Relations with the Supernatural World
(a) The Magician
"The accredited intermediary between men and spirits is the Pawang;
[122] the Pawang is a functionary of great and traditional importance
in a Malay village, though in places near towns the office is
falling into abeyance. In the inland districts, however, the Pawang
is still a power, and is regarded as part of the constituted order
of society, without whom no village community would be complete. It
must be clearly understood that he has nothing whatever to do with
the official Muhammadan religion of the mosque; the village has its
regular staff of elders--the Imam, Khatib, and Bilal--for the mosque
service. But the Pawang is quite outside this system, and belongs
to a different and much older order of ideas; he may be regarded
as the legitimate representative of the primitive 'medicine-man' or
'village-sorcerer,' and his very existence in these days is an anomaly,
though it does not strike Malays as such.
"Very often the office is hereditary, or at least the appointment
is practically confined to the members of one family. Sometimes it
is endowed with certain 'properties' handed down from one Pawang to
his successor, known as the kabesaran, or, as it were, regalia. On
one occasion I was nearly called upon to decide whether these
adjuncts--which consisted, in this particular case, of a peculiar
kind of head-dress--were the personal property of the person then
in possession of them (who had got them from his father, a deceased
Pawang), or were to be regarded as official insignia descending
with the office in the event of the natural heir declining to
serve! Fortunately I was spared the difficult task of deciding this
delicate point of law, as I managed to persuade the owner to take up
the appointment.
"But quite apart from such external marks of dignity, the Pawang is
a person of very real significance. In all agricultural operations,
such as sowing, reaping, irrigation works, and the clearing of jungle
for planting, in fishing at sea, in prospecting for minerals, and in
cases of sickness, his assistance is invoked. He is entitled by custom
to certain small fees; thus, after a good harvest he is allowed, in
some villages, five gantangs of padi, one gantang of rice (beras),
and two chupaks of emping (a preparation of rice and cocoa-nut made
into a sort of sweetmeat) from each householder. After recovery from
sickness his remuneration is the very modest amount of tiga wang
baharu, that is, 7 1/2 cents.
"It is generally believed that a good harvest can only be secured
by complying with his instructions, which are of a peculiar and
comprehensive character.
"They consist largely of prohibitions, which are known as
pantang. Thus, for instance, it is pantang in some places to work in
the rice-field on the 14th and 15th days of the lunar month; and this
rule of enforced idleness, being very congenial to the Malay character,
is, I believe, pretty strictly observed.
"Again, in reaping, certain instruments are proscribed, and in the
inland villages it is regarded as a great crime to use the sickle
(sabit) for cutting the padi; at the very least the first few ears
should be cut with a tuai, a peculiar small instrument consisting of
a semicircular blade set transversely on a piece of wood or bamboo,
which is held between the fingers, and which cuts only an ear or two
at a time. Also the padi must not be threshed by hitting it against
the inside of a box, a practice known as banting padi.
"In this, as in one or two other cases, it may be supposed that the
Pawang's ordinances preserve the older forms of procedure and are
opposed to innovations in agricultural methods. The same is true of
the pantang (i.e. taboo) rule which prescribes a fixed rate of price
at which padi may be sold in the village community to members of the
same village. This system of customary prices is probably a very old
relic of a time when the idea of asking a neighbour or a member of
your own tribe to pay a competition price for an article was regarded
as an infringement of communal rights. It applies to a few other
articles of local produce [123] besides padi, and I was frequently
assured that the neglect of this wholesome rule was the cause of bad
harvests. I was accordingly pressed to fine transgressors, which would
perhaps have been a somewhat difficult thing to do. The fact, however,
that in many places these rules are generally observed is a tribute
to the influence of the Pawang who lends his sanction to them." [124]
"The Pawang keeps a familiar spirit, which in his case is a hantu
pusaka, that is, an hereditary spirit which runs in the family, in
virtue of which he is able to deal summarily with the wild spirits
of an obnoxious character." [125]
The foregoing description is so precise and clear that I have not
much to add to it. There are, however, one or two points which require
emphasis. One of these is that the priestly magician stands in certain
respects on the same footing as the divine man or king--that is to say,
he owns certain insignia which are exactly analogous to the regalia of
the latter, and are, as Mr. Blagden points out, called by the same name
(kabesaran). He shares, moreover, with the king the right to make use
of cloth dyed with the royal colour (yellow), and, like the king,
too, possesses the right to enforce the use of certain ceremonial
words and phrases, in which respect, indeed, his list is longer,
if anything, than that of royalty.
He also acts as a sort of spirit-medium and gives oracles in
trances; possesses considerable political influence; practises
(very occasional) austerities; observes some degree of chastity,
and appears quite sincere in his conviction of his own powers. At
least he always has a most plausible excuse ready to account for his
inability to do whatever is required. An aged magician who came from
Perak to doctor one of H.H. the Sultan's sons (Raja Kahar) while I
was at Langat, had the unusual reputation of being able to raise a
sandbank in the sea at will; but when I asked if I could see it done,
he explained that it could only be done in time of war when he was
hard pressed by an enemy's boat, and he could not do it for the sake
of mere ostentation! Moreover, like members of their profession all
the world over, these medicine-men are, perhaps naturally, extremely
reticent; it was seldom that they would let their books be seen,
much less copied, even for fair payment, and a Pawang once refused
to tell me a charm until I had taken my shoes off and was seated with
him upon a yellow cloth while he repeated the much-prized formula.
The office of magician is, as has been said, very often hereditary. It
is not so always, however, there being certain recognised ways in
which a man may "get magic." One of the most peculiar is as follows:
"To obtain magical powers (`elmu) you must meet the ghost of a
murdered man. Take the midrib of a leaf of the 'ivory' cocoa-nut
palm (pelepah niyor gading), which is to be laid on the grave, and
two more midribs, which are intended to represent canoe-paddles, and
carry them with the help of a companion to the grave of the murdered
man at the time of the full moon (the 15th day of the lunar month)
when it falls upon a Tuesday. Then take a cent's worth of incense,
with glowing embers in a censer, and carry them to the head-post of the
grave of the deceased. Fumigate the grave, going three times round it,
and call upon the murdered man by name:--
'Hearken, So-and-so,
And assist me;
I am taking (this boat) to the saints of God,
And I desire to ask for a little magic.' [126]
Here take the first midrib, fumigate it, and lay it upon the head
of the grave, repeating 'Kur Allah' ('Cluck, cluck, God!') seven
times. You and your companion must now take up a sitting posture, one
at the head and the other at the foot of the grave, facing the grave
post, and use the canoe-paddles which you have brought. In a little
while the surrounding scenery will change and take upon itself the
appearance of the sea, and finally an aged man will appear, to whom
you must address the same request as before."
(b) High Places
"Although officially the religious centre of the village community is
the mosque, there is usually in every small district a holy place known
as the kramat, [127] at which vows are paid on special occasions, and
which is invested with a very high degree of reverence and sanctity.
"These kramats abound in Malacca territory; there is hardly a village
but can boast some two or three in its immediate neighbourhood,
and they are perfectly well known to all the inhabitants.
"Theoretically, kramats are supposed to be the graves of deceased holy
men, the early apostles of the Muhammadan faith, the first founders of
the village who cleared the primeval jungle, or other persons of local
notoriety in a former age; and there is no doubt that many of them are
that and nothing more. But even so, the reverence paid to them and the
ceremonies that are performed at them savour a good deal too much of
ancestor-worship to be attributable to an orthodox Muhammadan origin.
"It is certain, however, that many of these kramats are not graves
at all: many of them are in the jungle, on hills and in groves,
like the high places of the Old Testament idolatries; they contain
no trace of a grave (while those that are found in villages usually
have grave-stones), and they appear to be really ancient sites of a
primitive nature-worship or the adoration of the spirits of natural
objects.
"Malays, when asked to account for them, often have recourse to the
explanations that they are kramat jin, that is, "spirit"-places;
and if a Malay is pressed on the point, and thinks that the orthodoxy
of these practices is being impugned, he will sometimes add that the
jin in question is a jin islam, a Muhammadan and quite orthodox spirit!
"Thus on Bukit Nyalas, near the Johol frontier, there is a kramat
consisting of a group of granite boulders on a ledge of rock
overhanging a sheer descent of a good many feet; bamboo clumps grow
on the place, and there were traces of religious rites having been
performed there, but no grave whatever. This place was explained
to me to be the kramat of one Nakhoda Hussin, described as a jin
(of the orthodox variety), who presides over the water, rain, and
streams. People occasionally burned incense there to avert drought
and get enough water for irrigating their fields. There was another
kramat of his lower down the hill, also consisting of rocks, one of
which was shaped something like a boat. I was informed that this jin
is attended by tigers which guard the hill, and are very jealous
of the intrusion of other tigers from the surrounding country. He
is believed to have revealed himself to the original Pawang of the
village, the mythical founder of the kampong of Nyalas. In a case
like this it seems probable that the name attached to this object
of reverence is a later accretion, and that under a thin disguise
we have here a relic of the worship of the spirit of rivers and
streams, a sort of elemental deity localised in this particular place,
and still regarded as a proper object of worship and propitiation,
in spite of the theoretically strict monotheism of the Muhammadan
creed. Again, at another place the kramat is nothing but a tree,
of somewhat singular shape, having a large swelling some way up the
trunk. It was explained to me that this tree was connected in a special
way with the prospects of local agriculture, the size of the swelling
increasing in good years and diminishing in bad seasons! Hence it was
naturally regarded with considerable awe by the purely agricultural
population of the neighbourhood.
"As may be imagined, it is exceedingly difficult to discover any
authentic facts regarding the history of these numerous kramats:
even where there is some evidence of the existence of a grave, the
name of the departed saint is usually the one fact that is remembered,
and often even that is forgotten. The most celebrated of the Malacca
kramats, the one at Machap, is a representative type of the first
class, that in which there really is a grave: it is the one place
where a hardened liar respects the sanctity of an oath, and it is
occasionally visited in connection with civil cases, when the one
party challenges the other to take a particular oath. A man who thinks
nothing of perjuring himself in the witness-box, and who might not much
mind telling a lie even with the Koran on his head, will flinch before
the ordeal of a falsehood in the presence of the Dato' Machap." [128]
After explaining the difference between beneficent spirits and the
spirits of evil, Mr. Blagden continues: "Some time ago one of these
objectionable hantus (spirits of evil) had settled down in a kerayong
tree in the middle of this village of Bukit Senggeh, and used to
frighten people who passed that way in the dusk; so the Pawang was
duly called upon to exorcise it, and under his superintendence the
tree was cut down, after which there was no more trouble. But it is
certain that it would have been excessively dangerous for an ordinary
layman to do so.
"This point may be illustrated by a case which was reported to me
soon after it occurred, and which again shows the intimate connection
of spirits with trees. A Javanese coolie, on the main road near Ayer
Panas, cut down a tree which was known to be occupied by a hantu. He
was thereupon seized with what, from the description, appears to have
been an epileptic fit, and showed all the traditional symptoms of
demoniac possession. He did not recover till his friends had carried
out the directions of the spirit, speaking through the sufferer's
mouth, it seems, viz., to burn incense, offer rice, and release a
fowl. After which the hantu left him.
"In many places there are trees which are pretty generally believed
to be the abodes of spirits, and not one Malay in ten would venture
to cut one down, while most people would hardly dare to go near
one after dark. On one occasion an exceptionally intelligent Malay,
with whom I was discussing the terms on which he proposed to take up
a contract for clearing the banks of a river, made it an absolute
condition that he should not be compelled to cut down a particular
tree which overhung the stream, on the ground that it was a 'spirit'
tree. That tree had to be excluded from the contract." [129]
The following description, by Sir W. Maxwell, of a Perak kramat may
be taken as fairly typical of the kramat, in which there really is
a grave:--
"Rightly or wrongly the Malays of Larut assign an Achinese origin
to an old grave which was discovered in the forest some years ago,
and of which I propose to give a brief description. It is situated
about half-way between the Larut Residency and the mining village of
Kamunting. In the neighbourhood the old durian trees of Java betoken
the presence of a Malay population at a date long prior to the advent
of the Chinese miner. The grave was discovered about twenty years
ago by workmen employed by the Mentri of Perak to make the Kamunting
road, and it excited much curiosity among the Malays at the time. The
Mentri and all the ladies of his family went on elephants to see it,
and it has been an object of much popular prestige ever since.
"The Malays of Java were able from the village tradition to give the
name and sex of the occupant of this lonely tomb, 'Toh Bidan Susu
Lanjut,' whose name sounds better in the original than in an English
translation. She is said to have been an old Achinese woman of good
family; of her personal history nothing is known, but her claims
to respectability are evinced by the carved head and foot stones
of Achinese workmanship which adorn her grave, and her sanctity
is proved by the fact that the stones are eight feet apart. It is
a well-known Malay superstition that the stones placed to mark the
graves of Saints miraculously increase their relative distance during
the lapse of years, and thus bear mute testimony to the holiness of
the person whose resting-place they mark.
"The kramat on the Kamunting road is on the spur of a hill through
which the roadway is cut. A tree overshadows the grave and is hung with
strips of white cloth and other rags (panji panji) which the devout
have put there. The direction of the grave is as nearly as possible
due north and south. The stones at its head and foot are of the same
size, and in every respect identical one with the other. They are
of sandstone, and are said by the natives to have been brought from
Achin. In design and execution they are superior to ordinary Malay
art, as will be seen, I think, on reference to the rubbings of the
carved surface of one of them, which have been executed for me by the
Larut Survey Office, and which I have transmitted to the Society with
this paper. The extreme measurements of the stones (furnished from
the same source) are 2' 1'' × 0' 9'' × 0' 7''. They are in excellent
preservation, and the carving is fresh and sharp. Some Malays profess
to discover in the three rows of vertical direction on the broadest
face of the slabs the Mohammedan attestation of the unity of God
(La ilaha illa-lla) repeated over and over again; but I confess that
I have been unable to do so. The offerings at a kramat are generally
incense (istangi or satangi) or benzoin (kaminian); these are burned
in little stands made of bamboo rods; one end is stuck in the ground
and the other split into four or five, and then opened out and plaited
with basket work so as to hold a little earth. They are called sangka;
a Malay will often vow that if he succeeds in some particular project,
or gets out of some difficulty in which he may happen to be placed,
he will burn three or more sangka at such and such a kramat. Persons
who visit a kramat in times of distress or difficulty, to pray and
to vow offerings, in case their prayers are granted, usually leave
behind them as tokens of their vows small pieces of white cloth,
which are tied to the branches of a tree or to sticks planted in the
ground near the sacred spot. For votary purposes the long-forgotten
tomb of Toh Bidan Susu Lanjut enjoys considerable popularity among
the Mohammedans of Larut; and the tree which overshadows it has,
I am glad to say, been spared the fate which awaited the rest of the
jungle which overhung the road. No coolie was bold enough to put an
axe to it." [130]
Mr. George Bellamy, writing in 1893, thus described the kramat at
Tanjong Karang in the Kuala Selangor district:--
"The kramat about which I am now writing is a very remarkable one. It
is situated on the extreme point of land at the mouth of the river
Selangor, close to where the new lighthouse has been erected. A
magnificent kayu ara (a kind of fig-tree) forms a prominent feature of
the tanjong (point or cape), and at the base of this tree, enveloped
entirely by its roots, is an oblong-shaped space having the appearance
of a Malay grave, with the headstones complete.... To this sacred
spot constant pilgrimages are made by the Malays, and the lower
branches of the tree rarely lack those pieces of white and yellow
cloth which are always hung up as an indication that some devout
person has paid his vows. The Chinese also have great respect for
this kramat, and have erected a sort of sylvan temple at the foot of
the tree." Mr. Bellamy tells how one Raja `Abdullah fell in love with
a maiden named Miriam, who disappeared and was supposed to have been
taken by the spirits (though she was really carried off by an earlier
lover named Hassan). Raja `Abdullah died and was buried at the foot of
the fig-tree. Mr. Bellamy concludes: "If you ever happen to see a very
big crocodile at the mouth of the Selangor river, floating listlessly
about, be careful not to molest it: it is but the buaya kramat, which
shape the spirit of Raja `Abdullah sometimes assumes. When walking
along the pantai (shore), if you chance to meet a very large tiger let
him pass unharmed. It is only Raja `Abdullah's ghost, and in proof
thereof you will see it leaves no footmarks on the sand. And when
you go to see the new lighthouse at Tanjong Kramat, you may perhaps
come face to face with a very old man, who sadly shakes his head and
disappears. Do not be startled, it is only Raja `Abdullah." [131]
In No. 2 of the same volume of the Selangor Journal Mr. Bellamy refers
to another kramat--that of 'Toh Ketapang--which he appears to localise
in Ulu Selangor.
It is by no means necessary to ensure the popularity of a kramat or
shrine that the saint to whose memory it is dedicated should be a
Malay. The cosmopolitan character of these shrines is attested in
the following note which I sent to the Selangor Journal [132] about
the shrines in the Ulu Langat (Kajang) district of Selangor:--
"The chief kramats in the district are 'Makam 'Toh Sayah' (the tomb of
a Javanese of high repute); 'Makam Said Idris,' at Rekoh, Said Idris
being the father of the Penghulu of Cheras; 'Makam 'Toh Janggut'
(a 'Kampar' man), on the road to Cheras; and 'Makam 'Toh Gerdu or
Berdu,' at Dusun Tua, Ulu Langat. 'Toh Berdu was of Sakai origin."
I have never yet, however, heard of any shrine being dedicated to
a Chinaman, and it is probable that this species of canonisation is
confined (at least in modern times) to local celebrities professing
the Muhammadan religion, as would certainly be the case of the Malays
and Javanese mentioned in the foregoing paragraph, and quite possibly
too in the case of the Sakai.
It is true that Chinese often worship at these shrines--just as, on
the same principle, they employ Malay magicians in prospecting for
tin; but there appear to be certain limits beyond which they cannot
go, as it was related to me when I was living in the neighbourhood,
that a Chinaman who had, in the innocence of his heart, offered at a
Moslem shrine a piece of the accursed pork, was pounced upon and slain
before he reached home by one of the tigers which guarded the shrine.
The shrine of 'Toh Kamarong is one of the most celebrated shrines in
the Langat district, the saint's last resting-place being guarded by a
white elephant and a white tiger, the latter of which had been a pet
(pemainan) of his during his lifetime. In this respect it is exactly
similar to the shrine of 'Toh Parwi of Pantei in Sungei Ujong, which is
similarly guarded, both shrines having been erected on the seashore,
it is said, in the days when the sea came much farther inland than it
does at present. The fame of 'Toh Kamarong filled the neighbourhood,
and it is related that on one occasion an irate mother exclaimed,
of a son of hers who was remarkable for his vicious habits, "May the
'Toh Kramat Kamarong fly away with him." Next day the boy disappeared,
and all search proved fruitless, until three days later 'Toh Kamarong
appeared to her in a dream, and informed her that he had carried the
boy off, as she had invited him to do, and that if she were to look
for his footprints she would be able to discover them inside the
pad-tracks of a tiger one of whose feet was smaller than the rest,
and which was then haunting the spot. She did so, and discovered her
son's footprints exactly as the saint had foretold. This Ghost-tiger,
which no doubt must be identified with 'Toh Kamarong's "pet," used
to roam the district when I was stationed in the neighbourhood, and
both I and, I believe, the then District Engineer (Mr. Spearing), saw
this tiger's tracks, and can vouch for the fact that one footprint
was smaller than the rest. This curious feature is thought by the
local Malays at least, to be one of the specially distinctive marks
of a rimau kramat, or Ghost-tiger, just as the possession of one tusk
that is smaller than the other is the mark of a Ghost-elephant. [133]
Closely connected with the subject of shrines is that of high places,
such as those spots where religious penance was traditionally
practised. One of these sacred spots is said to have been situated
upon the "Mount Ophir" of Malacca, which is about 4000 feet high,
and on which a certain legendary Princess known as Tuan Putri Gunong
Ledang is said to have dwelt, until she transferred her ghostly court
to Jugra Hill, upon the coast of Selangor. [134]
Such fasting-places are usually, as in Java, either solitary hills or
places which present some great natural peculiarity; even remarkable
trees and rocks being, as has already been pointed out, pressed into
the service of this Malay "natural religion."
(c) Nature of Rites
The main divisions of the magico-religious ceremonies of the Malays
are prayer, sacrifice, lustration, fasting, divination, and possession.
Prayer, which is defined by Professor Tylor as "a request made to a
deity as if he were a man," is still in the unethical stage among
the Malays; no request for anything but personal advantages of a
material character being ever, so far as I am aware, preferred by
the worshipper. The efficacy of prayer is, however, often supposed
to be enhanced by repetition.
"As prayer is a request made to a deity as if he were a man, so
sacrifice is a gift made to a deity as if he were a man.... The ruder
conception that the deity takes and values the offering for itself,
gives place, on the one hand, to the idea of mere homage as expressed
by a gift, and, on the other, to the negative view that the virtue
lies in the worshipper depriving himself of something prized." [135]
A general survey of the charms and ceremonies brought together in
this volume will, I think, be likely to establish the view that the
Malays (in accordance with the reported practice of many other races)
probably commenced with the idea of sacrifice as a simple gift,
and therefrom developed first the idea of ceremonial homage, and
later the idea of sacrifice as an act of abnegation. Evidences of
the original gift-theory chiefly survive in the language of charms,
in which the deity appealed to is repeatedly invited to eat and
drink of the offerings placed before him, as a master may be invited
to eat by his servants. The intermediate stage between the gift and
homage theories is marked by an extensive use of "substitutes," and
of the sacrifice of a part or parts for the whole. Thus we even find
the dough model of a human being actually called "the substitute"
(tukar ganti), and offered up to the spirits upon the sacrificial
tray; in the same sense are the significant directions of a magician,
that "if the spirit craves a human victim a cock may be substituted"
and the custom of hunters who, when they have killed a deer, leave
behind them in the forest small portions of each of the more important
members of the deer's anatomy, as "representatives" of the entire
carcase. In this last case the usual "ritualistic change may be traced
from practical reality to formal ceremony." "The originally valuable
offering is compromised for a smaller tribute or a cheaper substitute,
dwindling at last to a mere trifling token or symbol." [136]
This homage-theory will, I believe, be found to cover by far the
greater bulk of the sacrifices usually offered by Malays, and the idea
of abnegation appears to be practically confined to votal ceremonies
or vows (niat), in which the nature and extent of the offering are not
regulated by custom, but depend entirely upon the wealth or caprice of
the worshipper, there being merely a tacit understanding that he shall
sacrifice something which is of more than nominal value to himself.
Of the manner in which offerings are supposed to be received by the
deity to whom they are offered it is difficult to obtain very much
evidence. I have, however, frequently questioned Malays upon this
subject, and on the whole think it can very safely be said that the
deity is not supposed to touch the solid or material part of the
offering, but only the essential part, whether it be "life, savour,
essence, quality" or even the "soul."
It will perhaps be advisable, in order to avoid repetition, to describe
a few of the special and distinctive sub-rites which form part of
many of the more important ceremonies, such as (in particular), rites
performed at shrines, the rite of burning incense, the scattering of
(or banqueting upon) sacrificial rice, and the application of the
"Neutralising" Rice-paste (tepong tawar).
Of the rites performed at shrines, Mr. Blagden says: "The worship
there, as with most other kramats, consists of the burning of incense,
the offering of nasi kunyet (yellow rice), and the killing of goats;
but I also noticed a number of live pigeons there which illustrate
the practice, common in Buddhist countries, of releasing an animal
in order to gain 'merit' thereby." At a shrine on the Langat river
I have seen fowls which had (I was told) been similarly released.
Mr. Blagden's remarks apply with equal force to the services performed
at the shrines of Selangor, and I believe also of other States. It
should, however, I think, be pointed out that the nasi kunyit (yellow
rice) is, usually at all events, eaten by those who take part in
the service. At a ceremony which was held on one occasion after
my recovery from sickness, and in which, by request, I took part,
[137] incense was burnt, and Muhammadan prayers chanted, after which
the usual strip of white cloth (five cubits in length) was laid upon
the saint's grave (the saint being the father of the present Sultan
of Selangor), and the party then adjourned to a shelter some twenty
or thirty yards lower down the hill, where, first the men, and then
the women and children, partook of the flesh of the slaughtered goat
and the saffron-stained rice (pulut). After the meal the Bilal (mosque
attendant, who was present with the Malay headman and the local priest
of the mosque), returned to the tomb, and making obeisance, recited
a Muhammadan prayer, craving permission to take the cloth back for
his own use, which he presently did. These Bilals are needy men and
live upon the alms of the devout, so I suppose he thought there was
no reason why the saint should not contribute something to his support.
The burning of incense is one of the very simplest, and hence
commonest, forms of burnt sacrifice. Some magicians say that it
should be accompanied by an invocation addressed to the Spirit of
Incense, which should be besought, as in the example quoted below,
to "pervade the seven tiers of earth and sky respectively." It would
appear that the intention of the worshipper is to ensure that his
"sacrifice of sweet savour" should reach the nostrils of the gods
and help to propitiate them, wherever they may be, by means of a
foretaste of offerings to follow. This invocation, however, is not
unfrequently omitted, or at least slurred over by the worshipper, in
spite of the contention of the magicians who use it, that "without
it the spell merely rises like smoke which is blown away by the
wind." The following is one form of the invocation in question:--
Zabur [138] Hijau is your name, O Incense,
Zabur Bajang the name of your Mother,
Zabur Puteh the name of your Fumes,
Scales from the person of God's Apostle [139] were your Origin.
May you fumigate the Seven Tiers of the Earth,
May you fumigate the Seven Tiers of the Sky,
And serve as a summons to all Spirits, to those which have magic
powers, and those which have become Saints of God,
The Spirits of God's elect, who dwell in the Halo of the Sun,
And whose resort is the "Ka`bah" of God,
At even and morn, by night and day;
And serve as a summons to the Elect of God,
Who dwell at the Gate of the Spaces of Heaven,
And whose resort is the White Diamond
In the Interior of Egypt, at morn and eve,
Who know (how) to make the dead branch live,
And the withered blossom unfold its petals,
And to perform the word of God;
By the grace of (the creed) "There is no god but God," etc.
The direction taken by the fumes of the incense is observed and
noted for the purpose of divination; this feature of the rite will
be noticed under the heading of Medicine. [140]
Another form of sacrifice consists in the scattering of rice. The
sacrificial rice (Oryza sativa) used in the ceremonies is always of
the following kinds: firstly, parched rice (b'ras bertih); secondly,
washed rice (b'ras basoh); thirdly, saffron-stained rice (b'ras kunyit,
i.e. rice stained with turmeric); [141] and, finally, a special kind
of glutinous rice called pulut (Oryza glutinosa), which is also very
generally used for sacrificial banquets.
Of these, the parched rice is generally used for strewing the bottom of
the sacrificial tray (anchak) when the framework has been covered with
banana leaves, but the offerings have not yet been deposited within it.
The washed and saffron rice are generally used for scattering either
over the persons to be benefited by the ceremony, or else upon the
ground or house-floor.
With reference to the selection of rice for this purpose, it has been
suggested that the rice is intended to attract what may be called the
"bird-soul" (i.e. the soul of man conceived as a bird) to the spot,
or to keep it from straying at a particularly dangerous moment in
the life of its owner.
The pulut or glutinous rice is the kind of rice generally used for
sacrificial banquets, e.g. for banquets at "high places," etc.
Lustration is generally accomplished either by means of fire or of
water. The best examples of the former are perhaps the fumigation of
infants, and the api saleian or purificatory fire, over which women
are half-roasted when a birth has taken place, but these being special
and distinctive ceremonies, will be described with others of the same
nature in Chapter VI.
One of the forms of lustration by water, however, appears rather to
take the place of a sub-rite, forming an integral portion of a large
class of ceremonies, such as those relating to Building, Fishing,
Agriculture, Marriage, and so forth. Hence it will be necessary to
give a general sketch of its leading features in the present context.
The ceremony of lustration by water, when it takes the form of the
sub-rite referred to, is called "Tepong Tawar," which properly means
"the Neutralising Rice-flour (Water)," "neutralising" being used
almost in a chemical sense, i.e. in the sense of "sterilising" the
active element of poisons, or of destroying the active potentialities
of evil spirits.
The rite itself consists in the application [142] of a thin
paste made by mixing rice-flour with water: this is taken up in a
brush or "bouquet" of leaves and applied to the objects which the
"neutralisation" is intended to protect or neutralise, whether they
be the posts of a house, the projecting ends of a boat's ribs (tajok
p'rahu), the seaward posts of fishing-stakes (puchi kelong), or the
forehead and back of the hands of the bride and bridegroom.
The brush must be first fumigated with incense, then dipped into the
bowl which contains the rice-water, and shaken out almost dry, for if
the water runs down the object to which it is applied it is held to
"portend tears," whereas if it spreads equally all round (benchar)
it is lucky. The composition of the brush, which is considered to be
of the highest importance, appears to vary, but only within certain
limits. It almost invariably, in Selangor, consists of a selection of
leaves from the following plants, which are made up in small bouquets
of five, seven, or nine leaves each, and bound round with ribu-ribu (a
kind of small creeper), or a string of shredded tree bark (daun t'rap).
The following is a list of the leaves generally used:--
1. Leaves of the grass called sambau dara, which is said to be the
symbol of a "settled soul" (`alamat menetapkan semangat), and which
hence always forms the core of the bouquet. [143]
2. The leaves of the selaguri, which appears to be "a shrub or
small tree with yellow flowers (Clerodendron disparifolium, Bl.,
Verbenaceæ; or Sida rhombifolia, L., Malvaceæ, a common small shrub
in open country)," [144] which is described as one of the first of
shrubs (kayu asal), and is said to be used as a "reminder of origin"
(peringatan asal).
3. The leaves of the pulut-pulut (the exact identity of which I have
not yet ascertained, but which may be the Urena lobata, L., one of
the Malvaceae), which is said to be used for the same purpose as
the preceding.
4. The leaves of the gandarusa (Insticia gandarusa, L., Acanthaceæ),
a plant described as "often cultivated and half-wild--a shrub used
in medicine."
The selection of this plant is said to be due to its reputation for
scaring demons (`alamat menghalaukan hantu). So great is its efficacy
supposed to be, that people who have to go out when rain is falling
and the sun shining simultaneously--a most dangerous time to be abroad,
in Malay estimation,--put a sprig of the gandarusa in their belts.
5. The leaves of the gandasuli (which I have not yet been able to
identify, no such name appearing in Ridley's plant-list, but which I
believe to be a water-side plant which I have seen, with a white and
powerfully fragrant flower). [145] It is considered to be a powerful
charm against noxious birth-spirits, such as the Langsuir.
6. The leaves of the sapanggil (which is not yet identified).
7. The leaves of the lenjuang merah, or "the common red dracæna"
(Cordyline terminalis, var. ferrea, Liliaceæ). [146] This shrub is
planted in graveyards, and occasionally at the four corners of the
house, to drive away ghosts and demons.
8. The leaves of the sapenoh (unidentified), a plant with big round
leaves, which is always placed outside the rest of the leaves in
the bunch.
9. To the above list may be perhaps added the satawar, sitawar
or tawar-tawar (Costus speciosus, L., Scitamineæ, and Forrestia,
spp. Commelinaceæ); and
10. The satebal (Fagræa racemosa, Jack., Loganiaceæ).
Leaves of the foregoing plants and shrubs are made up, as has been
said, in small sets or combinations of five, seven, or even perhaps of
nine leaves a piece. These combinations are said to differ according to
the object to which the rice-water is to be applied. It is extremely
unlikely, however, that all magicians should make the same selections
even for the same objects--rather would they be likely to make use of
such leaves on the list as happen to be most readily available. Still,
however, as the only example of such differentiation which I have yet
been able to obtain, I will give the details of three separate and
distinctive combinations, which were described to me by a Selangor
magician:--
(1) For a wedding ceremony sambau dara tied round with a
selaguri string of shredded
pulut-pulut tree-bark.
sapanggil
sapenoh
(2) For blessing gandarusa tied with the
fishing-stakes selaguri creeper ribu-ribu.
sapanggil
lenjuang merah
sapenoh
(3) For the ceremony of lenjuang tied with
taking the rice-soul merah ribu-ribu.
selaguri
pulut-pulut
sapanggil
sapenoh
Further inquiry and the collection of additional material will no
doubt help to elucidate the general principles on which such selections
are made.
Short rhyming charms are very often used as accompaniments of the rite
of rice-water, but appear to be seldom if ever repeated aloud. The
following is a specimen, and others will be found in the Appendix:
[147]--
"Neutralising Rice-paste, true Rice-paste,
And, thirdly, Rice-paste of Kadangsa!
Keep me from sickness, keep me from death,
Keep me from injury and ruin."
Other not less important developments of the idea of lustration by
water are to be found in such ceremonies as the bathing of mother and
child after a birth and the washing of the floor (basoh lantei) upon
similar occasions, the bathing of the sick, of bride and bridegroom
at weddings, of corpses (meruang), [148] and the annual bathing
expeditions (mandi Safar), which are supposed to purify the persons
of the bathers and to protect them from evil (tolak bala).
Fasting, or the performance of religious penance, which is now
but seldom practised, would appear to have been only undertaken in
former days with a definite object in view, such as the production
of the state of mental exaltation which induces ecstatic visions,
the acquisition of supernatural powers (sakti), and so forth.
The fast always took place, of course, in a solitary spot, and not
unfrequently upon the top of some high and solitary hill such as Mount
Ophir (Gunong Ledang), on the borders of Malacca territory. Frequently,
however, much lower hills, or even plains which possessed some
remarkable rock or tree, would be selected for the purpose.
Such fasting, however, did not, as sometimes with us, convey to the
Malays the idea of complete abstinence, as the magicians informed me
that a small modicum of rice contained in a ketupat (which is a small
diamond-shaped rice-receptacle made of plaited cocoa-nut leaf) was the
daily "allowance" of any one who was fasting. The result was that fasts
might be almost indefinitely prolonged, and the thrice-seven-days'
fast of 'Che Utus upon Jugra Hill, on the Selangor coast, [149] is
still one of the traditions of that neighbourhood, whilst in Malay
romances and in Malay tradition this form of religious penance is
frequently represented as continuing for years.
Finally, I would draw attention to the strong vein of Sympathetic
Magic or "make believe" which runs through and leavens the whole
system of Malay superstition. The root-idea of this form of magic
has been said to be the principle that "cause follows from effect."
"One of the principles of sympathetic magic is that any effect may
be produced by imitating it.... If it is wished to kill a person,
an image of him is made and then destroyed; and it is believed that
through a certain physical sympathy between the person and his image,
the man feels the injuries done to the image as if they were done to
his own body, and that when it is destroyed he must simultaneously
perish." [150]
The principle thus described is perhaps the most important of all
those which underlie the "Black Art" of the Malays.