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
This is "a small frame of bamboo or wood," [657] usually from two
to three feet square and turned up at the sides, which are decorated
with a long fringe (jari'lipan) of plaited cocoa-nut leaf. Four rattan
"suspenders" of equal length (tali penggantong) are fastened to the
four corners, and are thence carried up to meet at a point which may
be from two to three feet above the tray.
These trays appear to be divisible into two classes, according to
the objects which they are intended to serve. In the one case certain
offerings (to be described presently) are laid upon the tray, which
is carried out of the house to a suitable spot and there suspended
to enable the spirits for whom it is designed to feed upon its
contents. [658] In the other case certain objects are deposited upon
it, into which the evil spirits are ceremoniously invited to enter,
in which case it must obviously be got rid of after the ceremony,
and is therefore hung up in the jungle, or set adrift in the sea
or the nearest river; in the latter case it is called the "keeled
sacrifice-tray" (anchak pelunas), and falls into line with other
objects which are occasionally set adrift for the same purpose.
The offerings placed on the sacrificial tray vary considerably,
according to the object of the ceremony, the means of the person for
whose benefit they are offered, the caprice of the medicine-man who
carries out the ceremony, and so on. [659]
I shall therefore, in the present place, merely describe the
contents of a more or less typical tray, with the main points of the
accompanying ritual.
The bottom of the tray having been lined with banana-leaf, and
thickly strewn with parched rice, there are deposited in the tray
itself five "chews" of betel-leaf, five native "cigarettes" (rokok),
five wax tapers, five small water-receptacles or limas (made of
banana-leaf and skewered together at each end), and five copper cents
(or dollars). The articles just enumerated are divided into five
portions, one of which is deposited in the centre of the tray, and the
remainder in its four corners. Besides this there are to be deposited
in the tray fourteen portions of meat (of fowl, goat, or buffalo, as
the case may be), and fourteen portions of Malay "cakes," care being
taken in each case to see that there are seven portions of cooked and
seven portions of uncooked food provided. The rattan "suspenders,"
again, are hung with two sets of ornamental rice-receptacles made of
plaited cocoa-nut leaf (fourteen of the long-shaped kind, or lepat,
and fourteen of the diamond-shaped kind, or ketupat). Besides this,
two sets of (cooked and uncooked) packets of rice (each stained a
different colour) are sometimes deposited in the tray, the colours
used being white, yellow, red, black, blue, green, and purple. The
only other articles required for the tray are a couple of eggs,
of which one must, of course, be cooked and the other raw.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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