So ur wid yo honi and ur makin out wen the phone ringz. U ansr it n da voice sayz "wut r u doin wit ma daughter?"
u tel ur girl n she say "ma dad is ded."
THEN WHO WAS PHONE?
Sunday 16 December 2012
Saturday 8 December 2012
I luv u 5eva (aka I'm sure there are worse stories, I just haven't found them yet)
A gurl was walkin 2 skewl wit her bf n they were crossin da rode. she sed "bbz will u luv me 4evr" he said "NO..""
da gurl cryed N ran across da rode b4 da green man came on the sine. boy was cryin and went to pic up her body.
she was ded.
he whispered 2 her corpse
"I ment to sey I will luv u 5ever......"
(dat mean he luv her moar dan 4evr.....)
like dis if u cry evry time
What is this I don't even...I mean...
...
What? O_O
da gurl cryed N ran across da rode b4 da green man came on the sine. boy was cryin and went to pic up her body.
she was ded.
he whispered 2 her corpse
"I ment to sey I will luv u 5ever......"
(dat mean he luv her moar dan 4evr.....)
like dis if u cry evry time
What is this I don't even...I mean...
...
What? O_O
Saturday 13 October 2012
My view: of the shooting of a 14-year old girl
Shocked.
That was what I felt when I read the news 3 days ago. I am just...shocked.
The news? A 14-year old girl (Malala Yousafzai) was shot in the head and neck by the Taliban in the Swat region of Pakistan. She is now in a hospital, struggling to live, but chillingly, the spokesperson of the Taliban, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said they'd finish the job if she survived this attack.
Her crime? She wanted to learn. Malala came into prominence in 2009 when she wrote a blog in the BBC of her fears of the Taliban destroying her homeland in the Swat valley. Being the daughter of an educator, she would have been taught the value of an education, something the Taliban, during its tyrannical rule of Afghanistan (if there is any condemnation by any Muslim country of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, I have yet to hear about it), denied to their own women (read 'Chapter 8: A Vanished Gender' in Ahmed Rashid's insightful book, 'Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia' (published 2001)).
The Taliban in the news provided a different reason, blaming her 'Western-influence' and her speaking out against the Taliban ('using dirty language against us'). If this is the case, the Taliban is more despicable than I thought. 'Of course, how dare this GIRL speak up against us? I mean, we kill anyone that speaks bad of us, anyway, but a GIRL? It's just too much...'
I didn't think this news would affect me that much. After all, the violence the people in Afghanistan and Pakistan suffered, caused by the Taliban, the Pakistani military, and American presence, is in the news all the time. There's even a joke in my old debate team that you don't really need to update material on topics related to the two regions. But for some reason, this news disturbed me greatly. Just a day before the news, I bought 'Keududukan Wanita dalam Islam' by HAMKA, and though his arguments are not new to me, I am fascinated by his flow of language, arguing for equality of women in Islam (even in matters of politics). Studying history, I am also reminded of the struggle of the 19th and early 20th century Muslim reformers, of Afghani and Abduh, and especially the Kaum Muda of Malaya (led by Syed Syeikh al-Hadi) that argued for the equality of women, which could only be achieved if they were given EDUCATION. A professor of mine said once that the legacy of the Kaum Muda is the women in universities today studying for their PhDs, becoming doctors, scientists, teachers, etc.
Which is why this news is just shocking. I thought this whole issue of women's right to education should be done by now.
I've been looking through Facebook, seeing if anyone felt the same indignation as I did. I was hoping the same people that voiced outrage over the silly film insulting the Prophet Muhammad would also protest against this violence against a girl (by extension, violence against women). This is done in the name of Islam, which I would argue is a much greater insult to Islam. I don't see it. In fact, the only other FB page that bothered to post this news (DrMAZA) is answered by commenters that are still deciding whether or not this is one of those 'Jewish, American infidel lies'.
Where is the outrage? Pakistan voiced some protest over the shooting, with the Sunni Ittehad Council issued a fatwa condemning the gunman and the Taliban. But where is the proper outrage? Shouldn't you follow the example of the Muslims of Benghazi, that united to drive militias out of their city following the murder of US Ambassador Chris Stevens just a month ago?
The Muslims in this country love to protest for issues related to Islam after Friday prayers, like the situation in Palestine, in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Chechnya, in Afghanistan, in Iraq. We protest against the Prophet Muhammad cartoons and the recent film issue. We even had the cheeck to issue death threats against cartoonists for this. I ask you Muslims, where is your sense of indignation now? I dare you to march out and demonstrate against the Taliban. I dare you to organise a demonstration against this great insult to Islam. I dare you to condemn the Taliban treating women like dirt, when God and the Prophet himself declared men and women as equals.
Links to the news:
Tuesday 14 February 2012
Just Another essay-Puteri Gunung Ledang (3/5)
PART 3-Puteri Gunung Ledang: human
The second part of this essay discussed the probable origins of the Puteri Gunung Ledang, either as a nature goddess, an aquatic or underworld divinity, or based on a mantra, a former cereal goddess, before being demoted to a benevolent spirit or a demon.
However, there is one aspect of the Puteri which people rarely pay attention to, namely the aspect of the Puteri as a human. The traditional notion that the Princess is a spirit not of this world is the dominant view among Malays. Yet, it was in a famous traditional Malay epic that the Puteri Gunung Ledang found an identity as a human being, not aloof from the world, but endowed with all too human emotions.
Recap one tale in part two, recorded by William Walter Skeat in Malay Magic of the Puteri that shifted her ‘ghost court’ from Gunung Ledang to Bukit Jugra after the Portuguese attack on Malacca. Skeat also recorded an alternative origin of the Puteri: a human with a bloody reputation of a husband-killer:
“…the story was that the estimate lady, having disposed of her husband by pricking him to death with needles, decided to live free from the restrictions of married life.”
Skeat recorded this story in another book, Fables and folk tales from an eastern forest (1901), although the name of the wife is different:
“Ship-master Ragam was the master of a Malay merchant vessel, and one day he sailed from Jering taking with him his beautiful wife Che Siti of whom he was very fond. On the way she was annoyed by her husband’s incessant embraces and warned him to be more careful, reminding him that she was sewing…Such was his infatuation however that he paid no heed to her warnings, and as he was attempting once more to embrace her, she pricked him to the heart with her needle so that he died.”
Back to Skeat’s Malay Magic, he drew the link between this ‘Che Siti’ and the Puteri Gunung Ledang, and added some detail that he left out in Fables, namely the pool of blood on the ship (darahnya hanyut dalam sampan), and when she was questioned by a passing vessel, she answered, “it is only spinach-juice (kuah bayam). And she proceeded to the foot of Jugra Hill, and buried her husband, or what was left of him, namely one thigh.
This is an interesting story, most macabre. We have the wife, a husband-killer, the pool of blood, the cover story, and eventual hiding of the dastardly deed. Not a Hitchcock classic, but it is still spine-tingling. And the cover-story involving spinach juice or soup (kuah bayam) invokes the tale of the vampire despot of Kedah, Ong Maha Perita Deria, or Raja Bersiong, who lusted for human blood after tasting spinach soup mixed with a drop of blood (this tale was recorded in the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa). But most importantly, this is the only story (other than one film, discussed in Part 4) that attempted to give her a name, Che Siti. In other words, make her human.
One famous Malay epic, the Hikayat Hang Tuah, of unknown authorship, but written in the 17th century, is a chronicle of the legendary Malay warrior, Laksamana Hang (later Tun) Tuah, admiral of Malacca. This story is not considered an historical work, unlike the Sejarah Melayu, so it would take certain artistic licences with historical figures, and even legendary ones. Puteri Gunung Ledang fits into this category.
In the Hikayat Hang Tuah, the Puteri Gunung Ledang, instead of being an object of royal conquest, is re-casted as the daughter of Raja Melaka:
“Setelah genap bulannya, maka Raden Mas Ayu pun berputralah seorang perempuan, terlalu elok paras; maka dipeliharakan dengan sepenuhnya…Adapun yang perempuan itu dinamai Puteri Gunung Ledang…”
(When it was due, Raden Mas Ayu gave birth to a girl, of great beauty; and she was well taken care of…and the girl was named Puteri Gunung Ledang…)
Later, when she was of age, son of the king of Sailan (Ceylon), Raja Culan, sent an envoy to Malacca, requesting the hand of Puteri Gunung Ledang in marriage, which Raja Melaka agreed to. It was recorded that Raja Culan was into cock-fights (sabung ayam), and planned to postpone the wedding between himself and his bride in order to indulge in sabung ayam in the east coast. This activity of his led to a lengthy stay in Terengganu and after a tale that involved winning cock-fights and his opponent getting his eyes gouged out by the knig of Terengganu and an eventual rematch, his ships, which carried 90,000 of his men, caught fire and all of them died, and Terengganu was on fire for seven days.
After she knew of the fate that befell her fiancé, in anger the Puteri Gunung Ledang confronted her father. Knowing that as a woman, her opinion has no standing in society or the court, she manipulated her own father:
“Hatta maka terdengarlah Puteri Gunung Ledang akan bahtera tunangannya binasa itu. Maka ia pun amarah lalu ia pergi mengadap ayahanda baginda...Maka sembah Puteri Gunung Ledang, ‘Ya tuanku, patik ini adalah seperti pantun orang: namanya ada disebut, rupanya tiada. Akan patik ini pun demikiran laku. Apatah daya patik perempuan. Jika patik laki-laki, tahulah patik membicarakan dia.’”
(When Puteri Gunung Ledang heard of the fate that befell her fiancé’s armada, she grew in wrath and sought audience with her father… (when asked by Raja Melaka of her problem) She answered, ‘My lord, I am like how a pantoum describes me: I have a name, but no form. What could I do, for I am a woman. If I am a man, I would be able to express my view.)
It was this manipulation of the Puteri that disturbed her father, and after the Raja Melaka found out from Hang Tuah of the fate of Raja Culan, ordered the pacification of Terengganu.
At the end of his reign, the Raja Melaka was about to resign, and in an act that is described by Dr Farish Noor as ‘proto-feminist’, he relinquishes the throne of Melaka to Puteri Gunung Ledang, but still sought the fortification of Melaka:
“Di Melaka ini kita hendak rajakan anak kita yang perempuan, Puteri Gunung Ledang itu, ganti akan ganti kita, kerana kita sudah tualah…Pada bicara kita, kita hendak kotai dengan bedillah negeri Melaka ini, kerana anak kita perempuan.”
(In Melaka, we wish to crown our daughter, Puteri Gunung Ledang, for we are old…in our estimation, we must fortify Melaka with cannons, for our successor is a woman.”
And Puteri Gunung Ledang was enthroned, in a ceremony lasting 40 days and 40 nights. And later, she inherited from her now ascetic father ‘emas suatu gedung’ (a mansion full of gold). She was portrayed as a just and fair ruler:
“…maka Puteri Gunung Ledang pun rtetaplah di atas kerajaannya dengan adilnya dan murahnya akan segala rakyat dan dagang senteri yang perggi dtaang itu sangat tafahusnya. Maka negeri Melaka pun sentosalah…”
(And Puteri Gunung Ledang ruled from her throne as a just ruler, and the people and merchants come and go often. And the kingdom of Melaka was prosperous…)
Unfortunately for her, he rule coincided with the coming of the Portuguese, with imperial ambitions in the East. Melaka fought the Portuguese invasion, but lost:
“Maka tatkala itu Puteri Gunung Ledang pun lari ke hulu Melaka dengan segala dayang-dayang perwaranya.”
(At that moment, Puteri Gunung Ledang fled to Malacca upstream with her dayang retainers.)
And:
“Bermula Puteri Gunung Ledang lari itu kira-kira 10 hari perjalanan jauhnya ke negeri Melaka itu. Maka Puteri Gunung Ledang pun jatuh ke dalam hutan rimba yang amat besar hampir dengan negeri Batak. Maka diambil oleh segala menteri Batak itu, dirajakannya Puteri Gunung Ledang itu dalam negeri Batak itu…Maka tiadalah tersebut lagi perkataan Puteri Gunung Ledang itu hingga datang sekarang.”
(The Puteri Gunung Ledang fled for ten days form Melaka. And she stumbled into a great forest close to the Batak kingdom. And the mandarins of the Batak chose her as their ruler in the Batak kingdom…And of that, we hear no more of the Puteri Gunung Ledang until today.)
While the appointment of Puteri Gunung Ledang might not necessarily mean some form of ‘proto-feminism’, the rise of women on the throne did occur in Malay history and literature. In pre-Islamic Java, in the kingdom of Majapahit, after the death of Jayanagara, Patih Gajah Mada, the great man respected by all of Java (except Sunda) raised the late ruler’s stepsister, Dyah Gitarja, as the new Queen of Majapahit, with the royal title of Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadwei (1328-1350).
In the Islamic era, three Malay kingdoms, namely Acheh, Kelantan, and Patani had reigning queens. In Acheh, four successive female rulers reigned in Acheh, though with lesser power than their male predecessors: 1. Ratu Safiatuddin Tajul Alam (1641-1675), 2. Ratu Naqiatuddin Nurul Alam (1675-1678), 3. Ratu Zaqiatuddin Inayat Syah (1678-1688), and 4. Ratu Kamalat Syah Zinatuddin (1688-1699). In Patani, the queens of Patani held full power, and even dared challenge the authority and military might of Siam: 1. Ratu Ijau (1584-1616), 2. Ratu Biru (1616-1624/1628), 3. Ratu Ungu (1624-1635), and 4. Ratu Kuning Marhum Pahang (1635-1649/51). In Kelantan, the famous female rulers of pre-Jembal dynasty Kelantan were Cik Siti Wan Kembang (date unknown, probably mid-14th to mid 16th century) and Puteri Saadong (around the 17th century).
The author of the Hikayat Hang Tuah might have been influenced by the situation around him, and noticed the trend of female rulers in the Malay kingdoms, and decided to place the Puteri Gunung Ledang, former goddess or demon or spirit, and make her human, a princess in the proper sense of the word, and award her the throne of Melaka. There is also another famous Malay epic poem (syair), called Syair Siti Zubaidah Perang Cina, a tale of Siti Zubaidah, daughter of Pendeta Ulama, king of Irakan Kistan, and wife of Sultan Zainal Abidin of Kambayat Negara (probably Champa). When her husband was kidnapped by the seven Chinese princesses and kept imprisoned in a poisoned well, she led a rescue mission, and on the way, she conquered Yunan, and became king there, adopting the male name Syahar. She later succeeds in her mission, and was raised as Permaisuri Lela Bangsawan in Kambayat Negara.
Thus, we have a third image of Puteri Gunung Ledang, not a spirit, but a human being, with human emotions, different from the aloof spirit in other images.
(End of Part 3)
*Part 4: Puteri Gunung Ledang in books and films
*Part 5: Bibliography
Monday 13 February 2012
Just Another Essay-Puteri Gunung Ledang (2/5)
PART 2-Puteri Gunung Ledang: goddess and demon
The first part of this essay established the story most associated with Puteri Gunung Ledang, of the proposal of the Sultan of Melaka and eventual rejection. It may seem that the Sultan’s proposal is too ambitious, insane even, but it may not be as such. The marriage between mortal and immortal is quite common in legend and literature, such as the numerous romantic affairs of Greek gods with mortal women. In classical mythology, the goddess Aphrodite fell in love with the mortal youth Adonis, the god Cupid with Psyche, while in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, men from a lower’ race, such as humans, would fall in love and marry a ‘higher’ or nobler race such as the Eldar, or elves. These unions include Beren and Luthien (the Silmarillion) and of Aragorn II and Arwen Undomiel (the Lord of the Rings).
In this light, it would not be surprising to see the proposal of the Sultan of Malacca to Puteri Gunung Ledang as a kind of symbolic marriage ritual between ruler and indigenous goddess, later abandoned by the Sultan due to the taxing demands it placed upon the ruler and kingdom, or abandoning a complex ritual for a relatively simpler creed.
Mulaika Hijjas in ‘The Legend You Thought You Knew’, interestingly forwarded this theory, by comparing the Malacca-Gunung Ledang proposed union with that of Java, namely the ritual of symbolic union or alliance between the kings of Mataram and Yogyakarta with the Ratu, or Nyai Roro Kidul, Queen of the South Seas:
“Ultimately, both Puteri Gunung Ledang and Ratu Kidul may originally have been indigenous chthonic deities who became associated with the Hindu goddesses Durga and Kali and /or the Tantric Buddhist Tara.”
This view of Puteri Gunung Ledang being a remnant of an ancient goddess was also forwarded by earlier scholars, such as R.J. Wilkinson in Malay Beliefs (1906):
“The old Menangkabau religion appears in some measure to have been a worship of every localized divinities, the Gods of particular mountains and rivers, deities, in fact, like the Fairy Princess of Mt. Ophir near Malacca. This last Goddess is represented as having dwelt in a lovely garden on the summit of the great mountain, as having been guarded by a tiger, and as being in possession of the power of changing her appearance…”
Also, Wessing in The Soul of Ambiguity: the Tiger in Southeast Asia (1974) suggested an origin of Puteri Gunung Ledang as an Indianized nature divinity, due to her association with the forest, mountain, and feared beasts such as the tiger:
“According to Provencher (1984: 142ff), this princess, Puteri Gunung Ledang, may have been the consort of a Hindu god who has the animistic ability to change to change into a tiger when she is threatened. Either she herself in tigrine form or her tiger familiar act as a spirit helper to a well known shaman.”
With the advent of Islam in the region, however, the role of Puteri Gunung Ledang as goddess has been reduced, first to a respected spirit or enchanted fairy, but ultimately transformed to a demonic entity, consorting with were-tigers, sorcerers and ghosts.
By the time of the story in Sejarah Melayu, the Puteri Gunung Ledang was already ‘demoted’, a respectable figure, but ultimately whose demands of propitiation could be ignored by the king.
Even the Portuguese chronicler Tome Pires, while writing the Suma Oriental around 1512-1515, noted this view of Puteri Gunung Ledang:
“(While passing by Nias island) They say that opposite of Priaman there is an island where there are only women and they have no men, and that they are got with child by others who go there to trade and who go away again at once and that others are made pregnant by the wind. This opinion is held by the people of these parts in the same way on the enchanted queen in the hill of Malacca calledGulom Leydam. The people believe in this, as others believe in the Amazons and the Sybil in Rome.”
And eventually, she was a kind of proto-hitchhiker, in her old woman disguise, whose stories are still heard even at the end of the 19th century, as recorded by R.O. Winstedt (1951):
“A were-tiger guards even the Fairy Princess of Mt. Ophir, who reclines in a cave, a beautiful girl on a couch of dead men’s bones. Some relate how every morning she appears as a girl, every noon as a woman, and every night as an old bedlam. One legend tells how in the guise of a hag carrying a cat, and a long bag of saffron, she will ask boatmen on the Gemencheh river (in Negeri Sembilan) for a lift: if it is refused, the boat runs aground; as soon as she is taken abroad, it glides off. When she leaves the boat, she gives each man a piece of saffron that turns to gold in his hand.”
This demotion of status of the Puteri did not stop at benevolent spirit. In time, due to the influence of monotheism, such as Islam and Christianity, the old goddess was relegated to an increasing demonology (not unique to the east and in religious texts. In the epic poem, Paradise Lost, by John Milton, the old gods of Greece and the Middle East were re-casted as fallen angels and demons that followed charismatic Lucifer).
In the early 17th century, Godinho de Eredia in his Declaracam (1613), the Puteri Gunung Ledang was considered a malevolent figure, a demonic threat to the Christians of Malacca. In Eredia’s words:
“The monte de Gunoledam resembles Mount Athlante on the Sybilline caves…thos this mountain (according to the story of the Malaios) retired the Queen Putry, companion of Permicuri, founder of Malaca: here the enchanted Putry remains for ever immortal and here she lives to this day by the magic arts.”
“She makes her home in a cavernous cave on the summit of the mountain, and here she lies on a raised couch decorated with dead men’s bones: she takes the form of a beautiful young girl, adorned with silk and gold.”
“…Farther away from this grove are the forests occupied by tigers who guard the Queen Putry…this story must be a fairy-tale; but the natives regard it as true…”
Fairy-tale she might be, but not to the Portuguese, who were harassed by the wild-men, or Banua (orang Benua), who he claimed to have learned the dark arts from the devil and the Putry, and in turn taught these arts to sorcerers and a special kind of demon-witch, called the ponteana. And these sorcerers would change into arymos and began harassing the Malaccan villagers. This would occur until 1560, when Dorm Jorge de San Lucia, first Bishop of Malacca, excommunicated the wild-men and sorcerers, and they ceased their attacks on the Christians.
By the 19th century, British colonial officers serving in Malaya would record an alternative view of Puteri Gunung Ledang, but as a ghost princess in Bukit Jugra, such as recorded by WW Skeat in Malay Magic (1900):
“One of these sacred spots (mountains) is said to have been situated upon the “Mt. Ophir” of Malacca, which is about 4000 feet high, and on which a certain legendary princess known as Tuan Putri Gunong Ledang is said to have dwelt, until she transferred her ghostly court to Jugra Hill, upon the coast of Selangor.”
“It was on Jugra Hill, according to tradition, that the Princess of Malacca fasted to obtain eternal youth.”
And in this identity, she was most associated with the feared were-tigers, and ghostly entities:
“By far the most celebrated of these ghost tigers, however, were the guardians of the shrine at the foot of Jugra Hill, which were formerly the pets of the Princess of Malacca (Tuan Putri Gunong Ledang). Local reports says that this princess left her country when it was taken by the Portuguese, and established herself on Jugra Hill, a solitary hill on the southern portion of the Selangor coast, which is marked on old charts as the “False Parcelar” hill…”
And Skeat recorded the story vouched by a Mr. G.C. Bellamy, formerly of the Selangor Civil Service, of his place that was full of hantu, and while discussing with the Malays was interrupted by cried of thelangswayer, and the bajang:
‘But the Putri of Gunong Ledang holds the premier position amongst the fabulous denizens of the jungle on the hill…’
‘(In Jugra Hill) the lady remained for some time, and during her stay constructed a bathing-place for herself. Even to this day she pays periodical visits to Jugra Hill, and although she herself in invisible to mortal eye, her faithful attendant, in the shape of a handsome tiger (rimau kramat), is often to be met with as he prowls about the place at night…’
Her reputation transformation, from goddess to demon to fairy spirit also reflected in the way locals view her, especially in rituals such as mantras. These mantras originated from indigenous traditions, given a Hindu name, and turn to Hindu gods, and later Islamic figures as subjects of their petitions in their mantras, such as the Prophet Muhammad, the four Caliphs, the Nabi Joseph, Elijah, Khidir the Green, and the Archangels. Puteri Gunung Ledang was also invoked in these mantras.
Haron Daud’s wonderfully comprehensive work of 1071 pages, “Ulit Mayang: Kumpulan Mantera Melayu” (DBP, 2004), recorded at least two mantras about the Puteri Gunung Ledang. The first mantra is a pemanis mantra, one used to increase one’s beauty. Well, the first is not exactly about the Princess per se:
Merak Puteri Gunung Ledang, (Peacock of the Princess of Gunung Ledang)
Bertapa di Gunung Ledang (Who meditates in Gunung Ledang)
Naik seri muka aku (Increase the radiance of my complexion)
Berkat seri muka padaku (Bless my complexion with radiance)
Akulah yang manis (I who am of sweetness)
Berkat doa Lailahaillallah. (Blessings of the prayer Lailahaillallah)”
(Mantra by Mak Joyah, Jitra, Kedah)
The second mantra is no less interesting. It is an agricultural mantra:
Tuan Puteri Gunung Ledang
Kau jangan kacau padi aku ini (Disturb not my paddy)
Setakat ini sahaja kau makan padi aku (This is your share of my paddy)
Sekarang ini kalau kau makan pula (If you consume more than your fill)
Nabi Muhammad pun murka (the wrath of the Prophet is upon you)
Kalau makan lagi (If you consume more than your fill)
Nabi Muhammad murka pada kau (The wrath of the Prophet is upon you)
(Mantra by Dollah Awang, Machang, Kelantan)
The second mantra would also suggest another possible origin of Puteri Gunung Ledang, as an ancient rice goddess propitiated less she destroys the crops, but now demoted to a malevolent spirit subservient to the name of the Prophet.
(End of Part 2)
*Part 3: Puteri Gunung Ledang as human
*Part 4: Puteri Gunung Ledang in books and films
*Part 5: Bibliography
Just Another Essay-Puteri Gunung Ledang (1/5)
*Just felt like writing this essay. This is not an original work, as it is mostly based on the wonderful article by Mulaika Hijjas ('The Legend You Thought You Knew: text and screen representations of Puteri Gunung Ledang'), and an entry on 'The Fairy Princess of Mount Ophir' by Sabrizain.*
Last month, Prof Emeritus Tan Sri Dr. Khoo Kay Kim started a debate on BFM radio, questioning the existence of Laksamana Hang Tuah, and questioning whether one whose existence can't be proven should be put in a History book. Well, to be honest, he didn't start that debate. It's been going on for quite some time. Still, people disagreed. Scholars forwarded the idea that he existed, and other commenters argue that his existence doesn't matter, because he is an uplifting character (Dr Farish Noor), and we should market him like Sherlock Holmes (Wong Chin Huat) . The second group kinda missed the entire point of the debate, which is whether we should include a character whose existence is still disputed in History textbooks. And be taught as fact.
But I am not going into that now. That is for another essay. I am more interested in another character, which is almost universally considered a mythical figure. She is the Puteri (Princess) of Gunung Ledang. She, among other mythic figures in the Malay world, was given diverse identities throughout the ages. She was a queen. And a goddess. And a demon. And a man-killer. And the conscience of a people. In other words, she is what people wanted her to be.
1. Gunung Ledang
Let's first look at Gunung Ledang itself, the sacred abode of the Puteri. Gunung Ledang, located in Ledang district, Johor, near to Asahan, Melaka, is a lonely mountain 1,276 metre tall. It was, and still is, an attraction for tourists and naturalists that wanted to see the wonder of the mountain. Alfred Russell Wallace, the famous naturalist, went to the Malay Archipelago, he stopped at Gunung Ledang to study the flora and fauna of the mountain, and noted leeches, tigers and rhinoceroses (though no elephant), ferns and birds, pitcher plants that held warm water, the Coniferae of the genus Dacrydium, the fern Dipteris Horsfieldii, and the Matonia pectinata, ‘tallest and most elegant’. (The Malay Archipelago, originally published 1869).
Gunung Ledang was also, at one point, identified as Mount Ophir, the place in the Bible that produced gold for King Solomon:
“And Huram sent him by the hands of his servants ships, and servants that had knowledge of the sea; and they went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir, and took thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold, and brought them to king Solomon”.-2 Chronicles 8: 18 (KJV)
This identification might have happened due to the old identification of the Malay Peninsula as theChersonesus Aurea, or the Golden Chersonese, thus the producer of an abundance of gold. Even the Portuguese epic poem, Os Lusiades (The Lusaids) by Luis vas Camoes (1572), identified this part of the world as Ophir:
“From this (‘tis said) the Waves impetuous course,
Breaking a passage through from Main to main,
SAMATRA’s noble Isle of old did force,
Which then a Neck of Land therewith did chain,
That this was Chersonese till that divorce,
And from the wealthy mines, that there remains,
The Epithite of GOLDEN had annext:
Some think it was the OPHYR in the text.”
-Os Lusiades, Canto X, verso 124 (translated by Sir Richard Fanshawe)
However, the early Portuguese records, such as the Suma Oriental (Summa of the East) of Tome Pires (1515) and the Declaracam de Malaca e da India Meridional com Cathay (Descriptions of Malaca, Meridional India and Cathay) of Godinho de Eredia did not refer to the mountain as Ophir. Instead they used its native name (Gulom Leydam in the Suma Oriental, the Monte de Gunoledam in theDeclaracam). Later travellers, such as the Victorian Isabella Bird, mentions this link in the introduction of her book, The Golden Chersonese (1883), “The controversy respecting the identity of its Mount Ophir with the Ophir of Solomon has been ‘treshed out’ with out much result, and the supposed allusion to the Malacca Straits by Pliny is too vague to be interesting...”
2. THE Story
The story most associated with the Puteri Gunung Ledang character is, of course, the proposal of the Sultan of Malacca to the Puteri. The identification of the Sultan that proposer to the Puteri is still a problem, especially when the problem is caused by varied versions of the Sejarah Melayu, which records the story. The Sejarah Melayu, or Malay Annals, is not one unified codex, and it has no ONE authoritative version. Most versions we have today based their editions on the oldest extant copy, which is the Raffles 18 MS, which Raffles obtained from Raja Bungsu. There would be additions, added or rearranged chapters, and name changes that would later contribute to the multiple versions we have today (Prof Muhammad Yusoff Hashim puts the number of editions to at least 29). Famous editions of the book include translations by Leyden, Shellabear, Winstedt, Brown, A Samad Ahmad, and Muhammad Haji Salleh.
In one of the earliest published editions in the English language, of Dr John Leyden (1821), the proposer Sultan was Sultan Mahmud Syah, last (or penultimate, depending on how you define ‘Malacca’) Sultan of Malacca, one with a reputation as a cruel and wanton despot. This identification is supported by the Shellabear and A Samad Ahmad editions. However, in the versions edited by R.O. Winstedt, C.C. Brown, and later Malaysian scholars such as Muhammad Haji Salleh and Cheah Boon Kheng, the identification was with Sultan Mansur Syah, and the story placed in the middle part of the text rather than the end. Regardless, the story does seem to speak volumes of the Sultan’s ambition to marry someone like the Puteri (English text by Leyden-Chapter VIII (2), in parentheses by Brown-Chapter XII, italicised Malay texts by Muhammad Haji Salleh):
“It is related that the wife of Sultan Mahmud (Mansur)…returned into God’s mercy, and the kingdom was extremely afflicted…”
But not for long, as he was already seeking another candidate:
“The king replies, ‘I don’t want to marry a raja’s daughter…I want to ask the Putri of Gunong Ledang.” (‘We desire’, said Sultan Mansur Syah, ‘to ask for the hand of the Princess of Gunung Ledang…’).
The Sultan sent the Laksamana, Tun Mamad and Tun Setia to Gunung Ledang, but both the Laksamana and Tun Setia were unable to continue their journey once they arrived at the foot of the mountain. Tun Mamad climbed the mountain, and finally stumbled into a garden, where he met an old woman, named Dang Raya Rani, guardian (pengetuha) of Puteri Gunung Ledang. After conveying his mission statement, she disappeared, and later:
“Then came to him an old woman, hunched-backed, and bent threefold…”(‘Presently there appeared an old woman, bent double with age’) (perempuan tuha, bongkok lipat tiga belakangnya…)
Diceritakan oleh orang yang empunya ceritera ini orang tuha yang berkata-kata itulah Puteri Gunung Ledang menampakkan dirinya. (‘…According to the account we have received the old woman who spoke with Tun Mamad was the Puteri Gunong Ledang herself in disguise.’)
And this old woman presented seven conditions for the Sultan, which, judging from the list, is quite a roundabout way of saying ‘no’.
- Jambatan emas, jambatan perak satu, dari Melaka datang ke Gunung Ledang. Flight of stairs of gold, and another of silver, from Malaca to Gunong Ledang (let him make for me a bridge of gold and a bridge of silver from Malaka to Gunong Ledang).
- Hati nyamuk tujuh dulang. A moth’s heart seven platter’s broad (seven trays of mosquitos’ hearts))
- Hati kuman tujuh dulang. A gnat’s heart seven platters broad (seven trays of mites’ heart)
- Air pinang muda setempayan. A vat of juice of the young betel-nut (a vat of young areca-nut water)
- Air mata setempayan. A vat of human tears (a vat of tears)
- Darah raja semangkuk. One phial of the raja’s blood (A cup of the raja’s blood)
- Darah anak rajanya semangkuk. One phial of Raja Ahmed’s blood (A cup of his son’s blood).
Needless to say, the Sultan got the message, not because he thought they were absurd and might be burdensome for the people of Malacca that might have to pay more taxes to support the construction of a bridge from Malacca to Gunung Ledang made of gold and silver (a quick note: Gunung Ledang is 50 miles (80 kilometres) east of Malacca), but:
“Semuanya dapat kita adakan, tetapi akan mengeluarkan darah anak kita itulah yang tiada kita adukan, karena tiada sampai hati.”
“All these requests may be complied with, but the taking of blood is an unpleasant business, and I have no inclination for it al all.”
(‘All that she demands we can provide, save only the blood of our son; that we cannot provide, for our heart would not suffer us to take it.’)
So there you have it, the famous story of the Puteri Gunung Ledang, whose demands make spoilt brats on My Super Sweet Sixteen seem like reasonable teenagers (wait, my mistake. She’s not THAT bad…). However, this is but one of many aspects of the Puteri, much of it would be discussed in later notes.
(End of Part One)
*Part 2: Puteri Gunung Ledang, goddess and demon
*Part 3: Puteri Gunung Ledang as human
*Part 4: Puteri Gunung Ledang in books and films
*Part 5: Bibliography
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