KETOET GEDE, SINGARAJA, PĖNDĖT DANCER
LOr. 3390-133, right
Drawing on Dutch paper, watermark Concordia, countermark VdL., 33.7 x 20.75 cm
A man is standing in a dancing attitude. He has large round eyes, long hair, a moustache and a small beard. He raises his right arm and leg, nyingjing. He wears a kerchief round his head in the style adopted in North Bali. His clothes consist of a small loincloth tucked up between his legs, a long loincloth with black, grey and white checks with a border of songkèt, a sash round his waist and a bolero, kuaca. He is holding a basket of flowers in his right hand. There is a kris in his girdle on his back.
A text in Balinese script in ink at the top right says: “puniki hanak mamè,ndèt bokor”, this is a man performing a pèndèt dance with a bowl.
Pèndèt is a ceremonial dance which can be performed both by groups of men and groups of women (see De Zoete & Spies, repr. 1973: 46). Offerings, bottles of holy water and liquor, baskets of flowers are carried to and from a temple in ritual procession on the occasion of a temple festival, déwayadnya. When such a procession leaves the sanctum of a temple or the lawn in front of a temple complex and when it re-enters accompanying the gods and goddess carried on a palanquin, the men and women holding the abovementioned objects and walking in front of the procession start dancing. Another group of dances goes to meet them, making the same dancing movements, but walking backwards. To raise the knee and the hand high are characteristic of the pèndèt dance.