A 15-year-old Balinese kid was rushed to the hospital after stabbing himself while in trance with a keris—a ceremonial dagger—during a traditional Balinese dance.
Putu Pande Kusuma Jana, of Sumber Batok Village, Buleleng is under recovery at the moment after piercing his own chest as deep as three centimeters while participating in a Balinese prayer ceremony and the ‘ngayah’ keris dance ritual ‘Dewa Ayu’ on Friday evening.
In the ritual, many people practiced the ceremonial stabbing, not just Jana, says the boy’s father, Made Arjana, 33.
This wasn’t even Jana’s first ngayah dance; he had already participated in it twice before with no incident, Arjana told Merdeka.
His son had actually endured 15-minutes of self-inflicted stabbing this time and there didn’t appear to be any problem, the father added.
“When my son was taking the dagger to his chest, nothing happened. But when he did it for a second time, suddenly blood could be seen. But my son was still in a trance condition where he was not conscious and could not feel anything,” Arjana said.
Self-stabbing is an element that appears in some Balinese trance dances, where men deep in trance stab themselves with daggers or swords without drawing blood following the belief that the magic of the mythological barong is protecting them.
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