearing about the book and sometime last year while in a theater in Jogja or Jakarta or someplace I saw a trailer for the movie, which starred Julia "Methuselah" Roberts and that Panamanian guy that got to bag both Scarlet Johansen and Penelope Cruz in the SAME MOVIE.  I didn't think too much of it at the time, but during this trip in addition to the newspaper stories, I've heard tales of a whole tourist trade that's grown up around the book.  Being that I'm in Ubud (1), a place that figures prominently in the book, I decided to learn more about this strange phenomenon, because Ketut's got a pretty good racket going.

Liz's website here.

After looking unsuccessfully around Ubud's gutters and coffeeshops for a cast-aside copy of Eat Pray Love, I broke down and forked over US$5 for the book at one of the many used bookstores.  I got pretty bored after reading the copyright page, so I skipped right to the bit on Bali.  I figured I could fill in the gaps about India and Spain or where ever as I went along.  I think I did a pretty good job; evidently a good part of the story is about Liz's quest to find the deity, which  to her is a universal force of sorts that allows you to do whatever you want whenever you want without responsibility to anyone or anything.  In fact, it's holy to adopt a solipsistic attitude towards life, just so long as you do some yoga every now and again.

I got through the last section of the book in about two days.  There are some charming passages; I really thought the part where she had to explain to Ketut what a Xerox machine was cute!  Imagine this "Balinese medicine man" with all this accumulated life experience and priceless wisdom never having experienced the miracle of photocopying!  It's priceless!  I do, however, feel compelled to correct a couple of errors Liz made along the way.  I'm no expert on Bali, but I do know that the "temple ruins" at Borobudur on Java are not Hindu ruins, as Liz mentions on page 298.  I also know that when Indonesians say "where are you going" (mau ke mana), it's not because they have some deeper concern about the cosmic balance, as Liz seems to think.  They're simply saying "Howzit?"  Of course, Liz can be forgiven for these trifling oversights given that she's unlocking the secrets of the universe for all the overpriveledged and underloved women of the top tax brackets of the Western world.

I Had A Dream.... 

Stuff you're gonna need for enlightenment from here.

One of minor themes of the book is dream interpretation.  Liz has big scary nightmares that make her feel bad, and that's sad.  But as it turns out, she'd just been misinterpreting her dreams!  Silly Liz!  Towards the end of the book Liz learns that she's one of the most spiritually powerful people in the universe.  She's like on a really high level.  Her dreams are evidence of this, and once she learns their true meaning, well, she's just that much more spiritual and powerful in an ethereal sort of way.  But this all got me to thinking....I have dreams too!  And sometimes they are scary, but maybe I'm just misinterpreting them.  For instance, here's a short capsule of a dream I had just the other night:

More awesome stuff you need from here.

I was walking down the street in the submerged quarter of an orientalesque city that often appears in my dreams and I noticed the gate to the evil pirate Barbara Bush's compound was ajar.  I'd heard tales told of all the wondrous riches within the compound, and I figured I'd have a look around and maybe help myself to some of the aforementioned limitless wealth.  I figured that if the wealth truly was limitless, then, from a mathematical perspective, it wouldn't really be stealing if I invoked the five-finger discount.  But then things started to get weird; the Hamburgler walked in just as I was pulling a three-inch wad of hundred dollar bills from the cash register. Since I had gone to high school with the Hamburgler, I was well acquainted with his wily ways. In other words, I knew what he thought before he thought it. I knew I could handle the Hamburgler if it came down to fisticuffs, but the presence of his minions the fryguys tipped the scales in his favor.  So I broke off half the money and handed it to him.  We then proceeded with looting the place.  That day in the real world I'd just finished reading Ryszard Kapuscinski's account of the Angolan civil war, and so I figure that's where the pillaging part of the dream came from.  Then there was a knock on the door.  When we opened it we saw Loretta Lynn standing there decked out in a traditional Balinese dress and wielding some sort of instrument of coercion.  She told us she was a representative of the Grand Ole Opry sent to make sure there were enough deep-fried snacks in the freezer.  Evidently in dream world the Grand Ole Opry is an authority not to be trifled with, because we had a Gestapoesque fear of her and pretty much let her have the run of the place.  After she completed her inspection she left.  At this point me and the Hamburgler knew time was of the essence, so we made haste and then made tracks.  By this time I was starting to feel guilty about the caper, though.  I was just about to turn back to return some of the loot when the volcano erupted and covered the compound in lava.

Surely this dream means something....surely there's some sort of other-worldly significance?  If only I could ask Ketut....If only there wasn't a line down the block of cosmically-confused BMW babies wondering when their prince will come....

You Too Can Be Oprah!

One of the main characters in this part of the book is a thoroughly amoral, deceitful, and depraved charlatan of a "sex therapist" that Liz makes friends with.  The bond between these two ladies is so close and evident from the get go that it is clear they must've had a previous history in previous lives.  I like imagining the conversations between these two.

Liz:  "Ohmygod when I was in Rome for four months I ate Tiaramisu that's just to die for!"

Wayan:  "What's Tiaramisu?  Is it rice?"

Liz:  "Oh it's just so decadent!  It's a heavenly desert with liquor, chocolate, and cake.  I love it almost as much as I love yoga!  You must've had it....how do you say it in Indonesian?"

Wayan: "We don't have that here...."

Liz:  "Poor child [no pun intended]!  What do you eat then?

Wayan:  "Well, we eat rice..."

Liz:  "Yeah but what else?"

Wayan:  "Well...uh....rice....all the time...for like the past 40 years...."

There is a fundamental flaw in the Liz-Wayan axis that prevents Wayan from appreciating just how wonderful Liz is for giving up an apartment in the Village and a house in the Hamptons.  You see, Wayan is poor and Liz is rich, and so the former just has no understanding for the tremendous sacrifices Liz has made on her spiritual journey.  Wayan just doesn't understand how monumental it is for Liz to have eaten spaghetti by the Trevi fountain.  It begins to irk Liz that her new friend lives a hand-to-mouth existence (like probably 85% of the world's population), and so she decides to do something about it.  Liz gets proactive.  She sends out an email to all of her friends asking for donations so that she can buy Wayan a house.  Eventually she raises about US$18,000, which she deposits in Wayan's bank account.  Upon reflection, Liz reaches the following conclusion about how the universe works:

Madame and Lil Ali Babette from here.

"I knew that it was Tutti who had manifested this miracle, through the potency of her prayers, willing that little blue tile of hers to soften and expand around her and to grow--like one of Jack's magic beans--into an actual home that would take care of herself and her mother and a pair of orphans forever" (365).

This is another really cute story.  Tutti is Wayan's daughter, and the tile that is mentioned in the excerpt is something she kyped from a local construction site (before you go bashing the little thief remember that she's being raised by a woman who's stock and trade is the facilitation of adulterous and elicit affairs).  Despite the fact that people from all over the world (in Liz's words) responded to her request for money, Liz gives all the credit to the prayers of a little girl!

But after a while a problem arises.  Wayan seems to be reluctant to spend the money on a house.  This creates a dilemma for Liz, because it's really important for her to have photographs of her "little Indonesian sister" in front of the new house Liz provided for her.  Liz is kind of like the World Bank.  The poverty and other problems of the world offend her because they are inconvenient.  So she decides to throw money at the problem to make it go away  but she wants to do it her way.  It's not part of the plan to let her "poor Indonesian sister" make decisions about the money herself.  In fact, Liz concludes that Wayan is attempting to pull a fast one on her, and so she threatens to take the money back if Wayan doesn't buy a house THIS VERY MINUTE.

It's quite a strange strategy for someone who claims to have transcended materialism in her quest for happiness and true spiritual enlightenment.  In fact, the whole episode begs the question, "So Liz, did you find that it's all about money afterall?"

Liz, You're Beautiful on the Inside...

Finally at long last Liz finds someone that's so desperate to get into her old and neglected cookie jar that he will put up with all her horseshit and make her feel like she's the center of the universe.  This is probably my favorite part of the book because we learn so much about the profound depth of Liz's character.  There's a passage here that I think speaks for itself, so please indulge me while I quote at length:

"The dinner with the expatriates was great fun, and I felt myself revisiting all these long-dormant aspects of my personality.  I even got a little bit drunk, which was notable after all the purity of my last few months of praying at the Ashram and sipping tea in my Balinese flower garden.  And I was flirting!  I hadn't flirted in ages.  I'd only been hanging around with monks and medicine men lately, but suddenly I was dusting off the old sexuality again.  Though I couldn't really tell who I was flirting with, I was kind of spreading it around everywhere.  Was I attracted to the witty Australian former journalist sitting next to me? ('We're all drunks here,' he quipped.  'We write references for other drunks')  Or was it the quiet intellectual German down the table?  (He promised to lend me novels from his personal library)(2).  Or was it the handsome older Brazilian man who had cooked this giant feast for all of us in the first place?  (I liked his kind brown eyes and his accent.  And his cooking, of course.  I said something very provocative to him, out of nowhere.  He was making a joke at his own expense, saying 'I'm a full catastrophe of a Brazilian man--I can't dance, I can't play soccer and I can't play any musical instruments.'  For some reason I replied, 'Maybe so.  But I have a feeling you could play a very good Casanova'. (3)  Time stopped solid for a long, long moment then as we looked at each other frankly, like, That was an interesting idea to lay on this table.  The boldness of my statement hovered in the air around us like a fragrance.  He didn't deny it.  I looked away first, feeling myself blush)." (354)

As you can see from the quote, Liz is a real catch.  But, like all timeless epics, before she finally finds her man, there are tests and trials along the way.  The short quotation below, my favorite from the book, describes one such encounter with a dashing young man who briefly takes Liz's fancy:

"He was the first man I'd met in a long while who I really like in that way, as they say.  He was a few years older than me, had led a most interesting life with all the good resume points (liked The Simpsons, traveled all over the world, lived in an Ashram once, mentioned Tolstoy, seemed to be employed, etc)...." (356)

I was so intrigued by this that I decided to perform a little experiment.  I made myself a t-shirt bearing the words "I [heart] refugees" and sewed conspicuously to my cargo pants a Patagonia tag that I had earlier cut off the unwashed fleece of an Australian passed out in a doorway in Kuta.  Then I made my way to a couple of Ubud's many bars.  After scoping the scene I ambled up to a lonely-looking young lady.  The conversation went something like this:

"I think it was Tolstoy who wrote, in his epic chronicle The Tartar Tart, 'Nice canskis, babushka..."

"[Gasp] Take me!  I'm yours!  I'll follow you anywhere! [Swoon]".

Finally Liz gets her man and concludes that the key to happiness is having someone slavishly devote themselves to you.  You also need to throw in an intercontinental jet-setting lifestyle.  Very important lessons for those of us that just aren't quite content with being the most privileged people in the whole history of the planet.

Anyway, after I finished the book I realized that I'm a pretty well-balanced and grounded kind of guy.  I've got most things figured out and am pretty well contented with where I am.  I mean, I'm so far along in this life thing that I probably ought to have a following and some disciples.  So I'm going to go ahead and make this standing offer to the Eat Pray Love Ladies (EPLL): Whatever that Ketut guy is doing for you or to you, I'll do it for half price.  You just need to find your way down to Kerinci Valley.  Remember to bring beer and tacos.

Notes

(1)  No offense Liz and the expat community that spends their time drinking coffee luak lattes and eating overpriced french food, but Ubud's kinda like Disneyland for adults.

(2)  He has a personal library?  Of novels (a,b)?

(3)  Later Liz makes the point that she refused Brazilian guy's advances in the car on TWO separate occasions after so flagrantly offering up the goods at his party.  Two words can be used to describe Liz, and they rhyme with rock and sneeze, respectively.

Notes on notes

(a)  I'll bet you've never seen anyone footnote their footnotes, have you?

(b)  It's often said that sarcasm is the device of the weak.  My sarcasm here masks my admiration that the German scholar's personal library is filled with novels.  My own personal library is filled not with novels, but rather pornography.  To my credit, though, it is a pretty cosmopolitan collection.  

Holiday In Bali #2: Rituals and Offerings

When you go to Bali one of the first things you'll notice is that there's always some sort of ritual taking place, from daily offerings at family compounds to village-wide ceremonies that involve dozens and sometimes hundreds of people.  The general name for temple festivals is odalan, but there are all sorts of periodic observations and rites of passage that are a major part of life (and the tourist trade) in Bali.  Everyday across the island offerings are made to the gods, the family's ancestors, and the two holy volcanoes, Agung and Batur.  These offerings are called Canang Sari and consist of fresh leaves, fruit, and other items placed on various altars around the compound.  These offerings have several purposes, but one of the main functions is to ensure the safety of the household.  In the picture below you can see a small altar with an offering that sits beside the pool at one of the places we stayed; this is to make sure no one drowns.  You even see offerings in automobiles to help with safety on the road.  You might also see palm fronds attached to some cars after the periodic ritual to bless all things made out of metal.  Some of the offerings are placed on the ground to appease demons.  Making and placing the offerings is one of the principle household tasks performed by women.  One Balinese person I talked to said that his mother usually makes around 40 of these a day, but on certain occasions she might make as many as 100.  This is pretty interesting, because if you think about it as an act of devotion, it requires the sacrifice of time that could be used to grow food, make money, or do anything else.

One of the rituals we watched is the Kecak dance, which is a dramatization of part of the epic Ramayana.  The 2-hour dance describes how Prince Rama's wife Siti is kidnapped by the evil goblin king, who spirits the aforementioned Siti away to his island while Prince Rama is off hunting.  In the very abbreviated version we witnessed Prince Rama's friend Hanuman, the white monkey god, rescue Siti with the help of his monkey army.  The ceremony was performed at night against the backdrop of one of the local temples, with a ceremonial fire burning in the middle of a circle of local men.  The men sang an intricate chant meant to symbolize a gamelan orchestra.  The percussive rhythm of the chant is actually pretty cool, and after a couple of beers (sold at the temple) I got pretty into it.  This particular troupe does this ritual a couple of times a week solely for tourists, whom they charge about $8 a head for the privilege of viewing this authentic bit of Balinese culture.

Next, on a trip to Batukau temple in Central Bali we happened on what was apparently the entire population of a remote village which had made the trip to this very sacred site as part of a ritual that takes place once every thirty years.  The participants told me that they made several stops along the way on this pilgrimage, and the ceremony at Batukau was the last step in the elaborate observance.  Since every village in Bali has to do this particular ceremony once every thirty years, I would imagine that you would have a pretty good chance to see the same thing.  It was interesting to see all the people decked out in special attire, but what was most interesting to me was how they arrived....standing in the back of cargo trucks.  They told me that they all parked their cars about ten miles away and board the trucks to cut down on traffic.  I've seen this type of "carpool" in many places in Indonesia (often times you see dozens of people packed shoulder to shoulder in the back of a dump truck), but I'm always taken aback by it.

We also had the chance to watch part of a cremation ceremony, called Pelebon.  This is one of the most elaborate rituals in Bali and takes a lot of preparation.  According to one person I talked to, because of the expense and effort involved, most villages save up dead people for about five years and then they do a collective ceremony for all of them together.  This makes sense when you look at the pictures; these elaborate floats were built for one ceremony, and it can't be reused because it all gets burned up in the ceremony.  The ritual is for renewal and purification so that the soul of the departed can come back and inhabit the body of a new family member, for as we learned in the previous post the Balinese view of the cosmos is cyclical in nature.    I heard several accounts of how the whole thing works, but evidently the big bull you see in the photo is the vehicle to convey the spirit of the deceased to the next world.  The guys carrying the bull float spin it around and tilt it back and forth to confuse the dead person's spirit so it doesn't come back to the village and cause trouble.  The big tower represents heaven and earth.  In preparation for this particular ceremony they actually took down the power lines, which cut the electricity to a significant part of town, so they could carry the big float to the graveyard without having to worry about getting electrocuted.  Below you can see a video of part of the ceremony.

Holiday in Bali #1: Temples and Subaks

If Western societies have spent the last thousand years laboriously disentangling the secular from the religious, the Balinese have spent the same period attempting to integrate them--  Stephen Lansing, The Three Worlds of Bali, 1983.

One of the most conspicuous aspects of the Balinese landscape is the ubiquitous temple.  If they seem to be everywhere it's because they are; in 1983 Stephen Lansing estimated there to be upwards of 20,000 temples on the TK square kilometer island.  The Hindu temples (pura) are one of the things that make Bali what it is.  They are also one of the main attractions responsible for the hoards of unwashed backpackers laden with Lonely Planets, pastel sets, and Bintang t-shirts that clog up the roads.  But as we'll see in this post, the function of Balinese temples are not limited to the spiritual realm; they are also an important pillar of civil society.  The temples also are aspects of a uniquely Balinese time-space geography.

Temples Temples Temples

A Balinese temple is best understood as a place where several cycles periodically coincide--cycles that connect the Upper, Middle, and Lower worlds.  Many of the most powerful forces at work in the Middle world originate outside it.  For life to continue in the Middle World, these forces must be accomodated--Lansing 1983:55.

Balinese Plintangan calendar from here.

Bali is an interesting island because it stands as a bastion of Hinduism in a sea of Islam.  Islam made its way to the archipelago in the 14th century and spread rapidly, replacing in many places the Buddhism and Hinduism that arrived more than a millennium previously (1).  Hinduism and Buddhism made strong marks in many parts of the archipelago and the legacy of these two world religions can be seen at places like Borobudor, Prambanan, and Muaro Jambi.  In Bali and parts of East Java, though, Hinduism remained strong and is the dominant religion today.  Like many of the Hindu kingdoms across Southeast Asia, society in Bali has traditionally been based on the Hindu ideal of the cosmos.  In this conception of the world, the realm of humans (the middle world) represents a sort of compromise between the world of gods (the upper world) and the world of devils (the lower world) (2).  In addition, in terms of time the universe operates in cycles rather than in a straight line from past to present to future.  Complicating this is the notion that everything in the Balinese cosmos has its own time cycle.  For example, there is a five-day week and a seven day week in common use in Bali, so when you combine these you get a "month" of 35 unique days (you can see a calendar in the picture to the right of this paragraph).  There are also longer-term cycles as well.  Ceremonies and rituals should take into account all of these various cycles, and so planning is something like finding the lowest common denominator for all the cycles involved.  The community temples represent the place in time and space when all of these cycles come together at a particular time.

Villages in Bali have three main types of temples:

1. Pura Pusah--These are dedicated to Vishnu and are considered to be the "highest" temples.  They deal with the realm of water.
2. Pura Desa--These are dedicated to Brahma and deal with the realm of fire.
3. Pura Dalam--These are considered to be the "lowest" temples and deal with matters of "black and white", or cosmic balance. 

This structure of temples mirrors the political organization of the island and has roots in the old kingdoms of Bali.  Before the Dutch colonizers took over there were numerous small principalities across Bali, some controlling just a few square kilometers of paddy fields.  This fractious political reality wasn't really conducive to consolidated resource management or mobilization of labor.  However, apart from the patchwork of little kings there existed (and still exist) other structures of organization, complete with their own system of temples.

Subaks and Water Management

To get a perspective image of Balinese 'village' life one must take...a steroscopic view, looking at it on the one hand through the lens of the subak and on the other through that of the bandjar--Clifford Geertz, 1980:72.

One often-cited example of a temple network that transcended the petty principalities is the system of puras that regulates irrigation across Bali.  As you know by now, rice is the staple crop of most of Indonesia and Southeast Asia in general.  Rice is more than just food, though.  It's the foundation of society.  Think of it this way: in order to have a state or government, you need to be able to produce a surplus of rice, because you have to support people that don't work in the rice fields.  The production of agricultural surplus is probably the most important enabling factor in the rise of "civilization".  Wet rice is a good crop for producing surplus, because you can grow a lot of it in a relatively small area.  But in order to produce a surplus of rice, it's important to be able to control the flow of water, because wet rice is a fairly complex crop to grow.  Wet rice needs dry periods, but it also needs to be flooded for a good portion of the growing season.  So you have to be able to inundate and later drain the fields, and you can't always rely on the seasons for this.  Irrigation is really important but irrigation works take the cooperation and coordination of a lot of people to build and maintain.  So although it's hard to know for certain, here in Bali (and in many other places across Southeast Asia), people organized themselves to build irrigation works and terraces, and later complex government apparatuses grew out of this.

Diagram from Lansing, 1983; see references

In Bali the rice growing cycle is about 105 days.  That means you can get 3 crops of rice a year, which is a lot of rice (3).  However, since wet rice requires a lot of water it's better to stagger rice production so not every farmer is using water at the same time, and so you don't have too much rice at any one time.  This requires a high level of cooperation and coordination, and so farmers work together.  A group of farmers that draw water off the same canal is called a tempek (this refers to both the land and the association).  The members of the tempek elect a chairman, or klian.  They also cooperate on maintenance activities and rituals.  Usually it's the case that several of these canals feed off a common dam (empelan), and so all the tempeks that share a water source form a larger association called a Subak.  All people having land within the area of a particular subak are citizens of that subak (krama subak).  The subak is the primary unit of water management and is usually translated as "irrigation society", but it is more than just this; it is an agricultural planning unit, an autonomous legal corporation, and a religious community managing virtually every aspect of cultivation (Geertz, 1980).  The Subak generally has two temples: one near the dam and one near the rice fields.  The Subak coordinates planting and harvesting for all of the tempeks so that not everyone is planting or harvesting at the same time.  The Subak also manages all the rituals related to rice farming.  For some examples see the chart below.  Each year all the Subak chiefs in a given region meet at a mountain temple, or a pura masceti.  At these periodic gatherings the Subak leaders plan the ritual cycles for all the subak temples, as well as planting schedules and water allotments.  All of the pura mascetis fall under the authority of one of two lake temples, forming a coordinated system of water management that covers the entire island.  The two water temples are Pura Batu Kau in Tabanan, which has jurisdiction over western Bali, and Pura Ulun Danau, which is the master water temple for the north, south, and eastern portions of the island.

Table from Suradisastra, et al 2002; see references

The subaks have rules of management as well as a system of sanctions (sima) that keep the farmers in line.  This are codified in a compact or constitution called an awig-awig.  Subaks are very democratic and decision making is done by consensus at meetings (sangkepan) that take place every 35 days (according to the Balinese calendar).  They also coordinate collective work and religious ceremonies associated with cultivation.  Suradisastra et al (2002) describe the types of work committees (seke or seka) within the subak:

• Seka numbeg: provides labor for land preparation
• Seka tandur does rice transplanting
• Seka mejukut does weeding
• Seka merana does pest control
• Seka manyi does harvesting
• Seka gebros does rice selection
• Seka sambang monitors water consumption.  

In the chart below you can see what sorts of rituals are involved in each of these tasks.

Table from Suradisastra, et al 2002; see references

A Subak Tour

Juwuk Manis Subak Map

There are subaks all over the place here, especially on the southern half of the island.  I spent a morning walking around one on the outskirts of Ubud taking pictures and talking to the farmers.  This particular subak is called Juwuk Manis, or "Sweet Orange" subak.  The subak has 97 members and consists of about 75 hectares.  The farmers I talked to told me that they only meet one or two times a year, which is consistent with the papers and books I've read (see references) about subaks.  Ubud is pretty urban, and so the social role of the subak association has weakened a little.  But in more rural areas (supposedly) the meetings are more frequent because the subak serves as a pillar of the community.  In addition I think, based on previous conversations around here, that much of the work is done by hired labor; in many cases the land owner isn't actually doing the planting, maintenance, and harvesting.  Nevertheless, it was neat to see an example of this institution I've read so much about.  Subaks are an excellent example of what geographers refer to as "community based natural resource management" or CBNRM.  We like to study CBNRM because these local systems might offer lessons or ideas for conservation in other places.  There are lots of examples of CBNRM in Indonesia; adat systems on Sumatra and other islands are instances of CBNRM.  In the future I'll write a more detailed post about adat principles and CBNRM around Kerinci Seblat National Park.  Below you can see some more pictures of Juwuk Manis subak.  In some of the pictures you can see slots in the canal wall; this is so the farmers can insert wooden slats to block one of the passages to control where the water flows.  Dig the farmer hauling off the 6-foot python I found in the last picture.  He wouldn't let me eat it, though....

Notes

(1)  This is something of a simplification.

(2)  In the Balinese conception of the cosmos, "devils" and "gods" aren't good or bad.  Rather they represent natural forces that are part of the larger cycle of existence.  According to this world view everything goes through a natural cycle of growth and decay.  The upper world represents the growth part of the cycle, whereas the lower realm represents the decay part of the cycle.

(3) Since Bali is very close to the equator, there isn't a lot of seasonal variation other than the monsoons.  This means that you can grow rice year-round.  

References and For Further Reading

Geertz, Clifford.  1980.  Organization of the Balinese Subak.  In Irrigation and Agricultural Development in Asia, Coward, E. Walter, ed.  Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press.  384pp.  

Lansing, J Stephen.  1983.  The Three Worlds of Bali.  NY:Praeger.  170pp.

Suradisastra, Kedi, Wahyuning Sejati, Yana Supriatna, and Deri Hidayat.  2002.  Institutional Description of the Balinese Subak.  Jurnal Litbang Pertanian, 21:1 pp11:19