A Teeth Cutting Ceremony / Mepandes
The teeth cutting ceremony (Potong Gigi in Indonesian or Mepandes in Balinese) is not as gory and painful as it sounds. It is a traditional Balinese ceremony that every Balinese Hindu must celebrate. It is practically like our version of the Bar Mitzvah/rite of passage.
The meaning of the ceremony is to lessen our influence of Sad Ripu that is within ourselves, a negative spiritual force that has effects on ones emotion and well-being.
The Sad Ripu can be defined in 6 different forms.
1. The need to satisfy Lust
2. Satisfaction of ones greed of always wanting to be better
3. Uncontrolled sense of Anger
4. Intoxication that brings dark thoughts to ones mind
5. Confusion and lessened concentration that effects daily tasks
6. A feeling of jealousy
The ceremony is to be held once a child reaches puberty and before they get married, however there are some exceptions. The ceremony will occur only once in one’s lifetime and is usually celebrated with all the children in the family instead of an individual. The ceremony will be taken place in ones home or ones merajan. The tooth filling ceremony will be conducted by none other than the Pendita and assisted by Sangging.
The Mepandes’s procces includes of aligning one’s teeth to not look like the demons (sharp, fang-like shape) with tools such as mirrors, dental tool sharpener, and a cloth to place holy rings and jewels. The procedure takes place at a bed that is highly decorated with golden and colorful embroideries.
If you are to experience a Mepandes, you will see it as not only a religious ceremony but a social gathering where one’s family could meet many others. The ceremony I attended was my first of my friend, Putri Magliavacca and her siblings and aunt. It was a colouful ceremony where everyone from Balinese and even their combined Italian families were dressed in colouful traditional Batik. I ended up wondering… When I will have mine?
Auch! That must be hurt ..
haha. As a matter of fact, it is completely painless!
Love the pictures! The colours seemed so vibrant and bright!
I have heard of this teeth-cutting ceremony, but I wasn’t sure how they do it exactly. Does it hurt much?
Thank you :)
and no, it does not hurt. They use some type of herbs to make it painless.
Wibi – beautiful pictures! I love how you captured the texture of the beautiful crowns – what settings did you use to achieve this lighting? My husband and I spent 3 weeks in Bali (Jimbaran, Ubud) last November and were fortunate to have been invited to a baby’s purification ceremony and a children’s dance class (those posts along with many others from Bali are under my Archives tab, then Travelogues). I was curious to see a Mepandes ceremony but the opportunity to attend one didn’t present itself. Perhaps during our next visit to Bali, which I hope will be soon! We have continued our sabbatical through a few more countries and we are now in Laos.
I was using my tiny Lumix LX3 camera. It was quite hard to take the picture because there was so many people crowding them. haha.
You chose a great location to stay at Jimbaran. Perfect place, not to crowded and not too quiet and you are pretty lucky at that to e a part of a ceremony. Mepandes is a beautiful ceremony, one that you should visit if you are invited to one.
Hope you are currently having fun in Laos :)
These photos really are spectacular, thank you for visiting my blog! It looks like you have some fantastic people shots here, keep up the good work :-)
Thank you very much! :) your blog is very nice btw :)
Thank you for dropping by and liking my blog, Wibi. Your advice is very good, but hard to stick to!
I love your blog. The photos of the tooth ceremony are almost electric! I do see some worried faces, though! Good luck with your travel adventures. I know you would love London, and Bath is wonderful too. A long time since I was in Vancouver, but I really enjoyed my stay. Oh – it is wonderful to be young!! lol
Thank you for coming by too! I would love to visit London one day, one of the things I must do before I die :)
and yes, good luck with your packing too!