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Raffles Bali - The Story of Gebogan, Big Balinese Offering to God
January 31st 2023

The Story of Gebogan, Big Balinese Offering to God

Gebogan symbolize the gratitude to the God for the infinite blessing. It is made for offerings to the Deities and ancestral spirits for all the grace and fertility, which has been given to the humans. Gebogan consist of fruits and traditional cake. Which are arranged neatly in a special pan, to form the composition of fruits and traditional cake that make up the tower with high artistic taste, thus forming a beautiful and attractive offerings.

Gebogan can be very tall and in some ceremonies reach up to more than one and a half metres. Balinese women carry the Gebogan to the temples on their heads. Women very suitable to bring these offerings. Therefore, a woman has a heart that is soft and quiet. Because when they are carrying the Gebogan to the temple, sometimes the temple is located quite far, they should be have a good balance and poise, thus the Gebogan not to fall.  The Banten Gebogan is recognizable by its towering, cone-like shape and is adorned with canang and sampiyan offerings as a display of devotion to the creator of the universe.

Traditional cake that is used to make a Gebogan are usually made by ​​their own. Because making traditional cake is usually done by women in Bali. If you would like to make a fruit tower, whether as a table centerpiece or as your own form of gratitude, you will need a Dulang (Offering bowl made from wood or metal with an iron stick in the middle), a banana trunk on the dulang, you can insert bamboo sticks into the fruit and then into the trunk, then arrange flowers or ribbons at the top of tower. You can buy a dulang in local gift shops or traditional Balinese markets.