Al-salam ‘aleikum! Hei sahabat-ku Mambang Tali Harus, Yang berulang ka pusat tasek Pauh Janggi, Sampeikan-lah pesan-ku ini, Bangunkan Jambalang Ketam Gergasi!
Peace be upon you! Hey my friend the Spirit of the currents (water), Who tos-and-fros to the pusat tasek Pauh Janggi, Realize this request of mine, Raise the Giant Crab!
Sang Nabil Utama turns crab around to show color and pierces it into the banana stem.
Having covered his head with the black cloth, Koboi presented the new deerskin puppets, unpigmented side facing the audience. He then put them down and performed a ritual (see performance notes) to dispel malicious entities (Badi) from the deer hide. He uttered a spell,
O Si Lanang, Si Lambaun, Si Ketor, Si Becheh, orang yang berampat, Ambil kembali bahagian-kau dari rusa ini!
O Lanang, the Lambaun, The Ketor, the Becheh, the four of you, Take back your part of this deer!
Koboi then took cuttings of deer hide (waste from the fabrication of the puppets) from the muslin cloth and, one by one, gave the signs of deer to the audience, calling them out by name —
He put each fragment on the banana leaf. When all eleven signs had been presented and thier material signifiers deposited on the leaf, Koboi folded the leaf, deposited it in the earth-filled basket, and uttered,
O Mentala Guru Asa (menaruh harapan) sabulan, dua sabulan, Tiga sabulan, ampat sabulan, Lima sabulan, anam sabulan, Tujoh sabulan, malam di-angkau, Siang di-aku. Sa’ekor aku bawa balik, Sa’ekor aku tinggalkan!
O Mentala (Batara) Guru Hoping (desiring, hunting) for a month, two months, Three months, four months, Five months, six months, Seven months, the night is yours, The day is mine. One deer I take, One I leave behind!
Finally, he sprinkled water and flowers onto the basket.
It began to drizz;e (gerimis) over the performance area at around this moment. Later we learnt from observers that it had only rained in the Kapallorek Artspace area and not the surrounding area. This was particu;arly notable as there had been a drought over the previous weeks.
Having called (memanggil) the spirits, Koboi performed a ritual consecration of the stage (upacara membuka panggung) by raising the plate up and towards the audience and uttering,
Hei Jin Tanah, Hantu Tinggi, Hoi Jembalang Wayang ! Dato’ jangan membisakan, Aku tahu asal ‘kau jadi : Dato jangan membe’ngkakkan : Bintang Timor asal ‘kau mula jadi. Biar sagala makhluk suka permainan kita, Berkat Dato’ Batara Guru Menyaksikannya.
The first propitiation of this performance (see notes) was to the spirits of the earth (jintanah, also called hantu tanah, hulubalang or jambalang tanah), specifically the land (bumi) where the performance takes place. Soil from the ground below was gathered and placed in a woven basket and brought up to the roof of the Kapallorek Artspace, where the performance took place. A lighted candle was placed in this basket of soil while the following was uttered,
Aku minta’ ampun kapada kramat yang memegang tanah disini! I beg forgiveness from the sacred spirits that hold this land!
This appeasement of spirits was performed wholeheartedly (dengan bersungguh sungguh) as magic (in terms of its metaphysical or spirtiual dimension), but not without an awareness some socio-political implications. The propitiation sets up a hierarchy of asspciation with the land – first there are the spirits (kramat) of the land, then the people who recognize and propitiate these spirits, and only then the others. In other words, first kramat yang memegang tanah disini!, then the orang Pribumi yang mengakui keunggulan Kramat tanah, and only after, the non-indegenous (orang barudatang or pendatang) who do not know (mengenali) the kramat .
An interesting implication of this model of primacy is that, as the Malays lose their connection with the Semangat of their land in the course of modernization (due to both Islamic modernism and secular modernity), they too get alienated from the land and lose their place in the hierarchy. Conversely, the pendatang who becomes attuned to this Semangat might, arguably, rise up. I belioeve that this aspect of the performance discretely problematizes the notion of the bumiputera that informs the Malaysian social contract.
Mariam Mokhtar makes a scathing criticism of Anwar Ibrahim’s Madani agenda. While I completely agree with her in terms of the ideals of the liberal democratic nation-state, I must point out that the liberal secular state is not the only legitimate outcome of the democratic process. Generally, a liberal democracy will exhibit the following characteristics – governance based on a constitution, universal suffrage, regular elections, multiple political parties, the separation of powers, the rule of law, the freedom of information, and the equal protection of human rights for all members of the nation. There is a further expectation of a liberal democracy to exhibit these additional traits, it should be a market economy, enshrine private property and practice secularism. While I believe that Malaysia must remain a democracy, and while I personally would prefer that we tend towards the ‘liberal’ form of governance, there are many variations of democracy in the world. These forms tend towards diverse poles including collectivism, ethnocentricity, and theocracy. We might wish for a more liberal democracy, but we must, nevertheless, acknowledge that even a less liberal democracy can still fulfill the essential requirements of that form of governance. Indeed, I believe that demographic trends and the consequential machinations of opportunistic party politics will likely conspire to take Malaysia towards more exotic forms of government in the future. However, in the meantime, Anwar should heed Mariam’s list of criticisms –
1. Non-Malays fear the Green Wave, so they will fully support Anwar Ibrahim but he has not bothered to hide his Islamic credentials.
2. Anwar claims he is a reformer but there have been no reforms, especially in the areas of the cost-of-living crisis and religious extremism.
3. Anwar will have been a disappointment if he delays reforms.
4. The Hadith Module will impinge on non-Muslim students and even Muslims will loose out in terms of time for science, technology an IT.
5. Anwar himself has said he would focus on needs-based rather than race-based quotas for University entrance and so he should be more respectful of those who raise questions on this matter.
6. The Malay population is badly divided in terms of access to the purported Malay privilege, particularly in the area of education.
7. Madani, Hadhari and all other forms of political Islam, particularly the more extreme versions of PAS and Perikatan Nasional are empty slogans that confuse the people and fail to further a true Islam.
8.Contrary to his purported liberal and multicultural agenda, Anwar has given more money to JAKIM and wants them to be involved in policy.
9. Anwar’s bid to harmonize sharia and civil law is troubling as constitutionally, Sharia law only relates to “family matters” for Muslims.
10 Freedom of speech is being restricted blatantly, as when the Minister of Communications issued a threat that the police would knock on our doors if we criticized the administration.
11. When a bumiputera company fails, taxpayers should not have to bail them out.
12. Anwar has been slow to criticize PAS for their outrageous claim that Muslims must vote for PAS, or else they will go to hell.
According to Edith Jachimowiczhe, Islamic cosmology echoew the geocentricity of the Aristotalian/ Ptolemaic Cosmos. The space between the surface of the earth and the sphere of the Moon is known as the sub-lunary region. It is the realm of the elements, of minerals, plants, and animals, and of generation and corruption. In addition to the eight Ptolemaic spheres (Moon or falak al-kamar, Mercury or falak al-utarid, Venus or falak al- zuhra, Sun or falak al- shams, Mars or falak al-Mirrikh, Jupiter or falak al-Mushtari, Saturn or falak al-Zuhal, Fixed Stars or falak al-burudj), the Islamic cosmos has a ninth Sphere, the Sphere of Spheres or falak al-aflak. This astronomical (physical) model of the cosmos is integrated with a theological (metaphysical) cosmology.
In the explaining the relationship of the structure of the Islamic cosmos to the process of the primordial Creation, Jachimowiczhe cites theTasawwurat of Nasir al-Din Tusi, in which it is said that the creative force “reached the Throne of God, from the Throne reached the pedestal and, from the Pedestal again, descended to the sphere of Saturn and became attached to it. Again, it descended further, from one sphere to the other, until it reached the sphere of the moon. Then the exaltations and the rays of the stars, by the force of that energy and through the mediation of the sphere of the moon, fell upon the elements. This was certainly the cause which stirred the elements …” A line of force is drawn from the highest heaven down to the sublunary region and, given the notion of the ‘stirring’ of the elements, we might impute a turning movement to this force. In my own imagination, this line of force echoes the axial function and dynamics of the Pokok Pauh Janggi which links Dasar laut to Kayangan in the Malay cosmos.
Image: Jachimowicz, Edith (1975). Islamic Cosmology. In Carmen Blacker, Michael Loewe & J. Martin Plumley (eds.), Ancient Cosmologies. Allen & Unwin.
14. Thanatocracy: A form of government associated with death, including one founded on politically organized mass killing. This is a common scenario in polities divided by ethnic and sectarian divisions. While the scale of killing was small when compared to the allegedely genocidal scale of death involved in countries like Rawanda or Sri Lanka, the establishment of a new power relationship between the races in the Malaysian polity, post May 13th, 1969, might said to be Thanatocratic.
8. Theocracy: An archaic form of government, soon to make a comeback near you! In Malaysia, theocracy used to vie for power with ethnocracy but in GE15 these the forces pushing for these two systems of goverments have coalaced to an unprecedented degree.
7. Plutocracy: A form of government exercised by the few (the 1%). It is a global phenomena but in Malaysia we can see clearly how its the same small bunch of friends, or rather frenemies, that has ruled us for decades.
The Koboi Project 
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