Monumental Bali - A.J. Bernet Kempers

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of Heger I in Bali seems to imply that at the time when Heger I was making its appearance in the archipelago Bali had already made its own preparations for casting metal drums, and had been succeeding quite well. It is this independent development we are directly concerned with.

      Just a last remark on the spread of Heger I drums in the archipelago. One of the reasons for their dispersion may have been the possibility that at least some of the most costly specimens may have been part of the heirlooms of the indigenous aristocracy of North Vietnam (Tonkin) who, in the first centuries A.D., in a critical period of their existence, escaped from the Chinese armies which for some time had been invading their country and by then were starting a thorough sinicization of Vietnam, north and otherwise. This led to indigenous rebellion. Local chiefs and their followers, taking away their traditional regalia—metal drums—instead of taking refuge in the highlands around Vietnam, as others did, may have turned to insular Southeast Asia, known to the maritime mainland peoples from earlier commercial connections. Heger I, nicknamed by archaeologists "the migratory type" and a few other types or subtypes were part of the international politics of Archaic Indonesia. The Pejeng drum and the minor representatives of a group of "classic" Pejeng types on the other hand, formed an essential part of "pre-Hindu Balinese" developments.

      The large drum, referred to as a starting point, must have been resting for a very long time on top of a tower-like pavilion in the Pura Penataran Sasih at Pejeng, as it does now. The present pavilion is new (its predecessor was destroyed during the 1917 earthquake and had to be rebuilt some time later.), but the location is very old. The drum is lying lengthwise and only a few old people may have seen it in a different position in the early twenties. In order to show the "heads" in their correct position (the drum standing with the tympan up) the photograph in Figure 6 has been turned 90 degrees. When being struck the drum may have been hung from a tree or pole at an oblique angle. But that would have been long ago, possibly in the Hindu-Balinese period when people still vaguely knew about drums and their magical potential. The combination of a statue and a drum-shaped pedestal (in a location at Carangsari, Badung) testifies to such a connection.

      The large drum is often referred to as "the Pejeng Moon," the name also used in the present chapter. The alternative name "drum with the heads" derives from its decoration and is a Western invention, first used by Nieuwenkamp. The term "Moon" derives from a local legend that for the first time appeared in print in 1705 in a posthumous work by G. E. Rumphius (Rumpf, a German by birth, 1628-1702) who for many years worked for the Dutch East India Company in the Moluccas, living in Ambon. In spite of his having lost his sight in 1670 he did not stop writing books. In his D'Amboinsche Rariteitkamer, finished in 1699 but published only several years later, he showed himself a great naturalist. One of the curiosities he had been informed about, the Pejeng Moon, in his opinion might be either a man-made metal object or else a product of Nature, his preference hesitatingly going to the latter: a very large meteorite. The Moon was said to have been a wheel of the chariot that carried the moon through the nightly sky, the wheel being as bright as the heavenly body itself. One day it became detached, fell down and landed in a tree, at Pejeng. There it happened to be detected by a thief who had entered the premises and was hampered in his doings by the radiating object. He climbed into the tree and urinated on the sacred wheel, paying with his life for doing so. After that the wheel lost its shine, living on in history as the "Pejeng Moon." The name of the pura where it was reverently preserved and protected against further intrusions, Pura Penataran Sasih, still refers to the drum's legend, sasih meaning "moon." The local people from experience knew that the Moon should not be disturbed in any way. (Early visitors incautiously drawing near or even hitting the drum in the 19th century proved to be playing with their health and life.). Even the people from the Archaeological Service would not easily disturb the local people's and the drum's peace of mind without first discussing their intentions and providing some appropriate offering.

      Figure 15: The Pejeng Moon's tympan pattern.

      In 1906, a time when the Pejeng region was no longer a terra incognita to Bali visitors (as it had been for a long time), the painter-traveler W. O. J. Nieuwenkamp got into the pavilion and spent a couple of hours there measuring and drawing. Through his accurately drawn and scrupulously checked drawings, first published in 1908 and afterwards copied by many other students of the subject, he performed a most important pioneer work. His drawings, prepared on the spot but worked out afterwards in Holland, in their own inimitable way reached a degree' of perfection that formed the basis for all later studies of the drum and its problems.

      The Pejeng Moon, viewed tympan up, reaches the exceptional height (for metal drums) of 186.5 cm. Like all distinctly "waisted" metal drums, it is divided into three horizontal parts (A, B, and C). The slightly bulging upper part of the body or mantle is 110 cm in diameter, just a bit less than the lower brim of C. The tympan, on the other hand, is much wider, diameter 160 cm. The plaque, consequently, protrudes over all sides not less than 25 cm, ending with a small turn down of a few millimeters along its circumference. Although this important feature can hardly be noticed from the outside, the upper part of the body, enlivened by a band of 11 horizontal lines, actually stands apart from the body, being a "cuff" or flange underneath and directly connected with the tympan. The combination of a plaque and a cuff (recalling the traditional professor's cap, circular variety) is a specific feature of the more "classic" type of Pejeng drum. It is not found in other classes of kettledrums, in particular not in Heger I drums, which have no protruding salients and have been modeled and cast all in one piece. Pejeng type tympans-cum-cuff and mantles were cast separately to be joined afterwards in a special way.

      The line between the upper and middle sections of the mantle is arched over by four handles, spread equally over its circumference. This arrangement—which differs from that in Heger I drums (2 x 2 handles bilaterally divided) is in agreement with the "four-sided symmetry" to be discussed later on, that is basic to Pejeng type drums. The four-sidedness may be extended into a group of eight: for instance, the 2 x 4 "heads" or mask-like faces that fill the open spaces between the individual handles. The philosophical basis of the 1 + 4 and 1 + 4 + 4, the digit I standing for Oneness, is reflected in both the drum as such and the star-like decoration in the middle of the tympan.

      Figures 16a and 16b: One tympan quadrant analyzed.

      Apart from the "heads," the lower parts of the sections (A, B, and C) display bands in a geometric pattern consisting of the double series of triangular saw-teeth framing one series of f-shaped stripes (f being a typically Pejeng type version of the "slanting ladders" of certain divergent geometric sample-books). The same pattern, vertically placed, embellishes the flat spaces underneath the "heads."

      Much more striking is the overall decoration of the Moon's tympan which deserves ample discussion in its own right and in connection with three other tympans illustrated in this chapter (Figures 17-19).

      Having summarily described the most obvious characteristics of the Moon we had better make a brief inventory of these features. To put it briefly: the form and structure of Pejeng type drums is determined by their being all metal, but not in-one-piece. The top, consisting of a tympan-cum-cuff combination, has been shaped and cast apart from the mantle, to be joined (visually rather than materially) after the process. The tympan more or less notably protrudes from the mantle top. There is no distinct percussion boss on the tympan. The decoration of the mantle, in part geometric with a few peculiarities (f), is marked by the introduction of "heads." That of the tympan is a four-fold repetition of a single design of knobs and loops or braids unknown in other drums (Figures 17-19 and 15 for the Moon). The decorative patterns are exclusively positive (meaning the lines always protrude from the "zero" level of the drum's walls; there may be

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