Horsing around Melayu: Kuda kepang, Islamic piety, and identity politics at play in Singapore’s Malay community
Patricia A. Hardwick’s 2014 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society examines how Singaporean Malay kuda kepang (hobbyhorse trance dance) practitioners actively negotiate and refashion their ethnic, social, and religious identities through performance in the context of state-defined racial categories and Islamic regulatory authority. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2011 and 2013 with more than a dozen troupes, Hardwick argues that kuda kepang has become a unique, localized expression of Singaporean Malay identity that is simultaneously contested by religious authorities and embraced by performers as a vital site of community cohesion and self-definition (pp. 1–2).
Summary
Kuda kepang was introduced to Singapore by Javanese immigrants in 1948 and has since grown from eight recorded troupes in the 1980s to an estimated 40–60 groups with over 1,500 practitioners (pp. 2–3). The performance structure involves a ritual opening (buka gelanggang), choreographed dance before a gamelan orchestra, and a trance state (mabuk) in which performers astride wooden hobbyhorses perform feats of physical endurance—chewing glass, dancing on broken shards, opening coconut husks with their teeth—before being released by the troupe leader through whispered prayers (pp. 4–5). Hardwick situates this art form within the broader history of how “Malay” identity was constructed in Singapore: first through colonial census categories that lumped diverse Southeast Asian populations into a single ethnic marker, and then through the post-1965 state’s tripartite racial classification of Chinese, Malay, and Indian, which camouflaged the actual ethnic plurality within the Malay community (pp. 6–7).
Individual practitioners demonstrate the hybridity that the official “Malay” category obscures. Tok Ayah Kromo Pawiro, born in Sabah to a Bugis father descended from the Laksamana Bintan and a mother of Dutch and British ancestry, registered himself as Malay for his Singaporean identity card while personally identifying as Bugis (pp. 7–8). Ahmad Zaki bin Ismail of Cahayo Senopati Sakti deliberately combines the Javanese art of kuda kepang with the Boyanese silat style Seligi Tunggal, arguing that Javanese, Boyanese, and Bugis traditions are “one race” (bangsa) and should not be distinguished (pp. 9–10). Juliena binti Amir, who describes herself as “pure Malay” with Bugis and Malaccan heritage, frames this creative amalgamation as a hallmark of Singaporean Malay identity, noting that the mixing of persilatan with Javanese performance “shows that we can mix the cara persilatan together with the Javanese” (pp. 9–11).
The central tension Hardwick documents is between MUIS’s formal objection to kuda kepang—citing trance states, invocation of jinn, and self-mortifying feats as contrary to Islam—and the performers’ continued practice of the art (pp. 11–12). Between 1997 and 1999, public performances were effectively banned as troupe leaders could not obtain permits, and police still interrupt performances to verify compliance (p. 12). In response, practitioners have developed distinct strategies: Tok Ayah traces kuda kepang origins to the Wali Songo and argues that Qur’anic verses, not Javanese incantations, are used to achieve altered states (pp. 13–14); Juliena emphasizes the use of Islamic prayers (baca doa) to enter and exit trance (p. 14); and Wandi, the fifth-generation leader of Kesenian Tedja Timur, takes a more radical position, arguing that culture and religion must be kept separate and that performers should rely on keyakinan (self-confidence) and disciplined training rather than mystical invocation (pp. 14–16).
Key Findings
- Kuda kepang troupes in Singapore grew from eight in the 1980s to an estimated 40–60 with over 1,500 practitioners by the early 2010s, performing at weddings, circumcisions, birthday parties, and even Chinese religious festivals (pp. 2–3).
- MUIS’s formal statement identifies the trance state, invocation of spirits and jinn, and self-mortifying acts as “against the teachings of Islam and must be avoided by Muslims at all times” (p. 11).
- During Hardwick’s fieldwork, police interrupted performances to verify permits; at one event, six officers required performers to suspend hobbyhorse riding, horsewhips, and glass-eating until they were satisfied the performance met regulatory requirements (p. 12).
- Tok Ayah Kromo Pawiro reinterprets the performance as evocative of the Wali Songo’s proselytizing, noting that his troupe dances with nine performers to correspond to the nine saints, and that the art “cannot be said to call the spirits down” but merely causes bodily intoxication (p. 14).
- Wandi of Kesenian Tedja Timur, a graduate of the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Yogyakarta, is working to register all Singaporean kuda kepang troupes under an umbrella organization and has developed a performance method that replaces kebatinan (esoteric ritual empowerment) with keyakinan (self-confidence), framing physical feats as achievable through progressive training in three degrees of Islamic certainty: ilm-al-yakin, ayn-al-yakin, and haqq-al-yakin (pp. 15–16).
- Performers describe the gelanggang (performance arena) as recreating a “village environment” that evokes the kampung social landscape of Singapore from less than thirty years prior, functioning as a space where “one big community of Malays” gathers (p. 13).
Conclusion
Hardwick’s definitive takeaway is that Singaporean kuda kepang practitioners are not passive recipients of either state racial categorization or religious regulatory authority but are active agents who continuously transform and refashion the art to reflect their changing understandings of identity. The performance becomes a living site where the fluid, hybrid, and historically complex realities of Singaporean Malay identity—acknowledged privately by individuals as encompassing Javanese, Bugis, Boyanese, Malaccan, and other lineages—are performed into public visibility against the backdrop of a rigid state-defined “Malay” category and the normative authority of MUIS (pp. 1, 7, 16).
Context
- The article draws on Hardwick’s ethnographic fieldwork in Singapore (2011–2013) and engages with the broader scholarly literature on Malay identity construction, including the work of Leonard Andaya, Shamsul A. B., Hendrik Maier, and Maznah Mohamad and Syed Khairudin Aljunied (pp. 2, 6–7).
- The study contributes to the MBRAS’s ongoing documentation of Malay cultural practices in the Singaporean context, a community that constitutes 13.2 per cent of Singapore’s residential population as of June 2012 (p. 2).