If you have Balinese friends or are involved in the Balinese community, from time to time you may hear them talking about “sebel”. Sebel is Balinese for “cuntaka”, a Sanskrit word meaning unclean. Balinese believe that somebody who is “unclean” may not pray or enter a holy place. You may see signs in Balinese, Indonesian or English warning people who are unclean not to enter temples—the most charming I’ve seen reads: “Woman may not be entered during menstruation”! There are two types of cuntaka: one that comes from within and one that comes from an outside occurrence.
The type that comes from oneself is something such as menstruation or getting pregnant/giving birth out of wedlock; this normally only applies to females. A woman who has just finished her menstrual cycle should cleanse herself with holy water from the family temple. This is called melukat in Balinese. If a woman gets pregnant out of wedlock, she may enter a holy place or pray only if she has completed the necessary manusa yadnya rituals.
The second type of cuntaka comes from outside, such as death in the family or the immediate community. People who are related to the deceased are not allowed to pray or enter a holy place, except that of the family, for a period of 42 days since death; a “sebel” period of three days applies to those unrelated but still connected within the community.
These beliefs are quite different from those of other cultures, particularly in our more secular Western societies. I’m sure in modern societies women would object to being disallowed to enter a holy place due to the reasons above, claiming infringements on their human rights. However, as we all know, Bali is still very much a male-dominated society and things will take quite some time to change. But who knows, now women are even allowed to play the gamelan!
