Makepung Buffalo Races

Makepung, or buffalo-cart chasing, began informally among Madurese migrant farmers in early twentieth-century Jembrana, West Bali, and was formalized into a two-league competition in 1964, split by the Ijo Gading River into red and green divisions. Paired water buffaloes pull ornate wooden carts down straight dirt tracks in head-to-head heats, typically raced from July through November after the rice harvest.

West Bali's Jembrana regency traces Makepung, or buffalo-cart chasing, to the early twentieth century, when Madurese migrant farmers reportedly began informally racing pairs of plow buffaloes after the workday to see whose animals finished fastest, an origin rooted in ordinary agricultural life rather than any planned spectacle.