puputan

From Balinese puputan.

puputan (plural puputans or puputan)

1. (now historical) A suicidal march towards an enemy as carried out by the aristocracy or ruling class of a Balinese kingdom.
   • 2009, Jeff Lewis and Belinda Lewis, Bali's silent crisis, p. 18:

     According to their own records, the Dutch believed that the royal family had determined upon a fight to the death—another puputan—which left them with no alternative but all-out assault.

   • 2012, Adrian Vickers, Bali: A Paradise Created (2nd ed.), Tuttle 2012, p. 58:

     The puputan was both a sign to other kings of an end, and a way to achieve liberation of the soul by death in battle.

From puput (“to complete, finish off, perfect”).

• IPA^(key): /pupuˈtan/

puputan

1. conclusion, bringing to an end; puputan