Galungan
Galungan marks the beginning of the most important recurring religious ceremonies. The spirits of deceased relatives who have died and been cremated return to visit their former homes, and the current inhabitants have a responsibility to be hospitable through prayers and offerings.
Date: December 2018
Location: Bali
I was in Nusa Penida for the first days of the ceremony, and wanted to be part of it has it is an important moment for the island. my first attempt as a tourist was not pleasant, I went to a temple and felt agressed by the local there asking me for money to park and being not pleasant with me. I was really disapointed by the behavior and I decided to leave this area. When I arrived home, we told the story to our landlord. She felt disapointed for us and after explaining us that the community we were staying will go to their own temple for the ceremony, she asked us if we wanted to join them. We said that we would love that, so she brought us more appropriate clothes, and told us to follow her daughter for the whole ceremony.
We had an amazing time and were accepted by the whole community to participate at the ceremony. I was able to take pictures and everyone was happy to share their culture with us. A great time I will always remember. And to make it even more unreal, when we left home to enter into the jungle, it started to rain, I knew it would be memorable.
Everyone started to enter in the courtyard, talked to each other, men in one side and women on the other side. We were with the child preparing the offerings for the gods. Then one by one, women started to enter into the temple with their offerings. Each statue represent a god and everyone has offerings for every gods.
Then comes the time for the prayer. Everyone sit in the courtyard and pray leads by a ceremony master.
The ceremony ended and we returned to the village with our guide. While we thought it was finished, we discovered that it was just the time to take more offerings for an other temple. With this time, men being active by playing music. So we followed them into the other side of the community where we discovered an other temple in construction. One third with a stage, where the men took place and played music, one third in construction and one third where the women went to give the offerings to the gods. When the music ended, men joined the women and we prayed.
All these images were taken with a Nikon D800E and a Sigma Art 35mm f/1.4. I processed them with Lightroom and for some of them made more fine adjustement with Photoshop and Luminar 4.