2801396

The Social Determination of Knowledge: Maurice Bloch and Balinese Time
Author(s): Leopold E. A. Howe

Source: Man, New Series, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Jun., 1981), pp. 220-234
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
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THE SOCIAL DETERMINATION OF KNOWLEDGE:
MAURICE BLOCH AND BALINESE TIME
LEOPOLD E. A. HOWE
Queen's University of
Be!fast
This essay refutes Bloch's claim that the Balinese possess two distinct conceptions of time, a
linear, durational notion attributable to a 'practical' domain, and a cyclical, non-durational
notion attributable to a 'ritual' domain. I argue instead that they have a single coherent concept
of duration and that such duration exhibits features of both cyclicity and linearity. I further
contend that although duration (the passage of time) is an inevitable fact of experience, the
particular manner in which it is expressed in a culture is socially created.
In the I976 Malinowski Lecture Bloch presented a critique of the theory of the
social determination of knowledge. It is my intention to point out some of the
logical inconsistencies in his argument and thereby to clarify the concepts of
'time' and 'duration'. Moreover one of my principal objectives is to argue
against Bloch's proposition that no relativist position is tenable, if this is con-
joined to the view that only one level or type of cognition is available to the
members of the society.
He begins by asking why anthropologists have been unable to deal finally
with the views of Radcliffe-Brown. His reply may be paraphrased thus:
Radcliffe-Brown inherited two propositions from Durkheim: (a) that society
is a self-reproducing entity which is both homogenous and organised; and (b)
the theory of the social origin of cognition. Now according to Bloch,
the organic view of society is implied by the notion that society determines cognition and ...
it is because of the acceptance of this latter point that the criticisms of the static nature of social
structure fail (1977: 279).
He follows this with the assertion that the reason why the theory of the social
origin of knowledge has gone uncriticised is that most anthropologists believe
that different cultures possess fundamentally different systems of thought
(I977: 279). Finally Bloch contends that
if we believe in the social determination of concepts . . ., this leaves the actors with no
language to talk about their society
and so
change it, since they can only talk within it (I977: 28I;
author's emphasis).
His whole argument, culminating in this quotation, may be sub-divided into
four separate propositions:
i. The theory of the social determination of knowledge means that change in
Man (N.S.) I6, 220-34
LEOPOLD E. A. HOWE 22I
an isolated community is rendered inconceivable since the members have no
alternative 'language' (system of cognition) with which to evaluate their social
structure and hence change it.
2. But such change obviously does occur.
3. Therefore there must be an alternative 'language'.
4. Therefore the theory that cognition is uni-dimensional and socially created
must be fallacious.
A few general points may be raised. First, there is no hard evidence of the
change that isolated communities experience, whether this be gradual or
revolutionary. And even if we could locate such a society which was also
literate and kept records of the past, there would still be the probably in-
surmountable problem of assessing the status of its historiography. Secondly it
is, of course, not true that criticisms of the static nature of social structure fail.
Smith's work
(I973)
on the demolition of the functionalist concept of social
change admirably demonstrates that what we require instead are notions of
historical change. On the other hand, it is difficult to deny that the potential
for change is inherent in any system of cognition, as the work of Waismann
(I968: 4I-3) on open-textured concepts has indicated.
Bloch contends that we shall never be able to exorcise the ghost of Radcliffe-
Brown until our belief in the notion that knowledge is socially created has been
abandoned. To induce us to take up such a position he examines some of the
evidence supposed to support this dogma, by asking us to look at 'what is
probably the most fundamental claim, repeatedly made by cultural relativists
-that concepts of time are closely bound to social organisation and therefore
vary from society to society' (I977: 282). This extreme relativist position is
rightly rejected by Bloch, for 'if other people really had different concepts of
time we could not do what we patently do, that is communicate with them'
(I977: 283).
The difficulties in Bloch's analysis arise as he moves on to highlight what he
considers to be a notable feature of studies of time. Such investigations, he
explains, reveal one or the other of two notions of time: (a) linear, durational
time; and (b) static, cyclical time, and it is at this. point that he remarks,
somewhat astoundingly,
Before proceeding, however, one point must be made. In reducing the evidence to two types I
am, of course, talking about claims concerning the perception of duration not the ways in which
time is divided up, or metaphorically represented. These are, of course, legion but are not
relevant to our argument (I977: 282).
This is the crux of the matter. Bloch is confused about the meaning and the
logical status of a number of key words, namely, 'time', 'duration', 'linear',
'cyclical' and 'static', and in my opinion he is also, to a certain extent, mis-
representing anthropological tradition.
Before I substantiate my accusation it will be necessary to summarise what
Bloch has to say about Balinese time. He refers to Geertz (I973) who claims
that Balinese time is conceptually different from ours and is essentially non-
durational. He pounces, however, on Geertz's admission that there are some
aspects of Balinese life which do not fit this notion. Bloch repudiates Geertz's
222 LEOPOLD E. A. HOWE
contention that these are unimportant and notes that they deal largely with
practical activities such as agriculture. He concludes that the Balinese subscribe
to two separate ideas of time, one static and cyclical and invoked during ritual
(taken in the broad sense of the word) whilst the other is durational and linear
and invoked in practical, everyday events, especially agriculture and the realm
of institutionalised power.
According to Bloch it is within the sphere of 'social structure' (exemplified
in the ritual domain) that exotic systems may be discovered. He asserts that in
ritual communication Balinese employ a non-durational concept of time,
whilst in the practical domain which, it is suggested, is experienced in much
the same way everywhere, they use a durational concept of time. I should like
to contest this view on the grounds that it simply does not correspond to the
social life of the Balinese for whom institutionalised power is hierarchically
organised and heavily ritualised (agriculture equally so); and just as certainly all
ritual presupposes a vast amount of practical work. And even though the
Balinese have a saying 'makarya kadulurin antuk canang' (which may be translated
as 'work is accompanied by offerings') it must be pointed out that the word
karya means both 'work' and 'ceremonial activity'. Bourdillon (I978) has, in
fact, already protested about the cavalier manner in which Bloch bisects social
life into two distinct realms, the practical and the ritual, and has also disputed
Bloch's claim that these two domains can be associated respectively with
'systems by which we know the world' and 'systems by which we hide the
world'. Since Bourdillon's arguments seem largely valid (excluding what he
says concerning concepts of time which I critically assess later) there is little
purpose in my pursuing this theme further.
Bloch asserts, then, that the problem concerns the perception of duration
and not the way time is divided up. Perhaps he is implying that we should
examine the philosophical issue as to what is the nature of Time. Leach seems
to think that such a problem is, however, distinct from anthropology (I96I:
I24), and Durkheim long ago showed that it was hardly possible to think
about time '. . . without the processes by which we divide it, measure it or
express it with objective signs . . .' (i9i5: io). Moreover Hubert and Mauss
(I909: I97) inform us that time cannot be studied in the abstract and that it is a
matter of the relationship between the points which divide time and the in-
tervals so created. Finally Leach reminds us that,
We talk of measuring time, as if it were a concrete thing waiting to be measured; but in fact we
create time by creating intervals in social life. Until we have done this there is no time to be
measured (I96 :.
I3 5; author's emphasis).
It seems to me that Bloch has confused the issue by improperly fragmenting
what is in fact a coherent and irreducible problem. Indeed a study of the way
that a people perceives time can only be accomplished by an investigation into
the ways in which the passage of time is reckoned, how the intervals are
obtained, the systems by which such units are counted, if in fact they are, how
the units are conceptualised and what images and metaphors are employed.
This is the approach used so profitably by Barnes
(I974)
in his excellent study
of the Kedangese concepts. In this description it is never implied that cyclical
LEOPOLD E. A. HOWE 223
time (which is how Barnes designates Kedang ideas) is static or non-
durational. Indeed Barnes talks easily of the 'passage of the years' and that 'the
overall motion is oriented' (I974: I26), showing admirably well that the
Kedangese are aware of the succession of events. The point is that duration is
an inevitable experience, a fact I am sure Bloch would not dispute. But I would
add that duration is not the logical contrary of cyclical time and that equally
cyclical time does not inescapably entail that time is conceived as stationary.
A secondary problem is the use of the word 'time' itself.' 'Time' has a far
wider range of meanings than
'duration', and whereas it seems possible to say
that duration is experienced universally, this cannot be said of 'time'. This
word should not be unthinkingly applied to the description of the notions of
other cultures since it carries such a cultural bias of its own that we are bound
to misrepresent our data. It is a valid and extremely useful endeavour to
determine the content and structure of concepts in another society which seem
to refer roughly to the same kind of area that 'time' and its correlates do in our
culture. But once this has been done, we may find that our actual word 'time'
can only be used with a great loss of precision. It is hard to see, however, that a
similar difficulty exists with the word 'duration'.
The relativist position in regard to time should not therefore be stated in
reference to the different notions of time but rather to the different ways in
which the passage of time is represented. Societies then differ as to how they
emphasise the linear and/or cyclical perception of duration. Duration (succes-
sion) is logically presupposed by linearity and cyclicity,2 and it is to the
presence of these two properties in the representation of Balinese duration that
I now want to turn.
I here describe certain aspects of Balinese notions of duration.3 The two most
important points to establish are that, first, Balinese duration is conceived of as
being, in the main, cyclical but for all that the people are fully aware of the
irreversible flow of time; and, secondly, these notions are not circumscribed
and limited to Balinese ritual but on the contrary permeate all spheres of the
culture.
Balinese do not, in fact, have a concept of 'time' as such; no word in their
language designates a concept which overlaps perfectly with ours. What they
have is a set of concepts,
the structure and content of which is not the same as
ours but which nonetheless bears comparison. It is the presence of some
similarities which makes a discussion of the differences possible.
The Balinese perceive the day both as a unitary whole and also as consisting
of parts. They are therefore in a position to count days (dina) with reference to
twenty-four hour periods or in terms of the pars pro toto method. Dina de-
scribes the interval from one morning to the next and is also used to point to a
particular day, as in the phrase kayang dina Sukra ('on the day Sukra'). A dina
may be divided into the following main portions: wai and lemah for the hours
of daylight, and lemeng and peteng for the hours of darkness. Curiously, of
these four only wai and lemeng are ever used to count intervals, and when they
are it is often the context which makes clear whether they are being used to
refer to parts of the day or to the day as a whole. Balinese thus have a very
strong idea of the day as an individual and complete unit, and the verbal
concepts which specify these ideas all exhibit the property of countability. This
is an important point since Geertz has in fact denied that the calendar, the
constituent units of which are these days, can be used to measure the rate at
which time passes, or to estimate the amount 'which remains within which to
complete some project' (I973: 393).
Before I can discuss the issue properly it will be necessary to describe this
calendar. The day (dina) is named in an extravagant style. Each Balinese day
forms a constituent unit in ten different and concurrently running weeks whose
lengths vary from one to ten days. There is therefore a ten-day week (dasa
wara), a nine-day week (sanga wara) and so on down to a one-day week (eka-
wara), and all these run simultaneously. The 'days' in each type of week are
named so that any particular day has ten different names attached to it, one
from each of the ten weeks. As far as the one-day week goes each day has the
same name. These names all have associated mystical qualities which are used
to determine the advisability of embarking on some important undertaking on
a specific day. According to Geertz, this particulate nature indicates that the
calendar composed by these days and weeks cannot be used to measure the rate
at which time passes, and that in fact the calendar describes a non-durational
concept of time (I973: 393). However, Balinese do count dina and they are
forever referring to the past and future as so many dina (or wai/lemeng) ago or
yet to come.4 In fact it is precisely this calendar which enables them to
compute exactly the number of days off a particular event is. Galungan, for
example, is an eagerly awaited, pan-Bali ceremony occurring every 2io days
(the cycle composed by the five-, six-, and seven-day weeks in which the same
combination of day names recurs every 2io days). People start preparing for it
well in advance and the question 'how many days to Galungan?' (Galungne'
buin kudang dina?) is frequently posed. In my experience such an inquiry never
leads to gasps of astonishment nor even to looks of mild surprise; on the
contrary it is received with equanimity. Very important days, such as Buda
and Anggara of the seven-day week, Kliwon of the five-day week and Kajeng
of the three-day week, are used to calculate the number of subsidiary cycles
(such as the fifteen-day cycle between the successive appearances of the day
Kajeng Kliwon, the thirty-five day cycle between two successive Buda
Kliwon days) within the period between then and the day of the ceremony.
The Balinese are very adept at doing this in their heads and are capable of
computing accurately large intervals (over a hundred days); a typical answer
for the question posed above might be 'eighty days from the next Kliwon'.
Without this calendar it is rather difficult to see how they could possibly solve
these problems.
Thus although Geertz is correct when he says that the Balinese days describe
'punctual' or particulate time, he is clearly at fault in implying that this is the
only way they may be used. The particulate nature of the days does not
indicate a non-durational concept of time. It simply registers the fact that each
day in a cycle has different properties from all the others in that cycle-this
does not preclude their being countable. There is a striking parallel in the way
that distances between the buildings in a Balinese compound are measured.
The distance must be a whole number of units (in this case the unit used is the
length of the foot of the owner of the compound) and each unit in the length
has a different mystical quality. The quality of the final distance is taken from
the quality of the last unit to be used and this attribute is then transferred to the
building itself. In other words the building's magical quality (propitious or
unpropitious) depends on the precise number of units from the one building to
the other being erected. These units, although they are qualitatively hetero-
geneous, are nevertheless numerable in that they can be added up, and in this
way the distance between the two buildings may be expressed as a specific
quantity of units. The mistake Geertz makes therefore is that of attributing to
the class the same properties that are attributable to its members. For example,
the days of the five-day week are Umanis, Paing, Pon, Wage and Kliwon and
they all have associated magical characteristics. But each one is also an instance
of the concept dina ('day') and as such possesses the property of countability.
Certainly the Balinese never (at least I have never heard them) count Paings or
Pons (though logically there is no reason why they should not), but then we
rarely count Mondays or Tuesdays.
The day (dina) is a clearly bounded and discrete unit which can, nonetheless,
be broken down into its constituent parts, these then being perceived as re-
current sections of a cycle. The cyclical character of the day, however, can be
more easily detected with reference to a system which, as far as I know, is not
named. It is the sort of classification prevalent in many technologically under-
developed societies whereby the day is sub-divided into a number of intervals,
the limits of which are fixed in a particular, invariant sequence and which
occur every day without fail and at roughly the same time. The periods are as
follows:
Interval Translation Approximate timings
Galang kangin 'the east is light' dawn
Tuun siap 'chickens descend' dawn
Endag surya 'sunrise'
Singit kangin 'the sun is rising in the eastern sky' early morning
Tajeg surya 'the sun is vertical' midday
Tengai 'middle of the day'
Kali tepet 'the time (kali) is exact' midday
Singit kauh 'the sun is descending into the west' early afternoon
Lingsir 'old people' afternoon
Sanja afternoon
Engseb surya 'sunset'
Sandi kala 'the joint of time' dusk
Sandi kaon 'thejoint of evil' dusk
Kali sanja 'afternoon time' dusk
Sirepan rar6 'children are asleep' early evening
Tengah lemeng 'middle of the night' midnight
Das lemah 'the ground is almost visible' 5 a.m.
Galang kangin
The interesting parts of this list are the points of transition such as the early
morning, when night is turning into day, midday, dusk and midnight. Of
these four instants only morning is not fraught with danger, presumably
because a new day is starting and the fears of the night (night time is inextri-
cably associated with the activities of witches) can be left behind. Now kali and
kala are possibly the nearest the Balinese have to our word 'time'. However,
these two words (male -a and female -i suffixes are added) also connote a class
of malevolent spirits. Thus both midday and dusk are intervals when these
spirits are most active. It is also worthy of note that midday and dusk are given
prominence in the series by the very fact that they are referred to by so many
different phrases. Moreover there is a whole range of prescriptions about what
may and may not be done at these times. For example, one should not bathe or
work at midday (since if one does it is said that the god Kala-created from the
spilt semen of the supreme god-will devour one) and children of all ages are
not permitted to be outside the compound at dusk; babies are in fact woken up
at this time if they happen to be asleep since they are more susceptible to
malevolent interference in this state. Midnight is particularly dangerous be-
cause of the increased activity of the witch (leyak), the most feared of Balinese
creatures; it is a rare occurrence for anyone to walk the streets alone at this
time.
Now the point sandi kala can be literally translated as the 'joint of time' (sandi
suara = 'fusion of voices' = choir) and of course it refers to the transition from
day to night. The implication is that, in this context at least, duration is
conceived of as segmented, thejoints being the periods when forces of one kind
or another can enter into the flow of time (and in Balinese time can 'flow', kala
membah, on analogy with water, yeh membah). The reason that these forces are
always negative is that kala, 'time' itself, is thought to be a wholly negative
conception as witnessed by the fact that Kala is an evil and imperfect demon.5
The kala spirits are those that temporarily enter people and cause them to be
overtaken by iniquitous feelings. To be possessed by a kala is thought of as
something transient, a deviant condition that will not last long. Thus the word
kala appears to indicate point or instantaneous time. Words which express
interval time are on the whole of an entirely different character. One such is
lawas, which means both 'a long time' and also the segment of a piece of
bamboo between two adjacent nodes. Just as new shoots grow from these
nodes so it is that change occurs at the transitional zones of duration structured
in this articulated manner.6
Before I leave this aspect of Balinese notions of time it ought to be stressed
that there is nothing about duration as a physical feature of our environment
which forces us to think of it as articulated, as consisting of joints and seg-
ments. This is a purely cultural creation and is therefore contingent. It so
happens that the conceptual opposition between the segments and the nodes
which join them is fundamental to Balinese culture and finds expression in the
most diverse array of social institutions. As such their culture is founded on a
convention, a concept which at once has been thought out and is lived by.
It is evident that the Balinese represent the day as a series of events which
happen at roughly the same time every day and occur in a fixed order. Such a
gloss is almost word for word the definition given in most dictionaries for the
term 'cycle' and it would seem perverse in the extreme to deny the usefulness
of this concept (as does Leach I96I: I26).7 Cyclicity seems to be inherent in the
system I have just described. But such cyclicity does not entail non-durational
time as is asserted by Geertz
(I973),
Bloch
(I977)
and Bourdillon (I978), since
the stages succeed one another in a fixed, invariant order. Telling time, which
implies the recognition that time passes, is achieved by reference to the place of
a particular stage within the series. Because each cycle is like every other one,
within limits, they can be, and indeed are when there is some reason to do so,
added up. The accumulation of these cycles is however usually of far less
interest than the co-ordination of events within the cycle.
There are two kinds of 'month' in Balinese methods of reckoning but the
one on which I wish to concentrate now is that which refers to the movement
of the moon. Each of these months (bulan or sasih) contains twenty-nine or
thirty solar days, but there are always thirty lunar days so that periodic adjust-
ment is necessary every sixty-three days when two lunar days fall on the same
solar day. In this way both the waxing (tanggal) and the waning (panglong)
phases each contain fifteen lunar days, thus enabling the Balinese to system-
atise the appearance of the full and new moon and bring it into conjunction
with the five-day week (thirty, not twenty-nine, being a multiple of five).
Using this method they can predict for years ahead on which day of the
five-day week the full or new moon will appear. A problem is that the Balinese
full moon (purnama) does not always correspond to the full moon in the sky;
they do not, however, seem to be unduly worried about this.
The structure of the month is cyclical, with the full moon associated with the
head and coming in the middle of the month, and the new moon (tilem)
associated with the feet (and with witches) and marking the end of the cycle
(Weck I976: I27). Each of the thirty lunar days is given a number. In fact there
are two series of fifteen days, one each for the two phases. The first day after
the new moon is the first of the series and is called tanggal I. The days of this
phase are numbered from one to fifteen so that the full moon is always tanggal
15. The following day, the first of the waning phase, is panglong I and the new
moon, being the final day of this series, is therefore panglong 15.
One of the many ways in which this numeracy is employed is in determin-
ing whether or not it will be auspicious to travel in a certain direction on a
particular day. This, of course, only refers to important journeys which entail
leaving one's own village. The directions and associated dates are given in
table i.
The table reads simply enough: on the first day of the waxing phase, tanggal
I, it is propitious to travel in a general westerly direction but most inadvisable
to travel in a south-easterly direction. 'Sky' refers to such activities as climbing
trees or ascending mountains whilst 'earth' pertains to sinking wells, digging
tunnels and so on. The reason it may be both auspicious and inauspicious to
travel in one and the same direction on the same day is just a mechanical result
of the workings of the system.8
Apart from a few discrepancies, it is reasonably clear that 'good' time goes
in a clockwise direction from west to northwest to north and so on, while 'bad'
TABLE I.
Tanggal Sri Gati Kala Mertya Panglong Sri Gati Kala Mertya
I W SE I E NW
2 NW E 2 SE NW
3 N S 3 SKY EARTH
4 NE NE 4 SW SW
5
S N
5
EARTH S
6 E NW 6 W SE
7 SE W 7 NW E
8 SKY SKY 8 N SKY
9
EARTH EARTH
9
NE NE
Io SKY S Io SKY N
II W SE II E NW
I2 NW E I2 SE W
I3 N SKY I3 S EARTH
I4 NE NE
I4 SW SW
I
5 I S EARTH S
For areas in south Bali the symbols used in the table can be rendered as follows: W = west (kauh),
E
=
east (kangin), N
=
north (kaja), S
=
south (kelod). Sri Gati represents the goddess of rice and is
unreservedly auspicious. Kala Mertya is the complementary opposite (pests, plagues and such. Cf.
Lind I975).
time goes in the opposite way. For the Balinese going clockwise is moving to
the right (ka 'ngawan) and in my experience is always favourable. House posts
must be erected according to this rule; giving, taking and eating are limited to
the right hand whilst the left is used for love-making and cleansing oneself
after defecation. Indeed the words for 'left' (kebot) and for 'filth', 'faeces' and
'evil' (kebot) are virtually identical. 'White' magic is called panengan (tengen is
the high Balinese for 'right') whereas 'black' magic is pangiwa (kiwa
=
left).
When rice is planted each stalk must be inserted into the mud with the right
hand, the planter moving from left to right. Finally all processions in temples
are oriented to the right. Such motion is conceived of as equivalent to ascend-
ing mountains, these being the abodes of the Balinese gods.
Whether or not the Balinese perceive time in this circular manner at an
experiential level I am not in a position to say, because it is peculiarly difficult
to phrase a question which would elicit the right kind of answer, namely one
containing a geometrical metaphor. Nevertheless at some conceptual level
duration is represented as cyclical and ever circular.
A further cycle concerns agricultural activity. This is a vast subject in itself
and only the barest details can be given. Traditionally the new cycle could not
proceed until all the rites of the previous one had been completed. This was
possible because there was a gap of about four months between successive
cycles. Nowadays a new strain of rice is used and the cycles, of six months
each, follow each other without an interval. The first rites of the new cycle are
heavily associated with ideas of 'beginning' in general, such as the rising of the
sun, the rising of the Pleiades and the initial dedication of all the prerequisites
to be used in the forthcoming year's ceremonies. For example, the initial
opening of the ground is called ngendagin, from the root endag whose more
usual meaning is to 'rise' (of the sun). The farmer must go to his main field just
as the sun is rising to make the first dig which officially starts the new cycle.
Moreover it is evident from the ritual paraphernalia and from the comments of
the Balinese that the series of rites parallels, in many respects, that for people
during life. Thus many of the ceremonies treat the rice as though it was a
newly born child and the goddess of rice as its mother.
In the padi9 cycle it goes without saying that the practical work has to
proceed in a relatively fixed order. This is equally true of the ceremonial cycle,
the rites of which are thought to be just as important as ploughing and plant-
ing. Each subsequent ceremony may not be performed until all the preceding
ones have been carried out. It is proscribed to celebrate the rites outside of their
place in the cycle. Thus not only are these series cyclical, they are also oriented
in a particular direction. This irreversible orientation and serial order cannot be
modified without precipitating disaster. The cycles are based on an endless
recurrence of events and activities which all have their specific position in the
set. These events appear but once in any cycle and cannot recur until the cycle,
passing through all its stages in the correct order, has finished and a new one
begun.
Lest I be accused of speaking only about ceremonial activity with reference
to the rice cycle, I add here that the cycle is also structured in terms of nine
named stages having only marginal relation to the rituals. The first is magembal
jaran ('to have the mane of a horse'). This indicates the time when the rice in
the seed bed is tall enough for it to bend in the wind. The second stage,
majukut, describes the period when the transplanted padi has to be frequently
weeded. Some of these weeds may be used as vegetables (jukut). The third,
napakin, occurs when the padi is all at a uniform height (tapak = level). The
fourth stage arrives when the padi is 'pregnant' (beling), that is, when the plant
swells. Maluspusin, the fifth, indicates that the grain is soft and that juice will
exude from it if it is pinched. The sixth stage, serab, arrives when all the fruit
has appeared. Maikut lasan ('to have the tail of a lizard') describes the padi when
the fruit is so heavy that it hangs over. The eighth stage, inyang, indicates that
the padi is all yellow and ready for harvesting. The final stage, ukut, describes
the padi if it is left too long and becomes very dry.
So far I have discussed three major durational cycles all of which have both
ritual and non-ritual applications. All these cycles have similar properties,
namely, segmentation, orientation and irreversibility. I have, moreover,
already called attention to the fact that to travel to the right is auspicious whilst
to travel to the left is unfavourable. Although I do not wish to imply that the
Balinese perceive that duration in general goes to the right, it is certainly
oriented in one direction and to reverse this order or juxtapose sections from
different parts of the cycle is to court calamity. It is in the context of these
collective representations that we can more clearly understand the necessity for
a multitude of rules to regulate contact between men and gods. The point to
remember here is that people and gods are part of the same massive cycle, since
gods are simply deified ancestors. The cycle is closed when the ancestors are
reincarnated in their patrilineal descendants (in the ideal case). In other words a
person's soul undergoes an endless cycle of movement alternating between
heaven (where it becomes an intangible deified ancestor) and earth (where it
resides in a corporeal body (Hobart 1978)).
This cycle, which is structured by rites de passage and by the fluctuating
purity of the soul (Hobart I978:
i5-i6),
exhibits the very same properties
displayed by the cycles discussed above. Therefore contact between men and
gods (which are at opposite ends of the cycle) can only be harmoniously
achieved in special places, such as temples (Balinese temples are thought to
replicate heaven), at special times, such as during the annual temple festival
(odalan), and under special conditions. Wherever the gods descend, the area
must be marked off in some manner and one may enter only after having
undertaken all the required formalities such as bathing and dressing properly.
Thus contact must be organised in a way that retains the integrity of the
categorical differentiation of the various participants. As it is inappropriate for
the gods to demean their own position, the burden of decorum lies with those
who seek the contact. Therefore there are numerous rules which define correct
behaviour within the precincts of a temple. It would be most improper to
conduct such encounters outside these sanctified points of entry, since the
contact would be presumptuous and uncontrolled. It would, in effect, be
tantamount to a disruption of the entire cycle because two very dissimilar
sections of the series would be placed in temporal conjunction. Such an
occurrence would result in severe pollution for the superior party and casti-
gation for the inferior. It is for these sorts of reasons that souls of the dead are
prevented from returning, via the rite of ngirim (to send, dispatch), along the
path they have just traversed. This is accomplished by inscribing a line with a
sacred staff across the ground, thereby separating the area where the cremation
took place from that occupied by the still living. It is at this point that the soul
of the deceased has been finally divested of its now useless body and can
therefore ascend to heaven unencumbered. There is, in fact, a famous story
which relates that the origin of the strait between Java and Bali was created in
the same manner and for the same reason, that of preventing a return.
This prohibition on reversing the direction of a cycle is explicit in the use of
the right hand to give and take and indeed with the whole ideology of travel-
ling to the right. It can also be observed in the proscription which forbids
processions to return by the same route as they set out. If at all possible such
processions should always be organised so that the return journey does not use
the same roads and paths as the outward trip.
If something does go badly wrong (for example a woman menstruating in a
temple) then the usual method of counteracting the confusion of categories,
the attendant pollution and invasion by evil spirits (the buta-kala) is to, as it
were, go back to the beginning and start all over again. As the proper order of
the cycle has been disturbed (menstrual blood renders a temple impure and
therefore the enclosed space is no more appropriate for the presence of a god
than anywhere else on the earth; gods reside in heaven and a temple should be a
duplication of heaven on earth) it must be 'unwound' and the correct order
re-established. This is basically the purpose of the caru ritual. It acts not only to
expunge pollution from a locale by lustration with holy water but also to
restore an original order so that the cycle can begin anew. This is achieved by
LEOPOLD E. A. HOWE 23I
the provision of various types of offering (food, drink, blood, music and so
forth) for the buta-kala spirits whose rapacious appetites are thereby assuaged.
They are then beseeched to 'go home' to their points of origin, these being the
cardinal directions, and to revert to their divine forms. 10
The evidence, in my opinion, makes it appropriate to designate Balinese rep-
resentations of duration as exhibiting properties of both cyclicity and linearity.
My point is that the Balinese possess only one notion of time and that this
incorporates both cyclical and linear features. Bloch (I977) and Bourdillon
(I978) contend that time is either linear (durational) or cyclical (non-durational,
static) and that societies may possess both types. These two authors disagree
about the location of the two systems, Bloch attributing non-durational time
to the ritual domain and durational time to the practical domain. Bourdillon
argues that such a distinction cannot be substantiated. The view that there are
two basically different notions of time is misconceived, and may have
stemmed from Leach who suggests that our 'modern English notion of time
embraces at least two different kinds of experience which are logically distinct
and even contradictory' (I96I: I25). He designates these experiences thus: (a)
certain phenomena of nature repeat themselves, and (b) life change is irrevers-
ible. It is easy to see that an idea of durational time derives from (b) and of
non-durational time from (a), although Leach himself does not go this far; he
merely remarks that western societies tend to emphasise the experience of
irreversibility and so-called primitive societies the experience of repetition.
However from the evidence adduced concerning Balinese culture I would
claim that repetition (cyclicity) and irreversibility (linearity) are both integral
features of Balinese notions of duration."1 Duration, the succession of events,
is something the members of all societies experience although they represent it
differently; this is the force of the remarks, given earlier, to the effect that we
can only study time by reference to the manner in which it is divided. In that
sense duration is a concept of a different logical order from cyclicity and
linearity and cannot be used as a synonym for either.
It seems clear that the four different series of events (the day, month, padi
cycle and the life cycle) I have described are all cyclical. It is also evident that
these cycles last, they endure, and there is no reason at all why a section of one
of these cycles cannot be represented as linear. Now it is occasionally con-
tended that the notion of cyclical time is inconceivable because the start and the
end of the cycle are said to occur at the same point, this being thought ridicu-
lous (Bloch I979: I66). But, and the Balinese would be the first to admit it,
when a cycle ends it does not return to the same temporal point; it returns, and
this is a very different thing, to the same logical point.
The focus of the debate is this: whereas Bloch, Bourdillon and Leach assert
that there are two fundamentally different types of 'time', I contend that there
is only one, duration, and that this can be conceived of as both cyclical and
irreversible at the same time. I would also argue that societies vary in terms of
how they emphasise the cyclical and linear features of duration. Balinese tend
to accentuate the present cycle since it is their position in that cycle which is of
most importance to them in ordering their lives. They are largely uninterested
in what happened in previous cycles because, in a time sense, these cannot
furnish the kind of information that would be relevant for adjusting the
present cycle. It is the succession of stages in the present cycle which enables
them to plot the position of other types of events.
Both Leach (I96I) and Barnes (1974: 126) have drawn attention to the fact
that our western sense of time is very much bound up with the mechanical
instruments we use to measure it, and this would appear to presuppose, or at
least coincide with, a notion of time which is more specific and which carries
less incertitude than concepts of time in technologically underdeveloped
societies. We often need to know the time on a particular day in a particular
year and to know this within narrow limits of error-the fact that Spring is
just around the corner is largely superfluous information. But it is knowledge
of this latter kind which is much more in tune with the Balinese ways of
perceiving the passage of time. Accuracy in such matters is alien and indeed
anathema to them. That many people now wear watches is more a comment
on their love ofjewellery; watches, if they are not broken, usually give wildly
inaccurate readings. Duration which emphasises the linear aspect pays atten-
tion to the accumulation of cycles one on top of the other so that time can be
measured and history finely divided. Balinese rarely need to do this, although
they can if they want and they certainly possess the cultural apparatus to
initiate such a rigorous, cumulative method of time reckoning (I have already
recorded that the Balinese occasionally count cycles). Moreover if they wish to
recall and locate incidents in the distant past they have recourse to a string of
miscellaneous events such as the eruption of volcanoes, earthquakes, the per-
formance of infrequently held ceremonies, the planting of trees, changes in the
strain of rice grown and so forth.
It is important to stress, then, that duration is neither wholly cyclical nor
completely linear. After all, a cyclical representation involves some linear
aspects if only in the sense that the stages of the cycle are presented in a more or
less irreversible order. Conversely a linear representation of duration involves
the notion of cyclicity since the points which divide time into intervals are
derived from repetitive events, as Leach astutely recognises (I96I). It is open
to a society to emphasise or attenuate these characteristics according to its
special requirements. There is little doubt that the Balinese accentuate the
cyclical aspect of duration to the expense of the linear, but this does not mean
that they have a static concept of time any more than it means they repudiate
the passage of time altogether.
In conclusion: the notion of duration in Balinese culture is conceived of in the
same way irrespective of whether the events in the cycles are agricultural or
ritualistic. I have noted that planting must be performed with the right hand
and that the seedlings must be inserted into the mud in rows going from left to
right. It also happens to be the case that a field should be ploughed in clockwise
circles starting at the periphery of the field and moving to the centre. All
events happen in the same kind of time, although it is possible that different
aspects of that time may be emphasised for different events. This may be the
case when extraneous events of the sort mentioned earlier are arranged in a
linear order so as to provide a crude calendar. But in Java at any rate, such
calamities as volcanoes, earthquakes and wars are conceived to occur in cycles
of a hundred years (Ricklefs 1974).
NOTES
The fieldwork on which this essay is based was carried out in south Bali between January I978
and November I979. It was supported by a generous grant from the Social Science Research
Council, whose officers I gratefully thank, and was under the sponsorship of the Lembaga Ilmu
Pengetahuan Indonesia.
1
Both Leach (I96I) and Barnes (I974) have already called attention to this difficulty.
2
Here I am simply reiterating a point made previously, namely that there cannot be a concept
of non-durational time. Linear and cyclical notions of time must both be durational.
3
Due to limitations of space I cannot supply a comprehensive discussion of 'time' as such in
Bali.
4
The Balinese language has a number of forms for expressing the past and the future. The latter
may be translated as mani, puan ('today, tomorrow'), buin pidan ('more when') and as ane lakar teka
('that which will come'). The past may be referred to as malu, pidan, or ane suba liwat ('that which
has already passed').
5
There seems to be an intimation that 'time' (kala) itself can act as a causal agent even to the
extent that time (duration) is collectively represented as an evil creature. Kala (with a capital) is, in
fact, the name of a very powerful demon which was created from the spilt semen (kama salah) of
the supreme god during one of his periodical sexual expeditions. It is clear that Kala is an imperfect
creature, having originated from the fecund fluid of the male only. As such he cannot be allowed
to remain in heaven and so is banished to the earth and told that he may eat all people walking on
the roads at midday. As his name implies he is a personification of one aspect of Balinese time. In
this sense at least time is represented as an animated being with causal characteristics and as
something which can hardly be restrained. Now the Balinese word for accident, sangkala, can be
literally rendered as 'honourable time' or 'honourable evil spirit'. What sangkala seems to indicate
is that any unforeseen misfortune is not perceived as a mere product of the chance coincidence of
events but rather as something partly prearranged in advance. It would therefore appear reasonable
to conclude that an accident is influenced or even caused by the instant of time (kala) in which it
happens. Whereas in the west time is a passive construct-events take place in time-in Bali the
reverse is the case-time seems to cause things to happen. It is therefore no wonder that the
Balinese are extremely fastidious about seeking a favourable time at which to begin an important
undertaking. Anything begun on a 'bad' day will end badly, and it is the instant of time, and
nothing else, which determines this result.
6 This conceptual opposition between nodes and the segments which join them is basic to
Balinese ideas concerning the structure of living beings. Such an image is by no means unique to
Bali (see Barnes I974).
7
See the excellent discussion in Barnes (I974: I40-2).
8 Geertz has reported a similar system for centralJava (I960: 30-5).
9
In Balinese one may well translate padi not only as 'rice' but also as 'rice cycle', since one may
say 'this padi' (padi ene) when referring to the whole cycle, or 'in three padi-s time' (buin telung
padi). The word panyian (from manyi
= to harvest) may be similarly used. In short, the cycles
themselves can, and occasionally are, added up.
10
just as the buta-kala spirits cause temporary and deviant anti-social emotions, so they them-
selves are transient and abnormal states of divinity.
11
Barnes (I974: I42) concludes that the Kedangese conceive of time as repetitive, resulting from
its irreversibility.
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The Social Determination of Knowledge: Maurice Bloch and Balinese Time

Author(s): Leopold E. A. Howe

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