ABSTRACT
The final, and apparently least used plant is pati(h) kala(h), the main one to present problems, not least as the Balinese were uncertain whether it should be read as pati or patih. The latter is commonly applied to a traditional royal court official, but the former has a vast range of referents (see van der Tuuk 1897). Kalah may be translated as defeated or lost. In contrast, others thought that the word should be kala, a class of demonic spirit. At least one family did not include this species, as they were undecided as to its meaning and said that they feared the consequences were it to turn out to be ‘defeated minister’. Aningenious, if unsubstantiated and somewhat ungrammatical, argument was put forward by some of the more pensive, who surmised that it referred pati as the handle of a knife (or of the blade used to cut padi, anggapan) and kalah, as either defeated or lost, to give: to lose the knife-handle (as the rice is so thick), or to defeat the knife (for the same reason). If nothing more, this example should at least provide some insight into the processes of reasoning in symbolism developed by villagers.
