An integral part of Bali's funerary rituals, the ephemeral cremation towers, are exclusively created for the day  when the body is moved for the actual cremation.  Because they are usually burned as part of the funerary ritual,  few of these gigantic  towers exist, but an authentic Cremation Tower has been constructed in Bali, and will travel with the exhibition.

 

The "Towers" are a symbol of the three-part cosmos: the upper world, the middle world and the nether regions. In the Balinese conception of the world and in their religious practice the holy is  associated with the direction of the volcanoes (up) and of sunrise. The profane and the netherworld are aligned with the sea (below) and the sunset. Man lives in the middle world, marked by the upper world and the nether regions, and he is, in his own tripartition (head, body and feet), part of all three worlds as a reduced representation of the cosmos. The hierarchy below/middle/up is influential in all structures (in the laying out of villages, buildings, farmsteads, temples, shrines and cremation towers) having a head (roof), a body (living space) and feet (foundations).

 

At the cremation tower's base there is the carrying gear consisting of a bamboo grid on which the socle rests, at the base of which the mythical turtle Bedawang Nala carries the world or the island of Bali. On each side a world snake coils around it which hold onto the island and protect it from earthquakes. On this center-part of the carrying gear the tower is built which gradually tapers towards the top. Above the center there is a narrow longish deepening (living space) into which the body, the bones or an effigy of the deceased is being laid. On the tower's backside earth-son Bhoma`s demonic head looks upon the ecstatic cortege.