THE DAY OF SILENCE ( NYEPI DAY )

New Year’s day is perhaps the oddest day in Bali. On this day, throughout the island, silence is observed and inactivity reigns supreme. Also called Nyepi Day, the Balinese Day of Silence, New Year’s day fall on the day following the dark moon of the spring equinox, and opens a new year of the Saka Hindu era which began in 78 A.D

On Nyepi day, which starts with sunrise, don’t expect to be able to do anything. You will have to stay in your hotel. No traffic is allowed, not only of cars, but also of people, who have to stay in their individual houses. Light is kept to a minimum, radio turned down, and no one works, of course.

The day of Silence is a symbolic replay of these philosophical principles. At the beginning of the year, the world is “clean”. The previous days, all the effigies of the gods from all the village temples have been taken to the river in long and colorful ceremonies. There they have been bathed by the Neptunus of Balinese lore, the god Baruna, before being taken back to residence in their shrines of origin.

The day before Nyepi, all villages have also held a large exorcist ceremony at the main village crossroad, the meeting place of the demons. And, at night all demons of the Bali world were let loose on the roads in a carnival of fantastic monster, the Ogoh-ogoh.

The parade is held over Bali after sunset. All the Banjar neighborhoods and hundreds of youth associations make their own Ogoh-ogoh monster. Some are giants from the classical Balinese lore, while other are guitarists, biker or even AIDS microbes. All with fangs, bulging eyes and scary hair, illuminated by torches and with the accompaniment of the most demonic gamelan music (bleganjur) of the Balines repertoire. They surge suddenly by hundreds from every street, some more “horrible” than the others; each carried on the shoulder of four to thirty youths, jerking this way or that way so as to give the impression of dance, or suddenly turning in a circle, much to the fascination of the spectators.

And, believe it, this is not small “procession” : it last for three to four hour, as if Bali has an inexhaustible pool of demon. No more than it gods and goddeses for sure.

Thus, on silences day, the world is clean and everything starts new, with Man showing his symbolic control over himself and the “force” of the World. Hence the mandatory religious rohibitions of mati lelangon (no pleasure), mati lelungan (no traffic), mati geni (no fire), and mati pekaryan (no work).