会议名称：“2022世界木材日”研讨会暨第四届国际林联（IUFRO）林产品文化研究组讨论会
会议时间：2022年3月23日
报告嘉宾：Kathy Foley
嘉宾简介：加州大学圣克鲁斯分校特聘教授(荣誉教授)

摘要：

This presentation will detail the making and use of wooden masks of Barong, a Balinese leonine protective figure, and Calonarang, a demonic widow witch, discussing how these masks are carved, magically charged, and presented in performance. The historical meeting of these two different figures in a dance drama form in the 19th Century brought local versions of the pan-Hindu-Buddhist lion as a figure of exorcism into confrontation with a manifestation of the Hindu Creatrix/Destroyer Durga, a furious/tantric goddess linked to sorcery,  disease, and healing. In the twentieth century this genre evolved beyond its ritual temple manifestation into a tourist show with the collaboration of German artist/cultural facilitator Walter Spies and local Balinese chorographers like I Made Kredek, making these figures fashionable in European world fairs and  multiple tourist shows in Bali.

The figures are localized representations of ideas that are important in a wider area of Asia and seem historically linked to treating pandemics of cholera and smallpox and even the current Covid. These sacred wooden masks that sit in the Siwa (Shiva) Temple by the cemetery/cremation ground are important faces in Balinese thinking representing rwa bhineda (two in opposition), the Balinese equivalent of yin-yang. 

The presentation will note features that relate to  Buddhist-Daoist lions, martial art training, and northern ports on Bali (which had relationship with Chinese culture) and the Hindu Goddess Durga as manifestation of danger and disease (associated with both Indian sources and the turbulent  southern ocean). How the Barong/Lion as “Lord of the Forest” links to local thinking about forests and their protective power and what woodworkers do in creating “holy” masks to counter disaster, show how wood plays an important intellectual as well as pragmatic part in this mask rituals done once a year in most villages. The Calonarang dance drama and its protective masks display the Balinese belief  that wood is good.