Ceremonial offering-making, a flourishing business

Wahyuni Kamah, Contributor, Denpasar, Bali

Offerings are an important part of Balinese life and rituals, and they can be seen in many places such as the gardens of houses, at road intersections, shop doors, in hotels and even airports.

Usually, the more important a ceremony is, bigger, more complicated and costlier offerings are prepared. The offerings are usually prepared daily and on special occasions such as to mark births, weddings, holidays and temple festivals.

But not every Balinese, especially those living in big cities like Denpasar, have the time to prepare offerings, unlike in the villages where people are used to working together to make offerings.

Since some people cannot prepare the offerings themselves, this opens up business opportunities for those people who have the skills and time necessary to become offering makers.

An offering, or banten as local people know it, is a complete offering prepared for a ceremony and dedicated to a deity.

Bu Mangku is one of the banten makers in Denpasar who provides offerings for those needing them. Her husband Mangku Eka is a pemangku (low priest) in Banjar Jabapura, Denpasar.

Before ordering a banten, a customer usually discusses the ceremony he is going to hold and what kind of offering he wants to make for the occasion. He will also consult the priest about it.

"The kind of offering will depend on the ceremony's objective," Mangku said. The bigger the ceremony the more complicated the offering is.

On that particular day, the priest's house was busy. The priest's wife, with the help of his daughter, was crafting colorful rice flour kneaded into beautiful flower-shape cacalan offerings. Other women were busy cutting and arranging young coconut leaves. They were preparing gebogan, similar to janur in Java.

Whenever she has big order, she calls on some of her neighbors to help out. The woman, who hardly speaks a word of Bahasa Indonesia, said she has been working as an offering maker for nearly 15 years. Once there is an order, she starts buying the materials, mostly young coconut leaves.

Other than supervising the materials needed to create an offering, Bu Mangku also takes part in the production process, working from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

In some cases, customers even ask the offering makers to prepare the offerings at the location. For Bu Mangku, this might mean she has to travel as far as Karangasem in East Bali.

In Bali, offering making is the women's duty in the family.

"Every Balinese woman is obliged to have the skills needed to make offerings," said Mangku, the priest.

From an early age, Balinese women learn to make offerings, starting with the simple ones presented every day. As they get older, the women learn how to make more complicated offerings.

The cost of ordering an offering also depends on the objective of the devotee.

"An offerings for a human-related ceremony (manusya yadnya), like a wedding, can cost up to Rp 7 million. The offerings for deities (dewa yadnya) cost at least Rp 1 million," Mangku said.