ABSTRACT
Like a continual under-sea ballet, the pulse of life in Bali moves with a measured rhythm reminiscent of the sway of marine plants and the flowing motion of octopus and jellyfish under the sweep of a submarine current. There is a similar correlation of the elegant and decorative people with the clear-cut, extravagant vegetation; of their simple and sensitive temperament with the fertile land. At one time the island was populated by pure Indonesians, an ancient people who filed and blackened their teeth. They lived in small communities, family clans ruled by a council of Elders who acted as the priests of their religion. Their cult centred in the worship of the powerful spirits of nature, and especially those of their ancestors, with whom they continued to live, a great family of both the dead and the living. In Bali, things continued in a state of turmoil.
