Witch-Queen
Balinese · deity · perennial / ritual performative; legend set in 11th c. Java · Recorded classification
Classed 'deity' as a powerful spirit/goddess-class being (Durga aspect), per the schema's restriction on type values. 'Rangda' literally means 'widow' in Old Javanese.
Domains
- black magic and pestilence
- widowhood and the demonic
- leyak witchcraft
Powers
- looses plague, crop-failure and death upon villages
- commands the shape-shifting leyak witches
- Devour children and prey on the newborn
Relations
- enemy: Guardian Beast-KingReciprocal of balinese_barong.enemy — The protective Beast-King and the witch-queen are locked in the perpetually undecided ritual battle of the Calon Arang drama, balancing order against destruction.Jane Belo, Bali: Rangda and Barong (1949) (secondary)
- syncretism: DurgaRangda absorbs Durgā's terrible aspect via Calon Arang and the graveyard Durgā cult; localized are the witch (leyak) complex and the unresolved ritual combat with Barong, alien to Indian Durgā.Calon Arang (Middle Javanese tale): the widow-witch worships Durgā in the graveyard (primary); Jane Belo, Bali: Rangda and Barong (1949); Michele Stephen, Desire, Divine and Demonic (2005) (secondary)
Sources
- Rangda is the Balinese witch-queen of black magic, incarnation of the legendary widow Calon Arang and identified with Durga, eternal adversary of Barong; her mask is a major sacred object.: Belo, Jane (1949). Bali: Rangda and Barong. Monographs of the American Ethnological Society 16. New York: J.J. Augustin. (secondary); Hooykaas, C. (1978). The Balinese Poem Basur. The Hague: Nijhoff. (secondary)