NGABEN IN BALI

Bali is famous through the world for its beauty of nature and also its ancient culture that makes many people curious. One of the assets to increase the income is from that part and Ngaben becomes one of the famous culture in Bali. Ngaben is a traditional burial ceremony. It is the part of ancient belief of Balinese. They believe that one’s soul will be accepted by God if their body were burned. They believe that their soul “fly” to the sky with the smoke from the burned body/corpse. And the family and relatives will be blessed by God due to this ceremony.

Unfortunately, Ngaben is an expensive culture. Not all people can afford to do it when one of their family passed away. To do Ngaben is not easy, it need along difficult preparation. Many things need to be provided, and it costs a lot of money. As a matter of fact, most rich Balinese people did not feel it as a trouble. But for most poor people it is hard to do. Consequently, they usually join another one to make this ceremony in order to make intensive expense.

There are some steps in the process of Ngaben ceremony. The corpse will be laid down in a burning place then it will be put in buried place. The priest make a ritual program of ceremony and many people follow. Many foreigners sometimes like to see the unique process of this ceremony. It seems that Ngaben is a wonderful burial ceremony. Many tourists in Bali think that it is an interesting event to see because they never see in another island in Indonesia.

Finally, not many of us know what Ngaben is like, even we do not know the process of it. Ngaben is one of valuable traditional ceremony in Indonesia. In Bali, Ngaben is one of the tourism attraction that can invite many tourist. Therefore, it is necessary to keep this tradition in order to enrich our culture.