Balinese Social Life

Mostly Balinese peoples live in the sector of agriculture; supported by the fertile lands. Beside that they also have valuable abilities as their natural talents such as stone or wood carver, painter, dancer, craft-person and artist. These hereditary talents have become their live tradition as part of their religion. The peoples who live in tourism locations or down-towns prefer to work in the tourism or hospitality industry; these fields give more earnings rather than other businesses.

CASTE
There are four castes in Balinese society:

• Brahmana
  The highest caste in Hindu Balinese. The members are priests or scholars.
• Ksatrya
  The members are warriors and everybody who have nobility power.
• Weisya
  Mostly the members are merchants.
• Sudra
  The lowest caste. Members are farmers and laborers, who are the original Balinese society.

Intermarriage between castes; A lady is prohibited from marrying a man of a lower caste; but romance could be happened to everybody.

BANJAR
The peoples live in villages. A family is the basic unit of Balinese society. A society of families who live in neighborhood in a village called a Banjar. In each Banjar is a Banjar hall in which the members meet each others and where a lot of activities take place. A village could be managed by some integrated Banjar, this village called Desa Adat.

DESA ADAT
Desa means village and Adat means traditional ethic, recognized with the existance of Pura Desah. To organize and maintain their village, they usually have a routine meeting in a public pavilion, attended by families heads. Decision made by voting and integrated decision. Very often things have to be done in the "Gotong Royong" way, that means join labor for the purpose of all without payment.

SUBAK
A Subak is an organization of farmers. This organization controls and manages village life, rice fields and irrigation in particular. Each Banjar has one or more Subak. It is also possible that members of different small Banjars are members of one Subak. The Pekaseh, the head of the Subak is chosen by the members for a certain time. Banjar and Subak are one of the guarantees that Bali remains Bali in spite of all the foreign influences with which the island is confronted. Another guarantee is Bali Hinduism that enables the Balinese people to remain who they are and always have been. This makes Bali unique.