Mebiu Kukung - Bali Rice Offering

19 Sept 2023 · 3 min

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2:32

In this short bilingual dialogue, Speaker A explains a Balinese rice gratitude ceremony called Mabyukukun (also referred to as Biokukun), performed about one month before the rice harvest (mani). The ceremony thanks Dewi Sri, the goddess of prosperity for farmers, and seeks continued healthy growth of the rice until harvest. The discussion also covers the decorative pole called pengjur (or pengjor), which in the Biokukun ceremony is a smaller version compared to the towering pengjur displayed during Galungan. The pengjur symbolizes Mount Agung, representing worldly prosperity. Speaker B asks clarifying questions, prompting the explanations. The conversation highlights the ritual’s timing, purpose, symbolic elements, and its relation to broader Balinese cultural practices.

Chapters

As you can see, the rice is found. It's turned yellow, little bit green to yellow, so it means growing well. So this is my beautiful ceremony is about 1 month before the harvesting day, the rice harvesting day. So we call it mani, between that 1 month. So this ceremony is not just a form as a gratitude because the rice growing well, but it also that we wish that until the harvesting day, the rice is still growing well, and then the farmers get a multiple result.
And they call it a gratitude ceremony. What's the word in their language for it?
Mabyukukun. It's kind of— it's quite long word. Biokukun. Biokukun, right. Biokukun. Yeah, that's right. So of course this ceremony, it's about that we thank to the god who manifests as Dewi Sri. We call it Dewi Sri, or as we known as the goddess of the prosperity for the farmers. And also, have you seen pengjur during the Galungan day, or from the picture somewhere? Maybe. I don't think so, because this one, this is also pengjur, but this is the small one. When the Galungan day, you can see along the highway, along the road, it's quite towering for the pengjor itself. They will be put in front of the houses, in front of the path of the house. It's really big and towering, but for the Biokupung ceremony, we don't need that kind of big pengjor, so this one is enough.
Oh, this, this This one, pengur. Yeah, yeah.
So pengur itself is symbol of the Mount Agung.
Oh really?
Yes, so which is symbol of the, you know, prosperity in this world.
Mount Agung, the volcano?
Mount Agung, yeah.