Article

Whither Berhala?: the search for an idol

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Whither Berhala?: the search for an idol

P.J. Rivers, a retired naval officer with extensive personal experience navigating the waters of the Malay Archipelago, published this etymological and toponymic study in 2011, challenging the long-standing assumption that the Malay word berhala (now meaning ‘idol’) was the source of the Portuguese varela (‘pagoda’). His central thesis is that the reverse occurred: the Malay berhala as ‘idol’ was a late adoption from Portuguese varela, while the original toponymic sense of berhala was ‘directional’—a navigational marker for mariners.

Summary

Rivers undertakes a systematic investigation of the dozens of islands, capes, and straits bearing the name berhala or varela across the Maritime Silk Route, from the Malacca Strait through the South China Sea to the Vietnamese coast. His argument proceeds on two tracks. First, he demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of these geographical features have no religious connotation whatsoever—no temple ruins, no idol worship, no sacred associations recorded by any source. Instead, they share a common characteristic: they are prominent, visible navigational marks used by fishermen and sailors to fix their position. He draws on local oral testimony (from a retired schoolmaster on Tioman Island and fishermen at Dungun) confirming that the name was applied because the islet enabled mariners to ‘get their bearings’ in poor visibility.

Second, Rivers dismantles the etymological chain that has connected berhala to varela in the direction of Malay-to-Portuguese transfer. He shows that the earliest Portuguese texts (Pinto, 1546) listed varelas, pagodes, and brallas as three distinct types of religious structure, not synonyms. The Portuguese varela was applied to the Vietnamese cape because of a natural rock formation resembling a Hindu lingam (phallic idol), not a pagoda. The ‘pagoda’ translation was a later European embellishment. Crucially, Rivers argues that the Malacca Strait island called Polvoreira by the Portuguese was not a corruption of berhala but a rendition of berarah (‘directional’), a synonym that the Kamus Dewan still lists. The Arabic nautical term arah (direction, course) provides the etymological bridge.

The article’s most provocative claim is that Malay berhala as ‘idol’ is actually a loanword from Portuguese varela, following the well-documented pattern of Portuguese ‘v’ becoming Malay ‘b’ (as in veludo → beludu, viola → biola, verandah → barandah). Rivers points to the Berhala Kling (‘Indian Idol’) rock formation in Johor as a likely site where this transfer occurred: the Portuguese, seeing a lingam-like rock, called it varella after the Vietnamese namesake, and the local Malays adopted the word with the expected consonantal shift.

Key Findings

  • The earliest European reference to a possible berhala is ‘pomta da berela’ in a 1514 Rutter (Sailing Directions) attributed to F. Rodrigues, which Mills identified as the Vietnamese Cape Varella (pp. 49–50).
  • Only two of the many Pulau Berhala were known to Arab navigators before the Portuguese arrival: one in the Malacca Strait (3° 46′N, 581 ft high) and one south of Singapore (0° 12′S), both serving purely as navigational marks with no religious association (pp. 63–65).
  • The Malacca Strait island called Polvoreira by the Portuguese (Barros, 1553) is argued to derive from Malay berarah (‘directional’), not from berhala (‘idol’); the local name Barala recorded by Barros is consistent with this reading (pp. 66–67).
  • At Singapore, the Varella del China (Batu Belayar, ‘Sailing Rock’) at the western entrance to Keppel Harbour was a separate feature from Tanjong Berhala at the eastern entrance; the Malays called the rock Belayar (sailing), not Berhala, despite its status as an Orang Laut keramat (pp. 68–69).
  • The Vietnamese Cape Varella (12° 55′N, 109° 26′E) bears a natural rock formation resembling a Hindu lingam, with the earlier name Lingaparavata; the ‘pagoda’ description was a later European artistic licence, as confirmed by the 1664–65 Dutch sailing directions and the 1865 British China Sea Pilot view (pp. 51–53).
  • The Kamus Dewan (1996) lists berhala and berarah as synonyms in a single-line entry, preserving the ‘directional’ meaning that has been overshadowed by the ‘idol’ sense (p. 47).

Conclusion

Rivers concludes that the scholarly consensus linking berhala to varela as a Malay-to-Portuguese transfer is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. The toponymic berhala is a navigational term meaning ‘directional island’ or ‘island to head for’, while the religious berhala (‘idol’) is a later homonym likely borrowed from Portuguese varela itself. The conflation of these two senses by later European cartographers—who attached varela to every Malay berhala they encountered—created the false etymological chain that persists in modern reference works.

Context

  • Rivers draws on a wide range of primary sources including Portuguese glossaries (Dalgado’s Glossario Luso-Asiatico, Visconde de Lagoa’s Glossario Toponimico), early sailing directions (Rodrigues 1514, Linschoten 1595), Arab navigational texts (Tibbetts), Chinese Ming-era records (Ma Huan via Mills), and British Admiralty charts and pilots. His personal maritime experience in these waters (sailing past Pulau Berhala, visiting Tioman and Sandakan) provides an evidential basis for the ‘directional’ interpretation that purely textual scholarship has overlooked.
  • The article contributes to the historiography of early European maritime contact in Southeast Asia by challenging a widely accepted etymology and proposing a reverse direction of linguistic transfer, with implications for understanding how Portuguese and Malay vocabularies interacted in the sixteenth century.

References