Kembar Buncing: Balinese Twins, the Manak Salah Custom and Its Abolition

In Brief

Kembar buncing is the Balinese term for boy-girl twins. They were once met with a blessing or a banishment, depending on the house they were born into.

Under the custom called manak salah, "wrong birth", a commoner family who had them was held to have polluted the village. As the 1951 decision describes it, parents and babies were moved out of their house to the graveyard or a crossroads for 42 days. The parents then had to pay for a costly purification of the village. Twins born to a royal family were celebrated as a sign of prosperity.

In the first years of the republic, Bali's regional legislature (DPRD) abolished the custom by formal decision. It declared that parents of buncing twins are guilty of nothing and may not be punished.

Today the practice is uneven, and accounts of it come from a few villages, each with its own way. Padangbulia, a customary village in Sukasada district of Buleleng, still asks such families to spend three lunar months in a hut at the village edge. The whole village pays for the stay, guards the family and feeds them. Pedawa, also in Buleleng, still keeps a form of the rite. Ketewel in Gianyar, in 2012, marked such a birth only with a period of ritual impurity and a purification ceremony.

Kembar Buncing at a Glance

• Kembar buncing: twins of opposite sex, a boy and a girl
• Manak salah: "wrong birth", the custom that treated such a birth among commoners as a source of impurity for the village
• Old practice, as the 1951 decision describes it: family moved to the graveyard or a crossroads for 42 days, then a village purification (prayascita) at their expense
• In royal families: a good omen, marked with feasts
• Abolished: 12 July 1951, Decision No. 10 of 1951 of the Bali DPRD, often cited as Regional Regulation No. 10 of 1951
• Still practised in a changed form: in some customary villages of Buleleng, north Bali, among them Padangbulia (Sukasada) and Pedawa
• The Padangbulia version: three tilem (new moons), about three months, in a hut at the village edge, with the village paying and keeping watch
• Texts cited by the village: the lontar Dewa Tatwa and Brahma Sapa, among others

A Blessing in the Palace, a Wrong Birth in a Commoner's House

The custom makes sense only beside its opposite.

When The Jakarta Post reported a buncing birth in 2012, it set out the old contrast. Twins born to a royal family were an auspicious event, celebrated with public feasts. In the old stories they were married to each other when grown and ruled together. A kingdom ruled by them was blessed with prosperity and victory.

Twins born to commoners were manak salah, a wrong birth. In the paper's account, the family and babies were sent out of the village until a purification ritual, in some cases to makeshift shelters in the cemetery.

A baby's three-month ceremony, photographed in 1949. Photo: Unknown author, Tropenmuseum / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The 1951 decision names the reason: imitating the king

The 1951 decision itself gives the reason in its preamble. The rule, it says, applied only to the sudra caste. It rested on an old idea that giving birth to boy-girl twins imitated the king and brought trouble on the land.

I Wayan Windia, a professor of Balinese customary law at Udayana University, gave The Jakarta Post his reading. The concept, he said, could not be traced to any valid Balinese Hindu text. Social status, rather than any divine principle, lay behind it. Imitating royalty was a grave offence in old Bali, and buncing twins were treated as a royal privilege.

Padangbulia cites the lontar

Padangbulia, one of the villages that still keep a form of the rite, reads the texts differently. Padangbulia's leaders cite palm-leaf manuscripts, the lontar Dewa Tatwa and Brahma Sapa, as the basis for its purification.

A study by three Warmadewa University law researchers quotes a passage from the Dewa Tatwa. It lists the unusual births that leave a village's temples impure:

• people born without limbs or eyes
• people born with more or fewer body parts than usual
• boy-girl twins
• any imperfect birth, including among animals

Bali's Legislature Abolished Manak Salah on 12 July 1951

Bali abolished manak salah in the first years of the republic.

On 12 July 1951 the Bali DPRD issued Decision No. 10 of 1951, a paswara on "the abolition of the custom called manak salah". Later writers call it Regional Regulation No. 10 of 1951. The Balinese law writers at BaleBengong give it as Keputusan DPRD Bali Nomor 10/1951.

Its preamble, as quoted in the Warmadewa study, lists three objections. The baby and its parents had to be moved from their home to the graveyard or a crossroads for 42 days. The practice was considered inhumane and harmful to public health. The parents then had to hold a prayascita purification for the village at great cost. And the custom no longer suited the times.

The decision then rules, in three short articles:

1. Anyone who gives birth to a boy and a girl, once called manak salah or buncing under Balinese Hindu custom, is no longer considered guilty. They may not be given any punishment.
2. The custom called manak salah or buncing is abolished.
3. The regulation takes effect on the day it is announced.

A decree is one thing and a village's law is another. BaleBengong gives banishment near the graveyard or outside the village for manak salah as its example of a customary sanction officially banned by the authorities. It also notes that customary law in Bali changes through each village's own awig-awig.

How those village codes work is in the Balinese village and the banjar.

Padangbulia Still Keeps the Rite, and the Village Pays for It

Padangbulia is a customary village in Sukasada district, just south of Singaraja.

When boy-girl twins are born here, the family reports the birth to the village head and the kulkul drum is sounded. Villagers then build a hut for the family at the tanggun desa, the edge of the village, or by a campuhan, a meeting of streams.

NusaBali reported the case of I Gede Sadia Utama and Ni Made Welianingsih, whose buncing twins were born by caesarean in hospital. The family went straight from the hospital to the hut without setting foot in their own yard.

This is how the village looked after them, in NusaBali's account:

• The hut: furnished by villagers with a bed, electricity, a bathroom and a kitchen
• The watch: an open platform built outside, where men of the village took turns keeping watch at night
• The length: three tilem, three new moons, about three months
• Meals and health: the village cooked their meals and paid for the mother's and babies' health checks
• Work: the father kept his job and returned to the hut after work

The village's temple rites stop for three months

While the family is at the hut the whole village is sebel, ritually impure. The village head, I Gusti Komang Suparta, told NusaBali that all rites of the temples stop for those three months.

Deaths and baby ceremonies still go ahead, kept as simple as possible. Holy water is asked for from a distance rather than inside the temple.

The period closes with a great caru offering and a melasti purification at the sea. After that the family goes home. What a caru is and why it is made is in mecaru.

Padangbulia Describes the Rite as Care for the Family

"This is not banishment," Suparta said.

The family is served and guarded by everyone, and the village pays for it all. In Padangbulia's reading, as the Warmadewa study puts it, the 1951 decision does not cover its rite. The study gives three differences:

• The decision spoke of sudra families. Padangbulia applies the rite to every family, whatever its caste.
• The decision spoke of graveyards. Padangbulia's huts stand far from the cemetery.
• The decision spoke of costs charged to the parents. Padangbulia pays.

Sadia Utama told the researchers he was not forced and felt he was served like a king.

A June 2024 study in the journal Sebatik describes the same practice as the village's open resistance to the 1951 rule. It notes that some villagers resist the rule more quietly, in talk among themselves rather than in the open.

The law, human rights and the children

Legal scholars read the custom against national law as well as village law. The Warmadewa study notes that many people see manak salah as conflicting with human rights. It cites Indonesia's Human Rights Law, No. 39 of 1999, under which everyone is entitled to the protection of human rights without discrimination.

A 2022 study by three law researchers at Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha in Singaraja looked at Pedawa, another customary village in Buleleng that keeps the rite. They set it beside Article 28B(2) of the Constitution, which gives every child the right to survive, grow and develop and to be protected from violence and discrimination.

In Pedawa they found no element of a rights violation, because the village helps the family with facilities, guards and offerings. They still found the practice out of line with the 1951 regulation. They put this down to a customary legal culture, purwa dresta, and to customary officials not having explained the regulation well to villagers.

Elsewhere, Some Villages Keep Only a Period of Impurity

The published accounts each come from a single village, and practice differs from place to place.

In 2012 the customary village of Ketewel in Gianyar declared a 42-day impurity. Brother-and-sister twins had been born to a gynaecologist's family. The village kept its temples empty through Galungan and Kuningan, allowing each family only a simple offering at home.

Ketewel did not send the family away, and the village paid for the closing purification. Galungan's place in the calendar is explained in Galungan and Kuningan.

The ordinary rites of a Balinese childhood are the frame against which the buncing rite stood out. They run from the three-month ceremony to the first otonan. The birth-order names children receive are in Balinese names.

Lontar, Balinese palm-leaf manuscripts, at the Balai Bahasa Bali. Padangbulia bases its rite on texts of this kind. Photo: Eka343 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

How to Respect the Custom as a Visitor

For a visitor this is a story to understand, never a sight to go and look for.

• Leave the hut alone. It is a family's home for three months during a sacred period, and the village is in a state of impurity. It is no place for curiosity.
• Read the wider frame. Purity rites concern the Balinese ideas of the visible and invisible worlds, known as sekala and niskala. The island's ritual cycle is in Balinese ceremonies and the Balinese culture hub.
• Know where Padangbulia is. The village sits above Singaraja, a short drive from Lovina, where most of Palm Living's villas are.
• Know its other tradition. Padangbulia is known too for its fire fight the day before Nyepi. The island's new year rites are in Nyepi, the day of silence.

FAQ

What does kembar buncing mean? Kembar buncing is Balinese for twins of opposite sex, a boy and a girl born together. Kembar means twins. Buncing refers to the pairing of a male and a female.

What is manak salah in Bali? Manak salah, "wrong birth", was the custom of treating the birth of boy-girl twins to a commoner family as a source of impurity for the village. As the 1951 decision describes it, the family was moved to the graveyard or a crossroads for 42 days and had to pay for the village's purification.

When was manak salah abolished? On 12 July 1951, when Bali's regional legislature issued Decision No. 10 of 1951, often cited as Regional Regulation No. 10 of 1951. It declared that parents of buncing twins are guilty of nothing and may not be punished, and that the custom is abolished.

Is manak salah still practised in Bali? In a changed form, in some customary villages of Buleleng, north Bali, among them Padangbulia and Pedawa. In Padangbulia the family of buncing twins spends three lunar months in a hut at the village edge, cared for and paid for by the village. A purification follows. Some other villages, such as Ketewel in Gianyar in 2012, have declared a period of ritual impurity without sending the family away.

Why were royal buncing twins treated differently? Twins born to a royal family were taken as a good omen and celebrated. The law scholar I Wayan Windia has argued that social status explains the difference. A commoner family with buncing twins was seen as imitating royalty, a serious offence in old Bali.

Are twins bad luck in Bali? The old custom concerned only boy-girl twins, and only in commoner families. Royal buncing twins were taken as a blessing. Bali's legislature abolished the custom in 1951, though The Jakarta Post noted in 2012 that several villages still observed a form of it.

Sources

• Ni Luh Gede Astari Dewi, I Ketut Sukadana and Diah Gayatri Sudibya, Tradisi manak salah di Desa Adat Padangbulia, Jurnal Konstruksi Hukum, Warmadewa University, January 2021, for the text and date of the 1951 decision (12 July 1951), the lontar, the village's reading of the rule and Law No. 39 of 1999 on human rights, read September 2026 (in Indonesian)
• Rahmat Sewa Suraya, Komang Wahyu Rustiani and I Ketut Suardika, Padangbulia people's resistance to Public Policy No. 10 of 1951, Sebatik, June 2024, for the stages of the rite and the village's resistance, read September 2026 (in English)
• NusaBali, Families with buncing twins stay at the village edge for three months, for the Sadia Utama case, the hut, the village's care and Suparta's account, read September 2026 (in Indonesian)
• The Jakarta Post, Rituals called off after birth of twins, February 2012, for Ketewel, royal twins, Padangbulia in 2004 and I Wayan Windia, read September 2026 (in English)
• I Putu Agus Yudha Artama, Ketut Sudiatmaka and Ni Ketut Sari Adnyani, Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha, Eksistensi pelaksanaan tradisi manak salah di Desa Adat Pedawa, November 2022, for Pedawa, Article 28B(2) of the Constitution on children's rights and the authors' legal reading, read October 2026 (in Indonesian)
• BaleBengong, Customary sanctions in Bali, including those no longer in force, for the DPRD decision of 12 July 1951 and the list of abolished sanctions, read September 2026 (in Indonesian)
• Wikimedia Commons, Meamuk-amukan api, Padang Bulia, the photographer's description of the village's fire fight before Nyepi, read September 2026 (in Indonesian)

Read next: Otonan, the Balinese birthday, mecaru and the Balinese village and the banjar.