Mekotek Ritual, A Tradition for Disaster Rejection ⋆ travellingto.asia

Munggu Village, located in the Mengwi sub-district, Badung Regency, Bali has a unique tradition of rejecting the disaster called mekotek.

The purpose of the Mekote ritual is to ask for salvation. The Mekotek ceremony is also known as “ngerebek”. Mekotek is a legacy of ancestral traditions carried out from generation to generation by the Hindu community in the Munggu village until now.

The Mekotek ritual is held every 6 months on Saturday Kliwon Kuningan right on the Kuningan day.

In the past, the Mekotek celebration used iron, however, because many participants were injured, the spear made of iron was replaced with a stick of pulet wood about 2-3.5 meters in length that had been peeled off and measured about 2-3.5 in length meters.

The clothes that must be worn by the participants of this mekotek ritual are in the form of kancut and udeng batik to then gather in the Munggu temple. After gathering, the participants will then offer their prayers and thanks for the results of the plantation. After that, all participants marched to the water source in Munggu village.

The Mekotek Gerebek is a ritual that uses pulet wood which is played together to celebrate the victory of dharma (good) against adharma (evil).

The mekotek ritual is usually carried out in the Village Temple yard. The participants of the mekotek ritual are dominated by young and old men. They wore traditional clothes, and each carried a wooden stick about three to four meters in size. In parallel, the ritual participants will walk to the village temple.

As they approached the temple area of the village, they put their sticks together and held them together by beating their sticks so that they resembled triangular buildings that rose into the sky.

Sometimes, when being played, the stick will hit some spectators. but it does not necessarily make them upset or angry, instead, they bounce back with feelings and satisfied smiles.

Participants who are hit by sticks must be willing to rise to the top of the sticks of the other participants.

The mekotek ritual has often been held in Bali, so when there are residents who are hit by sticks or participants who fall from the top of the stick arrangement, they cannot be angry.