Balinese Hindus take a spiritual approach to prevent rats from attacking their agricultural land.
Not only do they get rid of the pest through mass culling, they also cremate their carcass in a ritual ceremony.
According to Balinese Hindu beliefs, the spirit of dead rats should be guided on its journey to the afterlife, to return to the Creator Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa.
Islanders therefore amass thousands of rats from their rice fields and put them inside a bull-shaped coffin to burn them. The rats’ ashes are then thrown away into the waters of Seseh Beach in Munggu, Badung regency.
The ritual, called Mreteka Merana Tikus, is in some ways similar to the Ngaben cremation ceremony for Hindus, except that in this ritual, the spirit of dead creatures is not expected to reincarnate.
The word mreteka means to return the dead creature to cosmic elements, while merana refers to destroying the characteristic of pests. Tikus means rats.
Through this grand ritual, which costs over Rp 400 million, the farmers ask for divine help to eliminate thousands of rats that have destroyed their harvests and to free the rice fields from pests.
“We need to hold this ritual to free the soul of the creatures and guide them to the God Almighty. We don’t expect them to return and destroy our crops,” said I Nyoman Renda, who chairs the forum of pekaseh (farmer groups’ leaders) in Subak Abian.
From : The Jakarta Post
