Ogoh-Ogoh: Bali's Demon Effigies and the Night Before Nyepi

Bali is rich in ceremony, and one of its liveliest nights is the eve of Nyepi, the Day of Silence. That evening, communities across the island parade ogoh-ogoh, large effigies made of bamboo, paper and other materials, often depicting demons or giants. The village youth build them over weeks, carry them to the baleganjur gamelan and usually burn them at the cemetery.

Young men carrying a towering pink demon ogoh-ogoh on a bamboo platform through a village street on the evening before Nyepi
Young men carrying a towering pink demon ogoh-ogoh on a bamboo platform through a village street on the evening before Nyepi. Photo: KitHamilton / CC BY-SA 4.0.
On this page
  1. In Brief
  2. Ogoh-Ogoh at a Glance
  3. An Ogoh-Ogoh Is a Portrait of the Bhuta Kala
  4. The Parade Is a Young Tradition, Dated to 1983
  5. The Banjar's Youth Build It Over Weeks
  6. Pangrupukan Runs from the Offerings to the Parade at Dusk
  7. The Figure Is Burned at the Village Cemetery
  8. Where to Watch Ogoh-Ogoh in Singaraja and Lovina
  9. Practical Notes
  10. FAQ
  11. Sources

In Brief

An ogoh-ogoh is a large effigy, usually of a demon or giant, built by a Balinese banjar (neighbourhood association). It is made for Pangrupukan, the evening before Nyepi, and you can watch the parade from the roadside.

The figure stands for the bhuta kala, the unruly forces of nature and time, and for the anger and greed inside people. After the day's tawur kesanga offerings, the youth of each banjar carry it through the streets on a bamboo platform. They rock and shake it to the sound of the baleganjur, then burn it in the village cemetery.

The parade is a young tradition, and Bali's Hindu council says it is not a required part of Nyepi. In the north, Singaraja gathers its banjar into one parade through the city centre, and the villages around Lovina parade their own.

Ogoh-Ogoh at a Glance

  • What they are: Large figures of bamboo, paper and cloth, most often in the form of a bhuta kala giant
  • The name: From the Balinese ogah-ogah, "something that is shaken"
  • When: Dusk on Pangrupukan, the day before Nyepi, after the tawur kesanga offerings
  • Who makes them: The banjar's youth group, the seka teruna, paid for by residents' contributions
  • The music: Baleganjur, the marching gamelan of drums, gongs and cymbals
  • How it ends: Burned in the village cemetery, the setra, though some figures are kept
  • How old: A tradition of the 1980s, paraded after the household rites of the same night
  • In north Bali: A combined parade in central Singaraja, and village parades along the Lovina coast

An Ogoh-Ogoh Is a Portrait of the Bhuta Kala

The figure is a portrait of the bhuta kala, the forces of nature and time.

Buleleng's culture and tourism office explains the words this way. Bhu is the power of the universe and kala is time, both beyond measure and beyond argument.

The Hindu council, Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia (PHDI), reads them the same way. Bhuta are the five elements of the natural world and kala is time. The fanged, bulging-eyed giant is how people picture those forces when they are out of balance.

A giant orange ogoh-ogoh with a snarling face, standing under a shelter beside a stone wall in Pancasari, Buleleng An ogoh-ogoh still standing under its shelter in Pancasari, in the Buleleng highlands, a few days after Nyepi. Photo: Sulthan Naufal / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The same forces live inside people. Buleleng's protocol office puts it in the terms Balinese scholars use. There is the power of the bhuana agung, the great world, and of the bhuana alit, the small world of the self. Either can lead to happiness or to ruin, depending on human intention.

The news agency Antara lists the traits a figure usually carries: anger, greed and ignorance.

Most figures are giants, and some teachers want it kept so

The classic ogoh-ogoh is a raksasa, a giant. Others take different forms:

  • creatures from heaven, earth and hell
  • nagas
  • elephants
  • celestial nymphs
  • politicians or celebrities, in a few cases

Some Hindu teachers want the old form kept. A paper by I Dewa Gede Ngurah Diatmika of STKIP Agama Hindu Singaraja argues that the figure ought to be a bhuta kala. His reason is that the night is about nyomia, calming the bhuta kala into bhuta hita.

Keeping the dark forces in balance, with nothing pretended away, is the teaching of Rwa Bhineda. The offerings of the same day are Bhuta Yadnya.

The Parade Is a Young Tradition, Dated to 1983

The Buleleng culture office dates the effigies to 1983, the year the president made Nyepi a national holiday.

People in parts of Denpasar began building figures of the bhuta kala that year, first called onggokan. The practice spread across the island once ogoh-ogoh were entered in the twelfth Bali Arts Festival.

The north was not far behind. Diatmika records that the youth of Banjarasem, a village in Seririt district west of Lovina, first paraded ogoh-ogoh in 1983. They have done so every year since.

The household rites of the night are loud too

The parade comes on top of the household rites of the same evening. Right after the caru offering, the Banjar district office explains, households scatter rice, carry fire or torches around the house and yard, spread spices called mesiu, and beat slit drums and anything else that makes a din. The aim is to drive the bhuta kala out of the home. The ogoh-ogoh parade follows at night.

Nyepi does not require the parade

The Buleleng office is plain that the figures have no direct connection to Nyepi itself and are made to enliven the night.

PHDI Bali said the same when the pandemic cancelled the parades. Its chairman wrote that parading ogoh-ogoh is not a required part of Nyepi. That year the purification, the offerings and Pangrupukan went ahead without them.

Bali's council of customary villages, the Majelis Desa Adat, says the same in its circular of December 2021. The parade was not originally part of a religious ceremony, it writes, and has grown since the 1980s into a completion of the Nyepi observances.

The Banjar's Youth Build It Over Weeks

An ogoh-ogoh is a community project, usually led by the youth group of the local banjar.

That youth group, the seka teruna, designs the figure and raises the money from residents' contributions. Its members build it over the weeks before Nyepi. In Banjarasem, Diatmika notes, the work starts about a month ahead.

The method is simple. A bamboo frame is covered in layers of paper or cloth and painted, and hair and ornaments finish it. Many modern figures also have an iron skeleton inside.

Styrofoam was once widely used, but its use is now discouraged under environmental guidelines. In its circular of December 2021, the Majelis Desa Adat told banjar to build with eco-friendly materials and no styrofoam or plastic, citing the governor's regulation No. 97 of 2018 on limiting single-use plastic waste.

Modern figures move

Technology has come into the craft too, writes Dede Putra Wiguna in an essay for tatkala.co. The old figures stood still. Many now move like robots, with motors that turn the head and arms, and some are built to look as if they fly or walk.

Ogoh-ogoh competitions, especially in Denpasar and in several regencies, have spurred this on, and some youth groups spend very large sums on a machine-driven figure. He gives two examples. Sekaa Teruna Putra Tunggal's Bhuta Enjek Pupu, a figure 3.5 metres tall, had three motors that moved its head and wings. The figures of Banjar Tainsiat in Denpasar are known for hydraulics that move every joint.

The essay weighs both sides. Technology widens what young makers can do and speeds up the work, and social media carries their figures to a wider audience. It also risks losing the traditional techniques. The figure's stance, its agem, can turn stiff and robotic, and the cost puts small groups at a disadvantage. Some groups also parade with deafening sound systems, which he says has troubled many residents.

What the province wants to see in a figure

Bali's provincial culture office ran an island-wide ogoh-ogoh competition, and its rules set out what the province wants to see:

  • natural, environmentally friendly materials, with no styrofoam, sponge or single-use plastic
  • a Balinese Hindu character, with no politics, no ethnic or religious provocation and no pornography
  • a figure in either santa rupa, a god's gentle form, or rudra rupa, a giant's
  • a written story for each figure, which the judges scored on beauty, on costume and ornament, and on grounding in Hindu literature

Cities and regencies add their own rules. Denpasar has passed a regional regulation on preserving ogoh-ogoh, No. 9 of 2024. Every parade and competition entry must use Balinese gamelan or other traditional instruments, and sound systems are banned except for the narrator's part, the pedalangan. The city's standards for materials must take account of the environment and of Hindu scripture.

The city's legal office, speaking to Bali Post, also named a worry that reaches beyond music, about figures made outside any banjar or youth group. According to the office, these figures may not go through the customary rites, including the blessing or consecration, the pamlaspasan, and the concluding pralina.

Pangrupukan Runs from the Offerings to the Parade at Dusk

The night belongs to a sequence.

Days before, villages take their temple treasures to the sea for Melasti. On the dark moon of the ninth month, tilem kesanga, households, banjar and villages make the tawur kesanga. This is the great caru offering to the bhuta kala, and Diatmika's paper describes it running in scale from the family yard to the province.

Then, as the light goes, comes Pangrupukan.

Young men in black shirts and checked sarongs hoisting a bamboo platform with a large ogoh-ogoh through a tree-lined street, dust and light behind them The carriers take the weight of the platform together on Pangrupukan. Photo: Dedy Siswandi / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The ogoh-ogoh rides on a platform of bamboo poles, hoisted onto the shoulders of the carriers. They shake and rock it as they go, which is where the name comes from. The baleganjur drives the pace from behind.

Figures are carried toward the catus pata, the village crossroads, and around the village before heading to the cemetery.

The Figure Is Burned at the Village Cemetery

At the setra, the village cemetery, the figure is set alight, and Diatmika gives two reasons.

The first is that an ogoh-ogoh left standing after the parade could be occupied by the very forces it depicts. So it is dissolved, prelina, by fire in the cemetery that belongs to the village.

The second is a lesson in the three powers of God. Building the figure is creation, carrying it whole through the village is preservation, and burning it is dissolution.

Some figures are kept, like the giant in Pancasari pictured above, still standing under its shelter days after Nyepi.

The next morning at dawn, Nyepi begins, and the island stays indoors for a full day.

Where to Watch Ogoh-Ogoh in Singaraja and Lovina

In north Bali you can watch one combined parade in Singaraja, or a village parade on the Lovina coast.

Singaraja gathers its banjar into one parade

The customary village of Buleleng covers the old centre of the city. It gathers the figures of all its banjar into one parade, the Pengerupukan Festival.

Bali Post's account describes the route. It runs along Jalan Veteran to the catuspata, the crossroads of Desa Adat Buleleng, and on to the village cemetery.

At the crossroads each banjar performs its ogoh-ogoh for ten to twenty minutes, before thousands of people from across the regency. The Regent opens the evening with ngoncang, which the paper calls a tradition particular to Buleleng. The village's pecalang guards work alongside the police on the crowds and traffic.

The customary village and the regency set the route and the programme each year. Check announcements from Buleleng's culture and tourism office and the local news before you go.

The Lovina coast villages parade their own

The villages of the Lovina coast make and parade their own figures, around their own streets. Palm Living filmed the parade in Lovina:

Banjarasem, a short drive west, is the documented case of how a north coast village does it. Diatmika follows the day there in order:

  1. Melasti on the beach at neighbouring Kalisada, in the afternoon.

  2. The tawur kesanga, at dusk.

  3. The youth carry their figures to the village's western edge at Tegalarangan.

  4. They turn back east to the hamlet of Yehanakan.

  5. They go west again to Kalanganyar.

  6. They head south to the Banjarasem cemetery, where every figure is burned.

If you are staying near Lovina, the parade most likely to pass is your own village's. Palm Living's villas for rent are mostly in and around Lovina. A stay there puts you close to the village parades and gives you somewhere comfortable to sit out the silence the next day.

Practical Notes

  • When: Dusk on the day before Nyepi. Nyepi falls on the day after the dark moon of the ninth Balinese month, usually in March. The date moves each year, so see the Balinese calendar explained.
  • Where: In your own village, or in central Singaraja for the combined parade of the city's banjar. Ask the people at your villa which banjar is parading and where it will pass.
  • Keep back from the platforms. The carriers swing and shake the figures, and the crowd moves with them.
  • Leave the figures alone. Photograph freely from the roadside, and ask before close portraits of the carriers.
  • Plan for the next day now. Nyepi starts the following morning, with no travel, no lights and no shops for a full day. Buy food and water in advance and read Nyepi, the day of silence.

FAQ

What is an ogoh-ogoh? A large effigy, usually a demon or giant, built from bamboo, paper and cloth by a Balinese banjar for the evening before Nyepi. It represents the bhuta kala, the forces of nature and time, and the negative traits in people. It is paraded through the village and then burned.

What does ogoh-ogoh mean? The word comes from the Balinese ogah-ogah, "something that is shaken", after the way the carriers rock the figure as they parade it. The figure itself symbolises the bhuta kala and human vices such as anger and greed.

When is the ogoh-ogoh parade in Bali? At dusk on Pangrupukan, the day before Nyepi, after the tawur kesanga offerings. Nyepi usually falls in March, on the day after the dark moon of the ninth Balinese month, so the parade moves from year to year.

Why are ogoh-ogoh burned? Burning dissolves the figure so that the forces it represents cannot take up residence in it. It also marks the negative traits destroyed before the new year. It usually happens in the village cemetery, the setra, and some elaborate figures are kept.

Where can I see ogoh-ogoh in north Bali? Singaraja's combined parade goes through the city centre, run by the customary village of Buleleng, and draws thousands of people. Villages along the coast, around Lovina and west toward Seririt, parade their own figures through their own streets.

What are ogoh-ogoh made of? A bamboo frame, often with iron inside, covered in layers of paper or cloth and painted. Hair, cloth and ornaments finish it. Bali's customary village council and the provincial culture office have told banjar not to use styrofoam or plastic.

Sources

Read next: Nyepi, the day of silence for the day after, mecaru and the caru offerings for the rite that comes before the parade, and Rwa Bhineda for the idea behind it.

Part of Culture & HistoryBalinese Culture: A Visitor's Guide to Bali's Faith, Villages, Ceremonies and ArtsRead →

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