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

“He next took his royal handkerchief, knotting it so that it stood up with the ends projecting; one of them he called dĕndam ta’ sudah (endless love): it was purposely unfinished; if it were finished the end of the world would come. It had been woven in no ordinary way, but had been the work of his mother from her youth. Wearing it he was provided with all the love-compelling secrets. (The names of a number of charms to excite passion are given, but they cannot be explained in the compass of a note).”31

He wore the Malay national garment—the sarong. It was “a robe of muslin of the finest kind; no ordinary weaving had produced it; it had been woven in a jar in the middle of the ocean by people with gills, relieved by others with beaks; no sooner was it finished than the maker was put to death, so that no one might be able to make one like it. It was not of the fashion of the clothing of the rajas of the present day, but of those of olden time. If it were put in the sun it got damper, if it were soaked in water it became drier. A slight tear mended by darning only increased its value, instead of lessening it, for the thread for the purpose cost one hundred dollars. A single dewdrop dropping on it would tangle the thread for a cubit’s length, while the breath of the south wind would disentangle it.”

“He adopted the art called sedang budiman, the young snake writhed at his feet (i.e. he started at mid-day when his own shadow was round his feet), a young eagle was flying against the wind overhead; he took a step forward and then two backward, one forward as a sign that he was leaving his country, and two backward as a sign that he would return; as he took a step with the right foot, loud clanked his accoutrements32 on his left; as he put forth the left foot a similar clank was heard on his right; he advanced, swelling out his broad chest, and letting drop his slender fingers, adopting the gait called ‘planting beans,’ and then the step called ‘sowing spinach.’”33

In addition to the sanctity of the regalia, the king, as the divine man, possesses an infinite multitude of prerogatives which enter into almost every act of his private life, and thus completely separate him from the generality of his fellow-men.

“Sultan Muhammed Shah again established in order the throne of his sovereignty. He was the first who prohibited the wearing of yellow clothes in public, not even a handkerchief of that colour, nor curtains, nor hangings, nor large pillow-cases, nor coverlets, nor any envelope of any bundle, nor the cloth lining of a house, excepting only the waist cloth, the coat, and the turban. He also prohibited the constructing of houses with abutments, or smaller houses connected with them; also suspended pillars or timbers (tiang gantong); nor timbers the tops of which project above the roofs, and also summer houses.34 He also prohibited the ornamenting of creeses with gold, and the wearing anklets of gold, and the wearing the koronchong, or hollow bracelets (anklets?) of gold, ornamented with silver. None of these prohibited articles did he permit to be worn by a person, however rich he might be, unless by his particular licence, a privilege which the raja has ever since possessed. He also forbade any one to enter the palace unless wearing a cloth petticoat35 of decent length, with his creese in front;36 and a shoulder-cloth; and no person was permitted to enter unless in this array, and if any one wore his creese behind him, it was incumbent on the porter of the gate to seize it. Such is the order of former time respecting prohibition by the Malayu rajas, and whatever is contrary to this is a transgression against the raja, and ought to incur a fine of five cati.

“At funerals, whether the deceased has been a great or insignificant person, if he be a subject, the use of the Payong (umbrella) and the Puwadi is interdicted, as also the distribution of alms, unless by royal permission; otherwise the articles thus forbidden will be confiscated.” “Puwadi is the ceremony of spreading a cloth, generally a white one, for funeral and other processions to walk upon. Should the deceased be of high rank, the cloth extends from the house where the corpse is deposited, to the burial-ground.”39

In addition to the royal monopoly of such objects as have been mentioned, Sir W. E. Maxwell mentions three royal perquisites (larangan raja), i.e. river turtles (tuntong) (by which he no doubt means their eggs); elephants (by which he doubtless means elephants’ tusks);40 and the fruit of the “kĕtiar” from which oil is made by the Perak Malays. He adds, “It used to be a capital offence to give false information to the Raja about any of these. The ‘kĕtiar’ tree is said to affect certain localities, and is found in groves not mixed with other trees. In former days, when the fruit was ripe, the whole of the Raja’s household would turn out to gather it. It is said to yield a very large percentage of oil.”41

Besides the above there are not a few linguistic taboos connected with the king’s person, such as the use of the words santap, to eat; bĕradu, to sleep; bĕrsĕmaiam, to be seated, or to “reside” in a certain place; bĕrangkat, to “progress”; siram, to bathe; g’ring, to be sick; and mangkat, to die; all of which words are specially substituted for the ordinary Malay words when reference is made to the king.44 Moreover, when the king dies his name is dropped, and he receives the title of “Marhum,” the late or “deceased,” with the addition of an expression alluding to some prominent fact in his life, or occasionally to the place of his decease. These titles, strange as it may seem, are often the reverse of complimentary, and occasionally ridiculous.45

It must not be forgotten, too, in discussing the divine attributes of the Malay king, that he is firmly believed to possess a personal influence over the works of nature, such as the growth of the crops and the bearing of fruit-trees. This same property is supposed to reside in a lesser degree in his delegates, and even in the persons of Europeans in charge of districts. Thus I have frequently known (in Selangor) the success or failure of the rice crops attributed to a change of district officers, and in one case I even heard an outbreak of ferocity which occurred among man-eating crocodiles laid at the door of a most zealous and able, though perhaps occasionally somewhat unsympathetic, representative of the Government. So, too, on one occasion when three deaths occurred during a District Officer’s temporary absence, the mere fact of his absence was considered significant. I may add that royal blood is supposed by many Malays to be white, and this is the pivot on which the plot of not a few Malay folk-tales is made to turn.46

Equals in rank when saluting one another touch49 (though they do not shake) each other’s hands, but a person of humble birth must not touch hands in saluting a great chief. “A man, named Imam Bakar, was once slain at Pasir Tambang, at the mouth of the Tĕmbĕling river. He incautiously touched hands in greeting with a Chief called To’ Gajah, and the latter, seizing him in an iron grip, held him fast, while he was stabbed to death with spears.”50

In saluting a great Chief, like the Dato’ Maharaja Pĕrba Jĕlai, the hands are “lifted up in salutation with the palms pressed together, as in the attitude of Christian prayer, but the tips of the thumbs are not suffered to ascend beyond the base of the chin. In saluting a real Râja, the hands are carried higher and higher, according to the prince’s rank, until, for the Sultân, the tips of the thumbs are on a level with the forehead. Little details such as these are of immense importance in the eyes of the Malays, and not without reason, seeing that in an Independent Native State many a man has come by his death for carelessness in their observance.”51

In the king’s audience hall the formal salutations are performed in a sitting posture, and in this case, too, the greatest attention is paid to the height to which the hands are raised. The chief twice makes salutation in a sitting posture as he advances, and at the third advance bends over the Sultan’s hands, two more salutations being made on his way back to his place.

Thus the death of Pĕnghulu Mohit, a well-known Malay headman of the Klang district, in Selangor, which took place while I was in charge of that district, was at the time very generally attributed by the local Malays to his usurpation of certain royal privileges or prerogatives on the occasion of his daughter’s wedding. One of these was his acceptance of gift-buffaloes, decorated after the royal fashion, which were presented to him as wedding gifts in his daughter’s honour. These buffaloes had a covering of cloth put over them, their horns covered, and a crescent-shaped breast-ornament (dokoh) hung about their necks. Thus dressed they were taken to Mohit’s house in solemn procession.52 It was, at the time, considered significant that the very first of these gift-buffaloes, which had been brought overland from Jugra, where the Sultan lived, had died on arrival, and whatever the cause may have been, it is a fact that Mohit’s mother died a day or two after the conclusion of the wedding ceremonies, and that Mohit himself was taken ill almost immediately and died only about a fortnight later.

The only person who, in former days, was not in the least affected by the royal taboos which protected the regalia from the common touch was the (now I believe extinct) official who held the post of Court Physician (Maharaja Lela). He, and he alone, might go freely in the royal apartments wherever he chose, and the immunity and freedom which he enjoyed in this respect passed into a proverb, the expression “to act the Court Physician” (buat Maharaja Lela) being used to describe an altogether unwarrantable familiarity or impertinence.

The following story (though I tell it against myself) is perhaps the best illustration I can give of the great danger supposed to be incurred by those who meddle with the paraphernalia of royalty. Among the late Sultan’s insignia of royalty (in 1897) were a couple of drums (gĕndang) and the long silver trumpet which I have already described. Such trumpets are found among the kabĕsaran or regalia of most Malay States, and are always, I believe, called lĕmpiri or nĕmpiri (Pers. nafiri). They are considered so sacred that they can only be handled or sounded, it is believed, by a tribe of Malays called “Orang Kalau,” or the “Kalau men,”53 as any one else who attempted to sound them would be struck dead. Even the “Orang Kalau,” moreover, can only sound this instrument at the proper time and season (e.g. at the proclamation of a new sovereign), for if they were to sound it at any other time its noise would slay all who heard it, since it is the chosen habitation of the “Jin Karaja’an” or State Demon,54 whose delight it would be, if wrongfully disturbed, to slay and spare not.55

This trumpet and the drums of the Selangor regalia were kept by the present Sultan (then Raja Muda, or Crown Prince of Selangor) in a small galvanised iron cupboard which stood (upon posts about three feet high) in the middle of a lawn outside His Highness’ “garden residence” at Bandar. His Highness himself informed me that they had once been kept in the house itself, but when there they were the source of infinite annoyance and anxiety to the inmates on account of their very uncanny behaviour!

Drops of perspiration, for instance, would form upon the Trumpet when a leading member of the Royal House was about to die (this actually happened, as I was told, at Langat just before the death of Tungku ’Chik, the late Sultan’s eldest daughter, who died during my residence in the neighbourhood). Then one Raja Bakar, son of a Raja ʿAli, during the rethatching of the house at Bandar, accidentally trod upon the wooden barrel of one of the State Drums—and died in consequence of his inadvertence. When, therefore, a hornet’s nest formed inside one of these same drums it was pretty clear that things were going from bad to worse, and a Chinaman was ordered to remove it, no Malay having been found willing to risk his life in undertaking so dangerous an office—an unwillingness which was presently justified, as the Chinaman, too, after a few days’ interval, swelled up and died. Both these strange coincidences were readily confirmed by the present Sultan on an occasion when I happened to question the authenticity of the story, and as His Highness is one of the most enlightened and truthful of men, such confirmation cannot easily be set aside. But the strangest coincidence of all was to follow, for not long afterwards, having never seen that portion of the regalia which was in the Raja Muda’s charge, I happened to mention to a Malay friend of mine at Jugra my wish to be allowed to examine these objects, and was at once begged not to touch them, on the ground that “no one could say what might follow.”

But shortly after, having occasion to visit the Raja Muda at his house at Bandar, I took the opportunity of asking whether there was any objection to my seeing these much debated objects, and as His Highness not only very obligingly assented, but offered to show them to me himself, I was able both to see and to handle them, His Highness himself taking the Trumpet out of its yellow case and handing it to me. I thought nothing more of the matter at the time, but, by what was really a very curious coincidence, within a few days’ time of the occurrence, was seized with a sharp attack of malarial influenza, the result of which was that I was obliged to leave the district, and go into hospital at headquarters. In a Malay village news spreads quickly, and the report of my indisposition, after what was no doubt regarded as an act of extraordinary rashness, appears to have made a profound impression, and the result of it was that a Malay who probably considered himself indebted to me for some assistance he had received, bound himself by a vow to offer sacrifice at the shrine of a famous local saint should I be permitted to return to the district. Of this, however, I knew nothing at the time, and nothing could have exceeded my astonishment when I found upon my return that it was my duty to attend the banquet which took place at the saint’s tomb in honour of my own recovery!56

Having shown the wide gulf which divides the “divine man” from his fellows, I have still to point out the extent to which certain portions of the human frame have come to be invested with sanctity, and to require to be treated with special ceremonies. These parts of the anatomy are, in particular, the head, the hair, the teeth, the ears, and the nails, all of which I will take in their order.

The head, in the first place, is undoubtedly still considered by the Malays to possess some modified degree of sanctity. A proof of this is the custom (ʿadat) which regulates the extent of the sacrifice to be offered in a case of assault or battery by the party committing the injury. If any part of the head is injured, nothing less than a goat will suffice (the animal being killed and both parties bathed in the blood); if the upper part of the body, the slaughter of a cock (to be disposed of in a similar way) will be held to be sufficient reparation, and so on, the sacrifice becoming of less value in proportion as the injured part is farther from the head. So, too, Mr. Frazer writes: “The ... superstition (of the sanctity of the head) exists among the Malays; for an early traveller reports that in Java people ‘wear nothing on their heads, and say that nothing must be on their heads, ... and if any person were to put his hand upon their head they would kill him; and they do not build houses with stories in order that they may not walk over each other’s heads.’ It is also found in full force throughout Polynesia.”57