Villas a window into Mead's Bali sojourn<\/p>\n
Mehru Jaffer, Contributor, Ubud, Bali<\/p>\n
Finally parked outside the sign pointing to Taman Bebek
\nVillas, the driver could not believe that he had been forced to
\ndetour all the way around the Sayan Monkey Forest just to get to
\nthis place with a wide, wooden roof that looked like a relic from
\nanother world.<\/p>\n
Are you sure you are not looking for Hotel Campuan or the
\nAmandari? The young driver wanted to take me to at least one of
\nthe designer hotels, like Chedi Ubud or Begawan Giri, that are as
\npopular with tourists as the sacred sites of Bali.<\/p>\n
Why had he had to keep on driving down the Sayan road in
\nsearch of the Bebek Villas? This was something that he could not
\nunderstand. If the Bebek Villas were so special he would be the
\nfirst to know the place, instead of having to endure the
\nembarrassment of stopping to ask for directions.<\/p>\n
I warned the driver that he would have to wait a bit longer
\nwhile I finished coffee in the front office here instead of
\nfulfilling the desire of being seen at Naughty Nuri's or at the
\nmuch more popular Lotus Cafe.<\/p>\n
He gave me a funny look but waited. He did not look impressed
\nwhen he was later told that Bebek Villas was once the home of
\nColin McPhee, author of Music in Bali and then Margaret Mead,
\nperhaps one of the world's most influential anthropologists. Just
\nbelow the breathtaking view, the Woolworth's heiress Barbara
\nHutton had her home here in the 1930s.<\/p>\n
After working in Samoa and New Guinea, Mead came to Bali in
\n1936 to become part of that charmed expatriate circle in Ubud
\nwhose leading light was Walter Spies, an artistic and musical
\nchild of a prosperous German. Together this group challenged
\nBali's vulgar tourist image abroad to present a version of the
\nreal Bali as a rich culture based on authentic folk traditions.<\/p>\n
Although a recluse, his deep feelings for matters cultural
\nmade Spies popular with the expatriate community and the Balinese
\nalike.<\/p>\n
The famous, from Celemenceau to HG Wells, all visited Bali in
\ntheir time. Hutton, Charlie Chaplin, Noel Coward and numerous
\nothers, rich, titled or simply curious, all came to the home of
\nSpies in the hills of Ubud, writes Adrian Vickers in Bali A
\nParadise Created.<\/p>\n
Bali was built up as a romantic refuge by those Europeans who
\ncould get away from the depression of World War I and from
\npreparations being made in Europe to wage yet another war.<\/p>\n
Here art was seen as the soul of the Balinese community and
\nthe people as universally artistic, enabling them to make
\npainting, music, dance part of the rhythm of daily life, along
\nwith working in the fields, feeding pigs, bearing children or
\ncooking. Art seemed like a prayer to the holiness of life, a deep
\nspirituality in the community. This is the image of Bali created
\nby war weary Europeans and the island's first tourists that has
\nsurvived to this day.<\/p>\n
The idea of the noble peasantry as embodying the real spirit
\nof Bali was spread around this time. While musician Colin McPhee
\nsought the best examples of cultural refinement from the courts,
\nMead concentrated on the culture of ordinary people.<\/p>\n
Mead sometimes felt that art was overdone in Bali and that the
\nisland teemed with excessive rituals. She ventured to find out
\nwhat impact this excessiveness of culture had on the community.<\/p>\n
This was the third of five field trips to eight different
\nsocieties that Mead made in a span of 14 years. She lived in Bali
\nwith Gregory Bateson, her third husband and also a world-renowned
\nanthropologist, and together they experimented with still
\nphotography and film as a first serious attempt to use visual
\nanthropology for documenting culture.<\/p>\n
Along with vivacious cinematographer Jane Belo, she produced
\nclassic titles like Trance and Dance in Bali, Learning to Dance
\nin Bali and Karba's First Years. Mead met Bateson in New Guinea
\nwhere he had already completed a study of ritual and play that
\nhas gone to revolutionize the way culture is studied. The two
\nmarried on the slow boat ride from New Guinea to Bali, and their
\nvisit to the island coincided with the arrival here of Charlie
\nChaplin and poet Noel Coward.<\/p>\n
Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis by Mead and
\nBateson is the first extensive publication based upon their
\nresearch in Bali. The 277-page book contains approximately 700
\nblack and white photographs of their days in Bali and continues
\nto contribute to the understanding of people around the world. A
\ncrucial moment is captured in a photograph of a mother teasing
\nher little son by playing with his penis.<\/p>\n
The magic of wandering around the Bebek Villas lies in
\nwondering on which chair Mead may have sat as she studied the
\nphotograph of a Balinese mother teasing her little son in such a
\nprovocative way. Did she sit with a tray of tea on the open porch
\nperched on a ridge to draw conclusions about the deep
\nimplications of the genital play? The couple was surely familiar
\nwith the works of Sigmund Freud.<\/p>\n
The question is which view of the breathtaking landscape did
\nthe two face as they argued how cultural repression splits the
\npersonality of the Balinese into calm, harmonious and almost too
\nrestrained people but who also go through culturally controlled
\noutbursts that express hidden aspects of their personality?<\/p>\n
Mead and Bateson saw the witch and the kris as examples of
\nthese outbursts. With a definite taste for the bizarre, Mead was
\nfascinated with the Rangda witch. Combined with the kris dance,
\nthe Rangda witch seemed to complete the image of Bali as a
\ntropical paradise where people love harmony but lurking behind
\nthe placidity is also the wild force ready to reel into trance
\nand frenzy in self stabbing.<\/p>\n
I like to imagine that this is the place, overlooking the
\nAyung River and surrounded by emerald green garlands of rice
\nfields where Mead and Bateson, along with the Dutch artist Rudolf
\nBonnet, tried to figure out the violent content of Gusti Nyoman
\nLempad's paintings. They must have argued for hours how a man who
\nmade such very obscene drawings was himself so shy and modest.<\/p>\n
To visit Bebek Villas today is also to get a feel for the
\nenvironment that inspired Mead's writings that have in return
\nbeen so important in developing ideas of liberation from a
\nboringly puritanical view of the world. I do not know whether the
\nBebek Villas is kept so casual and rustic due to a lack of funds
\nor as an example of an alternative lifestyle closer to Bali's
\nromantic idea of the last paradise.<\/p>",
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