Bengkala: North Bali's Deaf Village, Its Kata Kolok Sign Language and the Janger Kolok Dance

In Brief

Bengkala is a village in Kubutambahan district of Buleleng regency, on the north coast of Bali. A hereditary form of deafness has been present there for many generations. Balinese call it Desa Kolok, the deaf village, from kolok, the Balinese word for deaf.

The deafness is congenital and inherited recessively at a gene locus called DFNB3. One genetic study found it in 2.2% of the 2,185 people then living there.

In response, Bengkala developed Kata Kolok ("deaf talk"), which is not based on spoken Balinese or on other sign languages. Deaf and hearing villagers alike use it. One linguist counted between 1,200 and 1,800 signers, of whom only about 4% are deaf.

The village school teaches in it. Bengkala's deaf villagers also dance the Janger Kolok, a janger performed in sign in place of song. Indonesia has recognised it as national intangible heritage.

Bengkala at a Glance

• Where: Bengkala village, Kubutambahan district, Buleleng, east of Singaraja
• Also called: Desa Kolok, "deaf village"
• The deafness: congenital, profound, inherited recessively at the DFNB3 locus, since mapped to the MYO15A gene
• The language: Kata Kolok, "deaf talk", also called Bengkala Sign Language
• Who signs: deaf villagers and a majority of hearing ones, with varying fluency
• The dance: Janger Kolok, started by the late I Wayan Nedeng around 1969
• School: SDN 2 Bengkala, an inclusive primary school since 2007
• Visiting: by arrangement with the village, with performances staged on request

Deafness Has Run in Bengkala's Families for Many Generations

Bengkala is an old village with a hereditary form of deafness in its families.

A team from Udayana University and Michigan State University described it in the Journal of Medical Genetics in 1995. By their account it had existed on Bali's north shore for over 700 years.

They found that 2.2% of its 2,185 people had profound deafness from birth. The deafness is sensorineural and affects nothing else in the body. Its cause is a fully penetrant recessive mutation at the DFNB3 locus.

A child is born deaf only when it inherits the mutation from both parents. The team estimated that 17.2% of hearing villagers carried one copy.

The same researchers mapped DFNB3 to chromosome 17 the same year, in Nature Genetics. The locus was later identified as the MYO15A gene, which is now known to cause deafness in families far from Bali. Bengkala is where it was first found.

Deaf Men Hold Roles of Their Own in Village Life

Deaf residents take part in many parts of village life, and some roles fall to deaf men in particular.

The researcher Erin Moriarty, writing for the MobileDeaf research project, draws on I Gede Marsaja's study of the village. She describes roles held by deaf men:

• fitting and repairing the water pipes
• acting as security at village festivals
• catching and butchering animals for feasts
• carrying the wadah, the tall tower in which the dead are taken to cremation
• digging graves, which in Bengkala is done only by deaf men

Some villagers say deaf men are unafraid of the spirits of the graveyard because they cannot hear them. Connie de Vos records in her doctoral thesis that deaf and hearing villagers alike honour a deaf god. On the rare occasions when a priest in trance is possessed by the deaf god, she writes, the sign language is used even then.

The cremation rites the wadah belongs to are in ngaben, the Balinese cremation.

Kata Kolok Is a Full Sign Language, Signed by Deaf and Hearing Villagers

Kata Kolok is a full language, and most of the people who sign it can hear.

The Dutch linguist Connie de Vos spent more than a year in Bengkala. She recorded over a hundred hours of conversation for her doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.

She found that 57% of the village's almost 3,000 people sign with some fluency. That is between 1,200 and 1,800 people, depending on how a signer is defined, and only 4% of them are deaf.

By de Vos's reckoning the language is about five generations old. It dates from the first family with several deaf children, two generations after the first deaf villager was born.

Deaf children acquire it from birth, as hearing children acquire speech. It is used in every part of village life, from politics and work to temple ceremonies.

Its Signers Point by the Real Compass

Kata Kolok is unusual among the world's sign languages. Most sign languages describe where things are in relative terms, like "left" and "right". Kata Kolok signers use the real compass: east and west, and the true location of the places they talk about.

"Kata Kolok signers appear to have an internal compass," de Vos told the institute.

In a 2007 talk, citing I Gede Marsaja's study of the village, de Vos reported that Kata Kolok is not based on spoken Indonesian, on spoken Balinese or on Indonesian Sign Language, though some Balinese gestures have entered it. Her thesis notes marked differences between Kata Kolok and SIBI, the Indonesian Language Sign System.

For hearing Balinese, directions are part of everyday speech in any case, organised around the mountains and the sea. The wider world-view is in Balinese culture and Tri Hita Karana.

The Village School Teaches in Two Languages

Bengkala's primary school, SDN 2 Bengkala, became an inclusive school in 2007. De Vos helped start the programme that made Kata Kolok a language of instruction.

When detikBali visited, deaf pupils in the first three years had their own class. Older deaf and hearing children learned together, with two teachers in the room, one speaking and one signing in Kata Kolok. The hearing children, as a result, learn to sign with their deaf classmates.

The school's one teacher fluent in Kata Kolok, I Made Wisnugiri, told the reporter he was then the only inclusive teacher left.

Janger Kolok Is a Janger Danced in Sign

In Bengkala the janger is danced in sign. Janger grew up as a social dance in several parts of Bali, and its dancers usually sing as they dance.

The Buleleng government credits the late I Wayan Nedeng with founding the Janger Kolok in 1969. The province's culture portal gives 1970. The aim was to give the village's kolok a place in the arts equal to their hearing neighbours.

At the time, according to the province, deaf villagers earned a living carrying and selling water in a village that had little of it. Hearing villagers took part in drama and janger.

Janger dancers on stage. Photo: Hendri Suhandi / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Janger Kolok combines janger with martial arts, including pencak silat moves with bladed weapons. It tells the story of the Kakawin Arjuna Wiwaha. Ten dancers perform it to the drum and cymbals, and where ordinary janger dancers sing, these dancers sign.

The group rehearses once a week, its coordinator I Kadek Sriparjana told the regency. It meets at an open pavilion built in the village's community economic zone with help from the state oil company Pertamina. It performs at government events and for visitors on request.

Indonesia's Ministry of Culture has listed the dance as national intangible cultural heritage.

For where janger sits among Bali's dances, and why the north shaped modern Balinese music, see Balinese dance and gong kebyar and Balinese gamelan.

Visiting Bengkala With Respect: Arrange Ahead and Ask Before You Film

Arrange a visit through the village or a guide the village knows, and ask before filming anyone.

• A performance: the Janger Kolok is organised on request, so ask whoever arranges your visit whether one can be staged.
• Signs, and permission: learn a few signs of Kata Kolok, and ask residents for permission before taking photographs or recording video.
• The weaving: buying the woven cloth made by the village's deaf women is a direct way to support their work.

The Village Is Tied to Its Neighbours, and Many Deaf Villagers Are Poor

Bengkala has become well known, and visitors come. They include deaf travellers from abroad, often with a deaf Indonesian guide from south Bali, as well as hearing tourists, bloggers and film crews.

Erin Moriarty's research is a useful corrective to how the village is often described. Bengkala is connected to neighbouring villages by kinship, and several nearby villages have deaf residents who sign in a similar way. So the "isolated deaf utopia" of travel videos is a romance.

Many deaf villagers are among the poorest in the village, because for generations they had little access to school or steady work.

How to Fit It In

Bengkala is just off one of the main roads connecting north Bali with the island's south.

Kubutambahan district is also home to Pura Maduwe Karang, the temple with the carved relief of a man on a bicycle. It pairs naturally with a morning in Bengkala, and it is in the best temples of north Bali.

Pura Maduwe Karang at Kubutambahan, in Buleleng. Photo: DayakSibiriak / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Singaraja's old town is a short drive west (Singaraja old town), and things to do in north Bali has the rest of the region.

From Lovina, where most of Palm Living's villas are, Bengkala lies on the far side of Singaraja. Allow a half day with a driver, and see private drivers in north Bali.

Practical Notes

• Arrange ahead. Performances and home visits are organised through the village, not on the spot.
• Ask before you film. Even if residents are used to visitors and cameras, always ask permission before taking photographs or filming.
• Use the village's words. "Kolok" is what Bengkala calls its deaf members. In English, "deaf" is the respectful word, and "deaf-mute" is outdated.
• Dress as for a village temple if a ceremony is on: sarong and sash, shoulders covered.
• Bring cash if you want to buy weaving.

FAQ

Where is the deaf village in Bali? Bengkala, in Kubutambahan district of Buleleng regency in north Bali, east of Singaraja. Balinese call it Desa Kolok, the deaf village.

Why are so many people deaf in Bengkala? Because of a recessive inherited mutation at the DFNB3 locus, since identified as the MYO15A gene. A child is born deaf when it inherits the mutation from both parents. A 1995 study found profound congenital deafness in 2.2% of the village's population.

What is Kata Kolok? Kata Kolok, "deaf talk", is Bengkala's own sign language. It is not based on spoken Balinese, on Indonesian or on Indonesian Sign Language. It uses real compass directions to describe space, and it is signed by deaf villagers and by many hearing ones.

Do hearing people in Bengkala use sign language? Yes. The linguist Connie de Vos found that 57% of villagers sign with some fluency. That is between 1,200 and 1,800 people, of whom only about 4% are deaf.

What is Janger Kolok? A version of the Balinese janger dance performed by Bengkala's deaf villagers, in which sign replaces the songs of ordinary janger. It was founded around 1969 by the late I Wayan Nedeng. It mixes dance with martial arts and tells the story of Arjuna Wiwaha.

Can tourists visit Bengkala? Yes, by arrangement with the village or a guide it knows. Performances of the Janger Kolok are staged on request. Ask before filming, and treat it as a visit to people's homes.

Sources

• S. Winata and colleagues, Congenital non-syndromal autosomal recessive deafness in Bengkala, an isolated Balinese village, Journal of Medical Genetics, May 1995, for the village's age, the rate of deafness and carriers, and the sign language, read September 2026 (in English)
• T. B. Friedman and colleagues, A gene for congenital, recessive deafness DFNB3 maps to the pericentromeric region of chromosome 17, Nature Genetics, January 1995, read September 2026 (in English)
• Mutational spectrum of MYO15A and the molecular mechanisms of DFNB3 human deafness, Human Mutation, 2016, for DFNB3 as the MYO15A gene, read September 2026 (in English)
• Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Sign-spatiality in Kata Kolok, on Connie de Vos's doctorate, for the numbers of signers, the absolute frame of reference and inclusive education, read September 2026 (in English)
• Erin Moriarty, MobileDeaf, "Seeing how they live": deaf village tourism in Bengkala, March 2020, for the roles of deaf men, tourism in the village and its connections, read September 2026 (in English)
• Connie de Vos, Sign-spatiality in Kata Kolok: How a village sign language in Bali inscribes its signing space, PhD thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, 2012, for the deaf god, the five generations of signers and the differences from SIBI, read October 2026 (in English)
• Connie de Vos, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Kata Kolok: A village-based sign language of northern Bali, talk at the International Symposium on the Languages of Java, Semarang, August 2007, for Kata Kolok's independence from spoken Balinese, Indonesian and Indonesian Sign Language, read October 2026 (in English)
• Buleleng Regency, Janger Kolok Bengkala, equality for disabled citizens in the arts, for the founder, story, heritage listing and rehearsals, read September 2026 (in Indonesian)
• Bali Province, Ceraken Kebudayaan Bali, Janger Kolok Desa Bengkala, for the dance's origins and movements, read September 2026 (in Indonesian)
• Buleleng Culture and Tourism Office, Janger Kolok, read September 2026 (in Indonesian)
• detikBali, Inclusive school in Bengkala village, February 2023, for SDN 2 Bengkala, read September 2026 (in Indonesian)

Read next: Balinese dance and gong kebyar, the best temples of north Bali and Balinese culture.