《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 105 (253):賜福儀式

And this is how I ended up participating in the blessing of a baby who had reached the age of six months, and who was now ready to touch the earth for the first time. The Balinese don't let their children touch the ground for the first six months of life, because newborn babies are considered to be gods sent straight from heaven, and you wouldn't let a god crawl around on the floor with all the toenail clippings and cigarette butts. So Balinese babies are carried for those first six months, revered as minor deities. If a baby dies before it is six months old, it is given a special cremation ceremony and the ashes are not placed in a human cemetery because this being was never human: it was only ever a god. But if the baby lives to six months, then a big ceremony is held and the child's feet are allowed to touch the earth at last and Junior is welcomed to the human race.

This ceremony today was held at the house of one of Ketut's neighbors. The baby in question was a girl, already nicknamed Putu. Her parents were a beautiful teenage girl and an equally beautiful teenage boy, who is the grandson of a man who is Ketut's cousin, or something like that. Ketut wore his finest clothes for the event—a white satin sarong (trimmed in gold) and a white, long-sleeved button-down jacket with gold buttons and a Nehru collar, which made him look rather like a railroad porter or a busboy at a fancy hotel. He had a white turban wrapped around his head. His hands, as he proudly showed me, were all pimped out with giant gold rings and magic stones. About seven rings in total. All of them with holy powers. He had his grandfather's shining brass bell for summoning spirits, and he wanted me to take a lot of photographs of him.

We walked over to his neighbor's compound together. It was a considerable distance and we had to walk on the busy main road for a while. I'd been in Bali almost four months, and had never seen Ketut leave his compound before. It was disconcerting watching him walk down the highway amid all the speeding cars and madcap motorcycles. He looked so tiny and vulnerable. He looked so wrong set against this modern backdrop of traffic and honking horns. It made me want to cry, for some reason, but I was feeling a little extra emotive today anyway.

About forty guests were there already at the neighbor's house when we arrived, and the family altar was heaped with offerings—piles of woven palm baskets filled with rice, flowers, incense, roasted pigs, some dead geese and chickens, coconut and bits of currency that fluttered around in the breeze. Everyone was decked out in their most elegant silks and lace. I was underdressed, sweaty from my bike ride, self-conscious in my broken T-shirt amid all this beauty. But I was welcomed exactly the way you would want to be if you were the white girl who'd wandered in inappropriately attired and uninvited. Everyone smiled at me with warmth, and then ignored me and commenced to the part of the party where they all sat around admir-ing each other's clothes.

The ceremony took hours, Ketut officiating. Only an anthropologist with a team of interpreters could tell you all that occurred, but some of the rituals I understood, from Ketut's explanations and from books that I had read. The father held the baby during the first round of blessings and the mother held an effigy of the baby—a coconut swaddled to look like an infant. This coconut was blessed and doused with holy water just like the real baby, then placed on the ground right before the baby's feet touch earth for the first time; this is to fool the demons, who will attack the dummy baby and leave the real baby alone.

There were hours of chants, though, before that real baby's feet could touch ground. Ketut rang his bell and sang his mantras endlessly, and the young parents beamed with pleasure and pride. The guests came and went, milling about, gossiping, watching the ceremony for a while, offering their gifts and then taking off for another appointment. It was all strangely casual amid all the ancient ritualistic formality, sort of backyard-picnic-meets-high-church. The mantras Ketut chanted to the baby were so sweet, sounding like a combination of the sacred and the affectionate. While the mother held the infant, Ketut waved before the child samples of food, fruit, flowers, water, bells, a wing from the roast chicken, a bit of pork, a cracked coconut . . . With each new item he would sing something to her. The baby would laugh and clap her hands, and Ketut would laugh and keep singing.

於是我參加了六個月大的小娃準備首次碰觸地面的賜福儀式。巴厘島人在孩子出生六個月內，不讓他們碰觸地面，因爲新生娃被視爲上天派來的神，你不該讓神在滿是指甲屑和菸屁股的地板上爬來爬去。因此巴厘島人在小娃頭六個月時抱着他，尊他爲小小神明。倘若小娃在六個月內夭折，便舉辦特殊的火葬儀式，骨灰不擺在人類的墓園，因爲這小娃不曾是人類，一直都是神明。但倘若小娃活到六個月，即舉辦盛大儀式，終於准許孩子的腳碰觸地面，歡迎幼子加入人類的行列。

今天這場儀式在賴爺鄰居家舉辦。主角是女娃，已取了"普嘟"的綽號。她的母親是位漂亮的少女，父親是同樣漂亮的少年，而少年是賴爺某侄兒的孫子，可能是這樣。賴爺盛裝出席——一襲白色絲綢紗龍（鑲金邊），一件白色長袖前扣外衣，帶有金色鈕釦及尼赫魯式的衣領，這使他看起來像車站搬運工或豪華飯店的小巴司機。他頭上裹一條白色頭巾。他驕傲地讓我看他戴滿金戒指與魔法寶石的手，全部約有七隻戒指，每隻戒指都具有神力。他帶着祖父晶亮的銅鈴，用來召喚神靈，他要我爲他拍很多照片。

我們一同走路前往他的鄰居的宅院。有好長一段路程，而且必會途經繁忙的主街一陣子。我在巴厘島已待了近四個月，卻未看過賴爺離開自家房子。看他走在飛速行駛的車輛與瘋狂的機車陣當中，教人感到困窘。他看起來如此矮小、脆弱。在車陣與喇叭聲的現代背景襯托下，使他看起來非常不協調。出於某種原因，這讓我想哭，但也許今天的我原本就有些激動。

我們到達時，鄰居家中已經來了約四十名客人，家庭祭壇堆滿供品——裝滿米、花、檀香、烤豬、幾隻鵝、幾隻雞、椰子等的一堆堆棕櫚籃，以及在微風中飄動的紙幣。大家都以最優美的絲綢與蕾絲裝飾自己。我的穿着顯得過於隨便，身體因騎單車而汗溼，而在這些華服當中，我也意識到自己很顯眼的破爛T恤。但他們卻照樣歡迎我，就像一個衣着不當、不請自來的白種姑娘所希望受到的歡迎那樣。人人熱情地對我微笑，而後逕自開始坐在附近讚賞彼此的衣裝。

儀式進行數小時，由賴爺執行。只有那種有口譯人員隨行的人類學家才能告訴你所發生的一切，但從賴爺的說明和讀過的書上，我能瞭解部分儀式。父親在第一輪的祈福中抱着小娃，母親則抱着模擬小娃的椰子，襁褓中的椰子看起來就像嬰兒。這顆椰子像真正的嬰兒般受到祝福、以聖水浸洗，而後在小娃的腳首次碰觸地面之前放在地上：這是爲了騙過惡魔，讓惡魔侵襲假娃兒，放過真娃兒。

然而，在真娃兒的腳碰觸地面之前，必須進行數小時的吟唱。賴爺搖鈴，不斷誦唱咒語，年輕父母的臉上綻放出喜悅和驕傲。客人來來去去，轉來轉去，說長道短，觀看典禮一會兒；送禮之後，出發前往另一場邀約。在這場古儀式的禮節當中，卻是出奇地不拘禮節，就像後院野餐與禮儀教會的綜合體。賴爺對小娃吟唱的咒語十分動聽，結合神聖與親愛之心。母親抱着嬰兒，賴爺在孩子面前揮動一樣樣食物、水果、花、水、鈴、烤雞的雞翅、一點豬肉、剖開的椰子……他隨着每個新項目爲她吟唱一段。小娃笑着拍手，賴爺也笑，繼續吟唱。