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
"The Malays of Java were able from the village tradition to give the
name and sex of the occupant of this lonely tomb, 'Toh Bidan Susu
Lanjut,' whose name sounds better in the original than in an English
translation. She is said to have been an old Achinese woman of good
family; of her personal history nothing is known, but her claims
to respectability are evinced by the carved head and foot stones
of Achinese workmanship which adorn her grave, and her sanctity
is proved by the fact that the stones are eight feet apart. It is
a well-known Malay superstition that the stones placed to mark the
graves of Saints miraculously increase their relative distance during
the lapse of years, and thus bear mute testimony to the holiness of
the person whose resting-place they mark.
"The kramat on the Kamunting road is on the spur of a hill through
which the roadway is cut. A tree overshadows the grave and is hung with
strips of white cloth and other rags (panji panji) which the devout
have put there. The direction of the grave is as nearly as possible
due north and south. The stones at its head and foot are of the same
size, and in every respect identical one with the other. They are
of sandstone, and are said by the natives to have been brought from
Achin. In design and execution they are superior to ordinary Malay
art, as will be seen, I think, on reference to the rubbings of the
carved surface of one of them, which have been executed for me by the
Larut Survey Office, and which I have transmitted to the Society with
this paper. The extreme measurements of the stones (furnished from
the same source) are 2' 1'' × 0' 9'' × 0' 7''. They are in excellent
preservation, and the carving is fresh and sharp. Some Malays profess
to discover in the three rows of vertical direction on the broadest
face of the slabs the Mohammedan attestation of the unity of God
(La ilaha illa-lla) repeated over and over again; but I confess that
I have been unable to do so. The offerings at a kramat are generally
incense (istangi or satangi) or benzoin (kaminian); these are burned
in little stands made of bamboo rods; one end is stuck in the ground
and the other split into four or five, and then opened out and plaited
with basket work so as to hold a little earth. They are called sangka;
a Malay will often vow that if he succeeds in some particular project,
or gets out of some difficulty in which he may happen to be placed,
he will burn three or more sangka at such and such a kramat. Persons
who visit a kramat in times of distress or difficulty, to pray and
to vow offerings, in case their prayers are granted, usually leave
behind them as tokens of their vows small pieces of white cloth,
which are tied to the branches of a tree or to sticks planted in the
ground near the sacred spot. For votary purposes the long-forgotten
tomb of Toh Bidan Susu Lanjut enjoys considerable popularity among
the Mohammedans of Larut; and the tree which overshadows it has,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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