This has been intriguing me for years here and I am willing and happy to hear more from those that know more.
Let me set the stage first: If you had two Balinese brothers and their respective families (each brother has a wife and 3 children) in one room.
Looking only at the names on the identity papers there is no way that an outsider would or could know which children belonged to which family or which wife belonged to which husband.
In fact it would be impossible for the outsider to know that the two brothers were even related to each other.
As far as I know this is unique in the world - every society that I know of makes the familial relationships as evident as possible. But not Bali!
And that is even more bizarre when you consider how involved they all are in their families.
I have been reliably informed that, for instance, if a member of the family goes off to say Jakarta and lives for 10 years his relationship book/family tree which is kept at the village where his family lives (and where he was born - in Bali), will be updated only when he returns. That is the only source of his "true" relationship record.
If that gets lost or burns down then wheeeehey everybody belongs to everybody.... or nobody! There are apparently moves to bring this system online and into the 21st century - kind of a pity really.
Let me set the stage first: If you had two Balinese brothers and their respective families (each brother has a wife and 3 children) in one room.
Looking only at the names on the identity papers there is no way that an outsider would or could know which children belonged to which family or which wife belonged to which husband.
In fact it would be impossible for the outsider to know that the two brothers were even related to each other.
As far as I know this is unique in the world - every society that I know of makes the familial relationships as evident as possible. But not Bali!
And that is even more bizarre when you consider how involved they all are in their families.
I have been reliably informed that, for instance, if a member of the family goes off to say Jakarta and lives for 10 years his relationship book/family tree which is kept at the village where his family lives (and where he was born - in Bali), will be updated only when he returns. That is the only source of his "true" relationship record.
If that gets lost or burns down then wheeeehey everybody belongs to everybody.... or nobody! There are apparently moves to bring this system online and into the 21st century - kind of a pity really.
