Every home, office, roads and temples have a shrine where daily offerings to the spirits are made. A small shrine adorned with fresh flowers and rice. The Balinese worship the same trinity (Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu) as Hindu in India, although with the addition of local beliefs.
For the Balinese, Gods and good spirits live in the mountains while demons and giant lurk in the sea. Between these two extremes, the Balinese seek to maintain a balance, honoring the good and placating the evil.
There are temples every side in Bali. Most village have at least three of them. A Pura Puseh dedicated to the founders of the village, a Pura Desa for the spirits that protect the village and a Pura Dalem the temple of the dead.
Ceremonies and festivals are another integral part of Balinese life and culture, with at least five or six festivals annually in every village. Each stage in life are pregnancy, birth, puberty, marriage and death has its ritual. Among the best known is the tooth-filling ritual, carried out of puberty, when teeth are ground down to produce an even dentition (only demons have crooked fangs).
Funeral are spectacular affairs in which the body is carried to its crematory pyre in a bamboo or wooden tower. These may be huge, requiring dozens of men to carry them. Yet the bearers run to the cremation place, every few meters twisting and turning, moving around in circles. It is a trick intended to confuse the dead person's spirit so it cannot return home to haunt the family.
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