Malay Magic: Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay PeninsulaSkeat, Walter William
Religion
Malay Magic: Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula
Skeat, Walter William
Magic -- Malay Peninsula; Malays (Asian people) -- Folklore; Malays (Asian people) -- Social life and customs
On the night in question the relatives of the bridegroom assemble
under cover of the darkness and make a bonfire under the house of the
newly-married couple by collecting and burning rubbish; into the fire
thus kindled they throw cocoa-nut husks and pepper, or anything likely
to make it unpleasant for those within, and presently raise such a
smoke that the bridegroom comes hastily down the steps, ostensibly
to see what is the matter, but as soon as he makes his appearance, he
is seized by his relatives and carried off bodily to his own parents'
house; these proceedings being known as the stealing of the bridegroom
(churi pengantin). Next day there is a grand procession to escort him
back to the house of his bride, which he reaches about one o'clock
in the afternoon, the processionists carrying "Rice of the Presence"
(nasi adap-adap) with the eggs stuck into it as on the last day of
the wedding, two sorts of holy water in pitchers, called respectively
ayer salamat (water of good luck), and ayer tolak bala (water to
avert ill-luck), vases of flowers (gumba) containing blossom-spikes
of the cocoa-nut and areca-nut palms, and young cocoa-nut leaves
rudely plaited into the semblance of spikes of palm-blossom, k'risses,
etc. etc., together with a large number of rude syringes manufactured
from joints of bamboo, and called panah ayer, or "water-bows."
A set of similar objects (including nasi adap-adap), is prepared by
the relatives of the bride, and deposited upon the ground in the place
selected for the bathing ceremony. A bench being added for the bride
and bridegroom to sit upon, the ceremony commences with the customary
rite of tepong tawar, after which the two kinds of holy water, ayer
tolak bala and ayer salamat, are successively thrown over the pair.
Now, according to the proper custom, during the proceedings which
follow, all the bride's relatives should surround the bride's seat,
and the bridegroom's relatives should stand at a distance; but, in
order to save themselves from a wetting, the women of both parties
now usually assemble round the bride and bridegroom, where they are
protected by a sheet which is hung between them and the men; for all
the young men now proceed to discharge their "water arrows," and as
they are stopped by the sheet they proceed to turn their syringes
against each other, until all are thoroughly wetted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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