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Environment
Sculpting the Land for
Sustenance: Rice in Balinese Culture
One of the most
breathtaking natural spectacles in Bali is the sight of a
rice field heavy with life. From the fields flooded with
fresh, clear mountain water that mirrors the sky above, to
the newly planted delicate lime green shoots, to the mature
emerald stalks swaying in the breeze, often as tall as a
human being, to the golden bronze beauty of the sheaves
ready to be harvested, the cycle of rice cultivation shades
the Balinese landscape with ever changing color.
Rice is the staple food of
the Balinese. But such a simple statement hardly begins to
describe the importance of this humble grain in Balinese
culture. Rice is the staff of life and the stuff of ritual,
a source of myth and a storehouse of wealth. Indeed,
Balinese legend has it that when the god Siwa created the
world he created first the mountains, then rice, and only
then did he inhabit the world with people, fish, birds and
animals.
To the average Balinese, a
life without rice would be unthinkable. Stories are told of
Balinese who go to work or study overseas lugging to the
airport heavy suitcases stuffed with rice and the implements
to cook it, terrified that they would go hungry in the lands
of bread, potatoes and pasta. No matter how true these
tales, it is certain that no Balinese would willingly go for
long without this favorite food. For most Balinese, rice
forms the bulk of their daily meals, providing essential
carbohydrates, protein and vitamins. While meat, fish, eggs,
soy products and vegetables also are important parts of the
diet, they are considered more as side dishes, complementing
the heaping main portions of the pearly grains.
To a Westerner brought up
with instant white rice, the care the Balinese take to
classify their rice and the joy they take in consuming it
might be confusing. In Bali, there are many different kinds
of rice, and a Balinese can taste minute differences between
them that would most likely go unnoticed by a Western
palate. Beras Bali is indigenous Balinese rice, grown
in irrigated fields, with two crops possible per year.
Beginning in the 1970s, the "green revolution"
sponsored by the World Bank began to introduce new high
yield, disease resistant varieties with shorter growing
seasons, enabling Bali to turn from an importer of rice to
an exporter of a substantial surplus. But despite the
benefits of these new varieties to the farmer, most Balinese
still prefer the taste of authentic, old style Balinese
rice, claiming it has a superior flavor, consistency and
color. Government civil servants, who are paid a portion of
their wages in coupons exchangeable for the new rice, often
sell their vouchers and buy themselves the more delicious,
although more expensive, traditional variety. Besides
Balinese rice and the new hybrids, Balinese also cultivate
dry field rice, sticky rice, red rice and black rice, used
to make the famous bubur injin, the delicious
traditional delicacy of black rice cooked in coconut milk
and spices.
Rice is not only valuable to
the Balinese as a staple food, but also as the center around
which much of social and religious life is organized. One of
the most important traditional organizations in Bali is the subak,
or irrigation cooperative. Because water must flow through
many kilometers of rivers, streams, irrigation channels and
rice terraces to reach the lowlands, coordination is vital
to ensure that water resources are evenly distributed among
farmers. Some 1,200 of these subak groups, consisting
of around 200 people whose fields share the same water
source each, exist in Bali today. Traditionally, these
groups were responsible for organizing the allocation of
water to irrigate members' fields, keeping the complex
system of aqueducts and channels in good repair, and
deciding on planting dates for the members of the
cooperatives. And the subak's functions are not
merely economic. One of their most important duties is to
carry out the many rituals needed to ensure a successful
harvest, and to maintain the temples devoted to Dewi Sri,
the beloved Balinese goddess of rice. This communal system
of irrigation and worship is believed by archaeologists to
have begun over a thousand years ago, when the Balinese
first began to sculpt rice fields out of the rich volcanic
land to provide for their daily sustenance. As a testimony
to the endurance of a traditional spirit of community and
cooperation in Bali, the subak is indeed
awe-inspiring. But more amazing still is the fact that such
a traditional form of environmental management, worked out
over centuries without calculators or computers or complex
machinery, is still more effective than the best plans of
modern science. Anthropologist Stephen Lansing, in a famous
study of the subak system, demonstrated through the
use of sophisticated computer programming that the
traditional methods of the subak were indeed more
efficient than anything the computer could devise.
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