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Rites and ceremonies

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Rites and ceremonies

Rites and Ceremonies

Rites and ceremonies constitute a pervasive dimension of social life across the Malay Peninsula and Borneo, governing everything from the agricultural cycle to the perinatal period, from maritime ventures to the maintenance of political legitimacy. The documentary record reveals that these practices are not isolated superstitions but structured systems of prohibition, offering, and invocation that organise labour, mark temporal transitions, and mediate between the human community and a populated spiritual world. From the pawang-led rice ceremonies of the Straits Settlements to the pantang (ritual retreat) systems of the Baram District, from the berpuar mock-fight of Negeri Sembilan to the nanchang padi harvest rite of the Saribas Iban, the evidence demonstrates a shared underlying logic: that material outcomes—crop yield, child health, safe passage, political stability—are understood to depend upon the correct performance of symbolic acts at critical junctures. The regional prevalence of these practices, documented from the 1890s through the 1980s, spans multiple ethnic groups, religious traditions, and ecological zones, and their persistence into the twentieth century testifies to a symbolic order that resists reduction to any single explanatory framework.

Agricultural Rites: The Rice-Field Cycle

The most extensively documented ceremonial complex in the archival record is the rice-field ritual, which governs the full sequence from jungle clearing through to grain storage. In the Malay Peninsula, the cycle is mediated by the pawang (medicine-man or ritual specialist), whose involvement is prescribed at every critical juncture. Muhammad Ja’far’s 1897 account of Malacca cultivation records that the cycle commences between the months of Zilkaidah and Zilhijah, timed to the West wind season, and that before physical labour begins, elders must consult a pawang to fix the date, followed by Maulud prayers read over the “mother seed” in the mosque, where participants bring half a quart of grain for blessing [1, p. 287]. The spiritual preparation is deemed essential: disregarding these ordinances invites failure and the wrath of the rice’s enemies, such as rats and grubs [1, p. 304].

Winstedt’s 1929 presentation of a Perak manuscript extends this account into a complete operational text, tracing the pawang’s involvement from the initial consultation before clearing through burning, sowing, the “taking of the rice-soul” (mengambil semangat padi), harvesting, threshing, winnowing, and final storage in the granary [2, pp. 437–447]. The manuscript prescribes a ten-type hierarchy of rice-ears in which the rice-soul may reside, ranked from Raja Padi (white ear, yellow grain, yellow stem, white leaves with yellow stripes) down to a rice-ear nested in by a bird at its base; if none of the ten is found, the taking of the rice-soul should not be attempted [2, p. 444]. The pawang must circle the field three evenings before entering it on the third evening to locate and mark the rice-soul plant; the seven stalks are bound with twisted terap and ijok, five-coloured thread, and a nail, then cut in a single stroke while the pawang holds his breath with eyes closed and teeth clenched [2, pp. 444–445]. A three-day prohibition (pantang) follows: no fire may be lit, food must not be finished in the pot, no one may shout from house to field or field to house, and no one may sleep in the field [2, p. 446].

Skeat’s 1898 first-person account from Negri Sembilan provides the earliest verbatim record of the ceremony’s language. He documents the “Ten Prayers” (doa sapuloh) recited by the pawang without taking breath, which invoke in sequence Allah, Muhammad, the five daily prayers, the Five Indras, the opening of the door of sustenance, seven ranks of exaltation, the gate of Rengkiang, the gate of Paradise, the child in the mother’s womb, and the child made by Allah, concluding with the names Isa, Karun, and Daud [3, p. 6]. The first seven ears of a selected sheaf are ritually extracted, swathed in cloth, placed in a basket-cradle with an egg, a jungle-nut, a shell, and an iron nail, and carried home as a “rice-child” to be treated with the same taboos as a newborn for three days [3, p. 3]. Skeat interprets this through Frazer’s framework of sympathetic magic: the padi is induced to bear by pretending it has already borne a child [3, pp. 1–41].

In Borneo, the Iban nanchang padi rite performs a comparable function at the harvest stage. Sather’s 1977 study of a single Iban family at Kerangan Pinggai on the Paku river demonstrates that the bound clumps of ripened padi—the padi tanchang—serve simultaneously as a physical shrine, a representation of the aggregate rice souls (semengat padi), a vehicle for their safe return to the longhouse, and a symbolic “maiden” embodying latent fecundity [4, pp. 150–170]. The act of tying the padi together, performed by the senior woman of the family, is understood as the earthly enactment of an action carried out on a spiritual plane by the agricultural gods Anda Mara and Simpulang Gana, thereby reaffirming the family’s sacred kinship with the divine [4, p. 153]. Sather’s 1980 follow-up extends the analysis to the storage rites, arguing that the Iban eschatological identification of rice with the human soul—following death, the soul is believed to turn to dew (ambun) that falls at dawn and is taken up by growing rice plants—undergirds the reverence with which all stages of rice handling are conducted [5, pp. 67–95].

Prohibitions, Taboos, and Ritual Retreat

A second major category of ceremonial practice consists of the pantang or lali systems—periods of enforced retreat during which communities cease all farm work, withdraw to their homes, and refuse entry to strangers, invoking the aid of spirits for the success of their crops. Banks’s 1940 compilation from the Baram District documents these prohibitions among the Kayan, Kenyah, Kalamantan, and Punan peoples, arguing that while they carry social and spiritual significance, their agricultural consequences represent a serious material cost to the communities themselves [6, pp. 83–104]. The Kayan Uma Poh spend a total of 117 days in pantang retreat over the course of their rice farming cycle, not counting additional pantangs for births, deaths, and other events [6, p. 85]. The Kayan Uma Paku observe a sequence of at least ten distinct pantangs from felling to first pounding, with individual durations ranging from four days to twenty days, and forfeits including gongs, pigs, fowls, knives, and beads per door [6, pp. 86–87].

Banks draws a sharp typological distinction between the groups: the Kayans are “far and away the most fanatical,” announcing pantang dates in advance and refusing even trusted friends once the period has begun; the Kenyahs are “much more philosophical” and accommodating to chance-bound strangers; the Kalamantans are “comparatively very vague,” often constructing their customs retrospectively from what they remember of other peoples [6, pp. 83–84]. His critical assessment of the agricultural irrationality of the longest pantangs is explicit: he describes with evident frustration how both Kayans and Kenyahs, “whether they have plenty of food in store or are almost starving,” solemnly shut themselves in for ten days while their ripening rice is being consumed by deer, pigs, rats, and birds [6, p. 85]. He notes that Kayan men of sense acknowledge the absurdity in hard times but are overruled by “hide-bound conservative” women whose influence erases any daytime progress made with the men [6, p. 85].

The Iban perinatal taboo system documented by Howell in 1906 operates on a comparable logic of symbolic analogy: an action performed in the domestic sphere is believed to produce a corresponding physical effect in the mother or child. Cutting a creeper over water risks haemorrhage; breaking an egg risks blindness; burning ficus wood risks muteness [7, pp. 125–131]. What distinguishes the system is its internal flexibility—nearly every prohibition has a prescribed circumvention that nullifies the danger without requiring the act to be abandoned entirely. A man who kills an animal may nullify the taboo by running away, returning minutes later, and aloud asking “I wonder who killed this animal?”; a nail driven partially and withdrawn before full insertion breaks no law [7, pp. 125–131]. The house or village taboo during the puerperium required that no stranger enter until the umbilical cord had fallen, typically five to seven days; a trespasser was liable to a fine of a full-grown pig, a penalty Howell himself paid on one occasion [7, p. 130].

Healing, Death, and Spirit Communication

Beyond the agricultural domain, rites and ceremonies address the fundamental human concerns of illness, death, and the maintenance of social order. Mulder and Hewitt’s 1911 account of two Milano ceremonies in Sarawak documents the Payun, a healing rite centred on a rattan swing, and the Plato, a post-mortem communication with a departed spirit [8, pp. 171–181]. The Payun is undertaken as a last resort for severe illness and is repeated as a thanksgiving when the patient recovers. It lasts eight days, is timed to the full moon, and is presided over by one or more Bayoh—spiritual practitioners of either sex who claim special power in the spirit world. The essential and only sacred element is the rattan swing; the Rabu (boat), To Jien (wooden figure), and naga (dragon) figures are merely furniture, and their inclusion depends on the wealth of the host [8, p. 174]. The Bayoh lubricates the swing with coconut oil, throws yellow-dyed rice toward the four walls while chanting with an areca-palm wand, and then mounts the swing, accelerating into a frenzied state while the patient and other sick persons take turns. If the rattan snaps during the ceremony, it is interpreted as the presence of an angry spirit and the patient invariably dies within a short time [8, p. 176].

The Plato, performed days or weeks after a death, is prompted by a dream in which an aged friend learns the departed spirit lacks necessities. Two Bayoh, heads shrouded in cloth, sit on a mat and mime paddling a boat down the river of death, narrating their journey aloud—commenting on the current, warning of rocks, and enacting a capsize with splashing water. Upon reaching the nether world they accost recognised deceased souls, perform conjuring tricks, and finally “catch” the lost spirit, clapping it onto the head of the nearest relative and binding it with cloth. The Bayoh then interrogates the spirit, which reveals what it needs—typically a sarong, cooking pot, or money to be placed at the grave [8, pp. 177–181]. The authors close by comparing both ceremonies with the Sea Dayak manang rites described by Archdeacon Perham, noting striking parallels in swinging, soul-catching, and spirit combat, and observing that Milanos and Sea Dayaks had no recent contact, spoke distinct languages, and that the Milanos were considered aboriginal while the Sea Dayaks were comparatively recent arrivals in the region [8, pp. 177–178].

Skeat’s 1898 account documents a healing ceremony in which a male pawang, after being “shampooed” in incense smoke, enters a trance state, is possessed by a tiger spirit, and licks the patient’s body from head to foot before letting his own blood over the prostrate form [3, pp. 1–41]. He also records the Lanchang (spirit-boat) rite for expelling evil spirits, the elaborate kelong (fishing-stake) offering ceremony involving three sacrificial trays suspended from mangrove trees and wooden tripods, and the invocation of water-spirits with their named hierarchy of sea-chiefs and angels [3, pp. 16–32]. The kelong offering ceremony lasted a full hour and a half, required exactly fourteen participants (seven males and seven females), and the central tray contained the head of a black goat, five portions of cooked fowl, five portions of raw fowl, seven kinds of coloured rice, five portions of cakes, twenty-eight ornamental rice receptacles, five receptacles of sugar-cane-juice, one receptacle of goat’s blood, five lighted tapers, five chews of betel-leaf, five cigarettes, and five silver coins [3, pp. 30–32].

The berpuar ceremony of Negeri Sembilan, documented by Dato’ Sedia Raja Abdullah in 1927, represents a distinct category: a triennial mock-fight ritual aimed at expelling evil spirits from the padi crop [9, pp. 310–313]. The ceremony lasts seven days and involves a procession moving from the upper reaches of the principal river (Hulu) to its lower confluence (Hilir), during which participants throw stems of the Puar plant at one another and at imaginary evil spirits, the louder the noise the more effectively the spirits are driven to the sea [9, p. 311]. Two buffaloes are sacrificed: a pink buffalo (Kerbau Balar) in the Hulu, whose meat is buried as food for the evil spirits, and an ordinary black buffalo in the Hilir, whose meat is distributed equally among households [9, p. 312]. Winstedt’s 1917 short note from Johol records a related pre-planting variant, the bapua or singketa, in which two parties hurled puar rods across a gully at one another until one combatant was struck in the face, the proceedings lasting about half an hour [10, p. 249].

Maritime and Commercial Ceremonies

The ceremonial framework extends beyond agriculture and healing to encompass maritime and commercial ventures. Teo Teng-hong’s 1951 note documents the Chinese boat-launching ceremonies practised among Hokkien and Teochew seamen in Malaya, focusing on locally built craft rather than ocean-going vessels [11, pp. 183–186]. The Hokkien ceremony is an offering to “Hai Leng Ong” (a sea-king depicted with a human body and dragon head), involving steamed pork, fowl or duck, fish, wine, joss paper, joss sticks, fruit, and fire-crackers laid out near the bows. The owner or taikong ties a red cloth band around the prow, lights candles, prostrates three times, and then consults the sea-king’s presence and departure using two wooden or copper pieces (Puay) that land head-and-tail to indicate the deity is feasting [11, pp. 183–184]. The Teochew ceremony is always performed while the vessel is still on land, offering “Sah Seh” (three kinds of food: fowl or duck, fish, and pork) arranged in a specific spatial layout relative to the prow, followed by kotow, burning of joss paper, and removal of the offerings before the boat is pushed into the water [11, pp. 185–186]. The scale of offerings varies with the owner’s financial means, and the food may only be consumed by those present after the sea-king has finished feasting [11, p. 185].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on rites and ceremonies reveals a clear evolution in methodological approach and interpretive framework across the period from the 1890s to the 1980s. The earliest contributions—Skeat’s 1898 Some records of Malay magic, Ja’far’s 1897 account of Malacca rice cultivation, and Bland’s 1895 transcription of the Aturan Sungei Ujong—are characterised by direct observation or transcription of existing texts, with interpretive frameworks drawn from Frazer’s comparative mythology or from the colonial administrator’s interest in native customary law [1], [3], [12]. Skeat’s explicit thesis that direct observation yields the “rigid and accurate knowledge” necessary to understand these ceremonies, and that their apparent irrationality dissolves once interpreted through the principles of sympathetic magic, established a methodological benchmark that subsequent contributors either adopted or challenged [3, pp. 1–41].

The 1910s and 1920s saw a shift toward philological and manuscript-based approaches. Winstedt’s 1917 short note and his 1929 presentation of the Perak rice-field manuscript represent a move from the ethnographer’s first-person narrative to the presentation of primary-source operational texts, with the pawang’s own words preserved in full without translation [2], [10]. Mulder and Hewitt’s 1911 article on the Milano Payun and Plato introduces a comparative dimension, using Archdeacon Perham’s earlier account of Sea Dayak manangism as a baseline to argue for a common ancestral religion in Eastern Asia [8, pp. 177–178]. Dato’ Sedia Raja Abdullah’s 1927 account of the berpuar ceremony is notable for its dual voice: the author is a local elite insider with direct access to the ceremony, yet his concluding remarks align squarely with the colonial-modernist discourse of the 1920s that framed indigenous ritual as an obstacle to economic modernisation [9, pp. 310–313].

The 1940s and 1950s are marked by administrative pragmatism. Banks’s 1940 compilation of Baram pantang systems was produced as an administrative reference document for the Sarawak government’s engagement with upriver communities, and his framing reflects the colonial concern with understanding native customs that might obstruct government operations [6, pp. 83–84]. Teo Teng-hong’s 1951 note on Chinese boat-launching ceremonies is similarly brief and descriptive, serving a practical rather than theoretical purpose [11, pp. 183–186].

The 1970s and 1980s witness a decisive methodological turn. Sather’s two studies of the Saribas Iban—nanchang padi (1977) and padi storage rites (1980)—represent a shift from the technical and comparative description of swidden systems to the internal logic of ritual symbolism as actually deployed by a single family in a context of profound economic change [4], [5]. Sather explicitly challenges the tendency in the anthropological literature to treat Iban hill-rice farming as a monolithic “way of life,” demonstrating that while the symbolic order is shared broadly across communities, its actual deployment is refracted through the economic corporateness of the individual bilek family [4, p. 169]. His 1980 article corrects significant gaps and errors in the Iban agricultural literature, particularly Freeman’s (1955) lack of botanical data on rice strain maturation times and the complete absence of post-harvest reaping (nyempurai) from prior accounts [5, pp. 10–11]. The persistence of rice ritual in a community that had largely shifted from hill rice to pepper, rubber, and illipe-nut cultivation makes the symbolic system all the more significant as a marker of cultural continuity rather than economic necessity [4, pp. 147–148].

The archival record thus traces a trajectory from the colonial administrator’s curiosity and the comparative mythologist’s framework, through the philologist’s manuscript, to the ethnographer’s sustained engagement with a single community’s internal logic—a progression that mirrors the broader transformation of the discipline from armchair anthropology to participant observation, and from the treatment of ritual as “superstition” to its recognition as a coherent symbolic order with its own internal consistency and generative capacity.

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. Muhammad Ja’far (1897). An account of the cultivation of rice in Malacca JSBRAS 30: 285–304. Read on JSTOR
  2. R.O. Winstedt (1929). The ritual of the rice-field JMBRAS 7(3): 437–447.
  3. W.W. Skeat (1898). Some records of Malay magic by an eye-witness JSBRAS 31: 1–41. Read on JSTOR
  4. C. Sather (1977). Nanchang padi: symbolism of Saribas Iban first rites of harvest JMBRAS 50(2): 150–170.
  5. C. Sather (1980). Symbolic elements in Saribas Iban rites of padi storage JMBRAS 53(2): 67–95. Read on JSTOR
  6. E. Banks (1940). Rice planting customs in the Baram District, Sarawak JMBRAS 18(2): 83–104.
  7. W. Howell (1906). Dyak ceremonies in pregnancy and child-birth JSBRAS 46: 125–131. Read on JSTOR
  8. B. Mulder and J.Hewitt (1911). Two religious ceremonies in vogue among the Milanos of Sarawak JSBRAS 57: 171–181.
  9. Dato’ Sedia Raja Abdullah (1927). The origin of the pawang and the berpuar ceremony JMBRAS 5(2): 310–313. Read on JSTOR
  10. R.O. Winstedt (1917). A rice-ceremony JSBRAS 77: 249.
  11. Teo Teng-hong (1951). Chinese ceremonies at the launching of a new boat JMBRAS 24(1): 183–186.
  12. R.N. Bland (1895). Aturan Sungei Ujong JSBRAS 28: 53–66. Read on JSTOR