Ni Wayan Lilir is a diminutive Balinese woman with boundless energy and an infectious enthusiasm for helping people learn about the traditional healing herbs of Bali. Lilir manages Utama Spice, a company near Ubud, that makes natural body care products, based on the traditional healing herbs, or obat asli, of Bali.

Utama Spice won an award last year from the local government as the best natural-care company in Gianyar, the Bali district that includes Ubud. In addition to managing Utama Spice, Lilir is also responsible for sourcing raw ingredients and developing new products for the line. Lilir says that herbal lore is “in her blood”. She was born into a large family of twelve children, in Padangtegal, near Ubud, in 1972. When she was growing up, her parents never took the children to doctors when they were sick “They only used herbs,” Lilir said.

When her mother had a new baby, she did so with the help of only Lilir’s father, without a midwife, nurse or doctor. Lilir’s father, a balian, or herbal healer, would first coat the newborn with turmeric powder, an anti-bacterial agent, then coconut oil, then wash the baby with warm water. After the baby was clean, the father applied ground candle nut mixed with arak to the baby’s umbilical cord stump, twice a day for three to four days, at which point the cord would fall away, with no infection.

He also fed the new mother the steamed young leaves of black taro, so she would pass the afterbirth. If Lilir’s mother didn’t have enough milk for the baby, he would scoop out the soft jelly of a young coconut to feed to the infant. Every Saturday, Lilir’s father made his own version of jamu, or traditional herbal medicine, for the family by mixing turmeric juice with lime and palm sugar. Lilir refers to the mixture as a daily “antibiotic healing” juice.

“I drink this every day, and I haven’t been sick in years,” she said.

Her parents also stressed the use of only natural, organic plants, grown without fertilizers or insecticides. In her family, said Lilir, a wealth of traditional herbal healing lore was passed on from the parents to the children as they grew up. In 1988, Lilir started working as a nanny for an Englishwoman, Melanie Templar, an aromatherapist who had settled in Bali. After 10 years, when Templar’s children no longer needed a nanny, the two discussed working together to develop a line of products based on the traditional healing herbal plants of Bali.

The two set up Utama Spice as a small, cottage industry which could give jobs to poor women, initially producing massage oils. Templar encouraged Lilir to study botany to augment her traditional knowledge of Balinese herbs with scientific training. Lilir also studied Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture with traditional Chinese doctors from Indonesia and the United States.

In her formal study, Lilir had to learn the scientific names of the local flora, as well as the local names. Researchers now come to her for advice, as they often know only the scientific name of the plants they seek, and other local healers often know only the Balinese names, allowing Lilir to bridge the two worlds.

Having already inherited her parent’s faith in organic, or bio-dynamic, sources, Lilir found as she began to develop new products that organic ingredients extended the shelf life. Lilir then studied permaculture with the Indonesian Disaster, Environment and Permaculture Foundation. “They gave me methods for organic farming,” Lilir said.

With her husband, I Made Westi, who had also trained in permaculture, Lilir set up organic gardens to supply herbs for the company. However, as demand for products grew, they quickly outgrew their small plots so she began to work with the Bali Organic Association and its farmers to source more ingredients. She later arranged with a local organic market to have a stall on Saturdays, where she sells Utama Spice products, her homemade turmeric jamu, and rice, cocoa, coconut oil and spices from BOA farmers.

Lilir’s husband Westi also works for Utama Spice. Having come from a family of farmers who also used healing herbs, Westi understands native plants and their uses and benefits, and, like his wife, is a walking encyclopaedia of herbal knowledge. Westi said he tries to be supportive of his wife as she balances her career and a family. As Lilir is so busy juggling her various commitments, he said, he often does the daily shopping or runs the Saturday market stall.

When other Balinese men tease him about doing what are traditionally seen as a wife’s duties, Westi tells them he represents the future of more egalitarian marriages in Bali, that they are stuck in the past and that their relationships with their own wives would be much happier if they emulated him. “Watch and learn,” he tells them.

Lilir said that in tourism villages, like Ubud, most Balinese have left the native healing traditions behind and flocked to Western-trained doctors. “But now many are returning,” she said, “because they’re always sick and weak” from smoking, stress, long work hours and sedentary jobs.

She said people remember a time when Balinese were healthier and lived longer. In smaller, rural villages, people still use traditional herbs and don’t have as many illnesses. What people don’t realize, she said, is that as they lose their agricultural land to development, they are also losing their traditional medical heritage, and are forced to rely on Western medicine; while an entire natural pharmacy grows wild in and around the sawahs, or rice fields.

Lilir is also an advocate for healing massage, and has trained in techniques developed at the Esalen Institute in the United States. She said that massage is another traditional healing practice in Bali families that is seldom practiced anymore. She recently started offering two-hour classes that teaching people to make jamu, custom-designed body oils, scrubs and masks. She said that as she often has tourists taking the class, she uses ingredients that are easy to get in the student’s home countries, or offers a list of alternative materials they can use.

The company’s largest wholesale customers, she said, are from the United States and Japan. The Japanese love Utama Spice’s Bug Begone, a neem and patchouli-based insect repellent, and Lilir said she sends more of the repellent to Japan than all the other products combined that are shipped there.

Utama Spice products are sold across Bali and Indonesia, where the best-selling items are still the massage oils. Inti Spa on Bintan Island has been a customer for more than 12 years. The Four Seasons, Kaman Dalu and many other spas use Utama Spice massage oils and body scrubs. Never one to stop learning, Lilir was recently selected for a four-year scholarship to study Ayurvedic medicine at the Hindu University of Indonesia in Bali.

“Ayurvedic medicine and Balinese herbal traditions are very similar,” she said, explaining both systems are based on old holy books and healing plants. She plans to leave Utama Spice at the end of her studies and set up an Ayurvedic practice. However, she said, it will be difficult to find someone to replace her running the business. Templar returned to live in England several years ago and is no longer involved on a daily basis.

Lilir has tried to train two different people to manage the company, but found that her own unique skill set, with a knowledge of herb lore and botanical training, plus the management and marketing skills she’s had to learn on the job, make her uniquely qualified and make the position difficult to fill.

“People who come to work at Utama Spice have been educated or learned about herbs from books, but they don’t have an intuitive feel for herbs and their uses,” she said. “You can always look up a scientific name on the Internet, but it’s not the same as having a sound working knowledge of Balinese herbs.” Developing products is a skilled art, she said, as herbs and “essential oils can be dangerous if you’re not careful or well trained and experienced in using them.”

A Medicine Cabinet in Your Backyard

Ni Wayan Lilir and her husband, I Made Westi, felt so strongly about educating people about the traditional herbs of Bali, and teaching the importance of saving the natural environment in which the herbs grow, that they developed a guided walk in the sawahs, or rice paddies, around Ubud for tourists and locals. On the tour, they show people how to find traditional herbal cures for many illnesses.

Lilir said that when she was a girl, the rice paddies stretched much further, but now that the artist town of Ubud is becoming heavily built-up, the paddies are becoming fewer and fewer as families sell land to developers. There was a time, she said, when Balinese knew instinctively what healing or useful plants were in season at any given time of year. “But now, many people have forgotten what plants grow together, or they remember only one or two.”

The tour identifies plants used for shampoos, for soap, to treat dandruff and even to set semi-permanent waves in hair. There are leaves for the treatment of diarrhea, ear infections, sore throats and dysentery, and roots to combat hemorrhoids and upset stomachs and even to dye clothes. Walkers also learn what saps clot bleeding, treat cold sores and lessen body odor, which flowers to use for cataracts, conjunctivitis and to aid easy births, the seeds that kill internal parasites when ground and drunk like coffee and the wild spices that alleviate asthma, tuberculosis and colds. Lilir encourages people to taste and smell the various leaves and flowers while walking slowly from plant to plant.

Three- to four-hour-long herb walks start each day at 8:30 a.m. Bookings must be made in advance at 081 2381 6020/4 or on www.baliherbalwalk.com. The cost is $18 per person and includes herbal drinks and tea, Balinese cake and tropical fruit.

Article written by Elizabeth Sinclair
Published on Jakarta Globe – www.thejakartaglobe.com