In Reply to: Purnama is full moon posted by dadvet on Sunday, 29. April 2007 at 19:53 Bali Time:
.. was a full moon in the 60's I think, when the normally calm Balinese went crazy with no warning. The streets ran red with blood according to many reports and thousands died as old scores were settled , imaginary ones created, and the Chinese particularly were dragged from their burning homes and slaughtered. (Many of the remaining homes have fortifications and savage dogs etc.) Rivers and beaches all over Bali bobbed with mutilated bodies. Next day they cleaned up and it seemed "business as usual"
The term amok, as in run amok, originates in Indonesia. There is great spiritual energy and powerful black magic rituals still practised all over Bali today, but normally tourists will never be aware. On one visit in the 70's a wheelchair was placed on our plane with a westerner in it. The people explained he had spied too close to a secret ceremony and was permanently paralysed . Healers had restored mobility to the neck but that was all they could do.