Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Cremation

A major priest died in Ubud and they held a procession and ceremony for his cremation. Several hundred people walked about a mile following the parade to the temple grounds where the cremation took place. This clip opens as men have carried the priest's casket up a stair to place it on a portable tower, one of four "parade floats": a white bull, a black bull, and two towers. When we got to the temple grounds, they moved the body of the deceased out of his casket and into the white bull. The priests ministered to the body for a long while and then they closed up the bull statue and lit it on fire. They also burned the black bull and I don't know what was inside there.

I let the camera roll for long periods to capture the music. There are four orchestras participating, each from a different temple. They play drums, cymbals, and gongs. They are rigged to walk in the parade, and indeed they sound like a marching band to me.  They continued playing in the temple grounds, taking turns. There is a shot of a marching band at 2:37 minutes in, and a different orchestra, seated in the temple grounds, at 5:07.

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