Two Brunei charms. Tr G.T. MacBryan and Mohd. Yusof Shibli
G. T. MacBryan and Mohd Yusof Shibli published their translation of two Brunei magical charms (silah-silah) in the Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1947, presenting the first systematic rendering of archaic Brunei manuscripts obtained on a pre-war visit to the sultanate. Framed by an introduction from Tom Harrison, Curator of the Sarawak Museum, the article argues that these texts represent a previously unstudied body of material capable of illuminating Borneo’s neglected role in the broader cultural and religious history of South-east Asia.
Summary
The article presents two complete silah texts in their original archaic Malay script alongside English translations, both belonging to a genre of magical-practical literature that was traditionally circulated in rotation among leading Brunei households. The first, titled “The Magic Shaft of Wisdom” (panah marifat), is a compulsion charm designed to render a target—near or far—incapable of eating or sleeping until she meets the caster, achieved through a written amulet bearing the subject’s name and a ritual involving a drawn figure from which a candle wick is formed. The second method is more elaborate: it requires the construction of a model sea-going vessel whose sail bears the prayer, the incorporation of seven needles and stranded fibres from a widow, fumigation with incense accompanied by specific Qur’anic recitations, and the launching of the completed model upon the open ocean while invoking the transfer of the target’s organs and faculties to the caster’s own body.
Harrison’s introduction situates these texts within a broader historiographical argument. He contends that Borneo has been systematically underrepresented in reconstructions of Malayan and Indonesian history, partly because the region “has so far shown too little interest in itself” and partly because scholars have exhibited an “unconscious parochialism” centring on a few well-known sites. He identifies the Brunei manuscripts as a “treasure-trove of detail” that can resolve contradictions which previously confounded Winstedt and Wilkinson in their Perak history, and which connect the illiterate legendary traditions of interior groups such as the Kelabit (a Murut branch) with written coastal Malay history over the same periods. The introduction also notes that the work was originally undertaken under the auspices of E. Banks, the previous Curator, but was interrupted by the war; Harrison resumed it upon his return to Kuching in June 1947, with Haji Yusof (then in the Secretariat for Native Affairs) handling the translations.
The charms themselves reveal a syncretic religious cosmology in which Islamic angelology (Israfil, Izrail, Mikail, Jibrail), prophetic genealogy (from Adam through Muhammad, including figures like Khidzir, Abdul-Kadir Jilani, and the four Rightly Guided Caliphs), and pre-Islamic animistic practices (the use of a widow’s personal effects, the destruction of a spirit-image, the ocean-launching of a vessel) are woven into a single operational framework. The repeated formula mujarrab mustajab (“proved by experience, readily granted”) and the conditional clause “provided always that it pleases God” indicate an attempt to reconcile the magical with orthodox Islamic theology.
Key Findings
- The manuscripts were obtained by MacBryan and Mohd Yusof Shibli on a visit to Brunei “just before the war” and are now the property of the Sarawak Museum (p. 48).
- The first charm (panah marifat) requires the practitioner to draw a male or female image on cloth, form a candle wick from it, call the subject’s life spirit, and then destroy the image; if the “magic shaft” touches the subject’s heart, the target becomes “raving mad for the remainder of his life” and can only be cured by the person who cast the spell (pp. 50–52).
- The second charm requires seven needles from a widow: one at the mast top, two at the mast base, one at the stern, one on the right cross-mast, and one hammered into the bottom of the mast, all joined by stranded fibres also from the widow who must perform the fastening (p. 53).
- The second method’s prayer invokes the transfer of eight specific bodily elements—heart, core of the heart, tongue, gall, brain, eye-ball, passion, and lust—from the target to the caster (p. 56).
- The ritual sequence for the second charm includes fumigation with incense, recitation of the Fatiha once and Kul-hu-Allah three times, salutation to Nabi Khidzir and the four Guardian Angels, and launching upon “the water of the ocean” (p. 53).
- The second charm’s invocations name at least twenty prophetic and saintly figures, including Christ, Noah, Huya, Inoch, Jonah, Joseph, Job, Lot, Jacob, Isaac, Ishmael, Solomon, Moses, Saleh, Lokman, Shinyalah, Abdul-Kadir Jilani, Abu-Bakar, Ali, Omar, Othman, Hassan, and Hussain (pp. 54–58).
Conclusion
Harrison’s definitive takeaway is that the Brunei manuscripts, though modest in number, constitute a key that can unlock contradictions in the broader Malayan historical record and establish Borneo as a necessary node in any reconstruction of South-east Asian cultural history. The charms demonstrate a sophisticated, syncretic magical tradition that bridges Islamic orthodoxy with indigenous animism, and their systematic study—beginning with these two experimental translations—was intended to open a series of publications connecting written coastal history with the oral traditions of interior Borneo peoples.
Context
- The primary source material consists of Brunei manuscripts now held in the Sarawak Museum collection, obtained pre-war by MacBryan and Shibli; the translations were produced by Shibli (then in the Secretariat for Native Affairs, Kuching) under Harrison’s coordination.
- Historiographically, the article contributes to the emerging 1940s recognition—building on Hughes-Hallet (1940) and Braddell (1941)—that Borneo’s textual and traditional sources must be integrated into Malayan and Indonesian historiography rather than treated as peripheral.