Malay Magic / Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula

by Walter William Skeat

The things deposited in the tray are intended for the spirits (Hantus) themselves; the refuse on the ground beneath it for their slaves (hamba).

Of the food in the tray, the cooked food is for the king of the spirits (Raja Hantu), who is sometimes said to be the Wild Huntsman (Hantu Pĕmburu) and sometimes Batara Guru, and the uncooked for his following. But of the two eggs, the uncooked one is alleged to be for the Land-spirit (i.e. the Wild Huntsman), and the cooked for the Sea-spirit; this assertion, however, requires some further investigation before it can be unreservedly accepted.

The Wave-Offering

On one occasion, during my residence in the Kuala Langat district of Selangor, I had the good fortune to be present at the “waving” of a sacrificial tray (anchak) containing offerings to the spirits. The account of this ceremony, which I shall now give, is made up from notes taken during the actual performance. To commence:—The Pawang sat down with his back to the patient, facing a multitude of dishes which contained the various portions of cooked and uncooked food. The tray itself was suspended at a height of about three feet from the ground in the centre of the room, just in front of the Pawang’s head. Lighting a wax taper and removing the yam-leaf covering from the mouth of the jar containing “holy” water, the Pawang now “inspected” the water in the jar by gazing intently into its depths, and re-extinguished the taper. Then he fumigated his hands in the smoke of the censer, extended them for a brief interval over the “holy” water, took the censer in both hands, described three circles round the jar with it, set it down again, and stirred the water thrice with a small knife or dagger (k’ris), the blade of which he kept in the water while he muttered a charm to himself. Then he charmed the betel-stand and the first dish of cooked food, pushing the latter aside and covering it with a small dish-cover as he finished the charm. Next, at the hands of one of the company, he accepted, in two pieces, five cubits of yellow cloth (yellow being the royal colour), and a small vessel of “oil of Celebes,” with which, it may be added, he anointed the palms of both hands before he touched the cloth itself. Next, he fumigated the latter in the smoke of the censer, one end of the cloth being grasped firmly in the right hand, and the remainder of it being passed round the right wrist, and over and under the right arm, while the loose end trailed across his lap. Next, after repeating the usual charm, he breathed on one end of the cloth, passed the whole of the cloth through his fingers, fumigated it, and laid it aside; took an egg which was presented to him upon a tray, and deposited it exactly in the centre of a large dish of parched rice. Next, he pushed aside the jar of holy water, lowered the tray by means of the cord attached to it (which passed over a beam), and proceeded to supervise the preparation of the tray, which was being decorated with the “centipede” fringe by one of the company acting as an assistant. The fringe having been fitted by the latter to the edges of the tray, and the latter lined with three thicknesses of banana leaf, the Pawang described a circle round it thrice with the censer, and then deposited the censer upon the floor, exactly under the centre of the tray. Then anointing his hands again he passed them over both tray and fringe. A brief pause followed, and then the Pawang took the larger piece of yellow cloth and wrapped it like a royal robe around the shoulders of the patient as he sat up inside his mosquito curtain. Another brief pause, and the Pawang betook himself once more to the filling of the tray. Taking a large bowl of parched rice, he scooped up the rice in his hands, and let it run through his fingers into the tray, until there was a layer of parched rice in the latter of at least an inch in depth, and then deposited the egg, already alluded to, in the very centre of the parched rice. Next he took a comb of bananas (presented by one of the company), and cutting them off one by one deposited them in a dish, from which they were presently transferred to the tray. The Pawang now returned to the patient, and kneeling down in front of him, fumigated his hands in the smoke of the censer, and then, muttering a charm, wrapped the smaller piece of yellow cloth turban-wise round his own head, and slowly and carefully pushed the yellow-robed patient (who was still in a sitting posture) forward until he reached a spot which was exactly under the centre of the tray, and which faced, I was told, the “place of the Rising Sun.”

The long straw-coloured streamers of the tray-fringe dropped gracefully around the patient on every side, and had it not been for occasional bright glimpses of the yellow cloth he would have been almost invisible.

The censer, voluming upwards its ash-gray smoke, was now passed from hand to hand three times round the patient, and finally deposited on the floor at his feet.

The loading of the tray now recommenced, and the Pawang standing up and looking towards the south, deposited in it carefully the several portions of “cooked” offerings (the sum of the various portions making up a whole fowl). Then, after washing his hands, he added to the tray small portions of rice variously prepared and coloured (viz. parched and washed rice, and rice stained yellow (saffron), green, red, blue, and black, seven kinds in all). Next he deposited in the tray the uncooked portions, whose sum also amounted to a whole fowl, then, after a further hand-washing, the “cakes,” and finally, after a last washing, he fastened to the “suspenders”[126] of the tray the small ornamental rice-bags called kĕtupat and lĕpat.[127]

But the list of creature comforts provided for the spirits comprised other things besides food. Five miniature water-buckets, each manufactured from a strip of banana leaf skewered together at each end with a bamboo pin, were now filled, the alternate corner ones with water and cane-juice (called “palm-toddy” in the Spirit Language), and the central one with the blood of the fowls killed for the sacrifice. They were then duly deposited in the tray by the Pawang. Five waxen tapers, to “light the spirits to their food,” were next “charmed” and lighted, and planted in the centre and four corners respectively.

Finally, no doubt for the spirits’ after-dinner enjoyment, five “chews” of betel-leaf and five native-made cigarettes (tobacco rolled in strips of palm-leaf), were charmed and actually lighted at a lamp, and deposited in the tray with the other offerings, and at the same time five 50 cent (silver) pieces of Straits money, called “tray-stones,” were added to the medley, evidently with the object of preventing the good temper of the spirits from being disturbed by “shortness of cash.”

The loading of the tray being now complete, the Pawang walked thrice round the patient (who was still overshadowed by the tray), and passed the censer round him thrice. Standing then with his face to the east, so as to look in the same direction as the patient, he grasped the “suspenders” of the tray with both hands at their converging point, and thrice muttered a charm, giving a downward tug to the cord of the tray at the end of each repetition. This done, he removed the yellow cloth from his head, and fastened it round the tray-cord at the point where the “suspenders” converged, and then “waved” the offering by causing the loaded tray with its flaring tapers to swing slowly backwards and forwards just over the patient’s head. Next, letting the tray slowly down and detaching it from the cord, at the converging point, he again “waved” it slowly to and fro amid the flaring of the tapers, seven times in succession, and held it out for the patient to spit into. When this was done he sallied out into the darkness of the night carrying the tray, and gaining the jungle, suspended it from a tree (of the kind called pĕtai bĕlalang) which had been selected that very day for the purpose. A white ant, immediately settling upon the offering, was hailed by the Malays present with great delight as a sign that the spirits had accepted the offering, whereupon we all returned to the house and the company broke up. The ceremony had commenced about 8 P.M., and lasted about an hour and a half, and the number of people present was fourteen, seven male and seven female, which was the number stipulated by the Pawang.