Paper, Bamboo and String-the wondrous kites of Bali
Over four days in August, around four thousand kites of great
size and inimitable style fly proudly at the beach in Bali.
It’s an amazing communal effort – and a delightful
spectacle.
Magic on a string…
Kites waft black against the darkening sky like cinders crisping
upward in Guy Fawkes smoke. Excitement, eyes strained skyward,
as for fireworks, gasps of delight - even passing motorists
are craning their necks backwards at the sight.
It’s that special time in Bali, when the sky fills with
angular shapes, silhouetted against the setting sun.
In the dry season (from about March to September). everyone
from child to man gets out into the ricefields and flies kites.
It’s not unusual to see fifteen to twenty dotted on
the skyline at any given time. Grandfathers hunker on narrow
ricefield paths between the watery fields, crafting spindly
fish shapes for their beloved ‘choo-choos’ (grandchildren)
from bamboo and polythene.
The Bali kite festival in August is the peak of this formidable
national fascination and skill with bamboo, paper, fabric
and string.
Driving along, so busy looking at the sky, we miss our stop-off
at the fish barbecue place and my husband Putu has to turn
round. Over ‘saté lilit’ (fish ground with
spices, on a stick) Putu recounts a village kite story his
father told him last night:
Fire in the Balé Dangin
In the balé dangin (a kind of covered sitting pavilion
in a Balinese house), a guy sits obsessed, busily making a
kite. He started at 9am and now it’s 2am the following
morning, and he hasn’t stopped once. Hasn’t even
eaten! (unthinkable in Bali).
He’s using long laths of ‘lontar’ –
skinny palm leaves which are a bit like the flexible slats
from venetian blinds – to make a special device that
will hang from the kite, set in such a way as to make a loud
burrrr – rattling and humming, whirrring, so the kite
can be heard in the night.
(Kite enthusiasts lie happily in bed at night here, listening
to the sound of their kite above, enjoying the feeling that
their creation is still flying deep in the night, lulling
them to sleep with the rhythm of its gentle music.)
To smooth the laths more easily, the manic kite maker tapes
sandpaper around an upper support of the pavillion, then hooks
a lath of lontar round the sandpaper and pulls it back and
forth repeatedly in a sawing motion. Similar to what you do
when you are trying to light a fire by rotating a stick with
tinder… er…which is exactly what happens –
the roof catches fire and…
The man is clearly a victim of ‘dedarinan’ –
which means someone ‘possessed by angels’, forgetting
himself, which sometimes happens when ‘kite mania’
hits Bali.
The Festival
It costs around two and five million Rupiah (about two to
five hundred US dollars) to build a kite for the festival
– about a year’s wages for many people in Bali,
so it’s a considerable undertaking to build one.
Usually, village organisations or ‘banjars’ create
and fly the kites. Getting together to lovingly make their
creation, they work as a closely-knit team.
The kites are big - typically at least five metres wide by
ten metres long (they can be up to about thirty metres long…),
so they take considerable effort to make, and to fly, which
must also be a team effort due to their weight and the strength,
skill, and teamwork it takes to hold them once the wind catches
them.
The festival takes place on broad, sandy, Sanur beach. On
the designated days in August, cheerful teams set out early
from their villages, hoiking their massive creations onto
the top of large trucks, with gangs of smiling village lads
riding alongside to keep it safe (and to pose!)
Wearing outlandish uniforms – kind of ‘Michael
Jackson meets Harley Davidson meets street ragamuffin’
– they sport cool shades, wide baggy chopped-off trousers,
red ‘Megawati’ t-shirts, hefty boots, outlandish
hats of unimaginable kinds, strange humourous masks like clowns
or criminals, black and white make-up, ludicrous wigs, a snouty
pigs nose, and more. Running alongside their kite, waving
giant chequered flags like deranged drag-race hucksters, they
are quite a sight in themselves!
On just one day of the four-day festival there can be up to
a thousand of these giant kites, each borne by a team of around
ten to fifteen men.
The truck teams arrive in convoys early in the morning, and
with the usual finesse of perfect co-ordination that is the
norm in Bali, the enormous ungainly kites, plus everything
the team could possibly need is transported harmoniously and
cheerfully up the beach. Boxes of mineral water, crates of
food and rice wrapped in banana leaves, even three old gentlemen
with curiously shaped woven artifices which turn out to be
special weathervanes for the wind (this is a whole artform
in itself, apparently), and more, are quickly whizzed into
place.
Each team also transports a cube-like handmade bamboo frame
around three to six metres tall, like a mini grandstand. On
reaching the launch ground, the kite is elegantly rested on
top, and the whole forms a kind of shelter-cum-tent for the
kite team, who promptly sit down to dine in the shadow thus
provided.
Kite shapes
The first day of the festival is for kites known as ‘bé-
bé-an (“fish”). Looking rather like catfish,
these graceful kites have whiskery protruberances and flapping
tails. Leaf-like “pechukan” – (which means
something like ‘pinched’) are a simple, elegant
leaf-shape with a curled up tail. So beautiful, quite unlike
any shape I’ve ever seen, yet with the perfect truth
of that which is inspired by nature. These lovely kites fill
the sky on the second day.
New Creations – the ‘fantasy and other’
category – is on the third day. There’s a giant
Pegasus, various spiritual symbols like flaming chakra wheel
created ‘in the round’ in multi-colours, gods
and goddesses (some on thrones), animals, dragons, and giant
box kites.
The last day is for the best kites from the previous three
days.
The launching ground is a kind of mad carnival of jolly kite
team encampments, the thrill and to-ing and fro-ing of getting
the kites into the air, and the joy of watching them dancing
in the sky. The fantasy kites look marvelous ranged in the
sky – mythical beasts, animals, gods and goddesses,
so colourful against the blue.
Peanut and saté sellers are scattered everywhere. Children
on the beach fly tiny paper versions of the great kites of
the festival, laughing with their parents. The breakers shout
their rushing approval and a few tourists get their feet wet.
Everywhere is joy, excitement, and laughter.
Wrecked dreams…
A day or so after the festival, we go to Celuk village to
visit Yogi, the craftsman who makes my jewellery.
Kites still proudly decorate the outside of many banjar halls,
hanging on walls, forced into service as impromptu sunshades
for table tennis, testament to a successful community effort
with some use still to be squeezed out.
Yogi’s personal effort, a large eagle kite (with a three
metre wing span) still buzzes and burrs over his house, tethered
by heavy nylon cable to a handy frangipani tree outside his
front door. It flies unmanned, whirring away in the wind,
and he lets me pull on the line a bit.
Meanwhile, the crashed kite of Yogi’s village team reclines
brokenly on a bench in the banjar hall like a drunk after
a raucous night out.
Yogi’s team got together after the festival to fly their
kite alone in the ricefield but this time, unfortunately,
it crashed to the ground and lies like a distressed, broken
winged bird, bones in impossible positions, outer covering
ripped and torn. It will not fly again.
In fact, all around Bali the wrecked remains of small kites
dangle brokenly from pylons and cables – sometimes unexpected
rain causes a kite to drop suddenly onto overhead power lines,
occasionally causing death for the unfortunate person at the
end of the string. Most crashes fortunately result only in
the demise of the kite itself, and the populace are strenuously
warned not to fly near the airport.
As we leave in the car, a vast kite suddenly ascends magically
overhead out of nowhere, substantial 3D paper maché
body, black, claws outstretched, wingspan maybe three metres,
hooked wings, authentic, really bat-like and convincing, almost
scary…
Encounter with a leaf
Kites seem so small and flimsy when high in the sky that it’s
hard to believe that they might cause harm if they fell on
you – reminding me of when I was first in Bali, riding
pillion with Putu, when I noticed a leaf from a tall palm
tree dropping rapidly down towards us from high above.
Strangely, perhaps because my mind-set at the time was ‘leaves
are not dangerous’ (being used to the gently drifting
hand-sized russets and golds of an English Autumn) I was somewhat
surprised when something the size of a large dinosaur bone
with woody outstretched fronds like a ribcage hit the ground
rather too close for comfort with a heavy ‘thud’
just as we passed! “Why didn’t you tell me?”
yelled Putu angrily over his shoulder. “I kind of didn’t
know leaves were dangerous!” I replied sheepishly.
The kite festival usually takes place in August. It is a lovely
example of excellence, both in what is made, and how it is
organized. Don’t miss it!NEXT ISSUE: Fear – is
this our greatest motivator?
Jeli Lala created the ‘Ashram of Spiritual Jewellery
and Art’ at no. 1, Sukma St., Tebesaya, Ubud, with her
husband, Putu S. She has studied yoga and many other spiritual
practices for more than ten years. She writes “As a
life-long artist, I’ve been exploring my inner world
since I was a child. In this column, I will share some of
my personal experiences and spiritual methods – hopefully,
you’ll find this interesting, and maybe it will give
some ideas for your own journey”.
Jeli welcomes comments and may be contacted on:
Email: jelila@jelila.com
Website: www.jelila.com or www.imagine-retreats.com
