Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and...

“The accredited intermediary between men and spirits is the Pawang;1 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 Imām, 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 kabĕsaran, 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 (bĕras), and two chupaks of ĕmping (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, 7½ cents.

“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 produce2 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.”3

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 (kabĕsaran). 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 (ʿelmu) you must meet the ghost of a murdered man. Take the midrib of a leaf of the ‘ivory’ cocoa-nut palm (pĕlĕpah 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:—

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.”