| Popis: |
Although the great majority of Balinese live in close proximity to the seas which surround their small island, they have never been noted for their maritime prowess. They never built ships of any kind; they rarely left their island voluntarily; they looked with a mixture of distrust and disdain upon their port-villages with their many foreign, non-Balinese residents; and nautical themes do not at all feature prominently in their rich, varied art. Culturally, the Balinese looked ‘inward’ towards the volcanic mountains of their island, the peaks of which they associated with their Hindu gods, rather than ‘outward’ towards the open seas, which they believed to be the realm of demons and monsters.1 Nevertheless, the Balinese were far from uninterested in trade. Since time immemorial the island’s internal trade (buying and selling in local markets and at the factories and shops of the foreign merchants) had been mainly in the hands of Balinese women. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Bali’s many rajas constantly competed with each other for control of the island’s foreign trade. |
