Bali has been cultivating rice for more than a millennium, its fertile volcanic soil and plenteous water supply permitting two or three annual harvests.
     Such has been its significance in Balinese life that rice has become the foundation of an elaborate cult and is revered in religious rites.

     The gods are invoked to ensure healthy crops and abundant water; magic spells are cast to banish from the paddy fields thieves in the guise of mice or birds.

     So adept at rice farming are the Balinese that every year, the gods willing, they produce more than enough for the island’s population of three million people, selling or giving away the surplus. Festivals celebrate the bringing home of the bounty.

     Our photographic essay distils some of the enchantment of Bali’s not-altogether-earthbound rice rituals.