Malay Magic by Walter William Skeat

Perform the operation carefully, so that they are all likely to live. "In the centre of the ground enclosed by the frame deposit a cocoa-nut shell full of water. "Early next morning go out and observe the omens. If the frame has moved aside (berkuak) ever so little, or if the water has been spilt, it is a bad omen. But if not, and if the water in the cocoa-nut shell has not been spilt, or if a black ant (semut) or a white ant (anei-anei) is found in the water, it is a good sign. "When good omens have been obtained, proceed by planting rice-seed in seven holes with a dibble of satambun wood, repeating the following charm:-- "In the name of God, etc., Peace be with you, Prophet 'Tap, Here I lodge with you, my child, S'ri Gading, Gemala Gading, [414] But within from six months to seven I will come and receive it back, Cluck, cluck, soul! cluck, cluck, soul! cluck, cluck, soul!" The Planting out of the Young Rice The following account (by Mr. C. O. Blagden) of the ceremony of planting out the young rice (from the rice-nursery) appeared in the Journal of the Straits Asiatic Society in 1896:-- "In agricultural operations the animistic ideas of the Malays are clearly apparent: thus, before the rice is cut a sort of ritual is performed which is known as puji padi, and which is regarded, apparently, as a kind of propitiatory service, a sort of apology to the padi (rice) for reaping it. The padi is usually sprinkled with tepong tawar (flour mixed with water) before the reaping is commenced, and the first lot cut is set apart for a ceremonial feast. "At planting there are also ceremonies: as a rule the beginning of the planting season is ushered in by a visit of the whole body of villagers to the most highly revered kramat in the neighbourhood, where the usual offerings are made and prayers are said. Sometimes, however, there is a special service known as bapua, [415] consisting of a sort of mock combat, in which the evil spirits are believed to be expelled from the rice-fields by the villagers: this is not done every year, but once in three or four years. "Another occasional service of a peculiar character, which is not of very frequent occurrence, is the ceremony which would perhaps be best described as the propitiation of the earth-spirit. Some years ago I happened, by chance, to be present at a function of this kind, and as its details may be of some interest as illustrating the wide dispersion of certain points of ritual, I will end these notes by giving a full description of it as noted down at the time. It was in the month of October, and I happened to be out shooting snipe in the padi-fields of the village of Sebatu on a Sunday morning, when I was met by the Penghulu, the headman of the village, who asked me to leave off shooting for an hour or so. As I was having fair sport, I naturally wanted to know the reason why, so he explained that the noise of gunshots would irritate the hantu, and render unavailing the propitiatory service which was then about to begin. Further inquiry elicited the statement that the hantu in question was the one who presided over rice-lands and agricultural operations, and as I was told that there would be no objection to my attending the ceremony, I went there and then to the spot to watch the proceedings. The place was a square patch of grass-lawn a few yards wide, which had evidently for years been left untouched by the plough, though surrounded by many acres of rice-fields. On this patch a small wooden altar had been built: it consisted simply of a small square platform of wood or bamboo raised about three or four feet above the ground, each corner being supported by a small sapling with the leaves and branches left on it and overshadowing the platform, the sides of which appeared to face accurately towards the four cardinal points. To the western side was attached a small bamboo ladder leading from the ground to the edge of the platform. At the four corners of the patch of grass were four larger saplings planted in the ground. On the branches of all these trees were hung a number of ketupats, which are small squarish bags plaited of strips of the leaves of the screw-pine (mengkuang) or some similar plant, like the material of which native bags and mats are made. A larger ketupat hung over the centre of the altar, and all of them were filled with a preparation of boiled rice. On the altar were piled up various cooked foods laid on plantain leaves, including the flesh of a goat cooked in the ordinary way, as well as rice and different kinds of condiments and sweetmeats. The Pawang was present as well as a number of the villagers, and soon after my arrival with the Penghulu the ceremony began by some of the villagers producing out of a bag the skin of a black male goat with the head and horns attached and containing the entrails (the flesh having been cooked and laid on the altar previously). A large iron nail four or five inches long, and thick in proportion, was placed vertically in a hole about two feet deep which had been dug under the altar, and the remains of the goat were also buried in it, with the head turned towards the east, the hole being then closed and the turf replaced. Some of the goat's blood, in two cocoa-nut shells (tempurong), was placed on the ground near the south side and south-west corner of the altar close to the ladder. "The Pawang, after assisting at these preliminaries, then took his stand at the west side of the altar, looking eastward: he covered his head, but not his face, with his sarong wrapped round it like a shawl, and proceeded to light a torch, the end of which was tipped with incense (kemenyan). With this he touched the bottom of the altar platform four times. He then took a cup of tepong tawar and dipped in it a small bundle of four kinds of leaves, with which he then sprinkled the north-west and south-east corners of the platform. He then coughed three times--whether this was part of the ritual, or a purely incidental occurrence, I am unable to say, as it was not practicable to stop the ceremony for the purpose of asking questions--and again applied the torch under the altar and sprinkled with tepong tawar all the corners of it, as well as the rungs of the ladder. "At this stage of the proceedings four men stationed in the rice-field beyond the four corners of the patch of turf, each threw a ketupat diagonally across to one another, while the rest of the assembly, headed by the Penghulu, chanted the kalimah, or Muhammadan creed, three times. "Then a man holding a large bowl started from a point in the rice-field just outside the north side of the patch of turf, and went round it (first in a westerly direction). As he walked, he put handfuls of the rice into his mouth and spat or vomited them out, with much noise, as if to imitate violent nausea, into the field. He was followed closely by another who also held a bowl filled with pieces of raw tapioca root and beras bertih (rice roasted in a peculiar way), [416] which he threw about into the field. Both of them went right round the grass plot. The Pawang then took his cup of tepong tawar and sprinkled the anak padi, that is, the rice-shoots which were lying in bundles along the south and east sides of the altar ready for planting. Having sprinkled them he cut off the ends, as is usually done; and after spitting to the right and to the left, he proceeded to plant them in the field. A number of others then followed his lead and planted the rest of the rice-plants, and then a sweetmeat made of cocoa-nut and sugar was handed round, and Muhammadan prayers were said by some duly qualified person, an orang `alim or a lebei, and the ceremony was concluded. "It was explained to me that the blood and the food were intended for the hantu, and the ladder up to the altar was for his convenience; in fact the whole affair was a propitiatory service, and offers curious analogies with the sacrificial ceremonials of some of the wild aboriginal tribes of Central India who have not been converted to Hinduism or Islam. That it should exist in a Malay community within twenty miles of the town of Malacca, where Muhammadanism has been established for about six [417] centuries, is certainly strange. Its obvious inconsistency with his professed religion does not strike the average Malay peasant at all. It is, however, the fact that these observances are not regarded with much favour by the more strictly Muhammadan Malays of the towns, and especially by those that are partially of Arab descent. These latter have not much influence in country districts, but privately I have heard some of them express disapproval of such rites and even of the ceremonies performed at kramats. According to them, the latter might be consistent with Muhammadan orthodoxy on the understanding that prayers were addressed solely to the Deity; but the invocation of spirits or deceased saints and their propitiation by offerings could not be regarded as otherwise than polytheistic idolatry. Of course such a delicate distinction--almost as subtle as that between dulia and latria in the Christian worship of saints--is entirely beyond the average Malay mind; and everything is sanctioned by immemorial custom, which in an agricultural population is more deeply-rooted than any book-learning; so these rites are likely to continue for some time, and will only yield gradually to the spread of education. Such as they are, they seem to be interesting relics of an old-world superstition. "I have mentioned only a few such points, and only such as have been brought directly to my knowledge; there are hosts of other quaint notions, such as the theory of lucky and unlucky days and hours, on which whole treatises have been written, and which regulate every movement of those who believe in them; the belief in amulets and charms for averting all manner of evils, supernatural and natural; the practice during epidemics of sending out to sea small elaborately constructed vessels which are supposed to carry off the malignant spirits responsible for the disease (of which I remember a case a few years ago in the village of Sempang, where the beneficial effect was most marked); the widespread belief in the power of menuju, that is, doing injury at a distance by magic, in which the Malays believe the wild junglemen especially to be adepts; the belief in the efficacy of forms of words as love-charms and as a protection against spirits and wild beasts--in fact, an innumerable variety of superstitious ideas exist among Malays." [418] The Reaping Ceremony On the 28th January 1897 I witnessed (at Chodoi, in the Kuala Langat district of Selangor) the ceremony of fetching home the Rice-soul. Time of Ceremony.--I arrived at the house belonging to the Malay owner of the rice-field a little past 8 A.M., the hour at which the ceremony was to take place having been fixed at angkat kening (about 9 A.M.) a few days previously. On my arrival I found the Pawang (sorceress), an aged Selangor woman, seated in front of the baskets required for the ceremony. [419] Accessories.--At her extreme left stood one of the circular brass trays with high sides which are called dulang by the Malays, containing the following objects:--