'Bokor' helps refine religious ceremonies

Tri Vivi Suryani, Contributor, Denpasar

Every day, a myriad of offerings consisting of fresh fruits, flowers, meals and cakes are presented to gods in Bali in an attempt to maintain the equilibrium between macrocosmic and microcosmic worlds, the tangible and intangible lives.

In this ritual, bokor (rounded shaped silver or gold carved containers of various sizes) play an important role since some of the offerings are beautifully arranged in it.

As time goes by the bokor have become inseparable from the life of the Balinese Hindu society.

However, only a few people know the creators of these important ritual utensils.

Nobody knows when the Balinese started using bokor as part of their ceremonial instruments. No recorded facts or written information are available to disclose its history.

By word of mouth, a silver bokor was said to be first made by the famous Pande clan of silversmiths who lived in Nongan village in Karangasem, East Bali, around 60 kilometers east of Denpasar.

The Pande family was well known for its incredible craftsmanship inherited by each generation of the family up to the present time. In addition to producing kris, daggers, weapons and ceremonial utensils, the Pande family also created various kinds of household and agricultural tools.

Pande Wayan Dangin, one of the silversmiths in Nongan village, told his story. Unlike other members of the Pande family, Pande Wayan Dangin did not inherit his skills from his ancestors but from an artisan in Singaraja, North Bali. In 1958, when he was jobless and found it hard to find work in his village, he went to Singaraja to work as a laborer at a coffee plantation in Singaraja. However, living as a low-skilled worker was hard as well. There were times when work was hard to find.

"Working as a laborer promised nothing," he said.

Fortunately, he knew an artisan friend who later taught him how to make a silver bokor.

Pande Wayan Dangin remembered that his parents still kept the necessary equipment for producing a bokor like purungan (a fire pump), perapen (a kiln) or palungan (water container) kept for years by his father in their family home.

There was no machine or advanced instrument but simple tools to manually produce each piece of bokor or other utensils.

During the Dutch colonial occupation, blacksmiths and silversmiths in Bali faced hard times because it was difficult to find raw materials for their products. The only way was to find pis bolong (tin-coins) and melt them traditionally in a 200 Celsius Degree heated kiln.

Finding tin-coins was a risky job at that time. The Dutch colonial administration would strictly punish any people who obtained pis bolong, especially for the making of bokor.

In many cases, the captured artisans would be locked up in prison for obtaining the coins. However, Pande Wayan Dangin took that risk and walked as far as Klungkung just to find the coins.

Up to now, Pande Wayang Dangin created half finished bokor before taking them to a carver in Klungkung to decorate them with attractive ornaments.

Each bokor has its own quality. It could be sold from thousands of rupiah to millions of rupiah each depending on the quality. So far, there are only seven artisans who are still faithfully following this old profession.

"Being a bokor maker is not so promising. Regeneration process doesn't work well as our young people prefer to work in Denpasar," Pande said.

But his love for bokor never ceased. "I can still obtain a meager amount of money. Creating a beautiful bokor is my own satisfaction."