Long before the rise of cremation smoke or the thud of earth on coffin lids, there was a tree.

According to Balinese lore, the Taru Menyan—taru meaning “tree,” menyan meaning “fragrant”—has stood sentinel at the edge of Lake Batur for centuries, long before Trunyan village took shape around it. Its scent, locals say, was once so powerful and alluring that it drew outsiders across the lake, threatening the village’s sacred seclusion. To preserve their way of life, the people of Trunyan began placing their dead beneath the tree, allowing its aroma to mask the odour of decay—and, more crucially, to uphold the invisible boundary between the living and the dead.

In the centre of the cemetery stands this tree still, so integral to the death practices of Trunyan that without it, the tradition would be impossible. Towering and ancient, the Taru Menyan is both guardian and gatekeeper. It emits a natural fragrance that neutralises the scent of decomposition, allowing corpses to remain above ground in bamboo cages, open to the sky, without overwhelming the village with the smell of death. Cremation is unnecessary. Earth is not disturbed. The dead are simply returned to the land as they are—intact, visible, and gently decomposing beneath the tree’s watch.

The tree isn’t a metaphor. It plays a practical role, helping maintain a respectful environment amid natural decay. The fragrance is subtle—not perfumed or pungent, but earthy and absorbing, as if the tree is in quiet dialogue with death. Its roots weave through centuries of offerings and bones. Its shade falls across skulls arranged on platforms, cloth-covered remains slowly surrendering to time.

The villagers say the tree eats the smell. But what it truly seems to absorb is fear—the revulsion that so often surrounds death in other places. In Trunyan, the dead are not hurried into fire or sealed away in boxes. They are not hidden. Instead, they are offered to the tree, and through it, to the land. The scent of the Taru Menyan grants a kind of sacred permission for this exposure—an invitation to stay close.

The Taru Menyan is not worshipped like a god. It is revered like an elder—respected because it makes relationship with the dead possible. It allows for proximity. For presence. Its power is both biological and spiritual. It asks nothing but care and offers something extraordinary in return: the ability for a community to remain near its dead without recoil, without shame, without fear.

There is no other known tree like it in the world. And so, the Taru Menyan becomes an ancestor too—one that does not die, but carries death quietly in its limbs, year after year, generation after generation.