Alongside the Denpasar and Kesiman royal houses, Pemecutan ruled the area that in present-day Bali is known as Denpasar, as well as parts of Badung regency. The three royal houses lost their military power after suffering a paralyzing defeat in the 1906 battle, known locally as Puputan (battle to the last stand), in which the leaders of the three families and a large number of their loyal soldiers perished under a continuous salvo from the technologically superior Dutch military expedition.
Despite the military defeat and the emergence of the Republic of Indonesia, which put an end to the feudal rule of the royal families, the descendants of the houses still wield substantial political, social and cultural influence over Denpasar’s residents. The Pemecutan royal house’s current leader, Ida Cokorda Pemecutan XII, is the former head of the local chapter of the Golkar Party, former speaker of the Bali Legislative Council, and, despite his brief fall from grace after he stabbed one of his relatives to death, is still a power to be reckoned with in the island’s political landscape.
Pemecutan was also one of the first royal houses to open its palace to tourists, giving visitors the opportunity to see the architectural beauty of the buildings, as well as the daily life of their blue-blooded occupants. Pemecutan Palace, which lies on Jl. Thamrin in the old quarter of Denpasar city, has now been included in Jelajah Pusaka, a government-initiated tourism package designed for the history-conscious visitors.
One of Pemecutan’s elders, Anak Agung Ngurah Putra Darmanuraga, said that the royal house traced its ancestral origins to Arya Damar, one of the young princes from East Java’s Majapahit kingdom who joined the military expedition in the 14th century to annex Bali. In 1906, during Puputan Badung, the palace was destroyed following the demise of the king, Cokorda Ngurah Agung Pemecutan. The king and nearly all of his immediate relatives perished in the battle. Two of his surviving sons, AA Gde Lanang and his kid brother Cokorda Ngurah Gede Pemecutan, continued the royal lineage and the palace was rebuilt.
The palace is divided into two main compounds: the living quarters and pemerajan (place of worship). A huge split gate brings visitors to the spacious outer courtyard, where in the past the local communities performed dances and other performing arts. A bell tower, where the hollow wooden drum is kept, and a pavilion for a gamelan musical ensemble are two main buildings in this yard. Upon going through another elaborately carved gate, visitors reach the middle courtyard populated with a balairung, a large hall where the king holds court, and an open stage for art performances. The inner courtyard hosts several open pavilions, including the bale murda, where the corpse of a member of the royal family is laid to rest before being taken to the cemetery, as well as several sleeping quarters.