One of the Offering forms that we can found in Bali and popular among Balinese is Gebogan or Pajegan, looking out as a cone. A truly artful of fruit that women carry to the temple in Bali. Basically, the gebogan is contains of many kind of fruits, flower, cake, small rice pyramids, grated coconut, roasted peanuts and sweet cakes stacked on top of one another, forming cylindrical towers and roasted chicken.
These objects are not always combined together, however, and you will often find gebogan made up of either just flowers or fruit, depending on the purpose.
The offerings are attached to a banana tree trunk by sharp bamboo skewers. The base of a gebogan can be either a wooden dulang or a metal bokor which support the weight of the tower. Coconut-leaf decorations, known as sampian, ornament the top of the offerings.
The size of gebogan might be as short as twenty centimeters(7 inches) until two and half meters (8 feet). The Balinese women must be have special skill and a lots of experience to make a beautiful gebogan.
What is included in gebogan will vary from one part of Bali to another based on local tradition. But the offering is always a gorgeous sight to be hold. After they finished to make the Gebogan they bring it to the temple to be prayed over. The gebogan is ready to be eaten after it is blessed.
Balinese women carry gebogan to the temples on their heads which, due to their height and weight, is no mean feat. You will also see women carry gebogan in a procession called mepeed, when special sacred objects are carried to the temple to be blessed. Once they reach the temple, incense sticks are put in the gebogan and are blessed by the priests. Then everyone prays and the gebogan are offered to the gods.
Once all the rituals are over, the gebogan are taken home and the food is shared amongst family and friends. Since food spoils quickly in the tropics, it is either consumed straight away or given away to visitors. If you ever visit Balinese post-ceremony time, they will surely offer you fruit and cakes which come straight off a gebogan.
Traditionally, gebogan only served as offerings to God and were symbolic of all that is found in nature. These days, however, gebogan also function as decorations or ornaments.
