The guardian who keeps the bad spirits off the doorstep.
ᬩᬭᭀᬂ · Ba · rong
Cast by hand · Painted by you
$40
Not yet available · arriving 2027
Mask, five pots of colour, a brush and the story card.
ᬩᬭᭀᬂ · Indonesia
Good against evil, every night, and neither one is ever allowed to win.
The Barong fights Rangda, the widow-witch, and the fight does not resolve. In Balinese thinking evil is not defeated, it is held in balance, and a performance that ended with a winner would be a performance that got the cosmology wrong.
He is worn by two men, one at the head and one under the back, and the head alone can weigh as much as a small child. Bells, gilt leather, mirror, and a beard that is very often real human hair, because the hair is where the village believes the power actually sits.
The dance ends with both of them still standing and the village calmer than it was. That is the purpose of the evening.
W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, temple gate on Bali, 1910 · Rijksmuseum
A Barong head is cut from pule wood, and the tree is asked first. Offerings go down at the base before a single chip comes off, and if the answer reads as no, the carver finds another tree.
The work happens on days chosen from the Balinese calendar rather than days chosen by the workshop, and the carver is under restrictions the whole time. When it is finished the mask is blessed and given taksu, the spark that separates a performance that lands from one that does not.
After that it does not live in a cupboard. It lives in the temple, it is dressed, and it is fed. Villages have been known to refuse to sell one at any price, which collectors find difficult to accept.
W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, Bali, 1908 · Rijksmuseum
In the confrontation Rangda turns the men's own daggers back on them. They stab themselves in the chest, in front of everybody, and are not cut. Trance, with a priest standing by with holy water to bring them back out of it.
You can watch a shortened version in Ubud most afternoons for the price of a ticket, and it is a real performance by real dancers. The version the village does for itself is a different thing entirely and is not on a schedule you can book.
Barong Ket, the lion, is the one most people picture. There are others: Barong Bangkal the boar, Barong Macan the tiger, Barong Landung the towering pair who walk the streets at Galungan.
Evil is not defeated. It is held.
Ours is the lion, in plaster, at a size that fits on a shelf rather than over two men. The carved detail is all there, the bulging eyes, the teeth, the crown, the fields where the gilt leather sits.
It is a tribute and not a consecrated object. We are clear about that, because the difference matters to the people who make the real ones.
Plaster, poured one at a time, in the house on the Siem Reap River.
No colour. The sculpt is the guide: raised edges catch the brush and hold it where it belongs.
The real ones are gilded, mirrored and bearded. Yours is plaster, so the gold comes out of a pot and the beard is between you and your conscience.
What the mask is in its own tradition, before we cast it in plaster and send it out white.
Something not here? Write to hello@blankstory.co. One of us answers, usually the same day.
Yes. Water-based, non-toxic, and it comes off skin and off a table with a damp cloth. Built for a kitchen table on a Sunday.
A story card with the history and the traditional colours, so you know what you are looking at. No paint-by-numbers. The mask ships white on purpose.
Resin is cheaper to ship and it feels like a phone case. Plaster takes paint properly, keeps a sharp edge on every carved line, and has the weight that puts a thing on a shelf instead of in a drawer.
Barong arrives in 2027. We will not put a month against it until the moulds are cut and the first run is right.
Anywhere in Cambodia. Pick it up free at Peaceful Chaos in Siem Reap, have it brought to your door in Siem Reap, or sent by courier to any province. The delivery fee shows at checkout. You pay by KHQR from any Cambodian bank app.
Yes, and we would like that. Minimum order is one case of four, prepaid, and you can collect free from the office in Siem Reap or have it sent anywhere in Cambodia. Full pricing and terms sit behind a trade login. Write to us with the name of the shop and we will send a code the same day.
Not yet available · arriving 2027
Barong lands in 2027. Leave your email and you will know the day it does.