258 TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN Judy: Now this ceremony was for one of the old princes. Think of a tropical setting . . . . ^ Judy: .. . not a very big island. John: ... but lush, green. Temperatures running in the eighties, nineties. Humidity is up in the eighties. And a gathering of two or three thousand people—right outside the temple where the bodies were in residence before the cremation started. They built a tower for the cremation which was forty feet high and the base was forty feet on a side, a square. And this was carried by eighty men. It was made out of bamboo —a very light material. However it was strong enough to carry an ... Judy: .'.. an entire gamelan ... or Balinese orchestra. John: ... on the cremation tower, on the bottom section. The tower of course was quite high. Now you have to be careful about demons in Bali. They have a different kind of demons than the ones we've been training here. Judy: They have to make a run to where the cremation will take place, actually running while carrying this structure. John: They had men with axes in front. . . Judy: . . . cutting trees down . . . John: ... all along the boulevard because this was such a large tower. That's the only way they could get it out to the cremation site . . . Judy: ... it was so wide. John: Imagine the gamelan sitting on this thing, eighty men carrying this tower on bamboo poles, and a crowd of two or three thousand people jammed into the streets. They pick it up and they tilt it and they whirl it around and start to run down the boulevard.
john_grinder__judith_delozier_-_turtles_all_the_way_down
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