The typical Balinese residential compound consists of a number of different structures grouped around a central courtyard.
Each building is associated with a particular function or activity and has a specific location in the family compound.
The Balinese people classify these structures according the number of posts used in their construction. A building that employs four posts to support the roof is therefore called a bale sakepat (bale - pavilion, sakasa - post, empat - four), a bale sakenam is a six-post structure (enam - six), and so on up to the maximum of twelve posts.
Most of these buildings are raised on a masonry stereobate, or plinth, and are open on one or more sides.
The roof is supported by a timber and bamboo frame; walls, where they exist, are not designed to carry any load, but simply constitute a screen to give some protection from the elements and provide a degree or privacy.
Umah Meten
The first building to be erected, after the construction of temporary shrines in the kaja-kangin corner of the compound, is the sleeping pavilion (umah meten) of the house owner. This is located to the west of the family temple, but still at the kaja end of the compound. It is a rectangular structure with four solid, windowless walls, and a single entrance positioned in the middle of the elevation facing the centre of the compound. The interior consists simply of a pair of wooden sleeping platforms (pedeman) positioned on either side of the door.
The umah meten of the common man is an eight – pillar structure, but in the case of higher-caste families, the stereobate is extended to create a verandah or porch in front of the entrance with another line of posts supporting the roof.
The umah meten is where the family sleeps and keeps its valuables –gold, silver, jewellery and the family kris (ceremonial dagger). It is also traditionally the place for giving birth –the term meten is derived from the world metu meaning `to come out` or `to be born`.
The building may also be used during periods of ritual restriction, which are required before certain rites of passage that mark significant events in a person`s life, such as tooth-filling or the first menstruation. In this respect the meten is perceived in ritual terms as the family womb, a place where children are born and where changes of status, seen here as a kind of symbolic rebirth, occur.
Although normally occupied by the head of the family and his wife, the umah meten may be vacated for newly-weds or unmarried girls, for it is the only place in the compound where privacy is available.
Paon
The kitchen is usually a fairly simple structure, built on a low plinth and often employing a gable roof which is easier to construct than the hipped alternative. Earthen charcoal-or wood –burning stoves are built along the rear wall and posts and pans are slung overhead. Traditionally, there would also be large earthenware water-storage jars, though a piped water supply is more common in most areas today.
Lumbung
The granary is a more elaborate affair than other buildings in the compound. Its floor is raised high off the ground on posts that a stereobate or masonry plinth like other structures. Sometimes there is an intermediate platform raised a little off the ground, but below the floor of the granary. This provides a cool, shady workplace by day and somewhere to sleep at night. Lumbung designs vary from one part of the island to another, but the distinctive hullshaped roof with horseshoe gable ends can generally be seen in the southern areas. Often one sees wooden discs on top of the foundation posts. These are intended to deter rodents from climbing up and nibbling away at the rice harvest.
Rice farming is a very special activity in Balinese eyes, rice itself being perceived as a gift of the gods. Not surprisingly, the filling of the granary with a newly harvested crop is an important moment in each agricultural season and it is traditionally accompanied by rituals dedicated to Dewi Sri, who is the goddess of agriculture and fertility. In the past, the newly harvested rice was taken from the fields while still in its panicle and stored directly in the lumbung. Nowdays however, the modern, fast-growing strains of rice are threshed and winnowed in the fields and it is the hulled rice that is taken back to granary.
