Do Balinese hold special ceremonies for New Year’s Eve?

Many moons ago, the first time I spent a New Year’s Eve in Bali I was surprised that Balinese Hindus continue with their ceremonies, seemingly unconcerned that everyone else in the world (supposedly!) is welcoming the New Year according to the Gregorian calendar. This is because Balinese live according to two calendars, not one as we do in the West. However, the most important for them is their own calendar.

So, no, Balinese don’t hold special ceremonies for the New Year that we know. However, for their own New Year according to the Balinese Çaka calendar, called Nyepi (pronounced ‘nyîpee’), they indeed have special ceremonies. On the eve of Nyepi (on March 15 in 2010), Balinese perform a purification ceremony called Tawur Agung. This involves offerings and purification at the beach (melasti), as well as arousing then ostracizing evil spirits. Pengerupukan is the name for the process of ousting the demons. Balinese traditionally do this by stomping around their house compounds bashing anything loud (gamelan, pots and pans, pieces of metal, or whatever they can get their hands on!), whilst carrying flaming torches and flicking holy water.

Since the emergence in the early 1980s of the now ever-popular ogoh-ogoh tradition, this ritual seems almost secondary. Ogoh-ogoh, especially with the addition of fireworks is very ‘New Years’ as we know it, and without them (they are not a necessary part of the Tawur Agung or Pengerupukan rituals, but an optional extra) the Balinese New Year can be a fairly unassuming affair.

Of course, not all Balinese are Hindu. So, depending on their belief, people may also celebrate the Chinese, Islamic or Buddhist New Year, the date of which varies from year to year because they all operate on a different calendar system.

So if you live in Bali, you get to celebrate the New Year around five times a year—making it a bit difficult to know exactly when the year is ‘new’!