By the beginning of the 20th century, Dutch
colonialists had conquered most of the archipelago now known as the
nation of Indonesia. The islands of Sumatra, Jawa, Borneo, Sulawesi,
Maluku, and Lombok were all under the control of the Dutch government
for the sake of the merchants running the Dutch East India Company.
The tiny island of Bali was coming under their control too. The
northern part was being managed by two puppet rajas who had been
coerced into submitting to Dutch authority. The only piece of the
island left for domination was the south. The rajas in that area were
faced with a choice between death with dignity or servitude.
In 1900, the Dutch military invaded the port town of Sanur. A
dispute broke out between the Dutch and the Raja of Denpassar because
a Chinese merchant ship had been destroyed off the coast; the owners
wanted money for their loss and the Dutch, who were probably the ones
who destroyed it to begin with, tried to blame the Raja and force him
to pay. The Rajah refused and the two sides continued to argue over
this for two years. By that time the Dutch had built up a large army
and imported enough guns to make them sufficiently strong for combat.
They decided the time was right to collect the money they said was
owed to the Chinese merchants but more likely they used that as a
pretext for attacking the last stronghold of the Balinese.
One night they stormed the Raja’s palace in Denpasar and set
it on fire. The guards tried to defend it but, armed only with spears
and the ceremonial knives they call krises, it quickly became
apparent that they had no chance against the Dutch. The Raja
commanded them to stop fighting and the Dutch looted the palace,
taking all the most valuable possessions.
The next morning at dawn, while the palace continued to burn,
the Dutch troops amassed at the edge of the town, ready to strike.
The Raja of Denpasar called his subjects to a meeting. The Hindu
priests induced everyone, young, old, man, woman, and child into a
trance. They formed a phalanx led by the Raja, seated on a sedan
carried by four men, carrying a gold umbrella as the symbol of Hindu
royalty. He was followed by women with their black hair flowing
freely over their shoulders and wearing nothing but jewel encrusted
loincloths and carrying spears and jeweled krises. They were followed
by the men and children dressed the same way and carrying the same
weapons. The Dutch saw them coming and commanded them to stop or be
killed. The Balinese continued to march. As they got closer, the
Dutch tried to negotiate with the Raja who refused to speak. The
Balinese people, still in their trances, walked directly into the
crowd of armed soldiers who parted rather than attack. The Balinese,
in a frenzy, began stabbing blindly in every direction so the Dutch
began shooting. Soon most of the women and men were dead. Several
women continued trying to stab the soldiers and they were shot point
blank. Another band of Balinese people began approaching, most of
them elderly people and children. The Dutch put down their guns and
pleaded with them to stop. The new band of Balinese then started to
stab themselves with their krises. The soldiers tried to grab ahold
of some children to prevent them from hurting themselves but the kids
were in a trance and were strong enough to disembowel themselves
while the Dutch soldiers looked on. By the end of the day, all the
Balinese people were dead and no Dutch soldiers had lost their lives;
only one Dutch man had a wound on his arm from being stabbed. The
first Balinese puputan, meaning “mass ritual suicide”, had ended.
That same day, another army of Dutch men marched on the
neighboring village of Pemecutan. As they approached, they saw the
Raja had set his own palace on fire. The elderly man was carried on a
gold sedan, wearing flowing yellow robes. He was followed by several
of his wives and the chieftains who served under him. The chieftains
began firing some guns they had acquired. Then they stopped as the
Dutch returned fire, killing the entire group. The second puputan of
the Balinese colonial era had occurred.
That night, the demoralized Dutch soldiers set about cremating
the corpses of the dead Balinese.
The next day, a young man came to the Dutch military garrison
and claimed that he had missed the previous day’s mass suicide due
to his being away on business. He asked the Dutch soldiers to shoot
him. They refused so he took out his kris and stabbed himself in the
heart until he died.
Two days later, the Raja of Tabanan came to meet with the Dutch
colonial administrators. He carried a green umbrella, the Balinese
symbol of political surrender. He offered his submission on the
ground that he be allowed to keep his title and palace while being
allowed to collect taxes from his subjects. He would agree to be yet
another puppet raja, subject to the dictates of the Dutch colonial
masters. The administrator told him he would have to go into exile
while they discussed the matter with their superiors in the Dutch
government. Believing this to be a ruse that would lead to his
imprisonment in the nearby penal colony on Lombok, the raja returned
home. The next day all his wives and children were found dead in a
pool of blood with krises in their hands. The Raja’s corpse lay
nearby; he had slit his own throat just like the other members of his
family. The third Balinese puputan was over.
Finally, after a couple more days, the Raja of Klungkung,
refusing to surrender, was approached by the Dutch military. Like the
mass suicide in Denpasar but just a little smaller, the villagers
were either shot while attacking Dutch soldiers or killed by their
own hands by stabbing themselves and slitting their own throats with
their krises. The fourth, and final, puputan of Bali had finished,
The Dutch had conquered Bali, though in the end, they saw it as
a grey victory, surviving under the shadow of their own shame. Being
believers in reincarnation, the Hindus of the island would believe
that the mass suicide victims had gone on together with their rajas
to be reborn in a better place, under better circumstances, rewarded
for their loyalty and devotion to their beloved leaders. The Balinese
had decided that suicide was better than servitude.
Covarrubias, Miguel. Island of Bali. Periplus, 1973.
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